Letters: Spend less time scrolling on your phone and give all that time to volunteering

Irish Independent

6 days ago

If anyone doubts that it's an addiction, then try to get them to spend a day in the park reading a book and nothing else.
What is most sad is that this lost time could be far better spent giving back as volunteers for any number of organisations who would welcome their time and effort.
Any other helpful activity is good karma. As an example, I walk dogs for people whose health means they can't – although, with the 65kg Great Dane, he walks me.
Denis Fitzgerald, Melbourne, Australia
School's 'guest tea' brought me down memory lane; it's nice to see community last
I had the pleasure of attending a 'guest tea' at St Joseph's Grammar School, Donaghmore, Co Tyrone. What a heartening sight it was – tables groaning under the weight of traybakes, flans, buns and sandwiches cut with a precision that would make an engineer weep.
It brought me straight back to my childhood, watching my mother preparing for similar events in aid of local charities – flans carefully cooled on the windowsill, jelly salads quivering with anticipation and a stern warning not to touch anything until the big event.
It was more than nostalgia – it was community in action. In an age of contactless payments and supermarket cakes, there's something quietly heroic about buttering 50 rounds of bread and decorating a table with flowers from your own garden.
Enda Cullen, Tullysaran, Armagh
Our leaders' reaction, or lack thereof, to US attack on Iran is a shameful blot
The pithy saying that 'the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to say and do nothing' – attributed to John Stuart Mill – describes the reaction of Western political and religious leaders to the US attack on Iran.
To our shame, it includes our own political leaders.
Whether it is fear of Donald Trump or breaking out of the Western consensus, the cowardice of our leaders when confronted with the real possibility of open world war is a shameful blot on their integrity, and ours.
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Brendan Butler, Drumcondra, Dublin
Trump's Iran strike looks more like a gamble than a clear strategic decision
The decision of the US to attack Iran raises valid questions, including whether the decision was a sound one, given the widely held belief that enough enriched uranium to make seven nuclear weapons had already been removed to other, still unknown, sites.
But also: why now? Regardless of the degradation of Iranian proxies by Israeli strikes, there are an estimated 40,000 US troops within easy reach of Iran's deadly conventional arsenal, risking an immense conflagration in the wider Middle East.
Mr Trump's decision looks more like a gamble than a strategic decision. If he has got it wrong, he will become just another US president who started a war he could not finish – but we will all pay the price.
Seán Kirwan, Bray, Co Wicklow
America just poked a nest of bees with no guarantee we won't all end up stung
Events in the Middle East could have many outcomes. Having access to the ultimate weapon is not the greatest fear now. If Iran does possess a large quantity of even low-grade nuclear material, the likelihood of a 'dirty' ballistic missile fired at Israel is the greatest threat – and even if this missile is intercepted by the Iron Dome defences, it will have the same effect as large-scale contamination.
The absence of increased radiation readings at the bomb sites raises the likelihood that these nuclear materials had already been relocated. So thank you, US, for poking the nest of bees.
Ray Dunne, Enfield, Co Meath
World should welcome all effort to keep Tehran from having nuclear weapons
The comparative availability of the internet in this country is not the only reason that I know the names 'Fordow' 'Natanz' and 'Esfahan', while the average subject of the Islamic Republic of Iran has never heard of 'Ardnacrusha' 'Edenderry' or 'Poolbeg'.
I know them because for more than 20 years, they have been synonymous with a globally destabilising, bloodthirsty junta's drive towards developing nuclear weaponry, with stated purposes oscillating between domestic medical research and the eradication of Western decadence.
The fact that that junta is willing to hang its citizens from cranes for protesting, flog them for dancing and consuming alcohol, imprison them for eating during Ramadan, and blind and mutilate them for a host of other supposed offences is reason enough to deprive them of weapons of mass destruction.
The fact that, through their murderous agents, they are also willing to visit their poisonous ideology on families like those of Irish Private Sean Rooney and countless others means that they must be deprived by any means necessary. We wasted decades asking them nicely, to no avail.
Killian Foley-Walsh, Kilkenny
Presidential terms need to be shorter and office needs to be more accessible to all
I disagree with Billy Ryle ('Office of the President belongs in another era, its cost is needed in this one,' Letters, June 23).
I think it is excellent that Ireland has an elected ceremonial head of state instead of a hereditary monarch we suffer in Britain.
However, I agree with Billy on two points. The presidential term is too long, being 14 years if re-elected. Two terms of five years should be the limit.
Also, qualifying requirements should be eased, making the office more accessible to the ordinary people it represents. At least the Republic of Ireland has an elected head of state and the sums it costs to maintain, as quoted by Mr Ryle, represent good value, in my opinion.
Dominic Shelmerdine, London
T-shirt slogans are getting interesting and I'm always happy to help out if needed
Recently on my daily stroll, I met a young man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words ' What time is mass?' I was happy to tell him.
Tom Gilsenan, Beaumont, Dublin