This article is taken from Gerry Adams's blog at www.belfastmediagroup.com. President Obama is one hundred days in the White House. Early days indeed but already the record of his administration is being scrutinised by the media and by political commentators. Things on this little island move much more slowly. Next month will mark two years since the establishment of the power-sharing government involving Sinn Féin and the DUP and the other parties. That's the longest period that the political institutions have been functioning since the old Stormont regime was stood down in 1972. Free article

IT WAS left to Martin McGuinness to tell it as it is. That a small, unrepresentative, anti-republican group of people in nationalists area of Derry are encouraging vulnerable young people to vandalise and deface their own areas. These slogans are as absurd as the mindset of the organisations they claim to represent. Despite the best efforts of community organisations and Derry City Council, walls in the republican/nationalist areas of the city are covered with crude language, painted with dirty paint liberated from building sites, paint shops, and people's homes. Free article

CALL me old fashioned but the idea of being kissed by Dick Roche for voting 'Yes' to the Lisbon Treaty just doesn't do it for me. I take my EU politics just a bit more seriously. Not so the newly formed Generation Yes campaign. Launched last week with catchy slogans like, 'I only kiss boys who say yes' they promised not to take themselves too seriously. Free article

I WAS having dinner with my friend Ruth last week. Ruth and I were at school together and, despite having little in common, have stayed in touch. It's one of those relationships you're almost surprised has lasted as long as it did while what you'd thought were firmer friendships had drifted apart. Anyway, last week out of nowhere Ruth explodes into a tirade about Fianna Fáil. She'd heard something on the radio in the taxi on the way over and she really laid into them. Swear words were used. Unflattering comments on physical appearance were made and a general plague on the house of Fianna Fáil was the running theme. Free article

A largely defenceless people struggling to survive and hemmed in on a narrow strip of land while facing ruthless indiscriminate airstrikes, assault from gun boats and subjected to cluster bombs by a well equipped government army, conjures up the image of the recent Israeli invasion of Palestine's Gaza Strip. However, in Sri Lanka, where since the start of this year government forces have stepped up their campaign of wiping out the separatist LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) militant group, which has fought a 25-year war for Tamil independence, the situation has culminated with the brutal slaughter of thousands of Tamil civilians who have literally become trapped in a war zone. The silence in the media in comparison to the daily headlines of Israel's recent wanton destruction of Gaza has been deafening. Free article

CÉ go bhfuil cairde de mo chuid (bhuel, cara deirimis) a chreideann go bhfuil mé i gcónaí sáite i leabhair, agus go bhfuil liosta fada teidil léite agam i mBéarla agus i nGaeilge thar na blianta admhaím go raibh blianta ann le déanaí nuair is beag leabhar a léigh mé de bharr easpa ama, easpa foighde agus easpa fuinnimh. Bhí an cuma ar an scéal go raibh mo shúile ag druidim gach oíche i ndiaidh trí nó ceithre líne téacs a léamh agus ní raibh mórán dóchas agam go gcríochnóinn leabhar riamh arís. De réir a chéile, áfach, agus mé ag siúil tríd an fhásach ainléannta sin bhí mo leabharlann féin, pearsánta, ag fás. Tá an galar sin orm a's atá ag go leor leor daoine eile: nuair a fheicim leabhar, ceannaím é agus tá leabharlann sa bhaile mar chruthúnas ar sin cé nach bhfuil leath dá bhfuil ann léite agam ná baol air. De reir mar a d'fhás mo leabharlann féin is mó 'brú' a cuireadh orm na leabhair a bhí agam a léamh agus a chríochnú. Free article

THE leagues are almost over and the championship is almost upon us. The first match is just three weeks away in the Bronx where New York, replenished no doubt by post Celtic Tiger exiles take on Mayo. There will be no surprise there I imagine. Galway face a similar trip to London with a similar outcome. Mayo will then play the winners of Roscommon and Leitrim and Galway will take on Sligo. No harm to the rest of them but it has all the ingredients of another old firm in Connacht and I take Galway to come out on top and worth a few bob again at around evens. Free article

ONE of the first examples of the banning of a television programme in relation to the war in Ireland involved a world renowned Irish actress, a TV journalist who faced down Senator Joseph McCarthy and a serving and future Unionist Prime Minister. There was major controversy when on Saturday night 25 April 1959, the BBC broadcast a show from CBS in the USA, the Small World talk programme hosted by Ed Murrow. One of his guests was Siobhán McKenna, the Belfast-born actress, then at the height of her career. Internment without trial had recently ended in the 26 Counties and the release of the internees had been criticised by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan while on a visit to Belfast. Free article