Colm Gillis: Author

Ostracism: An Essay on Exclusion

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” (Mark 6:4 NIV) I am a social creature. Companionship is part of my…

Source: Ostracism: An Essay on Exclusion

Travelling over the weekend, I stopped in a cafe in an airport waiting for my train. Up on the screen there was the BBC News, with subtitles (which aren’t always the most accurate and seem as if they were written by someone who flunked stenography school). There was a report concerning the canonization of Mother Teresa.

“Wait for it,” “wait for it,” “wait for it” …

I was telling myself this when…

The title of this post is provocative and that is slightly mischievious on my part. Unfortunately the world we live in requires headline-grabbing statements. I could have put in a more convoluted, more accurate summary of what I want to say forthwith. But the message might have got lost in the mix. So I hope you forgive my crude sensationalism!

Male privilege … we hear that this is a problem as…

Has this ever happened to you?

You hear of some half-baked new government proposal, a proposal which you know is fundamentally wrong, which is being promoted to either placate some elite lobby or attack a political opponent. It’s a policy that is unethical, unsustainable, ludicrous, unnecessary. It attacks deeply cherished values. You point out how unwholeome, unwarranted, unethical,  how…

France has recently decided that women must bare their flesh at the beach. No burkinis allowed. Not my idea of liberty but hey, France is a sovereign nation and I don’t have to go there.

The rationale for the banning of the burkini seems to be that it is a foreign and alien importation into France, an impurity introduced into France’s pristine secularism. The burkini is a play on the burqa (worn…

Today two women from Ireland – where the wickedness of abortion is virtually illegal – tweeted about their ‘journey’ from the Republic toan abortion clinic in the UK, targeting Premier Enda Kenny with their tweets. This brutal and exhibitionist act drew great praise from Twitter groupies and from celebrities. I was about to say something about a moral compass. But what would be the point of…

Bondholders? Never heard of ’em until this whole recession and economic uncertainty stuff began happening. 8 years into the recession they dare not call a depression (think it’s bad for market confidence, or something like that) you’d want to be stuck in a cave on a desert island not to have heard of these bondholders. Ubiquitous … that’s a good word for them. Before we proceed, just a quick…

For a long time I’ve got this success and failure thing wrong. Too often I’ve confused success and failure with winning or losing. In reality success is about learning. Success is having something you didn’t have before which has been acquired through achievement. Learning is about surmounting a deficit of ignorance. If you learn then you are successful.

Potentially if you win or lose you are a…

Let’s Hear it For … Dan Quayle????

Let’s face it: if you had to choose out of all the social media/sharing sites, it’d have to be YouTube. How many times have you been reminded of something, or been told of something you never knew existed?; or seen something incredible or just been entertained?

What makes the YouTube experience so enjoyable is its sheer randomness. Something pops in your head, then you go looking, you maybe find…

Corbyn’s Pied-Piper, Sexy Socialism

Socialism is liberalism with a messianic figurehead and a secularized day of judgement. The questions posed by liberalism about economic self-sufficiency, human freedom, and equality are answered by the socialists (and when I say ‘answered’ I mean a verbal answer and not a real answer of substance). Because it appeals with great gusto to the masses, going far beyond the rather pragmatic promises…

Plato is often quoted on the online grapevine as saying that those who tell the stories rule society. Sometimes it’s the world that is ruled although that seems to be a Hopi Indian saying. The real quote seems to be something along the lines of “those who hold the power tell the stories.” From the Republicapparently. I am planning to re-read this book soon, so may be able to once and for all…

Free-thinkers aren’t all they are cracked up to be. They follow rules, day in, and day out, but don’t admit to their slavishness. Their criticisms of organized worship are inconsistent.

I am of those who believe in one God, has a faith and who structures their life according to a set of rules, i.e. lives a religious lifestyle. The former is likely uncontroversial with many people. The latter is…

Christians generally oppose the War on Terror. In recent years, however, increasing attempts are being made by media outlets to stoke religious conflict. The message herein: “don’t be fooled.”

The year is 2001. Its not long after the 9/11 attacks. I am watching a discussion on ABC while living in the States. A Palestinian refugee tells Ted Coppell about his torture at the hands of Israeli…

Abortion: Right to life vs. Right to live

A little thought of mine on the nature of abortion debates.

Abortion debates invariably pit those who promote the ‘right to life’ against those who promote the ‘right to choose.’

Now I was thinking about the right to choose, not merely in the context of abortion but more generally. Within the horizon of leftie-liberalism nowadays (although certainly not in Marxism or old-skool Socialism) there is…

Trevor Philllips Highlights Ugliness of Equality #sundayblogshare

1. The Phillips Controversy

This week, there was controversy in the UK over observations made by Trevor Phillips about Muslims in both a Sunday Times article and a Channel 4 documentary. Phillips cut his teeth in the UK campaigning for equality and at one stage of his career was an ally of Muslims in the UK, championing their cause via the platform of ‘Islamophobia,’ a term he made famous. While…

The refugee crisis has been arguably the news story of the last year. Like every news-story, it has settled down into a tit-for-tat dialectic and has assured its own propagation. What I mean by that is that the big picture is barely even conceived, not to mind discussed, and so the problem, since it is not understood, will never converge to a solution amidst the heat of debate.

So, what is the…