OUR SKIES-OUR SAY- NO TO DRONES

It is with alarm that I hear of the expansion of commercial drones across our airspace. 30,000 of them projected to pollute every city in Europe by 2030. And it appears to be a done deal, a question of reaching agreement about regulation- for apparently at the moment there is none. 

I would personally call for a referendum across the country on this issue. 

Our roads, our rivers, our seas are polluted in the name of so called progress and commercial enterprise. It is surely time to call a halt.....

Dublin 15 has been the testing ground for Manna Enterprise and a local petition has been drawn up by their Labour party councillor, John Walsh, to call for action in this area. For further info follow link bellow.

https://www.change.org/p/our-skies-our-say-restrict-drones-in-dublin-15-now

The word manna, by the way, comes from the Hebrew Man hu meaning- what is it? What indeed? 

And the bible describes manna as a divine gift and a symbol of God's provision- a far cry from the take-a-ways projected to fall from our skies in the near future.

Dirge for a lost world

In the time before the drones

we could look up to the sky

and see the sun rising 

and watch the clouds fly by.

In the time before the drones

moon and stars were on display-

gibbous, waxing, waning moods

and night skies' stellar array.

In the time before the drones

birdsong filled our ears

the blackbird, thrush and robin

flutes and trills allaying fears.

In the time before the drone

there was peace over this land

the only drone the sound of bees

sipping nectar from our flowers.

It's too late now to go back.

We have lost that peace and find

that the time before the drone

is a memory lost in time.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Four Letters of Love-Review

 

What is it about Rotten Tomatoes, the arbiter of the fate of many a movie? Its verdict on the movie Four letters of love at 39% described as “too introspective and disjointed” (in reference to what exactly? ) is mean spirited  and unimaginative.  

The movie has its faults but the story is not one of them. Williams reminds me of the great South American writers like Jose Garcia Marquez who was hailed as someone who stunned, moved, seduced and transformed with his magical realism. Or consider the beautiful film Like water for Chocolate likewise haunting in its magical realism.

 

This is a love story where characters follow, call it the voice of God, their hearts or the dictates of fate. Apparent coincidence which turns out to be destiny is to the fore, like it was in Hardy’s fiction or in  Greek tragedy. Viewers who consider the plot unlikely or depressing have already failed to identify the genre.

 

The acting like the story is deeply heart felt. The scenery breath taking, though that aspect irritated some viewers as well. No body complained when Skellig Micheal in Star Wars was depicted as a mythical Jedi temple.

 

I concede that the musical score was at times for me intrusive and took away from the narrative. The script has its own musical cadence and did not need such embellishment. Accents were dubious at times and the aran jumpers far too new and gorgeous for 1970s Irish islanders. But these aspects of the production did not take away from the overall effect of the film.

 

It is a step into a world where the dictates of heart and soul triumph, where the human journey is depicted in all its soul searching rawness. It is a film that explores the challenging and tortuous search for love.

 

Come on Rotten Tomatoes let go to the magical realism of it.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard