User:MichaelJamHayes

Fáilte romhat! Welcome!

I am motivated to help wikipedia with its goals. I am motivated to help Ireland too, if I can. Helping Ireland probably helps the world too, most of the time. It looks like we're all in it together, as evidenced from the plastic in the sea and iron oxide in pedestrian brains in the cities.

Maybe - quite possibly - I'm on the wrong track - put me straight please on my talk page.

For example, I made the argument when the water charges came in that people in the west of Ireland would strongly prefer as a product nice roundwood/vartry water in their taps (even from an uncovered Stillorgan reservoir!!!) over the local limey stuff, and that the price charged should reflect the product - a rational consumer and all that.

About me and my interests - currently I am really interested in living more lightly on the planet, speaking better Irish, "quickening the earth" i.e. improving the fertility of Irish soil - I really like the book of the same name which covers old and traditional techniques.

Top of my mind, however, (because I was stopped by a very polite student who was advocating a Yes vote in the referendum, and we discussed it for a bit) is that my son was born handicapped (deaf) and when the time came to speak, he couldn't - measured in the 3rd percentile for speech. The deafness is a condition for which accurate pre-natal tests exist, depending on the severity of the handicap. I made (and still make) the argument that whatever the referendum was trying to achieve, there was no protection for deaf children being deselected (I thought of Woody's nightmare in Toy Story where he is binned because he is broken!).

That made me think about close relatives and friends who are LGBT - some of my favourite (and extremely sharp and witty as it happens) people! Research has had some success (and it's not one-size-fits-all) at making a pre-natal indication of gayness. Again, no protection for our LGBT friends and relatives of the future.