She lost her son of 17 years only 5 months ago. With no additional details, I know where my mind goes.
Edit: whatever article I read said 5 months ago, but that appears to have been written some time ago. Plenty of articles stating that Shane died in Jan/2022:
> I’ve decided to follow my son. There is no point living without him. Everything I touch, I ruin. I only stayed for him. And now he’s gone,” she wrote on an unverified Twitter account linked to her official account.
> Shane died in January 2022. A week later, following a series of tweets in which she indicated that she was going to kill herself, O'Connor was hospitalised.
There would have been no speculation if the family had stated an uncontroversial cause of death. Instead they "requested privacy", which means it was likely something people would have judged her for.
She's announced she was going to do it before and to be fair she's always had more than her fair share of mental troubles, sadly. As someone who is also cursed with those I know how hard that can be and I didn't even lose a child.
Withholding the cause is what leads to speculation and I don't think it's a bad guess in this case.
Personally I think it's better if they just announced it because believe it or not something like this can also lead to good things. Because it can make people think, realise these things happen and notice the signs in people around them.
And say what you want about her, but nobody ever said she was one for wavering. In everything she did she committed to and knew all about owning consequences.
If she was suicidal, and she had the track record, she was well able to have follow through on this also.
Whatever you believe, just for her sake, I genuinely hope she's now reunited with her son to get some peace.
Even if you strongly agree with her criticism of the pope, the way that she expressed that criticism -- by deceiving everyone on SNL to pull off her stunt -- certainly branded her as a loose cannon in the industry. Unpredictability might entertain audiences, but it's a huge liability from an entertainment industry perspective.
And arguably, her antics greatly overshadowed the message she was trying to get across. How many people even realized what she was criticizing? So it ended up pissing off a lot of people without actually being effective in drawing attention to the issue she wanted to raise awareness toward.
Your HN account is probably older than many of those kids the church covered up the abuse of. But sure, she's the asshole for making you think about it.
Elvis Costello lied to SNL as well, and then produced one of the best musical performances on that show, _ever_.
Elvis was protesting corporate control and homogeneity. Sinead was protesting institutions that enabled evil. Who cares if some suits were made uncomfortable.
In 1977: "The ultimate act of punk defiance that got Elvis Costello banned from 'Saturday Night Live'"
Costello, his label and the show’s producers, had agreed prior to the show that they would perform their catchy single ‘Less Than Zero’, a track which was written about disgraced British politician Oswald Mosley who, at the time, was the former leader of the British Union of Fascists. However, as the lights of the famous studio glared down upon him, Costello wouldn’t miss his opportunity. While it certainly was considered the band’s biggest opportunity commercial to date, Costello put a stop to the performance mid-intro, yelling: “Stop! Stop!” in the direction of his band. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” he said before adding: “But there’s no reason to do this song here”.
Instead, Costello and his band rolled into a performance of the song ‘Radio Radio’ which, controversially, includes lyrics that criticised the commercialisation of the airwaves in both television and radio as well as pointed the finger at corporate-controlled broadcasting. Costello had certainly made his statement clear and in the middle of one of the most hostile environments....
I remember reading an article in which Costello was evidently offended by some of the comedians being jerks - Bill Murray figures in - but reading this https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/elvis-costello-recalls-... it seems more like 'protesting corporate control' as you wrote.
Arguably her protest was the pebble that started the avalanche of investigations of the catholic church that resulted in abuses coming to light and the Pope apologizing in 2005.
I'm not a big fan of the whole, "you couldn't do that today", but you sure couldn't do that today. I think you weren't supposed to do it then either which made it subversive comedy.
>That's just because the mores of society have changed.
And the huge amounts of research that shined the light on the Catholic church's culture of preying and assaulting children and then covering it up.
It took quite a heroic effort to bring the Catholic church's crimes to light and she was speaking about something the media wasn't comfortable or willing to report on.
It's not hard to understand. I remember when it happened, and I remember thinking "publicity stunt". I wouldn't hold that against her--that's show business. Sometimes you eat the nipple and sometimes the nipple eats you.
It's hard not to laugh whenever people talk about "cancel culture" being a new phenomenon. The amount of hate she received for merely bringing up the horrible actions the catholic church committed was absurd.
Virtually everyone who complains about it. The complains are almost always about how sensitive people are today, how blazing saddles couldn't be made today or whatever non-sense they use to rage farm. Its almost always framed as a today problem.
The problem they have, of course, is not that cancel culture exists. It's that the center of force of "cancellation" went from the right to the left. The thing they used to great effect against queer people, anti-religious people, etc, is now being directed at them. It sucks being on the other side.
I personally think that things are too "hot" right now, but nobody should pretend this is a modern problem.
When you look at historic examples of cancel culture its almost absurd at how tame their offenses were. Dixie Chicks are another example that come to mind where critical but not controversial statements are made and it ruined people's careers.
McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s.
Untold Black American artists, authors, and creatives who fled to Europe: Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Augusta Savage, Romare Bearden, Jessie Fauset, and Richard Wright just off the top of my head.
Fwiw I think of cancel culture as a concern when it happens to the everyday professor, presenter and so on. But you are correct, product and celebrity protests for cultural statements are nothing new.
She'll be missed. As a youngster growing up in Ireland she not only gave a voice to all of us who wanted to reject the influence of the church, which had only become more entrenched throughout the conflict, but also to the women of this island who had been previously silenced for centuries.
If anyone is interested more in feminist voices from the conflict in Ireland I can highly recommend the 1981 film Maeve. The idea of women being a "third side" in the whole conflict who had never been given voice was incredibly eye opening to me as a man moving into my 30s and changed my perspective not only on Irish history but entire history of Europe and the Middle East.
Anything covering Magdalene laundries or other catholic institutions in Ireland are pretty relevant too. She did spend a bunch of her childhood in one.
The first time I heard the song -- and saw the video -- to "Nothing Compares 2 U" and the screen is nothing but her face and at one point there are tears, and she blares that unreal voice, I think I stopped breathing.
> honest question: is the "frisson/goosebumps" thing not called ASMR now?
No, ASMR is a completely separate phenomenon, although the term has since been adapted to refer to a general aural aesthetic, rather than the physiological phenomenon it induces in some people.
I remember being outraged at her tearing up John Paul II’s picture. The media in the U.S. did a great job of hiding why she did it. I was not outraged at her when I found out her justified reasons for doing so. That was the first time I became consciously aware that news is a business and that that business thrives when it generates outrage. I no longer fall victim to this.
She’s far more the saint than that bastard John Paul II.
EDIT: Ironic this is flagged. I’m proud of this actually. I feel a slight kinship with Sinead now. In honor of her death would that we all, in our own way, tear to shreds the image of John Paul II!
I think his last sentence doesn't go far enough - I'm not sure how far I'd need to go to describe someone who covered up systemic child abuse on a global scale
Same in Ireland, some high profile cases were prosecuted- but not the majority, and nothing happened the nuns - especially the evil that ran the mother and baby homes. 300+ babies discarded in a septic tank.
Thank you. No mention of prosecutions in that article. Perhaps many of the people who were in charge are no longer alive, but perhaps some still there. There's no mention of it that I see.
That’s the reason I called it out as respectfully as I could. I was hoping OP would edit the comment given the rest of it is valid and gets the same point across.
Dan I don't think that comment was designed to be religious flamebait. It may seem like sectarianism if you're not Catholic so I understand feeling this way, but the people who are the most angry about Catholic priests raping children are people that grew up Catholic like myself.
Ie, this isn't attacking anyone on the basis of their religion.
I'd probably say the comment could be improved by adding a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Pope_John_Paul_II instead of 'that bastard' but criticism of people that facilitate child abuse is quite reasonable and very separate from attacking members of a particular religion.
"Vibes" is not a concept that enters my mind while moderating this place. If you want to understand the real principle by which we moderate HN, something like "prioritize curiosity over indignation" would be closer to the mark.
> actual real child sexual abuse is a much bigger problem
Of course. It's far more important than anything that goes on on an internet message board like HN. But you might be under a misconception of what HN is for, if you think we should let it be inundated by high-indignation, high-repetition threads about the most important things in the world. That would make it something like a current affairs or general news site, which is not the game we're trying to play here. In fact it's the main game we're trying not to play, as the guidelines try to make clear: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Those comments are from 12 days ago and there's a simple reason why they weren't moderated at the time: we didn't see them. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
In honor of Sinead’s death it seems appropriate to tear to shreds the image of John Paul II. You are on the wrong side, morally speaking, in this Dang.
It's simply the practical question of what type of site HN is trying to be. We want curious conversation, not people bashing each other, which is what flamebait leads to.
Commenters who get too sure of their moral positions tend to do a lot of this. I'm not saying the moral positions are wrong (I probably agree a lot of the time, certainly Sinead did a courageous thing, etc. etc.). But the quality of discussion this leads to is predictably poor, evokes worse from others, and tends to go straight to the bottom of the internet barrel. We're trying to not get sucked completely into that muck here—a difficult task to even partly achieve, so we need everyone's help.
I mostly like the moderation on this site, but I think you're missing the mark on this one.
The man - and the institution - facilitated and covered up the abuse and rape of countless children. Calling him a bastard seems pretty small potatoes for you to start clutching your pearls over.
One has to distinguish the importance of a topic from the quality of internet conversation about it. We moderate for the latter, not the former. Most important topics, including most atrocities, don't make HN's front page, and most things that do make the front page are neither important nor an atrocity.
People tend to respond to activating topics with intense pre-existing feelings. That's understandable—I'm not criticizing it and it would be futile to try to change it. But it does not make for curious conversation, which is what HN is for: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Curious conversation is about learning new things, changing one's orientation, and so on. That's one reason why the best HN threads tend to have a whimsical aspect—when a topic isn't high-stakes and one doesn't have a pre-existing position about it, curiosity is the natural state. Not so much otherwise.
That's a fair point. There's arguably an inflection point where media became "mass" media that's hard to pin down but somewhere in the late 1980's-early 1990's where 24 hour news and the internet were in their infancy. I'm sure there's a smart thesis here that a media expert could make ;)
Not to mention that only a few short decades ago homosexuals had to meticulously hide their sexuality and any of their relationships for fear of getting fired simply because of who they were (and, before that, imprisoned!). And countless other examples. Anyone who believes "cancel culture" is a recent development is breathtakingly ignorant.
As a child, I thought the Pope and the church helped poor people and practiced showing people how to be good to each other by following the ten commandments. When Sinead O Connor ripped up the picture of the Pope on SNL I remember asking why.
Someone said the reason was because she was crazy. They were lying to me.
Sinead O'Connor was drawing attention to child sexual abuse when nobody else was.
> She’s far more the saint than that bastard John Paul II.
I don't know about JP2's involvement in child sexual abuse (not doubting you, just saying I don't know *) but Ratzinger / Benedict absolutely deliberately prevented investigation into, and facilitated (by moving rapist priests into new parishes), child sexual abuse.
Years later I apologized to O'Connor on Twitter and she took it with grace.
* Update: some research showed the Vatican, under JP2, opposed extensions of the statutes of limitations in sex abuse cases.
Ratzinger / Benedict absolutely deliberately prevented investigation into, and facilitated (by moving rapist priests into new parishes), child sexual abuse.
You started a religious flamewar and then poured fuel into it in multiple places. That's why your comment is flagged. Please don't post like that here.
Your comment was just fine in the first paragraph and broke the site guidelines with the second paragraph—not because we care what you think about popes, but because such swipes predictably lead to internet dreckfests and we're simply trying to have a forum that doesn't suck. At least to the extent possible.
I’ve been on this site since the beginning. I change usernames periodically. I understand the desire to avoid flame wars.
Here’s a sincere question. If I called Charles Manson a bastard would that be flamebait? Are we at the point that calling out the objectively verified despicable acts of a person is flamebait?
It wasn’t a swipe at the man. Sinead suffered a lot for ripping his image apart. She has died now. It is appropriate to point out she did not deserve the reaction and that the protector of her abusers did deserve to have his image shredded.
It’s always ok to call out those who abuse or protect abusers. I care not that my post got flagged. I’m glad of it. I feel a tiny bit like Sinead. Even after all that is known about John Paul 2 people still can’t face reality about the man.
We obviously don’t agree. I’ll stop posting about this and just read all responses.
"That bastard John Paul II" was obvious flamebait—of course it was a swipe. You're broadcasting to thousands of people when you post here. Did you really think some people wouldn't react? Is it a high-quality conversation about Sinead O'Connor to have people yell at each other about popes?
> It’s always ok to call out those who abuse or protect abusers. I care not that my post got flagged. I’m glad of it. I feel a tiny bit like Sinead
We're trying to avoid online callout/shaming culture on this site. It reliably leads to poor-quality discussion. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... Generally, the state of high indignation (and its correlate, high moral justification) isn't congruent with the intended spirit of conversation here.
Calling Hitler a bastard here is online callout/shaming culture. It's a swipe against Hitler's character. It's not curious discussion to discuss Hitler that way.
This type of trolley-problem questioning doesn't work for getting a clearer picture of HN moderation. HN is not a letter-of-the-law kind of place. There's no comprehensive doctrine covering all cases, and it would be foolish of us to try to make one.
It's one thing I hate about this site. You can't tell "the truth as you know it," and instead have to pretend to be "curious." I'm generally curious, so it's not a difficult requirement most days.
Well, guess what? Some things are actually bad-and it's obvious—and we are experienced enough to know it. Child abuse would fall into that category. After confirmation, no "curiosity" is needed in that instance.
(I understand the angle about conversation deteriorating quickly, and am still here, right? But damn I hate it when we can't state obvious truth because it is not "polite." )
I'd discovered MacColl hearing a song of hers on a college radio station whilst road-tripping, and promptly failed to correctly remember the lyrics for years. Eventually got them right ("England Two, Columbia Nil"), and found the artist ... only to learn she'd died, likely shortly before I'd heard that song.
Then discovered I'd known her all along through the Pogue's "Fairytale of New York", a/k/a The Only Honest Christmas Carol Evar, which I'd first heard well over a decade earlier.
on Twitter in November 2018. She wrote: "What I'm about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that's what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting."
> Later that month, O'Connor stated that her remarks were made in an attempt to force Twitter to close down her account.[99] In September 2019, she apologised for the remarks, saying "They were not true at the time and they are not true now. I was triggered as a result of Islamophobia dumped on me. I apologize for hurt caused. That was one of many crazy tweets lord knows."
It's a shitty thing to write but she's also someone who had very openly struggled with poor mental health for basically all of her life. I've a hard time holding something as thoughtless - in a very literal sense - as that against her.
This hit me hard. The first of her songs I ever knew, and still my favorite, was "Troy" and I was just thinking of it this morning. Then an hour later someone tweeted that she had died. Probably going to be sad all day.
In the Netherlands this was her most well know song. I was teenager when Troy was a hit on the radio, the video was intriguing. It hits me too, I feel respect for her, though I sometimes had doubts about some ideas she put forward.
Can you please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar? You've been doing it repeatedly lately, unfortunately, and we're trying for something different here.
I realize that the GP could be interpreted as a provocation in that direction but it doesn't have to be taken that way or responded to in this way.
To stand in the full blast of a crowd that hates you with that amount of poise, and have a voice that is still capable of song or even coherent speech, just beggars my imagination.
i hope you have found peace. you were a voice crying out in the wilderness and we did to you what we always do to that.
Wow! The thing that surprised me most about this was it’s a Bob Dylan tribute concert? I’m shocked religion still had such a hold on the kind of people attending that type of concert at that point in time. The volume is insane. Incredible strength to be able to stand and take such abuse and continue to perform.
I think it speaks less to people's religious feelings and more towards the rather apolitical and apathetic alternative music culture at the time. If I recall the atmosphere at the time it was less "how dare she say that about the Pope?!" and more "how dare she co-opt the public stage for controversial/'political' speech?!" I also don't recall the outrage at her SNL performance even being particularly or especially by Catholics in particular, though I'm sure it was stronger among them.
The rage around her Pope-photo-tearing photo on SNL I think was about: we're trying to sell/watching a entertainment products here, and now you've just gone and made things intense. They just wanted the dancing bear.
She was an intense personality, an artist, not an entertainer. Maybe getting a billboard #1 single and becoming a sensation was the worst thing that could have happened for her. People just wanted to be entertained -- they wanted the fantastic voice but without the powerful emotions and convictions behind it -- and she didn't want to be a 'product'
I agree it's especially jarring in the context of a Bob Dylan tribute.
> Maybe getting a billboard #1 single and becoming a sensation was the worst thing that could have happened for her.
She said as much herself in her recent memoir: “I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career, and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”
It's also important to remember how different that era of broadcast TV is from today though. It was far more centralized. Pre-streaming services, obviously, but also less penetration of cable and satellite TV, and so when something made it onto live broadcast television, there was a large audience, and they didn't have as many choices about what to watch, instead.
So to get yourself onto live television in a popular spot, and do what she did was ballsy, and obviously clearly intended to make impact... but you can also see how people who tuned in expecting one thing and got something else could get angry. Which was of course her intent.
> we're trying to sell/watching a entertainment products here, and now you've just gone and made things intense
I know the enlightened viewpoint is that tearing up the pope's photo was brave and progressive, that Sinead was ahead of her time in recognizing the faults of the Catholic church -- but yes, exactly, she absolutely failed to "read the room."
SNL in the early 90s was one of the best eras, but it was also one of its silliest. Hans and Franz, Wayne's World, Farley, Sandler, Spade. There was absolutely no way, at that time, any kind of serious mid-show protest would gain positive attention. She screwed up, no way around it.
I don't claim she wanted positive attention to her music, to sell more records or anything. Likely the opposite, who knows. But when people protest, they do so to bring attention to some cause, that's the point of the protest. As she tore the photo, Sinead said into the mic on live television "fight the real enemy," referring to the church. But it totally backfired, instead of taking her claims seriously, the majority of Catholics rallied behind the church and the very popular pope, and any investigation into the darkside of the church was likely delayed for a decade or more.
> But it totally backfired ... and any investigation into the darkside of the church was likely delayed for a decade or more.
That is completely debunked by the facts and a very bonkers statement. It provided survivors with a sympathetic voice that helped many of them come forward, especially in Ireland. Please get your facts in order before making such an egregious statement.
The audience are terrible, but as a child I would have taken part in that. We identified as a group, with a set of beliefs our parents had chosen for us, and thought anyone that attacked our leader was attacking us.
Years later I grew up and apologised to Sinead O Connor on Twitter for thinking this way. But a lot of people never did grow up, not just Catholics but also people from other conservative religions. People still feel religious ideas are somehow innate, and therefore the criticising religious ideas is wrong. But no idea is innate, people can and do leave and join every religion and every set of spiritual beliefs all the time, so no idea is beyond criticism. A crowd of people booing Sinead O Connor 30 years ago is very similar to people attacking Charlie Hebdo in 2015 and sadly people still make excuses for both.
Similarities: In both cases, people are offended that their religious sensibilities were hurt, and many of them want to lash out angrily against those who offended them. Some of them say that no one should have the right to offend them this way. Some of them try to find a way to retaliate against those who offended them.
Differences: In one case, a dozen people are murdered; in the other case, not.
What I mean is you're taking the smaller thing, the partial similarity in motivation, and making that the main thing. The biggest thing is the immense difference in terms of modality.
In the same way we don't equate people being shouted down in a government house debate with people being mown down in political violence, even though there is a superficial similarity in underlying reason.
I agree with you, and I thought that making the similarities and differences explicit would show that the differences are starker and more significant overall.
The irony of this moment was the song she was about to perform was "I Believe in You". This would have been the most religious song sung that evening by far.
It was brilliant on her part to separate the failed human organization from her beliefs.
This is what happens when you simply shout someone down. You miss the opportunity to better understand them.
The thing about Sinéad is that she was, right until the end, a strong believer in one god and if anything more of a critic of the church due to their betrayal of religious/spiritual/moral principles as hierarchical institutions, rather than their promotion of theistic beliefs.
She always considered herself a theologian, she said at the time of the pope: "Why do we need a pope? Christ doesn't need a representative".
She also later said of converting/"reverting" to Islam:
"The reason why I like Islam is, I can keep Christianity and Judaism, which are two religions which I loved and studied.."
While her speaking out against the church would have resonated with many atheists and agnostics at the time, and even more with today's less religiously dominated Western society - it certainly resonates with me for this reason - I think her own perspective was a little different.
307 comments
[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 272 ms ] threadEdit: whatever article I read said 5 months ago, but that appears to have been written some time ago. Plenty of articles stating that Shane died in Jan/2022:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=shane+oconnor+wikipedia&ia=...
And sometimes it's hard to discern one from the other.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/entertainment/sinead-oconnor-...
heart breaking to hear :(
Wikipedia
She's announced she was going to do it before and to be fair she's always had more than her fair share of mental troubles, sadly. As someone who is also cursed with those I know how hard that can be and I didn't even lose a child.
Withholding the cause is what leads to speculation and I don't think it's a bad guess in this case.
Personally I think it's better if they just announced it because believe it or not something like this can also lead to good things. Because it can make people think, realise these things happen and notice the signs in people around them.
If she was suicidal, and she had the track record, she was well able to have follow through on this also.
Whatever you believe, just for her sake, I genuinely hope she's now reunited with her son to get some peace.
And arguably, her antics greatly overshadowed the message she was trying to get across. How many people even realized what she was criticizing? So it ended up pissing off a lot of people without actually being effective in drawing attention to the issue she wanted to raise awareness toward.
With the benefit of hindsight, how is there any doubt she was on the right side of history for bringing attention to the issue?
People upset with her over that completely missed what they should be mad about.
Nobody claimed the converse, and that's what would be a more apt target of your comment.
And I think that there's a lot of space between "making someone uncomfortable" versus being an asshole.
Elvis was protesting corporate control and homogeneity. Sinead was protesting institutions that enabled evil. Who cares if some suits were made uncomfortable.
Costello, his label and the show’s producers, had agreed prior to the show that they would perform their catchy single ‘Less Than Zero’, a track which was written about disgraced British politician Oswald Mosley who, at the time, was the former leader of the British Union of Fascists. However, as the lights of the famous studio glared down upon him, Costello wouldn’t miss his opportunity. While it certainly was considered the band’s biggest opportunity commercial to date, Costello put a stop to the performance mid-intro, yelling: “Stop! Stop!” in the direction of his band. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” he said before adding: “But there’s no reason to do this song here”.
Instead, Costello and his band rolled into a performance of the song ‘Radio Radio’ which, controversially, includes lyrics that criticised the commercialisation of the airwaves in both television and radio as well as pointed the finger at corporate-controlled broadcasting. Costello had certainly made his statement clear and in the middle of one of the most hostile environments....
<https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/elvis-costello-banned-snl-video...>
I can think of dozens of true statements that if spoken on a show like Saturday Night Live would led to a performer being banned.
I'm not a big fan of the whole, "you couldn't do that today", but you sure couldn't do that today. I think you weren't supposed to do it then either which made it subversive comedy.
And the huge amounts of research that shined the light on the Catholic church's culture of preying and assaulting children and then covering it up.
It took quite a heroic effort to bring the Catholic church's crimes to light and she was speaking about something the media wasn't comfortable or willing to report on.
What she did was real bravery to stand in the face of so much opposition and mockery from us at the time.
It seems for some people they are still from that time.
I personally think that things are too "hot" right now, but nobody should pretend this is a modern problem.
Untold Black American artists, authors, and creatives who fled to Europe: Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Augusta Savage, Romare Bearden, Jessie Fauset, and Richard Wright just off the top of my head.
If anyone is interested more in feminist voices from the conflict in Ireland I can highly recommend the 1981 film Maeve. The idea of women being a "third side" in the whole conflict who had never been given voice was incredibly eye opening to me as a man moving into my 30s and changed my perspective not only on Irish history but entire history of Europe and the Middle East.
She will be missed.
No, ASMR is a completely separate phenomenon, although the term has since been adapted to refer to a general aural aesthetic, rather than the physiological phenomenon it induces in some people.
https://www.shortlist.com/news/the-14-best-covers-of-prince-...
She’s far more the saint than that bastard John Paul II.
EDIT: Ironic this is flagged. I’m proud of this actually. I feel a slight kinship with Sinead now. In honor of her death would that we all, in our own way, tear to shreds the image of John Paul II!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc...
O'Connor was right.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Ie, this isn't attacking anyone on the basis of their religion.
I'd probably say the comment could be improved by adding a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Pope_John_Paul_II instead of 'that bastard' but criticism of people that facilitate child abuse is quite reasonable and very separate from attacking members of a particular religion.
> actual real child sexual abuse is a much bigger problem
Of course. It's far more important than anything that goes on on an internet message board like HN. But you might be under a misconception of what HN is for, if you think we should let it be inundated by high-indignation, high-repetition threads about the most important things in the world. That would make it something like a current affairs or general news site, which is not the game we're trying to play here. In fact it's the main game we're trying not to play, as the guidelines try to make clear: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Strongly implying that trans people have a "delusion":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36805050
Saying that adults in trans kids' lives are "pedophiles":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36805394
Commenters who get too sure of their moral positions tend to do a lot of this. I'm not saying the moral positions are wrong (I probably agree a lot of the time, certainly Sinead did a courageous thing, etc. etc.). But the quality of discussion this leads to is predictably poor, evokes worse from others, and tends to go straight to the bottom of the internet barrel. We're trying to not get sucked completely into that muck here—a difficult task to even partly achieve, so we need everyone's help.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The man - and the institution - facilitated and covered up the abuse and rape of countless children. Calling him a bastard seems pretty small potatoes for you to start clutching your pearls over.
People tend to respond to activating topics with intense pre-existing feelings. That's understandable—I'm not criticizing it and it would be futile to try to change it. But it does not make for curious conversation, which is what HN is for: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Curious conversation is about learning new things, changing one's orientation, and so on. That's one reason why the best HN threads tend to have a whimsical aspect—when a topic isn't high-stakes and one doesn't have a pre-existing position about it, curiosity is the natural state. Not so much otherwise.
Right or wrong, what she did was definitely courageous and arguably destroyed her career.
Um, I think the 1,500+ year history of the Catholic church would beg to differ here ...
And even before that, Socrates was so canceled for his views he was killed by the state.
As a child, I thought the Pope and the church helped poor people and practiced showing people how to be good to each other by following the ten commandments. When Sinead O Connor ripped up the picture of the Pope on SNL I remember asking why.
Someone said the reason was because she was crazy. They were lying to me.
Sinead O'Connor was drawing attention to child sexual abuse when nobody else was.
> She’s far more the saint than that bastard John Paul II.
I don't know about JP2's involvement in child sexual abuse (not doubting you, just saying I don't know *) but Ratzinger / Benedict absolutely deliberately prevented investigation into, and facilitated (by moving rapist priests into new parishes), child sexual abuse.
Years later I apologized to O'Connor on Twitter and she took it with grace.
* Update: some research showed the Vatican, under JP2, opposed extensions of the statutes of limitations in sex abuse cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI#Sexual_abuse...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Your comment was just fine in the first paragraph and broke the site guidelines with the second paragraph—not because we care what you think about popes, but because such swipes predictably lead to internet dreckfests and we're simply trying to have a forum that doesn't suck. At least to the extent possible.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Here’s a sincere question. If I called Charles Manson a bastard would that be flamebait? Are we at the point that calling out the objectively verified despicable acts of a person is flamebait?
It wasn’t a swipe at the man. Sinead suffered a lot for ripping his image apart. She has died now. It is appropriate to point out she did not deserve the reaction and that the protector of her abusers did deserve to have his image shredded.
It’s always ok to call out those who abuse or protect abusers. I care not that my post got flagged. I’m glad of it. I feel a tiny bit like Sinead. Even after all that is known about John Paul 2 people still can’t face reality about the man.
We obviously don’t agree. I’ll stop posting about this and just read all responses.
> It’s always ok to call out those who abuse or protect abusers. I care not that my post got flagged. I’m glad of it. I feel a tiny bit like Sinead
We're trying to avoid online callout/shaming culture on this site. It reliably leads to poor-quality discussion. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... Generally, the state of high indignation (and its correlate, high moral justification) isn't congruent with the intended spirit of conversation here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I understand HN's viewpoint on this. I disagree with it in the extreme.
The rest of your post is a caricature but I assume you meant it that way.
This type of trolley-problem questioning doesn't work for getting a clearer picture of HN moderation. HN is not a letter-of-the-law kind of place. There's no comprehensive doctrine covering all cases, and it would be foolish of us to try to make one.
Well, guess what? Some things are actually bad-and it's obvious—and we are experienced enough to know it. Child abuse would fall into that category. After confirmation, no "curiosity" is needed in that instance.
(I understand the angle about conversation deteriorating quickly, and am still here, right? But damn I hate it when we can't state obvious truth because it is not "polite." )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsty_MacColl#Death
Then discovered I'd known her all along through the Pogue's "Fairytale of New York", a/k/a The Only Honest Christmas Carol Evar, which I'd first heard well over a decade earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O%27Connor#Tweets_...
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36883262
> Later that month, O'Connor stated that her remarks were made in an attempt to force Twitter to close down her account.[99] In September 2019, she apologised for the remarks, saying "They were not true at the time and they are not true now. I was triggered as a result of Islamophobia dumped on me. I apologize for hurt caused. That was one of many crazy tweets lord knows."
still gives me goosebumps
[1] Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inna_Lillahi_wa_inna_ilayhi_ra...
I realize that the GP could be interpreted as a provocation in that direction but it doesn't have to be taken that way or responded to in this way.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
To stand in the full blast of a crowd that hates you with that amount of poise, and have a voice that is still capable of song or even coherent speech, just beggars my imagination.
i hope you have found peace. you were a voice crying out in the wilderness and we did to you what we always do to that.
The rage around her Pope-photo-tearing photo on SNL I think was about: we're trying to sell/watching a entertainment products here, and now you've just gone and made things intense. They just wanted the dancing bear.
She was an intense personality, an artist, not an entertainer. Maybe getting a billboard #1 single and becoming a sensation was the worst thing that could have happened for her. People just wanted to be entertained -- they wanted the fantastic voice but without the powerful emotions and convictions behind it -- and she didn't want to be a 'product'
I agree it's especially jarring in the context of a Bob Dylan tribute.
She said as much herself in her recent memoir: “I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career, and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”
i don't know if the religious or the apolitical/centrists are worse.
So to get yourself onto live television in a popular spot, and do what she did was ballsy, and obviously clearly intended to make impact... but you can also see how people who tuned in expecting one thing and got something else could get angry. Which was of course her intent.
I know the enlightened viewpoint is that tearing up the pope's photo was brave and progressive, that Sinead was ahead of her time in recognizing the faults of the Catholic church -- but yes, exactly, she absolutely failed to "read the room."
SNL in the early 90s was one of the best eras, but it was also one of its silliest. Hans and Franz, Wayne's World, Farley, Sandler, Spade. There was absolutely no way, at that time, any kind of serious mid-show protest would gain positive attention. She screwed up, no way around it.
Believe it or not, not everybody is selling themselves all the time.
That is completely debunked by the facts and a very bonkers statement. It provided survivors with a sympathetic voice that helped many of them come forward, especially in Ireland. Please get your facts in order before making such an egregious statement.
Years later I grew up and apologised to Sinead O Connor on Twitter for thinking this way. But a lot of people never did grow up, not just Catholics but also people from other conservative religions. People still feel religious ideas are somehow innate, and therefore the criticising religious ideas is wrong. But no idea is innate, people can and do leave and join every religion and every set of spiritual beliefs all the time, so no idea is beyond criticism. A crowd of people booing Sinead O Connor 30 years ago is very similar to people attacking Charlie Hebdo in 2015 and sadly people still make excuses for both.
Erm. I don't think it's that similar.
Differences: In one case, a dozen people are murdered; in the other case, not.
They were similar in type but different in outcome.
In the same way we don't equate people being shouted down in a government house debate with people being mown down in political violence, even though there is a superficial similarity in underlying reason.
The irony of this moment was the song she was about to perform was "I Believe in You". This would have been the most religious song sung that evening by far.
It was brilliant on her part to separate the failed human organization from her beliefs.
This is what happens when you simply shout someone down. You miss the opportunity to better understand them.
Here is the rehearsal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C7tAp5X6Zo
The thing about Sinéad is that she was, right until the end, a strong believer in one god and if anything more of a critic of the church due to their betrayal of religious/spiritual/moral principles as hierarchical institutions, rather than their promotion of theistic beliefs.
She always considered herself a theologian, she said at the time of the pope: "Why do we need a pope? Christ doesn't need a representative".
She also later said of converting/"reverting" to Islam: "The reason why I like Islam is, I can keep Christianity and Judaism, which are two religions which I loved and studied.."
While her speaking out against the church would have resonated with many atheists and agnostics at the time, and even more with today's less religiously dominated Western society - it certainly resonates with me for this reason - I think her own perspective was a little different.
"Flashback: Sinead O’Connor Gets Booed Offstage at Bob Dylan Anniversary Concert"
<https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sinead-o-conno...>