Still on holiday but …

Some happenings during silly season have to be reported for posterity’s sake. I had thought that we had seen it all for summer of oh-nine with Karmenu Mifsud-Bonnici (lifelong bachelor and no children) claiming lower birthrates in Europe are thanks to the EU promoting contraceptives and the post-Communist Żminijietna protesting the ban on barbeques in Għadira presumably because the workers will have nowhere were to grill their proletarian sausages.

I was wrong. A letter in today’s Times, which forms part of an ongoing silly season debate on whether we should remove the George Cross from the flag and, if we do, what will we have in its stead:

Both the above-mentioned regimes [the British and their George Cross and the Knights and their eight-pointed cross] represent only a few years of our history and are not Maltese. Let us have a real Maltese emblem, one that is unique and over 5,000 years old, namely, the Neolithic temples. We already use this on our euros.

Er, the Neolitic temples? Every single stone of them? For accuracy’s sake, what’s represented on the Maltese euro coins is only the main altar of the complex. But the writer probably did intend all of the temples (Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra and Tarxien, presumably). After all this country suffers seriously from horror vacui (anyone remembers the first official photo of the President?).

So we could have the temples. And while we’re at it why not a ġbejna? Zalzett and a ħobża tal-Malti anyone? And a dollop of bigilla please. With a galletta sticking in it. I could go on and on but I’m waiting for the Times‘ commenters to see what they can come up with.

On holiday

This blog goes on holiday until further notice. Readers shouldn’t worry as the silly season, probably because there are no immigrant boats to report, this year looks like it will be seriously silly.

So far my favourite stories have been Karmenu Mifsud-Bonnici claiming that low birthrates are caused by the EU “spending large amounts of money promoting the use of contraceptives” and Communist Party paper Żminijietna criticising the barbeque ban in Mellieħa Bay as it gives the public “less space for recreation, especially in times of increasing cost of living”. Barbequers of the world, unite!

So I pack my blogging bags reassured in the knowledge that there is still much to read and that I will not need or feel the need to blog about it. Some news items do not need any commentary or elaboration, they stand on their own.

So have a smashin’ summer and, remember, you can still enjoy ħobż biż-żejt at Għadira.

Days of Reflection

This blog is going “ballistic” according to Jacques (he who in the last couple of days has covered this blog almost as much as he has covered the election). But if this blog is going anywhere it’s offline. Thanks to disruption of the internet service, the traditional day of reflection at Thermidor will be extended to two.

Meanwhile, keep on following J’Accuse. Who knows? The blog owner might take some time off waffling and suggesting to readers how to vote and explain how (and why) he managed to mangle a four word campaign slogan. Some people, like Vince Farrugia and David Casa, should be rebuked for resorting to a easy copy-and-paste exercises when they shouldn’t; others for being incapable of something so easy … when they should.

Ikea break

Commitments of the personal kind keep me away from blogging. They will keep on doing so for the next few weeks. My apologies to readers. Now back to the Ikea manual.

090509

In case you were wondering what’s 090509 it’s the date of the next Europe Day and a UHM website whose intention is to:

bring together nine persons representing civil society, who will present their views on nine issues of local and European interest. 090509.org will become a forum for these issues, and will invite reactions from the general public. The issues chosen are likely to be important for the way people will vote in the European Parliament Elections.

The site was launched more than a week and a half ago and so far there’s only one news item and four posts on the forum and none on the blogs. You might think that a week and a half dormancy in the blog world is not much but the launch of this site was so important to warrant a press release given by the UHM chief and the Permanent Rep of the European Commission to Malta. As it should be, after all: the project will cost a whooping €65,000 and will be co-funded by the EU.

Yes, €65,000. And what to show for it? Folks, if you had nothing to say in February about an election taking place in June you should have just delayed the launch. Not that there should have been a risk.

Jacques’ blog is undergoing a facelift, by the way. It cost the owner money but I’m sure he’ll be doing it with a smaller sum.

How to read and add comments

In case you were wondering, just click on button “Comment” at the end of the column and add whatever you wish to say. Alternatively click on the heading of the post and click on the “View X comments” button.

Comments on Thermidor are moderated. I edit out all stuff which could be illegal (read: libel, inciting to hatred, etc.), spam, advertising, bad taste and whatever does not have to do with the post in question. If you disagree with the last point and really feel like you need to speak your mind on anything that just comes to it I suggest you get yourself your own blog.

Merry Christmas

It would be proper to do this on the day proper. Merry Christmas to readers of this blog.

Mental notes

I did say “Christmas slowdown” rather than “Christmas break”, didn’t I? Things bloggable keep happening so I’ll just make a few “mental notes” to keep things rolling into 2009. Because December is a truly remarkable month in Maltese politics, a month of zvolti.

First, MaltaToday’s Saviour Balzan’s comment on the PM’s personal assistant Edgar Galea-Curmi:

Galea Curmi especially has established himself as the eminence grise controlling government actions irrespective of their impact and cost.

Only last month, Malta’s éminence grise (as well as it’s Cardinal Richelieu, all rolled into one) was Richard Cachia-Caruana.

Second, a shooting at the Nationalist Party Club in Mqabba leaves 11 injured, two seriously. Had there been any fatalities they would have been the third after Karin Grech’s and Raymond Caruana’s to occur on the last month of the calendar year.

Third, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, Malta’s the 16th most democratic country in the world. Only last month MaltaToday’s Raphael Vassallo described Malta as “the European Union’s least democratic and politically mature member state”.

Christmas slowdown

Thermidor will be slowing down for the coming two weeks. I take the opportunity to wish my readers a merry Christmas and a great start to the new year.

Not much

The Times reports that, according to a Eurostat study, only 2% of the Maltese use internet to maintain or create their own sites or weblogs. And that hopefully does not include the Times‘ own Andrew Borg-Cardona or Rev Joe Borg whose online columns the paper refers to as “blogs”. Much less the commenters to the articles who have taken on calling themselves “bloggers” failing to make the connection: “blogger” verb, “blog” noun.

The number is certainly small compared to what’s the case in other countries. I’ve been around the blogosphere since September 2004. I’ve seen the birth of many blogs and many a decline (blogs which are updated very. very occasionally) and deaths.

This is especially the case in the current affairs and politics category. The sector registered very little growth over the years and even though this year was an election year the only addition of significance was Daphne Caruana-Galizia’s.

The Labour leadership election in June brought us Labour in Labour, an outfit which has since sadly folded up possibly because the candidate they were rooting for made it. A pity since it was good and proof that there are Labour Party supporters who not only can write but actually have something to say that’s worth reading. Labour should have scuttled the idea behind MaltaStar long ago — an electronic newspaper in English to compete with the dead tree media in that language — and given these people a chance. It didn’t and, from the looks of it, they’s off to greener pastures.

Here’s my blogroll.

Apologia (pro causa mea)

Jacques warns:

Fausto has had an idea. He came up with an allegation. He has thrown it in this direction and notwithstanding any denial from our part he has gone on to milk it. Why? Because it pays. It pays to try and distract from the “apologista” label that seems to have stuck with Thermidor notwithstanding its revamp (which is cool).

That’s what happens when you use the royal “we” too often: you assume that what you think is shared by the multitudes. And unless hate mail addressed to me is landing in Jacques’ mailbox and he’s reading it without forwarding it to me, Jacques is referring to very few people.

The only one I know of is the Green Party PRO who once called me an “apologist” who “parrots whatever comes out of tal-Pieta’” oblivious to the sweet irony that his post as PRO requires him to defend (“apologist”) and disseminate (“parrot”) whatever his Party’s Executive Committee thinks (an entity which, it should be reminded, have much stronger political and electoral interests than yours truly).

And that’s the impression I always get with the label “apologist” whenever, for example, I see the likes of MaltaStar use it with regard to former Nationalist Minister Michael Falzon. It’s little more than a defense mechanism of people who are either too lazy or too stupid to engage in any exchange that goes beyond superficialities (not to mention taking an occasional look at the mirror).

Jacques should put down his MLPN bible and notice that I’m not in the least interested in ignoring Borg-Olivier’s mess up. On the other hand, I’m actually concerned that the Nationalists might be heading towards the next election with their own Jason Micallef. If Jacques and his commenters think that by saying that Borg-Olivier should consider stepping down, as I did, is something that should have given me a choking fit or anything requiring Rennies just imagine what symptoms I’d suffer if Borg-Olivier were the wrong man and he’d cost the Nationalists the next election. Just ask Labour about the consequences of saving (political) face and keeping up (political) appearances: two decades of opposition.

Jacques says that he has repeated time and again that he does not condone of the violation of citizens’ privacy. Bravo and let me add that very much the same can be said of Thermidor. The only difference is, as his blog’s archive attests, when our privacy was so blatantly and brazenly violated by Alfred Sant he had nothing to say.

Interlude

Waiting for the first real election results from the US, hoping that most states turn blue. Blogging about the Maltese government’s Financial Estimates resumes tomorrow.

Thermidor’s back

I’m still busy. But the world doesn’t come to a halt when works in Casa Majistral are in full swing. And with Budget night in Malta and an important US Presidential election tomorrow (and a number of important “ballot initiatives”) it was too tempting to spend my evenings thinking of electricity and plumbing.