Love Is...

Can you see Pope Benedict XVI as a sex therapist? Well, I couldn't either until reading Christine Sammut's fantastically bawdy piece of pastoral guidance on issues carnal in Wednesday's issue of The Times. It seems that these days, people just don't think they can get down with the kids unless they are prepared to talk about intra-sheet activity. But as George Bernard Shaw noted "Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!". But Sammut, on the other hand, certainly seems to know a thing or two about what one could coyly term as horizontal dancing, though the fact she seems to put Pope Benedict's latest hit encyclical on a par with the Kama Sutra is probably not a promising sign. From early into the article, one is assailed with the doubt about this person's authority on the subject:

"Our society, and mostly, the media, exalt one aspect of sexuality - the body and the physical aspect of sexuality - most commonly known as the Eros."

Most commonly known as Eros, you say. With the ambiguous and perversely prudish enlightenment characteristic of religious youth workers, Sammut proceeds to construct a frail and unconvincing position on the fulfilment, or lack thereof, that sex brings with it:

"Many young people have come to realise, only too often, that having a sexual relationship which is only fulfilled in its physical aspect brings them only to an 'ecstasy' which is short-lived and leaves them always searching for something more."

This sort of psychological reaction is not exclusive to sex of course. Indeed, as I read Pope Benedict's encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, I derived a transitory frisson of pleasure, but once the moment had passed I felt dirty, used and abused. After that I had to move on to harder stuff; some Thomas Aquinas, a draw on Saint Augustine, and a few lines of Cardinal Newman. In sexual matters, Sammut suggests that the youth look to heighten the intensity of their ecstasy by other means:

"Many are those who seek to embellish the experience through various means, some outright addictive or perverse. But the end result is always the same: emptiness and hurt which is gaping inside."

What Sammut means by means that outright perverse is probably not wise to speculate about. But it should be clear that while she is contrary to perversion resulting in hurt, it is not as though she is discouraging sharing the love in itself. Indeed, as she urges the young libertines of Malta:

"And so, our invitation to all young people is one: dare to open your gift!"

But it turns out that the gift is letting your other half discover you and connect with you spiritually. What utter drivel! Presumably, she must believe that this kind of clerical mumbo-jumbo can be sold to her horny-handed charges at the University, but what she is not aware of is that Maltese students are as hypocritical as they are dim. While they may eagerly go to seasonal masses and piously profess their Catholic identity, they equally conveniently forget about all that when it comes to the dirty business of spiritually unfulfilling, er, sexual relationships.
So, as grateful we doubtless are to Pope Benedict XVI (who Sammut promotes to Pope Benedict XVII in the byline) for endowing us with his sanctified views on Eros and agape, we will probably have to reconcile ourselves that its contents will be unheeded by the most of Christine Sammut's intended audience. So for the time being, it will be more Ann Summers and less Christine Sammut.

Don't Watch This Space

One of the more popular genres of columns appearing in The Times opinion pages are the articles ostensibly based on the given writer's academic background. Though journalists in most countries have been to University, none are so eager to prove evidence of this than those writing in Malta's paper of record. The skill of individual practitioners of this type of writing, inasmuch as they have any skill, is to apply the specifics of their often pointless academic discipline to the context of Malta. Which is where Charles Xuereb's article on Tuesday comes in. He begins innocently enough, with what looks like a feature on the upcoming Maltese TV schedules:

"At this time of year television stations in Malta are busy preparing their autumn schedules. Some have already made their calls public while others, notably the public broadcaster, is about to issue its call for new or established programmes to fill in the schedules between October 2006 and June 2007."

Of course, the cynical may note that television stations in Malta are not so much preparing the schedules as wondering how much telebejgh they will have to broadcast to pad out the schedule and pay for their cardboard sets and cover the salaries of their dipsomaniac lighting technicians. Immediately, the eagle-eyed reader will suspect that Xuereb is attributing the ultra-competitive strategies of British, American or Italian broadcasters to frankly pathetic morons that produce television locally. It takes quite some stretch of the imagination to think that sharp-suited media analysts at Net are at this very moment carefully designing some killer line-up to knock whatever amateurish variety show for and by spastics at Super One on a Saturday afternoon off the top of the ratings board.
Xuereb then laboriously concludes that, indeed, scheduling is not an actual function of Maltese television. He attributes this to tight financial resources, overlooking the fact that the people charged with the task are, more often than not, little more than dribbling jabberjaws. Though apparently, in their Cro-Magnon brilliance they have arrived at an astounding fact:

"Over the past decade or so Maltese television seems to have accepted the norm that popularity is the way ahead."

After a few more paragraphs of only very faintly relevant abstractions about the Maltese television scene, Xuereb takes refuge in the cosy drabness of academese, complete with customary bibliographic references:

"Media researchers, among them Timothy Legatt, a UK communications consultant, when discussing quality give special meaning to choice, range, variety, balance and appreciation. Mr Legatt concludes that popularity does not necessarily indicate viewers' opinions as to programme quality (Legatt in Ishikawa, 1996). Viewers tend to employ a different scale of values in judging quality."

Hm, yes, how very true. I admit that it's been a few years since I've properly watched Maltese television, as even when I have been in the country, the broken Melita Cable box will not show TVM. As it is that I regularly return for Christmas, I do get to watch L-Istrina, which profoundly challenges my "scale of values in judging quality". It does this because there is no part of rational brain that can feasibly account for how awful the experience of watching that show is. As I imagine is the case with most people, my scale of values ranges from excellent to absolutely terrible, yet L-Istrina so comprehensively transcends any accepted degree of badness, that the viewing experience becomes an almost mystical detachment from standard cognitive norms. And yet, L-Istrina is hardly a great departure in terms of quality and content from the standards of Maltese broadcasting, which leaves Xuereb's bookish observations on their arse.
The very title (Quality on Television) and reccuring theme of the article (the word "quality" appears thirty times) is fundamentally alien to the realties of super-cheapo local television. But Xuereb describes a scenario that sounds like another country, if not another planet:

"Professional broadcasters and distinguished members of the public on the other hand have specific criteria for quality on television. Broadcasters feel that quality lies in their work: technical accomplishment and programme content. In the latter they are concerned with clarity of objective, innovativeness and relevance to viewers' current concerns. This complements the view from on high where, according to a set of distinguished persons, quality broadcasting should offer diversity of choices, opportunities at good viewing times to as many different tastes and interests as possible and assumes programming to seek constantly to renew, not to repeat formulae, to explore, to take risks, to push the boat out, to extend the frontiers and to take itself and the audience by surprise."

The vast majority of broadcasters (which became considerably vaster after the death of Charles Arrigo) may be professional in the sense of being paid, but they are hardly professional in the sense of competent. As for the distinguished people who comment on programming in the papers, in Malta this primarily consists of those who believe that watching the Biography Channel constitutes the height of intellectual sophistication.

Pulling it Off

While most papers across the world are currently offering pull-out sections on the World Cup to entice readers, Il Foglio, owned by the Italian Prime Minister's wife, has adopted an unusual tack. The entirety of Wednesday's issue itself came as a supplement of a decidedly bizarre representation of Silvio Berlusconi, which constituted the day's cover for the newspaper. Indeed, as the paper's slavish adoration of the Prime Minister continues to ascend to white-hot intensity, Wednesday's cover presented a fusion of Berlusconi's face and Hans Holbein's painting of Erasmus of Rotterdam. The details of the fatuous parallel that the accompanying article charts is only available to Internet readers via pdf downloads, but anybody unwilling to invest in the time and effort that that involves need only know that it is typical Italian pseudo-intellectual journalese. The following extract from the opening paragraph should render the idea:

"E il Cavaliere zoppicava, eccome se zoppicava. Il ginocchio era immobile (come consequenza della deambulazione incerta), ma tutto il resto era mobilitato, perche il ginocchio, strumento della follia, assomma in se, in quanto strumento pratico della locomozione, tutte le venture del cammino della vita: genu (ginocchio, in ittita), genus, gens, gony (ginocchio, in greco), gignoskein (conoscere), gignesthai (divenire), Knie (ginocchio, in tedesco), kennen (conoscere)."

Which is all very nice, though the article might have added another part of the body, "coglione", which is what Berlusconi called a heckler after leaving a public meeting in Genoa on Wednesday. It is probably indicative of something that Berlusconi's prime ideological cheerleader must resort to this type of abstruse waggishness. The other main channel of Forza Italia propaganda, Il Giornale, will almost certainly maintain its relentless effort on the off chance that some hapless voter will take its title literally and buy the paper.
Though the pro-government papers would have been likely to adopt the aggressive line in any event, the fact that so much of the establishment media (namely, Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, and Sole 24 Ore) has openly favoured the opposition has sharpened the lines of division. Most notably, the editor of the Corriere della Sera, Paolo Mieli, wrote an editorial before the electoral campaign even began expressing his decision to vote for the centre-left coalition. Sure enough, as the election day approaches, tempers are beginning to fray, as Luciano Violante's outré reflections on Berlusconi's alleged vicinity to the mafia have given rise to vigorous counterattacks.
Il Foglio, therefore, is performing the function of shoring up support, instead of courting it. As the certainty of a centre-left victory becomes ever more evident, the Berlusconi camp appears to investing most of its effort in strengthening Forza Italia's future stake in parliament. Several articles have appeared in the press suggesting the existence of hairline fractures within the the Casa della Liberta' coalition, so eyes are inevitably being pointed towards post-electoral scenarios. So, can we expect another pull-off supplement from Il Foglio? If so, I would suggest that Erasmus is a hint too recherché. What you really need as a role model is an Italian with a well documented knack for communication. So as not strain the Photoshop programme, he should also be balding. Meanwhile, for ideological continuity, he should hate communists and take a vigorous position against media dissidents. I wonder...

Man of Libya

And on another rare venture into the notice-board territory of linking, I see that a young talent in faraway Libya has advertised my existence on his "blog". It is interesting to read about that country, although I hear that they spend the entire period of mass on their knees, unlike the weekly minute that Catholics devote to this practice. It is probably unsafe in this time of cartoon Mohammeds to suggest that this sort of behaviour might be a little foolish, but at least if we Westerners can say that sort of thing, we will do it standing up. Or sitting down perhaps.

Immigrant Readers Needed

And in a note of petulance, I must add that it is hugely ungratifying that while that fool Anthony Manduca, who does not even have O-Levels (I imagine), can gain the attention of 350,000 readers just by writing his cruddy pieces about Italian politics in The Times, I must settle for 16 daily readers as of mignight on Sunday. And half of those are confused Indians pressing the "Next Blog" button.
It all makes me think this whole blogging thing might just be for the vain or the obsessed. To think that an oblique reference to me in an Anthony Licari (God bless him) column constituted the last spike of visits to my site. Where are all these Maltese poseurs and pseudo-intellectuals when you need them to ramp up the value of your google ads? I can only suppose they are prancing around bare Valletta flats pretending to be gay, the wretched cretins that they are. Meanwhile, the Fgura Morlocks, close cousins of the Zabbar lumpen and the Bormla scruffs, are slowly taking over the intellectual space of Malta. When I say intellectual space, I do of course mean the ability to install chip motherboards and such; but you will not be affecting that pained smile when these nerds have hacked into the presidential mainframe. By the mercy of the Virgin Mary, these goons are not yet aware of the fact that they have the future of Malta within their sun-starved, aenemic grasp, but it is only a matter of time. And here I am with a mainly Indian readership.

Striking When the Fire Is Hot

Although most people know Italy as the home of pizzas, pasta, and brigandism, it is a little known fact that it also hosts an extensive range of newspapers. It was in this knowledge, at least, that I ventured into a local petrol station in the hope of buying some of the choice selection. However, as a gnarly-knuckled local informed me, the newspaper journalists of Italy went on strike on Saturday, for reasons that some cynics have attributed to their convenient unwillingness to work over the weekend. Indeed, it is suspicious that when they do strike, it tends to be on weekends, when they manifest their discontent over the particular issue at hand by going on picnics, instead of picketing their own offices on cold, windy Tuesday mornings.
Anyway, it is certainly true that Italian hacks are among the laziest in the world and are rarely enthusiastic about the idea of leaving the confines of their own office space. Yet, in bold blacklegging mode, a newspaper nominally owned by Silvio Berlusconi's brother, Il Giornale, went to the presses, leaving the news-hungry with no choice but to invest in its contents. Now, the name, "The Newspaper", is perhaps overly truistic for some tastes, but it only takes a plunge into its murky depths to realise that there is indeed little newspaperly about it.
But before entering into the merits of one select article from Sunday's edition, some background should be given.
Il Giornale first appeared in 1974 with Indro Montanelli as its editor. Montanelli was, by all accounts, accorded absolute editorial freedom until 1994, the year that Berlusconi threw his hat into the political ring. Once Montanelli had refused to endorse Berlusconi's Citizen Kane-style ascent to political power, it was curtains for him.
Interestingly, another controversial figure took charge at the paper in the period of the lunatic Northern League's unhappy spurt of popularity. Vittorio Feltri, erstwhile editor of L'Indipendente, was and is a journalist whose sensibilities were tuned to the Fox News style of reporting a full decade before that station came to prominence. Under his tenure, the newspaper was perversely turned into a print soapbox for the shrill brand of dementia embodied in promised secessionist, Umberto Bossi. Though Feltri has since moved on to a vastly more offensive publication (Libero, which like In-Nazzjon is sadly unavailable on the Internet), he left his mark on Il Giornale. In fitting with its fundamentally fascist matrix, Il Giornale, whose title even suggests an air of government-approved bulletin over the objective subjectivism of other "red" rags, is little more than agitprop of the most vulgar quality. Anyone interested in knowing what this looks like when written in English should invest (sic) in a biography of Mussolini by Nicholas Farrell, an occasional contributor to Libero and unashamed fascist apologist.
For those interested in what it looks like in Italian should visit Il Giornale itself, whose blacklegging issue featured a standard exemplar of the type of bottomless hypocrisy that informs Italian politics of all hues (though mostly right-wing, at this given moment). It is hard to provide a coherent précis for the soap opera that is Italian politics, but ... some days ago, a violent anti-capitalist protest took place in Milan in which several businesses were vandalised. Predictably, this incident has taken on political qualities, with the right's plangent insistence that the parliamentary left was somehow instrumental in these happenings, as well as the isolated incidents of baby-eating of war-time Ukraine, which the historically minded will recall had then been snatched from the COMMUNIST Russians by the benevolent, and so on so forth.
As veteran observers of the Maltese political scene will also remember, nothing melts as many hearts as grand Walesa-style professions of solidarity(TM). As a result, while one lot is solidarising (this word, that I thought I had fashioned from Romance equivalents, gets 182 google results) with the oppressed Iraqis, some other people are busy doing the same for oppressed Milanese merchants. As a result of the one-upmanship that this sort of political contest involves, Il Giornale's febrile propaganda crew have heaved out this trite bit of electioneering, which rings with sweet irony as Berlusconi recovers from the politically expedient "back pains" exacerbated by his raucous speech at this weekend's Confindustria, Chamber of Commerce to you and me, meeting:

"Quel corteo era sacrosanto, come lo erano le ragioni che lo hanno ispirato. La prima è nel fatto che i commercianti, i quali aprono le vetrine sulla strada, sono i più esposti alla violenza, dalla quale vanno protetti. E hanno imparato che esistono gruppi di teppisti politici i quali hanno come fine quello di turbare la vita delle città: perché questo è il segno della loro esistenza, e di un potere sul territorio da affermare ogni tanto e con ogni mezzo."

Yes indeed readers, Mamma Mia, as the Italians love to say. It looks like democracy is not only under attack from Muslamic Nazimentalists and Blafrican refugistas, but also from the vanguardist wing of the anarchic crypto-democratic-Maoist-Bakuninite phalange led by Romano Prodi, a man whose inspires pity, rather than just inspiring.
On a personal note, I should add that the stroke-like feelings induced by the provocative qualities of Italian journalism are marginally inferior to caused by Maltese newspapers. So it looks like this is still going to be a restful holiday

Desperately Seeking Marmara'

Even here in Italy there is Internet, which means that the citizens of the so-called Belpaese will not have been deprived this sensationally foolish article by Desmond Zammit Marmara'. Because, as is always the case with columns this exasperatingly ridiculous, it is impossible criticise the article rationally and coherently, I have chosen to merely substitute Marmara’s references to teenagers with his own name. The result makes for much more enlightening reading. Though for legal reasons, I should probably add that it makes for enlightening reading that has no absolutely no basis in fact. Probably.

"Criticism of the lifestyle of Desmond Zammit Marmara' has become very common here in Malta. This is rather worrying because most contributions on the issue that appear in the local media usually target the symptoms and not the causes of the problems associated with Desmond Zammit Marmara'.
Desmond Zammit Marmara' is criticized for his iconoclasm, for his violent rejection of authority, for his amoral sexual life, for the way he succumbs to vices such as drink and, even worse, drugs.
Yet, do we stop to reflect on what is causing Desmond Zammit Marmara' to act as he does? Do we stop to reflect on whether Desmond Zammit Marmara' is the victim of the society he has grown up in?
One has to keep in mind that Desmond Zammit Marmara' lives in a globalized world where he is exposed to values and lifestyles which often come into conflict with the traditional values and lifestyles of a formerly insular society such as Malta's.
Through the Internet, films, magazines, foreign travel, or contact with tourists, Desmond Zammit Marmara' is continually bombarded with the message that there are no absolute values and that he should live as he desires without any reference to moral yardsticks as these are in themselves relative and no longer relevant in the times we are living in. A message which is, of course, incorrect, but that is the reality that Desmond Zammit Marmara' lives in!
Take sexual lifestyle as an example. Why are some people scandalized by the sexual lifestyle of Desmond Zammit Marmara'? Have we stopped to think about the way Desmond Zammit Marmara' is bombarded with the message that unfettered sexual activity is perfectly normal and one of the joys of being Desmond Zammit Marmara'? Today, not only films convey this message, we even have magazines distributed with respectable local newspapers read by the whole family which contain advertisements with pictures sometimes bordering on soft porn!
Which is why it is our duty as more mature adults to do something concrete to help Desmond Zammit Marmara' to live a better quality of life. Condemning his lifestyle without doing anything positive to help him is worse than doing nothing!
We need to use the resources available through the media to present alternative, more wholesome lifestyles to Desmond Zammit Marmara'. This can also be done through further developing the personal and social development aspect of education.
Of course, this should not be done in a patronizing manner to show that we, the more mature adults, know better than Desmond Zammit Marmara'. Rather, it should be done in a spirit of solidarity with Desmond Zammit Marmara' because it is our responsibility to provide him with a better future, with models of wholesome lifestyles and not ones which lead to a dead end."

Mamma Mia!

This week, Fool’s Cap is in Italy, which is currently in the throes of an extended electoral campaign. As many people will know, Italy too has newspapers, some of which are not at all bad. Though not according to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, owner of the losing finalist in last year’s Champions League, who believes all newspapers, other than the ones he owns himself, to be in collusion with the forces of an international communist plot.
And as in Malta, there is no shortage of sages expounding their opinions on all shades of human endeavour in the papers. Indeed, possession of an opinion and a readiness to wield it seems to provide a livelihood for many Italians who might otherwise resort to a life of organised crime and bag-snatching, as so many of their compatriots have done. And because the country’s media is such a messy gruel of light entertainment, quizzes, improvised strip shows, sensationalism, carpet-bagging salesmanship and low journalism, there is no want of formats for these individuals to nestle themselves within.
Consider the case of one Giampiero Mughini, who most Maltese people will know as the Juventus-supporting boor that regularly crops up on some Sunday football programme or other. With the sense of shamelessness that only the supporter of such an unreconstructedly plutocratic sporting outfit could muster, he routinely bills himself as a polemicist, which is apparently considered in Italy to be a legitimate professional class.
Indeed, while my dictionary informs me that the English word ‘opinionist’ is to considered archaic, the Italian variant is bandied around with careless abandon, as though the practitioners of that dark art were somehow noble descendants of Cato himself. One should be mindful to distinguish the opinionista (a word that sounds uncannily like some Fleet Street neologism) from the columnist, who will in normal countries be relied on to provide a specific tone and style alongside the rash of standard, ill-informed views. In Italy, however, the essence rather than the form of the opinion is paramount, provided it comes from the mouth of a certified opinion-holder.
When the Saturday edition of Il Foglio, a paper owned by none other than Silvio Berlusconi’s wife, indulged in some gentle joshing of its beloved Prime Minister, it was done in a coordinated communion of erstwhile and current Mediaset trough-feeders, from the grotesque Guiliano Ferrara, once of Radio Londra and other similar programs, to Carlo Rossella, formerly head of TG5 and Berlusconi’s once-favoured nominee for the chairmanship of RAI, and Giampiero Mughini, who pockets weekly cheques in the football season for irritating the viewing public. The exercise of soft-pedal satire, at which the Italians are so adept, was designed effectively to convey the impression of an affable aptitude for self-mockery, which Berlusconi indulges in so frequently. Mercifully, most Italians recognise this oleaginous sycophancy for what it is, and will hopefully act accordingly on the given day.
But the opinionist does not need to be instrumentalised (another charmingly non-English Italianism) to become contemptible. In a way, the readers and correspondents of Italian newspapers are complicit in the Brahminisation of the columnist. In the Italian version of The Times, Il Corriere della Sera, a letters page editor sits in attendance awaiting the calls of counsel of his salivating readership. Though the requests of illumination from up on high, in this paper’s case from the patrician Sergio Romano, normally relate to current affairs, this need not necessarily the case. His long-standing predecessor Indro Montanelli, who left the post for reasons of death, was quite able to field questions about historical matters ranging as far back as the Napoleonic Wars, as he was in fact 250 years old and had been reporting conflict since the Battle of Austerlitz. Romano’s style, on the other hand, comes across as more schoolmasterly, and it is with its accordingly avuncular superciliousness that one Saturday, he answered a request for information about Cardinal Richlieu that sounded as though it had been written by a student preparing a school project. The letter:

“Mi piacerebbe leggere un suo «ritratto» di Armand-Jean Du Plessis, meglio noto come il cardinale Richelieu.
La sua azione politica, oltre alla sua leggendaria capacità, è fonte per me di grande ammirazione.

Lorenzo Trabalza”

Si, Romano! Tell-a-me everything! Romano tell you, you no worry…

Caro Trabalza,
debbo supporre che lei non sia stato, negli anni della sua adolescenza, un accanito lettore di Alexandre Dumas. Per i ragazzi che sono cresciuti divorando «I tre moschettieri» e «Vent’anni dopo», Richelieu è un prelato intrigante e maligno, continuamente intento a fabbricare trame e complotti contro le nobili figure del re e della regina… [and on and on, he continues in this vein]”

Which all probably proves a version of the adage; readers get the newspapers they deserve.

The Locals are Revolting

Is the world coming to and end? It was with no small measure of astonishment that I found the coverage of the local elections in The Times to be informative and detailed in the right measure. Astoundingly, even the editorial was timely as well as sensible. The cartoon, however, was of the "say what you see" standard, though even the most unyielding optimist would be foolish to expect anything in that quarter. The Times wonders what the sources of disaffection might be:

"Is it a sign of no confidence in the local council system per se? Or is distrust the result of the manner in which the political parties dominate council and councillors? Could it be that electors are using local elections to demonstrate discontent at the way the country in general is being run, in which case local councils are having to shoulder shortcomings over which they have no control whatsoever?"

For a change The Times is asking the right questions. First, it was only obvious that the appeal of local elections was not necessarily the most sensitive barometer of the political mood. When the voters of Marsaxlokk elected an (allegedly) illiterate fisherman as their mayor, what did that say about the position of those villagers on the political spectrum? Perhaps that they are socially conservative, fiscally prudent, like fish, and what you thought was a collection of encyclopaedias is actually a plastic cover for the DVD collection. What's more, most of those DVDs are Jean-Claude Van Damme films, not forgetting the worn-out VHS copy of Best of the Best.
Distrust may also be an overvalued element. As the Maltese like telling visting foreigners, the island is so small that most people know eachother. Thanks be to God, this is untrue. But in many localities, that description is not far off the mark, which makes the issue of trust not wholly relevant. One tends develop certain attitudes towards potential canditates, say someone known locally as Censu is-sikkina, on the basis of intimate knowledge of personalities rather than conviction in that individual's competence.
It could be that people have used the local elections to "demonstrate discontent at the way the country in general is being run". The main trend coming out of these and previous elections, however, has been the decline in voter turnout. As the day's leading story relates "turnout was 66 per cent, down from 88 per cent in 2003, and 71 per cent in 2000". Cursory analysis suggests that the voter have not much used the election as not used the election, if that's clear.
What is less satisfying about this editorial piece is the mystifying lack of answers:

"The messages are clear. If the political parties wish to ignore them, as they are prone to do, it will only be at their peril. A close analysis of the results ought to show that promises of rose gardens are as ineffective as preaching gloom and doom.
The electorate has evidently decided to put their interests first, be it on local or national issues."

To paraphrase, the results show that promising too much is bad, as is saying things are not going well. And that's clear. You can ignore that, but don't tell me I didn't warn you. Oh, and the electorate has put their interests first. We don't why, but they have. Alright?!
Now, can I be bothered to delete that first paragraph? Nah!

Stop Overty

For reasons largely connected with boredom I wandered onto this sanctimonious website, which grandly claims to be "putting pressure on the world's political leaders to keep their promises to help the poor". That's not before it dared to accuse me of not caring about world poverty.
But I didn't even have to read to be verbally assaulted in this fashion. Some surly oik's decidedly well-to-do voice mysteriously materialises unbidden to harangue the unwitting net-surfer with his pitiful plea. He is then succeeded by his female colleague, with whom I imagine he is immorally cohabiting, as is the fashion among this "compassionate" sort, who exhorts the visitor to spell Stop Poverty with one 'p'.
What good do these wretched people think this is doing anybody?

The Poverty of Nations

It is reading articles like this one by Manuel Borda that tempt me into jacking it all in and taking up the cause of National-Bolshevism once and for all. Luckily, the cause of the market will probably not hinge on the substance of this kind of incoherent gibberish, so I will not forswear liberal democracy just yet. As the beginning is the best place to start, that is where I shall do it:

"Max Webber, in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, maintains that Britain succeeded to become the workshop of the world because of its religious values and practices, which forced the people to carry out their duties scrupulously. J.A. Tickner, in Self-Reliance versus Power Politics, based economic development on the blending of traditional values with economic exigencies."

As Borda's by-line has it, he is "an economist specialising in the economic development of small states". And in the typical fashion of a contributor to The Times, he attempts to bolster his alleged academic credentials by name-dropping some intellectual heavyweights, such as Max Weber, whose surname he manages to misspell.
So far, so good, if one is to be magnanimous. Where newspaper commentary pieces should ideally be concise and breezy, Borda strives to show off the breadth, if not the depth, of his reading. If you can only manage an undergraduate-style essay like his, it is probably only fair to concede that he doesn't too bad a job. But as any fools knows, all students need guidance and supervision, the same way that all journalists need an editor. Perhaps that way this sentence could have been phrased differently:

"Apparently, the only common denominator that runs across countries in our day is that governments are appointed through periodical reference to the electorate."

By which he means, "Most countries today are democracies". Not that that would be a particularly accurate way of putting either. And the essay, or article, continues in just this vein, though it gradually slides from University student paraphrasing set texts to sixth former copying and pasting out of Encarta. This frankly childish exemplar is indicative of just that:

"Whereas [Adam] Smith was balanced and objective in his analytical approach, Marx stressed that it was labour that created wealth and propagated the idea of labour power. This paved the way for a more extreme socialist atmosphere.
It found fertile soil in Russia when two formidable political leaders - Ulianoff, who called himself Lenin, and the Jew Bronstein, who had taken the name of Trotsky - initially assumed all political power after the Czar was forced to abdicate. Ultimately, it was Lenin who became the sole authoritarian."

Overlooking the distinctly dubious reference to "the Jew Bronstein", which has Merchant of Venice stamped all over it, the historical narrative is utterly sophomoric. As for what it contributes to the democracy as a complement to a strong economy argument, that's beyond me. Appropriately enough, Borda trudges on in this vein for a couple more paragraphs before realising that he's in over his head and gives, choosing instead to have a bash at Asian tigers.
In four linguistically tortured paragraphs he arrives at the heart of the thesis, which for those that do not actually want to read the original article (and who could blame you?) is that social welfare can be bad for the economy. At this point he forgot to remind the reader about the time he read that book by Friedrich von Hayek, though it is quite possible that his works have not yet been published in a pop-up version.
After 15 godforsaken paragraphs of this crud, Borda applies the sum total of his expertise on the economic development of small states by introducing the Maltese perspective:

"Over the years, particularly since the Seventies, this has also been seen in Malta. For decades we had a bloated public service and many government entities were created so that they could serve as vehicles for political patronage."

Well, duh! I vowed myself that I would never resort to such asinine interjections, but when you've got to, you've got to. I will say for Borda though, that he's too bad a student of the widely embraced belief that democracy and successful economies are necessary bedfellows to argue it convincingly. Expert ideologues are adept at being selective in illustrating evidence, but Borda throws the whole bucket at us and hopes that we don't notice the shortfalls. So he breezily pops this out, without expecting the reader to wonder how exactly it fits into the tidy formula:

"China, too, though not completely abandoning its political ideology, has introduced the market economy because it too discovered that the way it used to manage the economy was very restrictive and did not allow it to flourish."

Though this is missing the point. Which is, very simply, that although Malta continues to be cursed with a virulently clientelistic political order, we should not necessarily infer from this that democracy in the country is fundamentally compromised. Not that you can blame Borda for that. He does have to feed his family after all.

Method and Madness

How many forms can foolishness take? As most readers of this blog would probably concur, The Times and its contributors are indisputably an overflowing cornucopia of ludicrousness, though it is not without some disappointment that latterly this has manifested itself in the drab ramblings of witless bores. Thus, when I (metaphorically) opened up Monday's issue of the paper and found Carmel J. Delia's nonsensical asininity, I was relieved to find that The Times has extended its retinue of loons to the category of good old-fashioned cranks.
Still, I am confused. Delia's style feels like it would be more at home amidst the litany of Americanate giddiness that is the unwholesomely titled basketball column "Take it to the Hole".
The irrepressible high spirit of Delia’s outpourings certainly doesn’t look comfortable alongside dog-impersonator Lino Spiteri's characteristically dull article. An image that comes to mind is of a clown at a funeral.
And the less said of Joseph Muscat's contribution the better. Though it would be amiss not to note that of the 1278 words reserved for this buffoon’s article, only 279 of them were actually written by him. The rest is a huge chunk of text lifted directly out of the Convergence Plan 2005-2008 to the European Union. I am lost for words as to how to remark on this unashamed indolence, other than calling for Muscat to be publicly horsewhipped.
So how does Delia fit into all this? Someone once offered me a fascinating theory for the proliferation of village crazies in Russia. At the height of the Stalinist purges, even personal behaviour was subject to the suspicion of authorities or officious neighbours. Consequently, talking out of turn would immediately be reported to the secret police. Likewise, anyone not saying anything at all could be reported, as they might be thinking subversive thoughts. The only solution was to talk rubbish all day, which meant that you were probably just an idiot. Which brings us back to Delia.
But is rubbishing Delia fair? To pursue the Russian thread, there is much in his writing that is reminiscent of the skaz genre, best executed in my opinion by Soviet humorist Mikhail Zoshchenko. This author in particular was best known for his coruscating commentaries on the absurdness of daily Soviet existence. To quote from The Literary Encyclopaedia, "skaz appeared quite widely ... as a parodic device, undermining narrative (and/or central) authority by invoking the discourse of the “other” (implicitly the “not-author”)". To put it crudely, by adopting this curious prose style, the writer contrives to obviate the appearance of dissent; a highly perilous activity in Stalinst Russia.
What Delia is so afraid of is not yet clear. Could the organising committee of the Malta Song for Europe pose as horrifying a threat as Dzerzhinsky's chekist menace? Surely only the prospect of their cruel repression could account for this inspired lunacy:

"As The Beatles once sung, money can't buy love, but it might be just the tool one needs to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. Unless, of course, a knackered microphone, or two, gets in your way!
Yessiree, one does get knackered microphones even in this day and age of face transplants and orbiting spacecraft!"

And the next quote is pure Gogolian madness, though the cavalier use of language leans more towards the poetry of Archy the cockroach:

"Now, everyone knows that these days going to a hairdressing salon is almost a must and so practically everybody does pay a visit to these salons, especially so women."

The choice quotes are far too many to include here, despite the commendable brevity of the column itself. So after my wavering indecision, I have decided that in Delia we have indeed been endowed with a subversive holy fool. A great day for The Times! A great day for Malta!