What's Left of Good Sense?

Without wishing to venture into any imprudent suggestions, is it out of place to note that Anthony Licari gets scarier as his thundering righteousness entrenches itself ever deeper? For the uninitiated, disquisition on this subject requires a cautious approach, lest one incur threats of police investigation as well as the mouth-foaming abuse that Licari reserves for his antagonists.
In this Saturday’s column, he limbers up for his weekly rant with a mild jog of resentment directed at his subjection to the “mental conditioning”, ahem, of society’s right-wing milieu. In more words than are strictly necessary, however, the tale of acculturative woe soon sees our plucky Licari-as-Oliver-Twist hero rip defiantly at the frontiers of intellectual constriction. “Please sir, can I have some more cultural evolution,” he seems to be saying.
Flash forward and it’s all flower power, free love, poetry readings, titled berets, rive gauche, existentialism, Sartre, Godard, but not, and please pay close attention, any mind-altering drugs or liquor that would only reduce the user to spouting incoherent, inconsequential and pointless claptrap. So don’t in any way misread this sentence, for example:

“As article followed article in the conservative press - which promised me that it had room for my thinking that the evolution of a country had to pass the test of elimination of poverty, hardship and, especially, arrogance - I became more and more convinced that the glass of water necessary to swallow the conservative pill now required a bucketful of a stronger liquid.”

Even wanting to feel sympathy for the calamitous predicament that so consumes Licari, it is far from clear what it is that he is trying to say. This deficit of clarity is in large part a consequence of what Licari thinks is a sequence of imagistic triumphs, but what is actually a man with a woefully inflated sense of his lyrical powers. A useful illustration:

“Around me there were people who spoke of "the others" as incapable of comprehending thinking and less bent on brushing their teeth. But at the same time, they slammed me with their bad breath and, when challenged to discuss without laughing and shouting, they idiotically accused me of trying to crack glorious tradition - a parody of Religio et Patria.”

As if you cared, what he is trying to say here, in his trademark pompous manner, is that some people did not agree with him about something. And as a sign of his contempt for those that go around randomly abusing people and high-handedly dispensing their rambling opinions without being asked to, he goes and makes some friends who do agree with him.

“I understood that their conviction of thinking was indistinguishable from rigid self-righteous mould. So I bid farewell to the stinking fold.”

That is perhaps just as well, as his lamentably personal approach to settling differences of outlook would only result in countless awkward cocktail parties and ensue in costly dry-cleaning bills. For Licari, his erstwhile reactionary companions are now hateful, psychologically diseased “racists” dwelling in a “dank dungeon” in a “sediment of their varicosed (sic) mental convolutions.”
The words chip and shoulder spring to mind.
Upon reading further, however, one is struck by the sneaking suspicion that the true purpose of this ill-composed diatribe may in truth be more mundane than Licari is letting on. Possibly out of boredom with the love tribute to his own earth-shattering insight, Licari’s outpourings of mental vacuity begin to take on a distinctly partisan hue.
Having cast off a couple of overt political references to Nationalist Party, the Christian Democrats that kick in “the teeth both Christianity and Democracy” (Ho ho, readers!), he gets his hands dirty with the business of political satire.

“The MLP is mistaken to think that many Labourites would have to emigrate following another PN electoral victory. Indeed, emigration is not cruel enough. It is more cruel to oblige people to live in a country where jobs and promotions are for the less competent conservatives. Ask those who went to see the Ombudsman and others who did not even bother to do so.”

And of course, for anyone that despises those that always see corruption in others, there is, er, this:

“… Labour is keeping to itself some more interesting stories about corruption and will divulge them just before the election date. I suspect that Labour is also searching energetically for more corruption stories and may discover a few more things in the coming weeks.”

On and on it goes, like a party balloon slowly having the air let out of it. All the energy and demented idealism of the column’s intro descends into a laundry list of whinges about whatever it is that has popped into Licari’s head on that particular week.
But to give him his due, for thigh-smacking chutzpah, he does leave the best till last:

“While not agreeing with its stiff military-sounding name and its lack of letters to the editor [Note: For him to write to, presumably], I agree with Maltarightnow's advice: ‘The best challenge in life is to believe in what you are.’ Friends of friends have tested this successfully.”

And could friends of friends be an immodest reference to himself, one wonders.

Blog Standard

What better subject to prompt a return to observation of the singular curse of the Maltese commentator than the new-look Times of Malta web site and its cringe-worthily incompetent embrace of modernity in the form of its in-house blogs.
The shared blandness of the three slots on offer makes it unfair to single out any of the writers for scorn, but fairness has never been Fool Cap’s bag and the eight-month hiatus has done nothing to remedy that.
In the delusional stakes, the egomania displayed by self-appointed rock star Ira Losco is of a rare and almost heart-rending quality.
On Nov. 16, as news emerged that the casualty rate from the cyclone in Bangladesh rose above 1,100 victims, Losco regales what she imagines to be her adoring readers with a quite literally somnolent account of getting up in the morning.

“Contrary to the misconception of many, I do have to wake up as early as possible to fit in a ridiculous amount of work in a day and quite frankly 24 hours are definitely not enough anymore!”

Because Losco is writing a blog, however, she can be afforded the kind of juddering non sequitir that almost any editor worth their salt would iron out, and before too long she is verbally consoling those less fortunate than her. Unlike Jennifer Lopez, she truly has not left the block, and is eager to let people know that runaway success in Malta and a not entirely disastrous showing at the Eurovision song contest has not gone to her head. In prose as crippled as the children she must weekly visit in one of the local orphanages, her compassion shines through:

“Every story is heart wrenching and sometimes incredulous, it is a clear depiction of the struggle of certain members in our society today.”

Exactly one week later (a coincidence of timing that could prompt the irremediably cynical to suggest the blog thing is nothing more than a thinly disguised column), Losco changes tack altogether and adopts the sassy guise of the perennially football-flummoxed chick. But because she’s not a chick, right, she’s a woman, yeah, she comes with a Spectrum-installable attitude straight out of Woman’s Own circa 1989:

“It's a bit like trying to explain the toilet seat rule to a man, get my drift?”

Yeah, ‘cause the men keep pissing all over the toilet seat, yeah?
This mentally offensive inanity is all fine and well, but where does it leave the Times’ apparent new remit to engage with the reader. The hoary old columnists that normally contribute to the paper are at least invigoratingly lunatic in their ramblings, which is more than can be said for the insipid non-views of Losco’s piss-poor offerings. What editorial meeting resulted in this barely literate singer acquiring her own platform to air her vapid views and flog whatever supposed career she has going for herself?
In belated recognition of the format’s interactive faculty, the latest post is adorned with craven comments of praise that would have made even Kim Il Jong blush with embarrassment. And, if the first few weeks are anything to go by, it is unlikely that the content of any of the Times’ blogs will allow reader input to rise anywhere above this sheep-like monotony.
The Guardian, which has lead the way in creating a format that allows for genuinely enlightening and vigorous exchanges, named its interactive opinion page after a quote from a celebrated essay by its legendary former editor, C.P. Snow in which he noted that “comment is free, but facts are sacred.”
How very different from The Times, where comments are worthless and facts are scarce.

D.I.V.O.

As tedious types go, there are two great strands. On one hand, you have your mage of inconsequentiality that can will reams of opinion in spite of an utter deficiency of actual beliefs. The other category is the cocktail party bore, whose gargantuan surfeit of views will cause instant mental gout in anybody so foolish as to listen. Austin Sammut, blow-hard that he is, tries to have his cake, eat it, and then shove the remains down his miserable readers' trousers.
Affecting chastely professorial ambivalence, he opens his recent opinion piece on the battered old nag of divorce by disavowing any claims to judgment. The introductory text is reproduced fully so that the reader can see, without having to consult the original article, how Sammut flip flops from meaningless one platitude to another, only to duck the actual task of offering his own utterly pointless perspective:

"The divorce debate has raised its head once again. As expected, this has happened over the years at regular intervals with the arising of every opportunity to peg onto it. It is a debate that will continue for a long time. It is a valid debate. It is not an easy one to decide upon. There are pros and cons and strong arguments on both sides. To make things more complicated (though not necessarily right or wrong) we have the Church ingredient. Quite frankly, I have my views, but no hard and fast position on the issue; but certainly it is an interesting one and worth discussing."


When millennia have passed and future archeologists somehow rescue this text from a sunken National Archive, they will remove their tin foil hats and scratch their heads in wonder at what god of indecision this devolved exemplar might have praised at the feet of.
Incidentally, it must be for just such time-distant chroniclers of the past that Sammut must feel it appropriate to patronize and insult the reader by spinning out no less than 250 words of contextualization of an issue that only an a determined cave dweller could have avoided — a point he makes himself in the very first sentence of the article.
Such tricks are the result of the low cunning that the self-absorbed megalomaniac, who thinks that the paper cannot do with any less than a thousand words of his wisdom, has to resort to. It is nothing more than a variation on the old schoolboy shortcut of doing lines faster by sellotaping three pencils to one another.
The waffle also performs the function of forcing the half-hearted reader (does The Times have any other kind?) to quite forget Sammut's erstwhile coyness about divorce once the usual half-witted arguments eventually get trundled out.
His most stimulating excursus in the midst of the pitchwater-dull exposition is a troglodytic attempt at an indictment of the levity with which the topic is handled in contemporary drama:

"We hear on television very often in some dramatic series: 'I want a divorce'! It's as simple as all that. 'I have a meeting with my lawyer tomorrow. Why don't you get yours to meet him so that they can sort things out?'"


Obviously, as the former chairman of the PBS, he speaks with some authority on the irresistible influence that broadcasting can have on the impressionable putty brains of Maltese viewers. To read Sammut's script for this terse scene, one can only lament the loss to the country's dramaturgical heritage that his competencies did not also stretch to screenwriting. This is, after all, just how people speak in real life and these are the genuine dilemmas that real people, one's without newspaper columns, have on a daily basis.
Sammut's version even has space for a saintly conscience in this scenario, albeit one that sounds more like the wife of Reverend Lovejoy from The Simpsons ("Why will nobody think of the children?") than Thomas Aquinas:

"But what about the institution of marriage, the social fabric, the family as the basis and core of our society, the good of the children?"


"But where does one draw the line?" Sammuts asks further down the page. Or, to read between the lines, "Is this waffle enough for this week?"
Sure enough, once Sammut becomes bored with his the voices in his head, he summarily signs off with an unenthusiastic call for a referendum on divorce, a Hail Mary and what almost sounds like an apology:

"Personally, I tend to be against divorce, but then who am I to impose my views on what might be a majority of the people?"

Only Criminals Don't Want to Be Nationalist

People never ask, although they should, how this site (which will probably henceforth be updated at least once a week) chooses it subjects of scrutiny. What threshold of rank foolishness must one overstep to qualify for the treatment?
In truth, the answer is sometimes a matter of fairly dry statistical inquiry. Consider, for instance, the automaton-inspired writing of Malta's uninspiring answer to Herbert Norkus, the future onorevoli Mathieu Cilia.
As has now been decreed by the Nationalist mother ship, all communications with the civilian untermensch must open with declarations of the party's unfettered passion toil and, er, labour:

"The outgoing year has been a busy one indeed for the Nationalist Party youth section."

What humane mission can these selfless militias of national pride possibly be undertaking? Why, reaching out "to the younger generation who are often labelled as being reluctant towards politics", naturally. Not reluctant to embrace the deathly throes of Cilia's crushingly beige ideology?! What responsible and strapping youngster would not embrace the possibility of latching themselves into the suicide belt of tedious mediocrity by their venerable early twenties?
Because even Cilia cannot be so obtuse as not to realise that convincing the impressionable is not as easy as it looks, he is compelled to raid the thesaurus for variations on a theme that he hopes will distract reader from the inherently staid quality of his organisation. He thus refers to "new jobs" (twice), "the young" (twice). "younger generation" (twice), "enthusiasm" (three times), "change" (twice).
But because Cilia is as obtuse as he looks, he couches his weirdly patronising allusions to the young in the setting of adult approval. The "younger generation", for all their enthusiasm, are still there to be judged by him and his middle-aged peers. At one point, he recounts how debates have been "well attended by politicians and experts in the various spheres who listened to the valid suggestions of the young audience". One can only imagine that the events were indeed attended by the self-important idiot classes that populate Malta's corridors of influence, who would occasionally condescend and evaluate the validity of the young people's views.
Because what Cilia omits to mention is that politics and politicians (both mentioned twice) switch off swathes of the Maltese "younger generations" because they do not offer engagement and dialogue (not mentioned once) but grudging acceptance into a moronic cabal of mutual gratification.
And where do statistics come into this? What words other than the mini-me management speak would a more effective propagandist utilize to appeal to the young (granted that nobody but a halfwit would use The Times to perform the deed). Engagement? Cilia does not mention it once. Dialogue. Nope. Talk. Nah. Conversation. Not. Honesty. Nyet. And the list goes on.
When he talks about work, he refers to his own party. When he talks about jobs, he does it to boast about the factory line employment that passes for economic progress these days.
How about his single use of "elections", which he uses to crow about his party winning, but his failure to acknowledge "democracy". And how about "solidarity" and "justice", popular slogan words when his party actually meant something to people other than its supporters? Zero.
If he trips himself up through the involuntary sins of omission of a prematurely middle-aged political hack, it is his grotesque aping of his adult models that really show him up for the fraud that he is. This is where the piece must end, because anyone who cannot see the perverse irony of a man supposedly tasked with galvanizing the young writing the follow sentence is already a lost cause:

"… pensions reform, which is an urgent matter if we, the pensioners of tomorrow, want a secure future."

Time Waits For No MEP

You read David Casa and wonder why Shakespeare ever bothered. For every word that the Bard has either invented or replenished with new meaning, another one has been stripped of all significance by Malta's champion wallpaper impersonator.
For several sentences into his appropriately titled article "Turning the Page", appearing in Tuesday's edition of The Indpendent, he manages to drone pointless about the symbolic value of the new year:

"A new year is like a new chapter in a story. It is a continuation of the previous one that brings new changes and new challenges. This New Year, Malta will start reaping the fruit of our hard work. A year that brings with it alterations, both on a local and international scene. Changes we should learn from so that we will be prepared for future challenges."

Next time this man comes professing his beliefs in a bid to be given another go on the gravy merry-go-round (which goes nowhere, unlike its locomotive variant), dust off the remarks above. There you will find the words of a man with a mind admirably uncluttered by original thought. Or any thought at all, for that matter.
Redundant as it may feel, force yourself to parse the extract for its almost superb elusion of substance and rank tautology.
A "new year", Casa says, is like "a new chapter". A "new chapter", he adds helpfully, in "a story". Like an aboriginal tribesman taught how to read a watch, Casa is astounded by the notion of sequentiality and novelty. Though, of course, this is deeply insulting to even the most primitive caveman, who indeed understands perfectly well the mechanics, if not the metaphysical implications, of chronological progression. For millennia, human beings have measured out the seasons and even hewn stories from natural processes that underlie our earthbound existence.
If anything, scientific and cultural modernity has brought us to an intellectual impasse in this regard. We are taught in our schools that time is an arbitrary and abstract principle, a conceptualization of an inexistent fact. Even in story-telling, it is now foolhardy to assume that "new chapters" signify novelty, moving forward. Even as far back as Lawrence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" that crude simplification of the narrative flow was questioned. Some of Andy Warhol's infamous experimental films, Empire and Sleep, further tested the presumption that lies at the heart of this cultural postulation.
Indeed, when Casa implies that the "new year" is a " continuation of the previous one", you have to wonder where he stands on all the ideas floated in the preceding paragraphs. How, bearing in mind how far our collective contemplation of chronology has come, could anyone seek to argue that one year is a continuation of another year? This very though turns the brain inside — Casa's intention perhaps.
While this is all a remote possibility, what seems more likely is that Casa's are more political than philosophical. Maltese politicians labour under the puzzling conviction that the people are braying for their pearls of wisdom, read by the masses much like a Palestinian dispossessed might huddle over his thumbed copy of the Protocol of the Elders of Zion.
To whom does the possessive pronoun refer, for instance, in the sentence "Malta will start reaping the fruit of our hard work". Would it be cynical to suggest, maybe, that this stuffed suit Eurocrat party hack could be so presumptuous as to believe himself and his smug party burdened by messianic toil, like latter-day Stalins working by his night-lamp.
Having established the concept of chronological progression, for example, he alludes to Bulgaria's entry into the European Union, which he again implies (ungrammatically) might have benefited from his efforts:

"Being a member of the EU-Bulgaria joint Parliamentary Committee, I am very pleased of (sic) the success achieved by this country."

As though only the halfwits dumped onto these pointless committees can take pleasure in the accession of this "new" EU member. The corollary to this self-centered sentiment is presumably "Not being a member of the EU-Romania joint Parliamentary Committee, I am not very pleased of the success achieved by this country".
The game, based on Casa's ego could keep a particularly stupid child happy for hours. What about "having been born in 1968, I am very pleased of the independence of Swaziland"? But, "not having been born in 1969, I am not very pleased with the moon landing". Ab initio ad nauseam.
A whole article of meaningless and self-gratifying drivel, he rounds up with yet more claims of epic labour:

"Another 12 months of hard work are waiting for us. 12 months of challenges to improve our country and marketing our abilities to attract investment that will solidify our economy."

But David, with all this heroic Stakhanovite sweat you shed for Malta (and Bulgaria), how will you find time for these articles and your new website, www.davidcasa.eu?