I.M. Beck - quote unquote

The slimy low-lifes that fester under the stone I used to lift up for you last summer are feeling their oats, it would appear. Not content with prancing about lionising sub-humans like that broken, whining old man, Adolf Hitler, may his name be cursed for ever more, now they're going around thinking it would be a clever idea to terrorise people.

Let there be no mistake: the people who torched Dr Katrine Camilleri's car this week were nothing more than filthy bullying thugs, akin in mentality, if not in race, to Hitler's miscreants. If they had lived in Germany in the 1930s, they would have been put to the torch themselves, of course, because no doubt they are the low-browed sort of half-breed outcast that the Nazis would have despised, but like losers everywhere, they adopt the habits of those whose boots they would lick, just after having been kicked by them.

The sadness that is these inadequates, however, does not mean that they are any less dangerous. For the moment, they are happy, probably to ecstatic proportions, to crawl about in the dark, setting fire to cars and doors. They do not care that by their vicious antics they are terrorising families, families with young children in the last case.

All those people who, even today, circulate racist e-mails and chuckle indulgently at the antics of the less coherent of the racists should, in the silence of their hearts, think for a moment what it is that they are condoning by their actions or, even more culpably, by their inactions. No longer can they warm their consciences by saying that they are sticking up for "Malta for the Maltese", because those who use this as their slogan are going around threatening fellow Maltese, Maltese whose only crime is to work to improve the lot of human beings who washed up on our shores.

It is now time for the people who matter, the people who form opinions and the people who lead this country, to stand up and be counted; to say "here I am, burn me if you have the courage, you vicious little racist thug".

It is time for the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and all the other political leaders to stand together, on the same platform, and forget about what divides them. They have to tell their supporters that, once and for all, we all have to understand that this country is a civilised country that has a duty to humanity and anyone who doesn't like that will just have to put up with it.

It is time for the authorities within the Church to direct their parish priests to forget about spouting generalisations and platitudes in the weekly sermon and to stand up and condemn racism, in words that everyone can understand. If that means people will mutter and grumble and walk out of the churches, well, fine, they shouldn't be in church in the first place.

What is it going to take? Is it going to take someone getting hurt in a fire? Is it going to take a child - white, black or brown - to get caught up and killed in an incident?

Poor lads

It isn't often that I feel pity for the people from the Department of Health or whatever it is that they're called nowadays. This is mainly because in my real life, part of my bill-paying is funded by being a lobbyist for A Certain Product that, quite frankly, isn't all that good for you.

So me and the medical folk, we don't get on all that well, although some of my best friends are doctors. I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one but, hey, I don't have a daughter, so that's pretty much a hypothetical.

But my heart went out to the poor guys and dolls (go on, National Council for the Promotion of Equality between Men and Women, take me to task for being sexist - do, please) who had to visit that school where there was an outbreak of Hepatitis X or Y or whatever.

Can you imagine the scene? A phalanx of irate mothers and fuming fathers, all demanding to know why their little Johnny and their blessed Kylie hadn't been given a magic inoculation as soon as, if not before, the outbreak had been detected. Anyone who has tried to explain something calmly and logically to any group of more than two will appreciate the difficulty in communicating their thoughts, and that's leaving out the real kicker in the equation, the "my child might be sick" factor.

All joking aside, every parent who has even an iota of affection for the offspring will know the trauma of even thinking that something might be wrong with Johnny or Kylie but this does not diminish the purgatory the people from the department must have suffered last week.

The thing is, no one believes the authorities anymore. Everyone thinks they know better, and the more the media feed junk science to the great unwashed, the more said g u will leap up and down and demand action this day when something, whatever that something is and however insignificant it really is, happens.

Not that people can be blamed for not having all that much respect for the authorities' respect for the truth. The US and the UK went to war in Iraq pretty much on the basis of blatant lies being told every which way from Sunday and even on the micro level, the politicians feed lies, damned lies and statistics to us on such a regular basis that you'd think they really did believe that they can fool all of the people all of the time.

Bits and bobs

With the appropriate declaration of interest (I do some work for the developer in my real life) I have to shake my head in wonder at the naivety demonstrated by the Hon. Edwin Vassallo.

The dear fellow does sterling work in sticking up for small businessmen, though the extent to which he has been successful in fighting back the bureaucratic dragon is, at best, debatable.

But did he really think that no one would see through his valiant defence of Mosta's market-stall operators last week? Does he really think no one knows he's elected from the Mosta district?

There is some controversy surrounding the market. Enemalta has sited a sub-station at the back of a development in the area and the market stalls obstruct access to the sub-station.

Enemalta has always insisted that access has to be on a 24/7 basis, and everyone who matters agrees that the market should be re-organised in order to allow this. Everyone, that is, except the stall owners, who are moderately resistant to change (now there's an understatement). Mr Vassallo, on the other hand, has said that in the event of an emergency, he is sure that the market men would dismantle their stalls quickly in order to allow emergency vehicles through. Of course they would.

While on the subject of private enterprise, those other valiant defenders of small enterprise, the GRTU, have started huffing and puffing about dual pricing and saying that it is being introduced too early.

Why, pray? Dual pricing is a reality and is it not about time people started to accept it, rather than bitchin' and moanin'?

Rock on

I make no excuses for lifting directly from the presser sent to me by the good people at BJ's because it is that time of year again, when everyone gets musical and goes down to BJ's to play and listen to live music to raise money for WOW - Wishing Others Well, the social arm of the Millennium chapel, in Paceville.

The 17th marathon of live music begins, as is the tradition, on Easter Monday at 5 p.m., and will continue for an entire week bringing all styles of music and all musicians and music lovers together in the celebration of live performance.

Over the past 17 years the marathon has raised a cumulative total of Lm100,000 for a wide variety of good causes.

In other words, get your derriere down there and drop some cash, even if you think you don't have any left after your VAT and your PT and whatever else you have to pay the flipping government.

And before that, on Saturday, get yourself over to the rugby and support Malta.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt