This is the first article I will have written using my spanking new laptop so if it does reach page eight on Tuesday it means that I have actually managed to overcome my tendency to treat keyboards as if I were performing some particularly stormy and percussive passage from Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Handle with care, some hovering spirit seems to be whispering in the shrieking wind outside my balcony as, for what seems to be ages and ages, January weather has really been what it is supposed to be, bitingly cold, windy, wet and thoroughly obnoxious.
President Barack Obama has been sworn in during what must have been the most avidly watched ceremony since the Prince of Wales married Diana Spencer all those years ago. After eight years of mediocrity, the world has a new leader whose charisma, background and image fits the bill in so many respects that one feels that it's almost too good to be true. Despite the magnitude of the occasion, the inauguration ceremony remains a rather provincial affair even less formal then the Oscars and a very far cry indeed from the pomp and circumstance devised in the hallowed halls of Westminster or Buck House. Nothing can compare to the Brits when it comes to putting on a good show. After the formalities, the real business of leading a superpower has already involved our Blessing in a maelstrom of activity. The Middle East problem naturally takes centre stage while we already have a pledge to eliminate Guantanamo Bay within a year. The credit crunch, which has all but crippled us, will be the next thing to apply strict and stringent damage control to and, despite our neighbouring Libyan maverick's advice to the new President to go easy on Osama Bin Laden, the war on terror just cannot be stopped just like that!
Goodness, I had practically forgotten all about Bin Laden. It is obvious that our friendly neighbour not only knows where he is but is also in touch with him... or so he says. Al Qaeda has been relatively quiet lately and is probably waiting to see how this new regime in America will perform.
President Obama was pretty explicit about the situation in his inaugural speech and it is hoped that the reconciliation and the establishment of peace between the Muslim world, both Sunni and Shiite, and traditional Western civilisation will come to pass not a moment too soon as the cataclysm of Gaza that epitomises it so graphically horrifies us with each new e-mail and newsreel.
Not all Bin Laden's dastardly plots have had totally dire consequences. Where Spain was concerned, the Madrid bombings, revolting as they were, had the effect of unexpectedly placing Josè Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in the Prime Minister driver's seat simply because Josè Maria Aznar's outgoing government handled the situation so badly.
Mr Zapatero has been so effective in Spain that El Guapo has been re-elected. As Sellars and Yeatman would have said about him, he is a Good Thing, the best thing for Spain since tapas, in fact.
From a repressed dictatorship that people my age well remember, thanks to Juan Carlos, Spain leads Europe in as far as civil liberties are concerned.
Legislation is there for all and not only the followers of this religion or that, a fact of life that is beginning to sink in even on this little rock where the letter of the law must conform while its practice is a free for all.
Last week's voting in Brussels on the famous Giusto Catania resolutions was a case in point. Our MEPs voted against removing clauses that safeguarded the rights of gay couples but had to in the end either abstain or vote against the resolution as a whole because of the inclusion of abortion. All these issues like bioethics, euthanasia, divorce, cohabitation, same-sex partnerships and other civil liberties have been swept under the carpet by our legislators for so long with the excuse that, like water, it is expected that society will always somehow find its own level and establish a modus vivendi, which I suppose is a rather cynical view of the situation as long as things are hunky-dory and go as they should.
That is precisely why I found the remarks passed by our Deputy Prime Minister when rebutting the Labour Party (PL) proposals to the rent laws last week so disparaging and offensive. The PL pointed out that, among others, gay couples are to be recognised with regard to the inheritance of leases, something that Tonio Borg, for reasons best known to him, used in a way that was bound to irritate and dismay what he may not realise is a sizeable chunk of the population. The gay community, which today not only includes the gay person him or herself, but also their families and friends, is not to be used as ammunition to fight political battles as it has enough of its own to contend with. Dr Borg's remarks were gratuitous and require an apology.
So when the President-elect, on Martin Luther King Day, barely 24 hours before his swearing in, vows to uphold the rights of all, including gay and straight, can we really expect a new age to be dawning in which the rights of man will become a reality and not just a cipher for the privileged few?
kzt@onvol.net