I.M. Beck
This is my column and...
Looking at the comments that live under this column (and virtually every other piece, for that matter) you'd be forgiven that some people labour (pun intended) that opinion columns are some sort of democratically-engineered phenomenon.
To be sure, the freedom to write and publish opinion pieces is one of the underpinnings of democracy, as anyone who lived through the 1970s and 1980s will know. And before some Lil'Elf draws herself up to her full height and upbraids me for harking back to the past all the time, let me just point out that many of Labour's finest are continually doing that little thing, so stop two-weight and measuring, if you're capable of it.
But because I'm free to disseminate my opinion, I'm free to write exactly what I like and about what I like and if this annoys some Lil'Elf who thinks that his or her personal agenda is so all-fired important that I have to, firstly, guess what is of such earth-shattering pith and moment that it is imperative that I write about it and, secondly, work out that the (sometimes limited) brain-power of multifarious Lil'Elves has been sufficient to comprehend the enormity of the issue, well tough.
And if that last paragraph was too convoluted for your average Lil'Elf, well, tough again.
So it came to pass that last week I didn't - as distinguished from many other opinion purveyors - lay down the law about the Enemalta contract. Quite frankly, the fact that the Auditor General didn't find any evidence of corruption didn't strike me as being so vitally important that I should dedicate myself to writing about it. Of course, the ladies and gentlemen of Lil'Elfdom disagree, and many of their heroines in the print media pandered to them with such smug glee that my stomach - were it not for the fact that it is quite robust - would have turned.
The thing is, so eager is everyone to assume that his or her take on any given subject is the correct one that even if the Auditor General had come out and said that the episode he had examined was evidence only of the fact that Enemalta's directors should be canonised and Minister Austin Gatt elevated to the Papacy, there would still have been howls of derision from the Labour side and equally strident howls of triumph from the other.
As it is, no evidence of corruption was found and everyone was happy - except for the Lil'Elves who thought I should have written about it and joined the chorus of the ill-informed and low-browed.
Which would have made me as vacuous and facile as certain members of the media in England who, as I write this, are having paroxysms because Gordon Brown dared to say, in the privacy of his own car, that some bigoted old lady was, in fact, a bigoted old lady. I've never been much of a fan of New Labour, especially in its Blairite manifestation, but the sheer hypocrisy of certain bits of the media is rapidly turning me on to the idea that Mr Brown would be a safer pair of hands than the two pretty boys that the Whigs and the Tories have put up.
This (Malta, I mean) is a funny old country sometimes. You get the impression, as you scan the papers and websites, that people don't actually take any notice of what's going on around them, preferring their own perception to anything else, even reality.
You get people, in this context, writing to praise that Trevisan bloke's ideas for City Gate, for all the world as if the debate was still on. Read my lips, people, the decision has been taken, now shut up and concentrate on something else. And that something else is not, incidentally, the Tignè Peninsula, which is now done and dusted and there's an end to it.
Before anyone accuses me of a vested interest or something like that, let me point out that I don't own a property there, I haven't made the pilgrimage to the shopping mall and I'm unmoved by the whole thing except to point out that between a low-end housing estate and a high-end development, I'm not going to be giving out any prizes for guessing which one I prefer.
The prize for persistent nagging and going on and on about a lost cause, though, must go to the pro-hunting lobby. Instead of shutting up and admitting that the criminal elements (and I'll concede that they're a very small minority) among the hunters have ruined it once and for all for the rest of them, they carry on trying to persuade the rest of us that black is white and bad is good, just because they say so.
Even people who should be leading by example and trying to appear reasonable carry on denying the facts in the face of the evidence and then they're surprised that the rest of us dismiss them as nothing less than a bad joke.
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Rory O'Neill
May 1st 2010, 21:05
Come on Lil Elves you really do not get it do you!! Read the Article again!!
It clearly went "whoosh " over your heads!
Rory O'Neill
Hampshire, UK.
d.attard
May 2nd 2010, 12:06
yes Mr O'Neill, we get it very very well... rest assured. What you may need to get is mood chagne. Phantom piddlers will need to stand up and be counted.
Lawrence Fenech
May 1st 2010, 18:24
Your articles have all the same taste and limited reading. Maybe a little less tongue would improve the articles even to your readers.
Andrew Borg-Cardona
May 1st 2010, 18:17
Fascinating: they all don't read my column, then they spend their Saturday mornings labouring out this stuff. Carry on, guys, it makes it all worthwhile. Don't use such rude words, though, 'cos I'm not allowed and I'll feel discriminated against....
Johnny Xerri
May 2nd 2010, 07:53
I as a hunter do not wish to tell anyone that I am on the right side of the argument. Gonzi decided that hunters have a right for spring hunting as per the judgement of the ECJ, so Gonzi and the ECJ told everyone that hunters have a right to hunting during spring.
However, I.M. Beck, harps so much about democracy that before acting as Mr. IM Always Right he should answer the following 2 simple questions:
1. What is democractic about running a false electoral and referendum manifesto?
2. What is so democractic about giving the rights to only 2500 hunters?
Good luck in answering these questions Mr. IM Beck (avoidance will prove you are the real Lil'Elf)
C.camilleri
May 1st 2010, 17:15
@ J.J Borg
I invite you to read what ex PN candidate Carmel Caccopardo wrote on the Delimara extension contract today on this same newspaper. Altru from MLP conspiracy theory. And by the way why all this resistance to make the contract public? Why all major players involved in this contract refused to co-operate with the auditor?
victor caruana
May 1st 2010, 16:26
The bloated elf with a mind but no brains wrote: 'the fact that the Auditor General didn't find any evidence of corruption.....' WRONG!!! The Auditor General did not find HARD evidence of corruption!!!! Maybe the level of the report was too much for a brainless.
I only read up to the sentence quoted above as I do not wish to jeopardise my IQ.
C.camilleri
May 1st 2010, 15:37
' the freedom to write and publish opinion pieces is one of the underpinnings of democracy'
Were you referring to the abolishing of Labour newspaper IL-HELSIEN from hospitals and government buildings under a PN government?
Does no HARD evidence of corruption means NO corruption at all?
This reminds me of the husband who caught his wife naked in bed with another man, but is satisfied that at least there was no hard evidence that she cheated on him because actually she was not caught making love with her partner. They were just there naked smoking and sipping champagne. Why should the husband mistrust his wife?
J. J. Borg
May 1st 2010, 16:37
C. Camilleri: The fact of the matter is that the MLP's conspiracy theory was dashed by the auditor's report so the MLP comes up with these lame excuses and twisted logic to try and square the circle. A more appropriate analogy would be that of a husband who obsesses that his wife is cheating on him. He therefore hires a private investigator but the latter fails to come up with any incriminating evidence. Not to be deterred, the husband insists that his wife must in fact be cheating on him because no one has shown him evidence that she is not.
T Camilleri
May 1st 2010, 23:44
J. J. Borg keep trying to defend the indefensible Borg. All the issue STINKS and has been STINKING from the very beginning. Why, for example, was the law changed to allow more polluting plants to qualify when everywhere the law is changed to prevent more polluting plants from qualifying?
Leo Bartolo
May 1st 2010, 14:28
My my my. Lord Snooty thinks that the 'lil'elves do not understand the difficult English words that he uses in his articles. Well let me tell you Lord Snooty pease do continue writing your Saturday bit in this newspaper about any subject you like. But we, the readers, have every right to critisize your ultra political-biased bits and pieces and laugh at the gaffes which you so happily include in your weekly bit. Today's bit is one big howler especially about the Enemalta contract.. Lord Snooty found the Enemalta contract innocent because' the Auditor General didn't find evidence of corruption'. Tsk, tsk Lord Snooty, that is The Beano stuff. Treat the readers of this newspaper as intelligent people at least.
james grech
May 1st 2010, 14:12
Instead of a lengthy comment about I.M.B's articles, I have decided to just post single remarks. Having said that, today's article is:
mediocre
d.attard
May 1st 2010, 13:13
Assuming that one can read and can take in the unending stream of events and their implications, assuming that one has some kind of brain (a Neanderthal one would do) to note that a given report does not exclude corruption, assuming that one has a basic uderstanding that it is government with the power and responsibility to get to the bottom of things, assuming that one has some matter to realise that the times editorial, the AD, so many ngos and individuals are not the labour party, and assuming that one does not have the commitment to call a phallic thingy a phallic thingy, then one can assume that the above piece does not assume to venture beyond assumed parameters of possibilities.
O the state to which the sorry inhabitants of of this island's enclave of inferiority-complex-magnates cum upholders of anything that walks, talks, smells and tastes of mediocrity have managed to whip us in...
john a. ebejer
May 1st 2010, 13:02
I disagree with the views expressed by john ebejer.
@ john ebejer, any chance of using your middle initial please, so people can distinguish who’s who?
Johnny Xerri
May 1st 2010, 12:46
I as a hunter do not wish to tell anyone that I am on the right side of the argument. Gonzi decided that hunters have a right for spring hunting as per the judgement of the ECJ, so Gonzi and the ECJ told everyone that hunters have a right to hunting during spring.
However, I.M. Beck, harps so much about democracy that before acting as Mr. IM Always Right he should answer the following 2 simple questions:
1. What is democractic about running a false electoral and referendum manifesto?
2. What is so democractic about giving the rights to only 2500 hunters?
Good luck in answering these questions Mr. IM Beck
J. J. Borg
May 1st 2010, 16:44
In the U.S. and Canada (and probably many other countries as well) hunting licenses are required to hunt ducks, pheasants, deer and other animals. As far as I know, no one complains that this is unfair. But in Malta it's always the "jew 'xejn jew xejn" mentality that rules.
'
Vella John
May 1st 2010, 12:21
Che palle caro collega!
John Ebejer
May 1st 2010, 12:17
It is such a pity that such space is repetitively dedicated to shooting down these 'lil'elves' or whatever they are when it can be used for much better and elevated things - issues that affect the country in this very difficult. The most difficult times since the Mintoff/KMB era. Such is the extent of the problems in Maltese society which ABC bids himself to overlook.
David Borg Cardona
May 1st 2010, 11:41
@ Joe Camilleri..
Nice one Joe.. Alas, My dear old cuz seems to think he is always right !!!!
Sergio Vassallo
May 1st 2010, 11:08
Crap and more crap and wanting people to shut up. Such arrogance reminds me of Minister Gatt.
B Agius
May 1st 2010, 10:55
Right - whatever all this means - yet another example of the defensive crap this columnist is capable of. I was going to read it but, must admit, only glanced at various lines - and now I must move on. Looks like his contributions are just self serving crap. Congratulations and tough to you too ........................!!! Oh and thanks for helping make Maltese democracy what it is! Another laugh!!
Joe Camilleri
May 1st 2010, 10:54
i wonder who is trynig to persuade the people that black is white, if it is the hunters or those who wore those black t-shirts saying that spring hunting is illegal, when to-day every body knows that it is a known and proved fact that SPRING HUNTING IS LEGALL
Gerard Cassar
May 1st 2010, 10:44
Why it is so hard for I.M.Beck to write the word hard and thus censor the auditor general.
Is there no difference between no evidence and no hard evidence. This omission reflects on all the article that means it is not reliable. This proves the bad intent of the writer who tries to brain wash his readers.
Once caught twice shy. Articles by I.M. Beck are not reliable.
Joseph Cauchi
May 1st 2010, 11:13
.
The AG said there was NO (HARD) EVIDENCE!
Whether “Hard”, “Soft”, “Mellow” or any other adjective one might like to call it, the fact remains that NO EVIDENCE was found, repeat and repeat and repeat…
N O E V I D E N C E !
Capisce (Capish!)?
Is it so difficult to understand?
Mamma Mia!
JC.
d.attard
May 1st 2010, 13:28
The report states: no hard evidence
but cauchi decides to remove 'hard' ie no evidence
now attard decides to remove 'no' ie evidence
honestly!