What to write about; there’s plenty to pick and choose from – US President Barack Obama and a brief chat I had last Sunday with a fervent disciple who thought a truth I expressed about the senator’s record on voting was a canard; or I could take a stab at his attempt to repeal the Mexico City Policy – or has he already done so? – which means American foreign funds being siphoned into the bank accounts of international NGOs that perform or promote abortion (a contribution to the spread of the culture of death that amounts to a breath-taking form of cultural imperialism); there’s Elena Kagan, Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court and the Senate’s confirmation of that nomination; there’s David Cameron’s telling-it-as-it-is on Pakistan because, he thinks, that is how it should be told; (which is impressive but nonsense); there’s the persecution of the Church in China and in Muslim countries; there’s my receipt of a bumper edition of The Chesterton Review that made it, only just, through a slat in my window shutter and kicks off with the great man himself on ‘Why I Became a Catholic’ (which in fact he did before becoming one) – to name but a few things from which to select a talking point.
And on the home front there are the pre-Budget document, Joseph Muscat’s visit to Libya and his understandable concern over a BP deep sea drilling project, his less comprehensible criticism of the decision not to lower tax rates at this critical stage in the ongoing battle against the onslaught of 2009; there are the remarkable and heartening figures on the tourism front, the get-together of our ambassadors and high commissioners for pep talks on this and that with an emphasis on promoting investment in Malta by their host countries, the divorce debate and the line-up, by some, behind a referendum or a parliamentary vote to decide the issue well before either can be held or cast – to name but a few more items from which to choose a point for discussion.
So let’s kick off with a quick look at speed cameras, emissions, Transport Malta in the context of proposals in the pre-Budget document. Nothing wrong with speed cameras when they are usefully employed; there are instances when they are uselessly deployed.
Take the ‘motorway’ past Mrieħel that gets you to the traffic lights on the other side of the offices of the Malta Financial Standards Authority if you are driving towards Attard, or to the ‘fly-over’ that positions you on the short stretch of road where car mechanics toil before you fork right towards Luqa, or left towards the tunnel and Sliema. The speed signs along the Mrieħel stretch are nothing if not mind-numbingly confusing when they are not also contradictory – x kms – any y km you wish to travel at – slow down – x km; you get the gist.
First point, then, is, for Transport Malta to revisit those speed limits and get them right in the context of the safety of that road. Second point: forget about emissions in the context of speed and lick the emissions battle where it needs to be fought – at the back of sulphurous buses and heavy trucks (and common-and-garden saloon cars) whence the evidence is unassailable.
A relentless six months of ticketing by traffic police and wardens will not only reduce fumes drastically. It will bring the deficit into surplus. The pre-Budget document should waste no further time on a non-budgetary matter that is a case for simple and ruthless law enforcement.
What now?
Well, let’s take a metaphorical stab at Elena Kagan, recently US Solicitor-General, previously Dean of Harvard Law School and Obama’s nominee, confirmed last Thursday by the Senate, to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court after Justice John Paul Stevens laid down his gown; the same Stevens who was quoted in a review I just cannot track down as having said, famously, surely: “I never left sanity. Sanity left me”.
Before drawing any metaphorical blood from Kagan, it may be of interest to say something about this court, the only one created by the Constitution and against whose judicial decisions there is no appeal. The gavel stops there.
The Supreme Court is made up of a Chief Justice and eight Associates who, once appointed, can hang on till their death; in some cases this has meant a very long time. Its powers derive from the Constitution itself and Congress cannot alter them.
Each member of the court, as are other civil officials, is subject to impeachment; in over 200 years only one Associate Justice was removed from office under this procedure; which is pretty good going in a country where judicial watchdogs tend to bark and snap when they suspect a taint attaches to any member of the judiciary.
As to their qualification for the job, the judges appointed need not have served as lawyers but it is the case – I stand to be corrected – that to date only one Supreme Court Justice, William Rehnquist, has not been a member of the bar. Elena Kagan is the second exception. She is regarded by opponents to her nomination as a potential rubber stamp for the President’s liberal agenda. Obama’s choice, they charge, has its basis in his recognition of Kagan’s ideology and a partiality to judicial activism he would no doubt wish to see displayed when certain aspects of his liberal programme – like the repeal of the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) – come before the court. Picking out a candidate for the court is the President’s prerogative.
Before her nomination was passed by the Senate, a complaint filed before the Supreme Court was submitted by Larry Klayman, the founder of a corruption Judicial Watch; he is asking that court to disbar Kagan for allegedly falsifying testimony submitted by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) when she was an Associate White House Counsel in Bill Clinton’s administration. He has called for her actions to be investigated by the Justice Department.
“Elena Kagan”, Klayman stated in his complaint, “a nominee to the US Supreme Court, has defrauded the US Supreme Court… her membership to practise before the court should be revoked and the matter referred to the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. How can Kagan be confirmed by the US Senate for a seat on the high court, when in reality she should not even be allowed to practise in front of it?”
And: “The rules of legal ethics require her disbarment and I intend to pursue it, to set an example that prospective and sitting judges, or anyone in the legal profession or otherwise, are not above the law.”
Well, the Senate has confirmed Kagan and, as I understand it, nothing short of impeachment will now remove her from the Supreme Court. Will Klayman bring it to that? This is one of the marvels of the American system of government – and those of the governed who challenge it.
Never having to say sorry
Let’s have a look at tourism, that sector which is so subject to volatility because those who come here, or there – if there is what takes the fancy of a flighty bunch; there being the four corners of a world that has shrunk and of which, alack and alas, Malta is not the centre.
For all that, optimists say that things are looking up, and they are; pessimists are pushed to back their opinion that they are looking down. The figures, as they say, speak for themselves; enough to remark that at this stage of the year and all things being equal, the forecast is being made that volcanic eruptions notwithstanding we may nudge ourselves into a record year.
Credit should go to Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco, who is doing a splendid job – and with whom we are, in this difficult time for him and his family, in full solidarity. Great news, he said recently about the sector’s performance, but our horizon has to extend beyond it and to prepare for the years to come. Preparation means improving the product (government, local councils, you, I and the refuse collectors, never mind emission spewing vehicles, attractive beaches, sand and rock, culture offerings, going easy on prices, coming down hard on poor standards, an imaginative Tourism Authority) and never having to be sorry about anything – and there’s the rub.
You could have heard a pin drop
Received an e-mail, parts of which I would like to share; here’s one.
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs he took a few minutes to locate his passport.
“You have been to France before, Monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically.
Mr Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.
“Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.”
“The last time I was here I didn’t have to show it.”
“Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!”
The American gave the Frenchman a long, hard look. Then he quietly explained,
“Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1844 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchman to show a passport to.”
You could have...