Wednesday, 15th April 2009
REALLY NO COMMENT
I left the previous edition of these wise words (if I don’t praise myself, no-one will) up to see if I’d get any reaction from the rabid revolting racists but a week has gone by and got no takers, which is encouraging. It seems that the fervour of these louts is diminishing, as they realise that as soon as they open the cess-pit that is their mouths, right thinking people from all over the place demonstrate the distaste for racism.
All I got instead was a particularly strange, and absolutely out of context, comment about Elves and Smurfs. I don’t recall who the wit was who bandied the “Smurf” crack around (Smurfs are blue, you see – geddit?) and I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to surf across to the portal. Was it someone using the surname “Magri”, don’t quite remember? Schoolyard-style taunting is only fun if it’s done with aplomb, and peculiar grammar and syntax don’t help at all.
I reiterate my plea for someone with a psycho-linguistic bent to research the phenomenon that links bad grammar with apparently lefty tendencies. Is it something to do with the side of the brain that functions when trying to create apologia for the jolly old Labour Party or what? Answers by comment or in columnar form please, though without racist overtones or total incomprehensibility.
Another reason I didn’t add to the sum of human knowledge was, well, I was on holiday in windswept Gozo and nothing moved me to put fingers to keyboards. Sheer laziness if you ask me, and in my own defence I did go for a couple of walks, trying to assuage my conscience after taking too many carbs on board and indulging in too much fermented grape.
I’m not about to comment on the current dispute between the General Workers ’Union, the Malta Dockers Union, the MMA and the Freeport, for various reasons which do not interest you out there in the blogosphere. Is “blogosphere” the right word, incidentally, or is its use in the context of a real journalistic portal offensive to the amateurishness of the bloggers’ world?
The reason I’m not commenting, as I say, is not of interest to anyone but my reticence will not prevent me from making a couple of observations on ancillary issues that are unconnected with the dispute itself.
One such pearl of wisdom takes the form of a question.
All the social partners, worthy members of society that they are, have commented on the harm that this sort of thing does to all concerned, which is an indisputable truth. Many of these worthies have also said, drawing themselves up to the full height of their pomposity, that the law should be changed to cater for this sort of controversy and give a means to resolve it without all concerned having to resort to the equivalent of violence and mayhem (OK, I use those words with wild exaggeration, for dramatic effect, if you like)
Well, might I humbly ask where the social partners were when the main body of employment law, the Employment and Industrial Relations Act of 2002, was being drawn up?
I can tell you: sitting around the table gassing about it, that’s where. They had every opportunity to regulate the matter of union recognition and to establish a method to determine which union, if any, had the support of the workers in a work-place.
Did they do that? Did they buggery. Recognition disputes had played merry hell with the industrial relations scene for quite a significant time before the law was changed and the people responsible for amending it and consolidating passed up a perfect opportunity to salve that particular wound.
Why? Don’t ask me, I wasn’t consulted (no reason why I should have been, except that there were those of us who could have been useful in debating the real problems in this area)
All I know is that the unions were involved in the process, the employers were involved in the process and the Government was involved in the process and no-one thought it would be useful to regulate the process of determining union recognition claims. What were their reasons? Frankly, I don’t have any direct evidence, but somehow I have this nagging feeling that deep down, many of the players rather enjoy a good old-fashioned “my club is bigger than your club” barney.
Another issue connected peripherally with the dispute is a crack made by my old friend Dr Toni Abela, speaking with his politician’s hat on during some Sunday jolly or other (I think it was Sunday, though perhaps it wasn’t, since last Sunday was Easter Sunday and politicians have family lives too)
Toni A. saw fit to invite the President to intervene in a controversy that had already taken on pretty significant political overtones, as things tend to around here.
What, I have to ask, was Dr Abela thinking?
Firstly, the Presidency, in our manifestation of the office, does not involve itself in such things, they being the province of people who get down and dirty and take sides. Secondly, the request was potentially personally embarrassing to the President himself, who at different times in his former life was legal advisor to both the unions involved in the dispute.
What did Abela expect, that the President would stick up for the GWU and turn his back on the MDU? Or that he would back the MDU and spurn the GWU? What? This was, in my humble (!) opinion a faux pas of epic proportions and it is worrying.
It is worrying because it shows either that a leading exponent of an important political bloc has absolutely no idea how the Presidency works or should work or that said leading exponent is so enamoured of the pithy sound-bite and the catchy idea that he is oblivious of the embarrassment he might be causing, to himself, to his party and to other, significantly more important, institutions.
I don’t know which is the more worrying of the two: let’s call it a draw, shall we?
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Comments
Wow!!!
Looking forward for an extra effort from the Blue-tinted bloggers(sic!) and 'independent' (!) apologists, this week!
No doubt we'll be hearing about the evil, dark & desparate days under the socialist tyranny... all in order to hide today's ..... reality???
This should be good..!
It would be very enlightening on your part to tell me - a 'rabid revolting racist' that I am - what you make of the present unfolding scenario of throwing the 'hot potato' of the turkish tanker loaded with african illegal outcasts by Italian and Maltese authorities. Would you recommend your dear PN colleagues to take pity and give in to the outrageous Italian demands that we take them in? You may not feel easy answering this - which is perfectly understandable given your naive crusade to africanize Malta - but since you always push your arguments down people's throats, you owe us this badly.
...Diminishing fervour, my foot!
@ J. Martinelli:
Like your good self I write in the early morning (in real time GMT) so am hardly puggled. Beyond accusing me of being drunk what point are you making?
In less than three volumes if you please.
I usually read blogs first thing in the morning when things are still a little foggy (in my brain). However this time the fog must be as thick as soup, unless of course, in your comments you had one 'but' too many.
That being the case, after its removal, the fog will dissipate rather quickly.
I do peruse these comments but even as a onetime sort of shop steward for the NAS/UWT in London I wonder at your quotation that was made by a real steward (Malvolio) though he did have aspirations to nobility in Twelfth Night. Well real in that Shakespeare put words into his mouth.
Then again it irks me somewhat that ABC equates poor grammar with the Left. It is true that the academic results of Cottonera are pitiful but the south of Malta shames governments of all persuasions.
I have little time and less interest in the trade unions of Malta but then I am at sea with much that ABC writes though since in real life he is a legal beagle i have dark thoughts...
Since you have not read what I wrote, you cannot judge the quality of my three part article. It was in 3 parts due to the limitation of each submission and believe me I could have lambasted DZM by another 600 words or so, but that is another blog, so I will not belabour the Times interruption of the routine. As I write this, the other blog seems to be still in oblivion but hopefully it will be restored soon.
If I were you, I would not comment on the drapers of Merchant Street since many of good repute do business there. Besides, I was not aware of your expertise in the quality of cloth in whatever width it comes
Come on ABC ... "some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness trust upon them" ... so said the fool of the aristocrat LOL!
@ J. Martinelli: One must but mourn the unread three opuses (or opera) but I am reminded of the cry of the draper in Merchant's Street, "Never mind the quality, feel the width".
"...a week has gone by and got no takers"?
Popes, Presidents, Royalties, late Prime Ministers and former politicians were and still are justly or unjustly lauded or criticised in these blogs. Yet a number of comments re 'Appraising Eddie Fenech Adami’which I sent to DZM’s blog never saw the light of day, I wonder why?
A person who proclaims that he is anti racial prejudice and then makes a radical statement in which he links bad grammar with lefty tendencies is either a fake or extremely insensitive to people’s feelings and political correctness or may have a sick sense of humour. My late father was a strong Labour Supporter and my mother a Nationalist supporter, does that make me a half cast? Charles do you remember the field day which ABC had when Charles Mangion came out with his sick theory of two different DNA?
You are quite wrong here. I'm a socialist and thank you very much my grammar does it's job. While I do understand where you are coming from please note that the island is politically split 50/50. Maybe you attract more fire from one side thanks to the barbs you so much like to dish out? :)
I am not a racist but abhor the idea of tax money being spent on illegal immigrants' welfare as well as the health and social risks illegal immigration exposes us all to. Words like those of said Bishop and yourself do nothing better than to obfuscate the unfortunately never ending discussion. It seems to me that attitudes like yours are creating nothing better than racial McCarthy-ism. Is that your aim? I am quite tired of talking and desperate to see some action.
I have had enough of my posts being censored for no reason at all. I prefer to post on more reasonable sites like The Economist.
“- well spotted, you where the only one two notice.” Twisted sense of humour or cutting your nose to spite your face?
The reason, were you to bring yourself to your full height just 'maybe' you can glimpse, is that your predictably premeditated preambles have long diminished in interest to anyone who really matters and who has more important things to follow. In the meantime you would be well instructed not to fool yourself that the 'worms' have receded into oblivion as you so gleefully and naively assume. You will also be forced to retract your words that 'people from all over the place demonstrate the distaste for racism' when the kettle starts boiling again in the coming months. Mark my words.
"...a week has gone by and got no takers"
Not so. I did send a comment about 'elfs and Smurfs' which for some unexplained reason remained unpublished.
Ditto my three part reply to DZM about 'Appraising Eddie Fenech Adami' - also unpublished.
"Well, might I humbly ask where the social partners where when the main body of employment law, the Employment and Industrial Relations Act of 2002, was being drawn up?"
Not very typical of you to allow such grammatical slips in your blog. Ironic, isn't it, that five paragraphs up you were harping on about "peculiar grammar and syntax"!!
Just bit of common sense and logic can tell anyone why this 'industial struggle' between the GWU and MDU was created at the expense of the workers! One can also realise who behind the scene is 'dictating all"!
For the SMURFS 'freedom' means 'power at all costs'. If they are not in power then they cry that there is no freedom. Our political history tells us that the SMURFS believe in ONLY one belief: POWER AT ALL COSTS!That belief is POWER!
Nevertheless TRUTH will always prevail over misinformation, deciet, lies, manipulations and all sorts of illegalities to gain POWER!