I know that most readers will find this hard to believe but here at J’accuse we don’t really relish having to deal with these cases of plagiarism or lazy article writing. We feel obliged however to report that only two days after David “Scissorhands” Casa’s ‘article’ appeared in the Indy, another work of snippety art has appeared this time in the Old Faithful itself.
Casa, or whoever it is that scribbles the notes that give signs of activity in Brussels by the erstwhile repeat offender for the Nationalist Party and EPP, seems to have less faith in getting away with publishing murder with the censors at Strickland House. The reason for this added caution is not all too unjustified given the penchant of some editors over in St Paul’s Street to interfere with content. What we therefore get in this week’s mastery entitled “Less red tape, more productivity” is a mixture of paraphrasing from two Commission documents (Commission Proposal for Council Directive (…) COM 2009(21) and Communication from Commission to Council COM 2009(20)).
For one nationalist MEP busy plagiarising journalists and EU Commission pages there’s another who is busy asking relevant questions of our representatives in the national parliament. Writing in today’s Times EPP MEP Simon Busuttil asks why Malta’s parliamentarians do not submit reactions to the proposals generated by the European Commission. Simon describes the situation as disconcerting and he is right.
The laws that will eventually get through in Bruxelles after scrutiny by the EP are more often that not rules that require implementation in Malta and once they become EU legislation there is not much national parliamentarians can do except have a righteous whinge about it all. We all know that the Maltese MP’s are very good at the charade of “My hands are tied by the EU laws and there is nothing I can do about it”. What we are also learning is that they are doing F-all about new proposed legislation. You see, it’s not just the Six Magnificent Men who represent us in the EP that do the job of scrutinising the proposed legislation (when they are not busy cutting and pasting). It’s also national parliaments that are involved in the legislative process.
It’s all well and good to criticise the detachedness one feels from the “eurocrat” stereotype that is all too often trumpeted in the media. Thanks to Simon’s whistleblowing of sorts we now know that our MP’s on both sides of the divide are not doing much to bridge that gap.
As a footnote it is important to notice that this kind of preparation applies for all institutions of government and state. Just as the Maltese parliament would need a liaison office in Brussels to monitor legislation, thus also the Courts would need a proper unit within the courts to assist judges when making preliminary references to the ECJ. Joining Europe was an (inevitable) dream. Keeping up the pace with our 26 peers is an altogether different game.
The battle for the seats in Brussels and Strasbourg is over and the Maltese people have spoken. J’accuse’s mission as scourge of the candidates engaged in taking us all for a ride continues. During the election MEP re-candidate for the Nationalist Pick’N’Mix party David Casa was exposed by J’accuse for having cut and pasted his way into the columns of our dailies – in the hope of showing the electors that his was the business of the EU (PNN/EPP – The Cut and Paste Way).
Casa is back – as an MEP – but old habits die hard. His report on the re-election of EPP favourite Barroso to a second term as Commission President is once again rife with cut and paste activity that does not leave much space for original thought or even original reporting. You’d have thought that with a place in the parliament Casa could have strung a few words of his own together in order to report the election. Fat chance – it is easier to rush to the Guardian Online paper and “borrow” most of the text from an article.
The absolute earth-shattering irony of the last paragraph of Casa’s article is being reproduced here in all it’s ironic glory (my highlight):
And I felt I must conclude this article with Barroso’s own words of unifying wisdom: “As president of the commission, my party is going to be Europe. Anyone who wants can come on board on this exciting journey that is the integration of Europe.”
Un-flipping-believable… the bloody cheek!
Casa’s articles are like modified genius: 99% inspiration 1 % perspiration…. and that’s really stretching the concept of inspiration to the limits!
This morning at 0730 hrs the police in Calais encircled the illegal camp known as “la jungle” and began the evacuation of what was left of its population. La Jungle consisted of a run down camp built by refugees and sans papiers as a temporary base before attempting to hop off the mainland and into Britain in one way or another. The majority of the Jungle residents were Afghan refugees from the war on terror.
This is not the first major evacuation in the north of France. A few years ago a Red Cross camp had to be evacuated in a similar manner. The same reasons persist today since these camps tend to attract criminals – or rather the conditions within the camps tend to foster criminals – and people living within the region are not too happy about it. La Jungle was France’s major immigrant problem – and Britain’s too because more often than not the residents of La Jungle were only waiting for the right moment to get across the Channel.
Meanwhile six EU states have pledged to resettle refugees currently residing in Malta’s own “Jungle”. The states that are France, Slovenia, Portugal, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Lithuania. Reporting the talks among EU interior ministers about the immigrant problem, Deutsche Welle highlighted the obstacle of the current recession as a major problem in the talks:
Recession worries outweigh problems of refugees
Countries which are further away from the immigration front line are more concerned with getting out of the economic crisis than taking in refugees – even though the commission has proposed a 4,000-euro ($5,900) aid package to help countries offset the costs for accepting each migrant. While the EU’s traditional power-brokers, Britain, Germany and France argued that solidarity is important, they also insisted that they are already doing their part. Germany’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble pointed out that his country has already taken in more refugees than any other nation in the EU.
Even Luxembourg, the EU’s richest state in per-capita terms, has “limited resources” to take in refugees, “because of the size of our country,” Interior Minister Nicolas Schmit said. Czech deputy interior minister Lenka Ptackova Melicharova stressed, as she debated the proposals with her counterparts, that “there should be no limit to (national capitals’) ability to choose” when, how and if they take in refugees.
During the talks, UNHCR Commissioner Guterres, who attended the meetings spoke out against Italy’s new policy of intercepting and returning refugees to Libya. According to Guterres, the Libyan Jamahiriya is not safe for the returned immigrants.
An amendment to the Animal Welfare Act will soon address a lacuna in the law whereby the keeping of wild and dangerous animals is not properly regulated. Sources at the Resources Ministry confirmed that this amendment will soon be proposed in Parliament and the Times links this amendment to the finding of the Bengal Tiger earlier this summer.
Interestingly the business of government also includes the occasional filling of lacunae in the law. By their very nature, laws can never be perfect and all encompassing so the occasional touching up of a law in order to cover new or unprecedented situations is normal run off the mill stuff. It does become worrying however when the lacuna-filling trend almost becomes the norm and the government is seen to be unable to come up with a proper programme of legislation that coherently adapts to the demands and necessities of modern times.
Hunting, fireworks, building permits, tax collection and now dangerous animals. The list is getting too long for comfort. What it does show is an inability to engage with social forces who could provide early warning lights to such problems – or even worse an inability to decide which of these warning lights should be given the necessary weight. The problem with governance by opinion poll is that in a country of “a hundred persons with a hundred opinions” you risk ending with contradictory policies. We cannot forget the verted interests of certain “lobby groups” or in some cases (rich) “lobby persons” who might distort the perception of public opinion to the extent of engendering either inactivity or ill-advised activity from the part of the administration.
The state of the administration and government is pretty clear with the knee-jerk policies. What is even more worrying is that the opposition shows no sign of being different. There’s no Nick Clegg in Maltese politics – no new, different programme that is working on the new face of the economy and new social requirements all of which are wrapped within the underlying framework of the priorities of environmental considerations.
What we (k)need is a liberal democrat alternative. What we have is the jerks and their reactions. And I am not apologising for the ludicrous pun.
L’Oreal, the cosmetics giant has commissioned an encyclopaedia that encompasses the history of Beauty. They are not the first and will certainly not be the last to tackle this topic – one can only think of Umberto Eco or Alain de Botton to mention but two titans who tackled the subject. L’Oreal’s encyclopaedic effort is interesting as it is a multidisciplinary effort that spans a hundred thousand years – and if anyone is interested in the works they will be available both in English and in French.
The concept of beauty has definitely evolved over time and judging by the disparities between the statuettes found at prehistoric temples and the waifs that populate the word of fashion today it will continue to do so as times change and people (and their tastes) change with them. I found myself pondering on an interesting question this week when watching another installment of the Clark documentaries (yes, the pace is slow – too much work at the good old Curia). The discussion had moved on to Van Eyck’s extraordinary painting of Giovanni Arnolfini and (what most persons suppose to be) his wife. Ever since my Systems of Knowledge days and my one year stay in Bruges I have always had an affectionate eye for this painting.
I remember Ernst Gombrich’s emphasis on the particulars of Van Eyck’s portrait. The little details in the painting are one of the points that make it stand out in fact – that apart from Van Eyck’s genius hand of course. There’s the pose and dress of the merchant and wife in their reception room (yes, they did have beds in reception rooms in those days). They are dressed in their finest clothes, fine jewellery and all around them are left indices of their social status – a sort of muffled opulence that would be described in today’s terms as a hushed up “bling bling”.
From the ornate chandelier (expensive) to the oriental carpet (ditto) to the oranges (a hard to find fruit in the north in those days) everything about the painting says that Giovanni Arnolfini was a latter day Soros and Gates rolled into one. The wool merchant’s message with this portrait of himself and his dear beloved is clear: Yes, I can. He may not be an aristocrat but he has bought his way into the fine corridors of opulence and this portrait in the northern city of merchants is a testament to that power, signed by none other than the great Jan Van Eyck – who could not resist the temptation to note that on the wall in the painting: Johannes Van Eyck fuit hic. You’ve seen it before on the child’s schooldesk: “Johnny woz ‘ere”, only this Johnny is Johannes and the moment encapsulated for posterity on canvas is one of the most brilliant renaissance paintings we get to witness in this day and age.
