Author: Jacques René Zammit

We are back. Work priorities first but expect a few early posts by the beginning of the afternoon. Despite the ugly weather on Sunday we reached our political objective by the end of the holiday…

Yes, we tanned.

This article and accompanying Bertoon appeared in today’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday (21.06.09).

From the point of view of a Maltese citizen living in Luxembourg, this week’s most newsworthy event happening in Malta was undoubtedly the expensive day-long blackout. Smart Malta still being in the process of being dragged kicking and screaming into the century of the iPod was plunged into a well of darkness. Shop shutters slammed shut, office workers strolled out of their hot cubicles and business came generally to a standstill. It was an eerie feeling to be able to perceive all this from a window on the net.

You see the main effect on the net of an island without electricity is the silence. I don’t mean an audible silence (or should that be inaudible) but a dearth of activity of the trawlers of the ether, of the netcombers, trolls and elves who have now begun a permanent fixture in the as yet not so diverse constellation of the Maltese corner of the Internet Universe. Us expats probably only got to know about the “darkness” in real time thanks to a generator or two and the few comments that were still turning up throughout the day came from laptops still seeping the last few drops of energy out of their batteries.

Veil of Ignorance
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” (Terry Pratchett) The day Malta’s energy grid went flat allowed me to reflect on the “silence” that this produced. It was like that silence that ensues when the persistent jackhammer that had gone on all day suddenly goes quiet. You suddenly become aware of all the “noise” that had almost begun to form part of the background (even giving you that beginning of a migraine). The chatter and the twitter of the internet is also the result of a very public and immediate interaction at many levels.

The truth is that this twitter and chatter is also a form of empowerment. Whether we like and agree with what many of the people say is not the issue. The issue is that there is this new outlet for expression and that it is there to be used. J’accuse has already documented elsewhere the wariness of governments on the power of the internet. Without donning the cap of a conspiracy theorist in Dan Brown style one can safely say that even the most libertarian of governments is tempted to regulate and control the newfound levels of freedom that the internet and the tools used to propagate it afford.

This blog is about to undergo a period of temporary hiatus of three days*.

It’s National Day Weekend in Luxembourg so Jacques packs his bags and rushes to a place of sun and sea (hopefully). If, like “Charles Cauchi”, you think you will miss me in my absence, no worries – the usual fare of 2000+ words of long-winded, egomaniac but tasteful thoughts will be available on Sunday on The Malta Independent.

This Quality Blogger (c) will be thinking about you from the wild shores of northwestern Sardinia. May the force be with you. (That, and hopefully also a constant supply of good old alternating current).

As we always say… merda taurorum animas conturbit*

*Links provided for the benefit of the linguistically challenged (saves time from reaching for the dictionaries). In the case of period we are referring to the third definition on the link in question.

** Good luck on this one Charlie.

We were unable to make it to the final ceremony in Rotterdam last weekend and so we only just got to know the news. The awards for the Th!nkaboutit pan-European blogging competition organised by the European Journalism Centre have been announced. J’accuse is honoured and pleased to announce that it was selected as one of the 20 blogs awarded with the Quality Blogger Award.

Overall winner of the competition was UK Blogger, Etan Smallman.

The Italian newspaper La Stampa reports the story of Salvatore Cancemi, captain of the Italian fishing boat “Twenty Two”. On a stromy night Captain Cancemi and his crew defied the odds and bad weather and saved 300 souls from the sea. They returned to Lampedusa to a heroes welcome. Lampedusa too suffers wave upon wave of immigrants it can hardly carry but the people of Lampedusa could only, rightly, appreciate the human (and super-human) act of kindness and bravery performed by the crew of  “Twenty Two”. The UNHCR has awarded Captain Cancemi the prize: “Per mare. Al coraggio di chi salva vite umane”.

From La Stampa:

or why netiquette is another way of setting standards in blogging and why Vivamalta.org went one up on Running Commentary

I had almost let this subject to rest. There is after all, only a minimum amount of reasoning that can be had with extremists. I had after all been told that netiquette should be stuffed and that I was just being bitchy.

It is a bit hard to take someone who cross-references Wayne’s World (!!) and blogging seriously but when you are arguing with someone who is so far out of their depth you have two options: either try to outshout them (but then you risk getting dragged to their level before you can say “I’ve got more hits than you”) or you just stand by quietly and watch them make sufficient fools of themselves. I reckoned that the second option worked for the PN for so long why should it not work for myself?

So…