Author: Jacques René Zammit

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Generation Why? 1.03 – The Flip Camera

flip_ultra_orange

Only last week the world of vlogging seemed aeons away. Vlogging or “video blogging” involved investing extra time and money in setting up to be able to add videos to posts. You would need a camera, a program to edit the films you took and more. There was little or no incentive. Enter the Flip Camera. As early as March 2008 the New York Times was hailing this little machine as the most significant electronic products of the year.

It was, and it still is, even though progress towards the old continent is still slow and you would have to order your flip camera from the US (go ahead… take advantage of the weak dollar). At under 200 dollars a pop the camera is within most bloggers’ reach. It’s inbuilt USB key gives it a weird look but it also means that from shoot to youtube the steps are embarassingly simple. Quality of both sound and vision is incredibly good… if you don’t believe me here’s a video filmed by eux.tv at the Th!inkaboutit conference.

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J'accuse: Thinkaboutit! (Tech-no-log-ic)

Nordic (Buy it, use it, break it, fix it)

The fish shaped island with an almost insignificant population had weathered more than one storm in its centuries old history. Discoverers had passed through it on their way to other continents linking the old and the new. It had recently reared its proud head and tried to stand alone notwithstanding its size. Its fishermen had braved the high seas for centuries and its hunters proudly defended their culture. Its people were ambitious and they travelled the world far and wide to earn good money to send back home. Then one day the big storm came… the one that was too hard to weather… the one that crippled their savings and threatened their very livelihood. 

Iceland expects to apply to join the European Union by March. They’d love to get in as soon as possible now. The Economic Crunch was a huge blow to euro-less and EU-less Iceland. One of the stalwart examples of the go-it-alone outside Europe prophets sank so fast some hardly noticed. The Icelandic banks, once flush with money and bankrolling local councils in Kent shrank to neverland and all the sons and all the dottirs were suddenly pining for a home far from the fjords. Not that Iceland has not been living the European Union reality. Far from it. As a member of the EEA the country already assiduously applies directive after directive. 
The 300,000 citizens of the island which is three times the size of Belgium have the right to move freely around Europe. They have also managed to keep their beloved whale hunting traditions out of the sights of the EU and its Fisheries Commissioner (who is rather busy congratulating Iceland for the management of its fishing stocks – don’t blame the guy, he did  not exactly graduate from a party with the greenest of credentials). What the Icelanders want is the euro. Their currency – the krona – is almost valueless and their economy desperately needs a stronger currency to keep it afloat.  To be fair Iceland has toyed with unilateral adoption of the euro but bosses in Brussels threaten to cut relations should they go down that path.
The story does not stop here but we will have to look away for now. In the meantime just spare a thought for those naysayers who five years ago bandied the Icelandic, Norwegian or Swiss flag around claiming that there was life outside an economic block in today’s world. Some of them might be running for the European Parliament but it’s not thanks to them that the Agiuses and the Zammits are not in the same predicament as the Bjornsdottirs and Gustafssonns up north.
Logic (Name it, rate it, tune it, print it)

It did not really make it to the front pages of the journals and rags but it was quite an interesting move. Somewhere among the cacophony of voices clamouring on how best to fill the Opera House space in Valletta was that of one of Malta’s ill-treated sons. Edward De Bono had called for a National Palace of Thinking. The government must have seen this as an opportunity not worth missing and suddenly… without too much ado and without too much forewarning the National Library in Valletta was being designated the National Palace of New Thinking. 
Somebody beat me too it but I will not hesitate to say it again: It really sounds like something out of Maoist China or Ghaddafi’s Libya. Now I am sure that Ed De Bono had genuine intentions about all this but really, does the government really think that by slamming a name plaque onto a building in the middle of Valletta this means that another box under the heading Great Achievements of the GonziPN Era will be ticked? The painful sword of irony was dug further when the first two talks where announced – someone was playing a sick joke on us all. We will have a Palace of New Thinking bang in the middle of our capital where some undoubtedly intelligent personalities will be working the meninges to find new ways of doing politics … for the international scenario. Ah well. So long as we are happy with our black and white politicians.
Once we are on the subject of buildings and palaces and irony. Wasn’t it just extraordinary to see the new structure just built by modern architects intended to protect temples that are thousands of years old from the elements be blown off by the gale winds? They told us that they had not harnessed the damn things yet but please… it really is beginning to look like a farce isn’t it? 
Rhetoric (Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it)

Didn’t we all tune in somehow or another? Didn’t we flinch when he fluffed the oath (or when the Chief Justice fluffed the words and then Obama fluffed it better) and then think it was more human and more warm to have that unscripted moment thrown in? Didn’t we all listen to the speech of hope and challenge and once again wish we had just an inkling of the man’s capacity for rhetoric. For he is the Cicero of the modern age and whether using anaphora or epiphora or whether drumming his points using tricolons he is up there on the stage warming the crowd to his words and readying them for the next challenge.
Every step of the Obama campaign was just as carefully orchestrated and laden with symbols as the grand stages Albert Speer had planned for an altogether very different individual. Obama’s is not a message of destruction and conquest with the iron fist but one of rebuilding, recovery and reaffirmation of a strong democracy that begins with the rule of law and transparent government for the people. The picture is slowly forming and not everyone will be pleased with what they see. In his first week Obama has already announced closure of Guantanamo but he has also reopened funding for NGO’s who send mothers abroad to perform abortions.
His message was an invitation to work hard through difficult times and suddenly that envy of all things American that had long been buried under an anti-Bush sentiment began to return. You wished to participate in the reconstruction. You wished to give a helping hand. You thought for a second that the “We” in “Yes We Can” meant you too. Meanwhile for the trivia freaks (and I’ve just discovered a precious one close to home) Obama is the fourth president who signs documents with his left hand since Ronald Reagan sat in the Oval Office. The exception? George W. Bush (right handed). The only time when Dubya stands alone in the right I guess.
Journalistic (Write it, cut it, paste it, save it)

If you are reading this article on Sunday morning (as you should, while the smell of roast is still sweeping across the house) I will probably be sitting on a train on my way to Brussels. I’m off for a three day Conference entitled “Thinkaboutit!” organised by the European Journalism Centre. Bloggers from all across Europe will converge on Brussels to launch a five month blogging saga during which they will cover the European Parliament elections. I am looking forward to exchanging tricks of the trade with fellow dabblers while meeting professionals from such illustrious blog pages as the online BBC and Financial Times. 
The Maltese blogosphere has already begun to take chunky swipes at the EP campaign and I am proud to report that The Malta Chronicle (themaltachronicle.wordpress.com) is up and running on schedule. Until now two outside contributors have joined the team and we expect more opinions as the race heats up. One question we will be tackling in the coming week is the stuff that EP candidates are made of. What, apart from an ego the size of a trailer truck, are the qualities that voters believe a candidate should possess to make the grade? Pop by and give us your ha’penny worth of ideas… it may not be your average Palace of New Thinking but hey do we give it a try!
Elsewhere on the net Pope Benedict has his own youtube station and claims to be the oldest Head of State to do so. Sadly for Ratzinger, Bess the Second who is older than his Holiness by almost one full year beat him to it. He cannot even say that he is the oldest head of a church to be on youtube can he? Do not mention Henry VIII anyone… Still. Papa Ratzi told his internet listeners that the net is a gift of God. I am sure Tim Berners Lee might have something to say on that one… just don’t try to email St Peter just yet (I hear he’s having trouble with the passwords).
Opportunistic (Trash it, change it, mail – upgrade it)

One interesting development early in the day of the EP election race has been the backfiring of the notion of “Umbrella Party”. I have long pointed a j’accusing finger to the idea that parties like the PN try to pull off of being an all encompassing party that harbours liberals and conservatives under the same umbrella. There was bound to be a point were the elastic band of hypocrisy was stretched a tad bit too far and Hooke’s Law would come into play. Ut tensio, sic vis… and the tension came from none other than the Hunting Field.
There’s more about this on J’accuse but in essence the PN found that having an eager anti-hunting MEP candidate (Edward Demicoli) and a modern day Saint Julian in its parliamentary group (Philip Muscat MP) did not exactly bode well. Throw in Borg Olivier admitting in an interview that the PN policy on hunting is still committed to protecting the right of hunters to hunt in Spring and you begin to ask yourself how can you not forgive a voter when he feels confused about the real values of the party. Umbrella party-ism can be good for vote hunting when combined with such elements as gullibility and partisan fanaticism. Once people start asking intelligent questions the umbrellas tend to become unwieldy and cumbersome. 
Meanwhile, back in PLPN land, the parties engaged in some more collusive practice, this time because a couple of athletes risk being out of the country for the Small Games or something and therefore its time to amend a law and allow them to vote a week earlier. I wonder if anyone will raise the question of the voters abroad again seeing how controversial the last couple of planeloads ended up being. Of course the hope of voting in Embassies like Brussels is far beyond anyone’s practical imagination. No worries. A few more years in Luxembourg and as far as MEP elections are concerned I could be voting for Maury Losch or Felix Godaert. Not that it would make much of a change would it?
Climactic (Turn it, leave it, start – format it.)

That’s an ending. This one will not be. Climactic I mean. First of all I have a birthday greeting. The first Mac has turned twenty five this week. It was the first home computer to sport a Graphical User Interface (GUI) which is complicated speak for icons and mouse and all. The project to create the Macintosh was started by legendary computer maker Jef Raskin who also baptised it Macintosh. Why Macintosh? Apparently it was the name of Raskin’s favourite type of apple – of the edible kind of course. Thank god for that, I’d hate to own an Apple Granny Computer.

Time to say goodbye. Allow me to wish a speedy recovery to my brother the podologist who spent an ugly seven days face up on a bed in Mater Dei courtesy of some renegade nerve in the back that caused tremendous pain. Take it easy bro! 
Until next time this has been J’accuse (with a little help from Daft Punk).

Jacques will be blogging about blogging at the beginning of next week. Follow the goings on in Brussels on http://jaccuse.wordpress.com.
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J'accuse: A Man for all Reasons

Mister President the First

In the coming week Barack Obama will be sworn in as the next President of the United States of America. There was almost a baptism of fire for the first black President when a United Airways plane hit a couple of geese too many and was forced to make an emergency landing in the freezing waters of the Hudson River metres away from the towering Manhattan blocks. Thankfully the gods must have thought that this would be one leftover disaster too many for the brand new President and they made sure that none of the passengers on board perished.
Barack Obama’s kids can peacefully choose the pooch that best fits the White House setting without having to attend sad funerals of Connecticut citizens before taking seat at King Bush’s Court. The time of the Madness of that King George is over – if you are willing to suspend your belief and compare a president to a king for a moment – while over in the island of milk and honey a new symbolic reign of another George is about to begin.
Mister President the Second
Symbolic yes, because the role is largely symbolic and mostly ceremonial. Which does not in any way mean that this latest in the line of PLPN Presidents does not come with any of the baggage and innuendos that this kind of appointment has gotten us used to hitherto. None of the bios about George Abela mention any second name so we do not have a clue whether, like his predecessor, he will insist on a more presidential kind of name. If you ask me I’d go for George Frederick Abela. He does have the look of a George Frederick… don’t ask why though… it’s just pure instinct.
If truth be told (and you do not have to dig too deeply this time) the reasons for George F. Abela (yep, I’m sticking to my invention) taking over at San Anton from the sweet FA’s (see there’s poetry in the FA continuity – the mind ALWAYS finds a good justification) are not exactly the stuff of which Dan Brown’s mediocre mysteries are made of. It does not take the mind of a sleuth nor does it take the intellectual capacity of a pink paper paparazzi to add two and two together to understand the goings on behind this latest of moves for the nation by the ever so magnanimous duopoly of ours.
Before I proceed to dedicate a large portion of this article to this matter let me place hand on heart and say that I do not dislike George Abela. Nor do I like him. I cannot hold either of the two feelings towards a man I barely know and with whom my closest connection has probably been exchanging blows, kicks and shots with a son of his during some football match among law students (again I may be completely wrong on that count too). In any case my point is that what I have to say transcends the subject of George Abela the person and politician and to a certain extent the suitability of the incumbent to the role of President.
What I have to say follows the not too indifferent amount of print that was dedicated over the past two weeks to the subject. I had a couple of favourites when it comes to the reasoning behind it all. One writes for a rival Sunday (Mark Anthony Falzon and his wonderful piece “Neither Philosopher, nor King) and the other writes a blog (Fausto Majistral – malta9thermidor – in his post “A New President”). The first directed his piece mainly at explaining that choosing presidents from among the milieu of veterans of the parliamentary scene may not be too bad an idea after all. The second dedicated his usual style to outlining three criteria which would make someone a good president. Bravo to both… I recommend them both for your perusal.
To fast forward this part of the thinking, when it comes to examining the suitability from an objective point of view, George Abela fits the bill without hesitation. Political acumen he has, political experience too and – hear this – he is liked by the people that count. Now there is much to be read in that last bit of the sentence (and I hasten to add that it is my own and not attributable to the good men whose works I referred to above). The implication is there for all to see among the declarations on “national unity” and “a man for all parties” and the like. Suddenly every flag waving cognoscente of the partisan kind has been silenced to acquiescence and prepped for admiration of this President of the Partisan Tribes.
The irony is there clear enough for all those with eyes to see. The first curtain that has to fall in this charade is all this drama about “national unity” being solely something that finds consensus among the two behemoths that are Malta’s excuse for political parties. They’ve told the lie once too often and now they believe it all too readily. So long as they will not be up to their usual tantrums of naysaying whatever the opponent is up to then that means that Malta has its moment of national unity. Which is a bit like saying that because Hamas and Israel both decide not to shoot or explode bombs on one day of the week then that means that we have everlasting peace.
Oftentimes J’accuse feels that it is its duty to yell to all and sundry that the Emperor is running around in his birthday suit. This is one of the oftentimes. Here’s the naked truth – at least as we see it without any rosy or blue tinted glasses.
In the blue corner we have GonziPN. They survived a couple of scares over the past seasons as those guys down the road from Pieta’ looked poised first to snatch the seat of power and then, having failed to do so, these guys looked poised to re-embrace and choose as leader a man who seemed to have the brawn and brain to match Gonzi’s Men in Blue. Such Man was George Abela. Do we know the PN feared his becoming their number one opponent? We cannot know for sure in a way because what we do know is that in the folly that is local politics, George Abela is the nationalists’ number one choice for Labour Leader so the hard working guys at Pieta were not prepared to risk having an affable man as the Labour daddy.
Which brings us to Joseph “Inhobbkom” Muscat. Ok, his plans to rapidly reform Dar it-Transparenza are not going as smoothly and quickly as he might have hoped but still he is there in the driving seat (straddled as he is by two anachronisms) and he got there by beating George Abela in an election campaign that was not all that easy. Be that as it may the living spectre (if you will allow this pathetic fallacy of an oxymoron) of George Abela hovered over every potential mistake of the bearded saviour from Burmarrad and this might have made Joseph sweat a tad bit more than during his regular visit to the Ta’ Qali Workout museum.
So George Abela was in an unenviable position of being popular with the wrong kind of people. Many nationalists liked him. Many labourites liked him. Hell even the New Greens under Arnold seemed to like the guy. The only people who had a problem with all this popularity were those scheming elves at Dar Centrali and those who felt GA could become a threat to Inhobbkom-J. As in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar I pictured Gonzi and Joseph with their respective minions standing on some quickly assembled scaffolding singing “Must go, must go,this Georgie must go!” (must die would be too much… even for the macchiavallian spinmeisters).
So here they were: one worried for his PM seat, the other for his seat as Leader of Labour… and for once the paths of duopolisic destiny intertwined and their interests were as one. George for President became the unanimous call. Inhobbkom-J felt he had had a say in picking a man for all (partisan) people. Gonzi could feel he had duped the Labourites into thinking he can heed the other side and that he had given them the chance to pick a leader – when in actual fact he had handed them the sword with which to slay the only credible alternative should Inhobbkom-J falter in any way.
So far so good… but then they began singing plaudits about how it’s a President for the people and a man of unity. No sirs. It’s a President of partisan combobulation – a likeable one at that but the parthenogenetic manner of his birth is there for all to see… once again the two primadonnas of Maltese politics converged to illude themselves that theirs is governance for all the people and they had their baby without the necessary spunk to give authenticity to their claim. Mater semper certa est (or in this case sunt), pater nunquam …. It’s Madness, George, but not through any fault of your own. Congratulations.
Mister Prime Minister – Ehud the Sorry
I’ve taken up too much space on that matter and so will have to forego writing about why I think AD might be about to lose the plot and how we will lose another chance to break the damaging hegemony of PLPN on Maltese politics. Instead I feel obliged to dedicate a few lines to Ehud Olmert who should henceforth be known as “the sorry”. It was one of those nights when I plonked myself on the sofa watching the repeating news on BBC that kept switching from the heroic efforts of a US pilot to the ghastly bombardments in Gaza. The international press had received incontrovertible proof that Israel was using white phosphorous on civilians and then we heard that Israeli troops had opened fire on a UN food compound.
The news then switched to a not too contrite looking Ehud Olmert meeting a lost Ban Ki-Moon and blurting out a “sorry”. Sorry? Now this is no time to take sides. Life is taken by a Hamas driven rocket as much as it is taken by an Israeli warhead. Taking sides only fuels more controversy as it did on Italian TV when (leftie) journalist Lucia Annunziata walked out on Santoro after having claimed that his programme was too biased in favour of Palestine. Even Reuters came under attack by some readers who felt (contemporaneously) that it was both too pro-Israeli and too pro-Palestinian. The situation is sad whichever way you look at it. The virtual impotence of the international community is evident and the main victims are innocent lives.
Mister Jobs
My last word comes from the technological corner. The news that Steve Jobs has had to take a sabbatical from work hit the Apple world like a tsunami. Shares in Apple immediately shook at the idea of the guru’s sabbatical becoming permanent. Microsoft’s Bill Gates had faded out of the business side of affairs without too much damage to the gigantic firm. It seems that Apple might be a bit too Jobs dependent and memory of the previous turnarounds to its fortunes orchestrated by Mr Jobs might be still too clear for any confident imagination of life after Jobs. We shall see.
No new blogs to signal for now so I will suggest a good music streaming site: www.lastfm.com. Excellent for discovering new bands (and for exchanging musical thoughts with your darling). That’s all from J’accuse for this week… next week we’ll be in Brussels for the European Journalism Centre blogging conference. I leave you with this ditty I wrote:
Georgie Porgie pudding and pie
Thrilled the partisans, low and high
So to get Georgie out of the way
In San Anton they bade him stay
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J'accuse: Ready, Steady… Focus

The Five Senses (abridged)

Focus, focus, focus. Your senses will all need to be sharp. The train has left the station – with or without you on board – the year is already in full swing and what a year it promises to be. No matter in which direction you look all you can see is a cloud of news brimming with potential articles and stories. I don’t think that the gaming companies will be taking any bets on this one…. 2009 promises to be superduper special… boy do we need to stay focused.

We, as in collectively. All of us. Ensemble. Flimkien. Nobody will afford to stay behind and the key to focusing is having information at your fingertips and staying up to date. In a way it was a bit inevitable wasn’t it? We have been blowing the trumpets of change till our cheeks went blue. Now change is here and it is happening fast – before you can say “property market crash” your economic situation could change as drastically as the levels of sobriety at a third year law students party.

The fates have conspired in such a way that the economy is not your only problem. What we meekly call “technology” is advancing in leaps and bounds and does not seem to be daunted by the economic slowdown. Other technologies seem eerily on the brink of a great transformation – the revolution started by Henry Ford seems to be about to take a new greener twist although it might need one final push by circumstance. All that and we have not even mentioned politics yet… which is just as well, because 2009 comes packed with loads of that both national and international. So are you prepared for the ride?

Touch

The air is tingling with expectation isn’t it? Last year’s blog of the year awarded at the annual Bobs (the most prestigious world blog awards supported by Deutsche Welle) was a blog called “Generacion Y” by a Cuban woman. She blogs in a strange way by emailing her posts to friends abroad who have access to the blog posting site. In her blog she keep readers up to date with changes in Cuba. Interestingly she wrote about an exchange doctor who went to work in South America as a part of one of Castro’s programmes. One of the things the doctor’s daughter askes him to bring back from South America is a Playstation. Even in techonologically jurassic Cuba the kids grow up dreaming of access to technology and the web. Change is still worming its way up that river.

Meanwhile back in the rich world an organisation called “One Laptop for Every Child” has as its aim the purchase of a laptop for every child in the developing world. They have now come up with an astounding advertising campaign in which John Lennon is electronically brought back to life – both image and voice – in order to promote their cause. You have to hear it to believe. John Lennon who passed away in 1980 speaking about laptops and technology – stuff straight out of Futurama (if you do not know what that was then you really need to jump on the train before it is too late).

Technology and its leaps. Where do you begin? Google is still in the dock with the main accusation being that it is rendering us and all the new Generation Y rather dumb. Yet it remains the most innovative presence on the net. Bit by bit it is revolutionising the way we browse for information. It is smart. So is Apple and its products. The fact that 2009 is the year the “web cloud” will definitely take shape is due no doubt to these gargantuan companies. Information will be remotely stored and no longer reside on your clunky harddrive that seems to shrink daily. It will be time to concentrate on uploading and accessing information from the cloud.

Expect to become more dependent on handhelds. Expect the fixed phone to move towards the abyss of obsoleteness. Expect minilaptops to become more popular. Expect cheaper and more reliable internet accessibility. Expect everyday language to become more affected by the other ways we communicate. Expect to become more reliant on this technology as a way you choose what to do.You think I am joking?

Think again. Have you heard of DLNA? It stands for Digital Living (room) Network Alliance. It is a sort of certification that comes with most of the technoigeek products that are produced today. What it means is that more and more products speak to each other. You’ve already started getting hooked to it the day you bought your “Home Cinema System”. Don’t get too big headed though… Home Cinema System is an embryonic product of the DLNA. Home Cinema is to DLNA as an amoeba is to a human in terms of the evolutionary scale.

Seeing is believing. Let us say you tire of failing miserably at Guitar Hero and admit that you will only ever master Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep till Brooklyn” because you’ve been hearing it since it was out (1986). So you switch on the TV and at that moment they happen to be playing a tune on a music channel but you’ve missed the name. So you turn on your iPhone and use an app to listen to the song and get it identified online. Yes. The iPhone does that too. So you have the name of the song and the artist. You can then go onto iTunes store on your PC (or iPhone or Mac) and buy the song for a pittance. The song is on your hard drive. If you want to listen to it again on your snazzy speakers of your home cinema system all you have to do is activate the PS3 and search the network for mediafiles. Before you know it the song you heard earlier is being read directly by your PS3 and played on your booming speakers.

Cool eh? That’s only the start. Trust me. Time and space constrain me to cut short this ecstatic rush of living room fantasia. Advances I was saying. Microsoft is still catching up with Windows 7. As I have had occasion to mention earlier Windows 7 threatens to sound the death bell for the keyboard as we know it. More and more technology is shifting to touch screen . Whether it is the digital camera’s menu, your smart phone or your new computer, the move to touch screen technology is here and now. Which is causing quite a problem to a particular segment of the population.

Yep. It seems that the visually impaired (or blind as we used to call them before Generation X got all politically correct) are not amused by all this touchy touchy business. It is after all rather different to envisage the braille equivalent of a touch screen. Thankfully Google, Apple and Microsoft all have dedicated departments who are trying to bridge this gap.

I’ll have to postpone more of this techno stuff to another article. Or you can check out J’accuse every now and then since I have started a new rubric on the blog called “Generation Why” about all things technological. There you might even find some good reading about a gadget called a “Kindle” and why the paperback is another consumable that has found its way in the endangered products list. More another time.. now let’s move on to sight…

Sight

2009 promises to be a year in which you will see advertisements become shorter and more competitive. Budget constraints mean that the Marketing Departments worldwide will have to do more with less. The experts in the field predict that shorter but sharper messages will pepper the media. Don’t forget that internet advertising is still on the upturn and is still eating into the advertising pie to the detriment of other areas. Net presence is crucial. So will comparative advertising. Expect assertions by companies about their products to become brasher and bolder. Expect dirty comparisons. Which will not exactly guarantee that the consumer is the final winner.

New generation TV will also finally hit your living rooms. We will finally understand why our TVs were HD ready and hopefully, after a few snags and snitches we will settle down to real Video on Demand with HD quality. Blueray will be in the ascendant for 2009 but it is probably a transient trechnology as virtual storage and transfer will probably come out tops. I hate to be the foreboder of bad things but if I was a terrorist of the Al Qaeda kind I would be shifting my attention to mass storage systems to harm the economic world. The World Trade Center of 2009 might very well be a large storage server. God I hope I am wrong.

Speaking of ads and marketing, the latest Focus Magazine issue had two interesting scientific discoveries. The first was related to the attractiveness of the colour red. Apparently if men were to see the same woman dressed in blue and dressed in red they would inevitably always choose the red version because… hear this… red is more attractive. Then there was the other item about sports teams being advised to pick the colour red for their gear. Apparently teams wearing red are more successful (and more favoured by referees). I read all this and then came up with two questions: How do you explain the Labour Party? and… Who will tell Joseph Muscat?

An advertising campaign that relies on anything but brevity and sharpness is the MTA ad promoting Malta. Apparently a lot of cleavage was uncovered for the making of the video. Quite hypocritical for a country that still considers women who sunbathe topless as the spawn of satan. It sort of makes tits out of us all doesn’t it? Finally from the sights and sounds of Malta I really enjoyed the short film clip of the start of demolition services of the Magic Kiosk in Sliema. I have fond memories of the old square as it was when as a kid I used to go visit my dad at work at Saccone & Speed before Mintoff decided to kick out the Brits and Lorry decided to hand a square over to a friend.

Taste

The University students are stuck between a rock and a hard head. They are protesting because they want to sit for their exams and they are right. No more stress and hardship should be brought to bear on the poor sods. Give them the education they need and test them for chrissakes. The government must find a way of paying lecturers respectably. UMASA must find a way to ensure that its members live up to the name of the profession and KSU must continue being a general pain in the backside reminding everyone that the students are not to blame.

It’s not as bad as the goings on in Gaza of course although I wish people would stop writing futile sentences on facebook about the issue. This week the Economist labels it the hundred years war and I am not sure that any kind of facebook group will make it any shorter. Some hope might lie in a combined effort by Obama and the EU. Once Obama settles in to the White House and the EU solves its gas supply problem with the Russkies of course.

Smell

“Turiamoci il naso”. Remember those who held their nose and voted Nationalist? Well they will probably not do this this time round. J’accuse will have a special eye on the European Elections. We have been selected by the European Journalism Centre as one of the blogs to be following the EP campaign closely. We join blogs from every other European country as from the end of January. Speaking of which look out for the revival of The Malta Chronicle with a new line up of contributors for the campaign (hopefully)… the address is here: http://themaltachronicle.wordpress.com.

That’s it for now. Remember… focus… and eyes down for the bingo! (Hear! Hear!)

Jacques is freezing his attributes off in Luxembourg while blogging at http://jaccuse.wordpress.com. Come share some warm thoughts on the site that promises to change the way you think (at least for a minute or two).


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For Auld Lang Syne

The year that was

It’s that time of the year then. The time when sums are made, conclusions are drawn and when the audacious come up with those dreadful things called resolutions. As you read this article there are still three more days before the calendar year comes to an end and a new one begins. The 31st December is no different from any other day of the year but we like to use it as a marker to assess a year that has passed and to express our hopes for the year that is about to begin. If worst comes to worst, New Year’s eve is always a good excuse for a party (remember to party responsibly).

I have spent New Year’s eve in New York, in Paris, in Luxembourg and in Malta. I can vouch that the switch of the year is as exciting as you make it out to be. If you can overcome the pressure and anxiety of joining your peers at some party you will find that spending the evening at home alone in the company of a good take away, some good booze and your favourite series will do the trick just the same. In any case we still like to give special meaning to this kind of event. We still bring out the abacus and the scales and analyse how the year has been for us while looking ahead with eager anticipation.

This is the time of the year when even the most sceptical person will not hesitate to peek at the most scam-laden of astrological predictions for the coming year. It is the time when resolutions are vouched for with optimistic expectation – when habits are kicked and sobering routines adopted. It is the time of the year when the infamous “last hangover from hell” is experienced and the words “never again” will echo around the groggy head only to be forgotten as soon as the pain and fear are over. It’s definitely a time of the year when the news is not really news… so we really have to dig out the albums and scrap books and see more about the year that was…

First an electoral frenzy

Being a blogger does have its perks. You get to look back at the year through the eyes of your blog and the result is a sort of scrap book for the 21st century. The first quarter of the year was definitely dominated by the National Elections. In truth the most historic event in this quarter must have been the switchover to the Euro. The trials and tribulations of adapting to the new currency now seem to be light years away and once again it might be safe to say that the doom-mongerers were forced to eat the proverbial dirt. A conspicuous part of the population would contend that Morena at the Eurovision would be a landmark moment of the first few months.

Others who are more politically obsessed would shift the spotlight to the Joe Said allegations or to the heat of the electoral campaign. We witnessed an electoral campaign that was quite a groundbreaker in many respects. The means of communication shifted from the traditional standards as blogs and blogging (and online videos) broke new ground in interactive politics. Blogs like J’accuse helped in breaking new ground and create an awareness locally as to the power of the blog. The blogosphere expanded temporarily as others jumped onto the interesting bandwagon with mixed formulae for success or failure.

Politically speaking, the elections produced the usual bland affair of black versus white. We had some unforgettable moments as the “Wasted Vote” debate could no longer be swept under the carpet thanks in no half measure to the forced discussions on the net. It was this very paper that opened a window onto discussions that were happening elsewhere for many. While the stink of censorship still hung around other papers it was the Indy that embraced a philosophy more akin to the bloggers’ idea of publish and be damned thus creating a symbiosis that persists to this day.

We also saw an ugly side of the political debate. We had what was probably one of the saddest lines in the campaign – apart from the Wasted Vote label of course – which was yelled in the direction of all those who questioned the black and white philosophy: “You are setting yourselves up as objects of hate”. This was coupled with electoral shenanigans by a party that was proving to be an expert in spin but fast losing its moral backbone. There was the “Vote Harry, Get Freddy” joke, there was the incident of a One TV cameraman held prisoner against his will, and of course there was JPO.

Of course we now sit on the comfortable side of the temporal plane. We look back with hindsight and we can smile and nod at how sly Joe Saliba was to take a gamble on JPO and reinvent him as a journalist, dentist, politician and what not. Even the people swallowed the tears and some sided with JPO when he bumblingly confronted Alfred Sant while sporting his journalist badge. Hindsight can play dirty tricks on you. You could sit smugly and claim that you were on the right side of the Wasted Vote argument – that what this country needs is politicians who feel accountable to the electorate once again… but sadly even thought these lessons are there to be read by all they will soon be forgotten and come next election we will hear the same old story.

Then a slippery spiral

The election came and went and left us with the funny aftertaste of a relative majority. It was all relative. Relatively satisfying for the nationalist crowd which could go on patronising the bloody rest for another five years. Relatively tumultuous for the labourite crowd who could then embark on reinventing themselves or trying to do so as much as possible. Relatively reassuring for all the rest in a “plus ca change” kind of way. At least we were guaranteed one of the immutable truths of our nation – that the alter-nation was here to stay for some time yet.

Before and after the elections we had some funny business with the so-called pressure groups whose default state of inertia is normally prodded into some form of reactionary action whenever the government announces one measure too many. The carnival of politics by knee-jerk reaction meant that we had the fireworks community in a commotion following the more than unfortunate incident in Naxxar. This was followed by the lovely hubbub regarding the Hunting Regulations which very predictably provoked the “Namur jew Intajru” crowd to no small extent. Surely the most memorable protests of all the year will remain the transport protests.

Transport is to Malta as cholesterol is to American diet. It is an ugly problem that is in everybody’s face and that everyone seems to be reluctant to solve. We had those moments of threatened anarchy as the public transport ground to a standstill. We had a government trying to look headstrong and determined and then we ended the whole business by paying out part of the transport coalition using tax payers’ money. It was a tear jerking experience – just like the months and months that we had to wait before the Manoel Dimech bridge was finally completed.

Labour had been busy all this time trying to reinvent themselves out of the unelectable image that they had got us used to throughout the last few decades. Inhobbkom Joseph broke onto stage round about this time promising love, peace and reconciliation. The maquillage is still a work in progress but early signs have been disappointing, at least insofar as j’accuse’s eye is concerned.

Above all the humour

I could go on trying to chronicle highlights of the year local and foreign. It is not my job to do so though. You will probably have seen more than your fair share of summaries by now. Allow me instead to take you on a short trip through the little nothings and facts that made the year for J’accuse the blog and J’accuse the blogger.
I must say that one of the greatest moments of blogging this year must gave been reporting Peppi Azzopardi’s line “Nikkonfermaw li Norfolk tezisti” (We can confirm that Norfolk exists). You will find this in an April post (the 7th to be precise) and it chronicles the moment when Peppi confirmed for the benefit of his audience, that there is a Norfolk in England. This kind of blog post does sum up what J’accuse can be about – the highlighting of what can seem to be a trivial point to many but one that speaks volumes about us and what we are about.

To me Peppi’s “Norfolk Moment” epitomised all that is our Malta-centred approach to reality and the world. It was Maltese Relativism in action. That same relativism that is triggered every time we venture abroad and assess other peoples’ habits and customs using our very special rule and measure. The Norfolk moment only got a few hits and comments, quite unlike the period during election time when J’accuse really hit the roof with discussions of all sorts taking place.

It was at election time that the blogging world took on a new tinge as more people ventured into the realm of free speech and learnt the hard way that respect for the interlocutor is an important part of the netiquette by which we live. It was also thanks to the elections that J’accuse met Bertu and adopted the cartoonist as official cartoonist for the J’accuse posts.

Accompanying this article you will find the first Bertoon Personality of the Year award. For 2009 we have chosen none other than Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. The man did have quite an advantage over the competition given his multiple roles and personalities. He will remain a symbol of the year reminding us not only of the elections but also of the planning ills and intricacies of our nation. Whether or not he is finally vindicated JPO remains a symbol of how difficult it is to put words into action when it comes to environmental policy.

2009 – Year of the Blog?

2008 as a blogging year has brought us our fair share of new bloggers as well as some part-time bloggers. The ether remains an interesting fertile ground for exchanges of ideas and opinions. The death of the blog as the preferred tool of individual communication has been announced in some quarters. It would seem that networking tools will gradually supersede the blog as a medium of expression. I very much doubt that this will happen in the short term future and am ready to bet on blogs becoming a stronger more powerful tool as portable technology for reading the net becomes the norm.

The next year promises to be interesting in this aspect. J’accuse will be revamping and restyling itself sometime early in the new year. This will happen just in time for us to follow the EP elections closely. J’accuse has been chosen as one of a number of blogs to be reporting the EP elections for the European Journalism Centre as part of the “Think About It” Campaign. That is as far as the first semester is concerned.

Not much remains for me to say except that I hope that like me you will be recharging your mental and physical batteries and sharpening your skills in eager anticipation for the coming year. I look forward to a year stock full of controversial and bloggable items, full of new readers and surfers of the web and our blogs and full of all the good things that you could wish for.

We’ll take a cup of kindness yet
So here’s the toast to all of you readers out there…. may the worst day next year be like the best day in the year that has just ended and may we meet again this time next year to contemplate another year that has passed… for auld lang syne!

Jacques has been busy enjoying the sights and sounds of Malta. http://jaccuse.wordpress.com is in Festive Hibernation. A Happy New Year to all Jaccusers!