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J'accuse: "Forni Gate" and the Jazzy Ensemble

We finally made it to Malta and the excruciating heat (not much change there). An early morning three-hour drive and a damned stomach bug, which kicked off its effects from 4am, did not prevent us from getting onto the Malta-bound plane from Frankfurt. Funny how you can drive for three hours without a problem in Germany but have a very adventurous 20-minute trip from Luqa to Paceville, slipping back into cussing mode with self-drive rental car drivers.

All that Jazz

Having slept all afternoon on Thursday, I forewent the traditional first dip and only regained my senses in time to get to the jazz festival (on Thursday, missed the first acts though). It’s a well-organised festival of sound, mind you, and you could tell the enthusiasts from the hangers-on from a mile away. It all depended on how they twisted their face. The ones with their face screwed up in rigorous attention looking as though they would burst into orgasmic ecstasy following an epiphanic progression of notes and melodies were definitely the jazz buffs. They looked Sterner than Stern and would only occasionally switch to an appreciative swaying or clapping – most of the time the concentration on the deepest intricacies of this genre that grows on you (presumably like a wart but nicer) led them to bearing Lascaris-like faces.

Then there were the others whose faces were twisted as though in the eternal suffering of some recently scratched purgatory. Their expressions varied from “bring back the vuvuzela” to “who the hell gave those kids their toys and why do they have to practise on stage?” They gathered in inconspicuous circles and confessed to each other that they couldn’t quite fathom what the fuss for this ruckus was really all about, and concurred that if they could, they would revive the Hector Bruno eighties mass meeting act on stage as a merciful compromise.

I say “they” but surely (and shamefully) I should say “we”, for I must confess that I formed part of this ignorant clique whose presence could only be explained because they form part of the chain of junkies of all things remotely labelled as “cultural”. Yes, we were there because the event came with a ticket, the venue was naturally and historically spectacular and even the food on offer in the stalls was more than a few marks above the clichéd concert nosh. And we enjoyed it in spite of several notes and riffs and other such noises creeping up behind us as unexpectedly as a JPO Divorce Bill and releasing bursts of cacophonic ear-bell nauseating sounds. It was, in its own way, very emotional.

Forni Gate

We walked back to our legally parked car past Valletta Waterfront and I noticed a number of tourists still looking for an extension of their night out. The majority of the Waterfront shops had already gone into sleep mode. Where’s the fun in summer with bars closing at 12.30? Does a tourist not deserve a quiet cocktail on the Valletta waterfront in the silence of the early hours of the morning? Maybe not, but in any case my intention was not to complain about bar opening hours but rather to mention my linguistic discovery on the way to the Waterfront from Ta’ Liesse.

As we ambled from concert to car, taking in the latest developments in this area that is planned to receive thousands of tourists every year (maybe hundreds of thousands), we noticed, for example the “Magazzino” embarkation place for tourists. It fits very nicely into the surroundings and adds a nice touch to the foot of the bastions. Before the Magazzino though (I think) we passed one of the many gates serving the mooring posts by the port. The clear signage announced to anyone who cared to read it that this was… drum roll here… “Forni Gate”.

Now there’s an ironic gate for a tourist to walk through on arriving in Malta. A rather misleading encouragement I would say. Shouldn’t they add a postil or something? Something like “but not in public and definitely not in hotel rooms in case some MP or other develops a sudden interest in your private activities?” Even better we could add, “You might try but we care about this more than you would ever like to know”.

An international gate consisting of an imperative to copulate? OK, the word association made after a few hours of jazz-related disorientation is a bit childish but, hell – it is rather ironic, isn’t it? I’d heard of the Austrian town of “Fucking” (google it… I’m NOT making this up), I’d driven by the German town of “Katzen” and read of Titty Hill (England), Bald Knob (Arkansas) as well as Twatt (Scotland), but I was quite sure that the country that had opposed the acronym O.S.C.E. (rejected) would make sure that no such unfortunate slips would occur in its topography.

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Censored ships

Let’s face it. Were this any other time in our variegated history, the (childish, I repeat) issue of the unfortunate naming of a Valletta entrance (resulting from an Anglo Italian corroboration) would not be worth writing about. The combined effect of various moralistic issues being presented from the platform of hypocrisy and ingenuity does lend itself to parody and satire of the not too refined kind. As I type, a local paper reports that Anthony Neilson’s play Stitching has been awarded a 14 rating at the internationally famous Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. The hard-nosed protestant Scots (stereotype warning) will allow 14-year-olds to watch a play that was rated in Malta as being “unsuitable for any audience”.

Forget the criminal code. This is not a question of protecting the infants, is it? It is really a question of being unable to look outside the cave and beyond the shadows and reflections for fear of noticing that there is a whole world out there (and in here – though we cannot see it) that we cannot contemplate with our limited philosophy. I’m sorry if I have to harp on this matter for a second week, but surely we must realise how dangerous the path is that we have chosen to tread.

It’s the intolerant attitude that is absolutely flabbergasting. Forget penises in paintings in some art gallery in Gozo. The issue is much wider than that. The issue is that in this particular corner of the world there are people who would want to impose their life choices on others. It is not so much an issue of majority versus minority as it is an issue of crass interference. There is another ironic own goal to be registered here: the craving for legislation banning anything that goes against a particular set of morals also reflects an innate weakness in the bearers of such morals. What they are saying in effect is that if such things as provocative art or legislation to dissolve marriage contracts were available, then they would be too hard an attraction for them to resist. The solution? Ban them.

Summer politics

Which brings me back to the divorce question. I’ll set aside the detailed arguments for my blog. All I need to point out here (again) is that divorce should not even require any debate. The contradictions are that our two representative parties need to shuffle their legs and drag their feet while amusing us with musings of consultation peppered with quasi-fatwas of moralistic fervour. We will have a government that has no qualms regulating cohabitation while still opposing (at least in its majority) the introduction of divorce because of the deleterious effect it has on marriages.

We have a mad hot summer to discuss the possibility of divorce legislation ever happening. Some are already giving up as the ugly head of intolerant conservatism begins to bark and rant. I suggest we focus on a wider question – the very common line that runs through both the divorce and censorship issues. Are we really too scared to look in the mirror and see what we really are? Do we really want to bury our heads in the sand and continue perpetrating the myth of this “catholic nation”? There is nothing wrong with trying to be a catholic nation – if it were one that can proudly count among its citizenry a subset of people with a set of values that can only strengthen our social backbone then it is all well and good. I start to worry when the catholic fortress turns out to be a shambles that can only be saved (can it really?) through coercion and imposition of lifestyle choices on everybody else.

‘Bieb l-iFran’

It does not have the same ring does it? I kid you not though. Forni Gate does exist and you can snap your Facebook photo standing beside it on your next visit to the waterfront. This holiday has started quite well and I do not mean to be mean to the jazz enthusiasts – my lack of interest in the genre is surely my loss and not theirs. I’m looking forward to the next week of hot sun and sea back home and this weekend will start with a visit to the sister homeland, where J’accuse began.

www.akkuza.com wishes a happy feast to the Stilla crew in Victoria. Send creative snapshots of Forni Gate and we will publish them on the blog.

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J'accuse: A nation divorced from reality

A few months ago I mentioned, in an interview on Dissett, that blogs were holding a mirror up to our society and that our society did not like what it saw. The process of reflection has been going on for some time now and whether it is the sudden urgency with which we are discussing Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s Bill or whether we are lost in the aftermath of the Stitching decision in court, we are constantly confronted with a picture of Maltese society – warts and all.

Much has been made of this idea that the battle between conservatives and progressives has reached its defining moment, but there is more to it than the centuries-old battle between preservation and change. While following debates on both divorce and censorship over the past week, I have noticed a trend in some of the arguments. Both subjects deal with specific values and bring to the discussion table a plethora of issues that have for a long time been dealt with quietly and away from the public eye. There lies an important point for this argument. I harbour a strong suspicion that one field in this debate – that of the conservative elements who are normally both anti-divorce and pro-censorship – is firmly rooted in denial.

This denial is built around a permanent incapacity to reconcile the facts thrown at them daily by the world around them with the principles and dogmas that they have been brought up to regurgitate. There is an innate inability to question and examine the unfamiliar allied with an ability to blot out huge portions of their own experience that would be incongruous with the very principles they would love to follow. It’s complicated. But you’ll soon see what I mean.

I can’t believe it’s not Shakespeare

Back in the time when I could play football for hours during break without fearing for life and limb, I used to return to my fourth form English literature lessons looking forward to the latest text on offer. I still vividly remember a particular play about a dysfunctional, murderous couple who were never up to any good. The woman (should I say woman?) in particular was quite a devil of a woman. To this day I am impressed by the passage of the play where she invokes the spirits to unsex her pronto and to transform her into the very embodiment of cruelty that is bereft of any remorse – a machine honed to commit any form of evil without any pangs of conscience.

That a woman would be prepared to relinquish her very own sex in order to become a perfect evil machine was surprising enough. There was more though. She then proceeds to invite murderers to come suckle from her breasts that, thanks to the aforementioned transformation, no longer provided maternal milk but had been transformed into a source of gall. Gall being of course the mediaeval word for wrath, anger, hatred… you get my drift.

Behind every great man lies a great woman. With this couple the woman is both schemer and mastermind, egging on a weak-willed husband to murder and remorseless backstabbing for the sake of power. When her husband’s will seems to wane and when he seems to be reneging on his conspiratorial promises, she once again provides him with an inspiring speech. Well, inspiring is one way of putting it. What she does tell her pussy-footing husband is that if it was her being held to her word, she would do so even if she had promised to bash the brains of her own infant. Her nonchalance is legendarily spine-chilling. She has “given suck” she says and “knows how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me”, but she would still “while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this”.

A charming Lady she must have been, no doubt, this Mrs Macbeth. For yes messieurs et mesdames, this devilish dysfunctional couple is none other than the ill-fated Thane of Cawdor, Glamis, etc and his belovèd wife, and the play in question was written by the much acclaimed Bard of Avon himself – one Mr Shakespeare William of Stratford-upon-Avon. Given that the shenanigans to which these two got up could easily fall within the parameters of dangerous sexual perversions, as well as the imagery of assault and murder of suckling babes, it is a wonder how our English teacher – good, old Ms T. Friggieri – managed to present this play to a class of young impressionable adolescents without too much trouble.

Censor this?

Even if Ms Friggieri had the text whipped from her hands by Malta’s punctilious Bord ta’ Klassifika ta’ Pellikoli u Palk (hard one that, given that she is also the chairperson of said board), we could always fall back on William Golding’s magnificent Lord of the Flies and the wonderful metaphor of collective sexual climax among shipwrecked pre-adolescent boys as they stab away at a pig while being carried away in an ecstasy of violent and murderous pleasures. Who ever said school literature was boring? I wonder what the kids at Saint Aloysius’ College are reading today in the post-Stitching world. And will the Jesuits take the pupils on a trip to the cinema over Easter to watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ replete with exaggerated scenes of violence and sadistic suffering far beyond anything found in the Scriptures?

Gibson, Golding and Shakespeare. All use their medium to deliver a message. The audience is not expected to sit back and literally consume all that is set out before it but is rather expected to question the content. The complex characters in Shakespeare’s Macbeth expose the dangers of a quest for power – Tolkien gives us the Ring, Shakespeare gives us an unsexed half-demonic woman prepared to bash the brains of her own suckling offspring. Golding examines humanity at its most crude and Gibson? Well, Gibson took the narrative of the suffering of the Son of God and exaggerated it beyond recognition. By the very standards imposed by the Stitching decision, Gibson’s film should never have made it to the silver screens in Malta (nor, should we really be punctilious, should most tracts of the Bible).

I could go on. The list is endless. As Rupert Cefai rightly pointed out, we might be the victims of our own hypocrisy. We would be prepared to censor the portrayal of a father lifting a dagger to the skies about to murder his own son as being “violent” and “offensive to sentiments”, but we might change tack if we called the dad Abraham and the son Isaac. Every narrative has its medium and, yes, some are quite shocking. But the mere fact that they are intended to provoke does not mean that they are “bad” or “censurable”. In the end we must ask the question: Are we protecting our values or are we cushioning ignorance? The debate (unfortunately) continues.

He ain’t heavy, he’s my Jeffrey

Michael Briguglio, AD’s chairman, penned a brilliant article last Friday called “Censoring (post)-Modernity” and you can find it on www.mikes-beat.blogspot.com. In the article, he argues that when referring to “Maltese civilisation” the Court that gave us the Stitching decision was actually referring to “the dominant interests of the dominant institutions in Malta”. It goes without saying that, having written of the dangers of the stranglehold of bipartisan politics in Malta for over five years, J’accuse is in full agreement with Mike. The mainstream of both political parties is unable to deal with substantial issues such as divorce or the latest questions of censorship.

The traditionalist stranglehold must not necessarily be seen with a chiaroscuro sense of “good or evil”. It does, however, threaten to choke the rights and expressions of a different (and growing) minority aspiring to a more liberal (or if you like a toned down term, a more personal) lifestyle. This is the unrepresented minority that is not content with having others think for itself. It’s the same unrepresented minority that would like to be provoked and challenged with new ideas and which believes that the building block of society deserves a shot at a second chance if it is broken, and irretrievably so. It believes in not imposing its values and thoughts on others but, ironically, it also still feels part of the social fabric that keeps us all together.

Which brings me to JPO (abbreviation for convenience) and his Bill. It’s clumsy and elegant at the same time. It’s oxymoronically magnificent and has shocked the lethargic dinosaurs plodding at the head of Mike’s “dominant institutions” into action. Shocked was GonziPN (the man, the label and the immediate entourage) by the sudden need to take a stand without faffing away or hiding in a bishop’s frock (plus the lurking danger of a new perceived fragmentation of the party). Shocked was Muscat’s Progressive Party by the sudden realisation that its bluff, with all its flaws and miscalculations, had been called and that the honeymoon with all things progressive would soon be over once the cover has been blown. The lone part-time farmer, journalist and dentist from Zebbug had struck again with a vengeance and hooray for that. Yes, we applaud JPO for this shock treatment. No wonder we chose him as our Personality of the Year in 2008.

The Bill itself has a long way to go and there are many tricks up the sleeves of the dominant institutions before we could actually see a proper divorce bill introduced (hopefully not this cut and paste Irish job). There’s free votes and qualms of conscience, there’s an uphill battle to educate about the tutelage of minority rights, there’s a possible refusal by a Catholic President to sign the bill (an excuse to get out of the way after the recent faux pas?), and then there is the mother of all threats: an abrogative referendum. For if fundamental fanatics like the GoL people can go to extremes to coerce parliamentarians into signing bits of nonsense, how can we not expect equivalent tactics to get a future divorce bill abrogated by busybodies who would tell you when and where to copulate, if they could.

The battle lines have been drawn. Right now we should focus on the debate rather than on the people jumping in and out of the limelight. I for one am grateful for the empowered journals with their mini-video vox pops that persist in their duty to lift the mirror straight into the face of Maltese society but please, please, someone get that Board of Censors to prohibit the use of the phrase “as such” in an interview. This practical debate (fortunately) has begun.

Encyclopaedic

This article threatens to reach the encyclopaedic levels of old and that is because of the two subjects that provoke endless discussion. Do pop over to J’accuse the blog because we have been having quite a few interesting exchanges over the last few weeks. We’ll be writing and blogging from home base (Malta) next week and you’ll be able to hear about the latest ECHR case obliging a state to provide a proper set-up for its residents abroad to be able to vote (cheers to the Runs for the flagging). I pick up my rental car on Thursday morning and I hope that the roads will be a little calmer than has been reported over the last few days. Easy on the gas pedal, guys.

Finally, the World Cup will be one match short of being over by the time you finish reading this article. We will either have Spanish or Dutch celebrations – either way it’s a European victory, which is small consolation for those of us whose hopes lay elsewhere in the beginning. Unlike the eight-limbed cephalopod of note, my predictions for this world cup have been absolutely atrocious but I am still convinced that we have seen some good football. Speaking of the World Cup and Octopi, I leave you with a quote I pulled from Facebook. It’s by a colleague and fellow Juventino Damien Degiorgio:

“I’ve got nothing against Paul but World Cups used to be remembered for a Paul Gascoigne, a Paolo Rossi or Paolo Roberto Falcao, not for Paul the octopus” – brilliant.

(Errata Corrige: Chief Justice Roberts is NOT resigning as erroneously asserted in last week’s J’accuse. Chief Justice is there for life (a bit like a pet) – it is Justice John Stevens who has retired and will be replaced by Elena Kagan. Thanks to Indy readers the Jacobin and John Lane for the quick corrections.)

www.akkuza.com – uncensored, uncut, and unmarried. “Two-thirds of the country is divorced from reality. The rest would vote for divorce.” – from this week’s J’accuse.

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J'accuse : Courting Justice

I’ve just watched Ghana get unceremoniously kicked out of the World Cup by an unsinkable Uruguay team. Having already witnessed a despondent Brazil being outmanoeuvred and outwitted by a resilient Netherlands, I started to strongly believe that there is no footballing god. When Luis Suarez punched the ball off the line in the last of the 120 minutes of an incredible football match, I had hoped that, finally, some divine justice had been served on a plate and that the Black Stars would be the deserving representatives of a whole continent, come the semi-finals.

Instead, up stepped the hapless Asamoah Gyan – a 25-year-old gentle giant who had outrun and outlasted everyone else on the field – and he took the weight and responsibility of a whole continent in those last fatal steps before opting for power rather than accuracy and slamming the ball against that fateful crossbar. Uruguay had been let off the hook and the Russian roulette of a penalty shootout ensued.

It was too much for the Ghanaians, who had ran their hearts into the ground and given it their all. They were out, and with them were the hopes of a whole continent. Like Cameroon (England in 1990) and Senegal (Turkey in 2002) before them, Ghana proved unable to break the jinx of the quarter-finals for the African representatives. You had to yell it in the end. “This is unfair. This is not how it was meant to be.” The air was pregnant with exclamation marks of disappointment. The whole of the world (ok, except maybe large parts of Montevideo) cried out for justice.

Just Desserts

It’s a slippery business this justice thingy. Take football for example. It revolves around a set of rules that are (mostly) over a hundred years old but which continue to be interpreted and applied in real time by that most reviled species of human beings – the referee. Argentina’s first goal against Mexico, Luis Fabiano’s handling of the ball before scoring, Van Bommel’s uncarded efforts to destroy the legs of half the Brazil squad and, of course, the ball that crossed the line for everyone except the Uruguayan ref (there you go again with Uruguay) – they are all instances of split-second justice-making deliveries by a human being. In each case there will be a nation yelling “foul”, yelling “injustice” as well as yelling a few more unprintable expletives directed at the referee, his assistants and, in some cases, his immediate family.

Leaving the unprintable expletives (and the reason why, apparently, they are unprintable) aside, have you noticed that the subject of justice and the dispensation thereof has had a particular week in the spotlight that was not limited to the performance of the whistle-bearing men south of the equator? Justice – “the constant and perpetual wish to give everyone that which they deserve” (Corpus Juris Civilis) – often makes it to the headlines in the media but so much attention in so many different forums is a rare occasion that merits close attention.

Supreme

First up, the US Supreme Court where Chief Justice Roberts is coming to the end of his tenure. He is most likely to be replaced by Elena Kagan, the Solicitor-General whose confirmation hearings were underway in the Senate this week. Yes, one good thing about the method of political appointment in the Yankee system is that the proposed judges have to pass through the scrutiny of the representatives of the people during which they are asked questions on a variety of topics that might end up before them in court. Having seen this procedure in action, the articles in local papers this week calling for the respect of the principle of “seniority” in the appointment of new judges tend to look a bit frivolous (we’ve got vacancies thanks to Justice DeGaetano’s move to Strasbourg and Justice Galea Debono’s retirement).

Most important courts decide in a collegial manner – that means that the decision is not attributable to one judge in particular but is a decision of the group of judges forming the particular chamber making the decision. The practise of dissenting opinions (UK) might go some way towards giving a more personal touch to the decision – and in some cases leads to accusations of activism among some judges. The US are pioneers in this respect too, since records are kept of which judges voted for what decision. It is, in fact, possible to track a judge’s track record in decisions of a court much as you can track the voting record of an MEP at the European Parliament.

Chief Justice Roberts is a strong case in point. It turns out that in the five years he served as Chief Justice he was in the majority of the cases 92 per cent of the time. The Supreme Court has been dubbed “the Roberts Court” because of this statistic. During his tenure as Chief Justice, the Supreme Court has delivered some major rulings that have signalled a shift from its minimalist phase to a more assertive approach.

[Errata Corrige: Chief Justice Roberts is NOT resigning as erroneously asserted in this article. Chief Justice is there for life (a bit like a pet) – it is Justice John Stevens who has retired and will be replaced by Elena Kagan – thanks to Indy readers the Jacobin and John Lane for the quick corrections this morning]

Only last year, a 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case meant that corporations were allowed unlimited spending in elections (reported in J’accuse – remember?). It was not to be the only controversial decision. It also ruled that a government law that makes it a crime to depict cruelty to animals violated the First Amendment (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances). Sound familiar?

Human

Across the big pond another Court was in the news this week. The Strasbourg ECFHR was in session listening to the pleadings before it in Italy’s appeal in what has come to be known as the “Crucifix Case”. The Strasbourg court has the wonderful facility of streaming live webcasts of big sittings of the court so we were lucky enough to watch the pleadings of the parties and main interveners (Malta also intervened by the way) to the case much earlier than expected. I watched a streamed version of the pleadings two days later, mainly because my curiosity had been piqued by the presence of one of my former Bruges professors on the team representing 10 of the intervening states.

Professor Joseph Weiler spoke for the intervening 10 countries (Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Romania and the Russian Federation), all of which were supporting Italy’s case to keep the crucifix in the classrooms. While Weiler agreed with Italy’s ultimate aim, he disagreed with the position taken by the Italian representative who described the crucifix as a passive symbol with no relation to teaching, which he describes as secular.

The issue, according to Weiler, is that the court must be wary of “the Americanisation of Europe with a single rule that goes against a multiplicity of constitutions”. This side of the Atlantic, Christian countries have the right to define themselves with regard to their religious heritage. More than half the population of Europe lives in states that cannot be described as laique. The state and its symbols are essential to democracy. The professor reminded the court that it is because of our history that many of our state symbols have a religious dimension. In essence, Prof. Weiler criticised the Court’s first ruling because it failed to distinguish between private rights and public identity. While the Court may have every right and duty to impose an obligation on states to ensure that their public schools are not a place which is “religiously coercive”, it must be aware that there is no “One Size Fits All” manner in which this may be achieved.

Weiler’s solution is not to take tolerance too far as to make the very rule promoting tolerance intolerant. He showed how this could happen by asking whether the Court’s earlier decision should mean rewriting Great Britain’s national anthem (God Save the Queen) or the Irish, German and Maltese constitutions, all of which invoke religion in one way or another. It’s a hard act to follow, and the Strasbourg court still has to decide on the matter, but it also goes to show that the difficult matter of balancing rights and interests is not as straightforward as our emotions might lead us to believe.

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Stitched

Which brings me to the 82-page masterpiece of our very own Constitutional Court. You will by now have heard of the Stitching controversy and the way it was decided by Malta’s Constitutional Court. The decision of the Board of Censors was upheld by the Court by way of a curious bit of not so linear logic. Reading through the motivational part of the judgement, you get the feeling that emotions and morals trumped the necessity to ground the reasoning in legal justification. Like the ECFHR judgement banning crucifixes from classes, this latest product of the Constitutional Court might require revisiting – maybe in the Strasbourg court itself. Taken to the extreme, the application of this judgement would require a rather punctilious and efficient policing and censorship force and threatens to obliterate a substantial amount of media from the Maltese landscape.

It might still be early to cry “injustice”, and it is definitely not the time to yell expletives towards the referees in question – especially judging by the level of tolerance advocated at that particular freedom of expression. It’s not time to be alarmist but definitely time to be activist and explore the limits of this particular interpretation of the island’s mores. Pleasures, they say, yet to come.

European

In our corner of the judicial sphere, the tempo is mighty hectic before the relative lull of summer. Which is why J’accuse has gone through an extended hiatus after the New York break. We will be back soon enough to report from the island itself on our well deserved visit. We are equipped with new blogging tools, including the amazing flip camera and an amazing Macbook that is absolutely stunning. Pity about the hitches Apple is having with the iPhone 4 (antenna problems it seems – quite a blooper for the company) but we will remain diehard supporters of the logo and all its products.

Be seeing you sooner than you think in Malta. In the meantime, remember: “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian”.

www.akkuza.com will be migrating to Malta in 10 days time. Heavy blogging activity is predicted.

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J'accuse : The Banana Republic

There’s this company and its put a new product on the market. Over the last 80 days it has averaged a sale of 37,500 units per day. There’s this mayor who is doing all he can to tackle the problems of pollution and dust in the air that are threatening to rack up huge fines from the EU. There’s this politician who took a decision to sack a senior institutional member in less than three hours – that particular member had publicly misbehaved and given away signs of disunity among the leadership of the nation. There’s this immigrant woman who suddenly finds herself at the helm of an entire continent. There’s this tiny nation where democracy has been on hold for a while. And then there are the French and the Italians…

Entrées

And we’re back. A thousand apologies for last week’s hiccup – it’s my first since I began writing this column. Unfortunately, a combination of technological glitches (hotel WiFi was not what it promised to be and laptop started to play up) and the usual inability to deal with temporary shifts in the time-space continuum (coping with a change in time zone) led to one last desperate attempt to submit the weekly fare from onboard a sleepy Greyhound bus headed towards Washington DC in the early hours of the morning. The absence of any J’accuse fare last week is ample proof that this mission failed miserably. Hence esteemed readers were given a break from the usual disquisitions.

I was in America, the US of A – land of the free and home of the big – and I had a whale of a time. The danger of visiting a country obsessed with size is that you soon get the hang of it and before you know it the “whale of a time” becomes a “whale having a good time”. Not that I have assumed the proportions of our cetaceous giant cousins of the ocean, but let us just say that when reviewing the holiday photos I did not feel very comfortable about what seemed to be incontrovertible proof of a double-chin. It’s impossible not to eat in America. Like their cousins across the ocean (with whom they have shared many a battle – for or against – and a World Cup draw) the ’mericans are not particularly famous for their cuisine. Which is unfair. There are burgers in your average American eatery that provide the kind of satisfaction that would make El Bulli’s Ferran Adria cringe with jealousy.

And they love their entrées. It takes some getting used to this “entrée” business. You needn’t have been living on the fringe of frogland to know that an entrée is normally a smaller course that precedes the main course. In the US, the heading on the menu normally reserved for the main course is “Entrée”, which can catch you off guard if only for the few hours needed to consume the average bacon-cheese-Swiss edam-egg triple burger. Food is an art form worthy of a hall in the MOMA or Guggenheim. Every swish of ketchup, every hot dog and falafel stand on 42nd St, every Mr Softy lurking next to the ubiquitous post-boxes yell “Murder by Cholesterol”, but it’s only then that you begin to appreciate the “I’m lovin’ it” slogan.

Restrooms

It’s easy to understand why whole books have been written taking note of the cultural differences in the land of the large (Bill Bryson sticks out as the obvious example). From the libraries to the drugstores to the restaurants the evidence is all over. The obsession with large is fantastic – I was berated for using a wrong (smaller) cup for a beverage (drink – a “soda” actually is a “soft-drink”) and they look at you quizzically when you refuse to avail yourself of cheap upgrades for your meal. At the B.B. King Sunday Gospel Brunch with the “World Famous” (what would American lingo be without epithets?) Harlem Gospel Choir, I sat timidly watching the spectacle surrounded by hundreds of hippos and rhinoceroses swinging to the music and chewing on an eat-all-you-can buffet. I can’t. Eat all of that, that is. You know what? Screw political correctness. Big, fat American people are all over the place. Then comes the cherry on the cake (if you still have space): New York City has a campaign running to “reduce the amount of sodium” in foods. Apparently it’s bad for your health.

One last thing before this column becomes a running commentary of the Bryson kind. The lingo. They do not speak English in the US. I am not referring to Spanish soon becoming the national vernacular but rather to the complete, absolute and unequivocal rape of the language of Shakespeare. Not that it is not the right of the people across the pond to develop their own queer way of speaking English but I was not aware of how many simple words we use daily have been replaced. It’s not the “kerb v pavement” kind of thing.

It’s signs like “Restrooms One Flight Up” that get to me in a funny way. At first glance there is nothing abnormal with that is there? Think again. How many times have you seen that sign recently? What you may have seen is this one: “Toilets Upstairs”. There’s loads more where that came from and I am not complaining – it’s just part of the fun while staying in the US and in the city that never sleeps.

Jelly

NYC mayor Bloomberg has just announced that, despite the recession and the retreating power of the euro, the Big Apple has set its sights on reaching a record of 50 million tourists annually by 2013. They’re not far off that record, seeing as how they will probably hit 47 million this year. That’s 47 million potential gym clients in Europe by December 2010 – there must be a few easy bucks to be made somewhere. Speaking of bucks, another Big Apple that is on a roll is Steve Job’s ship. iPads have been on sale for about 80 days now and over 30 million units have been sold. Pastizzi anyone?

If selling iPads is a bit like selling cheesecakes in Hamrun High Street, then selling the new iPhone 4 is like giving out free pastizzi at City Gate on a Monday morning. We’ve stopped getting as excited as when the advent of the first iPhone was with us, plus the rapid development of Android might mean that Apple’s competitors might be catching up faster than Steve thought, but in any case, the iPhone and iPad will give us a reason to flex our digits and surf the net like never before.

One new development to look out for is Google’s Chrome OS. It might redefine what computers mean and do for us. Essentially, it takes all the advantages of cloud computing and uses them to eliminate start up time and hardware and software problems on your PC. Lost? Just sit back and wait… it will all happen to you as inevitably as the sun will rise tomorrow morning.

Cap it all

Washington DC’s mall must be one of the most incredible feats of democratic architecture ever. I do not mean the buildings themselves that surround the vast expanse centred around Washington’s monument (which looks like, and is inspired by, a phallus but which tends to cause no fuss at all in the US). What I mean is the use of symbols and space to immediately convey the meanings and principles upon which the American Dream was originally built. Remembrance, respect and aspiration. They are all there. From the magnificent Capitol, to the war memorials, to the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials to the White House. Standing under the Washington Monument on a clear night with the temperature hitting the nineties, you take a deep breath and an incredible head rush of history immediately assaults your brain. You see it all, from Leif Eriksson to Columbus to 1776 and beyond. It is hard not to feel awed and envious of the American Dream.

There were moments when my pride to be European kicked in though. None were more obvious than the “little” perks brought about by the EU. Take being “delayed” on a flight thanks to some bumptious handling by the Delta ground crew (half the commuters had been delayed to the airport by an extraordinary amount of traffic). No vouchers for food. No vouchers to phone home. No hotel in case of an overnight delay. Upon landing in Amsterdam for my connect flight, the wonderful people at KLM issued me a new ticket at no extra cost, handed me both food and phone vouchers as well as a smile that went along with the service. Thank you European Directives and Regulations. Damn you Delta Airlines and the insufferable desk clerk with monosyllabic vocabulary (i.e. NO).

The worst two things about a stay in the States though are both money related. First of all is the hopeless system of not including tax on prices. Whether in a supermarket or booking your hotel the price you see is not the price you pay. A $4.99 plug becomes something ridiculous like $5.13, which only means that your pockets will be loaded with pennies, dimes and quarters. Also, there seems to be a staunch resistance to using the practical one-dollar coins as against the filthy one-dollar bills – not to mention the irritating fact that all dollar bills are the same colour.

I could bother you with my grievances about the concept of “gratuity” at US tables (it’s a tip but sounds nicer when it is called a gratuity). I witnessed a waitress chase after a couple who dared leave a pittance on the table in tips and was also lectured to by a Russian taxi driver about the dangers of not tipping (the previous occupants had dispensed with the idea of a tip altogether) but the time has come for me to conclude.

Johnny Rockets

The blog is entering the summer phase and I have chosen “the Banana Republic” as the main theme. I will not discuss the merits and demerits of the World Cup performances as yet out of superstition. Brazil is still in it and looking good so that is fine for me. The Banana Republic will deal with the global village, with the local democracy put on hold by two parties who can only gain from the status quo and with the latest thrills from the technological development.

Congrats to the competition (MaltaToday) for the spanking new portal on the web – as I have long been saying, this step is an inevitable one for newspapers of today (hint and nudge to the Eds). The original battleground for online news seems to be gravitating around a more settled feel. The latest step is for papers to take back control of their comment board. Expect local papers to oblige users to register and sign comments in their own name sometime soon. That might lead to less comments and more quality.

The company in the intro was Apple of course. The mayor is Boris Johnson tackling London’s new levels of pollution. It was President Obama sacking General McChrystal after reading some remarks made by the general an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. It took President Obama a reading of the first few paragraphs to reach a decision to fire a general who had hitherto been thought to be indispensable to the efforts in Afghanistan (it’s not the war it’s the counterinsurgency, stupid). Julia Gillard, a Welsh immigrant in 1966, became Australia’s first woman Prime Minister when Labour leader Rudd stepped down following an inside revolt. There are no surprises in guessing that our democracy is still on hold following Labour’s walkout from the House Committee for the strengthening of democracy. Finally, there’s the French and the Italians. I guess some things are best left unsaid.

www.akkuza.com found a link between Inter’s pre-world cup championship victories and early exits (with dismal performances) by Italy. Four times out of five this has been the case –- the only exception being Mussolini’s Champions in 1938. Maybe there is more to it than just superstition.

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J'accuse : Friends

I am happy to say that I have a lot of friends who vote Nationalist (or Labour). I am not, if I may add, particularly ashamed to be seen with them. There. I’ve said it. I’ve come out and said it. It was killing me really, having to keep this secret to myself all this time, but now that I’ve come out and relieved myself of this bit of info burdening my conscience I feel much better.

If my declaration does not sound ridiculous enough, then what would you think if I felt the need to specify that “Actually I have some friends who are black”? You’d think me to be some weirdo living in some pre-Rosa Parks world of racial segregation. Incidentally, this is the 50th anniversary of the publication of that magnificent book by Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird – published only five years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. I owe Harper Lee much of the inspiration for taking the legal career path, thanks to her unflinching Atticus Finch. Ironically, Harper Lee lives a very segregated life in Monroeville, Alabama (the real Maycomb from the story), conceding few interviews and having written pretty much nowt since the book that was voted into the top 10 must-reads of a lifetime (beating the Bible in the process).

It is very probable that the Mockingbird is a fictionalised autobiography of Harper Lee and that the character Scout in the book is actually Lee herself. Her best friend in the book, named Dill, is thought to be Harper Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote. Though the friendship drifted apart in later years, neither of them was ever heard to say that they were ashamed of knowing one another.

Gays in the village

You know where I am coming from with all this “I have X friends” business – and no I do not mean Facebook. I am obviously referring to Prof. Anthony Zammit’s remark during the proceedings before the House Social Affairs Committee  (HSAC) at the temple of conservatism and bigotry. The subject was “the situation of homosexuals and transgender individuals” in Malta, and the information that we have at hand comes with the courtesy of a very “xarabankified” Times as one of my readers described it. For it is important to bear in mind that, in fulfilling its reporting duty, the Strickland House product seems to have shifted towards a more “provocative” approach in the presentation of its material – in some cases denaturing the very subject being reported.

It was thusly that The Times’ David Schembri kicked off with a very titillating title What Happens in the Bedroom is the Government’s Business only to fall foul of the timesofmalta.com inquisition and retract to a more moderate Parliament discusses gay rights (technical geeks did notice that the permalink (article’s web address) remained the same though – baby steps for The Times tech). So yes, as in Malawi, gay rights are still an issue for Malta’s democratic institutions to discuss.

What makes an individual (you’ve got to love the stressed use of the term ‘individual’ in the title on the HSAC’s agenda) gay? What is a gay couple? And what roles do they perform in the household? These are some of the crucial questions that seem to be automatically raised in this committee that feels and acts very much like some Victorian committee questioning Darwin’s preposterous assertions on apes, men and the like.

Only that here, thanks to a mixture of confused (and I may add unfair) reporting and clueless honourable gentlemen, we were not discussing the evolutionary merits of the opposable thumb but rather issues of a more personal nature of thousands of ‘individuals’ who inhabit the islands of Malta in the 21st century. We needn’t go so far as examining the red-hot issue of “gay adoption” that inevitably sparks fires and heats debates even in the most liberal of nations. We are talking of basic rights and liberties – such as the right to marry (and I speak of the civil law right for people not giving two hoots about sacraments humanly concocted in some Diet or Council in Trent).

Queer folk

The news from the HSAC was not promising though. There seemed to be much banter about whether it was the government’s business to have an eye in every bedroom. Edwin Vassallo’s assertion that “Yes it was” because we bear the consequences of such things as “teenage pregnancies and single parenthoods” looked slightly out of place in a forum discussing couples whose ability to reproduce among themselves can best be described as impossible. So unless some new religion is in the making, complete with dogma of “impossible conception”, something was definitely wrong with the perspective of the lawmakers in the House. Sure The Times correspondent peppered his “report” with anecdotes about MGRM’s ideas on “creative ways to have children” but surely this was not the original point of the agenda?

It then moved to the slightly queer (sorry) when Honourable Conservative Member Beppe Fenech Adami resorted to ballistic logic (in the sense that he approached the subject with the same level of convincing logic as a suicide terrorist strapped with explosives): What roles for gay partners? Who’s the man and who’s the woman in a relationship? Given that it is already hard to determine such “roles” in the post-nuclear family – we’ve all heard the one about the one who wears the trousers – the questions were as anachronistic as they were offensive. As BFA proceeded to prove that, since switching roles is not done in his domus, it couldn’t work anywhere else, the gods of logic threw a tantrum and collectively resigned.

At which point you can picture Prof. Anthony Zammit making his dramatic entry armed with a Damocletian sword and delivering the coup de grace to a discussion that never really stood on tenable grounds. “I have gay friends and I am not ashamed to be seen with them in public”. Ta-da indeed. I must confess that I do not know much about Prof. Zammit beyond what I read in the papers, but even had the pinker corners of the web not led to my discovery that he had more than a passing interest in the discussion, the kind of statement he came up with is flabbergastingly ridiculous. The only conclusion we could draw from the “xarabankified” report was that our current crop of representatives is far from representing a large crop of the voting population.

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Friends of friends

There’s that phrase again. Programmes on TV this week were rather amusing. Lou (of Bondiplus of Where’s Everybody?) got spanked on the backside by the BA for his Lowell programme, so Peppi (of Xarabank of Where’s Everybody?) set up a programme discussing freedom of expression and Lou’s spanking. Guests on the programme? Another ta-da moment. Lou Bondi and the ubiquitous media guru Joe Borg Father. I spotted WE’s Norman Vella on Facebook claiming that “In this programme Lou Bondi will not be the only guest. He will face people who publicly expressed themselves against his programme with Norman Lowell”. Incidentally, he was replying to a comment by Borg Cardona who had just implied that the Xarabank programme had an incestuous element in it.

The criteria used by the Xarabank crew reminds me of certain Times’ editorials (or of a conversation between Lou and Fr Joe) where they seem to assume that they are the only people to have a relevant opinion or to have actually expressed an opinion on any given subject. All three – Xarabank, Bondiplus and The Times – have become an institutionalised form of their relative medias and it is in that spirit that they are criticised. Frankly, all three could hold whatever opinion they like but their constant editorial position that obliterates any opinion they consider irrelevant (for irrelevant read uncomfortable to deal with) is worrying and stinks of a systematic effort to retain the stranglehold that they have built over a large chunk of the fourth estate.

I am not too sure that the credibility of all three is the same as they enjoyed a while back, even among the more conservative of elements. Having long abdicated one of the primary journalistic duties of proper investigation, they are now lost in a navel-gazing world of their own and they have constantly proved unable to deal with the wider democratisation of the media. While their voices might still be strong enough to be heard, and while they can still afford to ignore the disparate contradictory elements, they are noticing that their grasp is weakening and their efforts to remedy the situation is only leading them to descend into the comically absurd. So yes. We have Lou as a guest on Peppi’s show discussing how Lou and Peppi’s company should be allowed freedom of expression. Jolly good, I say.

Friendly fire

Finally, a few notes on friendly fire. Joseph Muscat was on Myriam Dalli’s TX this week. TX is a programme on Labour’s One TV (did I mention that we STILL have party-owned TVs in 21st century Malta?), so such notions as bias and doctored questions are only to be expected as annoying intervals in between shots of that Mediterranean beauty that is the programme presenter. The other person on the show glared at the camera and warned of the problems of corruption in the country while standing fast behind such weird notions as carte blanche for whistleblowers and promising the people €50 million (take from Peter give back to Peter) for the “unjust tax on vehicles”. Rather than traipsing uselessly with the kangaroos, Joe might want to polish up his knowledge of recent (very recent) ECJ jurisprudence before harping on about the latter subject. (I have friends who studied European Law and I am not ashamed to be seen with them).

Two notes on GonziPN and friends. Well done for the WiFi spots around the country. That is a bit more tangible than all the words about Vision 2015. Surely you should warn interested citizens that “free public WiFi” is not eternal. As in all similar European projects, expect a shift to paid services in the near future – whether big brother tells you or not. Also GonziPN’s little tryst with “non-politicians” at Vision2015+ felt like a very manufactured and simulated business among friends. Funny that name – Vision 2015+. A government plan gets a “+” tagged onto it and it becomes a party meet. A bit like programmes getting a “+” on their name on national TV. All they needed were Lou and Peppi at Vision 2015+ … but wait… they were there. So it’s OK, innit?

www.akkuza.com (j’accuse) has 301 friends on its Facebook page. Would you be ashamed to be seen as one of them?

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J'accuse: Say Cheese

At the beginning of the 20th century, Eastman Kodak introduced the Brownie camera in an effort to encourage families and consumers to “capture moments in time” without being too concerned with the amateurishness of their photographic efforts. The “kodak moment” was the photographic equivalent of carpe diem and had that kind of breakthrough effect on consumers as happened with such historic products as the Model T and the iPod. With an eye through the viewfinder and a click of the index finger, the user would capture an image that would last forever – and the camera for the masses was born.

The iPod, iPhone and iPad have been charting a new path in consumer trends for some time now, as homo sapiens makes the best use of his opposable thumb and index finger to feed on the benefits of mass communication. With a tap, a swipe or pincer movement, the news of the world is at your fingertips. It’s not just that, the idea of “Apps” – versatile applications that can do anything from convert units to replacing a spirit level to identify songs by just “listening to them” – has revolutionised the potential of the homo sapiens’ pocket. The iPhone is Apple’s answer to Baden Powell’s “Be Prepared” and MacGyver rolled into one.

And boy, has Apple begun to reap the rewards. It was announced this week that Apple is officially bigger than Microsoft. The Apple Revolution, masterminded by the prophet Steve Jobs, has now reached a very particular milestone for a company that was on the verge of shutting down and bankruptcy less than 20 years ago. They may be slightly elitist in their outlook (their philosophy is not to sell cheap but to sell desirable) but hey… to paraphrase the man from Apple Studios (no particular relation)… Apple is now more popular than Jesus.

Jesus Saves

Apple was still 10 years from being established and England were fresh World Cup winners when John Lennon sparked what came to be dubbed “The Jesus Controversy” when he observed that the Beatles had become “more popular than Jesus”. His declaration provoked the usual hysteric effect on the more religious members of the global community, who engaged in anti-Beatle protests, much vinyl burning and even the issuing of physical threats. Ever since the times of Cyril of Alexandria and the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, an angry Christian crowd has never been the most ‘Christian’ of customers.

We witnessed some hysteria of our own in the flaming controversy regarding cohabiting couples and communion. Frankly, the biggest lesson to be had from this controversy is that the lessons in religious doctrine are not exactly having the expected effects. Any self-respecting Roman Catholic should know the dos and don’ts of the sacrament of the Eucharist. The moment someone pointed out that cohabiting couples do not qualify so easily for communion should not have been a eureka moment but rather a simple reminder.

It’s not like the man formerly known as Saul never came to our islands. Admittedly, he never wrote any letters to us in the same way he wrote to the learned peoples of Corinth, but that does not mean that we can overlook their content. It was in a letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11: 27-29) that Paul wrote: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.”

Now there goes that conscience bit again. It’s quite important methinks, as the Catholic Church does not employ bouncers and lie detectors to patrol its aisles in search of the unworthy sinner for whom communion is not kosher. The Catholic Church explains its precepts and then leaves it up to you and the Jiminy Cricket in your head to work out the maths (erm, OK – metaphysics). Which is why all the protests are in vain. If the protesters so disagree with the Church’s disdain of a life outside matrimony or homosexuality (when practised) and more, then they are cordially invited to look elsewhere for their spiritual fulfilment. Others have been there before them – notably a certain Martin Luther way back in the 16th century – and it could spare them the hassle of having to reason with modern day Cyrils who believe they have some direct exclusive tap for the love of God.

Smile – through gritted teeth

A remark left on my blog this week pointed out that while there is a rather daunting economic crisis out there, “ Malta can afford to discuss communion to cohabitants, hypothetical coalitions, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Lou Bondi and whether secularism is a disease.” And Fausto has a point. It is true that Malta’s most talked about blog has retreated to the Lilliputian disquisitions as to the proper pronunciation of the Maltese word for ricotta (I say rikotta, you say irkotta) and that our talk show hosts are known to shy away from taking the proverbial bull by the horns (do check out this week’s Dissett though – it’s all about the humungous cock-up on student funds: you can bet on Mr Bugeja asking the pertinent questions) but there’s a world outside waiting to be discovered.

Cheesy issues apart, there really is a dark cloud still assembling out there and I don’t mean Eyjafjallajokull’s latest tantrum. For the life of me I still cannot figure out what part of the Vision 2015 is a tangible project and not simply a label to slap onto any idea that looks vaguely promising, but my biggest worry is that the dark cloud will hit Malta with the fury of a Eurovision contestant scorned and it will not be good. Austerity measures are the vogue all over Europe and they too might not be enough. Only yesterday, news was out that credit agency Fitch had devalued Spain’s credit rating, notwithstanding its €15 billion worth of budget measures.

Spain joins Portugal at the AA+ level (down from AAA – credit ratings sound suspiciously like battery types) and this was not good news for the Iberian strugglers fiercely battling the economic downturn. A brilliant write up on Gavin Hewitt’s Europe blog (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/) describes the “battle of ideas” that Europe might be facing: governments introducing the necessary austerity measures and unions raring for strikes and countermeasures. Spain, Italy and France all face potential general strikes to battle the reform plans and we all know of Angela Merkel’s woes. Meanwhile, at eurobase, Manoel Barroso has hooked onto the idea that this is Europe’s existential moment – do or die. It is not just the euro that is in peril but the whole project, as the mantra of “integration or bust” is put firmly to the test. What of the battle between “national interest” and “solidarity”? Will populism finally trump the lot? And will our leaders – actual or potential – fall from the clouds and get cracking?

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Snapshots

This is really a time to have information at your fingertips and the iPad has just landed in Europe and promises to do just that and more. This week I witnessed the fascinating transformation of the UK Times portal and the aggressive marketing that the iPad got simply by having pages and pages of print in different papers vying to explain to their clients how they will be accessible on the new technology too. Is the iPad a crystallisation of the Kodak moment? Is the iPaper the 21st century’s answer to the Kodak moment?

The answer might (hopefully) not lie solely in the hands of the Apple church and its prophets. The democratisation of the technology might be faster this time around and I am quite sure Apple knows that too. The habits will be here to stay though – and the news industry is among the first to take note. Expect experimentation with fees for online reading very soon after the initial honeymoon. You will get addicted to scrolling down your iScreen to read the latest edition of your paper and then you will be charged for the service. As it should be after all… for your conscience should be enough to tell you that one does not feed from the altar of information without paying a price.

So long as you don’t sell your soul to the devil, I’d say it’s all kosher. Now… stand still and say “irkotta”…

www.akkuza.com has cameras on its mind this week. Come take a few (snap)shots and capture the moment – warm refreshments will be provided.