Somewhat grandly they’re calling it “guerilla tweeting”. It was yet another inevitable corollary of the immediacy of social media. We had observed the clumsy manner with which the political parties adopted “the internet” and had witnessed how hard they tried to retain the one-way traffic approach: We Preach, You Listen. What was that hopeless PN site again? With all the wiggly ribbons and plastic aloofness? Labour just loved youtube and gave us those lovely little clips of stereotypical niche market voters telling us why they will vote for Joseph (Ghax nemmen fih ) without really informing us of all the iced buns that all participants would get once the party was in government.
Twitter was not so strong back then and has only surfaced since the general hemorrhage from Facebook began. Politician’s Facebook pages where an easy target – who can ever forget Luciano “Likey” Busuttil with his unending pleas for “Aghfas Like”? Nobody really got to grips as to how Facebook really worked and what was the demarcation line between public and private – also Mark Zuckerberg became a right royal pain in the arse trying to determine what we want to see and what we could not see. Facebook walls dried up and twitter burgeoned.
It’s great, twitter is, because it obliges you to be brief. For the politician trained to think in binary packets it was a godsend. Suddenly everyone from the PM to the pope was tweeting away happily. Publicly. The addiction was worse than Facebook. Which is where the “guerilla” boys and gals came in. They discovered that with their own twitter account they could have a direct line to the politician in question and actually contradict him or uncover their untruths. A nightmare for the politician used to one-way traffic really.
Saviour “Hogan” Balzan and Ariadne Massa are two journalists who come to mind and who have taken to disliking the quasi-anonymous “bullies” on twitter. Balzan and Massa from part of that fourth estate that is generally as lacking as political parties in its approach to two-way communication. You only have to look at the evolution of their respective papers’ websites to see the desperate attempt at controlling information and how it is dissipated. The editorial choices as to what is and is not relevant news can be as surprising as the sun making an appearance in Luxembourg in November. Never mind the bollocks though, now there are the “guerilla twitters” to set things right.
They are there yapping and twitting away incessantly until, tired of the aggro, the target decides to block them out of his or her vision. Which only means that a new account will be created with an even more aggressive and persistent stance. Balzan scraped the bottom of the barrel by calling for the blocking and reporting of what he called “fake twitter accounts”. As usual he hasn’t the faintest. There is no such thing as a “fake twitter account”. Or rather, the only time an account is fake is when it claims to be someone’s account when it is not really his. For example if I were to open an account called @PaulPogba I would be faking to be the world’s greatest midfielder when I am very evidently not.
@baxxterswar is not a fake twitter account. Baxxter is very irritatingly real. Irritatingly for many people it seems. Neither are all the myriad accounts popping up every day in order to harass ministers and kow-towing journalists alike. All we need now is for that has-been JPO and side-kick Deborah Schembri to include this kind of “guerilla warfare” in their Cyber Bullying Campaign. You know, all this while our beloved government is striking deals with China and its Great Internet Wall.
Twitter is a cutting edge weapon for the alert citizen. Politicians can either reply or block. The other day Minister Cardona tweeted the fabulous increase in retail sales recorded in Malta. I tweeted back “Does it include the sales from Leisure Clothing?”. “Tajba” he replied dryly while “favoriting” my tweet. I guess I am a few yellow cards away from being blocked.
Use the weapon at your own peril. Anonymity is no excuse for bad taste and offensive behaviour. Otherwise tweet and be damned. Active citizens are much much better than the passive bull we have gotten used to. I only would like to think that had this twitter wave existed a while back there would have been twitter guerilla tactics with just as much enthusiastic participation. It is so much better than “tistghu tghiduli x’qed jigri hawnhekk?”
L’amour est comme l’oiseau de twitter , on est bleu de lui seulement pour 48h. D’abord on s’affilie ensuite on se follow. On en deviens fêler et on fini solo.
Prend garde à toi. Et à tous ceux qui vous like. Et les sourires qui remplacent souvent des coup d’hashtag. Prend garde à toi. Haa les amis , les potes ou les followers. Vous faites erreur , vous avez juste la cote.
[…]
L’amour est enfant de la consommation. Il voudras toujours toujours toujours plus de choix. Mais que vous voulez-vous. De sentiments tombé du camion. L’offre et la demande pour unique et seul loi. Prend garde à toi. Les gens connaissent déjà les dangers. Moi j’ai gardé mon ticket et si il faut je vais l’échanger moi. Prend garde à toi. Il si il le faut j’irai me venger moi. Cette oiseau de malheur je le met en cage , je le fais chanter moi.
The World Wide Web turns 25 today. As Sir Tim Berners Lee makes a move to try to keep the “web we want”, the current state of affairs is such that the social media revolution is still the main motor behind the spread of the web worldwide. The availability of immediate information as well as the empowerment of citizens has gained momentum to the extent that the amount of data being exchanged about immediate events has increased exponentially.
Ellen De Generes’ selfie at the last Oscar Award ceremony threatened the whole infrastructure of twitter – an information superload. It’s not just the pink news that is doing it. Breaking world wide news is now seasoned with the input from literally millions of netizens – all giving their slant or take on what is going on. We are used to seeing major news sites asking for “on the ground” information – cue the BBC’s now standard box on a news item asking whether “you are on site” and whether you can provide immediate information.
The social media have also been at the core of the revolutions that swept across the Arab world and more recently in the Ukraine. Whether it is a natural disaster such as a tsunami or earthquake, or a human tragedy – a shootout, a crash – the social media is on the front-line. There is a problem though, and it is becoming more and more dangerous.
The lack of control over what is and is not published when it comes to netizen input means that a rumour or a conjecture can rapidly spread across the net and be treated as a truth. We are already familiar with fake deaths of stars that quickly go viral and before you know it the news is taken as being true. The problem is exacerbated when it comes to news from trouble zones such as we have recently seen in Syria or Ukraine and is with regard to crucial information such as the presence of snipers or attackers.
This problem is now being studied by researchers at five different European universities who are trying to develop an algorithm that filters online rumours and chooses the true (or potentially true) from the false.
Five European universities are working on a social media lie detector in an attempt to verify online rumors. The technology developed in the wake of the London riots is set to help not only journalists and the private sector, but also governments.
Researchers, led by Sheffield University in England, are cooperating on the system, which could automatically ascertain if a rumor can be verified and whether it originates from a reliable source. It will attempt to filter reliable factual information from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
The project called PHEME is being funded by the European Union and has already been in development for three years. It is named after the Greek mythological character of Pheme, who was famed for spreading rumors. [REUTERS]
The filter will try to label information as being either speculation, controversy, disinformation or misinformation. The system will try and use three different factors to establish the accuracy of a nugget of information. It will examine the information itself (lexical, syntactic and semantic), and then cross-reference the information with a trust worthy data source and the dissemination of information.
In other words, PHEME promises to be the first frontier at combating online fraud and misconceptions although it will not entirely replace human judgement. The ultimate arbiter of what can or cannot be considered as potentially true will remain the gatekeepers at the newsdesks. What PHEME does is simplify their task – particularly as the new is live when it would be more time-consuming to follow leads – and provide a probability.ù
Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and Pratchett are all attributed different versions of the quote “A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can put its shoes/pants/boots on.” With PHEME’s help the time gap might be shorter…
Gareth Compton, Conservative councillor for Erdington in Birmingham (UK), was released on bail on the eve of Armistice Day after he was arrested for an offence under the Communications Act of 2003 on suspicion “of sending an offensive or indecent message”. Compton was questioned about the content of a Tweet of his which read: “Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really.”
Compton argued that this was “an ill-conceived attempt at humour in response to Alibhai-Brown saying on Radio 5 Live that no politician had the right to comment on human rights abuses – even the stoning of women in Iran”. Tories and Labourites in the West Midlands joined the chorus of disapproval aimed at Compton’s ill-judged tweet and the police moved in with the charge.
In another corner of the UK, Doncaster Crown Court rejected Paul Chambers’ appeal against a Magistrates Court decision that had found him guilty of “sending a menacing electronic communication”. Chambers’ case also involved a tweet. This time the tweet was angrily directed to nearby Robin Hood Airport. With the airport shut down because of snow and Chambers’ travel plans thus thwarted, the tweeter vented his frustration to his 600-odd followers on the micro-blogging site: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”
Tough Guy (now recant)
Judge Jacqueline Davies of the Crown Court was not impressed by the defendant’s argument of “just kidding”. In her words, “We find it impossible to accept that anyone living in this country, in the current climate of terrorist threats, would not be aware of the consequences of their actions in making such a statement.” Both Compton and Chambers tried to write off the relative weight of their statement by claiming that their actions were performed in jest. There might be a substantial difference between a politician inviting people to stone a journalist on the one hand and a private individual venting his frustration in a colourful manner in another, but at the end of the day the lesson to be learnt is to be very careful when venturing into the world of mass communication. That iPhone at your fingertips can land you in deep do-do indeed.
I get the impression that Malta is still not sufficiently hooked on Twitter to provide this kind of interesting legal twist. The chronicles of court affairs are choking with the facts of intra-familial battles raging from the ballistic nose-breaking prodigies of one husband, to the wife who claimed that her husband was obsessed with an Italian late-night show over 20 years after it had gone off air. There are no tweeting offences as yet and while the Plategate saga rolls on in the background of the trendier chronicles, the battles in communication are taking place in more conventional fora – such as The Times letter pages.
When I first heard of Prime Minister Gonzi’s foray into the murky waters of The Times letter pages correspondence, I thought I’d give it a miss. Egged on by others, I finally got round to reading the prime ministerial letter – signed by the Prime Minister himself. Apparently Dr Gonzi had not liked a particular missive by a certain Bonett Balzan (BB for short) that had appeared in the pages of His Master’s Voice the previous Saturday. Dr Gonzi seemed intent on making a couple of points: firstly that he is not an “ends justifies the means” kind of guy (so no Luxol Grounds last-minute backstab on political allies from him, I guess); and secondly, he issued what I describe on the blog as a sort of fatwa from the head of our constitutionally Catholic state.
Here are his words: “I condemn all hatred expressed in all circumstances and reiterate my appeal to all concerned to keep political language within the bounds of what should be acceptable in a mature democratic society.” The question everyone (not to be confused with Everybody) was asking was: What prompted this letter?
Sure Shot
(political communication)
And you couldn’t blame “everyone” in the end. After reading Dr Gonzi’s letter, I had to look for the letter that had triggered the reaction by the head of government. Dr Gonzi had quoted from the offending letter and specified what had caused him to take offence. The Prime Minister stated that he took particular offence at the phrase “taken of the law into his own hands with fatal consequences”. Prima facie it seemed like a rather harsh phrase – one that would have any spoudaios (Gk. – average man) rushing to his desk and typing a measured response.
It all went kind of sour when I read the context from which the phrase was lifted. There was nothing remotely injurious in fact. True, BB’s letter was astonishingly similar to much of the crap that passes for intelligent discussion on blog comment boards nowadays. It was an illustration of anything but the “enlightened times” that were referred to in the letter and its author is a perfect example of conservative, ignorant bigotry that has become common fare in most discussions.
Having said that, the whole bit about the taking of judicial matters into one’s own hands with dire consequences was actually part of a description of the habitual goings on among husbands and adulterers. Bonett Balzan was simply illustrating how adulterers would have been treated a while back, before the enlightened times of this government “ably led” by “the job-creating” Dr Gonzi (BB’s words). Yes, Bonett Balzan does come out as a fervent (never a more apt term) follower of the GonziPN creed – he is, in fact, appalled at the dilution of its values by upstarts such as JPO.
Put fairly and squarely, Bonett Balzan’s letter was no less of an abuse of the freedom of expression as that exercised by the myriad liberated voices that populate Internet comment boards every day of the week. Why then had the Gonzi-radar zoomed in on this particular manifestation of not-so-illuminated literary intervention in order to vent the prime ministerial fury? There was only one explanation. Dr Gonzi might be a professed anti-divorcist, but he will not take kindly to being automatically associated with the Maltese version of redneck backwaters. It was in such a spirit that the prime ministerial letter was penned and to such a letter was appended a glorious appendix.
For the Gonzi letter ended in a blanket condemnation of hatred expressed in all circumstances, as well as an appeal to maintain a decent level of political discourse. We’d have loved to applaud this noble initiative had it not jarred with the fact that the intervention (“scendere in campo” as Berlusconi is wont to say) was too isolated and seemed to ignore other more serious and more prominent offenders who have contributed to the general debasement of political discourse. The selective lifting of dubiously offensive quotations only served to water down the import of Dr Gonzi’s letter – leading to the incredulous reaction from the nation’s cognoscenti.
Get It Together (please)
Ill communication was not monopolised by the Office of the Prime Minister. It’s getting tiring to follow the concerted practice (that’s the second anti-trust term in this paragraph) of political acolytes of the Labourite persuasion in drumming their various stories home on the basis of “fairness”. “Mhux fjer” (not fair) has been translated into a political mantra and the Labour monks are busy exposing their hurts (“wegghat”) and the levels of unfairness with every political development on the political scene.
Chief Economist Muscat led the way last week with his budget reactions. This week we had the story of the 1,000 Air Malta employees declared surplus to requirements according to a report. Tony Zarb and most PL-leaning commentators were busy preparing wailing laments for the thousand family members on whose sweat, blood and tears the success story that is Air Malta had been created, only to be given a hint of the exit (and I am not talking Safety Exits here) at this moment of economic uncertainty.
“Mhux fjer” they yelled. Who will love their children? Which is OK for a trade union leader, but not OK for a political party that should be planning our way out of whatever mess they seem to be oh so keen to highlight. If there is a mess, and I am not saying that there isn’t, the role of an opposition party is not to highlight the problem but to confidently claim and prove that it has a solution at hand.
The communication lines of the new PL seem to be built with a very short-term goal in mind. They tend to ignore the fact that once in government the exposure of the ills, pains and injustices of society will not suffice, and that people will actually expect them to deliver the goods. I quizzed some Labour supporters, asking what they would do if they found themselves at the head of a government that had just been presented with the 1,000-surplus workers report. The first reply? Ah, we would commission a report to find out who is responsible for the overstaffing of the airline. Bravo indeed. Now THAT is a great solution. Get ready for a headless government that blames its shortfalls on the 2012 version of “il-hofra”. Progressive? Bah.
Sabotage (discrimination)
And then there was the communications cock-up, which was the announcement of the new bus fares once Arriva take over. What should have been the groundwork for a much-awaited new bus system ended up in bawling and exchanges on the media about the proposal to charge tourists a higher fare. Apart from this being the most pea-brained idea since Bush decided to publish his memoirs, the clumsy handling of the aftermath and backlash was mind-boggling.
We had a ministry spokesman (one of those) declaring that charging tourists more than the Maltese does not amount to discrimination. It was a case of knowing what he intended to say but also recognising what a cock-up the actual statement was. The whole point of discrimination is of creating criteria that turns like into unlike. Here was a ministry spokesman who was claiming that charging two rates for the same trip would not be discrimination. But it is, dear spokesman. The words he was looking for was justified discrimination because under EU law there are instances where discrimination can be justified if reasonably argued.
Which is where Minister Gatt piped in with the whole notion of resident v non-resident. Residents, it seems, are eligible for a subsidised fare because they pay taxes. Non-residents (tourists) don’t. Really? What was that tax increase in the last budget? Who pays it? Residents? Or tourists? There’s no knowing when the politicians of this world will come up with the next blooper that’s the size of a BWSC contract investigation gone wrong. (Bravo Parliament incidentally).
All that the men at the Ministry of Transport had to do was look at public transport systems worldwide. Take London’s Oystercard. There is no discrimination on the basis of residence. The only discrimination is the usual justified discrimination in favour of seniors and students. Other than that you pay according to how much you use it. Most travel cards give you more benefits the longer the validity. This is based on the basic assumption that a resident (frequent user) will, more often than not, take long-term credit on his card (a one-year travel card) to benefit from the lower price that would ensue in normal offers on a normal market.
Tourists are not precluded from buying a one-year travel-card but it would not make sense economically. Instead they will probably opt for a seven- or three-day card. A resident could buy that card but it does not pay him as much as a yearly card. You see? No discrimination on the basis of residence or nationality that has to be justified on the basis of some spurious taxation excuse. Instead you have a scaled system of cards accessible to all but that actually makes sense for different categories – the only discrimination is in the consumer’s mind at the moment of purchase. Who am I kidding? I am sure the guys at Arriva know all this and will soon be showing the way on this matter.
Roots Down (travel)
Speaking of travel, I will be in Versailles this weekend – a birthday treat from my better half. In that palace lived a woman who never actually uttered the fabled words “Let them eat cake”. It’s just so unfair that sometimes it is the words that are unsaid that end up making the biggest noise.
www.akkuza.com From the Hall of Mirrors to Le Petit Trianon, all in a weekend’s work. Titles of this week’s article (barring brackets) brought to you courtesy of the great Beastie Boys album “Ill Communication” (1994).
I got some advice from fellow blogger/columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia this week. “Here’s a tip, Jacques,” she said, “try writing things that people want to read. If you haven’t got yourself an audience in five years I’d say it’s time to give up.” Now it’s probably good to know that other people take such a level of interest in your welfare and blogging, and it’s probably even greater that a seasoned old-time columnist has some tips to dispense to a newbie like myself, but there’s much more to be read in that tip than appears at first.
The clue is to be found in one tiny phrase that DCG let slip in her prescription: “things that people want to read”. I know you wouldn’t guess it but you see DCG is a public relations (PR) person – a self-made marketing/communications product of the nineties and noughties. Finding out what people want to read is her bread and butter. It’s not just that though. As a dabbler in the arts of PR and marketing, she is in the business of packaging anything to make it sellable. An expert PR specialist can package something normal and make it seem to be the most desirable item in the world. Expert PR people work at Apple, Google and the like.
A dabbler in the arts of PR will not reach those dizzy levels of success – they will not become the new Steve Jobs. Instead he or she will be sufficiently well versed to understand the tricks of the trade among which is one very basic tenet: feed on the buyers’ curiosity. Being able to get as wide an audience as possible means being able to provide what that wide audience wants as effectively as possible. What could possibly attract large audiences in today’s world? Sensationalism, trash and tabloid style voyeurism that’s what. In his appreciation of DCG in MaltaToday, columnist David Friggieri described her adopted style as “trash and destroy” – aptly so.
The Romans had “panem et circenses”, the Victorians had “PT Barnum and circus freaks”, the 21st century Malta blogging scene has TYOM and Running Commentary – and boy do they have an audience. If you want to set up a blog and get “an audience” before five years then all you have to do is follow Daphne’s advice: write what the people want to read… or give up.
Thanks. But no thanks.
You see marketing people invaded the political scene in the early nineties. Look at the UK – they constructed the Blair persona and are in the process of constructing Clegg and Cameron. Now Brown is a different kettle of fish. The man has a volatile temper, is very much a down-to-earth old style politician who has little time for the marketing shenanigans of pandering for the photo-op. The poor man tries but just look what happens when he drops his guard for a moment – Bigotgate: the ultimate blunder for a politician occurred.
After having been cross-examined by a voter in a rival constituency, Brown forgot that he had his microphone still on and proceeded to describe her as a “bigoted woman”. It’s probably what most politicians think of even the most fawning of voters (just look at DCG’s appreciation of John Attard Montalto in the Indy to see what I mean,) but you don’t need a marketing expert to tell a politician that it’s just not done to be frank about these things. Don’t get me wrong – PR management and marketing definitely have a role to play in today’s communication driven political struggle but the danger is in letting them take over completely.
When I started J’accuse five years back my intention was to openly discuss ideas – not just political – with anyone interested in listening. The blog grew into a regular platform where ideas are exchanged (and yes, sometimes – thankfully rarely – insults are traded). Someone ingrained in PR cannot conceive of a different form of result than “audience” in the vulgar term of audience. J’accuse is not in the business of “selling” but is simply an expression of opinion using a (not so) new medium.
The surprise is that around 800 people log onto J’accuse on a daily basis to read what DCG describes as “boring and irrelevant” content. Others log in on a less regular basis. Frankly, we’d be happy with 50 or 10 regulars because ours is not the business of numbers. We’ve proved time and again that the moment we dabble with sensational or “what people want to read” our figures explode into the thousands – just see what happened in the recent case of The Times spoof. You need not look far for that phenomenon – the instant success that the despicable and sensational TYOM formula enjoys is proof enough.
Frankie says ‘Relax’ – DCG says ‘Give Up’
The measure of success in the PR world is audience. We’ve taken to measure the success of our arguments by the deafening wall of silence that surrounds our more inquisitive of arguments. Particularly when we know for a fact that our questions are read and that it is easier not to answer them. The advice they give us is “give up”. The hope is that the irritating presence of those asking the relevant questions will fade away if ignored. We are the elephant in the room of communications experts – those who can only write or present “what people want to read” (or what they want people to read).
This column (and blog) has asked questions of Daphne (Why now? in Plategate), Lou Bondi (the death of journalism) and (Fr) Joe Borg (more deafening silences). The questions were not complicated – they were not difficult to comprehend and they were there for all to see. It’s true – if they are ignored they will fade away and Lou Bondi will trump up another highly relevant programme like resuscitating the ghost of Norman Lowell in order to give the people what they want (rather than what would be a service to what they need). Daphne will yell until she is blue in the face that nobody reads our complicated articles while simultaneously ignoring the very pertinent questions posed therein.
It’s happened before. A year ago we asked Daphne to follow proper netiquette and provide links to J’accuse whenever she quoted huge chunks from the “boring and irrelevant content” on the blog that nobody reads. We were told that we were “bitching” and that we should be grateful for the “free publicity”. Once again DCG laboured under the impression that we should somehow feel sufficiently rewarded by gaining notoriety with the masses. Furthermore, even though we never asked for an apology, DCG told us “I am not going to apologise and backtrack”.
A year later UK blogger Charles Crawford, who had a brush with Maltese politics thanks to some conspiracy theory linking him to Gonzi’s choices for Cabinet, told Daphne off for having “quoted great chunks from my blog but without the usual blogging courtesy of giving her readers the link to my original work” (his words not mine). DCG apologised without batting an eyelid. Weights and measures? Who would have thought?
Obsessions
Yes, we do have an obsession. It’s called blogging. We love it. We love the tool as a free form of expression and quite frankly we will not be told what the measure of success of a blog is from someone who cannot even grasp the basic concept of netiquette. The reason J’accuse is also a column in The Independent is because someone somewhere saw what was written in the blog and decided it was interesting for some people. We are more than happy with the fact that the sensational content (and sporadically excellent articles – such as this week’s Pigeonhole business) are what keeps DCG’s columns in The Independent – there’s all kinds of readers for every kind of stuff.
Daphne was not the only fellow columnist this week dispensing the kind of advice to “give up”. Stephen Calleja’s column last week was called “Too weak to be called a force”. In it he invited Alternattiva Demokratika to “give up” in so many words. AD and any other respectable third party has a mountain to climb. It has to sell political ideas to voters who are trained to interact with politicians in a certain way. The Pierre Portellis and Georg Sapianos of this world will be back come next election telling people what they want to read: that a vote for the third party is a wasted vote. That these irritants should have called it a day ages ago and leave the political business to the experts – to those who have mastered the combination of marketing and politics to a T.
AD and their likes are the “tiddlers”, the small fry who will not count because their message is not packaged in proper marketing material and they do not tell the people what they want to hear. They do not “twitter” frivolous messages on Church/State separation (viz Joseph Muscat) while espousing contradictory policies. They do not pitch a marketing campaign that is good for the hunter AND for the environmentalist (gonziPN’s rainbow candidates). They are “boringly irrelevant” because of their frank and direct messages on the environment and on divorce. They might not be what people want to hear – which when combined with the obstacles of electoral law and voting traditions might be just the right formula for “giving up” and calling it a day. Or not.
Twenty years in politics and five years in blogging and what do AD and J’accuse have in common? Consistency and dedication to the truth. Frankly, I’d rather be on that side of the fence than “trashing and destroying” any day.
Breaking the rules
Well, that’s another column dedicated to confusing people with the J’accuse “boring and irrelevant” message. I’ve had to break my self-imposed limit again but I still have a few more things to add.
First of all do take a look at www.ideat.org.mt. Labour’s fledgling think-tank has published the first edition of what will be an online quarterly. The J’accuse verdict is “a job well done” – full review on the blog. Finally, there’s an attempt at engaging in politics and not marketing – let’s see if it gets viral or is destined to be marginalised like most things truly political.
It’s the first of May as I type so I should be wishing all workers a good day of rest (not too sure about shopkeepers resting though). Worker’s Day brings back memories of the stress of preparing for exams when – admit it or not – even in the later stages of university you were always thankful for a motherly figure refilling the coffee cup and keeping you going physically and morally till exam day. Ten years ago I was in Bruges, delivering my Master’s thesis and though there was no mother around to pamper and encourage, I was always grateful for the supporting phone call.
So it’s thanks again mum 10 years on, and happy 60th birthday. It’s not just the kids at Stella Maris College and the La Sallian Freres who are lucky to have that great headmistress around. It’s also this hard-headed son of yours who does “cause trouble” as you would say – but always in a constant and well-meaning way.
www.akkuza.com promises to be as boringly irrelevant as always this week. Be there or be square (or tabloid).
This article and accompanying Bertoon appeared in today’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.
JosephMuscatPL is Joseph Muscat’s twitter name. He has just tweeted the following: “Il-PL jaspira ghal separazzjoni bejn Stat u Knisja b’rispett reciproku”. (The Labour party aspires for a separation between State and Church with mutual respect).
Why?
Yes. That is my question. What exactly am I, a voter, supposed to make of this? I mean how binding is it on Joseph Muscat and what exactly is there to be binding about? This is the same party which produced President George Abela – whose statements were indistinguishable from those of men of the cloth when the Pope’s visited the Maltese islands. This is the same party that cannot call a spade a spade and still backs the hypocritical “free vote” in parliament rather than setting it down in black on white that Labour will introduce divorce in Malta.
Since it is “aspirations” we are talking about Joseph does that mean that you will be revising the “principles” on which our nation is founded. Let’s see. Maybe you would like to change the introductory articles of the constitution – you know the bit about our being a Roman Catholic country?
I’m not sure twitter is the place for that kind of statement Joseph. To be quite honest I am not sure that it looks good on the aspirant leader of a progressive movement to be stating the obvious like that. I should hope that severing any Church/state links would be “taken as read” in the preparation of a clear policy direction for the New Progressives.
Less twitter and more substance Joseph… the clock is ticking and you are very very far from even beginning to convince the intelligent part of the electorate that your party is worth considering. Unless of course you are still banking on winning the election solely on the basis of the votes of the disgruntled – I wouldn’t blame you since the system is perfectly geared for that eventuality.
It’s a simpler j’accuse but it’s getting loads of new features that are intended to allow you to integrate your blog experience with on-the-go networking. For starters, just as j’accuse was the first malta blog to have an iPhone interface we could not let that bit drop could we? We’ve added some new stuff. There’s a highlighter (kitschy and ugly) hanging on the right of this page. You can highlight text (roohit) and tweet it immediately onto twitter. It even does a bit.ly thingy for you.
I’m currently trying to get some more twitter plugins as well as more interactive stuff for comments and forums. Feedback would be appreciated.
Somewhat grandly they’re calling it “guerilla tweeting”. It was yet another inevitable corollary of the immediacy of social media. We had observed the clumsy manner with which the political parties adopted “the internet” and had witnessed how hard they tried to retain the one-way traffic approach: We Preach, You Listen. What was that hopeless PN site again? With all the wiggly ribbons and plastic aloofness? Labour just loved youtube and gave us those lovely little clips of stereotypical niche market voters telling us why they will vote for Joseph (Ghax nemmen fih ) without really informing us of all the iced buns that all participants would get once the party was in government.
