Herrera 2005, Herrera 2008 (Times OF MALTA* revisited)

Owning a blog can turn you into some kind of obsessive reader of news. Admittedly this particular stage of blogging is rather laissez-fairistic especially when blogging falls down in the list of priorities. Some people would tell you that you got yourself a life, others that plumbing and house-keeping have got the better of you… I just think it’s a post-estival phase of extended numbness to news.

Anyways. The blog tic remains in you, possibly hibernating and is triggered by weird things. Like reading an opinion article in the Times (of Malta) such as José Herrera’s today and getting that immense feeling of déja vu. Thank God for the J’accuse archives and a rare attack of pachydermic memory that was confirmed by a quick search through J’accuse.

Here is how José started his article (Belonging to the people) in the Times (of Malta) today:

The term republic derives from two Latin words, that is, res pubblica, which means “of the people” and this as opposed to the term monarchy, whereby, figuratively speaking, the state belongs to the sovereign. This system of government probably originated during the Roman Classical Period when the citizens dismissed the last of their tyrannical kings and established what was perhaps the first republic and this about 500 BC.

and here is how the Honourable Member of Parliament started an article called “Reverence for the Republic” back in July 2005 (the 21st to be precise):

The term republic derives from two Latin words, that is, res pubblica, which means “of the people” and this as opposed to the term monarchy, whereby, figuratively speaking, the state belongs to the sovereign. This system of government probably originated during the Roman Classical period when the citizens dismissed the last of their tyrannically kings and established what was perhaps the first republic and this around 500 BC.

How did I remember? Well I had blogged about the first article in a post entitled Latin for the Masses on the same day the first article appeared. What triggered off my post was a pain in the arse kind of reaction to seeing the word “publica” spelt with two “b’s”. Hence the trigger was reactivated today. Then it all came back… literally. I cannot be bothered to subsidise the Times (of Malta) and dig into its archives for the full version of the July 21st article  but I have a nagging feeling that there would be more of the same.

Now now, those editors at the Times (of Malta) should be a tad bit more careful shouldn’t they?

* “of Malta” – added later throughout… this has been J’accuse being a pain in the majistral so he won’t have to.

European Parliament on Blogs

Strasbourg Before the Collapse

Fears that the EP was about to embark on a regulatory project that might effect blogging in Europe were allayed yesterday. Here is the EP press release in full:

Media pluralism must be safeguarded and all citizens should have access to free media, MEPs underline in a resolution adopted on Thursday. To prevent owners, shareholders or governments from interfering with editorial content, MEPs advocate creation of editorial charters. They also encourage an open discussion of the status of weblogs.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution by 307 votes in favour to 262 against urging the Commission and the Member states to safeguard media pluralism and ensure that all EU citizens can access free and diversified media. The resolution, drafted by the PES, the ALDE and the Greens/EFA group is a revised version of a report drafted by Marianne MIKKO (PES, ET) and the Committee on Culture and Education.
 
Ensure journalistic independence
 
In the resolution, MEPs stress the need to ensure journalistic and editorial independence and suggest editorial charters to prevent owners, shareholders or outside bodies such as governments from interfering with news content.  To shed light over the aims and background of the broadcasters and publishers, the resolution also encourages the disclosure of ownership of all media outlets.  MEPs also voice concern over the media’s ability to carry out the role of a watchdog of democracy, when private media enterprises are motivated by financial profit, and warn that this could lead to loss of diversity. The resolution considers that competition law and media law should be interlinked to avoid conflicts between media ownership concentration and political power
 
Status of bloggers should be discussed
 
Weblogs represent an important new contribution to freedom of expression and are often used by both media professionals and private persons. Therefore MEPs encourage an open discussion on all issues relating to the status of weblogs.  On this point the resolution is slightly different from the proposal from the Committee on Culture and Education, that suggested a ‘clarification’ of the status of weblogs and sites based on user-generated content, assimilating them for legal purposes with any other form of public expression.
 
During the presentation of the report Monday evening, Mrs Mikko responded to the concerns of many bloggers: “My entrance into cyberspace has created rapid reaction among a lot of bloggers. I shall make it clear now that nobody is interested in regulating the internet,” she said.
 
MEPs also underline the importance of the protection of copyrights online, insisting that third parties have to mention the source when taking over declarations, call for greater transparency with respect to personal data kept on users by search engines, email providers and social networking sites.

The resolution has many ramifications and one can detect a side barrage to people like Signor Berlusconi.

Non Sequitur no. 87

Jesus, what a crisis!

Crisis? What Crisis?

Joseph Muscat calls the immigrant situation a “national crisis”. Daphne Caruana Galizia comments on this in her Thursday column on the Malta Independent (and on her blog):

“Joseph Muscat’s Labour Party has seen fit to describe as a national crisis the fact that a few hundred African immigrants are penned behind bars or living in open centres while doing the jobs that no Maltese wants to do. (…) National crises don’t have to be announced by the leader of a political party that is not in government. National crises make themselves felt. Nobody announces their presence. If you have to announce a national crisis, then quite clearly it is not a crisis at all.”

The CFKAB (columnist formerly known as Bocca) has his tuppence worth of thoughts in his own online “blog” on the Times of Malta electronic version. Speaking to his elvish readership he states the following:

“This might come as a bit of a surprise, but from my perspective Joseph Muscat and Michael Falzon are right: Malta has to take a stand against M. Sarkozy’s proposals about illegal immigration and make it clear to the EU that we will not sit idly by and be expected to take more of a burden than we can carry. (…) Now that I’ve surprised everyone by agreeing with the MLP and the AD, I will go a step further and acknowledge that the MLP has shown signs of political maturity by not making overt political capital out of what is, at the end of the day, something of a crisis for the country, though nowhere near as hysterically critical as the revoltingly rabid racists who infest the comments and letters sections of the media wish to have us believe.”

Crisis, no crisis… that is not really a question. Meanwhile the government is busy doing the right thing putting its foot down and will only sign Sarkò’s immigration pact on its conditions. Bravo!

The Inquisitives

Auntie

There’s a problem with the wireless in my house. It’s useless acting all disconnected actually because I know what the problem is and I caused it myself. I tried to hook my new PS3 to my wireless system (managed by an Airport) and following a couple of failed attempts I chose to follow the instructions that I had found on an internet forum. Sure enough after modifying the IP settings of the Airport the whole thing went AWOL so now I have limited internet access in my house.

Limited in the sense that without the wireless I am obliged to crouch with my laptop next to the front door to wire it directly to the modem that sits at the entrance. Tough shit. But still my house is sans wireless.

For a long time in our grandad’s and dad’s times the wireless had nothing to do with the internet and much to do with what they would later call radio (a concept we would share with them until sometime now when digital radio slowly slips in its place – Digital Radio killed the AM/FM star!). My dad remembers a time (which apparently was until Mintoff kicked the Brits out) when we had a radio in Malta called BFBS which did not stand for something related to large obese circum tauri (work that one out eh) but rather stood for British Forces Broadcasting Service.

The mother of all wireless broadcasting services across the world must be the BBC. Or should I say the Auntie as she is affectionately known? In any case some little ads on the BBC World (TV) service promoting what the BBC news is all about got me thinking. The first few were imperatives – like “stay connected” or “remain up to date” – the more I saw them the less did they sound like an invitation and they sounded more and more like an order.

Little clips asked the viewer whether he ever wondered about what happened to the expatriated Bosnians following the Radovan purge. Why did none of them come back after the war? Another clip seemed to imply that I should be ashamed if I do not want to stay in touch with every step of the Presidential race in America. Someone at the BBC must have had an attack of conscience at that point because they let loose a long clip of reporting in difficult circumstances where the mob/reported person invariably turned on the camera and tried to stop the reported doing his duty.

Shots of French strikers yelling “degage” at the bbc cameramen or what seemed like Palestinians (they were throwing stones -oops politically incorrect) turning towards the cameramen in the familiar gesture of one hand covering the lense were interspersed. The slogan at the end said something in the terms of “no matter how difficult, no matter how hard, we will keep doing our work… so long as you keep asking questions“.

So there it was. The cat was out of the bag. It is not your duty to stay in touch. You are not really obliged to care 24/7 about whether the DAX index is going down and why an Arab sheik’s petulant prices for oil are affecting Shell’s ReUrbanisation Project in Luanda. But if you do… and if  you keep asking questions about everything… you might only just justify the BBC’s expenses bill.

Meanwhile for those who really care the UN is assessing why the fight against poverty is failing so Bush has given his swan song speech urging the UN not to let down its guard against terror.

Then someone starts to wonder why we stop caring at some point.

This has been j’accuse… caring… so you don’t have to.

Stoogle (more reading habits)

This article (Is sStupid making us google?) has popped up on Art & Literature Daily. More on the effect of internet on reading and thinking habits. I seem to have read this article before but sometimes ALDaily has this weird habit of recycling old articles back to the top of the page. Here is an extract but for the full deal click here:

I don’t know about Mr. Carr, but I have no doubt that I go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense. The question is, how guilty do I need to feel about this? In his view, presumably, quite a lot guilty, since by reading online as much as I do I am depriving myself of the ability to read offline. He takes this insight to an even more alarming conclusion in the end, writing that “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” And if that’s the case for veteran readers, think how much worse it must be for the jeunesse dorée of the information age, if they never developed the habits that accompany “deep reading” in the first place.