Opinion • February 15 2004

Of this and that

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando says it’s about time we seriously started looking for alternatives

Shame!
When are we going to grow up in this blessed country? A government-appointed Family Court mediator has tendered his resignation after being attacked by an Opposition spokesman for having a ‘criminal record.’ It turns out that the man in question had simply been accused many years ago of being late in his PAYE and National Insurance payments. It also turns out that this heinous ‘crime’ was perpetrated when the man’s business was doing badly. It is nothing less than disgraceful that this trivial incident was used by a Member of Parliament to discredit this particular individual, and all other mediators along with him, in an attempt to score some cheap political points. Oh, by the way, what about all that philosophising about giving people who have sentences passed against them a second chance? Shame!

Din L-Art Helwa joins the fray
This respected NGO is the latest to join in the chorus of disapproval against the proposal to include an (engineered) rubbish dump in an Archaeological Park. Heritage Malta, Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, Friends of the Earth, Nature Trust, Siggiewi Action Group for the Environment and the Qrendi and Siggiewi Local Councils are also against the idea. A petition signed by over ten thousand voters has been presented in Parliament and numerous MPs from both sides of the house have spoken out against it.
I think it’s about time we seriously started looking for alternatives. I think it’s about time we seriously considered preparing the Ghallis site without delay. It’s about time we realised that doing so, apart from sparing us from opprobrium, will save us from throwing four million tax liri out with the garbage. Literally.

The fruity presidential hopeful
A certain Mr Rybkin, who is planning on competing with Vladimir Putin in the coming Russian Presidential elections, decided on a disappearing act last week. It was assumed that he had been kidnapped and this sparked off a nation-wide search. It now transpires that he was simply taking a break in the Ukraine. He is reported as being amazed at all the fuss; after all, he did leave an undisclosed amount of money and fruit (!) for his wife before he left without bothering to tell her. She reported him missing in the first place, naturally assuming the worst. She obviously didn’t get the fruit-disappearance connection!
All those Russians who wouldn’t mind having a bunch of bananas standing in for their President when he decides to go on a walkabout have an obvious choice. Who knows, at least the bananas can’t do any harm!

American antics (continued)
One of the biggest news items in America in the past days was undoubtedly the breast-baring incident involving Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. 200,000 irate Americans have apparently complained to the television station which aired the accidental flash of flesh! One upstanding citizen of the state of Tennessee has actually sued claiming she and her family are owed monetary damages for exposure to lewd conduct! It seems that the puritanical spirit is still very much alive in ‘the land of the free’!
The so-called ‘nipplegate’ scandal resulted in Janet being left out of the Grammy Award show last week. All the fuss our American cousins have made about the affair has led to Janet’s boob becoming the most searched for item on the web. It seems that the Internet attention her breast drew is comparable to that associated with September 11!
Our trans-Atlantic friends should be more concerned about the antics the incumbent at the White House regularly indulges himself in than about such trivialities!

The Fgura flasher
Talking about flashing, a news item that struck my eye this week is guaranteed to draw a smile to the dourest of faces. It seems that a flasher from Fgura was let off with a fine because the children he exposed himself to were ‘not impressed by what they saw’! A man who has a court declaration ridiculing his assets in such a way will definitely think twice before airing them once again!