Of Pasta and Horsepower in Malta

Years ago, a Maltese man opened a pasta factory. Given the country pasta is usually associated with, he chose an Italian name for this company: phonetically pronounced "leh roz-eh" which translates to "the roses." I bet he felt smug about it. That is, until the first idiot pronounced it "leh rows" and it stuck. For decades ALL Maltese people called it so.

Centuries ago, the world felt the need to create a unit to define engine power. Since everyone knows what a horse is, they calculated that a horse develops 735 watts of power. A unit, horsepower (HP), was born. Fast-forward to the 20th Century Malta. Cars became all the rage and people who knew how to fix them found they could make a living out of it calling themselves mechanics. These mechanics wanted to use the cool-sounding "horsepower" unit, but didn't have a clue as to what 735 watts were. Not a problem - the first idiot told his cronies that a 1000cc (1.0 litre) engine developed the same power as 10 horses. No physics, no science behind it - NOTHING. But it stuck. "Is your car a 20 horsepower petrol? It must cost you a fortune in fuel!" Boy, would I love to see 20 horses pulling a 2 ton car up a hill at 120 km/h! As we can see, 200 hundred years after a unit was created, the Maltese people had to start using it and made a mess of it all. I therefore dub this unit "Maltese horsepower."

It's common knowledge that once word gets around in a village, it sticks. This blog post isn't about pasta or horsepower. This post is about small-town mentality and small-town behaviour taking over an island of 450,000 people. We can call Malta a country all we want, but we know that really and truly it's an over-populated town.

Just look at the Prime Minister. He's a glorified mayor at best. It's not like he's got a finger on the nuclear button. Elections are won over some power station, or some bridge, that kind of trivial stuff. We have extremely high voting turnouts, but few people understand what politics is about. Few understand what the left-wing and right-wing really are. They understand red and blue: the colours of the party they vote for. The party one belongs to depends on brainwashing, indoctrination, and 30-year-old experiences. Thankfully, which party is in power nowadays makes relatively little difference.

It doesn't take a genius to know that small-town mentality coupled with tribal behaviour can lead to no good.

More often than not it will turn out the person you're speaking to is uninformed. Don't take anyone's word for anything. Stop. And think. Use your own brain to figure things out. Information is much, much, much more accessible nowadays, but you have to be smart. Want to know what the USA and Europe are doing? Watch RussiaToday. Want to know what Russia and China are doing? Watch CNN. This is the age of the internet - you don't need to take a bus to the library. Double-checking the facts from various trustworthy sources doesn't take much time. Don't be lazy. Nobody has the right to be ignorant anymore.

Franco Debono and the Free Vote

What, with the impending Eurozone collapse and the Yellowstone caldera cracking the planet in half, don’t we have enough to fret about this year? Enter Franco Debono.

The current administration has been a train crash from the get-go, but Debono’s antics have stood out. He seems intent on going down in the history books one way or another, and from the looks of it bringing down the government is fair game. Though the anarchist in me is grinning, I’ve kind of grown tired of this whole scorpion-and-the-frog scenario by now. Just because one has the nuclear codes doesn’t mean he has to constantly threaten to press the button. I can understand those who criticise him and his actions - he has indeed been behaving like a honey badger on acid.

My main peeve though is with the Nationalist MPs who are also lambasting the free vote concept per se. They would have us believe that all those who don’t toe the party line are evil. Nonsense. The free vote itself can be very beneficial for a country. If it brings instability it's either because the government:

1) can't agree on issues - in which case it’s pathetic and has it coming, or

2) doesn't have a big enough parliamentary seat advantage - and for that nobody but the party in power is to blame for not winning enough people over at the last elections.

Having said that, I’m afraid the free vote has no place in Malta at the moment.

For years I’ve wanted a third party with a seat in parliament; someone who could steal a bit of the Big Two’s thunder. We now have someone within a big party acting as if he were a third party. That makes it sound like a parasite, and parasitic it is because nobody voted for this third party.

Surely if Debono got elected it means people voted for him, didn’t they? Maltese people don’t vote for people, they vote for a colour. They get the ballot sheet, scroll down to the colour they want, and vote for the doctor who cured them when they had gonorrhoea. Those who ticked Debono’s box didn’t do so for his ideologies. They voted because they liked PN’s electoral program. Scratch that, they voted for PN and that’s it, because that’s what they’re programmed to do. Different kind of program, you see.

Just look at the USA. While their system is different, they only have two big parties, like Malta. But they aren’t tribal about it. Legislators are free to vote as they wish. I don't even want to think of what their congress would be like without outspoken people such as Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Here’s the difference: the voters want them in congress regardless of which party they belong to.

I’m all for the free vote when we learn to vote for the individuals we want.

The Pussification of the World

I keep meeting people who do not know what being "liberal" is all about. Personally, I want women, homosexuals, people from all races and creeds, divorcees, and so on to have equal rights. In certain circles that makes me somewhat liberal.

But that does not mean I have to absolutely love everyone like Barney the fucking Dinosaur with his politically correct, ethnically diverse friends. Being liberal also includes letting people be at liberty to think and say whatever they want (within reason). If a grumpy old man believes in equality of the sexes yet dislikes women in general, that does not make him conservative. Since when does “liking” have anything to do with it? I find no problem with people attending hedonistic bunga-bunga parties, but this does not mean I have to partake, or even like the people who do.

Like a ship without sails, we continue to drift towards exaggerated political correctness because society tells us to. Where is the freedom, the liberty in that? So much so that a liberal is already being confused with a “bleeding-heart liberal” who takes hobos into his house to show that he cares about their plight. They are not one and the same - the line between the two is not blurry. You can stay liberal without following blindly all this political correctness bullshit. All you need is a brain of your own.

At this rate, I will soon be considered conservative by society’s sheeple. That just means I did not keep up with the pussification of the world.

Malta, I brand thee!

For the last 3 years I have been working mostly with foreigners. Suffice to say that for the longest time I was the only Maltese person working on my floor at the office. The general consensus amongst foreigners living in Malta, given that they RARELY venture outside the Sliema area, is that Malta is a block of concrete in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with a couple of nice beaches in the North. Period. Some Maltese people - the younger crowd mostly - seem to agree with them.

I'm sure quite a few people out there (like me) are tired of countless debates on the subject. So here's my 2c on the matter: I made a video to shut these people up, and in the process...


TSSSSssss

I stuck a photo camera to my car's windshield, set it to take a photo every second, left from Wied iz-Zurrieq at dawn and got to Armier a couple of hours later passing from as little civilisation as possible. i.e. Wied iz-Zurrieq - Ghar Lapsi - Fawwara - Dingli Cliffs - Mtahleb - Migra Ferha - Bahrija - Fomm ir-Rih Bay - Gnejna Bay - Mgarr - Manikata - Mellieha Bay - Armier Bay.



Watch on YouTube in HD quality
During the trip I saw quite a few rent-a-cars driven by tourists. Those people saw more of Malta in a couple of days than a lot of people who have lived in Malta for decades ever will. Food for thought.


VIDEO INFO:

7,772 photos taken at 1fps played at 24fps

Trip duration: 2hours 10minutes (6.00am to 8.10am) of non-stop driving
Distance covered: 40miles / 64kilometers
Average speed: 18mph / 30kmh

More of my work here.

Divorce movement wins

The Maltese sheeple have proved me wrong. Malta has now entered the 1960s.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

China in the mediterranean

as appeared in The Times of Malta 20/01/2011

Promotion of civil rights and popular dissent

Two years ago Unifaun was forbidden by the authorities to perform a controversial theatre play. Last year, a couple of students were put on trial for writing and publishing a short story about a sexist individual. Last week, some classics by D.H. Lawrence and Voltaire were banned from secondary school libraries and TV programme VIP Xow (by comedy troupe Zoo) was axed from TVM for its satirical nature. Artists are not allowed to exhibit paintings that contain nudity and wearing carnival costumes that make fun of politicians will land you in jail.

One has to ask: What’s next?

Telling us what to think has now evolved into telling us what to say and do. This catastrophe can only stop when ultra-conservatives will cease to be afraid of people who are different from themselves. These bigots perceive such people as unpredictable and fight their fears by imposing their beliefs and rules upon everyone.

Force this equality to take away freedom from thy fellow neighbour and you have weaker antagonists for generations to come. Hence, the reason why we are an object of ridicule all around the world for not having introduced divorce yet. We should be in the streets shouting “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take this anymore!” but, instead, we allow anyone and everyone to stomp on our civil rights as the country falls deeper into disgrace. What will it take?