Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1478015
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 SEPTEMBER 2022 COMMENT What are we skinning? A dis- tressing yet low-key classic case of low-level corruption, which has seen three Trans- port Malta officials charged with helping learner drivers cheat on their exam, while al- so claiming they felt pressured to do so by an unnamed min- ister. Why are we skinning it? Honestly? It's a refreshingly old-school case that's making me teary for a simpler time. Come on, you're just being facetious now. Can you blame me, though? This kind of thing used to be grist for the media and water cooler mill back in the day. How do you mean? We would be content to pore over small- scale corruption, and it nev- er got boring. Post-Panama (post-Muscat, really), the stakes got so big that nothing phases us anymore. A bit like how the Marvel Cin- ematic Universe has grown too huge for us to be legiti- mately excited about what comes next? Exactly. Remem- ber the time when we got like one Spider-Man movie every three years and were happy as pie about it? Still, I'm not sure I entirely agree with your original as- sessment. Oh? I wouldn't say we were in- trigued by more localised cases of corruption before. If anything, we just took them for granted and let them slide. So you're saying our standards and sensitivities have improved? Well… maybe? You're more hopeful than I am, and for that I salute you. Salutations will do us plenty of good, I'm sure. If there's anything the Maltese are good at, it's hollow self-congratula- tion. Speaking of which, have the ruling party or any of the in- stitutions in question taken this opportunity to engage in some much-needed in- trospection? Oh, yes. And by introspection, I mean that they've looked inside for two- to-four seconds and conclud- ed that 'nope, all is good here and we are perfect beyond compare'. Good. I'll be resuming my noontime nap now. Enjoy. I will either cry myself to sleep, or catch up with the latest instalment of the Marvel Cin- ematic Universe now that Dis- ney+ is available to us as well. With leaders like these, we can afford blissful numbness. It's how our loyalty to them is rewarded, my friend. Do say: "Learning that there are unambiguously unquali- fied drives rampaging through our streets is hardly encour- aging in the wake of a record year of road accidents and en- suing fatalities." Don't say: "Wasn't there a crackdown on ill-begotten drivers' licences back in the early 2000s? This whole story was a nice jolt of late-summer nostalgia – just what the good doctor ordered." 'Musketterija' for the patron saint EYEWITNESS PAGES 14 & 15 The Skinny Malta, shrunk down MICHAEL FALZON A maze of government- owned bodies PAGE 7 No 155 – Shut Up and Drive JOSANNE CASSAR What's God got to do with it? PAGE 6 EDITORIAL This is not 'business as usual' PAGE 2 SAVIOUR BALZAN Facing the stark truth PAGE 5 Lined up as a guard of honour on the roof of the St Julian's parish church, hunters fire a salute to their patron saint as the statue is taken out of the church