Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1510125
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 OCTOBER 2023 COMMENT The Skinny Malta, shrunk down EDITORIAL The e-scooter ban is a kneejerk reaction PAGE 2 JOSANNE CASSAR Our obsession with speed is killing us PAGE 6 The word 'governance' has come to mean the way in which the institutions of the state are managed and the consequences of that management for the stability and well-being of society MARK SAID | PAGE 4 What are we skinning? The sheer inability to take it easy these days. Why are we skinning it? Because this is a satirical column which aims to pin- point the absurdities within current affairs while cleav- ing as close as possible to good taste and avoiding vulgarities unless they are strategically deployed. So why is that difficult right now? The escalation of tensions in the Middle East is becoming highly precarious and locally, we are marking the anniversa- ry of Daphne Caruana Gali- zia's assassination -- one of the negative turning points of the country's history. So not much to laugh at, then? You come out of it praying for a hare-brained politician or high-powered businessman to shoot out a gaffe and slip their way into a scandal, if only to provide a welcome reprieve from the institutional brutality and overall glumness. Then again, the Halloween period should teach and prepare us to appreciate the darkness, shouldn't it? Well, if binging on hor- ror movies while giving out sweets - or 'candy', if we're to stick to the lingo favoured by what has be- come an imported Amer- icanised annual appoint- ment - will really help you come to terms with true darkness, then you're a far luckier person than I am. It does help, on occasion. But only when I con- sume the 'candy' meant for trick-or-treating kids. Sugar will rot your teeth like corruption, greed and internecine warfare will rot the very foundations of a country, or the attempts at forming a cohesive one. Do we really have to root around for scraps? Surely Prime Minister Robert Abe- la will have said something amusingly cringe-worthy? He said the minimum wage should increase. Oh, that's disappointingly uncontroversial. Did he say lay out something re- sembling a concrete plan on how he intends to im- plement that? He said he'll hash it out with social part- ners, and then blamed the PN for apparently coming after him when he suggest- ed those who profiteered from economic instability should be brought to task. It must be great, having a party and fumble-prone as the PN to blame all your difficulties on. Given the upheaval we're witness- ing internationally, it feels like a hyper-local game of ping-pong that we can al- ways rely on for some (de- pressing) stability. Here's hoping for more amusing gaffes next week, then. I'd rather hope for a world in which this column is no longer feasible, but that's about as utopian a dream as anything we may think up for the Middle East at this stage. Do say: "Distressing world events should be a call for dignified reflection and silence, since jumping on bandwagons can hardly ever be a viable solution." Don't say: "What's the best way to dress up as the 90s-era End of History for Halloween? Very much open to suggestions." No. 214 - Hard to be Light MICHAEL FALZON Mistreating migrants PAGE 7 SAVIOUR BALZAN George Farrugia PAGE 5