More wisdom of The People: immigrants are living off our blood like lychees
timesofmalta.com comments-board
S.Mumford
They are making a mockery of us. What more do we need. Too much words, writings, protests etc etc. We have had enough. Send them all back to Libya. Now dear Archbishop will you come out again and state something else in favour of these illegals. Open up all your church properties and keep them at your expense. Dear govt when will you wake up and show who runs this island. How come the authorities turn a blind eye at the hundreds of illegals that line the streets of Marsa waiting for illegal work. Veru Pajjiz tal Mickey Mouse… just ashamed to be a citizen and allow this silent take over of our island. We have been warned and given enough notice, they are spreading at a fast rate all over us. This is the real pandemic not swine flu. They are living off our blood like lychees.
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I didn’t know lychees were carnivores?
Some of them even can sing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGRN39oifsE
The Times of Malta needs to take a leaf out of its London counterpart’s book. The Times of London simply disables comments on pages carrying stories deemed likely to elicit demented comments. The largely illiterate and worryingly extreme views posted on the pages of the Times of Malta has stopped me reading it online. There’s no balance and no moderation in these comments and they add nothing of value to the story published. If anyone really feels it necessary to publish such views of his own, he can always sign up for an account on blogger.com.
The Times I think actually enjoys publishing all the comments. They’re inflammatory, and serve some online readers as irritainment. I suppose the philosophy here being that any attention is good attention.
Censorship is distaseful even when done “with good intentions”.
The day your suggestion is taken up will be a very sad day indeed. Who is to decide if your or my comment is demented?
The Times is a private website, and so they have every right to choose what comments go up on their comments board or not (coincidentally, as does Daphne here). Nobody is stopping you or I from creating our own blogs.
When passing through Marsa, my friend and I saw these poor people waiting for someone to give a job (sometimes waiting all day in the sun). My friend said the same thing (re they are working illegal). I told him, ‘Which is worse, for them to work illegal, or for them to go stealing for a living? Irringrazzjaw ‘l Alla li huma biezlin (u biezlin xi haga ta).
Ma nafx x’ fastidju jtuhom dan-nies. Halluhom jghixu!
[Daphne – They’re not working illegally. If they’re in an open centre, they have permission to work. What IS illegal, on the other hand, is the hours they are made to work by their Maltese bosses, for pay below the minimum wage.]
What The Times should really do is send the comment back with the necessary grammatical corrections (using that Microsoft Word tool, whatever it’s called). In this way, invaluable English lessons are given for free to ‘non tal-pepe’ readers….and I’m actually being serious.
Another thing that could be done is that ‘tal-pepe readers’ like yourself start giving free English lessons to people in the street.
A bit like a Jehovah witness, or door to door salesperson, if you know what I mean?
Such an unknown big head … who are ya?
It doesn’t take a big head to learn how to speak proper English my dear
You can’t be serious – “tal-pepè” people are the worst offenders as far as English grammar goes.
[Daphne – I’m tal-pepe, Twanny. REAL tal-pepe people are like me. The people you have in mind are something else altogether.]
Forsi qed jghid ghal tal-LAZY CORNER.
“REAL tal-pepe people are like me. The people you have in mind are something else altogether”
Pepe wannabes!
You do yourself no favours by applying the term to yourself. To 99.9% of the Maltese population, the term “tal-pepè” is highly pejorative, implying presumption and inanity.
[Daphne – Tal-pepe is the term used by certain kinds of people to describe people like me. Whether it is pejorative or not is irrelevant. It does not imply presumption and inanity in those who are thus described, as you suggest, but envy and suspicion in those who do the describing, a significant number of whom spend their lives struggling to ‘become’ tal-pepe themselves, thinking that buying the right car, house, kitchen or clothes will somehow do it. Those who are tal-pepe, on the other hand, use the term ironically.]
I tend to view the timesofmalta.com comments only as a source of entertainment, both for intelligent (!) commentary and also for the grammatical and spelling aspect. I would concede that I do make a grammatical or spelling gaffe every now and then, but nowhere close to those seen on that comments-board. However, if one had to take a serious view of all these comments, it can be quite disconcerting.
One thought comes to mind. My god, these people breed and they also vote. Is this a true representation of the Maltese mentality? Has proficiency in English deteriorated to this extent? I left Malta nearly 30 years ago, but visit very often, and will continue to do so, but I never thought that there was such underlying ignorance.
To Cornelius’ point: it is much more damning to editorial team at The Times, who allow its standard to drop to this abysmal level, with semi-literate idiots on its pages.
“One thought comes to mind. My god, these people breed and they also vote. Is this a true representation of the Maltese mentality? Has proficiency in English deteriorated to this extent? I left Malta nearly 30 years ago, but visit very often, and will continue to do so, but I never thought that there was such underlying ignorance.”
I wonder why proficiency in English has deteriorated in these last 30 years….
“To Cornelius’ point: it is much more damning to editorial team at The Times, who allow its standard to drop to this abysmal level, with semi-literate idiots on its pages”
That’s the concept of Web 2.0, web interactivity for the masses. What can you expect? Some Graham Greene novel written on The Times’ comments boards?
“Joe Fenech (4 hours, 58 minutes ago)
NO WAY!!! This is cheap labour and taking work from the Maltese. Want people to sweep and clean? Pay them more and give them the right equipment. MALTA’S FINISHED !!!!!!” (http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090827/local/immigrants-cleaning-up-marsa-roads)
I take it that he never came across anything like this:
http://www.onlyinmalta.com/oim/imagepages/imageoim13.html
Where I work, the cleaning contractor recently provided the cleaners with better equipment. The cleaning done by some of the Maltese workers still leaves much to be desired whereas that provided by the foreign workers is excellent.
In hospital, a Maltese nurse promised to bring a sick relative an extra blanket but never did so. A foreign nurse didn’t promise anything but brought the blanket within seconds.
On a bus packed full of Maltese youths going to the sea, a black man let an elderly Maltese man have his seat.
I wonder when the Maltese people will ‘wake up’.
I wonder why you’re still living here then, if everything the Maltese do is substandard or below your expectations.
Here’s The Times link once again, since I don’t think the previous one works:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090827/local/immigrants-cleaning-up-marsa-roads
‘just ashamed to be a citizen’, meaning what?
Some people just don’t know how to be embarrassed. They want to write prolifically and with a certain arrogant thrust only to then fall victim to ridicule with their own howlers. Let them write, it only adds to our amusement. Such mistakes serve well to give them away, to demonstrate where they are really coming from. One person’s right to exercise his or her freedom of expression is another person’s right to laughter. Let it roll.
Big deal. lgalea is now using the comments section to write to Frattini … in Italian! Here goes:
lgalea (1 day, 4 hours ago)
Franco Frattini
Non un singolo millimetro Frattini, non un singolo millimetro.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090826/local/57-eritreans-escorted-to-lampedusa
Anyone knows what a “singolo millimetro” refers to?
Our SAR, obviously.
Yes, could have imagined. But as far as I know the Italian “singolo” is not univocal with the English “single”. It is closer to “singular” or “undivided” or “individual”. And, in any case, it sounds like a mouthful even in English.
You are right, Fausto. It should be ‘non un solo millimetro’ or, better, ‘neanche un millimetro’.
This indignant ignoramous should be lycheed from the nearest tree.
I am sure the correspondent looked up the spelling but not the meaning of the word. What a twit!
Mr. Cornelius
Stopping people from expressing themselves on this issue, as best as they know, would be worse, considering the emotions it generates. One does not have to be a Masters in sociology to understand this. The comments are not any different from what one finds in the Il Giornale online anyhow.
Comments on online newspapers do not need to add value or be grammatically perfect. Not even comments on British online papers are as such.
Demented comments on the issue are on both sides of the argument. We are a free country.
Freedom and freedom of expression do not mean that you have a right to publish your views on the property of a private enterprise – especially if said views are deleterious to that company’s well-being (in this case, reputation). If people want to express themselves, they can do it through their own property – easily available for free from such services as Blogger. Now if The Times were forced by the state to publish – or not publish – material against its volition, then yes, that would be censorship which would comprise the freedom of this country.
I repeat: when a private enterprise does not publish your views, that is not censorship. It is not an infringement of your rights. I am not agitating for censorship. I am simply pointing out that the credibility of a particular private enterprise would be better preserved were it to refrain from publishing a lot of the comments it does. The authors have no right to expect them to be published. Make this distinction before hyperventilating about threats to liberty and to freedom of expression.
Wherever I said that authors/editors have no right not to publish. I think you are not taking it from the right angle. No one is forcing the Times to publish online comments. It is doing it out of its free will.
A commercial private enterprise is more after quantity of consumption than quality. Its only concern is the quality of the articles, and not the quality of the public comments underneath. They increase readership and interest in the paper. It takes more than a blogger’s inaccurate post to tarnish a newspaper’s credibility.
If such people have the vote, than I cannot see why they should not have their comments published on the Times.
A post is not a letter to the editor neither.
“Comprise”? Are you sure you didn’t intend to say “compromise”? Shall we stop publishing your comments because of that “howler”?
What really gets my goat is people sending their comments to timesofmalta.com in Maltese. Now I’m really proud that our small nation has its own language, but what’s the point here?
I find online comments entertaining. Some are hilarious, others embarrassing!
oliver mallia (22 hours, 57 minutes ago)
Very sorry to hear such news. I remember him behind the counter at EXIT shop in Valletta and always give me a discounts. RIP friend god be with you
another…
Joseph Grech (7 hours, 12 minutes ago)
Very sad news indeed, I worked with Des. He was a fine man.
This shows us the true words of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ that He will come like a thief in the Night!!!!
This is why we must believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and not of some denomination. We must Believe in the Gospel, REPENT our ways and then we must be BAPTISED, and be submissive to the Word of God ‘The Holy Bible’
UGH!
Loose time loughing at a couple of comments:
mario gellel (6 hours, 28 minutes ago)
GONZIPN–FIRST YOU MAKE ME CRY. NOW YOU MAKE ME LOUGH
Eric Camilleri (10 hours, 56 minutes ago)
Ms Lorainne Vella
The issue I raised is not if the suspect acted with accessive force or not. That will be determined by the investigation. The issue (as highlighed in this article) is the statement that AFM members should not have a part time job. Fine but only if they are logically and morally given a decent salary and bonus equivalent to the responsabilities and risks AFM members have to endure in their daily AFM job. Pity that due to irrational salaries the AFM risks loosing some of its best elements. In commerce, the trained human resource is the best asset. Loose that asset and one would be loosing what was invested. With all due respect, today’s AFM has nothing to do with the Dejma era, were one got “employed” in the Dejma just to have a job (if you could call it so). Today one is in the AFM because of dedication to his duties. However everyone needs to take decent bread home.
“Loose time loughing at a couple of comments”.
Were the spelling mistakes intentional?
[Daphne – They’re taken from the quoted comments.]
Of course they were, now I read the whole piece!
Rather than laughing superficially at the less than perfect spelling/grammar. you should try to see through to the very valid underlying message, which is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
P.Schmidt (4 hours, 51 minutes ago)
Any idea how much money is taken out of the island by Maltese? You people are hypocrates!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090829/local/they-took-all-i-had-hold-up-victim
Surely, he didn’t mean Hippocrates, did he?
From today’s The Sunday Times editorial:
” Fr Joe Borg, Fr Peter Serracino Inglott and to a much greater extent Fr Mark Montebello have all expressed views which can be said to be not precisely in tune with the line which Curia officials have cast for priests to toe.”
It seems that mediocrity in the “national” English-language weekly is to found across the board!
Cast a line? Ah, yes, of course…the Curia is fishing for souls.
Unrelated to the topic but read this gem –
Andre Muscat (9 hours, 48 minutes ago)
The committee running this circus tent and football stadium entrance have dwindled these magestic temples which for the last 5000 yrs perhaps even more have dicided for commercial purposes and comfort to shade the temples with this horror!!!! ASK THE ENGLISH EXPERTS WHY THEY HAVENT COVERED STONEHENGE WITH THE SAME HIGHTECH!!! MALTESE CIRCUS TENT!!!
All we have are stand by experts of the day without any insight.
The temples were built to resonate the plasma energy and electromagnetic waveslengths falling on them and CHART THE HEAVENS, SUN VENUS AND MOON POSITION TO WARN US OF PREVIOUS AND FUTURE POLE SHIFTS. these have been covered!!!by the 2009 unprofessional masters of tourism to utilize EU funds.
These should have been left in their natural environment treat the stone in a sientific manner and they would still survive another couple of thousand years.
By that time the Department of authority responsible will become the archeological site remembered for ruining our maltese heritage. WHY DONT YOU GO AND HAVE ANOTHER 360 Deg PHOTO OF OUR LOVELY CIRCUS TENT FOR OUR NEXT REPRINT TOURIST BROUCHERE.
Here’s a guy complaining about a foul odour…
J Spiteri (1 hour, 2 minutes ago)
@ Barbu,
Same here in Msida. Its irresistible ! Had to leave my house.