Religion will fail because what holds true in the religious sense in Rome won’t hold true in Delhi or Beijing; but in the scientific sense it’s just the opposite. If it’s scientific it will work everywhere.

This is never truer than the technology which has made billions of human brains into a unique and immensely powerful array of thought the likes of which doesn’t exist anywhere else in a vast area of the immediate known universe.

This enormous collective intellectual power shall defeat religion for religion has no answer against science because it is greater than the “god of the gaps” idea which fails every scientific test.

It is science that will dictate morality not religion. Science has the credentials; religion has mumbo jumbo and dogma. Without the fear of the inquisitor, the pope or the high priest controlling the hands holding the sword and the torch of the brainwashed, religion hasn’t a hope; without the fear religion is less than nothing.

Science has no fear of the unknown; it embraces it and meets it head on intellectually. Religion, unable to deal with the unknown, conjures it up into scenarios of fear, punishment and reward.

Science is an intellectual discussion; religion is a mind-numbing dogmatic sermon.

The god idea, we now know, was a hypothesis for all that early man couldn’t explain. As science has explained almost all those things for which the god hypothesis was required, it has made the god hypothesis redundant.

Religion is not precious at all but a cheap and plentiful commodity limited only by the imagination and the gullibility of the ignorant. There are literally thousands of made-up gods.

Religion shall die, for ignorance cannot survive; it’s inevitable.

And it strikes me as funny to read that somebody who was never married, had to live day in day out with his wife, and sometimes by default, her parents, can give us a homily about family.

How can somebody who has not had to struggle in life with ‘petty’ things such as the electricity bill, car license and insurance costs, school bus bills, or taking a step back at the supermarket due to lack of money, ever, EVER, tell us about family is beyond me.

To these people, family is a mum, dad, and kids! How about the single mothers who struggle daily to make ends meet, or the same-sex members who live and love together, isn’t that a family too? Why does the church continue with this idiocy? And why, in heck’s name, are these people still around?

Thank the stars nobody’s becoming a priest these days!

I am actually writing this the day after my younger child just finished her homework at 11.30pm…. Yep…. Half an hour before midnight. I confess that there have been a few distractions here and there, but even so, finishing nearly at the witching hour can’t be good. So I naturally took a look at what subjects she is currently studying. It goes without saying that there is a lot. And a lot of it is simply shit. I mean, take this scenario. Rox wants to be a baker. She is mad about cakes, decorating, and sweets. I am absolutely positive she can more than hold her own with older girls and women with this regard. Her wonderful cakes, buns and cupcakes are a solid testament to the proof.

So naturally this brings me to my first question. Why are we filling up children’s heads with subjects that make no sense? What use are subjects such as Religion, Physics, Social Studies and Geography to a baker?

Even worse, what use is Art and Drawing to a baker who can hardly draw to save her life? We come from a long line of spectacularly unsuccessful painters. We simply cannot do it.

My other, elder, daughter Rachel, wants to be a German Language teacher. I admit freely that she is brilliant in the German Language, and it would not be amiss to hear her helping her GERMAN schoolmates with their homework. Yep. You heard right. Most Bavarians talk with an accent that is as far removed from Classical German as much as Siciliano is from Italian…ok… so at school she had to take another subject that she can alternatively teach. And that subject is religion. Now if there is anything in the world that I consider most futile and eventually senseless, it is religion.

I had voiced my thoughts initially upon selection of the subject, only to be told that I only loathed the subject because I am very sceptical of religions and gods. I tried to point out the fact that I only spoke thus because it is absolutely true. Who gives a flying fuck about religion these days? Where in hell’s name is it going to lead you unless you want to be a priest or a nun or something of that ilk. Utter garbage!

I’m sure that Mathematics and Physics are another useless burden on a language teacher. Adding insult to injury, my kids do not have an inkling on Maths. One is a brilliant linguist, the other is an exceptional cook and baker (and she’s only 14)…. and yet they might not reach their goals because of Physics and Maths…try to put those into the equation.

Like most students, I did my time at school and finished secondary with about 10 or 11 O-Levels… Since I was an electronics fan, I continued my studies at the Technical Institute…but I can’t remember diddly-squat of what I learned at school, because practically everything has changed! And in electronics!! What you know today is out-dated the next!

WHAT is required to jumpstart education on this island into the 21st century? When will the education department learn that it is easier and probably healthier to just let the students study what they really need or yearn after?

Unfortunately I have no answers to offer, except that I am so damned glad I am not at school anymore!

Well it didn’t start on the first, it was a week later, but by then I had already two days of holiday and a day off to hospital for regular checkup time. Apart from finding my cholesterol level a bit high, I was not in too bad a shape… or so the doctor said. I told him that I was truly fessed up and could not really move much.

So when I went back to work on a Friday (6th) the whole bloody factory staff was sneezing, sniffling, or parping into a hanky! None more so than my boss who is a hunting addict(!!!!). This induced me to believe I got this damn infection from him.

Monday 9th I was already ‘on the way’….but Tuesday, boy, was THAT an eye-opener or what…I was so sick that I was literally aching everywhere. I thought it was a little cold, so when the doc said that I would spend the rest of the week indoors, I kind of laughed at him!!! Well the joke was on me as my coughing fits became so strong that I used to lose my senses and pass out.

Frighteningly, this happened to me three times, in which on one occasion I fell specatacularly flat on my face from the sofa, smashing my glasses with my face as my head made contact with the tiles! God it was so scary, coming to, gaining consciousness out of the foggy recesses of my mind…

So yeah, I was very weak and come Sunday, I was not too sure I would go in back to work..In fact on Monday I called my doctor back…he gave me another three days, but I was still ill on Thursday, which necessitated another four day layover in bed..

Even now (1st of February) the cough simply won’t go away…

The scholastic year has started once again, and after the initial sigh of relief from the parents, the headaches will come pounding in, and it will soon be time to reach for the medicine cabinet.

As usual, a number of problems will manifest themselves, and it is up to us, the parents, to listen to the plights of our children. I don’t know why a child has no qualms in speaking outright to a parent, but not to a teacher or the school head. Where is the teacher-student relationship?

Without trying to sound pompous or force my way, I would like to point out how old-fashioned some of our practices at schools really are. Teachers positively make dinosaurs recent!

Let’s start with most probably the most important gripe, and perhaps the most costly. Uniforms. I don’t care what the minister said about the uniforms. I know it’s not true! We were told (Told! Not asked) to buy our children’s apparel from a certain vendor. I’m not going to harp about the fact that some of our orders have not arrived yet with school term already in! Hardly. I am talking about the price-list, which is, simply put, horrifying. I cannot imagine what single parents manage to do to pay the exorbitant prices.

This is a monopoly (I repeat, I don’t CARE what anybody says) that must be stopped. Paying fifty Euros for a school tracksuit is simply not on. Then another ten for the school cap, and the school tie, a thirty euro ‘standard’ school-bag (for which the designer should be hung-up and quartered) that is literally ‘a pain in the back’, socks, shirts, jerseys that seem to have been modelled on an orangutan’s long arms, badges… the list goes on. I flatly refused to buy stuff that I deemed unwearable. The ‘official reason’ for, say, the bag being standard is that ‘parents with less financial capabilities’ will not have their children feeling the odd ones out by not having brand-name bags. The truth is that brand-name bags are cheaper than the official school ones, as well as being designed better, and naturally, are more hard-wearing.

A look at the kids boarding the school bus will soon show that none of them still use the official bag, which is consigned to the bins within a month. As for the blazers, good-golly. I can buy a full suit for the price of one of them. I’m not going to be embarrassed about it. We scrounge one from a relative or friend. We don’t even CARE if it fits or not. Last year my daughter managed to get by without wearing it even once! As long as the darn thing is draped over the students’ arms….who cares about blazers?

Some uniform vendor even had the temerity to blame the lack of uniform availability on ‘obese children’. What some companies will say to pass the buck is beyond belief. Be prepared, and all that, you know?

And I have read there are schools that insist on BLUE school shoes! They are so expensive…and nigh on impossible to procure. What does it matter if they are black or blue? Really? (My wallet is usually black and blue after the mauling at the hands of the uniform sellers)

We now come to an item that is the bane of my existence come September. Why do we still have teachers who insist that we ‘brown paper and plastic cover’ our children’s books, files, and copybooks? Can any teacher with half a brain convince me that a PVC plastic file (unmarkable, un-stainable, indestructible, and that I have bought with MY OWN MONEY and is thus my property) will be better off if covered with brown paper and then plastic OVER THAT? Are you insane? Why? I need a practical reason, not some mumble that ‘all files need to be the same’… what are we? Communists? If I were the student, I would absolutely refuse to do it. My daughter is not of the same mettle as I am , so we will probably be spending unhappy evenings at home, covering the darn things.

Do you know that it will be us parents who will be doing this thankless, stupid task? And what about the cost? I thought schools were ‘thinking green’… probably the colour of money. The same money we are charged for ‘photocopies’, which are mostly printed on GM-watermarked sheets… obviously obtained for free and printed for nothing, probably in the staff-room.

In 2011 everyone has a computer, and many students have portable computers. Why not dispense with the paper and use pdf files? Why must we be so old-fashioned?

Let’s now move on to less financially problematic , but nonetheless, important aspects. Health Issues. Which frankly, suck.

Why, in heaven’s name, are school bags so heavy? Sure, students are supposed to have lockers to keep books in, but with Mathematics, English, Maltese, Religion (another why) and Physics lessons taking place daily, one cannot keep school books in the lockers. According to WHO standards, the bag must never be over 15% of the child’s body weight. I doubt whether any headmaster/mistress in Maltese history has ever had the courage to stand up for the students in this case. My younger daughter is very thin, with a low body-weight. The bag to body ratio is significantly more than 15%. Those bags are heavy. School-bags on wheels have been banned practically in all the schools I know of, probably due to cranky old janitors not wanting to clean up the corridors from the wheel marks when it is raining. Good old scoliosis! I can’t help it this time. I simply would like to call you names, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed. So I’ll settle for a quick scratch of my head.

Morning roll-calls are held outside, whether it is chilly and damp, or more frequently in Malta, glaringly hot with a blazing sun already doing the rounds. My daughter told me that on the first day of school they had to endure 45 minutes of unending heat until they were sent to their classes. Wow. Great job. I would have already been close to murder at that time!

Then it was another round of ‘stew-our-kids’ during the break, when students are not allowed to stay in their classes, ostensibly because of pick-pocketing. As if the children don’t have lockers (which we pay for) to keep their valuables. Alright, I know, some locker keys are not handed until after a month has gone by…makes me wonder why. Finger-print coding? Naah… I doubt it.

So yeah, our children are spending anything from an hour to two hours of unremitting inclement weather, in the school yard, without protection from the elements. Is this even legal? My daughter suffers badly from headaches all the time during the school terms. This is inhumane. Thank you for being considerate. NOT!

I read not long ago that horses standing for more than half-an-hour, are to be provided with a shade canopy…Horses…makes me wonder what kind of animals are our children.

So, one might have realised that my children are girls…well, not girls any more, more like young ladies…

And girls, during secondary schooling, usually go through a tremendous transformation, changing into women during the years they are learning the ropes. Some teachers flatly refuse to let the students use the toilets during the lessons. I can (partly) understand the refusal of a teacher to reject a girl’s claims to go to the bathroom exactly after the morning break, but imagine if you can, a school that has close to two thousand (female) students, all having their break at the same time, with a very limited number of toilet facilities. It is easy to see that even if a tenth of the students do use the lavatory facilities, there are still too many students to use the toilets in the fifteen minutes available.

I’m sorry, but this is not acceptable to me. Last year we had a problem with our elder daughter who had her request to go to the toilet refused, for about three hours. The resulting bladder infection cost us hundreds in Euros, and an unending source of pain for the child. (I’m ready to happily, honestly fucking strangle that teacher now please.)

Students, especially girls, MUST be allowed to visit the toilet at any time. I know, there will be those who will take advantage, but it is not fair on the genuine students. In Malta we have a saying ‘mal-hazin jehel it-tajjeb’. In this day and age, it is no longer acceptable.

I am sure that more parents will find more gripes to complain about. And I am amazed, because at this stage in time, we should not have these problems, which frankly, are primitive.

Even more amazing is the fact that despite my grumblings, I know that our teachers (most of them) do their utmost to educate the future generations of adults. For which I am mostly happy.

Now if only these niggling problems could be fixed. I know they can…it only takes a bit more common sense…

Which doesn’t look to be so common after all…comments on the back of a 50Euro note please!

It’s true… but why the hell did it take so long for him to notice? Isn’t it clear that Maltese shops apart from being run by rude salespersons, are more expensive?

Just a few examples to illustrate my point….all purchased these last 7 months! Obviously ALL products were new!

Nintendo Wii (purchased from London) 40Stg. (Malta? 175Euros!!!!)
Original NIKE Dri-Fit Juventus away shirt (purchased in London) 20Stg (Malta? 75Euros!!!!)
3 pairs of Lonsdale trainers (25Stg total!) (Malta? Varying from 40Euros to 60Euros each!!!!)
iPad purchased from London 379Sterling , (Malta? 690Euros)
BCRich Eagle Bass guitar (from Germany) 125Euros (Malta? 479Euros!!!!)
Amazon Kindle 3 (purch from London) 65Stg (Malta? 139Euros!!!)
10 pairs of Sandals (purch in UK) 24STG!!!! (Malta? I gave up after I reached a 100euros!)

Just SOME of the many items I purchased from abroad, and very well delivered by Maltapost, with utmost care and courtesy! And the thing is, I still have international warranties for ALL items I bought. I do not buy anything except groceries from Malta anymore, and if that were possible, NOT EVEN THAT! I do most of our shopping at the new brand of supermarkets (no ads!), where the products are good and low in price.

These days it is clear from the internet that the items that we buy in the shops cost FAR LESS from Amazon, Play and Ebay. Yeah, I know, I’m screwing our economy, but it is ME who puts the PLATE on OUR TABLE.

We don’t even frequent the cinemas anymore! A family of four watching a movie will amount to nearly 50 euro… for half that price I wait a couple of months and buy it on blu-Ray from Play.

But most of all, what really really bugs me, is the total lack of customer service here. The surliness of most of the salespersons (mostly girls!) in Paola is abso-effing-lutely DISGUSTING! We are made to appear as if we are morons and that we are living thanks to them, instead of their being grateful.

Malta? thanks, but no thanks. Only fate put me here…

Really not much one can do, except rest, plenty of fluids and wait until the damn cold passes.

But today I am back to work and to be honest, I’m still not well enough to be here.

Seriously though, it is too hot to be comfortable here. Granted, the seas are beautiful, and that is why maybe we have tourists, although at the level we manage to fleece them, it is no wonder we are being abandoned in favour of Spain…. cost of living is so expensive anyway, no need to pass on the heat to foreigners.

On with work….

Chris Grillo
AOI / Operations PCB Tech.

Following a morally crushing defeat at the polls some months back (divorce issue), the church has now been defaced again with a scandal that goes beyond all human proportions of decency.

Two priests of the MSSP (St.Paul’s Missionary College in Rabat, where I attended secondary school), have just been jailed 11 years between them for pedophilia and rape.

The cases took place about 20 years ago, and brought to light about 8 years ago, by a popular TV programme. Following a lengthy court case, the priests were found undeniably guilty…and sentenced to 6 and 5 years each…

Now I am writing this down not because I am basking in their imprisonment. Rather I am shocked. Because you see…. I knew Fr.Pulis well. Not to mention Br.Bonnett who passed away earlier this year. Br.Bonnett was a well-educated priest, painfully shy, and so quiet and polite. You would be hard-pressed to believe that these ‘men’ were capable of the atrocities inflicted not only upon fellow human-beings, but more so on innocent children, who, living in a home, had no voice. No one to cry out to. No one to whom they could call out for help.

The emotion on these victims faces could be seen and heard. Many victims actually never made it… some of them could not live with the shame and took their lives, or are today living in a state of acute depression…

And why, exactly, is the church doing nothing to unmask more of these priests, who are quite abundant in our society?

It is a pity really, because the MSSP has been tarnished with scandal after many, many years of education, love, respect and unstinting unselfish sacrifice… To the MSSP I owe my education, and my lifelong respect.

Because after all, one rainy day, a winter does not make…

It is now a time of reflection, repentance, apologies, and a new life… for the imprisoned, as well as the victims.