Given that the economy has been growing at rates for which no precedent exists since Independence, it gave rise to limited controversy during the election campaign that’s just ended. Some hold that the economy was completely forgotten. Meanwhile, economic data continued to be published as per the usual. It was given scant attention.

Among the interesting stats, featured an update concerning the cost of living, estimated according to the retail price index established for Malta. As a whole, it showed that annual inflation is touching 2 percent. We are close to the highest inflation rates prevalent in the eurozone.

In the spending categories that make up the basket for the calculation of indices, “food” and “drink and tobacco” account for the highest outlays. In both, the retail price index recorded a hefty price jump: an annual 4.8 percent increase for food (which covers 27 percent of the total basket), and for drink and tobacco (with a weighting of 7.9 percent of the total basket) a 1.6 percent increase.

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The state of the Maltese language

During a recent encounter while doing house visits, I landed a complaint that till some time ago, used to be more common. We are not doing what it takes to sufficiently protect the Maltese language; actually, we seem to be shoving the whole question aside – so I was told by a middle aged man who welcomed me to his home.

It is indeed strange that such complaints have been dying out, for the everyday practices by which we ignore or damage the Maltese language, and which used to trigger the complaints, have proliferated instead of declining. And I was intrigued by this problem because the examples my host raised were taken from day to day instances that I too had become accustomed to consider as “normal”.

Like for instance: on doorshops, you’ll only find an English language notice to inform customers that the establishment is closed. Other notices in streets and newspapers are displayed in like fashion. And there is the fast growing – exagerratedly fast – arrival in what we speak and write every day – supposedly in the Maltese idiom – of words that have been bastardised from English.

The complaints are justified even if there are less people around to complain. It seems that many have resigned themselves to this state of affairs. Some have come to consider that it is no problem  at all!

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Death and life

The story of Vincent Lambert, the man whom French doctors have kept alive albeit in a vegetative state, is deeply moving. Who is in the right? ... his wife and some of his siblings who agree that doctors should switch off the machines which keep him “alive”, even if there is no chance of recovery? – or his mother and some his other siblings who want the treatment he has been receiving for so long, to continue?

No matter how one replies to such questions, pain will result: that of the persons who are having to accept the death (final) of an individual who has been so close to them – and that of others who have decided the opposite either because they totally discount what doctors have to say and still believe some cure is possible, or because they consider that it is not acceptable to snuff out too soon the life that still struggles inside a dying/dead person.

I just cannot endorse the view of those on both sides of the issue who consider that a cut and dried decision about the arising dilemmas is unproblematic.