That reading and buying books have declined as activities is a well-documented fact, not just in Malta. Everywhere, booksellers have shut up shop. By way of consolation, so we get told, there has been an upturn in online sales by the great bookstore chains (like Waterstones, Feltrinelli and Fnac, or what remains of them before they get turned into drugstores, like on a smaller scale, Agenda in Malta). Whether this has been enough to compensate for the decline in retail book sales "on the ground" is apparently a well-kept secret.
Of course, books are now no longer marketed only in print format but also electronically. What is curious though is that it has become so easy to download even topical, high-profile publications outside commercial channels, as pdfs, e-pubs or whatever. There's no way (one imagines) by which to estimate the amount of reading of old and recent best sellers that is done worldwide via this channel. Are we graduating to a situation where books or their replacements come for free?
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Reform and institutions
There is consensus or almost around the proposition that institutions must be allowed to work transparently, efficiently and autonomously. Most reform proposals in fact ultimately turn on the premise that once reforms are adopted, the "institutions" should be best placed to carry them out. Yet, at the same time, in a circular way, the bulk of criticism about what's being done badly in this country revolves around the conduct of "institutions", like the police; the Attorney General's office; the environmental, construction oversight, transport "authorities"; and the law courts, among others.
They are accused of multiple sins, some far-fetched, others less to much less so, ranging across corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, subservience to political overseers and business friends of friends, sloth and more. Really, talk about reforms had better concentrate on reform of institutions: whether it is necessary or not; if yes, to what extent and how it should be carried out; and what kind of people and organizational structures are needed to reform institutions.
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Unintended consequences
The popularity of village/town festas during the summer has been a feature of the Maltese scene for decades, increasingly touted as a tourist draw. Yet over fifty years ago people were afraid that as a national custom, festas were heading for extinction. People seemed to have less time to join and enjoy them. The Labour government of the day had a different worry. Festas held during weekdays were making factories lose productive time. So it insisted that they should be held on weekends. This was described as another nail in the coffin of festas, for it upended all tradition.
It actually proved to be the contrary. People discovered that on weekends they did have time to enjoy festas. Participation and attendances flourished. Festas boomed. When in 1987, the Fenech Adami administration decreed that weekday festas could resume, practically no one took the cue. For instance in the past, the 18 August, period, used to be the festa of St Helen in B'Kara. This year, it's being celebrated as part of a week-long festivity on Sunday the 24.
Which highlights the importance of unintended consequences in human decision making. It makes one wonder what will be the actual consequences... about which nobody has given, or could give, a thought... of decisions that are being taken today.