Knee-jerk reaction
So, the authorities, in panic mode, want to be seen as ‘addressing’ a problem of their own making.
In the latest case, it’s overpopulation, targeting the cab industry, which happens to be needed by so many locals and tourists, foreign iGaming staff and so on.
The cab industry has become the authorities’ latest target.Not to mention how cabs discourage drink-driving and help ease parking problems.
As for sanctimonious sentiments about ‘exploitation’, I completely agree.
So, what about catering and retail workers? Ah, but those sectors are sacred because one risks upsetting friends running businesses and developers. As usual.
Anna Micallef – Sliema
Religious funerals
“You might be one of those who are reluctant to go to church but find yourself attending funerals from time to time,” wrote Christian Colombo and Joanna Williams in their letter entitled ‘No need for religious funerals’. I’m one of them.
About 10 years ago, I was obliged to attend a memorial mass for a deceased relative, at St Julian’s parish church. Even though as a young boy and in my early youth I had been thoroughly indoctrinated into the Roman Catholic religion, the whole proceedings in the church now seemed alien to me (because of the changes in the liturgy since the 1960s). I couldn’t believe there was a time when I subscribed to such rituals and beliefs.
I watched the congregation, sitting like docile sheep in their pews, as the parish priest preached to them unconvincingly about “resurrection”.
Since then, my views about life after death have evolved. As Robert A. Monroe wrote in his books Journeys Out of the Body and Far Journeys: “I am more than my physical body.”
Based on my reading and the testimony of countless individuals, as well as my own inner, psychic experiences, I firmly believe that, after death, our existence continues on another plane or dimension.
When death arrives, I’m determined that it will find me detached from the things of this world and at a higher level of consciousness.
John Guillaumier – St Julian’s