I’ve visited Malta. I was only there for a couple days. But I totally got that the place is a small island, people drive on the left, the streets were designed and constructed during midieval times, you can’t go very fast. How was this douchebag a diplomat anyway?
[quote=“SamWinston, post:31, topic:8612, full:true”]
And this isn’t one of them.[/quote]
Except that, judging by how the locals all seemed to be going in one direction, he looked to be the one going the wrong way, and yet he was under the belief that everyone else was in the wrong, to the point of being willing to cause a massive diplomatic incident.
You know, like how Murica tends to act in the international community.
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I kinda like this guy. Out of context, there’s no way to know what the hell is going on. He’s super pissed off and not shy about expressing it. Beyond that, what happened, we may never find out. But at least he’s not going down without at least making it known that Americans are not doormats.
From the looks of the road and traffic, the narrow street is a two way street… There seem to be cars lined up waiting to travel from screen right to left at the end of the video. Could there have been a kind of honor system where each car takes a turn in each direction and this guy got blocked by a local that broke the sequence?
I did pass the first round written exam for Foreign Service when I was young but it was a foreign service officer who told me that life in the state dept was complete and utter crap. I already had my Washington DC ticket booked so I just went in to check things out at the oral exam and interview.
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That didn’t look like a two-way street…
Too stupid to follow traffic laws?
Much better to look like howling, violent psychopaths.
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Going out on a limb here, but I believe that the dozens of cars comprising that follow the abused car once Screamy Mister Danger Shirty moves his “You Have NO Idea!” Boss-Ass, Studly Mini-van out of the way, suggest that the street is one-way, either de facto or de jure. And it would just be Screamy Mister Danger Shirty’s luck that the one day he decides to drive down the one-way street the wrong way (cuz he sees people doin’ it Everyday! Seriously! Everyday!), that there’s some Maltese conspiracy to frustrate his rights as a diplomatic representative to Malta. (I also heard an illusion to the Gay Mafia. We’re everywhere.)
At this point, I just have to stop. Because I have been to Malta; it’s not bad at all & the history is rich enough to occupy an engaged historian for at least a decade or more. I think I can do whatever delicate job Screamy does pretty damn well, with added sensitivity, and with a greater understanding of the history, the people and the issues currently affecting the area, I can also attest to more experience navigating narrow, ancient streets, like those in Rome or in Florence’s Centro, without screaming, losing my temper, throwing abuse, threats or slurs of any kind, and certainly without hitting anyone’s mirror.
If you are reading this, and work for the current administration, or if you have connections in the State Department, please consider me as a replacement for Screamy Mister Danger Pants. I have an excellent history of mentoring employees and enacting simple solutions to simple problems, like the one illustrated above. I won’t let our country down. Nor will I get us involved in messy diplomatic imbroglios or lawsuits. I will also keep my shirt on. Most of the time.
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One of my best friends is a Foreign Service spouse. He LOOOOOVES it, and so does his wife. They are in DC right now while she goes to another language school, and they can’t wait to get to their next posting. You were probably talking to someone who has spent his entire State Department career as a visa examiner in a backwater like Moldova.
I also have a friend who is Maltese, who has seen the video, and says that it was almost certainly a functionally two-way street even if legally one-way, built for donkey carts in the 15th century, as she noticed the cars queued up when they panned to the right after “Angry Guy” backed up. She says that that her fellow Maltese are some of the sweetest and kindest folks on Earth, but are horrible drivers, and that she recommends that you not drive if you can avoid it. Valletta is packed onto a small peninsula that is very hilly, and a lot of the “streets” take the form of actual staircases, and you have to go through switch back streets to get many places. And you have to have the right permit just to be able to drive in the city, which is gorgeous, by the way. My grandparents spent a week there in the '70s and said it was there favorite city ever, and they went all over the place.
She added the most remarkable thing about the one driver yelling at the other was that it was an American in English. The Maltese apparently are no strangers to yelling at each other for their driving. If the drivers were going at it in Maltese, no one would have noticed much. But diplomats need to exercise diplomacy, coz shit comes back to bite you in the ass.
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Can’t DARPA commission the development of drones with claws to extract evildoers and bring them to justice? Although the government should be held to provide any children who get collaterally droneclawed to the US with a full Harvard scholarship.
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As a non-American, let me assure you there is precious little chance of anyone thinking you are doormats, or prepared to be known as doormats. Sleep easy on that one.
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They have to protect the Holy Grail
- no one passes the Knights Templar of Malta!
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There’s a story about Lincoln in a similar situation driving a wagon through a narrow pass. When he and another wagon find themselves facing each other, Lincoln stands up to his full height and says “If you don’t back up, there’s only one thing I can do” The other driver hastily backs his wagon up to a turn around, and then asks Lincoln what he would have done if he hadn’t backed up. “I would have backed up”.
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Roid rage is… “For the most part, a myth. There is not enough evidence to suggest a relationship between exogenous testosterone usage and anger, and a fair bit of evidence to say that no relationship exists.” http://examine.com/faq/what-is-roid-rage.html
You know what I would do in his position? I would take a look at the queue of cars, including a bus, facing my lone car and conclude that, even if this was a two way street, since Valetta is a very old city with streets not built for modern traffic, there are circumstances where insisting on your interpretation of traffic laws and behaving like a complete fucking dickhead is not going to do anyone any good but is going to cause a traffic jam instead, and back up.
You know what normal people do when they visit a foreign country? They tread lightly and try to be on their best behaviour in order to not further negative preconceptions about their fellow countrymen. They don´t take their shirt off, yell and try to punch people in the face to show that “Americans are not doormats”. Half the world is terrified of you bombing them to smithereens, the other half is scared enough to help you do it and you´re still afraid someone might think you´re doormats? Fucking ridiculous!
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And THIS is why as an American in Europe I sometimes don a fake accent and pretend like English is not my native tongue. (Well, this and all the illegal wars, torturing, drones, Nascar, spying etc)
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Though I detest this. There are lots of decent, polite and intelligent Americans around. And even if you run into a stupid or naive one, there’s no reason to judge or abuse that person for the sins of his country.
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I somehow doubt that Maltese drivers usually threaten each other with bodily harm, including the promise to kick “your motherfucker front teeth in.”
reminds me of the old joke radio transcript …
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a Collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States’ Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that’s one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
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To be as fair as possible to mad shouty guy, while there were no other cars immediately behind him, there were a bunch clustered at the end of the alley pointing the same way. My guess is that it’s a snicket too narrow for two way traffic and the locals know to look, see if anyone else is coming and only then set off. But shouty man either didn’t look or didn’t see.
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The best part of this is that he’s acting so violent and aggressive in flip flops. There’s just something about that.
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The worst thing about (us) Canadians is how fucking smug we are.
If they’d just said right away ‘Hey, this is a lighthouse’ that whole confrontation could have been avoided. In fact I’m sure Canadian coast guard regulations would dictate that, rather than just getting into a big wind-up.
