Like a Police Boots on Yuh Corn
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This picture is to confirm that the Women’s Wise insert in the Sunday Guardian is a paper devoted entirely to pictures of men with pouty lips and tight white pants.
Sheesh.
Happy Independence Day, all.
Alcoa gets a special mention in the “Dotish Talk” column today. Not specifically because of anything they said, but because of Keith Rowley’s blabberings.
In the red corner, Keith Rowley, Government Minister. Minister of Housing, but refreshing qualified to support any Government initiative. In the blue corner, faceless corporate giants, Alcoa. You be the judge.
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Vs. |  |
| Dr. Keith Rowley | Alcoa | |
| “Today we listen to those who talk about diversifying the economy, the coming of an aluminium smelter is a signal to that, because an aluminium industry is the creation of a completely new aspect of our economic develpoment.” | “In February 2006, Alcoa signed an agreement in principle with the government of Trinidad and Tobago to build and operate a modern, low-emission aluminium smelter in the south-west of the country, based on energy derived from Trinidad and Tobago’s vast natural gas resources.” |
Is anyone else confused? I’m sure when “they” talk about diversifying the economy, they’re talking about diversifying away from oil and natural gas. Alcoa wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for our natural gas, and well, the Government’s stupidity. They even said it on their website. Their coming here is based on energy derived from Trinidad and Tobago’s vast natural gas resources. How much clearer could it be? However on page 9 of today’s Guardian, Rowley is telling the house that the smelter is an attempt to diversify our economy.
Alcoa’s entrance would require T&TEC to double its output and since our natural gas reserves are estimated to last about 17 years, bringing Alcoa here is a back door method to ensuring that in a few years’ time, we’ll have to diversify.
So who do I believe? The Government minister or Alcoa? I’ll take my chances with Alcoa on this one.
Walking through Port of Spain and then Arima with a friend from the United States made me realize something. I live in an absolutely filthy country. I always knew it was dirty, but walking through it with a non-Trinidadian can really open your eyes as to how nasty the country is. Litter is everywhere - just name it, you can find it. Paper or plastic. Cans or beer bottles. And don’t forget the ever present sweet drink bottle. I swear, we have sweet drink bottles like other countries have pigeons.
And part of me has given up hoping for a clean T&T. How much money do you have to pump into an ad campaign before you realize that many Trinidadians are just dirty people with consciences that don’t balk at nasty? Littering is something I could never do and will never ever do. I will hold an empty soda bottle for a mile and a half or shove a doubles paper bag deep into my pockets rather than unloading it unto the streets. That’s just how I am. Watching somebody littering makes me livid. I’ve never really cussed out anyone, but if there’s ever a time when I want to it’s then.
I remember a few months ago a nearby high school staged a huge march for the environment. They took it through from the school, through the town and back up to the school again. I remember seeing a couple fifth formers who lived close by marching walking along with the throng. I remember in particular a neighbour girl who is very noticeable because she has to be at least 6′ 2″. So I’m thinking what a great idea for all these kids to get involved and take a stand for their country’s environment. When everyone else seems to care less about the environment here were these children trying to make a difference.
But a a.
The very next day people, I’m standing looking out my window when I see the very same aforementioned girl eating from a brown paper bag. When she was done, she looked around furtively and not seeing anyone looking, crumpled it and threw it into the drain. It’s not yet twenty four hours later, but here she was littering the very environment whose cause she championed for four miles of blazing sun. I was shocked. Yet because of my Christianity I couldn’t deliver the cussing appropriate for the circumstance.
So it’s not that people don’t know that they shouldn’t litter. It’s that people don’t care. They just don’t care. Who cares that the boundary between Port of Spain and the Beetham Landfill is blurred at best.
And we’ve become so used to it. Sadly it took me the visit of an American to realize just how dirty Trinidad & Tobago is. We don’t even notice the clogged drains or strewn trash. The sidewalks are supposed to be filthy. As a matter of fact, it won’t even be a sidewalk without the vagrants and mangy dogs.
For goodness’ sake, has anyone taken a good look at the Hall of Justice recently? It’s already not the prettiest building in the country, but add too that the mossy walls, and voila, it fits right into Port of Stain. Don’t even get me started on City Gate. Talk about rooting in filth. And yet here’s Colm Imbert talking about creating a new transport hub for the soon-to-be rail service yet we can’t clean the one we already have.
So campaigns won’t work - at least none of the campaigns used till present. Although the people who litter here will never go to New York or Toronto and litter, they just won’t see the connection between the two. We have to change the minds of the people who litter and this won’t be easy. After all in Trinidad it’s a battle for the mind when it comes to all our vices, pure and simple. Until that day, I guess I will just have to get used to being embarrassed in front of my guests.
Posting will be a little sketchy over the next few days if I do post at all. I apologise, but I’ll be out of the country till Saturday. To all those who’ve e-mail me, please bear with me till then. Until!
The Manicou
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| Sean luke |
| August 17th, 1999 - March 28th, 2006 |
In remembrance of Sean Luke. It’s been such a long time since I have been able to look at his picture.
Sean would have been 7 today had it not been for his murder. Prime Minister Patrick Manning coincidentally shares a birthday with Sean. So yesterday on Power 102.1 FM, (in accordance of Anil Roberts’ cease fire) there was a barrage of callers wanting to wish “their” Prime Minister a Happy Birthday.
Also today in the anti-smelter march Pauline Lum Fai wept as she recalled how it might have been had Sean been alive today.
To all the callers to the radio shows who were calling in to wish Happy 60th Birthday to Mr. Manning who sits in his cushy office and relaxes in his cushy home collecting a fat paycheck, remember those of us who didn’t have a chance and cast some good wishes to those who loved them.
But before you get too teary eyed, remember he was only collateral damage anyway.
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Reading this story in the Express a few days ago made me realize something. When last anybody ever hear of a homemade shotgun being seized? Remember long time we will always hear about somebody getting caught with a homemade shotgun along with so many round of ammunition. There are no more homemade weapons probably entirely because we have a constant stream of weapons flowing in from South America. Consider that the enormous drug trade in South America (and Columbia specifically) depends on the Caribbean as a transshipment point with the Unites States and Europe as its target. It’s well known that the drugs are accompanied by guns and that even though the guns move on, the drugs stay in Trinidad. Does anyone have any idea how many guns there are in South America?
Take for example Brazil and Venezuela. Brazil has a population of about 186,405,000. It’s estimated that there are 17.5 million guns in circulation in Brazil, 90% of which are in the hands of civilians. There are 38,000 gun deaths per year in Brazil which works out to about 100 shooting deaths every day. And that’s just shooting deaths. Murders by other methods such as stabbings haven’t been included. Whereas in Brazil, 21.72 people out of every 100,000 are murdered with guns, in Venezuela the gun death rate is even higher at 22.15 per 100,000. So when one considers that we live under Venezuela’s left armpit, it’s not a mystery why we’ve begun to smell bad.
Our entire southern coast including the south-western peninsula is fair game for all South American drug runners. So quite possibly, that in itself is the key in turning around the crime trend.
What makes this hit home even more is this: While Brazil’s yearly 38,000 gun death per year is ghastly, do u know what Brazil’s death toll from shootings would be if they had a population of 1,300,000 instead of 186,405,000 (keeping the same rate)? It would be 282 gun deaths per year.
What’s our gun death total per year again? Doesn’t that fact seem to put it all into perspective?
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Yeah I agree. Please put up hi-tech speed limit signs all over Trinidad. Appeal to drivers’ consciences. I hear that works really well. It’ll go great with the flashing yellow lights in front of school because we all know it made the taxi drivers - especially the ones catering for school children - mend their ways. They no longer speed or reverse for five blocks straight as often as they used to. So, yeah hi-tech speed limit signs - great idea.
These things work in the U.S. because they know that a silly sign alone won’t do much. There’s a lot of back up. Cops with radar guns hang out at any street corner or on overpasses. I’ve even had a friend get timed by a cop dangling from a helicopter who radioed the call to another officer on the ground. (I’m sure a lot of you reading know what I’m talking about).
If the light is flashing on the school zone sign, you know you better damn well drive below 20, because have no fear, there’s an officer with a radar gun close by. Drivers in the United States and other countries are ever aware of these things. So in the US, the high tech speed sign isn’t just a speed sign. It’s not a booster shot to the conscience. It’s actually a very visible threat. If you drive past one, and you realize you’re speeding, you slow down. They are very common next to roadways under construction, because in many states, traffic fines are tripled in construction zones.
So what does Mr. Imbert do? They buy some signs and expect the same response. I mean come on. The speed limit in Trinidad is more of a suggestion than a law anyway. How many Trinis even bother to look down at our own speedometers when we pass by a speed limit sign, let alone slow down? And so bpTT and the Ministry of Works and Transport are expecting drivers here to all of a sudden grow a conscience because they erected a fancy sign? What’s going to happen when they discover they’ve been speeding? They’ll feel bad about themselves? Oh give me a break.
Works and Transport Ministry corporate communications manager Douglas Brunton said that a fifth sign is planned, but not for the Savannah. (May I suggest near the treasury?)
“There has been no concrete decision as to where the fifth one is going to go,” he said.
He also said that even if the signs show that drivers are breaking the speed limit around the Savannah, they will not be used to penalise the offenders.
“There is no punitive measure attached to these things at all. There is no record keeping capacity on it other than averages.”
Brunton says that the signs are already having a positive effect on drivers.
“As people start to see the signs work, people began slowing down coming toward the signs,” he said.
THAT’S CUZ THEY’RE SLOWING DOWN TO GAPE AT THE SHINY NEW SIGN!
IT’S HARD TO GAPE DOING 80!
Bunch of idiots.
I‘m friends with a woman who runs a pre school. She’s a friend of the family and likes to talk. Sometimes she just needs to unload about work, so she gives me all the files on the kinds of parents she meets daily and how bad they can be. Let me tell you something by the way, there are some people who should never be allowed to have children. And
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there are others who deserve to have the ones they already have taken away from them. Anyway, I digress. So she began to tell me the story of some neighbours of mine.
There is a boy who came every morning to drop his little brother off at school. The boy looked to be about 10 and Mrs. Ramnarine thought it a little strange that he didn’t seem to be in school. Her school started at 9 and like clockwork every morning, he was there with his brother in tow. So one day she asked him if he went to school. He dipped his head, looked embarrassed and replied he didn’t - that his mother didn’t send him. Mrs. Ramnarine told him to tell his mother she wanted to see him.
The next day his mother brings the brother to school instead of the older son. Mrs Ramnarine finds out from the mother that she actually has three sons, including a newborn - by three different fathers mind you. She was currently living with the father of the baby. The son who brought the child to school was actually 11. She didn’t send him to school (get this) because his father (who lives in the U.S.) was supposed to send for him a long time ago to come live with him there. This was two years ago. Since he’s supposed to go away anyway, she didn’t just bother to send him to school now. Can you believe that excuse? What makes this even more insane is that exactly four buildings away from her house is a primary school. There is yet another school a 15-minute walk away. So if you ever hear that parents can be their children’s worst enemy, believe it. And I guess it helps to ensure that the vicious cycle of poverty is preserved.
She’s just one of the parents that I know of who do this sort of thing. I see the others every day who walk up and down the streets and everywhere else but into the school compound. While I know they are not alone, I think I’d still be shocked at the number of parents who keep their children at home for no good reason at all. However, I probably won’t be surprised to learn how much of an effect absenteeism has on crime. More likely than not, these the same people with the guns.
I have to ask myself then, don’t we have the Community Police anymore? And what exactly is it they do? ‘Cuz I’m acquainted with what they don’t do. Don’t alarms go off when students don’t show up for school? Somehow it seems that either no one cares any more or at least no one seems to be trying very hard.
There was an article in the Sunday Guardian that reported that T&T won a whopping 72 medals at the World Championship of Performing Arts in Hollywood. The medal count consisted of 40 golds, 22 silvers, 10 bronze medals. They also won awards for Best Costuming and Best Parade at the opening ceremony.
In adititon to the medals nationals also were reported to have signed a few lucrative contracts among them singer Adana Roberts who signed with Sony Records.
So congratulation to all the T&T performers who medaled at the competition. I’m not sure if the television media or the Express newspaper carried the story, but it’s something that has gone a little under-reported especially as Trinidad won 40 gold medals. When last did Trinidad & Tobago win 40 golds as anything? I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing “never”. 40 golds, man, 40. It’s gets me thinking though, how many medals were up for grab during the whole thing? However, Trinidad did field the second largest team and also the largest team from the Caribbean, so that may have something to do with the great results. (Also it helps that we have talent oozing from the seams.)
I have to admit though, I’ve never heard of the competition before. However it is only the second time that Trinidad has entered so that may explain why.
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This is my problem with Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj is this: he forgets. Either that or his twist-mouth actually has an effect on the things he says.
While speaking about the recent execution-style killings of print workers in Guyana, Mr. Maharaj said:
“Let us hope that it does not happen in T&T. In recent times, Government has shown it is above the law, and where there is tyranny, there will be anarchy.”
You, see these people simply forget how thing used to be, then they some how find the moral high ground to start preaching from again. What Mr. Maharaj fails to remember is the ways in which the brand new 1995 UNC Government (of which he was a part) went through great lengths to stifle the press in Trinidad. Most of us can remember :
So when people like Ramesh Lawrence speak in haughty terms about press freedom and that they hope “it doesn’t happen here”, I take it with a grain of salt. It already has, Mr. Maharaj. It didn’t happen with guns and executions, but the media in Trinidad has already been assaulted by the Government you were a part of no less. So please spare us your wishes.
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