Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) has provided quality coverage of this season’s Panorama competitions, particularly through the engagement of knowledgeable commentators. In the course of her closing remarks last Sunday morning when the medium and large band semi-finals concluded after midnight, Michelle Huggins-Watts, musicologist and formidable pan practitioner, commented on …

The phrase “mother of all Carnivals” is overworked. Its use will eventually become as stale as “the greatest show on earth”. Moreover, whatever its short-term marketing benefits, it also has cynical political value when it is used to pump up the illusion of joy in these unrelentingly murderous and (with …

Last Sunday’s Junior Panorama was a scintillating competition. The crowds were so large that, as the Primary Schools category was completed, their supporters were politely asked to leave and make space for the next category, Secondary Schools. The quality of the musical performances of the participants in each of the …

The small band semi-finals at Victoria Square, driven by youthful players as described in last week’s column, was a tasty appetizer for Panorama 2023. What is disappointing is the Government’s failure to use pan music and other performing arts as a year round component of youth development. This disappointment is …

The arts and culture milieu is my ground and grounding. By that I mean it is both my happy place and helps to keep me “reel”—best translated, I suppose, as the opposite of becoming a blinged-out, undiscerning and indifferent poser. And so it was that, on the first Saturday of …

Put plainly and simply, it is not possible to maintain the socio-economic status quo and at the same time expect to reduce violent crime. That is one reason why the announcement by the Prime Minister that there will be “talks” on crime is not impressive. This announcement was made in …

To all my readers, good morning this New Year’s morning. Can we reach out to each other and resolve to make the ritual “Happy New Year” greeting mean that we will co-operate on a sustained basis to mitigate the adverse effects of the neglect of our needs and partisan political …

“How much for the vehicle yuh driving?” This question was one amongst the torrent of words thrown at Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan and Minister of Rural Development and Local Government Faris Al-Rawi (demoted from attorney general) in the course of a walking tour in Bamboo No 2. …

The Prime Minister last Sunday, in a speech before the PNM Women’s League, expressly acknowledged that Trinidad and Tobago is in “a situation of unacceptably high levels of crime”. This is an important acknowledgement after all the years of dismissive responses to the high levels of violent crime pioneered and …

My first column on the subject of hope was written in July 2002. Currently, it is not possible to avoid a retrospective tone in these columns. This is because those in leadership positions in many sectors in our country have evaded confronting the widespread and rampantly growing societal problems with …

Murder, murder everywhere but certain elites continued blindly to cling to the status quo and sections of the business community uttered platitudes. Then, as the murder count soared past 500 with a multiplicity of murders, the Government finally “did” something. That something was a whole day meeting with the heads …

In a powerful editorial last Monday on the occasion of Divali, the Trinidad Express newspaper urged that we look around and see Trinidad and Tobago as it really is: “a country carried by the goodness of its people and their love for this place that we call home”. The writer …