“There are two things that are important in politics,” said Mark Hanna, a 19th-century businessman and political kingmaker in Cleveland, Ohio. “The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Pete W Moore, the MA Hanna associate professor of politics at Case Western Reserve University in …

In the run-up to our General Elections, I indicated how the world’s events impact our country and how our method of selecting candidates operates. The notion of a rentier economy (one in which a significant portion of income is derived from owning assets like land, natural resources or financial instruments, …

Over the past few weeks, Kitchener’s 1961 calypso Take yuh meat out of meh rice kept ringing in my ears. The calypso tells an amusing story about two hungry people, one a Bajan and the other a Trinidadian, who concocted a plan to satisfy their hunger. “A Bajan and a …

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.” Nelson Mandela, May 1995. Ezekiel Ramdialsingh’s murder on 15 April received wide coverage in our newspapers. One even had it as a front-page story. But the description given to him was “an aspiring …

We live in an odd and unbelievable world. Nothing seems normal, and distinguishing the truth from lies is an increasing challenge. The news is like a five-alarm fire. It rages and feeds on our concerns and fears. How do we escape the information ecosystem that pours like a fire hose, …

I do not believe that the Dragon Field initiative is dead. The rumours of its end are greatly exaggerated. For context, I advance this quotation from the influential US Politico newsletter. It was written about the tariff situation of last week, but it can easily fit our situation. “He likes …

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities.”  US President Abraham Lincoln, 1854. This week saw the United National Congress (UNC) struggle …

We are living in difficult times. We are witnessing the world, as we know it, turn topsy-turvy. But we want to be seduced into believing that there is a magic wand that will restore us to the glory days when oil and gas prices were high. We want to be …

Today, when I look around in the world, what do I see?/ I see footprints that man has left on the sand/ While walking through time./ I see fruits of our ambition, figments of our imaginations/ And I ask myself, When will it end? When will it end?/ It is …

Within a week, the prime minister-designate, Stuart Young, will assume the role of the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Ferdie Ferreira, a long-time People’s National Movement (PNM) stalwart, said the PNM has never had a succession plan in its 68-year history. He made this comment when there was dissent …

In a Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005), Rebecca Solnit wrote of the places in which one’s life is lived: “They become the tangible landscape of memory, the places that made you, and in some way you too become them. They are what you can possess and, in the end, …

The following is part two of an interview with FC Santa Rosa founder and head coach and ex-Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) technical committee chairman Keith Look Loy interview: Clubs no longer have roots in their communities. This uprooting leaves room for other institutions, like gangs, to attract young …