As a child, I learned a saying, ‘Don’t wait until night comes to light a candle to see what you could see in the day’! By this, my mother meant, ‘Don’t wait for a problem to come upon you when it could have been prevented long beforehand’. As a purveyor …

The swearing of an oath by our presidents is an expression of a specific intention to others. It is not limited to the moment when the person articulates the words. It commits to act in a certain way in the future.  This action is a deliberate exercise of one’s free …

Within the last two years, the world has had two pivotal moments: the arrival of Covid-19 and the development of the vaccine. The virus started small but has taken lives and wrecked economies, changing the way we live forever.  Even though ‘Operation Warp Speed’ delivered vaccines way ahead of schedule …

The Bible has remarkable insights into power politics: indeed, the popular series Games of Thrones may have drawn inspiration from it. We are witnessing the intrigues and drama of local politics as two powerful tribes—kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and honest men—play a deadly, internecine game for control.  …

The drama surrounding the contract of the Commissioner of Police reveals our nation’s values, tests the strength of the commitment we make to our institutions, and shapes the character of our country.  We take our democracy for granted and point to the 1990 attempted coup as a sure sign of …

‘Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.’ These words of Nelson Mandela should resonate as we approach our upcoming budget debate. A national budget is more than an economic forecast; it is a declaration about …

One of my saddest memories is of something that happened in 2015 at a village perched high overlooking Port-of-Spain. This village was once a place of joy, where citizens from all over the country flocked to watch the annual fireworks in the Queen’s Park Savannah.  However, a nationally infamous gang …

I am not a professional teacher. But I enjoy teaching and have been leading a group of pre-teens in an under-privileged area (what Bishop Harvey called ‘the belly of the whale’) for the last few years.  In the light of the debate about school reopening and the announcement of the …

Trinidad and Tobago did not buy ‘cat in bag’ when we hired Mr Gary Griffith. We knew full well what to expect.  In October 2015, then Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon reported on his predecessor’s bid to purchase armoured vehicles for the police service:  ‘Unknown to the PS and …

There was an advertising slogan, ‘You’ve come a long way, Baby!’, in the late 60s that reflected the rising empowerment of women. By the early 80s, a board including two men, inspired by Radhica Saith, ran the first local Halfway House for Battered Women.  Thirty years ago, this week, our …

The Covid-19 pandemic hit our shores at the wrong time. Indeed, there is no right time, but the state of our nation had made us incredibly vulnerable.  We were in a crisis, adjusting to the economic woes and experiencing lowered trust levels in our leaders. In the heat of Covid-19, …

Reading is dangerous; it can lead you to challenge things around you in unexpected but exciting ways. Or it can lead to a severe state of the blahs!  One expects those anointed by the mass media to use their time and space to provide insights, moving their readers to actions …