Guest Columns

“Good idea!” was my initial reaction when I read that President Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona is advocating that 16- and 17-year-old citizens have the right to vote for their leaders. I can think of no argument against involving youths in initiatives and activities, especially sporting and cultural ones, which require …

If my laptop had not died, I would have written this piece much earlier, not long after Akilah Holder’s 14 February article. Small ting; Jessica Joseph’s masterful response, using the same points I wanted to raise, was both an excellent rebuttal and an education resource. Those whose minds are not …

I was raised in a Christian sect that was founded in the late 19th Century in the USA. It managed to find its way to the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1920’s. Though I was raised in what the great humanitarian, Bishop Desmond Tutu, enthusiastically called a “Rainbow …

I ended my “Comments” of 21 February with anthropologist Kumar Mahabir’s opinion that a re-scripting of the “Black Power” label might have seen more Indo-Trinbagonians eagerly embracing the movement. This will remain an open question. But if his reactions to other aspects of Afro-Trinidadian cultural engineering without the “black” label …

Ancient Egyptians believed that a person’s name, the “rn” (ren), was “the foundation of a being as an individual.” A person’s name had a power of its own and lived as long as it was spoken; thus, the proverb, “To speak one’s name is to make him live again.” This …

Next week Thursday, a week from today on 8 March, the world will celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD). Between now and then here in Trinidad and Tobago, some will clink glasses, others will engage in “big” talk at cocktail parties while others will analyse gender issues to death in panel …

Now believe me, Madam Minister, I understand the pressure you are under to be seen to be delivering the goods. And as far as PR and Photo Op visibility in our society goes, few events rank higher than a ribbon cutting or key distribution ceremony. The honeymoon period is well …

Superhero comics were created to boost the image of whites as the world’s progenitors and purveyors of justice, peace and security. Likewise, Hollywood has earned its reputation as the quintessential flagbearer of American cultural imperialism for well over a century. The two cultural agencies have had a long, intimate relationship. …

“So I have to ask the question: is this a coincidence? And why now? After scrolling through social media and seeing that many people believe that a lot of Trinis only dressed in their African garb for the ‘likes’ and the attention, I’m forced to ask another question. However, this …

When I read last Sunday about the government’s intention to build a housing development on lands allocated to the St Augustine Nurseries, it upset me greatly. In the days that followed, I became privy to the Acting Housing Minister’s full statement on the matter as well as the Minister of …

I must apologize, I forgot to share the etymology of the word “sodomite.” Etymology is getting the backstory on how a word came to be what it currently is and to mean what it now does. A local example is when we trace the history of the word “doubles” back …

There is nothing in the Torah, Old Testament, Talmud or New Testament that says the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the men were all homosexual. Remember the medical definition of homosexuality we are sticking to is extra-biblical, 19th Century, medical terminology for sexual orientation. It would …