“When a Minister (or Prime Minister) is asked to exercise his discretion to establish an inquiry (as you are being asked to do), he ‘must do so in a manner that conforms to basic public law principles of reasonableness and due consideration of relevant matters’. “There is a duty to …
Read More »Noble: T&T citizens have not even an orange to suck in bitter economic times
As children, we all took a ‘purge’ during the August school vacations, but our mothers gave us an orange to take away the bitter taste. Now we do not even have a sour orange as—according to Minister Franklin Khan, during his discussion of the latest twist in the Petrotrin saga—we …
Read More »Daly Bread: Leave me with the dutty; laugh and cry in the same cultural yard
Some years more than others, the Christmas message of peace on Earth and goodwill to all persons takes on a tone more urgent than the general warmth of the message. This is such a time. There have been over 500 murders for the year, a number of unsolved disappearances, significant …
Read More »Sex is overrated? Not if it’s done right! Stop teaching shame to children
“They have always known and always feared how powerful sexuality is. Your sexuality represents your understanding and your choice of expression of your most intimate and powerful sexual instincts. “[…] So they tell you how to walk, sit, stand, how to bump, grind and dry hump, how much you should …
Read More »Price is still right: Katang Christmas is a raucous, comic cross-country adventure
Former Calypso Monarch Michael “Sugar Aloes” Osouna—the story goes—once tried to get touch-feely with the then-fresh faced MC at his calypso tent, Rachel Price. The response to the calypso world’s ‘king of bling’ was withering. “I tell you I looking for a man resembling ah Maharaj showcase?” If Aloes was …
Read More »Rambachan’s appalling miscalculation of T&T wage statistics is playing with lives
Official statistics is not a negotiation game, it affects the reality of people’s everyday lives. The cavalier televised response of MP Suruj Rambachan—“If you say 41%, I say 75%, you could say 60%”—in attempting to justify his claim that 75% of Trinidadians work for less than TT$6,000 per month is …
Read More »Crowne: AG Al-Rawi curiously wrong in characterising ‘doxing Devant’
“Doxing, according to the AG, ‘is when you go out of your way to crash a system using certain truths’ which is ‘akin to a cybercrime’. With the greatest of respect, this is untrue. This is not what doxing is. “[…] In fact both the Interim Report and Report of …
Read More »Daly Bread: Commissioner Griffith, Chief Justice Archie and rationalising to death
A significant number of persons, including those who have deluded themselves, have written about the habit of rationalisation. Ayn Rand, the philosopher, wrote: “Rationalisation is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.” It is too early to make an assessment whether Gary Griffith …
Read More »Demming: The East Dry River voted PNM for over-40 years and what did they get?
“It’s true that things are always changing, but I expected that some of the change would have been for the better. Instead the evidence of poverty was ‘in yuh face’ as ‘halfway-falling down’ homes, piles of garbage on the corners, roaming stray dogs, and the vine-covered trailer truck that once …
Read More »Noble: How exactly does Devant’s release of Rowley’s numbers lead to good governance?
Civility allows us to disagree without disrespect. It facilitates social interaction which enables us to look past our preconceptions and arrive at better solutions. In political discussions we provide information to persuade action. Unfortunately, some contributors seek to troll perceived adversaries; and personal attacks sometimes prove counterproductive, as they demotivate …
Read More »Noble: T&T must address childhood trauma, or risk being outnumbered by criminals
Trinidadians are amazing people. Glorifying each raid led by Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith, we ignore his 21 November prophecy, in Chaguanas, of 100,000 new criminals in the next five years. “It is really important for us… to look at secondary crime prevention… If we do not deal with this …
Read More »Gilkes: Is 11/11 about remembrance; or chain up? Black West Indians must tell our story of WWI
So on Wednesday night, I was a guest on the radio programme Indaba. You know the programme that discusses issues relevant to raising African-centred consciousness? No? The one that was once two hours but is now reduced to one because, let’s be honest, it’s not like there’s any issue about …
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