Health

Every other week, it seems, something is being designated as a superfood. Bestowed with this crown, marketers go to town—extolling the benefits and advising toute moun to include these wondrous products into their daily intake. So what exactly makes something a superfood? Forget the fancy definitions, it is simply a …

I was searching for words to describe how I might come across in this column—killjoy, grinch, scrooge—because I know they might easily seem to apply. Maybe it is the cynic in me; maybe I am just perverse, but I have always been unmoved by the hype surrounding certain celebrations. I …

“[…] We may want to pin it on social injustice or income inequality, but the truth of the matter is that the people of Trinidad and Tobago have a protracted and sustained attitude of lawlessness. “It is why I believe that ‘Discipline’ was inscribed as part of our national watchwords—because …

“[…] Trinbagonians have consistently failed to address the root causes of their [crime] problems, remaining trapped in unproductive cycles. It may be startling for them to learn that they themselves contribute to their own situation. “But a divided nation is a nation to be ruled by the monumentally corrupt. That …

Misunderstanding is an old human problem. All of us have experienced being misunderstood at some point in our lives. Sometimes it is funny, as in sitcoms; they love to create misunderstandings or have characters lie for a laugh. But we know what it is to share something with someone, expecting …

President Christine Kangaloo played a hopeful string of chords for me with her inaugural address. She spoke of modernising the protocols that govern how citizens and her office interact, and “having its facilities put to even greater use in hosting cultural, educational and artistic ventures, particularly among the youth”. My …

The fantastic stories he told emerged from the cellar of his childhood—resurrected and polished till they exuded the patina of his mind. Gabriel García Márquez often said that what Westerners called magic realism was actually commonplace events in his native Colombia. Over and over he mined moments from those days …

LAST August, I wrote about Wishing for Wings, the 2013 book by Debbie Jacob, and the 2022 film by Dr Kim Johnson. I’d written about the indefatigable efforts of these two in promoting the culture of this melodious, cacophonous paradox called Trinidad and Tobago. The film’s premiere was then being …

Ask people what it is that makes certain meals so special for them, and I bet that when they reflect they will say it is because it invokes some warm memory from childhood. Hardly is it connected to a lavish spread—it has more to do with its homely nature. The …

As a people, we have dreamed that our lives would be better than those of our parents—and that our children would live even better lives. The harsh reality was exposed with the 2017 MFO Economic Sentiment Report. It showed a decline from three-quarters of our people who felt that life …

A long time ago, I had a discussion—maybe an argument—with a newspaper editor about what constituted “soft” news. He thought that issues affecting women were soft, and should be relegated to pages headed by labels that suggested they were for women only. Instinctively, I rejected that. It seemed to me …

Snippets from childhood can pop up arbitrarily and stick in your head. As a wee ­reader (from the age of three), I read anything I could find, and some things have obviously lingered. I kept hearing this line from what was probably a morality tale during a difficult period these …