Basketball legends never die, a friend joked to me on WhatsApp last Sunday, they just keep hitting fadeaways. And confessing that he had felt physically sick when he first heard the news of Kobe Bryant’s untimely death in a helicopter crash earlier in the day, he explained that, for him, …
Read More »Media Monitor: On T&T English, the US Senate’s brown tongues and crossing Trump
In the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J Trump, Adam Schiff spoke good, very good. (I could have wrote ‘was very good’ but that wouldn’t be American in any way, shape or form.) A classy, clearly highly educated advocate, Schiff doubtless impressed all with his eloquence and general delivery. He …
Read More »Media Monitor: Trump’s Senators tie themselves in impeachment (k)nots
Licks like peas. With a bullpistle. Were I a judge in their case, that is the sentence I would pass on the 50-odd Elsies in the Senate who last week voted against hearing witnesses in the continuing impeachment trial of Donald J Trump. Did Trump ask Ukraine for a quid …
Read More »Cockroaches must stay out fowl business! T&T Shia Muslims condemn Trump but pledge peaceful approach
“Based on our faith and understanding of Islam, we are sworn to the protection of the realm of Trinidad and Tobago and to peaceful coexistence with persons of all faiths… “The AIATT—nor any Shia Muslim organisation or person of Trinidad and Tobago as far as we can tell—[is not] a …
Read More »Gilkes: From Truman to Trump; how religion oppresses the post-colonial world
Shooting wars begin as culture wars and culture wars are initiated by ideas. So let’s for a minute set aside Uncle Sam’s amoral adventures in Venezuela; or not—because this issue is partly about what led to it in the first place. A few years ago Professor Merle Hodge wrote an …
Read More »Dear Editor: The trouble with the neighbours; why we should be concerned about Venezuela
“This sudden outpouring of concern in our neighbours’ well-being is nothing to do with a desire to defend democracy, socialism or any other political theory. It is about the age old practice of colonialism, in whatever acceptable form it takes in the 21st century. “But because of that controlling desire …
Read More »‘[Trump] can say whatever he wants!’ Live Wire buckles up as Young backs Maduro in Venezuela crisis
“[US president Donald Trump] can say whatever he wants,” said National Security Minister Stuart Young yesterday. “At the end of the day, as far as I am aware, Venezuela is a sovereign country. “[…] I certainly would not wish for any country to have a coup. We stand ready to assist …
Read More »Dear Editor: More analysis needed on US/Russia war-games in neighbouring Venezuela
As curious as I am about what’s happening in Venezuela, I’m even more curious about how said developments are analysed by my local media so as to raise the public’s level of awareness about this country’s position in global affairs. Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro never really impressed me, he’s no …
Read More »Gilkes: Message to the Barbergreen; the continuing struggle for emancipation
Despite my shameless semi-appropriation of Malcolm X’s “Message to the Grassroots,” this in no way suggests that I place myself close to the same league of this giant ancestor. This is just my paltry message to those in my country, particularly those who live where there isn’t much grass, far …
Read More »Monitoring me 3: Ali’s reply to Trump, Bolt pulls up Rogge, MJ’s silence and the eye of the Tiger
“If white America were judged by the quality of its people,” Muhammad Ali might have said, “the USA might not finish too high on any list.” Ali was like that, never pulling his punches, unbowed, cowed neither by Joe Frazier’s aggression nor George Foreman’s power nor the might of Uncle …
Read More »Claude’s Comments: The truth about Africa, Africans, their diaspora and their depiction in western media
The description of “African countries” and their diaspora in Haiti as “shitholes” goes way beyond the racist vulgarity of a decadent American President. It is merely a kind of sordid culmination of centuries of disparagement of Africans and Africa in the interest of western capitalism and white supremacy. But how …
Read More »Caribbean dignity unbowed; UWI vice-chancellor explains what Trump and USA really owe Haiti
“Haiti’s Caribbean vision illuminated America’s way out of its colonial darkness. This is the debt President Trump’s America owes Toussaint L’Ouverture’s Haiti. “It’s a debt of philosophical clarity and political maturity. It’s a debt of how to rise to its best human potential. It’s a debt of exposure to higher …
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