“How sleep you now, unfeeling kings? Does one human feeling creep through your hearts’ remorseless sleep?” These were the words of the poet Percy Shelley challenging suppression of the working class. There are no words strong enough to condemn the cruelty of the management of Paria Fuel Trading Company …
Read More »Noble: Paria’s plight is rampant in T&T—First World salaries without First World leadership
Stephen R Covey, the American author of First Things First, said: ‘We are free to choose our actions… but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.’ As a nation, we need to contemplate this as we mourn the loss of the four men in a recent …
Read More »Kangalee: Workers must take unions back from ‘mocking pretenders’ posing as leaders
“[…] The leadership of the labour movement has lost credibility and trade union leaders are being seen as ‘smartmen’, confidence tricksters and hustlers along the lines of insurance agents, lawyers, bankers, policemen, politicians and priests. “[…] If we are to defend ourselves, as workers, against the renewed attacks from the …
Read More »Demming: Minister West’s persistence with dress code in govt bldgs betrays colonial hang-ups
Minister of Public Administration Ms Allyson West is reported as saying that Government has more important issues to deal with than a dress code. Of course you do, Minister West. Therein lies the problem. It is a problem of politicians losing touch with the needs of ordinary folks and forgetting …
Read More »Dear Editor: Arima was capital of east Trinidad; now it’s a ‘lost and forgotten borough’
“[…] Today, when we look at this cherished town that can boast of being the country’s only Royal Chartered Borough—a status granted by Queen Victoria in 1888—we see only a battered and bruised community which has lost all the facilities that made it so special and is now reduced to …
Read More »Demming: Thanks for transparency, Imbert; now we need repercussions for Scoon party boat
‘When the lights go on, the cockroaches scatter’, is what popped into my mind when I read about the Ministers of Finance, Health and Trade and Industry, the Attorney General and the Adrian Scoon party boat issue. A special restaurant licence was issued to businessman Scoon without the approval of …
Read More »Dear Editor: What do Tobagonians want? How does PDP help? What does it mean for us Trinbagonians?
“[…] Tobagonians have indicated that they want a change in the Executive, hoping that will bring a change in their fortune. But they have failed to clearly define one item of governance that will bring this change. “So only time will tell if we have made a step forward or …
Read More »Demming to PM: Never been to a whore house? Are you okay, Mr Prime Minister?
Dear Prime Minister, When you speak, I listen like many others young and old, we all listen closely. If we miss your message, we go to social media and that is where I found a shocking clip from a recent News Conference on Anslem Gibbs’ Twitter feed of 3 December …
Read More »MSJ: With Covid, murders, and colonial governance, T&T needs Divali more than ever
“[…] As a country, we have the challenges of the never-ending Covid pandemic which is taking a terrible toll in lives lost and plunging families into mourning, an economy that is spluttering along unable to sustain jobs and businesses, huge inequalities of wealth and income… “And a governance system that …
Read More »Demming: All MPs who’ve served for more than a decade should resign now—you’ve failed!
Black Stalin’s lyrics in his 1988 calypso ‘We could make it if we try’ have been occupying a space in my brain. He sang: ‘So the Treasury broke and they say that recession jamming/And so to foreign countries Trinis start migrating/ They lose faith in their country, they say we …
Read More »Dear Editor: Is the Govt too afraid of the Opposition to introduce mandatory vaccines?
“[…] Having apparently exhausted every avenue of encouraging vaccination apart from the obvious one, the official stance appears to be shifting to ‘well, we tried’. “On an intellectual level, I know why this is the most expedient approach… [However] if our Government, elected to lead in the best interests of everyone, …
Read More »Demming: Going, going, going, gone! Goodbye, Gary Griffith
From 1956 to 1981, Trinidad and Tobago experienced what it is like to be led by an unapologetically patriarchal leader who made decisions on our behalf whether or not we supported them. During that period our two-island nation became the richest country in the Caribbean. For 25 years, the leadership …
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