I am not a professional teacher. But I enjoy teaching and have been leading a group of pre-teens in an under-privileged area (what Bishop Harvey called ‘the belly of the whale’) for the last few years. In the light of the debate about school reopening and the announcement of the …
Read More »Noble: CoP’s upgraded ‘Cockroaches’ philosophy arms the ‘well off’; the rest of us are mere targets
Trinidad and Tobago did not buy ‘cat in bag’ when we hired Mr Gary Griffith. We knew full well what to expect. In October 2015, then Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon reported on his predecessor’s bid to purchase armoured vehicles for the police service: ‘Unknown to the PS and …
Read More »Noble: A long way to go! T&T women clearly ‘still in the clutches of misogynistic men’
There was an advertising slogan, ‘You’ve come a long way, Baby!’, in the late 60s that reflected the rising empowerment of women. By the early 80s, a board including two men, inspired by Radhica Saith, ran the first local Halfway House for Battered Women. Thirty years ago, this week, our …
Read More »Noble: The virus and our democracy—the problem with ‘us’ and ‘them’
The Covid-19 pandemic hit our shores at the wrong time. Indeed, there is no right time, but the state of our nation had made us incredibly vulnerable. We were in a crisis, adjusting to the economic woes and experiencing lowered trust levels in our leaders. In the heat of Covid-19, …
Read More »Noble: The Bottom Line—employees aren’t disposable elements or puppets on a string
Reading is dangerous; it can lead you to challenge things around you in unexpected but exciting ways. Or it can lead to a severe state of the blahs! One expects those anointed by the mass media to use their time and space to provide insights, moving their readers to actions …
Read More »Noble: Impossible demands of men and condoned cruelty against women—domestic violence’s toxic mix
Nobody goes on a second date if, on the first one, they got slapped around. The woman (it is more often a woman) does not realise that they are in an abusive relationship until it is late. The abuser sets the honey trap, seducing the unsuspecting victim into believing that …
Read More »Noble to vaccine-hesitants: ‘When did Christians lose their connection with their fellow men and science?’
There is a story about a Samaritan called ‘good’ in the Bible because he did not walk by a suffering Jew. He had no prior relationship with the man lying beaten on the roadside, who was not part of his community, yet he acted out of compassion. Giving up his …
Read More »Noble: Leviathan vs Liberty; the danger in policing of Facebook and media manipulation
Last Sunday, the state of our national dialogue alarmed two Express columnists. Martin Daly described it as poisonous (‘The country has descended almost exclusively into the practice of the poisonous politics of demonisation.’) while Selwyn Cudjoe warned about the consequences (‘I don’t know how the acidic squabble between the prime …
Read More »Noble: Calling (out) the Police; why questions linger on Commissioner’s Cup, ISOS and Bad Wolf Sport
In 2016, our country was the western world’s highest per capita supplier of recruits for the ISIS campaign in the Middle East. We are among the world’s most violent nations, with an average annual murder rate of 32.9 per 100,000 inhabitants(from 2009–2018). Refugees and trafficking complicate our lives. These trends …
Read More »Noble: Trying a thing like a Trini; the problem with our pension plan
There is a quintessential Trini way to do business: we have enough of a façade to look professional, but we do things by vaps while the professionals stew silently. This tendency puts us into a weird space where the principals can vehemently protest that they follow the ‘science’. Meanwhile, the …
Read More »Noble: The WASA freeco—is it really the poor who suffer from disconnections?
Thirty years ago, Frico was a famous milk brand which offered free children’s toys in each tin. A ‘freeco’ was different: an event in which some could enjoy benefits for no money, yet others would have to pay for it. It is like the ‘comps’ for the young today. Given …
Read More »Noble: The Apology and the Revolution; how both political leaders fell short over Covid-19 blunder
As Trinidadians, we often want to ‘move on’ when difficult issues arise. We seldom wish to examine how public injustices happen. Instead, we accuse all who stop to explore the wreckage since we do not want ‘to play the blame game’. This tendency is why our nation took 14 years …
Read More »