“Poverty is hell, and the angels are in Paradise/ Driving in their limousine, where everything is nice and clean…” Shadow, the calypsonian. Shadow sets the stage in his opening lines: one cannot understand poverty without appreciating the wealth on the other side. Poverty and greed are two sides of the …

“You help others who don’t do as well by lifting the people who do well and making them the example so others will follow. But you don’t lift the children, you don’t motivate, you don’t inspire. “You want to talk about bad parenting but do not want to commend, acknowledge, …

“The race rises as its women rise. They are the true standard of its elevation. “We are trying to produce cultured men without asking ourselves where they are to find cultured wives. We forget that cultured families constitute a cultured race and that a cultured race is an equal race. …

“In my 50-60 years, I have never heard so much corruption in my land as in the last few days… People are stealing money as though they invented it. It seems almost as though the rich have taken a vow to thief, thief, thief…” Ambassador Makandal Daaga, the then leader …

“Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. The Holy Land is an attraction for us because of the Hebrew Torah, the Christian Bible, and the Quran with their stories of Judaism, the foundation of Christianity, and the creation of …

“The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.” Eugene O’Neill. Media scrutiny of all criminal incidents has heightened in recent months and intensified with the promise of “crime talks” between the Government and the Opposition. I admit …

Mahal was the walking legend in Trinidad from the 1930s to the early 60s. He pretended to drive a car while he, in fact, walked or trotted. He made hand signals and blew his horn as though he had a car. An anecdote reflects us in Al Ramsawack’s story on …

“The mere fact that a man could be, under the law, the actual master of the mind and body of human beings had to have disastrous effects. It tended to inflate the ego of most planters beyond all reason. “They became arrogant, strutting, quarrelsome kinglets; they issued commands; they made …

“There is no avoiding the fact that public confidence in the Police and police legitimacy is essential. We recognise that, in many cases, the lack of trust between the Police and the community constrains effective crime intervention. “We are aiming at improving police accountability, re-establishing trust and credibility between the …

What do the deaths of the siblings Faith Peterkin, 10; Arianna Peterkin, 14; Shane Peterkin, 17; and Tiffany Peterkin, 19, have to do with our national budget? Does the death of Shazade Simon, the three-year-old who suffered burns in a cooking-related accident, have any relevance to our budget discussions? What about …

“The real problem is that oil dollars have reduced us all to ‘petro-jumbies’, a people who have never explored our creativity, our talents, our potential. “For generations, we have been lazy slobs, knowing that the oil dollar, down today but up tomorrow, will rescue us from ruin, cushion fuel prices, …

“Our mission of ‘water for all’ is the assertion of a basic human right as enshrined in the constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, namely – the right of the individual to life… Providing water for all our people provides for equality and equal opportunity…” Ganga Singh, July 2000. Our first …