Earl Best

Are we having the wrong discussion about GATE? Should the conversation be whether the government should sponsor tertiary-level education at all? “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matthew 7:14, King James Version. My 14-year-old grandson …

Minister of Finance Colm Imbert was interviewed by Khamal Georges on CNC3 last week and it was difficult not to be genuinely impressed by his calm demeanour. It contrasted sharply with the agitation and irritation he displayed during his mid-year review in Parliament a week prior, when he announced to the …

“Life is a stage and we are the actors,” calypsonian Lord Valentino sang in the 1970’s. Three or four decades later, endorsement came from the novelist Earl Lovelace, who declared that (Politics in T&T) “…is just a movie.” “Everybody have a part to play,” Valentino also sings. Including Faris Al-Rawi. …

Wired868 columnist Earl Best and journalist Roneil Walcott evoke the ghosts of November past in five tableaux: (Tableau One) “Dem eh really understand, yuh know,” he said to me, his voice thick with emotion, “deh eh understand hommuch dat hurt.” I expected him to wipe away a tear but he …

“Ay, rasta, wham?” What laudable restraint! What admirable self-control! Having waited, according to the Trinidad Express’ Alexander Bruzual, all day to see Ricardo Jerome, the 36-year-old man accused of assaulting Ruth Marchan (not the former LifeSport director) in a bar, a woman grabbed him—presumably not by the scruff of the …

The Lotto, an economics teacher friend of mine has long insisted to me, is nothing but “a regressive tax on black people.” That’s probably also true of Play Whe, Pick Two, Pick Four and Scratch and, indeed, the National Lotteries Control Board’s whole range of online games. And not being …

Say “Employer” to someone and (s)he expects soon to hear “Employee.” And ditto if you reverse the order. So I wasn’t really surprised when Wired868 stopped talking about “Barra” and started talking about “Barry.” But I stopped reading Monday’s Express story about the MP for Princes Town with the first …

Columnist Earl Best pens an open letter to current Guardian Sports Editor Valentino Singh, who initially led the campaign to have Austin Jack Warner brought to book for his November 19,1989 misdeeds and then turned around and tried to make Warner look good by authoring his two self-serving books:  My …

If Jack Warner is not crooked, neither is the Lady Young Road. I so declare completely mindful of the presumption of innocence. Let it be very clear that I am not saying he is guilty of any of the crimes with which he has recently been charged. But I am …

Columnist Earl Best watched the end of the Constitution Amendment Bill debate in the Senate on television and was not amused: The government of the day—and of the night, Section 34 has taught us—is sleeping the sleep of the just; confident that a substantial part of the battle for post-election …

Columnist Earl Best refuses to shoulder arms as he revisits one of the most controversial periods in Trinidad and Tobago’s history History is replete—littered is more appropriate since the dung heap of history is where we find them—with characters who make no distinction between fame and notoriety. Adolf Hitler, Jack …

Earl Best recalls some occasions when the public language was not, ahm, parliamentary… Three years ago, Benjai’s monster hit “Trini” mash up the whole place. “And they like to hear Trini talk, talk, talk, talk, talk…,” he told us. There wasn’t one dissenting voice. That “they” includes me because, in …