View Point

“I know English. Goodbye.” Click. That was how an exchange between i95.5’s Andre E. Baptiste’s exchange with a caller on his Saturday Sports programme ended yesterday evening. Trying to get back on, the caller was immediately cut off. My slave name—thank you, Dr Fergus—is a superlative and I am a …

In a column published on 17 December 2017, I foretold that there was a political sub-plot by means of which Chief Justice Archie would be given a soft landing in March 2018. At that time, I also referred to talk that the Chief Justice would be going on extended leave …

If my laptop had not died, I would have written this piece much earlier, not long after Akilah Holder’s 14 February article. Small ting; Jessica Joseph’s masterful response, using the same points I wanted to raise, was both an excellent rebuttal and an education resource. Those whose minds are not …

“The average male wage in 2008 (the last Labour Force Report) was TT$4,640 a month and the female was TT$3,758. Among male officials and managers, the mean salary was just over TT$8,000 a month, while women earned TT$5,000. Among male professionals, the mean monthly salary was over TT$11,500 whereas for …

“[…] I have no good wishes or aspirational sentiments. I’m not checking milestones women have achieved or the records we have smashed… I am preoccupied by our extinction at the hands of our men—our husbands, partners, baby fathers, lovers. “Who can celebrate on Women’s Day when there is so much …

I was raised in a Christian sect that was founded in the late 19th Century in the USA. It managed to find its way to the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1920’s. Though I was raised in what the great humanitarian, Bishop Desmond Tutu, enthusiastically called a “Rainbow …

“On Monday 5 March, workers informed their supervisor that they wanted to leave at the stipulated knock-off time—which is their right—and were told that they could do what they wanted. “On Tuesday 6 March, when workers reported for work, they were prevented from entering the compound and were, in fact, …

“In the event of an appeal, I believe that it is incumbent on any member of the Court of Appeal who is assigned to the appeal to state, either in open Court or in Chambers in the presence of all counsel, that he or she is not one of those …

I ended my “Comments” of 21 February with anthropologist Kumar Mahabir’s opinion that a re-scripting of the “Black Power” label might have seen more Indo-Trinbagonians eagerly embracing the movement. This will remain an open question. But if his reactions to other aspects of Afro-Trinidadian cultural engineering without the “black” label …

“Trinidad and Tobago has very antiquated laws, some dating all the way back to the 18th Century; the main laws dealing with offences to the person date back to 1925 and have remained more or less untouched since then. To understand why this is so, we must go back to …

Ancient Egyptians believed that a person’s name, the “rn” (ren), was “the foundation of a being as an individual.” A person’s name had a power of its own and lived as long as it was spoken; thus, the proverb, “To speak one’s name is to make him live again.” This …

Trinidad has twice received rave reviews from the New York Times (NYT) regarding our food and culture. These reviews were published in the travel section of that newspaper. These are travel advisories of a very different kind from the negative ones we receive regarding crime and terrorism. The more recent …