Two former ministers were on Tuesday presented with their Instruments of Appointment to serve at Trinidad and Tobago’s overseas missions. They were among a group of five new heads of mission who received their credentials from Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Senator the Honourable Dr Amery Browne. Lovell Francis, …
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 »Dear Editor: Why upgrade NP gas stations with taxpayers’ money then sell to private owners?
“[…] Is it that we are spending tens of millions of the people’s money to upgrade facilities only to then hand these facilities over to private owners? “With the end of subsidisation of fuel prices coupled with the handover of the people’s assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars to …
Read More »St Bernard: Why New York City boasts of ‘the now generation of pan’
A couple months ago, Yvette Rennie, the president of J’Ouvert City International in New York City, hired me to do a video documentary with some prominent people involved in the NYC steel pan movement. She wanted to focus on the economic development of steel pan in NYC. The interviewees included …
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 »Best: Foolish One Syndrome, feeling you’re right, fearing to find out you’re wrong
The urbane, measured, eloquent George Davis hosts SportsMax’s Tokyo Breakfast segment of CNC3’s Olympic coverage. On Friday, Davis would have blanched when the discussion turned to the Women’s 400m final and invited co-host Pauline Davis remarked that the winner, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, had ‘literally killed them’. (my emphasis). Andre Baptiste, the …
Read More »Dear Editor: Tuco must redistribute calypso money, introduce ‘Gospelypso Arm’ and utilise Maria Bhola
“[…] The records will show that over the past 25 years, calypsonians among your membership who have faithfully participated in the Calypso King competition then and now Calypso Monarch have never been compensated financially in the preliminary round of competition. “[…] It is patently clear that the musical labour of …
Read More »Waithe: Six months after ‘Solo’s death, CoP Griffith should not be in office
The following letter to the editor was submitted to Wired868 by Kirk Waithe, the political leader of the Nationwide Organisation of We the People (NOW): It’s been six months since Andrew ‘Solo’ Morris was brutally beaten by officers of the Special Operations Response Team (SORT)—a unit within the Police Service …
Read More »Media Monitor: Lee’s mysterious hyphen, (h)executed exams and Thompson’s new Herah
In a thought-provoking but amusing piece you can find on the Internet, Christopher Howse complains about the pronunciation ‘haitch for aitch’. “There must be a confused idea that since the letter h- is aspirated, its name should be too,” he continues. “It’s a kind of genteelism, like saying ‘Between you …
Read More »Best: QRC’s sporting troops pay tribute to Gervase Hannays, a fallen soldier
It was in primary school that we were introduced to Charles Wolfe’s ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore’. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note/As his corpse to the rampart we hurried./Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot/O’er the grave where our hero we buried. Those lines came …
Read More »Dear Editor: The historic town of Arima deserves much better from the gov’t
“[…] Among Arimians, there is an angst over the absence of crucial services in Arima namely: District Revenue Office (in the past, an office existed for almost a century at Broadway, Arima), Immigration, Performing Arts Centre, Social Welfare, Ministry of Education sub-office, and HDC (given the massive housing programme one …
Read More »MSJ: Ring D Bell for Freedom! An Emancipation story
“[…] If we have been able to begin to fashion a Caribbean civilisation, then this has only been possible by the ancestors who humanised this space with positive values and their creative imagination. “It is in this light, that on this Emancipation Day, 2021, the Movement for Social Justice wishes …
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