Creole question formation -- April 28, 2012
In the Caribbean, as everywhere else in the world, people have created social and musical technologies, but our history of colonisation and strict indentureship has invested us with a quality of self-hate and self-diminution that makes us regard some of the European technologies as being superior to ours in some cases.
Licensed to speak Trinbagonian -- March 15, 2012
Last Tuesday, I was a guest of the Port of Spain Rotary Club and had a lively conversation with one of the members, an English graduate from a prestigious British university, on the use of proper grammar, including the pronunciation of "definitely". He said the pronunciation is de.fi.nit.ly, with the "nite" pronounced like "nit" and not like "night".
A sideshow? Nothing more? -- March 03, 2012
In the end, as in the beginning, Keith Rowley's motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister was a sideshow. It failed as it was bound to. It unified the executive and brought out their full armoury. It unified the Opposition and brought out some kind of offence. It won Dr Rowley a small political advantage and probably much more embarrassment.
Elevated trivia -- October 23, 2005
Trivia are pieces of information or concerns that are of little or no importance to anyone though particular trivia may be interesting to different people. Because they are information, they will occupy our time and attention every now and then, but they will give way - perhaps I should say 'should give way' - easily to demonstrably more important concerns.
What about a budget to create wealth? -- October 09, 2005
Quick, tell me: What is there in the budget to create wealth for the country? More disposable income in people's accounts? Is that it? No ideas for the diversification of the economy? No ideas about how people can move from saving to wealth creation?
Time to revise the national anthem -- September 27, 2005
"Sorry, but our national anthem is a mess of errors, and nobody has pointed out and analysed those errors more than Denis Solomon, newspaper columnist and former UWI lecturer in French and Linguistics. Solomon identifies three grammatical errors in the anthem and even regards the whole of it as 'literary nonsense'.
The coming anarchy -- September 18, 2005
"An Arima father of two accused of being one of the persons responsible for the shooting death of a girl outside the Simple Song Panyard on the night of August 30 last month was shot five times at 11.45 am on Wednesday. Luther King, a sanitation worker at the Arima Borough Corporation was shot in full view of his daughter Victoria, 11, and his mother, Marilyn. He was rushed to the Port of Spain General Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival."
The war against children -- September 15, 2005
I do not believe in corporal punishment of children, and one of my main reasons is that there are superior alternatives to it - like hugs and kisses; rational understanding of offensive child behaviour and consequent non-violent correction; and development of the child's ability to reason and understand right and wrong.
Not supposed to happen? -- September 11, 2005
It is an uncomfortable truth that humans are a flawed species, and perhaps the greatest flaw is that we die as individuals, often very tragically. I say 'perhaps' because as a species we are great at self-renewal through procreation.
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