It takes a village to raise a child the saying goes. If we are to take this old African proverb to its meaning, then something is drastically wrong with the current scenario involving the Laventille community and members of the TT Police Service.

Our assertion is grounded in the revelations made by residents during a meeting with acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams, some members of his senior executive and Laventille MP Fitzgerald Hinds on Tuesday night.

The meeting was called for residents to discuss the recent police killing of Mikeal “Short Buck” Lancaster, in the wake of a fiery protest they staged hours after he was killed last Saturday. However, still showing signs of emotional distress from the incident, residents made allegations against a group of officers which were quite frightening.

Naming officers, the residents essentially alleged that these individuals were working in collusion with a notorious gang to provide protection for the area’s drug blocks and act as enforcers for the gang’s hierarchy.

The officers, seven of whom they allege were directly involved in the shooting death of an unarmed Lancaster, are alleged to have engaged in bribe taking, extortion, gangsterism and the indiscriminate killing of the community’s youths at the behest of the gang’s leaders, even going as far as openly boasting and taunting residents after carrying out these ‘hits.’

The damning allegations, made by residents in the full glare of media cameras, backed Williams into a corner several times during the meeting but the only retort he could offer the residents was that the officers — all of them apparently attached to the Inter Agency Task Force—, would be removed from the unit while an investigation is being undertaken.

Of course, the residents countered that this was not enough, noting the officers could still reach them no matter where they were and countering with calls for at least their suspension during the process. They also called for Williams to step down if he could not do something to appease them immediately and eradicate the apparently entrenched problem of rogue officers terrorising law-abiding members of the community. A threat to the break the current calm within the community even flew during the often heated exchanges.

Either way, Williams cannot rest comfortably in the wake of these damning allegations against his colleagues.

He has said time and again, and fairly recently too, that in order to solve the problem within the service, rogue officers must be rooted out. So it is now incumbent upon him to do all he can to initiate an internal investigation of the named officers and fulfil that mandate if indeed these officers are guilty of the allegations made against them.

Of course, the incident itself is already being investigated by the independent Police Complaints Authority and it is hoped these investigations will be facilitated by the residents and witnesses providing the information they claim to have on the incident and against the officers. But this process must also be facilitated by the TTPS as well.

There have been complaints from PCA director David West in the past of the reluctance of members of the service to assist with the timely provision of evidence and other material needed to facilitate such exercises when such cases involved officers.

We can only hope that parties on both sides do the right thing this time, since the allegations and threats which flew at the meeting do not bode well for the welfare of the community as it relates to their relationship with the police.

In all of this, however, we must also not bury our heads in the sand over the overlying scenario that has led to this situation. Laventille is, unfortunately, associated with high levels of criminal activity and of harbouring members of criminal gangs. It is this stigma which has often left some citizens numb to the cries of residents in scenarios like the current one.

But Laventille is also home to many law-abiding citizens, and if we are to take their protest over Lancaster’s death at face value, many of them want a resolution to the problem of rogue cops because they want to be part of the solution to the current crime wave. Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, National Security Minister Edmund Dillon, Commissioner Williams et al have all gone on record begging citizens to come forward to help them eradicate this problem.

The ball is now therefore in the court of all the parties who can play a role in bringing a positive resolution to this matter to do so, to allow Laventille to breathe normally.

On Carnival Friday last year, my sapodilla was on stage singing her calypso competition tune, Mosquito. Zika was an oncoming threat and we wanted to combine musical commentary on a serious issue with humour, to step away from trends where women and girls are the voices of public lament, while men and boys the kings of humour and word play.

So, her verse, “Health Ministry spray/cannot save the day/plus recession biting them too,” was meant to highlight collective responsibility for mosquito-borne diseases, ecological concerns about insecticides used by the state and their impact on insect biodiversity and, at another level, the multiple ways big issues bite both state and society. She came second, promptly putting her prize money in her piggy-bank.

Following this, the song reached the ears of a national park ranger in the US who, just this week, sent Ziya her own Biscayne National Park Junior Ranger badge because her song is going to be introduced into their kids’ camp. In her mailed package, Sapodilla also got a fossilised shark tooth which she proudly put in her treasure box. You never know where calypso can reach.

Today, she’s on stage again, with “first-class lyrics for so/ but not about no mosquito.” This time, she’s telling a true story about our dog Shak Shak who, terrified by Old Year’s Night fireworks, ran away and was lost for several days. In the song, she looks for Shak Shak everywhere. She goes by the church, all they tell her is that prayer always works. She stops by the shop owner, but he’s only helping his customers. The police are too busy looking for tief. She calls up the Prime Minister, he tells her to put her request in a letter. She goes up Mount Hololo, which is near us, and even Tobago, which is far, but no Shak Shak.

The end of the song finds Shak Shak hopping a drop to the beach for, of all things a vacation, leading to the double-meaning in the punch-line which observes how “Shak Shak reach!,” a local turn of phrase for when someone ends up where you don’t expect, whether in terms of geographical extremities or rapidly improved circumstances by opportunistic means.

In reality, our terrified dog was picked up at the side of the road by a nice couple, whose car she jumped into when they stopped to check on her. As they were on their way to Las Cuevas, Shak Shak went with them and spent several days liming, likely happily, on the North Coast with their family, all while we searched and worried. When they returned to Santa Cruz, and saw the posters, Shak Shak was brought home, looking well rested and well refreshed from all the crisp sea and mountain breeze.

A fireworks-terrified lost dog is such a common story, and the beloved pothound so many children grow up with is such a common memory, how could we not turn this escapade into kaiso? Of course, as kaiso must, Shak Shak gets portrayed in the figure of the wayward quick-stepper, successfully breaking biche before order is restored, for isn’t that what the bravado of calypso requires of even the most timid of real-life characters?

Zi herself is a timid character. She’s produced by her dad, Lyndon ‘Stonez’ Livingstone, whose Razorshop roadmix of MX Prime and UR’s Full Extreme is now on radio replay. Still, this singing on stage business, though just in her school hall, is a reach for her as well. Might she come first this year? Given where Mosquito and Shak Shak ended up, you never can tell.

Diary of a mothering worker Entry 231

Do you believe everything that people tell you? No, it depends on who’s saying it. So, you do some kind of mental vetting first. This is now required more today as another easy way has been found to deceive the population!

Using technology to share information and news, fraudsters came up with ways to spread what’s commonly called fake news. The easy availability of smart phones, iPads and computers make it much easier for fraudsters to deliberately spread false propaganda on various social media and websites.

Fake news has grown to be very sophisticated as they look very much like coming from legitimate news organisations. Some fake news websites use website spoofing that’s structured to make visitors believe they’re visiting trusted news sources.

It’s well-known that T&T follows good and bad trends of other societies. This new “bad” trend of fake news, if not here already in a significant way, will soon be prevalent on our shores if not checked.

Fake news websites, pages and posts are deliberately created to publish many hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation claiming to be accurate news to deliberately mislead intended readers whether for financial and/or political gain, to cause public mischief, etc. It has even been deemed a form of psychological warfare, and further classified as a threat to democracy! Fake news has been promulgated worldwide. In fact, reports suggest that it was used to influence the USA’s 2016 presidential election through cyber-warfare.

Fake news is not as recent a phenomenon as many would think. Historically, such unethical journalistic practices existed for hundreds of years before the birth of the Internet.

Many experts identify a number of practices that people should adopt to detect fake news as shown below.

1. Use fact-checking websites to help identify and respond to fake news, eg, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, Snopes.com, ABC News, Washington Post Fact Checker, The Associated Press, TinEye Reverse Image Search.

2. Check the URL attached to a website to see if it looks odd, eg, a “com.co” ending on a website that looks authentic can be a red flag. If you are doubtful, click on the “contact” or “about” links to see where they lead to.

3. Fake reports are created to stir up your emotions. If you read something and it contains unpatriotic words or deeds, it’s something for you to check out.

4. Keep in mind that if what’s said in the news is real, other sites will be reporting it too. Check other reputable sites to corroborate what you read.

5. Most real newsrooms don’t use many caps lock, multiple exclamation marks, etc. in their writings. If you see these, it’s a warning sign.

6. Check out the names of people who are purported to be writing the stories, eg, use Google to see if they are real or not.

7. Check out what other articles they would have published to give you a gage as to whether it’s trustworthy.

8. Read past the headline or opening paragraph. Many fake news publishers know this and write accordingly and don’t back up what they say later on in their article.

9. Check the published date and time. Often, a problem with fake news is that they publish old articles or events and lead people to believe that it just occurred.

10. Look at what links and sources are used. A lack of links and sources in an article are warning signs that the post is likely false. However, some false articles have lots of links that appear to support the claim. Check to see that these claims are coming from links that are reliable sources.

11. Look out for questionable quotes and photos. It’s easy for fake news writers to invent false quotes and attribute them to public people. It’s also simple to take a photo from one event and use it in another as well as images can be altered easily. Use reverse image searches to help you find where an image originated. Google or tools like TinEye can be used to verify these.

12. Be aware of confirmation bias by checking that news stories are based on fact rather than sharing them because they support one side of an argument that you may or may not agree with.

13. Think twice before sharing news. If you are unsure whether the news are true or fake, don’t share.

14. We recommend that relevant educational programmes be developed and delivered in primary and secondary schools as a good way of equipping young persons on the various techniques in detecting fake news. The Ministry of Education should quickly get a campaign going on this.

Many social media platforms like Facebook and Google have instituted some checks and steps to detect and block fake news. However, much more technological interventions are needed.

The recent revelation by the Attorney General of T&T to bring appropriate amendments to the law to deal with perpetrators of fake news is a welcome one. The public awaits its draft as it has implications for all of us. But, importantly, in the mean time, we all have our own individual responsibilities to check and ensure that the news are indeed accurate before believing and sharing.

Ian K Ramdhanie, MSc, Principal, CISPS

The CISPS is a registered institution with the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT). Tel: 223-6999, 299-8635, info@caribbeansecurityinstitute.com or www.caribbeansecurityinstitute.com
 

ANSA McAL has provided support to the Cuba - Trinidad and Tobago Cultural Exchange Initiative with Success Laventille Secondary School.

The Cuba - Trinidad and Tobago Cultural Exchange project originated in 2016 when Success Laventille Secondary School, through its Success Stars Pan Sounds, accepted an invitation from the Government of Cuba through the Cuban Institute of Music to perform in several musical workshops throughout Cuba.

This visit is the second leg of a cultural exchange with El Conjunto Folkorico Nacional de Cuba with Nicholas Cumberbatch, Project Coordinator, at the helm.

An important objective of this exchange is to contribute to the broadening of understanding between the peoples and development of mutually beneficial relations between the two countries.

A spokesman for the group said that it was pleased to contribute towards the project between Cuba and T&T which kicks off on March 5.

President of the Bankers’ Association of T&T (BATT) Anya Schnoor has described the ongoing public debate on bank fees and charges as being misinformed. She said a lot of the utterances on bank charges and fees have been made without using actual data provided by the banks or studies done in the Caribbean.

Her comments come on the heels of RBC Royal Bank’s announcement that it would increase some of its bank charges and fees from March 27 and its customers’ complaints about those increases. Also, last Friday, Central Bank Governor Dr Alvin Hilaire appeared before a Joint Select Committee of Parliament saying that the different rates charged by banks are driven by competition in the market.

Speaking to members of the media after Wednesday’s news conference hosted by BATT, at the Scotia Centre, Corner Richmond and Park Streets, Port-of-Spain, Schnoor said: “There have been a number of studies throughout the Caribbean, comparing the rates and charges from various financial institutions and the products that they offer to the public. We (the banking sector) are probably the only sector in T&T that actually publishes our fees and services.”

She said when the fees are published this enables the customer to compare and contrast. There are services offered by some banks which are free such as online services, mobile banking. Senior citizens and people with disabilities are offered a discount.

“What I really would urge the public to do is to go into their bank and ensure that they have the right product that suits their need. There is a person for instance, who says that they transact a lot by using their ATM card. Instead, they can use specific accounts that cater for that (many ATM transactions). It is important that they go into their bank and work with them.”

What is clear, she said, is that there is a lot of misunderstanding about how fees are charged, what is available for customers and what product to choose.

Asked whether the banks have consultations with the public before increasing fees, she said: “Each bank has their own notice period that they are required to provide their clients with, in advance of changing any fee in their institution so that is a standard thing that all banks do as well as any institution.”

Defining what fees are and why they are charged, Schnoor said: “Fees and charges are the reflection of the cost recovered for providing any service. If you go to a doctor, if you go to a lawyer, if you go to any service provider in the country-there is a fee. How is it determined?

“It is based on a cost recovered for providing that service. It is no different in a bank. If you are providing services, you have to ensure that you are charging the appropriate cost for that service.”

I would like to say kudos to the staff of the Accident and Emergency Department (A&E) at the POSGH who worked the night shift on February 3. My mom, Marjorie Popplewell, was assessed by Dr Donna Rampersad when we arrived and was rushed into the A&E for immediate attention.

The seriousness of her condition was explained to me in detail by two doctors, one of whom was Dr Ali, who took the time to explain what treatment he was recommending and why. My Mom was subsequently warded in the High Dependency Unit (HDU) over the period February 4 and 5 and received round the clock care and attention.

Dr Grant, the house doctor on duty, further patiently explained about my mother’s worsening condition as did Dr Rampersad. As my mother’s heart stopped beating, doctors rushed over from the ICU to conduct CPR, but to no avail.

Both the doctors and nurses on the ward were compassionate in their delivery of the dire news, taking the family into a private room and exhibiting a level of empathy that is reminiscent of the public service of old.

Despite the eventual outcome I can truly say that the doctors at POSGH did their best for my mother and my family wishes to say a heartfelt thanks for your efforts.Keep up the good work.

Arlene Popplewell-Stephen,

Diego Martin

Two goals for Irving Garcia as USA heads to quarterfinals of 2017 CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship with 5-1 win over T&T on Thursday night in the Bahamas.

Both the USA and T&T had punched their tickets for the quarterfinals of the 2017 CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship before this game, but their last match before the knockout rounds decided the winner of Group C. The USA won the game and the group, beating T&T 5-1, with two goals supplied by Irving Garcia, a former New York Red Bulls player and the eternal flame that burns in the heart of veteran New York soccer journalist, Dave Martinez.

The goals were Garcia’s first of the tournament. He and the USA can now look forward to a quarterfinal against Panama last night, while T&T was up against Mexico.

The top two teams in this tournament will qualify for the 2017 Beach Soccer World Cup, to be held at the same venue (in the Bahamas) in April. Garcia and the USA must beat Panama to be in the hunt for a World Cup spot. The two finalists at this competition will join host nation Bahamas as CONCACAF’s representatives at the World Cup.

Unless Bahamas or its quarterfinal opponent, Guadeloupe, makes the final - since one is already in the World Cup and the other is not eligible for FIFA competitions. Then the third-place playoff winner would advance. But the USA need only be concerned about these details if it beats Panama in its next game.

Set a challenging 167 for victory at the Dubai International Stadium, Qalanders seemed condemned to an embarrassing defeat when they slumped to 43 for six in the sixth over.

However, the left-handed Narine launched an offensive, hitting 21 from 14 balls in a 45-run, seventh wicket stand off 30 balls with Aamer Yamin who made a run-a-ball 25.

He had struck two fours and a six when he holed out to deep square leg in the 11th over off seamer Wahab Riaz at 88 for seven.

Sohail Tanvir then blasted 36 not out and Yasir Shah, 22, in a 55-run, ninth wicket partnership but they failed to get Qalanders over the line.

Opener Cameron Delport had earlier chipped in with 32 from 15 deliveries.

Opting to bat first, Zalmi were fired by opener Kamran Akmal’s 58 off 40 balls while Bangladesh star Shakib-al-Hasan made 30 from 24 balls.

At the death, Sammy belted a four and a six in scoring an unbeaten 17 off eight deliveries while West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels made 17 in his first appearance of the tournament.

Off-spinner Narine finished with one for 28 from four overs. (CMC)

The 28-year-old all-rounder’s selection has been questioned in some quarters especially in light of his recent failures but Browne said Brathwaite was still at a very early stage of his development and the selection panel was focused on getting the best out of him.

“He’s a young player who is a very exciting player on his day, who hasn’t played a lot of international cricket either. He’s an investment and we all know if we get him right what he can produce for us,” Browne said in a radio interview here.

“We would have seen him in the T20 World Cup but one of the things is if you sit and hear, say a coach or captain, speak about Carlos Brathwaite it is a bit different.”

He continued: “The way how 50-overs cricket is played now where there are power-plays and there are certain bowlers you go for in power-plays and certain bowlers you don’t. And Carlos’s strike rate would be more than the other bowlers because of the time of the games when he bowls.

“Not that I am saying that is in any way a reason not to perform but we have to take into consideration he’s still a young player at the international level. There’s so much things. We have a very young team and … the selection panel we sat and we talked about all players, and we all felt that Carlos Brathwaite was still someone that we can get a lot out of.”

Brathwaite shot to prominence last April when he smashed massive sixes off the first four balls of the last over to propel West Indies to a dramatic victory over England in the final of the Twenty20 World Cup.

Since those heroics, his form in ODIs has been ordinary, with a meagre 157 runs coming from 12 appearances at a lowly average of 15.7, while taking 17 wickets with his medium pace.

Overall, Brathwaite averages just 13 with the bat from 20 ODIs and has taken 21 wickets at 40.

Browne contended Brathwaite should not be measured against his exploits at the T20 World Cup, especially since he was still relatively new to international cricket.

“What you must understand is this is still a young man. If he sit and we expect Carlos to repeat what he did in the World Cup every single time, we’re going to fool ourselves,” the former Test wicketkeeper explained.

“Carlos needs to develop like any other cricketer. We’ve dug ourselves in a massive hole over the years, there’s no quick fix to our problem. It is about hard work. It’s about getting our players out there, developing our players.

“It’s not about ‘you’ve had five games, you have not performed’ so just throw [the player away]. It’s about helping players to develop and realizing their full potential.”

Brathwaite, who was elevated to the T20 captaincy last year, was a vital part of the Barbados Pride squad that won the Regional Super50 title last weekend in Antigua.

Batting down the order and mostly coming at the crunch, he managed 91 runs from eight outings and snared eight wickets.

Browne said it was important players like Brathwaite were given an extended run in order to prove themselves.

“When you look at our players, there are some who have been given a little extension because you want them to develop,” he noted.

“We don’t want to have a case where you have a whole bunch of players – like what you used to happen in the past – where we had so much players, all of them had games under their belts but none never got a good extension or fair run to help them to develop. We need to develop cricketers.

“We are number eight in the world because we put ourselves there by playing bad cricket over the years by making bad decisions. We have to develop a team, it is hard work but the one thing I must say about Carlos and a lot of the other players, we have players now who actually want to play, we have players who are committed, they are self-starters, they work hard.

“When you see players who are doing that, you know that you will be able to create that environment that is conducive to producing cricketers that can perform consistently.” (CMC)

A University of the West Indies (UWI) team led by Chadwick Walton will compete against an English XI in a 50-overs cricket match at Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts today. The UWI Vice-Chancellor’s XI Cricket Match will be a warm-up match preceding England’s tour of the West Indies for a three-match ODI series. It bowls off at 9:30 a.m and admission is free to the public.

Veteran Guyanese cricketer and former captain of the West Indies Cricket team, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who ended his 22-year international career in 2016, will be honoured at the match, for his outstanding contribution to the lovely game.

Chanderpaul’s son, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who will play in the match as a member of the Vice-Chancellor’s XI team, will receive the special tribute and commemorative plaque on his father’s behalf in a brief ceremony during the half-time break.

The 2017 Vice-Chancellor’s team will showcase a mix of UWI, UTech, Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) and West Indies’ players. The full team comprises: Amir Jangoo (UWI St Augustine Student), Anthony Alleyne (UWI Open Campus Student), Cameron Pennyfeather (UWI Cave Hill Student), Cassius Burton (UTech Jamaica Student), Chadwick Walton (UWI Cave Hill Student), Jermaine Levy (UWI Cave Hill Student and CCC 2017 player), Kharry Pierre (West Indies player), Keemo Paul (West Indies player), Keon Harding (UWI Cave Hill Student and CCC 2017 player), Obed McCoy (West Indies player), Shimron Hetmyer (West Indies player), Tagenarine Chanderpaul (member of Guyana Franchise Cricket team).

The Development unit of First Citizens Clarke Road United has embarked on its 6th development tour for members of its youth development programme.

This highly successful rural club has been contributing to the overall development of its community in various ways, but cricket has emerged as the activity for which it is best known. The club’s home at Wilson Road, Penal is now the preferred venue for Presentation College of San Fernando and other schools in the area, for cricket, school, sports and other sport related activities.

Jyd Goolie and Anderson Phillip are two of the recent graduates of the club’s Youth Development efforts which boasts of a long list of successes.

The team will play five matches in Guyana starting on the 24th February and ending on the 1st March 2017. The matches are against Enmore Sports Club, Everest C.C, Maltenoes CC, Albion CC and Rose Hall C.C

The team will be led by South Under 15 Captain Tariq Mohammed and includes Darren Samlal, Jalen Agard, Nicholas Ali, Isiah Gomez, Justin Ramsumair, Rodney Beharry, Christian Bernard, Vanir Maharaj, Brandon Samaroo, Kellon London, Adam Umraw and Arjuna Sukhu- a Canadian resident.

The Manager of the touring team will be Chandradath Mahabir and the coach will be former National off spinner Mukesh Persad. Some parents will also be accompanying the group.

T&T’s Beach Soccer Men have been raising eyebrows at the ongoing CONCACAF Beach Soccer qualifiers in Nassau, Bahamas.

Before facing the United States on Thursday night, T&T scored convincing 8-1 and 5-1 wins over Antigua/Barbuda and US Virgin Islands to secure their quarter final spot which takes place today. But while El Salvador, Costa Rica and Mexico are the notable Beach Soccer teams to watch in Concacaf, T&T has surely put themselves among the teams to fancy as they go in search of one of two qualifying spots for the 2017 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Bahamas in April.

Alexandre Soares who coached Brazil to four World Cup titles and is now in charge of the Bahamas team, spoke about T&T.

“They are tactically one of the best teams in the competitions. You can see the understand the game, they are organised and their players are technically and physically very good. I think they are a team to watch for the rest of the tournament and they are in with a very good chance of qualifying. They need to keep it up,” said Soares who coached T&T in 2013.

Beach Soccer Men take part in Foundation clinic

The ever-popular Beach Soccer Foundation Clinic arrived on the shores of Nassau on Tuesday as a group disadvantaged local youngsters were given an unforgettable experience with stars of the CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship.

T&T trio Chad Appoo, team captain Ryan Augustine and Kelvin Charles along with head coach Benny Astorga joined around 20 Bahamian kids and young adults with disabilities at the Malcolm Park Beach Soccer Facility prior to the second day of competition and were able to run, play and enjoy soccer on the sand with some of their favourite players.

Beach soccer players from the Bahamas, T&T and the United States all took part in what was a hugely positive experience for all concerned.

Beach Soccer Worldwide’s Head of Competitions Josep Ponset added, “These clinics are always really special moments for everyone involved and it’s a big part of what we do as an organisation.

“We were honoured to be part of this initiative with the kids. Our players take pride in being part of these things where it entails lifting the spirits of people and assisting in development,” T&T head coach Astorga said.

The Beach Soccer Foundation is committed to making a difference across the world through the principles of environmental protection, children/youth development and skin cancer awareness.

Lawrence wants players and fans to be as one

“I wants the players out on the pitch and the fans up in the stands to be as one.”

That was the clear signal of T&T Senior Team head coach Dennis Lawrence, who took to the field on Monday as T&T senior men’s team began its preparations for its friendly against Suriname on March 10, then its two 2018 World Cup qualifying matches on March 24 and 28 here at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.

“I don’t just want the boys to go out and perform for the sake of it,” he said. “We’re not England or Brazil, but our fans have a special way of loving the game. They want success and I want to give it to them again,” Lawrence said this week in a FIFA feature article.

The former Wrexham man spoke of the influence Leo Beenhakker has had on him.

Lawrence paid close attention to his chain-smoking boss back in those glory days, the colourful Dutchman who masterminded T&T’s qualifying campaign.

“In my eyes, Leo Beenhakker has no equal when it comes to influence on a football team,” Lawrence said. “The way he conducted himself, his discipline, and the way he managed the men was incredible.”

Beenhakker was the first person Lawrence called after being offered the national team post. “He just told me ‘you’re ready, so go and do it.”

Lawrence began his first training camp with a provisional squad on Monday ahead of the March 24 and 28th World Cup qualifiers in Port of Spain against Panama and Mexico.

Under 20s still have much to play for

This country’s Under 20 team will head into its final group stage match of the CONCACAF Under 20 Championship against El Salvador this afternoon 3.30 pm (TT Time) with intentions of finishing with a win and hoping to steal one of the two qualifying spots for the knock-out phase.

A 1-1 draw with Bermuda and a narrow 1-0 loss to Costa Rica on Wednesday means T&T can still move on if it can beat El Salvador and see Bermuda pull off an upset win over Costa Rica in the final preliminary matches.

“We have it all to play for still. I think the team has been brave and has fought really hard in the competition so far,” skipper Jabari Mitchell said. “But unfortunately we have not finished well and the results haven’t been the best for us. But against El Salvador I believe we are capable of finishing on a positive note and we will also hope Bermuda can do the job against Costa Rica,” added the W Connection midfielder.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Shaun Fuentes is the communications manager for the TTFA - shaunfuentes@yahoo.com

It’s my first time to a 3Canal show, but not my first time intersecting with the trio of Wendell Manwarren, Roger Roberts and Stanton Kewley either as performers or subjects of photographic iconography.

Indeed, my intersections with Manwarren and Roberts go all the way back to the earliest incarnations of the Baggasse Company, where the two young men whet their teeth on formal theatre after emerging from the fluttering remnants of Trinidad Tent Theatre.

In 1997, together with founding member the late John Isaacs, the quartet distilled their love of Carnival, of large theatrical gesture and the bold drama of the J’Ouvert silhouette, limned dripping and raw against the rising sun of a Carnival Monday morning, into what still stands as the ultimate soundtrack for that event, the remarkable Blue.

It’s now 20 years later and that moment, which left core members of the group bloody on a Woodbrook street after a mysterious assault that Carnival, is being celebrated at Queen’s Hall with 3Canal’s latest instalment of its conceptual series of Carnival productions, Blue Forever, Forever Blue.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag, even for the 3Canal faithful.

In an effort to deliver an evening laden with gravitas, Manwarren, listed as both script writer and director, ended up overburdening the production with a seemingly unceasing torrent of portentous words, delivered in the main by a quartet of archetypes, The Seer (Elisha Bartels), The Prophet (Marvin Dowridge), The Enchantress (Cecelia Salazar) and The Mystic (Arnold Goindhan).

The four fall to the task of delivering a small book’s worth of words with enthusiasm and dramatic gesture, but it all ends up making little sense, offers no guiding clarity to the onstage action and is, ultimately, more than a little irritating.

Having collapsed as a theatrical Greek chorus, the archetypes ultimately fulfil the more useful job of bridging the pauses in action while the cast changes clothing and has makeup refreshed.

And it’s a big cast dancing behind the trio of singers, along with five backup singers and the commanding presence of Choral Director Glenda Collens, painfully underutilised as an Angel presence, given some bits of choral moaning to deliver and fabulous outfits to writhe about in on a two-foot high pedestal.

The young performers, some intimidatingly capable for their apparent age, deliver supporting choreography and a solid presence behind the lead performers, a constant reminder of the mob of the faithful that rally behind the band on Carnival Monday morning.

The show opens with a percussion driven overture, introducing the archetypes and generally offering up a merging of tone poetry, choreography and afro-military drumming.

It’s here that one of most compelling elements of the evening’s entertainment is introduced, the pulsing, fluttering animations of birds, angels and the Ouroboros by North Eleven which do more to underpin and explicate the evening’s activities than anything happening on stage.

All of which leads into the first number of the night, Look Meh#3, featuring daring leaps between risers by the cast.

That was quickly followed by the popular Good Morning and Rise, which rather diluted all the dramatic portents of the opening sequence and intimated that all of Glenda Collens’ impassioned wailing (and there was far too little Collens voice in the show) as the dramatic Angel figure was just set dressing.

And it’s around here that the challenge that 3Canal faced with the show becomes clear.

A 20th anniversary show demands some kind of retrospective viewpoints as well as dramatic futuring, but the selection of work offered for the show was culled almost entirely from the band’s considerable selection of soaringly aspirational works, songs full of rootsy imprecations to improve and grow.

Put enough of them together though and you have the kind of homilies your grandparents would pull you up to remind you about.

And really, there are a startling number of songs that explore the apparent rapture of starting a new day and basking in the benediction of the rising sun.

So there’s no Revolution, no Boom Up History, no Salt or Mud Madness, all songs that illustrate the gentle subversiveness that

characterises some of their best work.

Part of this may have to do with their Queen’s Hall audience, largely well-heeled and middle-class who tended to arrive at the show two to a vehicle and demonstrating no appetite for having their status challenged at $300 a head.

There’s also some flattening of things in the live performance. The Blue Angel Riddem segment features three songs by 3Canal apostles, Tea for Tears by Diedre Ryan, Higher by Jelaé Stroude-Mitchell and Leh We Go by Mogabi and Shermarke Thomas that are performed over the same beat, the one that powers the band’s Start Over, which concludes the medley.

Riding a riddem is an acknowledged system of promoting multiple versions of the same music bed, each remixed by a different soca artist, but this implementation did no favours to the young singer/songwriters showcased on opening night.

Also diminishing the performance on the night is perhaps the greatest shortcoming that the vocalists face, their inability to rise above shared chanting into more intricacies of harmony.

That’s largely because they don’t function on anywhere near the same level as singers, with Stanton best deployed to toasting, Roger Roberts most endearingly used when he can stretch his vocal range and Wendell Manwarren, the boldest and most riveting stage presence of the three, falling somewhere in-between.

Only on Never Give Up did Roberts show off some of his vocal skills, a welcome change from songs that were sometimes barked out in the excitement of the moment and almost uniformly delivered in a pitch and key that all of the vocalists can comfortably handle.

When the well-practised formula works; it can be devastating. Talk Yuh Talk, the most challenging song to make the retrospective cut, remains one of their most persuasively subversive songs, encouraging an audience to sing along with a still relevant observation of the national capacity to place conversation before action.

The show essentially closes with a revisited Blue, more practiced and mannered than the raw, percussion heavy song that broke down town in 1997.

3Canal has done other songs that explore the Carnival experience. Many centred on J’Ouvert, but none has captured the feel and resonance of this song, nor have any of their works done more to change the appreciation of this aspect of the festival.

Blue Forever, Forever Blue isn’t a perfect show and it’s a troublingly incomplete retrospective profile of the work that 3Canal has done, but it’s more exciting and ambitious than anything the NCC and its stakeholder cronies will stage this year.

It would be churlish not to note the considerable achievement of Roberts, Kewley and Manwarren, who rode a remarkable beginning, survived the closure of their record label and proceeded to hack out their own path in the unforgiving wilds of Carnival year by year over the last two decades.

It’s a rare act of courage, dedication and entrepreneurship in a festival that takes an unnatural pride in feeding at the Government trough and there’s no underestimating the inspiration that their sacrifice and work ethic has offered to another generation of young artists and performers.

That they so generously make space for those young people year after year in their Carnival show is an example that shouldn’t be missed.

• Blue Forever, Forever Blue finishes tonight at Queen's Hall.

“Have a safe Carnival”...we may have said this to each other a few times in the last week as Carnival has reached frenzied pitch. The expression of caution over the old casual wish for a “good Carnival” may be reflecting the growing sense of anxiety in our beautiful country.

For most citizens, Carnival lovers or not, the celebration of colour, culture, and rhythm used to have the power to put all else on hold. The four-day stretch at one time even seemed to have the power to pause crime.

Within the last year, though, the state of the economy, rising crime, violent road fatalities, and gender-based murders colour our conversations.

Heading into Carnival 2017, the “be safe” greeting seems to have replaced the “play yuh self” tag line. So is our Carnival bubble as strong as it once was?

Just a few weeks ago, Culture Minister Nyan Gadsby-Dolly presented information to the Upper House suggesting that Carnival was in trouble. Tourist arrivals, she said, were declining or very stagnant, and dwindling audiences at Carnival events forced the Government to intervene.

The National Carnival Development Foundation (NCDF), which represents a number of large and small bands, reported similar information. The organisation went on record as saying that a “a key deterrent to band registration is the crime situation, particularly the bizarre types of crimes being seen in T&T.”

The NCDF also pointed to the latest US immigration policy direction and linked it to the Diaspora’s reluctance to travel to T&T for Carnival. T&T’s link to certain extreme groups has not helped. Added to this, up to last week, the T&T Incoming Tour Operators Association was reporting a ten to 15 per cent decrease in business.

The fete scene, on the other hand, paints a different picture. The pure energy, stress relieving events are a money-making buffer and respite from other realities.

Fete promoters recently told CNC3’s Money Matters that while ticket prices remained comparable to last year, security costs had increased. Still, profit margins are running into hundreds of thousands, possibly millions for promoters and select band leaders.

On this front, the Carnival experience still seems to be holding strong. To support this, a recent unscientific survey of partygoers indicated that Carnival expenditure this year is still anywhere from $2,000 upwards to $15,000 per partygoer.

Carnival’s path through economic uncertainty and crime is, however, not unique. Brazil’s Carnival is taking place in a volatile environment. Almost 30 cities in one Brazilian state have cancelled the celebration because of a lack of guaranteed police protection in the wake of police strikes.

Other cities have scaled back. Rio alone, however, is still expecting over one million visitors over the next few days and about one billion dollars in revenue for the local economy.

As one international headline puts it, in spite of the situation, Carnival was helping to put crime and the recession on the back burner.

In T&T, there is frustration with both. Our Carnival bubble, where our daily realities of crime and cutbacks are temporarily suspended, is undoubtedly supported by the extraordinary increase in security across major cities and main events.

Last year, the bubble was threatened when a young Japanese tourist, Asami Nagakiya was found dead in her costume in the Queen’s Park Savannah under a tree.

A year later, thousands of revellers will chip past paths she walked. It is our hope that our bubble does not burst, and in the end, we all have a safe Carnival.

Too often, we hear politicians using defeatist language when explaining their failure to deal with the crime epidemic ravaging T&T. Arguably, the reason behind this feeble approach is that today’s politicians no longer have the passion, drive or “fire in their belly” to fight to make things right for ALL the people of T&T regardless of who they voted for or where they live.

Let us take the criminal justice system, defined as the system of law enforcement that is directly involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and punishing. The purpose of which is to deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty while protecting the innocent. Do our politicians have any clue as to what is happening on the ground and why the system is failing? It would appear not.

I visited a police station recently in a professional capacity and was appalled by the dire conditions in which our police officers are required to perform their duties. Granted that a police station is a place where often rough criminal elements are brought in, interrogated, charged, and kept in cells at the station, it cannot be expected to be a hotel, but regard must be had for the police officers themselves, who often toil for lengthy shifts and should be provided with proper basic amenities to make their lives comfortable while on duty. How else will they maintain enthusiasm and motivation for what is already a stressful and usually thankless job?

It was astonishing also to discover on my visit that neither the station I was present at, nor the Municipal Police office nearby had a functioning printer or photocopier. As a result, the officers had no other option but to drive to another police station miles away, only to find out that that station’s printer had been out of service for more than a month.

Other than frustrating officers in the performance of their duties, it frustrated the processing of those people who were detained at the station for minor violations and denied them their liberty in a way that amounted almost to them serving a short sentence behind bars without ever having faced a magistrate.

As I refused to leave the station until the process was completed, a six-hour wait, the assistant superintendent at the station, in the course of our conversation about the crime epidemic, informed me that the conditions at that particular station were in fact an improvement compared to the past. Of greater concern was the condition of the Cedros Police Station and the small number of officers assigned there to deal with one of our most porous places of entry into our country, notorious for the illicit importation of drugs and trafficking of human beings.

It is a sad fact that for years National Security is allocated more money in the budget than Health or Education, so where is all this money going? Nothing is being shown on the ground for all this expenditure. Danish ships and other extravagant purchases have nothing to do with the real world interface between police officers and civil society.

Imagine for a moment if secured remand courts were built at every prison the millions of dollars which would be saved every year in respect of the contracted transportation services to ferry prisoners up and down our highways. Couldn’t those savings be used to upgrade our police stations and magistrates’ courts?

None of this, of course, excuses bad behaviour and abuse of power by some police. Poor conditions and lack of equipment aside, police officers are still required to act in accordance with the law and to give effect to citizens’ rights which are guaranteed under the Constitution.

So after arrest, the police must inform you of the reason and of your right to an attorney—which includes the right to make a phone call—and they must only detain you before charging you for so long as is necessary to carry out investigations. Once charged, you must—except for certain offences—be allowed quick access to bail. Alleged commission of minor offences ought not to result in unnecessary inconvenience and distress verging on abuse. People detained must be processed expeditiously. Too many times there are cases of police officers apparently abusing their powers to, in effect, punish people, which is not their remit; that is for the courts only.

And so, it was disheartening to read recently of the complaints by residents of Laventille to the acting Commissioner of Police alleging extreme abuses of power by certain police officers—amounting in effect to actions of judge/jury/executioner, and being allied with criminal elements. What was equally disheartening was the half-hearted response of the acting COP that he would transfer these officers out of the community. This was unfair both to the named officers—who are entitled to the presumption of innocence—and to the complaining citizens. Does the acting COP not have absolute investigatory and disciplinary powers over his officers? Is there not a Police Complaints Authority housed at the Waterfront? Surely as the acting COP recently suggested, crime cannot only be dealt with by “divine intervention”.

On that note, our police will be out in their numbers to supervise Carnival tomorrow and on Tuesday. Please be respectful to them, and dear police officers, please be respectful to us. Wishing each and everyone a happy and safe Carnival.

Mickela Panday

Having received several quality responses from people involved in the tourism industry to last week’s column, many of them articulating what has been proposed for tourism development here over the last 40 years, I have concluded that the problem standing in the way of development of the tourism potential in T&T is the “will” to do so.

Included in that lack of will is the historic and continuing inability of T&T to appreciate tourism as a viable economic activity; also included in the lack of will are the energy, insight, and capacity for planning and activating the plans to make use of the possibilities of an industry that is among the largest and most lucrative internationally.

Two thousand and sixteen marked the seventh straight year of consistent growth in the international tourism industry which provides nine per cent of the global GDP, and one in every 11 jobs, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation.

Arrival at the conclusion that it is the absence of will spread across segments of the industry, even among those who work in and benefit from tourism, and the administrations which committed themselves to develop and administer the tourism product, is based in part on reading and reflecting on the responses to the first column, and my understanding of something of the industry gained from reporting and commenting on tourism over the last almost 40 years.

Back in the 1980s, during the period of the administration of the National Alliance for Reconstruction, a tourism master plan was developed for T&T. Since then, there have been several less expansive but very significant plans for the industry. Political parties and governments of the last 35 years have all included tourism amongst the core industries that could break our dependence on the energy sector.

Projections have been made for tourism to reach five and six per cent of the Gross Domestic Product; concessions have been given for the rehabilitation and construction of hotels and hotel rooms; deals have been struck with international airlines to deliver visitors; and there has been much talk and some action in regard to training and conscientising individuals and the society to embrace tourism.

Frankly, there is little that has not been expressed about what is required to transform tourism in Tobago and Trinidad: development of enterprise and investment in the private sector to see possibilities; fiscal and other forms of support from the government; foreign direct investment; brand hotels; destination marketing and a modernisation of the communications sector; and development of the raw products to provide attractions to visitors beyond sand, sea and sun.

We know what is to be done, but we lack the will, the fortitude, the enterprise and the capacity for risk-taking. This lack of will is compounded by narrow party political dispositions: when one party is in central government in Port-of-Spain and the opposing party controls the Tobago House of Assembly, conflict cancels out the potential. Indeed, even when the ruling party in Port-of-Spain is the same as that in the Tobago House of Assembly, there has been little advance.

Two prime ministers from Tobago have been in power, yet little progress has been made with the 40-year-old efforts at internal self- government, achievement of which could advance tourism programming in Tobago.

When I produced “Tobago Today” in the early 1980s for Radio Trinidad, I interviewed and reported on the views and plans of hoteliers such as Carlos Dillon and Allan Clovis; chairmen such as Robinson and Jeff Davidson; tourism secretary Stanley Beard; the venerable J D Elder who created the Tobago Heritage Festival as an element of internal and external tourism; Eddie Hernandez museum curator; calypsonian Baker and dozens more about tourism prospects.

On television I interviewed the young, bright and energetic Dr Auliana Poon, Dr Andre Henry of Tidco on prospects and plans; achieving the agenda remains outstanding. The figures of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation on the dramatic fall away in arrivals to the island over the last approximately ten years tell the story: from 88,000 to 19,000 in 2016. My contention is that the continuing failures in light of all of the relevant information being known is that of an absence of the will to do what is required.

One of the people I interviewed back in the 1980s was a young man I first met when he was a hotel worker. I met him again when he rented what I think was his only vehicle for my usual two-to-three-day stay in Tobago fortnightly; oh, he also showed me the garden he cultivated and the goats he “mined”—reared at Lowlands.

When Tobago Today went off the air, the next time I met Sylvan Rollocks he was a hotel proprietor; but he assured me that he did not stop his prior occupation of goat rearing and gardening; indeed I saw the now hotelier in the market selling his pak choi. That is what I refer to as “will”. I never asked about his financing and management arrangements because I considered those secondary to having the will.

Back then, Butch Stewart and Sandals were just getting started; in T&T there were several large corporations with capital and expertise; but they lacked the foresight and the will for tourism.

Today, as Sandals approaches Tobago, those who lack the will are protesting.

Most people believe that they can tell when someone is lying to them. Most people are wrong. Simple logic shows this must be so: for, if you could know when other people are lying, then other people would detect your lies as well. But aren’t your own lies believed most of the time?

The psychologist Paul Ekman is the world’s leading expert on lying, and he has found that people often reveal their true mental states by what he calls ‘micro expressions’—facial tics which are so subtle and fleeting that you can only see them by recording the person and playing back the video in slow motion. Very few individuals can detect these micro-expressions without technological aid, and these persons make excellent interrogators.

However, the very existence of these expressions and others tells show that sincerity is the default state of human beings. Lying is stressful, which is why telling lies causes physiological reactions such as elevated pulse rates and sweaty palms. Ekman himself was one of the first psychologists to argue that polygraphs—lie detectors—are not reliable, although the British writer G K Chesterton made a case against the machines in the early 20th century in one of his Father Brown detective stories. The TV crime drama Lie to Me was based on Ekman’s research.

For me as a writer, a more interesting method of detecting deception is through people’s words. Psycholinguist and scholar Steven Pinker in his book The Sense of Style writes:

“The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth. It succeeds when it aligns language with the truth, the proof of success being clarity and simplicity.” By contrast “the guiding image of classic prose could not be further from the worldview of relativist academic ideologies such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, and literary Marxism.”

While difficult prose does not necessarily mean that the writer has nothing worthwhile to say, difficulty should bear a direct relation to the complexity of the idea or argument being enounced. If a writer is using a polysyllabic hammer to pound an ideological nail, they are probably more focused on their egos than on enlightenment.

Pinker in another of his books, The Better Angels of Our Nature, writes:

“There’s no such thing as the IQ of a speech, but (Phillip) Tetlock and other political psychologists have identified a variable called integrative complexity that captures a sense of intellectual balance, nuance, and sophistication.”

People who have low integrative complexity make their arguments without nuance or qualifiers and their prose is peppered with terms like ‘absolutely’, ‘always’, ‘certainly’, ‘definitely’, ‘entirely’, ‘undoubtedly’ and ‘unquestionably’.

Writers with high integrative complexity frequently use words like ‘but’, ‘however’ and ‘maybe’, tend to acknowledge two points of view, and argue in terms of trade-offs, compromises and connections while explaining these relationships within an overarching principle or system.

Applying this test to two commentators I almost always disagree with, I find that, for one, qualifiers are entirely absent from her prose and, while she does not typically use definitive adverbs, her sentences are all phrased as absolutes and include constructions like “racial and economic inequality remains deeply interlocked in vastly structural ways, whatever a minority of individual and neoliberal gains”.

The other commentator, by contrast, frequently uses ‘but’, ‘seems’ and ‘might’ as well as the occasional unusual word which, Pinker says, is one of the hallmarks of lively prose.

In his book The Secret Life of Pronouns, psychologist James W Pennebaker lists the following criteria for distinguishing between people telling about traumatic events that actually happened to them and events they have made up: more details, bigger words, and more numbers, especially information about time and space and movement, and frequent use of “I”.

This last, says Pennebaker, “is the single best marker of a person being honest”, which is why I have always distrusted commentators who use the pompous self-reference “this column”.

The second commentator whose arguments I frequently reject uses first person pronouns regularly, whereas the second one tends to use the collective ‘we’ except when writing about children’s issues, implying that this is the only topic she’s sincere about. Of course, sincerity in itself is no guarantee of rightness—Hitler, after all, was probably quite genuine in his belief that killing Jews would solve Germany’s problems. But lack of sincerity does generally indicate intellectual torpor.

“People who are deceptive make more references to other people and rely on more positive emotion words...nouns like ‘friend’ and ‘sister’ and verbs like ‘talking’, ‘calling’ and ‘listening’,” writes Pennebaker.

He also notes that “People who use verbs at high rates tend to be more deceptive than people who use fewer verbs”, contrasting the examples of “I finished my homework but the dog ate it” (personal pronoun, two past tense verbs) with “The homework was finished but must have been eaten by the dog” (six verbs, no I-word). Pennebaker emphasises that the statements of truth-tellers also come across as more thoughtful, with insight words such as ‘realise’, ‘understand’, ‘think’, and the like.”

Thus, although you might think social media allows people to more easily present false images of themselves, the reverse is actually true. Because, once an individual posts enough words, their real self will inevitably reveal itself.

Kevin Baldeosingh is a professional writer, author of three novels, and co-author of a history textbook.

Last Sunday, President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Keith Rowley to have a discussion. The release from the Office of the Prime Minister was particularly opaque, while the Washington Post provided more details. What the local release did not say was that Prime Minister Rowley had been invited to Washington to visit President Trump. As to why that particular detail was omitted is not known, but it has certainly drawn a fair amount of attention.

There was also a story in the Guyana Guardian by Denis Adonis that suggested that a lobbyist may have arranged the call.

Whichever way it happened, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders revealed to the US media that the topics of terrorism and foreign fighters for Isis were discussed between the two last Sunday. University of Alberta Prof of International Relations, Andy Knight, had speculated with local media that that might have been the nature of the call and it turned out he was right.

Given the nature of the election campaign and the fact that Trump ran on the issue of eliminating what he called “radical Islamic terrorism”, there is no doubt that he will be very concerned about the rate of radicalisation of potential Isis fighters coming out of this country. That is so because for a small twin-island nation that rate far exceeds any other in this hemisphere.

Illegal immigrants might have been another topic that they may have spoken about, but that is an old topic as the Obama administration had a record number of deportations under its belt. However, those deportations are likely to increase during the Trump administration based on his crackdown on sanctuary cities in the USA that harbour illegal immigrants in protecting them from the federal authorities.

The withdrawal of federal funding from these cities may see a change in policy and that has already started with Miami recently throwing in the towel, while others like New York and Chicago are still seeking to uphold their sanctuary status.

This column is being written before the Fatca debate in the House of Representatives. One does not know whether the issue of Fatca came up. It was an issue about which the Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar, had asked Rowley to write Trump to determine his position on the matter. When it was clear that Rowley would not do so, she took it upon herself to write to then President-elect Trump to inquire about his likely intended approach to the subject seeing that the Republican Party election platform called for its repeal.

As someone whose vote on the issue together with her colleagues would have determined whether or not the measure would have been passed, there was clear relevance in her writing to seek guidance on the issue.

In addressing the UWI community at the Regional Headquarters in Jamaica last July 20, Rowley told the gathering “…God forbid that certain other people get their hands on authority in our hemisphere…” Whoever he may have been referring to back in July may or may not have been forbidden by God to get their hands on authority in our hemisphere. Hopefully he was not speaking about then candidate Donald Trump because that is who has their hands on authority in our hemisphere now. And that is who Rowley has to work with for the next four years as President of the United States.

The direction of the Trump administration will move America away from a model of global governance in a borderless environment to one of putting America first. This was made crystal clear in President Trump’s inauguration address. He also made clear that the United States does not want to dictate to other countries how they should live.

The Trump doctrine will see the United States paying more attention to its national and domestic agenda as part of rebuilding its borders, economy and security. How that will square with some of the key markers of American foreign policy in this hemisphere is yet to be seen. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 that placed emphasis on the United States not tolerating the intervention of foreign powers in the hemisphere may yet be recalibrated to address the issue of Isis and its global reach into our hemisphere, with T&T being a flashpoint in that recalibration.

President Theodore Roosevelt spoke about Big Stick diplomacy in 1904 and so was born the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in which the United States assigned to itself an international police power to justify its correction of what it saw as wrongdoing in the Hemisphere.

It is possible that a Trump administration may seek to play such a role, in a revised way, in this hemisphere if Isis is regarded as the main threat to United States interests in the region. Seeing that the Roosevelt Corollary emerged just after the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903 and the European naval blockade of Venezuela, one wonders whether the prospect of another Venezuelan crisis may bring about a revival of that policy position of Theodore Roosevelt by President Trump in a revised format.

Anyone who read my column printed last Ash Wednesday knows of my contempt for Carnival. I’m sorry to say that my attitude towards it hasn’t gotten any better.

As 2017 dawned on T&T, the national consciousness was focused on the ever worsening scourge of crime. And the calls for drastic action grew louder and louder as innocent citizens continued to be slain. But then the noise started to taper off as Carnival drew closer. I found it facetiously contradictory how we would lament about the state of the country on one day and then be madly searching for all-inclusive tickets the next.

Don’t get me wrong, people can spend their time and money doing whatever they please, but I think it says something about where our priorities lie. What really amazed me, however, was the realisation that the Carnival season is a veritable cornucopia of choices. I never knew there were so many fetes, so many concerts, so many costumes to choose from. How the masses are able to keep track of it all is a feat of mental prowess. Putting that aside, it’s ironic how this is probably the widest array of choice that Trinbagonians have. Because on the other end of the spectrum, where we have the least, concerns our political parties.

An American stand-up comedian named George Carlin (1937-2008), who was known for foul-mouthed rants on social and political issues, controversially described elections as an “illusion of choice”. He made the observation that with regards to mundane things, there are usually a multitude of choices (he cited ice cream flavours as an example). Yet, when it comes to the serious matter of who runs the country, we are faced with only two choices, and neither of them appear to work in the best interests of the people. Is he right?

Unfortunately, a major failing of the contemporary democratic process is the tendency for parties to emerge and dominate large swaths of the electorate. This is done by espousing one, or a combination of messages that appeal to a sense of identity, ideology, populism, and even fear mongering. Supporters are the folks who like what they hear, and out of that like-mindedness comes unwavering loyalty. But for those who are independent, lacking an affinity for either side, they end up having to choose between the “lesser of two evils”. But what happens when even that rationale fails to result in an acceptable decision?

Such was my conundrum in the lead-up to the September 2015 general election. Even on the day itself, I hadn’t and couldn’t make up my mind. As far as I was concerned, the UNC’s failings were too obscene and too many to ignore; so they didn’t deserve my vote. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to vote for the PNM because I felt they wouldn’t be any better; a notion they are clearly not trying to disprove. Perhaps the heavy rain that fell that afternoon was divine intervention, giving the voters a reason to stay home. As it turned out—I did end up casting a ballot, but deciding which was the lesser of two evils was made on the slimmest of margins. It’s definitely not how I wanted to exercise my franchise.

Like many of our disenchanted citizens, I had hoped that a third party would have presented itself for consideration. And though there were a couple of worthy attempts, their eleventh-hour mobilisation was too little, too late.

In light of the current political stalemate, which sees our government alternating from one party to other, the prospect of a third-party option continues to be a much sort after necessity. But it also remains an elusive one. The founding of the COP in 2006 heralded a tremendous opportunity to achieve just that, but their alliance with the previous administration turned it into a spectacular failure.

The conversation on the feasibility of another party challenging the status quo is again taking place with the formation of the Progressive Empowerment Party, led by social activist turned politician, Philip Alexander. He may not have a lot of good ideas and his crowds may be small, but what he does have on his side is time, and the expectation that, as the public’s dissatisfaction grows, so too will his support base. It’s left to be seen what the PEP will become when 2020 arrives.

Mr Carlin, in reflecting on his mortality and misanthropic nature, admitted that his cynicism was the result of not having an emotional stake in how (the United States) society would ultimately turn out. We can’t afford to share that sentiment in the face of a malfunctioning democracy. The choice every citizen must make, both supporter and independent alike, is whether to rebuild the existing political parties or abandon them altogether and seek out new leadership. In the meantime, to everyone participating in the coming festivities, I wish you a safe and enjoyable Monday and Tuesday. Just remember that when it’s all over, we can choose whether to anticipate the next Carnival or the next general election.

Ryan Hadeed