Manthoor to end a vexing sequence of three seconds in a Novice Median Auction Stakes over six furlongs of Newcastle tapeta today and make it fifth time lucky for this consistent Hamdan Al Maktoum colt trained privately by Owen Burrows in Lambourn.

Obvious danger is thrice-raced Global Tango, from a neighbouring yard of Charles Hills at the Berkshire training complex.

Fancy sending ludicrously expensive ‘superbred’ runners a ‘million miles’ to contest a race worth less than ‘three grand to the winner!

After watching hugely-expensive thoroughbreds sold at Newmarket horses-in-training sales for pittances this week I’m fully aware just how ridiculous it is that millions are ‘written off’ by Arab owners, which must be disgusting to outsiders, many of whom are uncomfortable with a United Kingdom interest rate rise of half per cent, first for ten years.

Money well spent is seldom the case in horse-racing but when Arena invested heavily to make Gosforth Park the Northern-most all-weather course it was always going to be a winner; I’ve got colossal confidence in the current ‘product’ which is the epitomy of fairness with no negatives whatsoever.

Even the draw isn’t at issue and Peter Makin-ridden Manthoor, from stall two, should be good enough to jump out and make all the running, chased by Global Tango. This smacks of a dual forecast opportunity.

Newmarket Rowley Mile course stages its final meeting of 2017 with an eight-race programme, which includes an attempt by Hills-trained Revalue to supplement recent Kempton gains in division one of the Fillies’ Novice Stakes over seven furlongs of a ‘good to firm’ surface.

Don’t bet on it, once-raced Fire Orchid, from the Richard Hannon- camp, shaped well at the same meeting last month and is expected to ‘come on’ considerably, often the case with second time out runners from that prolific Marlborough base; we’re aiming at one of three places!

In the second leg it’s a similar situation, Perfect Thought will be favourite but John Gosden’s second- up Beautiful Artist looks guaranteed to make the frame under Rav Havlin.

As for the ‘Breeders’ Cup meeting at Del Mar, it’s not my cup of tea, guessing is for gamblers, not serious bettors.

Selections 

Newmarket, 12.05 Fire Orchid
(e.w); 12.35 Beautiful Artist (e.w);
Newcastle, 4.30 Manthoor (nap-e.w).

T&T men’s football head coach, Dennis Lawrence was in a confident mood during his pre-match press conference at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva, yesterday. Lawrence identified the two upcoming regional friendlies against Grenada and Guyana, which will occur on the 11th and 14th of this month respectively, as a perfect opportunity for the team to finish the year on a positive note.

The purpose of the two games he said, is for T&T to begin the process of conquering the Caribbean.

“Until we can conquer the Caribbean again, I will welcome any Caribbean team as an opponent, and these are two good teams so I look forward to the games”.

‘Tallest” alluded to the fact that it will be a great opportunity to give some of the players that missed out on World Cup qualifying action, a chance to prove themselves moving forward.

In response to a few notable exclusions in the team, he affirmed that those players who were not called up for the matches would still be in his plan moving forward.

Apart from focusing on the matches itself, he focused on the long-term development of the team.

One area of concern addressed was that of assistant coach Sol Campbell’s status with the team moving forward.

Lawrence said that the TTFA will try to find a resolution to Campbell’s current contract, which states that he only needs to be available for World Cup qualifying campaign matches, but he pointed out that to do the job he should be living in Trinidad.

Campbell currently resides in England, which could create problems moving forward.

When alluding to the future development of the football program, he identified the home for football as a key platform.

“The home for football will hopefully serve as a platform for the team in terms of training sessions, coach meetings, nutritional balance, match analysis, and everything which needs to be instilled for success,” he said.

According to Lawrence, the TTFA will also hopefully announce something that is happening with the youth team that he said will be a fantastic opportunity for the development of the program.

In addition to the two matches, the TTFA confirmed that a third match will be added to the program.

It will feature the national under-20 women’s team playing against a select team from the senior women and the under-17 team dubbed the President’s Eleven.

The match will take place at 4 pm prior to the senior men’s match against Grenada.

T&T’S LAST MATCH AGAINST GRENADA:
T&T 2 - 2 Grenada
April 29, 2017
St Georges, Guyana
International Friendly

T&T’S LAST MATCH AGAINST GRENADA IN T&T
T&T 2 - 0 Grenada
April 26, 2008
Macoya
International Friendly

T&T’S LAST MATCH AGAINST GUYANA
T&T 3 - 0 Guyana
November 15, 2011
PoS (forfeited match)
T&T 1 - 2 Guyana
November 11, 2011
St Georges
*Both matches were FIFA World Cup 2014 Preliminary Competition COCACAF Zone qualifying matches.

T&T’S 24-MAN SQUAD FOR THE INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLIES:

GK – Adrian Foncette, Gregory Ranjtsingh, Glenroy Samuel, DEF – Sheldon Bateau, Aubrey David, Curtis Gonzales, Triston Hodge, Alvin Jones, Josiah Trimmingham, Kevon Villaroel, Mekeil Williams, MID – Hashim Arcia, Neil Benjamin, Levi Garcia, Nathaniel Garcia, Kevan George, Nathan Lewis, Jared London, Neveal Hackshaw, Kathon St Hilaire, Kevin Molino, FWD – Jamille Boatswain, Akeem Roach, Shahdon Winchester.

JONATHON MATOUK

Kalifa Clyne

kalifa.clyne@guardian.co.tt

Dozens of volunteers spent hours at the Divali Nagar site yesterday, packing food items into re-usable market bags to send to 2,000 families affected by recent flooding in October.

The volunteers formed part of SEWA International T&T's drive to assist nationals affected by flooding.

The food packs will be distributed next week by SEWA volunteers.

In an interview yesterday, SEWA chairman Revan Teelucksingh said all of the food items, which included rice, flour, sugar, peas and oil, were purchased by members of the public who were encouraged to purchase SEWA packs at groceries to assist in bringing relief to flood victims.

"We have been in the affected areas since the first day of the floods and we have been working with councillors on the ground and the disaster management units of the regional corporations in an effort to assess needs and help meet the needs we can," Teelucksingh said.

He said while the group could not afford to replace fridges or stoves, they hoped that the money flood victims saved from buying food could be directed to those needs.

SEWA is a not-for-profit service organization of like-minded individuals, dedicated to the task of building a national network of volunteers dedicated to the cause of working for the unity of the society and the removal of social disparities in T&T.

Yesterday, St Augustine MP Prakash Ramadhar and his staff volunteered to assist with food packs.

Speaking to the media, Ramadhar said there was a silver lining from the floods—seeing that generosity and kindness was alive and well in T&T with the majority of citizens.

A fresh controversy is brewing following the Miss Universe debacle regarding the selection of a delegate. The National Emblem Committee will be investigating the use of the country's Coat of Arms on a Miss Universe media release. The committee said it received no request from Miss Universe TT for permission to use the emblem on its media release. The franchise holder Jenny Douglas refused to comment on the matter when reached by CNC3.

Meanwhile, Soca artise Fay Ann Lyons-Alvarez has pulled out from assisting Miss Universe T&T delegate Yvonne Clarke.

Lyons-Alvarez wished Clarke success in the upcoming pageant, however the CEO of MIME Ltd said she will not be working with the delegate going forward.

She said when Clarke came to her she had nothing in place. Lyons-Alvarez said after putting a team together, Clarke decided to do her own thing and formed her own parallel team, a CNC3 report stated.

A murder suspect yesterday jumped from the 11th floor of the homicide detective's office at Riverside Plaza in Port-of-Spain in an attempt to escape police custody.

According to reports, around 4.15 pm while being interviewed by homicide detectives, murder suspect Roger Holder jumped out of the window. Holder landed on the roof of a Chevrolet Aveo which was parked outside Riverside Plaza.

Miraculously, he survived.

Holder was rushed to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he is currently warded in a critical condition.

An investigation is ongoing into the incident.

Santa Cruz man gunned down

Homicide detectives are also investigating the shooting death of a 31-year-old man in Santa Cruz on Friday night. Dead is Arnold Dickson.

According to reports, residents of Moraldo Trace, Santa Cruz, heard several loud explosions around 11 pm on Friday.

Dickson was found lying in a pool of blood along the roadway.

The police were contacted and Dickson was rushed to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment.

Cops probe two shootings in Diego Martin

Police are investigating two separate shooting incidents in Diego Martin on Friday night.

The two victims survived the shootings.

In the first incident, Salim Ramirez, 25, was shot on Richplain Road, Diego Martin, around 9 pm.

According to reports, Ramirez was liming at a home along Richplain Road, when he was approached by a masked man.

The man shot him in the chest. The gunman then fled the scene on foot.

Ramirez was rushed to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he was treated.

Around 10 pm, the second shooting incident occurred.

Josh Toussaint, 29, was liming with friends along the Blue Basin Road when gunshots were heard.

Toussaint felt a burning sensation and realised he had been shot in his knee.

He was rushed to the hospital where he was treated.

He was said to be in a stable condition up to late yesterday.

Ralph Banwarie

A Prison officer narrowly escape being shot and killed at his Foster Road, Sangre Grande home on Friday night. The prison officer’s vehicle was sprayed with bullets as the gunman believed he was still in it.

Fearful that the gunman will return to finish the job, the 25-year-old prison officer, who remains traumatized, has moved out of his home. He was not available for comment.

Police reported that around 8 pm on Friday, the prison officer who is attached to the Eastern Correction Centre, Santa Rosa, drove his white Tiida vehicle into his unfenced house at Foster Road and as he alighted from his vehicle to get into his house, a man who he saw jogging came behind his car, whipped out a gun and fired several shots.

The prison officer ran into a neighbour’s house where he sought refuge and called the police.

Cpl Randy Castillo and WPC Seenath of the Sangre Grande CID responded and were backed up by officers of the Eastern Task Force.

On arrival at the scene of the shooting, police found the car with several holes on the exterior. Crime Scene officers also found several spent shells.

The gunman was described as five feet tall with brown complexion. He escape on foot and boarded a parked vehicle which drove away with him.

Cpl Castillo is continuing investigations.

Fear crippling officers

A senior prison officer, the victim of a similar incident, said fear was crippling prison officers and nothing is being done to safeguard them. The call for firearms for off-duty prison officers is yet to be addressed in spite of the Prison Officers Association’s cry for security and safety of officers.

The Prison Officers Association (POA) on Friday reported that they were tracking down all their members living in west Trinidad following the murder of one of their colleagues and attempted murder of another, who recently retired.

But the senior officer, who also resides in the East, said they will have to do the same for those in the East as this was the second incident where prison officers were shot at in Sangre Grande.

POA Secretary Gerard Gordon told the Guardian an average of 300 inmates are left in the care of police officers to be taken to court and some inmates have returned with fast food and other things they could not get on their own. He said it was not only rogue prison officers who facilitated the influx of contraband, which is a flourishing business in the prison.

“This thing bigger than the jail. We do not have society’s help. So today is us and who is next? Who will the criminal be offended by, so they will come to kill? I am fed up ! It is too much too soon.”

Following the murder of two prison officers last month, the association secured a meeting with National Security Minister Edmund Dillon. The association will meet will Dillon at 3:30 pm on Tuesday to further address their concerns.

RADHICA DE SILVA

Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat says Government will move swiftly to give financial compensation to farmers affected by the last flooding. Last Friday, $12 million in aid was given to 711 farmers affected by Tropical Storm Bret. Speaking to reporters in Moruga yesterday, Rambharat said he was hoping that claims could be processed quicker than those claims made by victims of Bret.

"There is a process to follow and it involves receiving the claims and doing the inspections. We have more than 1,000 plots to review," he added.

Asked about the steep increase in the price of produce, Rambharat said the Ministry was closely monitoring the issue. Tomatoes jumped from $12 to $15 per pound, while pumpkin increased from $1 to $5 per pound. Saying price will be affected by supply and demand, Rambharat said consumers will have to make informed decisions when buying market goods.

RADHICA DE SILVA

Surviving only on bread and cheese since devastating floods inundated the Woodland community two weeks ago, Simon Baldeosingh and some of his neighbours are still a long way from rebuilding their lives.

Although the Secondary Entrance Assessment is just six months away, Baldeosingh's youngest daughter, 11-year-old Amelia, has not returned to school.

Amelia is a pupil of the Woodland Hindu School and by right, she should be spending her days in a classroom getting an education that could help lift her from poverty. Instead, she is forced to stay at home and clean the crumbling house which is often invaded by rats, snakes, cockroaches and other vermin.

The family is unable to cook inside the house and they have been living on bread and cheese donated during flood relief efforts. Amelia's elder sister, Simone, who works at a fast food restaurant and mother, Ann Bhagwandeen, have resumed work but the task of cleaning their ravaged home remains undone.

The family lives close to the Oropouche River, which is one of the major watercourses that passes through the former rice lands of the Oropouche Lagoon. When the Guardian visited their home, 52-year-old Baldeosingh sat on a plastic chair surrounded by mounds of mildewed clothing, water-soaked furniture and bags of unpacked groceries left by Good Samaritans. His left leg had swollen to the size of a club and tears ran down his face.

Unsure of their future, he said "Look at this. How are we ever going to clean up? There are cockroaches and snakes. The place smells bad."

Parts of the ceiling hung loose and the force of the floods had ripped off parts of the front door. On the day of the floods, Baldeosingh said he suffered a heart attack and had to be taken to the San Fernando General Hospital where he spent five days. When he came home, the floods still had not subsided and he and Ann were forced to sleep on a cold and water-logged mattress. The children were evacuated and returned when the floods finally went down a week later. Now that the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation has started picking up bulk waste, Baldeosingh said he started the arduous task of clearing his wrecked home.

"Cepep said they would help. Every day I am in pain and being in this mess is not good for my heart. My wife, poor girl, does her best to help out and the children help to clean too. I have many people to thank who came and dropped off goods for us. Without their help we would have starved," Baldeosingh said.

Admitting that he faced many trials in life, Baldeosingh said nothing was as daunting as the last set of floods.

Water which gushed down from the upper regions of Moruga, Barrackpore and Debe poured out of the Oropouche River and flooded the Woodland swamps, causing more than five feet of water to enter the Baldeosinghs’ home. The force of the floods caused cracks in the house which they rent from a nearby landlord.

"I've been living here for 12 years and I pay $800 in rent. I cannot move. This is where we call home and I cannot afford to pay more," Baldeosingh said. He added that some people have also offered to fix the roof and he was thankful. I am waiting for a lady to drop off school uniforms which she promised to give to my daughter and afterwards she will start back school," Baldeosingh said. The distraught man said he was unable to work because of his heart condition.

STRESS FOR OTHER FAMILIES

Meanwhile, several other families said they too were hoping to have assistance with housing.

Dhanwantiya Sugrimsingh, 58, and her 82-year-old mother, Latchia Sookram, of La Fortune, Woodland, lost their home after the floods. They both moved to a relative's house nearby.

"We have not cooked a meal since the flooding. We are also living on bread and cheese and we get home-cooked food if my son drops some for us," Sugrimsingh said.

She added that it was not safe for them as the main wall in their living room was in danger of collapsing.

"We have moved everything from inside the house and put it outside because we don't know when the wall will fall," Sugrimsingh said.

Sookram, who is bedridden after breaking her leg in a fall two weeks before the floods, said she was frustrated.

"I never experienced this before. We need to clean up but we have no water to power wash. I can't walk and people have to see about me. It real hard," Sookram wept.

Councillor for Woodland Doodnath Mayrhoo said entire communities in the Oropouche Basin suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. He said many families have been forced to evacuate their damaged homes while many pupils still have been unable to return to school.

CLEAN-UP GOES ON

Meanwhile, dozens of Cepep workers continue to help residents from the flood-ravaged community. Spraying of the stagnating drains and low lying lagoons have also been ongoing on a fortnightly basis but residents said this was not sufficient. Chief sanitation officer at the Penal-Debe Regional Corporation Ayoub Mohammed said more than 20 truckloads of household debris have already been removed from the community.

The decomposing body of an unidentified male was found at Rincon Bay, Matura, by a crab catcher on Friday night.

Police reported that around 8 pm the 40-year-old man was at Rincon Bay checking on his crab traps when he stumbled on the dead body.

A report was made at the Matura Police Station and officers led by ASP Revanales and others from Matura, Sangre Grande CID and Homicide Region 11, Arouca, visited the scene.

Police found the body lying on its back in a bad state of decomposition. All that was recognizable was the man's black sneakers.

The unidentified body was viewed by a District Medical Officer and taken to the Sangre Grande mortuary. The body will be taken to the Forensic Science Centre in St James tomorrow for an autopsy.

Police are calling on the public to contact them if any of their relatives are missing.

They can contact the Sangre Grande Police at 668-2444 or 691-0133.

Investigations are continuing.

Cops arrest three, seize gun

Another gun has been taken off the streets of San Fernando by detectives of the Southern Division Task Force.

Around 5:30 pm on Friday, officers led by Insp Don Gajadhar and including Sgt Parasram, Cpl Bisnath, Cpl Pulchand and PC Boodram were on exercise along the Tarouba Link Road, when they stopped a Nissan Almera occupied by three men.

After searching the car, the officers found an unlicenced revolver and five rounds of .38 ammunition. The occupants aged 19, 26 and 29 of Diego Martin were arrested and charged with possession of arms and ammunition. They will appear before a San Fernando Magistrate tomorrow.

For this year, the Task Force has taken 147 unlicenced guns off the streets. Senior officers said they will continue to work with citizens to ensure that illegal firearms are recovered by the police.

RADHICA DE SILVA

Having been booted out of politics by former UNC loyalists seven years ago, political war monger and former prime minister Basdeo Panday says he no longer has a spiteful bone in his body because he has finally found a way to love his political enemies.

Panday was addressing students of his Alma Mater, Presentation College, during their prize giving function in San Fernando on Friday.

Saying he was starting to lose his voice having shouted at people for 35 years during his political career, Panday said when he left politics in 2010 he began searching for the key to happiness. After seven years of studying the writings of the great philosophers, Panday said he has finally succeeded in finding true happiness by removing bitterness, envy, anger, jealousy and hatred from his heart.

“I am quite a different person now. When I left politics or should I say when politics left me I began to think about the purpose of life and I turned to the writings of great philosophers. I found out the cause of unhappiness was unfulfilled desires. Happiness was not dependent on external factors like having material things but the secret lay in the heart and mind.

“How could you be happy if you were plotting revenge? To be happy I had to replace negative thinking with positive thinking,” he said as the audience applauded.

He explained that after much soul searching he took out negativity from his heart and began to diligently find reasons to love those he hated.

“Today I have no enemies and I can truly say that I don’t have a spiteful bone in my body and I have never been happier in my life. If you don’t believe me, then try it,” Panday said to loud applause He also advised students —"Be the best that you can be at whatever you are doing and the future will take care of itself."

CHARLES KONG SOO

The Movement for Social Justice will contest the upcoming general election in 2020. The party's leader, David Abdulah made the announcement at the Transport Industrial Workers' Union's Hall, Laventille, yesterday.

Abdulah said “The MSJ is organizing for the 2020 elections because when we look around the country, we see that there is no alternative. There's PNM and UNC, but when you look at the leadership of these parties they simply attack one another, they offer no vision, there is no hope.

“Therefore, we're working to offer that alternative having our party congress on November 19, which is a major activity for us.”

He said the party was also having elections for its national executive which occurred every three years. Abdulah said nomination day was on November 10 and elections will be on the morning of the congress on November 19.

He said when they looked around and saw the bacchanal in other parties with respect to elections, the MSJ was devoid of this.

Abdulah said all positions were open and members were free to contest.

He said it was really about building a serious alternative party to what passes for party politics in the country right now.

Abdulah announced Ozzie Warwick as the general secretary and Gregory Fernandez as the chairman of the party.

He said parties had come into government in the last 15 or 20 years with only chapter one written—how to win elections and get into office.

Most people who invest are trend-followers.

They are moved by “hot tips,” pay attention to what they see their neighbours doing, or focus on variables that may be popular, but have no bearing on the actual companies that operate in markets.

The very best investors however, are the opposite.

They are the ones who are able to divorce their thinking from that of “the crowd.”

If one thinks about it, it just makes sense.

Thinking like the crowd leads to earning the results of the crowd which, by definition, can’t be superior.

Instead, the trend, the consensus view, is something to game against, and the consensus portfolio is one to diverge from.

Warren Buffett, considered the Albert Einstein of investing, sums it up best when he says: “The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.”

In every sense, Buffett is encouraging those who seek investment success to do the opposite of what others do - to be contrarians.The consensus view is most evident in boom and bust cycles.

From time to time rabid buyers, or terrified sellers emerge, or a maniacal urgency to get into or out of markets develops.

When markets move strongly in a particular direction it is often times a result of the crowd mentality taking root.

Investment success requires sticking with positions made uncomfortable by their variance from popular opinion.

If after doing research, and forming an informed conclusion, success is often found in holding such a position in spite of the consensus view.

That said, being a contratrian is much easier said that done, which also implies that the best investors will be few in number.

It’s hard to resist the temptation to join the crowd when it seems like the party will never end, or the music will never return.

That’s why its important for an investor to have a strong decision-making framework to guide his investment process.

Casual commitment to an investing framework will lead to unconscious desires to join the crowd when it appears as if they are correct.

Because of the unpredictably of markets, it may take longer than one anticipates to have his or her rigorous assessment bear fruit.

Ultimately, being contrarian involves having a healthy dose of skepticism and recognising that things aren’t always as good or as bad as they seem.

Most of the best investments tend to be challenging and uncomfortable.

A true contrarian thrives, and most times find succes, on the other side of such investments.

Andre Worrell

Absolutely no statistics were presented but acting Commissioner of Prisons William Alexander seems to believe that prison rape is down because of overcrowding. According to him, “Out of evil cometh good...because of overcrowding...it reduces it because there are more persons in the cell and somebody would speak up. As opposed to two or three persons in a cell it can more easily occur.”

The logic behind this local theory—because all it can be is a theory in the absence of data—is perplexing. Studies around the world suggest the polar opposite. Actual data from the US Department of Justice, Human Rights Watch, Just Detention International and several others indicate that overcrowding is a significant contributor to sexual abuse in prison.

Perhaps trends are different in this country’s prisons, but we won’t know because the acting Commissioner failed to present data to back up his dubious claim.

Any process of reasoning which remotely suggests that overcrowding is in some way a deterrent to assault, is startling. No one convicted of a crime is entitled to five-star comfort, but to cite overcrowding as a deterrent to rape is incomprehensible. To make the statement while addressing a Joint Select Committee of Parliament on Human Rights is illogical.

An immigrant’s story

The Guardian’s story this week of a young Jamaican mother of four living in Trinidad, working over 12 hours a day and several jobs to earn enough to provide for her family back in Jamaica is not unique. The perception of immigrants in this country has been unfavourable at times, but the reality is that many who come here are simply hoping to afford a better way of life.

The Jamaican national told the Guardian she had “found many Trinidadians who don’t want to do certain jobs because they feel that is beneath them”. The narrative isn’t new.

While this woman has formal training as a nurse, she has worked as a housekeeper, security guard and other back room clerical jobs to earn every dollar she can. She is treated poorly by many and she is also paid less because she is a foreigner. There are thousands of stories like hers in T&T. The Guardian will continue to tell their stories because we must rethink how we treat immigrants and neighbours, especially when there is a need.

Work at last at Maracas Beach

Work is proceeding at last on the long-stalled Maracas Beach upgrade. Now that it is progressing, seemingly apace, it seems so simple—drainage, parking, possibly an improved water treatment plant. But the public will not soon forget the delays that spanned three administrations and left beachgoers shaking their heads in dismay as they parked in what had essentially become an extension of the swamp.

Sexual abuse, abandonment, ghosting after an intense relationship: unimaginable cruelty by the predator leaving victims in a dark tunnel. An act so evil by those who have power over women, or have them in their care, it leads to wrecked lives, and suicides.

A 57-year-old professor reached out to me this week after last week’s column on Harvey Weinstein with her ‘me too’ secret that has haunted her these 50 years:

“I was a child of seven. A male cousin in his 20s sexually abused me when he was ‘babysitting’. There was no pain inflicted. It was sexual—touching, kissing, ‘lovemaking’. There were unsuccessful attempts to penetrate. If I acquiesced, it was purely a physical response based on emerging adolescence. Nothing else. As a child I didn’t feel outrage. As a child you trust adults. You don’t expect adults to hurt you.

“After one such incident I said, ‘You know, I have to tell my parents about this...He said, ‘You can’t tell anyone’. That’s when I knew it was wrong. I didn’t tell anyone till now, when I’m telling you. I didn’t see him until after I was married. I ignored him. When I heard he died I felt enormous relief. He carried around my secret, and with him, the secret died. He was in his 40s.

“I felt the shame as an adult, wondered what was wrong with me. That dissonance between what I accepted then and what happened to me until I saw the damage. It was not my fault. Not my doing. I blocked it off. But by numbing sexual abuse, I numbed my entire childhood. I don’t remember any of it. He robbed me of my innocence, my childhood. Yet that memory is vivid with pain. Today, 50 years on, I can close my eyes and see it happening. It was inappropriate to engage a young child who doesn’t understand it was abuse of power.

“Men ask why women don’t speak up. It’s because women and children don’t recognise that it is even something to speak up about. We are supposed to be in a lesser place in the world. If we try to assert ourselves, or don’t see ourselves as objects, we are branded as angry women. Men and women conceptualise things differently. A man’s narrative has credibility as a rational, logical being.

“Men say women are emotional. People minimise women’s feelings. They think the only strength lies in being logical like a man. I embrace my emotions, even better when I can name them, label them so I understand what I am.

“It doesn’t preclude being rational, critical thinking. If we were all solely rational, we would lose our hearts.

“We would lose love. As a woman I want to live an intentional and authentic life. This is the story that the child in me could not tell.”

I thank this brave woman for telling me something she has not told another human for 50 years with the hope it helps others.

A Pakistani friend observed that she found it peculiar in T&T that she saw men and women engaging in the lewdest acts towards one another at Carnival, but outside of it rarely saw affection, hand holding, between couples.

It made me see many male (not all) loins work overtime, but their hearts automated, perhaps because they were socialised like that. Relationships between the sexes are increasingly transactional, sexual. This is why women mostly, are discarded, forgotten like a ragged Carnival costume once used.

Perhaps if men dropped their macho stereotype, that didn’t have to do with exercising power, or silencing women, feeling emotion would release them from their barricaded hearts.

And if women were not branded angry ‘bunny boilers’ for speaking the truth, but seen as human beings, we can all find our way to enduring love, which is everything in this briefest of lives.

On September 12, 1973, Karl Hudson-Phillips resigned as attorney general in the Cabinet of prime minister Eric Williams. The two had not been on good terms for months before this. On September 28, 1973, Williams told a packed Convention Centre in Chaguaramas that he had made no arrangements to seek a further extension of his tenure as political leader of the PNM.

The PNM Annual Convention was adjourned and Williams became a recluse. The General Council of the PNM met on October 7, 1973, to put the process in place to elect a new political leader. It came down to two nominees, Karl Hudson-Phillips and Kamaluddin Mohammed, with Mohammed saying that he would withdraw if Williams were to reconsider his decision.

On December 2, 1973, when the PNM Convention resumed a motion from the floor was approved that a delegation should be formed to visit Williams to determine whether he would reconsider and return. He did.

Many who were known Karl loyalists deserted him that day and only a councillor from Couva, Desmond Baxter, stood up in the convention to argue that there should be no delegation and that the convention should proceed to elect a political leader. He was overruled and Karl was virtually left at the altar.

It would appear that in recent times within the Opposition UNC that a similar cold-feet condition has afflicted those UNC MPs whom Vasant Bharath has openly claimed are working with him and whose names he is not prepared to call publicly.

The issue of public declarations of support for those who seek to support challengers and then withdraw their support when the virtual political heat is turned on is an old phenomenon in our politics.

The difference today is that the major political parties now have direct elections for their executives on a one-person-one-vote basis. Kamla Persad-Bissessar has decided to offer herself for re-election, as political leader of the UNC, before the end of the minimum date on which her term would have ended.

That opened a firestorm of controversy inside the UNC with arguments about whether or not the party could regulate its business by fixing a date for an internal election—on time for the national executive and one year early for the political leader.

Last Tuesday, the Congress of the UNC approved the recommendation of the National Executive (Natex) to hold those elections on November 26 instant. Section 18 of the UNC party constitution says:

“The Political Leader shall hold office for THREE (3) years. All other elected National Executive officers shall hold office for TWO (2) years. They shall hold office until successors to their offices have been elected unless they resign or are removed from office prior to the expiry of their tenure or their offices otherwise become vacant for any cause.”

The implication of the language is that all office holders hold office until their successors are elected. That explains why political leaders and Natex members have been able to hold office way beyond the time for the holding of elections for their positions because they hold office “until successors to their offices have been elected”.

If the election is being held before the term of office expires and a successor is elected, then there will be a changing of the guard. The language is quite simple and the intention of the framers is quite clear.

In 2006, when Winston Dookeran resigned as political leader of the UNC in order to form the Congress of the People on September 10, it was easy for other UNC MPs to join Dookeran as COP MPs because there was no political leader of the UNC to write to the Speaker to seek to have the seats of those MPs declared vacant under the crossing-the-floor provisions of section 49A of the Constitution.

Is early resignation a Trojan horse?

The issue facing the United States of America, and by extension the rest of the world, given the economic, political, military and cultural power and influence of the USA in 21st century civilisation, is whether President Donald Trump will be allowed to succeed in his desire to “make America great again”—complete domination and the marginalization of all others, China and Russia apart?

Alternatively, the contest is joined by an evolving democratic society, the liberal society, which will “push back” against the Trump intention.Will liberal-thinking America avoid the emergence of a modern-day

fascism in which Trump’s America, Xi’s China, and Putin’s Russia place a chokehold on world civilisation, allowing only for the passage of a minimum of oxygen for the rest of the world to stay alive to subserve the dominant forces?

In the popular culture discernible through the American television networks, Trump is pictured as a stumbling, bumbling idiot, unsophisticated, a bully as large as his physical size, an unashamedly dishonest teller of long tales, with an ego so large that makes him incapable of appreciating that there are others in the world near and far from him.

He may very well be all of that and more. However, Donald Trump cannot be dismissed on that basis. His intentions are deadly, and he has a support base, which may not see his intentions clearly, but is prepared to go along for the ride as its desires are satisfied along the way.

If he did not originally set out to achieve such an overvaulting objective, the notion has grown on him since being elected to office, and he is advancing notwithstanding what the American political culture calls the “push back”.

President Trump’s immigration policies directed at deporting Latinos and other non-European groups, his most recent decision to end the practice of further diversifying the American population through immigration policy and “extreme vetting”, his comfort levels with the Nazi and Alt-right groups are all clear indications of his overall intentions.

At the internal socio-economic levels, Trump’s sustained efforts at ending Obama Care, originally designed to allow middle and low-income earners to receive health insurance support, will expose vulnerable groups to increased health costs, as claimed by medical professional groups.

One commentary on his attempts to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy and super rich—himself included—notes the continuing failure of such policies to encourage the beneficiaries to plough their taxation windfalls back into the creation of jobs. One study projects that if economic growth is stimulated, it will inevitably lead to increasing America’s trade deficit as the dollar appreciates to make US exports more expensive.

His policy intentions and actions are also threatening grants to the creative arts and artistes.

Politically, President Trump’s clear intention is to make the Republican-controlled Congress subservient to his will. His outrider in this cause is Steve Bannon, whom he reassigned from the White House to ensure that wavering Republican congressmen/women are replaced with candidates for the 2018 polls willing to trade their spines for being part of a new Washington establishment controlled by Trump.

In his international designs, President Trump is intent on dismantling the international multi-lateral trading system that has been under construction since World War II. Dominance of a new bilateral system by American corporations and the reconstruction of a trading system in which American capital will be dominant is his objective.

He is, however, realistic enough to know that he will have to cede ground to China and Russia.

In this respect, his recognition and admiration of the Russian and Chinese strongmen, Putin and Xi, is patent. As head of such a troika, President Trump would be initially contented.

At the same time though, President Trump is bristling with the intention to put down the impudent North Korean and Iranian upstarts.

Will Bob Mueller take down Trump on behalf of world civilisation?

Along the old silk roads, caravans of snow-white porcelain vases, red sea pearls, lapis lazuli, myrrh, coriander, rugs, tapestries, precious stones, religious codes, perfumery, paper, dyes, slaves, literature, fashion, ornaments, ledgers, engineering, legal systems and medicines journeyed and shrank the known world before the eyes of the imperial courts in Chang’an.

To guarantee the protected passage of ideas and artefacts, the Chinese built a string of barracks connected with stone walls. Once they were Naipaulian Mimic Men but today, Shenzhen and Guangzhou are at the heart of a mature hardware ecosystem erected for gadget inventors, entrepreneurs, top-flight factories, kitchen table designers, mentoring from angels, venture capital pools, software accelerators,electronics markets and hacker spaces that accept fees like western gym memberships giving access to prototyping tools. Here they configure designs that plug into China’s first-class manufacturing system that satisfies the liquid capitalist lust for luxury in the West.

In hacker spaces, tinkerers fashion cutting-edge sensors and when the cost plummets to a few cents they scatter them across every known device. They know that the imagination is not fragile. It feeds on flaws, failures and frustrations. They want to fail fast and fail often in order to take a sensational product to market swiftly. Here, university spin-offs play a pivotal role in building capability. Copycat China is urban folklore. These cities are global foreign-talent attractors and Chinese inventors have attended Ivy League institutions everywhere.

In China, education failure points to evidence of learning. Failure is not an indicator of inability. Insulating learners from failure removes the coal of creativity. Ideas appear serendipitously; but to bring them to market requires patient work on latent weaknesses across tiny failures with slight steps. The creative power of failure has not escaped their classrooms. If failure sparks creativity, then the moment of insight emerges from the attempt to bridge the problem with previously disconnected ideas.

Epiphanies arise sometimes incognito, that is, when the problem is abandoned. However, post-epiphany tasks require disciplined focus taking incremental steps in a particular direction, with testing and retesting after each step, failing and returning to the prototype to make changes based on feedback from tests. Most of the time is spent in failing, modifying and testing.

Netflix designed, modified and tested until they made a product based on (1) a closed-loop system, (2) personalisation, (3) an asset-sharing model like Airbnb, (4) a usage-based pricing model, (5) innovations along the supply chain, and (6) a flat model of decision making that makes the company agile. Eventually, Blockbuster was literally ‘out of the picture’. No accumulation of small, disciplined steps to reach the optimum point, with testing after each step, could save Blockbuster. Blockbuster was climbing to a summit that had been abandoned by its customer base. Netflix had reimagined the market.

A pedagogy that nurtures the imagination must allow for the emergence of the unforeseen and embrace failure as we work to make a world which we continue to imagine into being. After all, the future of work is awaiting a connecting agent with the grit to forage off flaws and failures.

Such a pedagogy allows the learner to see the gestalt as well as the fine details in the margins. We learn by being correct, as well as by being wrong. Teaching wide awake is to become conscious of our evolving experiences and to be aware of the ways in which we encounter the world and our landscape. It is through education that we provoke the learner to reach beyond themselves and to become mindful, not mindless.

If the everyday world is bracketed out along with the realm of imaginative possibility, then children may never relate the outstretched branches of a Samaan tree to the freedom of imagination Gaudi released to design his tree-like columns of his mournful basilica, La Sagrada Família, with arches that melt foam and drip into foliage. Or perhaps our children may never wonder how butterflies produce the array of structural colours using translucent scales or where dragonflies sleep at night.

What do Donald Trump, Theresa May and Keith Rowley all have in common aside from being national leaders? Yes, they all suggest leadership is equivalent to knowing better than everyone else. For Trump it’s MAGA, for May it’s Brexit, and for Rowley it’s Sandals.

All refuse the transparency demanded by their electorates to make public their plans. And the consequences of this lack of transparency will be three electorates left to live and deal with the socio-cultural fall out, and possible economic disasters, long after these leaders are safely retired and protected from the complications of their decision-making.

Further to this dodgy two-some with which to be associated, our PM has called those who do not support his Sandals vision “unpatriotic”. In such light, do we assume his liming and personal relations is actually the pinnacle of patriotism? Yet any sociologist out there must question the PM’s words when it comes to Sandals.

As with other governments before him, the PM suggests tourism as the saviour of our diversification plan but does not recognise that while socio-economic benefits may come, but are not guaranteed, one thing that is guaranteed by pursuing this limited diversification model is socio-cultural damage to the nation such as the continued long-term socio-cultural alienation of youth in Tobago from local culture.

Caribbean sociologists have documented what happens socio-culturally to a society and an island like Tobago when tourism is its only industry. While tourism may have socio-economic benefits such as increases in new employment and the potential to stem migration patterns amongst the unemployed, tourism also has socio-cultural impacts. For example, the new jobs provided are usually a limited range of seasonal and low paid, service-orientated ones; and service jobs bring to the surface the socio-cultural differences between tourists and hosts.

In societies with histories of enslavement and colonialism this usually sets up a situation of a tourist population—especially in Tobago with its local population that is predominantly of Afro descent—where white economic power comes to be served by a black and brown labour force. This, of course, whether explicitly or implicitly in the minds of locals, solidifies the cultural legacies of white superiority and black servitude.

Furthermore, the economic gains associated with tourism often encourage a dependency model rather than a social development one. This too has socio-cultural consequences for youth. Instead of developing a labour force to be creative, entrepreneurial and disciplined, tourism creates one that finds little pride in servitude.

Nor does tourism promote local cultural resilience. Instead, foreign ideas about what’s best come to dominate and this dilutes local culture. It also suggests when the young people of such islands are older and in charge of national development they’ll know little more than the servitude model.

The legacies of these differences can be seen in the current tourism product found in Tobago and the consistent lack of quality customer service found on the sister isle. It can also be seen in the increase in North American and European consumption patterns amongst locals as a result of tourists’ consumption preferences. Another consequence of the tourism model, as a 2010 study by the Oxford Economic Organisation suggests, is that 80 cents of every dollar spent by tourists in the Caribbean leaks out of it.

Of course, in spite of these disadvantages and many others like environmental harm, tourism does represent a marketplace for local cultural products. Yet in offering such a marketplace, if a government does not promote the production of local cultural items and also the cultural resilience of low-income cultural producers, local culture is again diluted and replaced by the dominance of foreign cultural ideas and products. Such products are generally commodified and sold by local elites in the society, who are the main economic beneficiaries of tourist ventures, rather than those less fortunate.

Yet rather than recognise the socio-cultural consequences of his decision-making and the sociological imagination, the PM turns to dog-whistle tactics around patriotism designed to stir the ethno-racist pot of local politics. It also begs the question, if he knows better than the rest of us, why doesn’t he speak and listen to sociologists as much as he does economists?

The house that Nyssa Chow grew up in was always full of women's voices. The voices of her mother and grandmother, extended family and neighbours trading wisdoms, stories and history back and forth, over shared meals, work or the most intimate of conversations.

In her childhood home in Sangre Grande, she was constantly struck by the experience of this country's history, shared casually by women born during the colonial era in T&T.

Today she is using her artistic expression to share those stories in an oral history exhibit called Still Life.

The exhibit started off as an academic paper, but while writing Chow became dissatisfied that the voices in her research were mainly men.

"The research I found about women in that period objectified them. I started reading the literature and wondering what it would have been like to be viewed with that specific gaze.

"It reminded me of all the things I would hear my grandmother say as a child, about sitting up straight and holding yourself up and about finding dignity in these things," Chow said.

It made Chow realise that there were voices missing, voices she had heard telling stories since her childhood.

Those stories shaped Chow's life. She graduated from Columbia University’s Oral History Masters Program, and the Columbia University MFA Film Program and is a multimedia storyteller, using writing, film, photojournalism to bridge oral history, literary non-fiction and visual storytelling.

Still Life focuses on women born in T&T in the 1920s.

Describing the exhibit, Chow noted that it was the women who kept the secrets and held the stories of the family.

"It was in the company of women where one could remove the veil; it was in that space that one could be weak, and have your shames dignified. It was the mothers who went in secret to other mothers to borrow money for clothes when the family was short.

"It was the grandmothers who counselled the young wives on how to survive, and how to move through the world. They passed on these strategies generation to generation, talking in hushed voices over tea; over the stove; over the wall in the garden; one woman to another."

She said each of these wisdoms and strategies had a history which often went silent, with only the wisdom remaining as inheritance for the next generation.

Still Life looks at what these "wisdoms" reveal about the historical and sociological realities of life that made them necessary.

Some of these wisdoms were personal for Chow.

Her own story is told in the exhibit and she recalls anecdotes like the fear her grandmother expressed when Chow's skin complexion was closer to her own brown than the lighter members of her family.

It is these stories, told from the people who lived them, that makes Chow's presentation feel true to life, and it is these stories that she chooses to share in the hopes of preserving a partially forgotten history.

The exhibit, which runs from November 3 to November 5, includes portraits, oral histories, an e-book, food from the era under discussion, and works as a sensory treat that uses sight, sound, taste and touch to tell a rarely heard story of women.