Skip to main content

sling shot



Had a very busy weekend. Attended 2 functions on Sunday, imagine! This is unheard of and worse than that had to refuse an invitation for last Friday evening because of some serious grand parenting. We attended the 'Carnival - sound of a people 2.0' put on by the jazz master Etienne Charles. A wonderful evening. Looking forward to his on the road Carnival band on Carnival Monday, thank you for live music.

Today was the start of the official program to celebrate the life of our recently departed former President, Max Richards. And so it should be. He served a two year term and was able to escape the cheap politicking which is commonplace on the Rock.
The celebration however came at a heavy price. Through no fault of His Excellency nor I am sure his family. Who ever planned the route of the procession from NAPA to the Parliament somehow did not realise that Wrightson Rd is the only artery in the city that can move tens of thousands of vehicles  across the city.  There is no other road system that can handle that level of traffic. To block off Wrightson Rd for a period of hours, Monday morning rush hour, can only do one thing, create gridlock from Chaguanas to Port of Spain and from Trincity to Port of Spain. Max would have frowned on this decision, he, a man of the people. The utter confusion created by this foolish decision, the thousands of lost man-hours in productivity, totally uncalled for. When will the authorities start to think of the productivity lost? The celebration of his life continues tomorrow travelling east to the UWI and then back into the city throwing the travelling public into further chaos.
As usual there is always a better way, it is not necessary to inconvenience half of the country for hours for a five minute walk.

The crime being unleashed on the law abiding citizens of the Rock is now unprecedented. In 15 days we have had 30 murders, countless home invasions, sexual assault, robberies with violence. The citizens are at war with the criminals with one exception, the citizens are unarmed. The TTPS, forget what the Minister of National Security is saying, is totally out of its depth in dealing with the situation and the motto of 'to protect and serve' is nothing but words. The fact that the citizens do not hold the police in any regard is not good and the TTPS have only themselves to blame. So we have a police force that few trust, an unarmed civilian population and a heavily armed criminal gang sector. And what then is the answer, how do we the plebs protect ourselves? Do we take the law into our own hands, form vigilante groups, do likewise and purchase illegal weapons, higher thugs? We need to do something, to just sit and wait for it to happen cannot be the answer. The PMOTT must come out and say something about how the civilian population protects themselves. We are not even allowed to own or carry passive protection in the form of sprays or other means of protection. The best we can do right now is to walk with a sling shot or a bootoo. With criminals walking around with firearms ready to kill, these primitive means of personal protection is a joke. The CoP might have his reasoning for not issuing firearm licences, as more guns may find their way into the criminal gangs. This is a stupid argument as the criminal gangs can obtain as many firearms as they want right now, though illegally.
A properly trained civilian force having access to firearms will no doubt put the criminals on notice that if you enter private premises you will end up dead. I am a pacifist, I don't support capital punishment, don't support military but I sure as hell support the right to security of the person and property. If the Government cannot provide me with that basic right then I need the means to protect myself. A sling shot will not cut it!

The Rock has so much going for it. I listen to the music for Carnival '18 and marvel at the creativity of our people. Every year bringing out excellent music. The crime, the economy, Governance we have to work out. There is always a better way to do things and surely we will find the way.

Good night people of this great piece of Rock and good luck!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peace and quiet

When you hear the words 'perfect' or 'the best' it makes you feel like a million dollars. Human nature is weird, a simple compliment can turn a whole story into a week of joy! And, yes, I am speaking about the Sunday night popcorn! Apparently, tonight was exceptional. I hope the rest of the week translates into 'perfect'. The horrible news of the deaths of two cyclists over the weekend came as a real shock. We both know a number of people who cycle for good weekend sport and to hear of Joe Brown being killed in an accident was truly heart-rending. When we heard of the accident we started to think of all the people we know who cycle and just hoped it might be somebody we did not know. Is this how it works, you hope that it's not someone you know, what about all the people who actually know the person? Truly a sad day! RIP Joe and Joanna! The issue of cycling and motorists is one that every country I am sure goes through. Is it that the main roads are for...
Post a Comment
Read more

price of fried chicken

One of the things I think I learnt in politics is that it is better to 'take in front before in front take you'. By coming up front and dealing with a situation is by far the preferred way rather than others setting the tone, you must control the narrative. Seeing the pictures of the MP in Washington D.C after recovering from a long illness was for me a sad indictment of how we treat people on the Rock. The MP became ill almost a year ago and even though the population knew of it the Government tried every which way to disguise, deny, gave information that did not stand up to scrutiny, avoiding the inquiries and basically telling the citizens to mind their own business. All the Government had to do was level up front with us, yes he was ill, he is suffering from 'X', he is in recovery, the Parliament has determined that he should be given leave of 'Y' months, we will keep you posted, full stop. No, instead we are given the old 'heave ho', with the pop...
1 comment
Read more

'probeslematic'

My mention of the 'zaboca boat' the other night had some people perplexed. The 'cocoa men' would slice the zaboca length ways, cutting the zaboca into two or three slices, depending on the size, and after removing the outside skin would insert onto the inside of the slice all kinds of magical fillings, shrimp, homemade salad dressing and whatever else you wanted. Truly the fruit of the God's! A great reminder of where we live is the loud refrain of ' sooooooooiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllll manure! ' Every now and then we would be visited by the white pickup loaded with garden soil and manure. I am not sure how many vendors there are but it seems that there more than one or else that guy really moves around. With four probes being launched into the ferry fiasco it seems things could get a bit 'probeslematic'. Things on the rock are rocking! The fun part is that the Minister of Ferries is now saying that 'the whole process has to start over even ...
Post a Comment
Read more