Skip to main content

' I am confused, ah really am confused'



I find for two senior citizens, at least me who is over 65 and by international definition, I am a senior, we had a very busy weekend. First, we went to the Horticultural Society's Flower Show then later that afternoon headed into the city for the Bocas Lit Fest and enjoyed every minute of it. During the week we attended various 'Bocas' functions and went back to NALIS over the weekend. For those of you who missed it this time look out for it next year it really is a first class event. Next on the calendar would be the Film Festival. The Rock has talent and creativity oozing from every pore. You should be asking the question why are we not concentrating on our people instead of hoping and praying that the price of oil and gas rebounds?

Driving into the city this morning I could not help but remark how clean the place was. Down Frederick St across Queen ( Penny Commissiong) up Abercromby, all spotless. Yes, there were a couple homeless persons who, if dealt with, would have made it a perfect drive. We parked outside the Red House and to my surprise, there were people working on the building, on Sunday. The PMOTT has promised the Red House to be back up and running by 2020, it may yet happen.

One of the sessions today was 'Beyond Boundaries' discussing the issues of ethnicity and migration. Basically how mixed race people born in Britain deal with the bias and associated race profiling and then the complete opposite when a white American woman makes Trinidad her home and she suffers a similar fate. Like 'Kitch's' white Irish wife, Marge, not having the best experience in Trinidad.
The more things change the more they remain the same! I always wonder how come when a person is shot by a police officer in the US it is 'an African American or a Hispanic American'. It is never a 'Caucasian or White American'. There are many things I don't understand. Racism will always be with us because it is on all sides of the racial divide. Not simply one against many.

Standard and Poor's have issued their new credit rating for the Rock and apparently somebody screwed up. What was supplied to them was one figure for energy revenues but the actual income exceeded the budgeted figures. If this is true then I am amazed that S&P did not verify what figures were being presented, that no one signed off on the statement, that the Ministry of Finance did not concur with the Ministry of Energy that these were, in fact, the correct numbers to be presented to the rating agency. How can we as a country be receiving 'X' amount of revenue from the energy sector and no one knew this? No one knew what the actual figure was? The Minister of Finance comes after the fact and says that the Ministry of Energy's figures were wrong, the Minister of Energy is confused as to how that mistake could have been made. Referencing the Mighty Shadow 'I am confused, ah really am confused'.
The name 'Poor's' has nothing to do with one's credit rating it is actually the name of the guy who started the rating agency, Henry Varnum Poor.

The poor children of the Rock will be sitting the SEA exam this week. Poor kids, this will determine their life, at 11 years old. What a stupid, foolish way of determining a child's future. If you fail the SEA then you are 'duncey'.  If you pass for a school, not of your preference then you are also 'duncey'. If you happen to be in the top 1% ( we love that term) then you will be on the front page of the media, you will be honored with a visit to your school by the Minister of Education, you will be showered with gifts and told how all your 'cramming' paid off. You will be praised for not having a normal life like playing sports or reading non-exam material or building your social skills or basically having a normal childhood. Being ADD I am sure that I got into Holy Cross on the 20% Principals listing. I am one of those officially classed as 'duncey' by the Ministry of Education.
People of the Rock we live in the 21st century, our education system was designed in the 1800's and we are still there. Can we please stop the rot in education and start the process of really educating our children? Ban the SEA as all other assessment exams for children.

It is Sunday night, we had a full moon on Friday night, heavy drizzles during the day and we look forward to the coming week.

People of the Rock, it can only get better, the ground orchids we bought at the Flower Show will prove that.

Good night and good luck!








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

'apology' expression of regret at having caused trouble for someone

Today Trinidad and Tobago was on fire. The discussions on the 'apology,' discussions on the status of the Parliament, everybody is now a certified meteorological expert reporting rainy season rain, people were out and about being very assertive about things that many of them did not really understand. Heat in the place! The statements being made, which caused the 'apology' to then be made, were being said, I think, without really understanding who we are as a people. This is 2017 and we still are having trouble in coming to grips with many social and historic issues that strangely enough are being discussed every day in many places and yet it is only a problem depending on who makes the statement. Let me say that the statement that was made was, even though to many factual, however it rubbed people the wrong way. This is where I have a problem. You read columns written by certain persons that under no circumstances will offend any sector of the society. That same posi...
2 comments
Read more

'aghhhhhhhh'

This week has me feeling so down about the rock and what really is our future. I have always considered myself to be Mr. Optimistic. Things would be bad, sometimes downright terrible with little or no hope and I would be there battling it out. The hard part is our present and future position is all man made [excuse the gender] and it seems that no matter what we do, how we vote, who we put our trust in, it somehow ends up bad. In 1956, the hope was there, a mass appeal, in 1986 it returned and was destroyed by 1990, in 2010 432,026 electors voted for the Peoples Partnership, in excess of 60% of the population. By 2015 a lot of the love disappeared and we found ourselves in a position of no-where once again. I use these years because the popular vote was there, the majority voted overwhelmingly for the winning party. Even though the winner in 1956 did not win by any semblance of a majority, over 80% of the electorate cast their vote. It is interesting to note that in 1956 the PPPG...
1 comment
Read more

'poor iguana'

The fauna in Maraval has sadly been reduced by one. Our dog is still the hunter, one owl, one manicou, many zandolees and yesterday one young iguana. Maya, the bull mastiff, loves the hunt as much as she loves Crix. As much as we try our best to support the flora and fauna nature just takes control and the outcome is not always pleasant. We see nature at its finest in recent events in our neck of the woods. As horrific the end result is we can only look on in awe as to the power the natural world has. Poor iguana! It will all be over soon. The killer hurricane will be gone and we can only hope that 'September remember' applies. The territories that were in fact impacted will take a long time to recover, many of them very dependent on the tourism industry and with the season approaching it does not augur well for them. Stories coming out of St Martin are not good. The looting by gangs of armed individuals sends a very negative image to potential tourists who probably though...
2 comments
Read more