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General T&T, Sports

Ulric ‘Buggy’ Haynes: our black prince

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 02, 2025

PART II

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeUlric “Buggy” Haynes was not only a sports figure but a social activist as well. He led the charge to save the Tacarigua Savannah, the largest green space area in the northeastern part of the island, from becoming a concrete and asphalt jungle. The Green Space Committee raised almost $100,000 to challenge the government’s violation of our community’s well-being.

Buggy led the charge with Dr Carol James and Peter Burke to oppose the government’s action. He gave the first $20,000 to hire lawyers to fight the case, money that he borrowed from one of his sons, Verron Ulric Haynes, the first and only Trinbagonian to win a Super Bowl for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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General T&T, Schools

What a world

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By Raffique Shah
August 02, 2025

Raffique ShahI am very confused by the problems many teenagers face as they come to the end of one cycle or other of the education system. Many moons ago when my generation ended our “schooling” we had a clear vision of what lay ahead.

Those among us who failed the Secondary School Entrance Examination—and there were options there—a significant percentage would move into the secondary school system by attending one of the many private secondary colleges. They would sit an entrance exam to the college of choice and, once successful, their parents would make payments to have them educated. Others who found that cumbersome would opt for what in today’s language is known as business studies.
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General T&T, Sports

Ulric ‘Buggy’ Haynes: our black prince

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 26, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeToday, we have come to bury our black prince in this place where he was born, lived, and died. In gathering here, in St Mary’s Anglican Church, Tacarigua, the second oldest Anglican church in the island, we come to honour the life, legacy, and work of Ulric “Buggy” Haynes. I can think of no better description of our beloved brother than the words Ossie Davis delivered at Malcolm X’s home-going in 1965.
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Crime in T&T, Finance

Beware of greed

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By Raffique Shah
July 26, 2025

Raffique ShahI find it inexcusable that adult Trinidadians and Tobagonians who have benefited from the education and training that this country has offered easily fall victim to modern-day Trinidad “smart-men”.

CCN journalist Mark Bassant has focused on an “investment” that has relieved a significant number of our citizens who, in a couple of years, lost millions of dollars, in some cases, to a bunch of fellas who looked like they never even graduated pre-school. What is even more disturbing is among the people who invested are lawyers and doctors, professionals who are supposed to be “bright”.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

The Rottweiler’s Revenge

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 19, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOne wonders if Penny Beckles, her happy band of warriors, and Marvin Gonzales, her re-engineered rottweiler, understand the essence of democracy and the implications of an anticipated redistribution of our country’s population numbers in 2030. They promise to wage a gallant battle on behalf of the CEPEP workers, but all I see is “hate, bitterness, acrimony, animosity,…[people] out of control …[and] acting as raging bulls”. (Express, October 21, 2009).
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General T&T, UNC

Singing for one’s supper

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 12, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeSOONER OR LATER “de chupid” talk was bound to happen. “Cudjoe singing for his supper” and he’s “being paid off with a board appointment”. A PNM sycophant sent me a note: “Singing for your supper. You are no longer a [sic] advocate for poor black people director Cudjoe….Sing, boy, sing. It was never about true [sic] to power but to secure opportunities for yourself. Cudjoe my shame. Africans for sale.”
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Permanent poverty

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By Raffique Shah
July 12, 2025

Raffique ShahAfter researching the Internet extracting information that would lead me to a possible exit from the suffering that poverty imposes on people, I concluded that the way out of poverty is to ignore those who are stricken by its malafides.

Poverty spares not one country. Even the wealthy countries have vagrants. Some of the brightest minds, backed by generous funding for university and other research agencies, have attempted to peer behind the tattered curtains that shroud poverty. Their conclusions and possible solutions are jokes. When calypsonian the Mighty Shadow (Winston Bailey) belted out his thought-provoking theories in song, he achieved nothing. Not the money earned from the sale of the song, mark you.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Crocodile tears

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 05, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe tears flowed copiously. A United National Congress Government had broken its key promise, “When UNC wins everybody wins”; some people, it seems, have lost. In the seven weeks of its administration the Government suspended CEPEP contractors, and by extension 10,000 workers who made $120 a day or $28,000 working 48 weeks a year.
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General T&T

A little manners won’t hurt

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By Raffique Shah
July 05, 2025

Raffique ShahI am intrigued by Trade Minister Kama Maharaj’s plan to focus on tourism as one of the main pillars of the new economy. It seems to me that every government that has taken the reins of office over the past 30 years has had tourism in its sights. There is always a promise to woo tourists to this country but they hardly materialise in any significant manner.

I say this not to be critical of tourism as a contributor to the economy of our country. However, there are few countries that have benefited in any significant manner such that they could rely on tourism for improving their foreign exchange earnings and providing jobs that we normally associate with economic growth and social benefits.
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General T&T, USA

Demonising Mamdani

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 28, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI arrived in New York on Thursday. The cooling breeze was welcomed. It was not as hot as Tuesday when New York City’s JFK airport reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature recorded since 2013, while Central Park “broke a record set all the way back in 1888”. (June 23, New York Daily News.)

However, the weather on Tuesday did not prepare New Yorkers for the political tsunami that disrupted the city that day. Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Muslim of Uganda heritage, defeated Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York State and a scion of a prominent New York political family, in the Democratic primary for mayor.
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