By Linda Edwards
December 21, 2006
A comment on an article in The New York Times of Sunday, Dec. 17th, 2006.
The Times reported on Sunday, that there was a massive protest down Fifth Avenue in New York, to protest the killing of Sean Bell, the young man murdered on the morning of his wedding, by a gang of New York’s Finest, the city police. A total of fifty shots were fired by the police at a car with three unarmed young African Americans in it, one being the groom-to-be on his way home from his Bachelor Party. He died on the spot. According to The Times, the protest, a silent one, was organized in the heart of the shopping district to bring maximum attention to this grave situation. It was organized to say that human lives, even the lives of African American young men in New York, who seem on their way to becoming an endangered species, had value, and people should be concerned about this.
Continue reading An Inconvenient Protest
Re: Mandatory Conduct of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Prior to the Award of a Certificate of Environmental Certificate (CEC) for the Design, Build, Operate and Manage (DBOM) Contract for the Establishment of the Rapid Rail System (RRS) by the Ministry of Works and Transport
I have been thinking about my approach to Christmas which many have described as being that of a Scrooge, not a Santa. True. I dislike seeing people exhaust all their earnings and savings on this one occasion, only to have to resort to borrowing to survive the few months afterwards. It happens to most low-to-middle income earners. With portents of global warming soon bringing an end to all life as we know it, what the hell? So let the masses overeat, drink excessively, and be merry. As for me, I shall join the fete, even transforming myself into Santa. I’m sharing gifts aplenty, too-starting, as usual, with the big boys and girls.
Fraud Squad officers in San Fernando and Port of Spain yesterday, following the publication of the Express front page story, received a number of calls from people who said they had fallen victim to an international lotto scam. Police said that people from areas throughout the country had responded to the story about Trinidadians being fleeced in internet and postal lotto frauds.
The symposium on the aluminum industry in Trinidad and Tobago which took place this past Wednesday was the most positive development in the entire smelter issue so far. For the first time in this two year old debate, the nation was presented with credible, relevant and current information on all of the major aspects of the proposed smelters. This included information and research on the economic, social, engineering, legal, and environmental concerns and implications, as well as on the Global Aluminum Industry, presented by local and international experts with decades of experience.
I kept wondering for some time now how long it would take Starbucks, the upscale coffee chain, to start doing business here. Last week I read where some local entrepreneur indicated he’d cornered the franchise. I guess by next year Trinis who did not know of Starbucks before would be flocking to the coffee house. A few years ago, in London, I had my first encounter with it. While I sipped an over-priced, under-flavoured “cuppa”, I observed the behaviour of customers in this consumer-driven ambience. I found it very revealing.
I have never ceased to agonise in mental pain at the continuing undue pressures being exerted on our Indian community to exercise constant and eternal vigilance geared to curb and correct the natural predilection of some public decision-makers in Trinidad and Tobago to exclude its presence from public symbols that claim by depicting selectively to represent the cultural diversity of our multicultural landscape. The absence of Indian names of public buildings and notably roadways are relevant in this regard.