Tag Archives: Selwyn R. Cudjoe

Court, Gender, General T&T, Health, Law, Politics, Protest

Madness All Around

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 11, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt’s either the PP and its ministers have gone mad or they want to take us back into a past we repudiated a long time ago. It was not such a long time ago that Verna St. Rose Greaves was seen ringing a bell, walking barefooted in front of Salvatori’s building on Fredrick Street and engaging in what she called a one-woman protest against a perceived injustice. Now, she is a minister; a relatively enfeebled attempt at dissent by Cheryl Miller, a worker in her ministry, is enough to have St. Rose Greaves declare Miller unstable and tossed into an insane asylum for two weeks against her will.
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General T&T, India, Opposition Party, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, UNC

The Fat Ass Brigade

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 03, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeNow that Jack Warner has won PP’s chairmanship, there is a rumor that Winston Dookeran may be leaving the legislature to join the IDB in Barbados and Marlene Coudray is preparing to fight San Fernando East, it is time to ask whether the PNM is organized is to face the challenges that lie ahead in the short-term (such as a Tunapuna and San Fernando bye-elections) and in the long-term such as the general election of 2015.
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General T&T

Bluefields, Nicaragua

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 27, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe Costeña aircraft that took us to Bluefields on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua landed on a narrow airstrip located on the edge of a lagoon that buffers the land mass from the Caribbean Sea. A narrow lane, a tract traversising a ravine, acted as our path from the aircraft to a tiny building that announced itself as the immigration office. The building was modesty itself. The immigration officer demanded our passport before we entered one of the more neglected parts of the country that reminded me of Trinidad during the 1950s.
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International, USA

Obama’s Dilemma

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 14, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe announcement that the US, Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany plan to reopen negotiations with Iran to solve the controversy around Iran’s nuclear program could not come at a better time for President Barak Obama. It gives him a little wriggle room to circumvent the disingenuousness of the Republicans in this matter.
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General T&T, Opposition Party, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Protest, UNC

Roget Makes the First Move

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 07, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeRoodlal Moonilal and the UNC-led coalition were quick to use Louis Lee Sing’s letter to demean Kieth Rowley. As it turned out, this was much to Louis’ misfortune and a mis-calculation on his part. But God is a good God. Sometimes out of evil commeth good and out of malevolence commeth comity; that is, the recognition among members of a social community that they possess values of decency and fair play that transcend the meanness and commess of a vagabond entity. Ultimately, that is what Anil Roberts’ amendment of the No Confidence motion was all about.
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General T&T, Parliament, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics

A Chink in the Armor

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 01, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeWhatever else Keith Rowley may not be doing, he has certainly put the fear of God, or is it Lord Rama, into the hearts of the members of the UNC-led Government. Surujrattan Rambachan, the Foreign Minister, says that Rowley’s motion is “vexatious, frivolous and irrelevant.” Yet the UNC has undertaken to conduct three public meetings to mobilize its base and every one of its twenty-nine members of parliarment are slated to speak on the motion. That does not seem to be the kind of response that one mounts against a vexatious, frivolous and irrelevant motion, but then there is always a disparity between what the UNC says and what it does.
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Culture, Entertainment, Finance, General T&T, Music

Carnival and Culture

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 22, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI was stuck by Michael Narine’s post, “Culture is a ploy for more state money” and Newsday’s headline “Calypso gets $1M.” With that came a justification from Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool: “This is good for calypso. Calypso is the father of all different genres of music, so they must ensure that calypso gets a good prize. All these other genres of music: chutney, soca, they came out of calypso, so it’s only fair that calypsonians get a good prize.” I will not argue with the doctor’s thesis except to say that at the beginning of the 21st century we may have to revise our accepted concepts of the genre, its influences and the musical forms it has spewed.
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General T&T, India, Media, People's Partnership, Politics

Time for Change

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 15, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI can still hear Kamla Persad Bissessar’s voice as it caressed the late afternoon air at the UNC’s Final Rally at Aranguez Savannah on May 22, 2010 as she offered the following paean: “Thank you to those who are here-thank you to those watching at home. Two days… We have been counting down together… And now it’s just two days until we together begin to forge a new Trinidad and Tobago…I can sense we are all ready for a change…Are you ready to change our country…?”
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Death Penalty, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics, UNC

A Politician’s Cry

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 08, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeInitially, Jack wept publicly because he wanted to persuade black people that he felt their pain. Like Brigadier John Sandy, his enabler, he just could not stand how black people were killing one another so he joined his UNC colleagues to impose a State of Emergency that threw black people in prison, for the most part. I noted then, “Jack wept just as Peter wept after he betrayed Christ.”
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Entertainment, General T&T, Music

The Beauties of Mozart

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 01, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was a good time to be away. While my good friend Louis Lee Sing was fighting down Brian Lara (a bad fight to pick: you just don’t dump on a national hero like that); and Penny Beckles, a woman I admire politically, was being chastised for cultivating her own group of supporters (I thought every politician had a right to develop his or her own political base); and my favorite publisher, Maxie Cuffie, was lambasting Lennox Grant for trying to compromise his journalistic ability (he says that Grant failed in his duty to advance the integrity of the press), I took time out to visit Wolfgang Mozart’s residence in Salzburg, Austria.
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