The Elephant That is Never Leaving the Room
By Janine Beach
news.yahoo.com
The Jena 6 are six African-American high school students from Jena, Louisiana who were arrested and charged with attempted second degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder after their alleged involvement in an assault on a white student. That the students were charged for what amounts to a schoolyard fight is news in itself, but what is more troubling is that the District Attorney, Reed Walters, chose to charge the students as adults.
Jena 6 is a story of tenuous race relations in a town that the Civil Rights Act forgot. At the beginning of the first semester last year, a black student at Jena High School asked for permission to sit under the a tree that had traditionally been a meeting place for white students. He was told that he could sit wherever he wanted. The following day, students arrived to see the tree adorned with three hangman’s nooses, each painted in the school colors.
The story then follows an all too familiar path. Black students protest nooses at school. White students attend a nearby school as punishment while their actions are dismissed as a silly prank. Black student tries to enter largely white party. When white students attack and beat him, the student who breaks bottle over his head is charged with a misdemeanor and given probation.
White student threatens black students with a gun in a grocery store. Black students wrestle gun away from him and are charged with second-degree robbery. White student taunts black student about his beating with racial epithets. Black students beat him and he suffers bruising and concussion. Black students are charged as adults for attempted second-degree murder.
Full Article : news.yahoo.com
Suspended Chief Justice Sat Sharma insisted yesterday that he did nothing wrong when he spoke about the Basdeo Panday integrity trial to Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls last year.
CHIEF MAGISTRATE Sherman Mc Nicolls stated quite emphatically yesterday that he never took a bribe from anyone in Trinidad and Tobago.
It is a sad state of affairs when mediocrity is the highest standard to which a nation aspires. For as long as I could remember, the people of T&T have bemoaned the poor quality of service they receive from public health, police, education, transportation and virtually all government ministries. So I thought that people would be happy to learn about the poll which shed light on the dismal performance of many government ministers. Yes! A poll was needed to identify these slackers as much as a light is required to see the sun. Nonetheless, the pole confirmed what the public had always known – government ministers are incompetent, lack vision and are incapable of fulfilling the mandates of their ministries. Despite all appearances, they are trapped in a Third World mentality. How else can one explain the sorry state of social services in T&T?
In denouncing some of his Ministers’ current stewardship, it is clear that PM Manning has unwittingly telegraphed that he alone has the exclusive right over the pursuit of fame, power and fortune in politics. The criteria of having a “level head and common sense” for ministerial appointment was never met by the author himself having regard to his weekly blunders and recent display of $200m of regal splendour and opulence. Now a performance audit resulting from a secretive poll is in the PM’s back pocket as the sword of Patos. The results of this suspect poll will take precedence over the democratic will of the respective PNM constituencies in new candidate selection.
Creator of such Calypso gems as “Progress”, “In Time to Come”, “Somebody”, “Steelband Woman”, “Saltfish”, “This World Don’t Like Nothing Black”, “Phillip My Dear”, “Take Me Back Africa”, “Too Young to Soca” “In Time to Come”, “Save our Domestics”, Winsford ‘Joker’ Devine is undoubtedly one of the greatest songwriters of our time. His compositions range from the bacchanal and sexual topics of the Soca genre to the serious social commentaries that analyse and enrich our social space. Over the past 40 years, his compositions have been sung by many singers including ‘Crazy’, ‘Sparrow’, Machel Montano, ‘Singing Francine’, ‘Mighty Trini’, Charlene Boodram, ‘Sugar Aloes’, Marcia Miranda, Karen Asche, ‘Poser’, ‘Baron’, ‘Explainer’, ‘Blakie’ and ‘King Austin’. Many of these songs have become classics of the Calypso artform, but in an arena where most of the public recognition goes to the singer, many persons are unaware of Joker’s involvement. In this extensive interview with TriniSoca.com, this prolific Soca/Calypso composer talks frankly and vividly about his compositions, the state of the Calypso artform and his general life experiences.