Loudicrous Louquacioness.

One potent litmus test to determine the quality of life in any society is the evaluating of the way it treats its senior members:

• Fantastic? Loving, focused on the lofty, dismissive of everything banal and venal.
• Lukewarm? NIMBY...to the point of being callous.
• Hateful? Flippant, cavalier, preoccupied with the veneer not the substance, as Sodom and Gomorrah were.

Senior Citizens are worth their weight in silk -whatever value Trinbago today possesses is due mainly to their sterling contribution. Thus, by right, they deserve to be accorded SC honour and glory -Senior Citizens...Sterling Contribution, d'oh!

But His Worship, the Mayor of Port of Spain, Louis Lee Sing, is opposed to anything of the sort -he's insisting all T&T SCs must pay their way. (See: http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,154332.html.)

Perhaps His Worship confused SCs who are worth their weight in silk with SCs who are waited upon because they wear silk?

Or maybe His Worship is just being Loudicrous?

Either way, it's worth doing a simple analysis to determine whether our innate SCs deserve the privileges SCs in the developed world take for granted.

As always, a picture is worth a thousand words, so, here goes:

And that's based on just silk, eh? Which is far less than how our SCs ought to be measured -in gold.

In closing, it's better for His Worship to direct his Louquacious energies towards whipping his Corporation into shape, for, last time I did an efficiency evaluation of the place, for every dollar spent, value received in return hovered around twenty-two cents.

Groan! Genuine Guardian goof.

"...Speaking to reporters following the funeral service of fallen comrade Gary Patterson, Abdulah (sic) said McLeod’s resignation will auger well for the MSJ..."

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2012-01-23/errol-mcleod-resigns-political-party

It's eethar Radhica Sookraj kan't speel propally, oar the Printa's Devel has resofaced:

"Abdullah" is of Arabic extraction and is the correct way to spell Jamaican-born Comrade David Abdullah's surname -in Arabic, "Adullah" means "son of God"...his father was a Bishop, so I guess the surname's deserving. On the other hand, "Abdulah", is of Hindi or Marathi extract -phonetically, "ab" means "now", "dulah" means "dust". From the sound of it therefore, "Abdulah" literally means "now dust".

Is it that you meant, Radhica? Or did you find the man-in-the-street connotations more germane? For, colloquially "dulah" augurs any of the following:

• confusion;disconcerted, baffled, or posed state (as of a disputant);
• discomfiture, rout, overthrow (as of an army);
• destruction, demolition, ruined or damaged state
  

from which these genitive case applications of "dulah" are derived:

• dhulice dive khata jane To beg all about the place in great disgrace and wretchedness;
• ndhulice dive lavane To become infamously notorious;
• ndhulisa milane To be mingled with the dust; to be utterly destroyed;
• ndhula phunkane (Literally: To stir up the dust...as done by cattle in scanty pastures.) To be destitute of the means of support;
• ndhula udane (ṃseta-gaṃva-mulaka-ghara-madhye.) To lie desolate;
• ndhulinta ratna sampadane-mmilane To get an utterly unexpected boon.

(Methinks 'twas from the last abovementioned genitive example Radhica or the devil turned to derive the cheek to scribble "Abdulah" instead of "Abdullah".)

Moving on! In the context, "auger" cannot be used! Here's why:

A. au·ger [aw-ger]

noun

1. Carpentry.

a. a bit, as for a brace.
b. a boring tool, similar to but larger than a gimlet, consisting of a bit rotated by a transverse handle.

2. earth auger.
3. a device consisting of a shaft with a broad helical flange rotating within a cylindrical casing to force bulk materials from one end to the other.
4. snake ( def. 3a ).

verb (colloquial)

1. to drill or bore a hole (especially a deep one), or move material, by means of an auger.

B. au·gur [aw-ger]

noun

1. one of a group of ancient Roman officials charged with observing and interpreting omens for guidance in public affairs.
2. soothsayer; prophet.

verb (used with object)

3. to divine or predict, as from omens; prognosticate.
4. to serve as an omen or promise of; foreshadow; betoken: Mounting sales augur a profitable year.

verb (used without object)

5. to conjecture from signs or omens; predict.
6. to be a sign; bode: The movement of troops augurs ill for the peace of the area.

But, I wasn't there, Radhica was...if she wasn't, how else would Comrade Abdullah's verbatim quotes be used? Like I said, maybe on hearing the announcement -and, like I now conjecture, in subsequent discussion with the affected parties- she concluded the colloquial "auger" most apt? Whatever! It doesn't augur well for august annals to cause readers to gasp in aghast like that.

You have to bow to untie sandals.

I remember maccoing a PNM election meeting during the 1976 general election campaign. Back then, the representative for Arouca, the late Hector Ormesbie Naughton Mc Clean was our representative -never mind he was a PNM, he remains the best representative any constituency could ever have, perhaps because his name from birth destined him to be such -H.O.N. Mc Clean. May his soul rest in pace!

Back then, the heavily-bearded Irwin Merritt was the Public Relations Officer of the PNM and, as such, invariably emceed PNM affairs on the hustings -may his soul, too, rest in peace!

The meeting in question was a huge one -PNM, regardless, is/was a party of considerable weight- and held on Broadway, Arima, just northwest of the Dial (see map)

It being a General Elections and one fraught with uncertainty -the Democratic Action Congress (DAC) was chomping at the bits to have Tobago get it way in its own affairs, plus, it was the first time that the United Labour Front (ULF) was contesting a General Election. So, for the PNM meeting, there was a battery of speakers...some inspiring, some boring, all perspiring -the heat of the night was intolerable due to high humidity. Yet, no one departed, for with such meetings, the main event is the last on the card -perhaps by collusion with the concessionaires?

Nearly four hours after its 6:30pm start, when the turn of then PNM Political Leader, Dr. Eric E. Williams, came to take the microphone, PNM PRO and outgoing PNM Senator, emcee Irwin Merritt introduced the great man this way (and I paraphrase):

"...And now, dearly beloved! Let me introduce the man you have been waiting for whole night to hear speak! The man the latchets of whose sandals I am unworthy to unloose! I give you our Political Leader, the first, the only, the present and the next Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, the Father of the Nation.....Dr. Eric Eustace Williams!..."

And the Baleezay Crowd let loose a cacophonous fanfare of approval.

Now! Tell me again about PNM's protest over a bow someone made to her ancestral "grandmother"?

I gone!

Conjugal rights for wrongdoers.

Given out forced Eurocentric predisposition, the suggestion of conjugal rights for incarcerated wrongdoers makes sense -though it may invite unwelcome bugs and tribulations- for the thrust of punishment must be to restore, not further weaken, social wholesomeness and the basic social unit is centred on conviviality.

Subhas has taken in front by raising his objection.

And, Subhas is an honourable man, so expect the notion to take some time to come to any fruitful climax.

Meantime, other things can be done to speed the reduction of recidivism. One such is to allow controlled open communication from behind bars, such as exists in the case of Jeremy Bamber, whose life sentence was yesterday confirmed by the European Court of Human Rights as being "for the rest of his lifetime". His legal team had unsuccessfully "argued that any sentence under which the offender's rehabilitation cannot lead to a review of release breaches articles three, five and seven of the European Convention on Human Rights". (See: BBC News "Murderers lose appeal against whole life tariffs" at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16591164)

Bamber, who maintains his innocence, has been imprisoned for the past twenty-six years, having been found guilty of shooting to death five members of his family. Yet, through sympathizers on the outside, also maintains an interesting blogsite whereby his opinions -mostly related to his plight, obviously- are, surprisingly, dispassionately disseminated. For instance, his first reaction to the Court's recent decision was this:

"Both the trial judge and the Lord Chief Justice set my minimum tariff as 25 years. Quite why the Home Secretary felt that I should die in jail when the judges felt otherwise is a mystery. To then be told by the European Court that it was reasonable and fair for the Home Secretary to re-sentence me to die in jail is quite extraordinary. This ruling does not really surprise me; it is no different to the injustice of my conviction.

The evidence upon which the Crown have built their case is no longer credible, yet my imprisonment must continue until I’m dead, as evidence of my innocence cannot be disclosed because the Criminal Cases Review Commission have refused to even request it from Essex Police.

I will continue to campaign to prove my innocence and I am hoping that this will happen before my death sentence is carried out.

If the State wishes to have a Death Penalty, then they should be honest and re-introduce hanging. Instead, this political decision that I must die in jail is the Death Penalty using old age or infirmity as the method. It is a method whereby I’m locked in a cell until I’m dead – no matter if it should take 70 or 80 years to happen – I shall be dead the next time I leave jail. This despite that the trial judge said 25 years was punishment enough for a crime I did not commit."

(See: "Jeremy Bamber The Official Blogger" at http://jeremybamber.blogspot.com)

Eye-opening, ent? Especially seeing as we're a society which likes to cap things which belong in the public domain.

Maybe it's time we stop bamboozling and begin giving prison reform a serious shot?

Take aside, Subhas!

Over to you, Commissioner Martinez!

Give way! PNMDemons at work.

This is inspired by an unrelated email circulating the Net.

Every road user knows what this sign means, ent?

Not that long ago, in the days which, somehow, to many seem as misty as yore, One Manning's heartbeat became so blatant by our dollars that his heavy hand reverberated throughout the land, forcing every non-PNM person (human) to eat PNM's humble-pie, else eat dirt to survive. Remember? I do -for I broke a tooth chewing on a handful of melajo and still have grit stuck in my craw.

Thus it was for eight-and-a-half years, as we humans were forced to dine on dirt, while the PNM crowd feasted themselves to their hart's content. All the while, we humans seemed totally confused -we couldn't marshal our forces into one, though we experimented with gusto...with every conceivable metal too...someone even tried to to refashion what they thought was a duncey dalliance into a party hat made of copper. Remember? I do -I still have the memorabilia to show as proof.

Then came the First Tsunami, triggered by a deft piece of tectonic-plate rattling put down by a Gypsy, a Badgering-Ram, a Jackhammer and a namesake of mine. Remember that too? It was a tsunami reminiscent of the one the older heads used to describe had happened when Dr. Eric Williams entered the local political fray -sensing swiftly shifting sands, lickety-split he let down his bucket and, within two shakes of a duck's tail, he beat back a fragmented opposition in the race to become ruler of the land. That one I don't remember -I was a toddler then- nonetheless, as a topper-topper student of Caribbean history and Net surfer, I could rattle off the details with certified accuracy...but not now, later.

The First Tsunami is also like the ancient one, in that, within months of it happening, it resurrected, as if with...ahm...supernatural power, to overwhelm the land -except for Laventille and similar diehard outposts- like a true-true lavasse at times does to Port-au-Prince...or like how this next "Give Way" sign got his:

Now! Before you start asking, "Like RWT eh take he pills, or what? Cause, we're lost as to where he going with this discourse!", let me right-away delve into it, for what I want to ask is this:

We heading for the second anniversary. Whither, fellow human?

I see you're dumbstruck, so allow me to answer my stoopid question, okay?

Shortly after receiving a sound flogging, the Evil Master called a special convention of his demons. The venue was in a brand new auditorium, a snappily-bedecked one. As to the summoned, they came from the East, they came from the West! They came from the North, they came from the South! They came in all shapes and sizes too. Some grumbled (they were on their way to the airport to catch a flight to Panama, when they got the beep via Blackberry). Some mumbled (these were part of a Chinese delegation, so no local mediasphere nightowl covering the event could decipher what they were saying...except when one of them said "No see Hart?"). Others just sulked (of the lot, these made up the bulk).

In a huff and a puff, at the appointed hour (stroke of midnight, d'oh!) Il Capo swept his way onto the stage, mooned the audience (that's how demons greet) and, satisfied all eyes were upon him, swished over to the lectern to deliver his urgent spiel. A hush fell over the motley audience, if not prompted by the raising of his hand, then from what he spat out immediately on opening his speech.
"Comrades!" The Underworld Boss proclaimed, in shrill, blood-curdling a-la-rohj-ay tone, "I've summoned you here to discuss a matter of grave import, which, if not addressed, will mean Doomsday for us! This year, it's war, as never before!"

The audience stillness pervaded to such depths, one could hear precisely where a pin would drop were one to drop on the U$1,500.00 per sq. metre plush carpet floor, or a cock stretch and flap on the branch of the Silk Cotton tree near the Courthouse 2 km away.

The Villain Of The Piece continued, "Comrades! It is alleged the world's human population now numbers seven billion! And it's climbing fast! At the present rate, comrades, by the next All Souls' Night (and for the first time in our history), humans would outnumber demons! That means they could turn the tides on us -for, in numbers, there is strength and, as you all know, try as we might...and Lord knows we've tried... since the Dawn of Time we've neither been able to stop the God-fearing attending congregational worship, nor from reading their Scriptures in search of The Truth."

"How did we allow this to creep up upon us, comrades? And, is there a solution to the untenable situation? I say, yes! But, for you to understand, let me quickly identify the reason why we have not been able to take complete charge of the humans: We have been thinking inside the box for too long!"

"My beloved demons, how could I, the great deceiver, have been so led astray? We need to shift paradigms! The old way won't work! The question is, "How?"

"Well, I've done the homework and I have called you here today to tell you that all we need to do is focus on keeping the humans from forming an intimate relationship with The Boss Of Us All. Yall know once they gain that connection, our power over them is lost forever, ent?"

"So! How do we do that? How do we break that link?"

"Well, my take on it is, we let them go to their places of meeting, if they want...let them have all the Law Books that they want..but, make sure to steal their time! Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, you must distract them from gaining hold of The Real Issues and maintaining That Vital Connection so necessary for their ascendancy! Once you do that, they won't have time to develop a healthy relationship among themselves, far less for with The People, Who Is The Real Boss!"
"How does Il Nostro Capo expect us to do this?" his demons whispered to each other, as demons do, "The humans are so preoccupied with their electronic gadgets these days it's hard to get them to focus on anything serous!"
"Bingo! You've hit the nail on the head!" interrupted The Midnight Robber (he'd read their minds, as he well can do, they being crapos, after all), "If you bear with me I'll explain."

"We'll use their own whips to flog them into submission, as follows:

"Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life by inventing innumerable insidious schemes to occupy their minds! Tempt them to spend, spend, spend...and borrow, borrow, borrow to pay for the things on which they spend! Persuade wives and husbands, especially who have children of school age, to go to work for long hours...7 days each week preferably...12-16 hours a day -8 on the job, 6 commuting...so they can afford the empty lifestyle called La Dolce Vita! in other words, keep them from spending quality time with their gullible children. The added sweetener for us would be that as an institution, the human family would fragment and collapse, for quickly not a single human 'home' will be able to offer any escape from the pressures of work!"

"Also, over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear the Small Voices anymore and instead preoccupy themselves with maintaining and strengthening the status quo. Sway them away from wholesome planning and implementation by drowning them in the greasy, salty pipedreams we left behind, none one of which, try as they might, they would be able to commission!

Entice them to have only diatribe and lewdness jamming on their radios or I-Pods, to keep their TVs, DVD/CD players and PCs going constantly in every home, office or car, every office, store, taxi and restaurant, morning, noon and night! Pummel their minds with reality shows and negative and socially-divisive news 24-oh-7! (Even when in serious lockdown, Trini main pastime is party, wine and jam, doh forget!")

"So, as I was saying, disturb their focus by flooding the airwaves and Internet with doltishness, junk mail, dumbed-down fora 'discussions' that peddle lies, innuendo, false hopes and viruses of the virtual and real-life sort."

"In their official pronouncements, appointments and events, encourage them to give prominence to just-comers and soon they'll become dissatisfied with one another and the trailblazers will become overwrought by migraine!"
"You see, comrades, this year, it's war! But of a different kind! Tactics, comrades! Tactics is what will win this war for us! Once we get partners not to give each other the love and respect they need, they will soon begin to look elsewhere. That will flounder their 'ship' more quickly than you could say 'Jackson'!"

"Also, even when they take a timeout for their own recreation, let them be excessive rather than introspective, for Father Time has long told us that constant introspection is the only means whereby they could absorb energy necessary for renewal of franchise...at very minimal cost too. In other words, my lowlife Comrades, the key to our victory over the aspiring humans lies in us keeping them busy doing idle things!

"Remember, it's they who came up with the notion 'The Devil find work for idle hands', so, let's turn it to our advantage, shall we?"

At this, every demon turned to each other nodded in agreement.

Jab took a sip of hot water, then continued, "And if perchance there be humans who do meet for spiritual fellowship, disguise yourselves and sit in their midst to involve them in gossip and irrelevant talk, so that they leave with consciences more muddled than before."

"Oh! And don't forget this one! Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek Power from The Real Force. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family 'for the good of the cause'."

"I'm telling you, my fellow Despicable-angels, my scheme will work! It will work! Well? Don't I deserve a round of applause?"

The demons went into a frenzy -everyone was eager to take on their old assignments with the new twist. The techno-savvy of the lot eagerly tweeted of it (there were hundreds of demons on guard duty in Hades, thus couldn't attend in person, but were following proceedings by realtime online stream).

EPILOGUE
As to whether and how well the plan is working, you be the judge. All I know is, back then, when the tsunami swept across the landscape, the mood of all humans towards the PNM was signalled loud and clear:

But, nowadays, the waters having sufficiently subsided to afford a reasonable view of the changes, it's kind of alarming -downcouraging too- to see so many itinerant appointees of the former regime still running the routes.

If something's not done soon, soon even the most placid humans will start saying "PP" means nothing more than "Patrick's People", for every time we humans try to cash in some of our chips, we must:

How else to explain the heavy and heavy-handed Baleezay presence, except by saying it appears that while we weren't looking, the demons have not only mastered the underground, but, as the tsunami wanes, everything underwater too?

Dry Season beckons! Or, pure hell!

The Dry Season beckons! Now is the time to desilk desilt our watercourses and their egresses. Otherwise, when the Rainy Season arrives, we'll see pure hell.

I gone!

Abolish the silk trade!

I dreamt I was listening in on a Supreme Court matter in which some unnamed person was petitioning the court (coram) to rule whether silk ought to abolished. Thought you might wish to be a part of my dreams (to turn Trinbago into the paradise isles they were created to be, but, are not). Here goes!

The essence of the case
Are silks any longer relevant to any modern legal jurisprudence?

The current situation
To qualify for appointment as assessors of the artifice of all attorneys, judges and magistrates are themselves required to be attorneys. In Trinbago, though the legal professions were fused eons ago, attorneys are still legally-graded -there is Junior Counsel and there is Senior Counsel.

The distinction and privileges enjoined upon and enjoyed by the two have been already articulately and aggressively adumbrated, so no need here to detail them, except by reminding that, unsilked lawyers who become judges and magistrates always demure to their silk-clad brothers and sisters in law appearing before them, rather than regard them as mere supplicants. Furthermore, that in certain matters, it is required the litigants engage Senior Counsel...else, no case.

Clearly, the instant matter is of heavy import, for the ordinary citizen is the one who stands most to benefit by its resolution. For that purpose, the thinking here applied reaches outside the box rather than within cloistered quarters.

The precedents
One famous melodic adage advises:

Lean on me when you're not strong, I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on.

A prosed second that:

Out of evil, good sometimes cometh.

And, a prosed third, that:

Advocacy is a business whose stock in trade is the time and advice lawyers offer for sale

As a friend of what's right and proper, this coram has heavily heeded the latter two. Thus, it has decided the silk trade is so muddled there is need to hasten its rectification, for silk, being what it is, its purchase does not come cheap!

The decision
Let the Invisible Hand determine who is top dog in the advocacy business, the same way the Invisible Hand does with any other business that provides/offers goods and services to the buying public.

Nationally and internationally, Trinbago has long established and or portrayed itself as an open market economy. Indeed, many laws which offered preferential treatment to particular business interests have long been repealed, or, where not repealed, no longer enforced. In passing, this coram notes that nothing yet has been done to remove the Fuel Subsidy, though it is clear it benefits not those for whom it was intended.

To remove all doubt, the coram states its unanimous agreement that the Law has no business codifying professions in a manner that forces conjecture as to how and why such codes are set and enforced. Accordingly, any such practice by the Law, except as hereinabove ordered, must cease.

Layman's interpretation of what the above judgement means
So, Honourable Members of Parliament, having already defused the distinction -by fusing legal professions of barrister and solicitor into one- the time is come to make the necessary circle-completing constitutional rearrangements. And there is no better way to do that than by altogether abolishing the silk trade! With no silk trade, the clients decide who is the best attorney to suit their purpose, hence, by their fruit, not their suit, the attorneys themselves will have to demonstrate the mettle of their high-priced accolade.

On 7 January 2012 06:24, MFRahman <mfr1@tstt.net.tt> wrote:

MFRahman. 683 4698.  7/1/12.

Diminishing the CCJ.

“Precedent is no criterion for correctness.” Yet impropriety has its degrees and a speck in another’s eye is the greater magnified by him who surveys with a beam in his own.

What ought merely to have raised eyebrows received venom befitting criminal culpability from sanctimonious colleagues who were silent as lambs in serial precedent instances and worse whose own practices can ill afford scrutiny of similar degree.

Our silken road if ever it were trod by donkey carts was much so traversed by earlier luminaries whose vanities were never criticized least of all so vociferously as by current agitators.

The taint of political bias is flagrant in the current campaign that has forced the eminent Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Justice of Appeal Wendell Kangaloo to admit tacitly that they erred in judgment when they are innocent of having sought honour as their predecessors did.

Rather than cleanse the Judiciary of any imagined taint, the politically driven saboteurs have diminished the stature of two distinguished luminaries who did not stand to benefit basely from the accolade they received.

There are ways to accomplish rectification in camera, and any perception of irregularity ought to have been addressed thusly rather than publicly in the unseemly manner in which it was done.

There clearly is some vendetta against the CJ and JA that has manifested.
What cannot be disregarded is that the iconoclasts all live in glass houses and purport to stand on holier ground.

No ascendant CJ has ever relinquished his Silk, no temporary Judge has ever suspended his Silk, and no SC his ever surrendered  his Silk after being humiliated by the Privy Council for immature Counsel.

Hypocrisy has laboured to slander innocent men.

With such a skewed and vicious perspective demonstrated by its head, the CCJ has found itself plunged into diminution in some eyes.

The ship of Justice has foundered on the shoals of political expediency as criticism intended against the political directorate has exploded within its hallowed stateroom.

The wider issues of propriety regarding legal recipients such as PM, AG, DPP and others are dealt with in detail in the statement by new SC Mr. Surendranath Capildeo and need not be repeated. One hopes that these will stand their ground as firmly as others have been allowed to by the earlier approving silence of current dissidents.

A misperceived indiscretion has been made scandalous by men who preferred to urge on a donkey cart across our luminous legal highway.

The continuing contributions through our learned CJ’s publications, essentially Higher Counsel of the loftiest order, cannot now be appropriately recognized. Outstanding Judges who must rubbish SC’s arguments must do so from a disadvantaged position.

The arguments of compromising judiciary status is patently specious since any award by the state must have the same effect.

Hypocrisy and slander have temporarily become the stock in trade of a few. Mature reflection has been aborted and reason has fled to brutish beasts.

MFRahman.