The Hand I Fan With

Take It To the Lord In Prayer

2009-01-01T15:36:00.009-05:00

It is always in amazement that some people look on black people, at how religious they are. I mean it must be a curious thing to see black people so steadfast in their Christian belief and in a white God/Jesus, used for centuries as part of a strategy to subjugate them.

The thing that is missed most is that that these people often have no where else to go. For the last five centuries African peoples all over this world have been a people oppressed. They have seen much misery -sometimes of their own making. There has been no other place of refuge, no psychologist accessible or counselor affordable. No other option for sharing and laying down burdens, failures, trials and tribulations but with the Saviour, Allah or what have you.

For Africans in the America's this is especially pronounced. When they say "Take It to the Lord in Prayer", they really do mean it. For them there is nowhere else to go! Just a listen to African American gospel music is a study in inadvertent self counseling, self-treatment, self-healing. The gospel songs do not have to be written by them but they will be adopted and arranged to suit their special vocal stylings if the main theme is closely related to "... Lay{ing} Your Heavy Burden, Down By The River Side".

One of my all-time favourites is "His Eye Is On The Sparrow" penned by two white songwriters and voiced, adopted and popularized in the African American cultureby two black women Mahalia Jackson and Ethel Waters. Two women’s whose biographies read like bleak Greek tragedies.

His Eyes Is On The Sparrow

Why should I feel discouraged

Why should the shadows come

Why should my heart feel lonely

And long for heaven and home

When Jesus is my portion

A constant friend is He

His eye is on the sparrow

And I know He watches over me

His eye is on the sparrow

And I know He watches me

I sing because I'm happy

I sing because I'm free

His eye is on the sparrow

And I know He watches me

His eye is on the sparrow

And I know He watches

I know He watches

I know He watches me

Now that is powerful motivation to get up on days you don't think you can make it through the next minute. But knowing this you put one foot in front of the other and a smile on your face to make it through another day. Mentally and figuratively pushing back the shadows, the darkness or depression. Pushing through, to see a brighter day in spite of all the bleakness. Hmmmnn....POWERFUL!

Here is my favourite modern rendition of the song by Tanya Blount & Lauryn Hill.

Tanya Blount & Lauryn Hill: His Eye Is On The Sparrow

Another gospel powerhouse of a song that is a modern favourite in African-American circles is :"This Battle Is The Lord's" written by V. Michael Mckay and sung and popularized by Yolanda Adams.

This Battle Is The Lord's

There is no pain, Jesus can't feel

There is no hurt, that He can not heal

For all things work according to the Master's purpose and His holy will

No matter what are you going thru,

Remember that God only wants a chance to use you

For the battle is not yours, it's the Lord's

There's no sadness, Jesus can not feel

And there is no sorrow, that the master is not able and willing to heal

Remember that all things work they're not gonna be all good

But they're shall work according to God's purpose and his holy will

No matter what, no matter what you're going thru

Remember God sees all and he knows all

And all he wants to do is use you

For this Battle is not yours,
It's the Lord’s

Gerald Campbell: It is the Lord's

Here is young Gerald Campbell giving it his all. I don't know if he can relate to "no matter what you are going through" but he continues in the tradition of letting down all the pain at the feet of Jesus, taking it to the Lord in prayer. Self-Healing, Self-treatment, Self-determination? Hmmmnnnn......Not so foolish or quaint now is it? Rather you may now understand the function of Jesus, Christianity and gospel music in African culture, more so the African American culture. It is a matter of maintaining sanity and survival. WONDERFUL SELF-PRESERVATION

Modern Technology Encourages Group Think and Dampens Individual Creativity?

2007-12-10T12:15:00.007-05:00

It has happened on many websites, blogs and discussion forums that I've been on. People seem to eventually say the same things, maybe with different words, but you have read it somewhere else, written it yourself or had a conversation with someone about it.

I have asked myself whether as you read and share with people if you are not taking on their ideas; if the originality of thought and ideas are not severely compromised by these interactions? I guess it is the same for song writers and other creative people as well. Access to other people's work is so easy with the internet which bombards us with videos, lyric etc and various technologies that allow unrestricted sampling and recreations. How does one ensure that others work is inspiration and not the template from which one develops his/her work? How does one create space to be or remain unique and their authentic self?

Today I listened to Pink's splendid rendition of her song Dear Mr. President and I thought well she is brave. But she probably has picked the right time to criticize the President since his ratings are at an all-time low and the War on Terror is not as popular among Americans. The Dixie Chicks on the other hand suffered from a serious case of bad timing .

Pink's Dear Mr. Presdient

But what really struck me most about Pink's performance is how remarkably similar the idea and message of Dear Mr. President is to Tanya Stephens' Turn The Other Cheek. I am not accusing Pink of copying Tanya but rather commenting on how technology now makes it really easy to do so, even when one is probably unaware that they are doing it.

Tanya Stephens: Turn The Other Cheek

We should have been so lucky when as children, my siblings and I used to write lyrics for songs from cassette recordings. Only we would find later on, that we had written completely different lyrics from the original: almost a brand new song to the same tune! The lyrics we penned and thought we heard, were often more reflective of our sensibilities, culture, outlook etc than the literal intent of original writer's.

Whatever the case may be with Dear Mr. President, I am encouraged that there are modern artists who are not afraid of doing socially conscious songs. It is good to see it aint all about booty, love lost, bling, whose bank account is bigger, who is the real gangster, player etc. I love this song and video. Go on Pink!

A COMPUTER PER CHILD? IS IT POSSIBLE?

2007-10-13T13:08:00.001-04:00

SUB-$100 LAPTOP DESIGN UNVEILED

Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Labs, has been outlining designs for a sub-$100 PC.

The laptop will be tough and foldable in different ways, with a hand crank for when there is no power supply.

Professor Negroponte came up with the idea for a cheap computer for all after visiting a Cambodian village.His non-profit One Laptop Per Child group plans to have up to 15 million machines in production within a year. A prototype of the machine should be ready in November at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia.

Children in Brazil, China, Egypt, Thailand, and South Africa will be among the first to get the under-$100 (£57) computer, said Professor Negroponte at the Emerging Technologies conference at MIT.

The following year, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney plans to start buying them for all 500,000 middle and high school pupils in the state. Professor Negroponte predicts there could be 100 million to 150 million shipped every year by 2007

VIRTUALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE

The laptops will be encased in rubber to make them more durable, and their AC adaptors will also act as carrying straps. The Linux-based machines are expected to have a 500MHz processor, with flash memory instead of a hard drive which has more delicate moving parts.

The laptop will be more rugged and flexible than ordinary ones. They will have four USB ports, and will be able to connect to the net through wi-fi - wireless net technology - and will be able to share data easily.

It will also have a dual-mode display so that it can still be used in varying light conditions outside. It will be a colour display, but users will be able to switch easily to monochrome mode so that it can be viewed in bright sunlight, at four times normal resolution.

When Professor Negroponte saw the benefits of donated notebook PCs that Cambodian children could carry around with them, he immediately set about planning the sub-$100 machines.

The project has some big-name supporters on board, including Google, which is working on thin-client applications. Thin client computing means several machines can share programs when linked up to a central "brain", or server.

Making them so cheap would mean that developing nations would be able to afford to bulk-buy them, although Professor Negroponte thinks that even $100 remains too expensive for some.
He said he is committed to the idea that children all over the world should be equipped with technology so that they can tap into the educational and communications benefits of the net.

Power is a big issue for developing nations in particular when it comes to technology, which is why the hand crank will be fitted to supply extra juice when it is needed.

By using innovative technologies, such as electronic ink displays, the MIT team thinks it can reduce power consumption even further on the computers. Such displays require very little power to work.

SIMILAR GADGETS

There have been several projects to build and distribute cheap computers for developing nations in order to close the digital divide.

A sub-£100 box, called Nivo, has been developed by UK not-for-profit group, Ndiyo. It runs on open source software and works as a thin client.

The Simputer has also been developed for developing nations. It is a cheap handheld computer designed by Indian scientists.

Source: BBC NEWS

ABC NEWS ITEM ON LAPTOP

AROUND THE WORLD FOR FREE

2007-10-13T13:04:00.001-04:00

As it always seems, there is someone in the western world who does not have to preoccupy himself with the mundane, like feeding a family and paying the mortgage and is therefore free to do something exhilarating and out of this world.

This time it is lucky Alex, an American with his camera crew, who is attempting to go around the world for free. The adventure is basically the three member crew traveling to as many countries, especially the unbeaten paths, without paying much money.

Modern internet technology through video clips and a website has made it possible for them to share almost instantaneously with the rest of the world their adventures. They also broadcast their adventures weekly, on the Early Show of ABC, the US television network.

So far the trip which started in New York City has gone through, South Carolina, Florida, Puerto Rico, USVIs, BVIs and now he is in Dominica. The last four or five videos relate to Dominica. So take a peak, enjoy your lovely home and maybe you will get to see some of the interesting places Alex stops in, if you continue to follow his journey.

I find the fact that he is finding it difficult to leave Dominica, good commentary on the international transportation access situation in and out of here. It is very limited and so expensive; very difficult for someone who is traveling without money.

Around the World for Free

Fearless Shirley-Black N White Thursday

2007-05-24T23:04:00.000-04:00

I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish.

I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself.

Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.

At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.

Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.

Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency.

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.

Brother Malcolm-Black N White Thursday

2007-05-24T21:29:00.000-04:00

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

"My alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."

"If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary."

"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time."

Propositioned with corned fish

2007-05-14T22:36:00.002-04:00

HaHa! Well I have been laughing to myself every time I remember this incident which happened almost first thing in my workday today.

I am in my office and the secretary calls to say that one of the construction workers on the project outside my office building, wants to see me. Now I parked my van sort of unusual, so I thought it was about that he must want to see me. So I let him in.

I am at this time preparing for my regular Monday morning staff meeting and would not have allowed interruptions ordinarily. But I thought just a few minutes and I would deal with this. In walks one of the workers not in usual construction work clothes but street clothes. I recognize him because every morning I come to work he makes it a point to say hi. He will walk closer to where I park just to make sure he tells me good morning.

So now I am curious to know what he wants. I see it is not my vehicle that is the concern...I am wondering maybe he has come to seek assistance under the project I manage, as that is what we do..help improve income earning possibilities for rural producers.

I would have never have guessed what he had on his mind though. He asked, "Do you eat corned fish?" I nearly burst out laughing but I contained myself. I ask instead with a straight face "Corned fish?" And he went into a long explanation about how he catches rock fish and then cleans and salts and dries it in the sun etc. And if I would like some as he is known to do some of the best corned fish around.

This was so unexpected and as he spoke I am asking myself “Does this guy have a loose screw? Can I tell him am not interested in his corned fish and that I am quite busy? Will he lose it? Is he a stalker kind? How do I manage this situation?" I am in a strange place not home and it aint easy trying to decipher who is who in this place. Generally, Grenadians are quite friendly and hospitable people but I have been warned by they themselves to be very careful nonetheless. Grenada is changing a lot and not for the better is the general warning.

So I finally decide to tell him, yes, I would be interested in corned fish and I would buy it from him. He was not interested in taking my money for his corned fish. It was a gift from him to a nice lady. "Whey papa!" is my thought.

I eventually managed to get him to leave by telling him I was quite busy preparing for a meeting. But that was not before he made it clear however that he would like to get to know me better and whether I had kids and a few other questions? To those questions I responded by saying that he asks a lot of questions, thank you for the offer of corned fish, that I would accept the first as a gift and pay him for any more after and that I was very very busy.

After my meeting when I had had some time to reflect on the offer, I wondered how long he took to come up with that angle. I really do hope for my sake he is healthy mentally, 'cause I do not want to have any drama to deal with outside the office. I have enough at work as it is.

Haven't Been Around

2007-02-24T21:09:00.000-05:00

I have been tres busy with a new job, planning a village reunion and renewal and maintaining a website for that effort. So I have had Zero time to do much else.

Plus the new job relocated me to another Caribbean island and Internet access at home has taken four months to get going. So it has been a no go for here. I had even forgotten my password and had to get a new one.

Well I think at the end of March I should have some time to put down some of my thoughts on things I find interesting. But I will be popping in to just make a short update like this one before that.

Well I eh even know if anybody still comes here to read but this was always more about me being forced to put my thoughts out their in an organized fashion and giving myself some much needed writing practice.

Selah

It is unseemly, disgusting and sickening!

2006-06-09T21:55:00.001-04:00

On June 2, 3006 UNAIDS report for the Caribbean revealed that AIDS-related illnesses are the leading cause of death for people ages 15 to 44 in the Caribbean, accounting for 27,000 deaths in 2005,. Further although Bahamas, Barbados, the Dominican Republic and Haiti showed they had "dented the progress of HIV" that region still remained seconds only to Africa as it regards infection rates.

More alarming data from the UNAIDS reports show that at the end of 2005 approximately 330,000 HIV-positive people were living in the Caribbean. Particularly,
-22,000 of whom were children
-51% of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region are women
- an estimated 37,000 new HIV cases were reported in the Caribbean in 2005
-12% of reported HIV cases in the Caribbean result from homosexual and unprotected sex.
-in region only 25% of people needing antiretroviral drugs was receiving them
- In Trinidad and Tobago, females ages 15 to 19 were six times as likely to be HIV-positive than their male counterparts
-In Jamaica, females of the same age group were 2.5 times as likely to be HIV-positive than males of the same age group

The also indicated that poverty and vulnerability of women as some of the contributing factors for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the region.

The good news from the report include
-varying levels of HIV prevalence ranging from 0.1% in Cuba to more than 3% in the Bahamas and Haiti.
-Guyana, a country in which AIDS-related illnesses are the no. 1 cause of death among people ages 25 to 44, had an HIV prevalence of 2.4% in 2005
-the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean has been relatively stable over the past few years, with heterosexual sex accounting for the majority of HIV transmissions in the region

Well the writing has been on the wall in big bright red letters for a while. It is not like the people did not already have a fair idea what is happening. Yet we as a region continue to pretend and behave as if HIV/AIDS are not real issues.

I still see relatively young girls pregnant and not married, not even having a steady man. Young men generally don't want to use a condom. You must force your pattern most times and once they become comfortable as in having regular sex both parties often forgo the condom. I see women who as soon as they are away on a course or seminar hook-up with a man they have met for the first for those two weeks etc.
We are just not recognizing the monster that lurks among us. I guess we will treat this disease, like how we have treated diabetes, hypertension and the other chronic "black diseases" which plague our region. We will spend a pretty pound on the cure rather than a smart penny on the prevention.

We are happy people who don't like to bother with reality. Is World Cup that matters now…no talk of HIV/AIDS as it relates to that either, although cool Mello the mascot rocks his red ribbon without fail.

POOR US!

A New Pastime: Turtle Watching

2006-05-13T00:00:00.000-04:00

For the last three nights environmentalists/conservationists, turtle watchers, Canadian scientists, forest rangers and curious on-lookers have been flocking to the black sand beaches, stretching from Cabana to Melville Hall, just outside my village, to see leatherback turtles come ashore to nest.

The female turtles come in, dig a whole in which to bury thousands and thousands of eggs and then return to the ocean, leaving the eggs to hatch and the young turtles to brave the elements on their own.

There is much folklore about this natural phenomenon. There are those who point out the dark clouds in the sky, claiming that they are signs of the large amphibian coming ashore. They explain with conviction that when the clouds darken, the rain drizzles heavily and there is some lightning, it means that the creatures are near shore. They also claim that turtles prefer to lay their eggs in the black sands because the heat the sand provides high temperatures during the day to hatch the eggs. I am sure they have stories about the why the turtles come from the Atlantic waters as oppose to calmer Caribbean sea, but I guess I switched off after a while.

Whatever the truth about the natural occurrences that signal the turtles' arrival, people's interest has been heightened. Young and old come in the 100s to see for themselves. They wait long hours too, to get a glimpse of the creatures. Turtles coming on the sand to lay and bury their eggs has happened probably since the formation of the islands but for some strange reason people have taken keen interest in the natural wonder now.

The first night reports indicated that two turtles waited to come ashore until after most of the 100 or so on-lookers had left. The turtles seem to be spooked by the large numbers of people and the noise. The only lucky watchers were the watchers who were patient enough to wait.

For night two, even more people came but only one was seen and it came ashore to lay its eggs in the wee hours of the morning. On the third night I went to see too but in spite of the moonlit beach, several darkenings of the skies and drizzle, I still did not get lucky. The following morning I was told that indeed one had come in for nesting but it was about 2:00am in the morning when it made its appearance.

Check out Rosalie Sea Turtle Initiative (RosTI) the Dominica program for the protection and sustainable use of the sea turtles.

Read here

What?!

2006-05-09T22:34:00.000-04:00

That is all I could say right after I heard the story I am about to relay.

The parents of some students of a secondary school are taking the school to court for punishing its entire fifth-form class after some pretty out of hand behavior by a few students. I think the group punishment was that there would be no graduation for the entire Class of 2006. Some parents have expressed their opposition to what they think is an unreasonable action by the school. It appears complaints to school authorities have gotten them no satisfaction and so they have threatened to take the school to court. Yup! The parents are suing the school!

But the most amazing part of the story is not even this although it is pretty far-out. I wonder if anybody can guess what the original offense committed by the few was. Well the Roman Catholic affiliated school had organized a spiritual retreat for its most senior students. It is a tradition of sort among RC schools here. Anyways the retreat was on and it probably presented an opportunity for introspection by the majority of students. But some of the students of the all-girl school were not having any of that. Spiritual, smiritual...Introspec-wha?

Haahaaa…some girls had other ideas about what they should be doing for the weekend and they were eventually caught sharing among themselves a marijuana cake and porn magazines. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Bad girls! Hahahaha ...I had to laugh the first time I heard the story. But my initial reaction was "WHAT?!"

I mean can't imagine me or any of my peers doing that when we were fifth-formers, which seems like eons ago considering what the kids think they can get away with now. Maybe a page or so of soft porn but a whole flicking marijuana cake?! I mean what the hell was going through these kids’ minds?

But back to the suing parents....The school now is shamed in the public especially because they are an RC run school and they are upset about having the whole purpose of the retreat shot to hell and back. The Principal and school authority then hand down the harsh sentence of no graduation but not to the offending few, mind you. All fifth-formers get to share in the sentence!

And so now some parents, who feel that their children were not involved and had worked hard for graduation, are now fighting the school’s judgment in a court of law. As to whether things can be resolved amicably before it gets too far or whether the parents are just calling bluff is left to be seen. In my opinion, I think the parents may have some reason to gripe though. That group punishment thing is silly especially if you know the culprits and that no graduation is a big black mark on the students’ record if they did nothing wrong. It is case of Petra paying for Paula. Not Fair!

Windsor Parks Sports Stadium: Gift or Burden?

2006-04-16T10:05:00.000-04:00

In Dominica the average sports fan, more so cricket fans, will be elated come December 2006, the carded end of construction of the Windsor Park Sports Stadium. The stadium is a gift worth EC$33 million, from The People’s Republic of China to the Government and People of Dominica.

The mostly cricket stadium located in downtown Roseau will be of International Cricket Council (ICC) standard and will accommodate state-of-the-art facilities which include among others 10,000 seats, a media centre, practice nets, players’ complex, digital score boards and five cricket pitches. The young and aspiring cricketer should be ecstatic because after decades of empty promises, the cricket stadium is finally a reality. The Government of Dominica should be and probably are proud that they could deliver this facility, without burdening the Dominica Treasury.

So all looks well finally in Dominica as far as the sport of cricket goes? After all, cricket is one of the more popular games in the Caribbean. There is already regional management and physical infrastructure for the game in the Caribbean. It brings in revenue to countries which host international tests and one day international (ODIs). Just ask the tourism departments in Antigua and Barbados to get firm facts of the economic spin-offs that are derived from hosting international games, especially versus England and Australia. Additionally the Texan/Antiguan billionaire and businessman' Allen Stanford' has introduced his multi-million dollar annual 20/20 tournament. On the surface cricket infrastructure looks a good investment for any Caribbean country.

But is it so for Dominica? Is the new stadium going to impact our tourism industry and the economy positively? How will the stadium support itself? Well, maybe answering the questions to follow may help the reader to decide.

Q1.With the new stadium will we be able to host any Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC07) matches? The Government having officially indicating in April 2005 to WICB, their interest in being involved in CWC07.

My Answer: No. It is too late for us to benefit from CWC07. The awards for hosting the CWC07 games were handed out in July 2004. Moreover, Dominica did not submit a bid.

Further, the completion date for the stadium is Dec 06, just over two months before the actual the mid-March CWC07 Opening Ceremony. Even if Dominica had placed a bid we would most likely have been turned down. St. Vincent’s bid was turned down b/c they did not have enough hotel rooms on St. Vincent and because they do not have an international airport.

They managed however to get some practice games b/c they at least have night landing up to 11pm at night and an ICC endorsed cricket stadium which they have repaired and upgraded just for the practice matches. Unlike St. Vincent, we have no international airport, no night landing to talk of and approximately 300 hundred international standard hotel rooms! Last but not least Dominica is not a traditional cricket venue as opposed to a country like Guyana who also has accommodations problems. In the history of West Indies cricket Dominica hosted one ODI in 1977/78 at the very Windsor Park.

Q2. Would we not be able to host CWC07 matches if something happens to one or more of the selected stadiums, for example damage during hurricane season 2006?

My Answer: Well there is a small chance, a very tiny chance that is. But for how many hurricane seasons over the last two decades was Dominica spared while other islands were hit? If we are lucky to have a repeat of hurricane season 2005 this year then maybe, but Bermuda is already lined-up as the ICC official back-up venue. In the case where there is need for more than one back-up stadium, we would probably be lucky if the whole tournament is not moved to South Africa or Australia. If it remains in the Caribbean we would have to stand in line behind a second stadium in T&T and other bid submitters in Bermuda, St. Vincent and Florida. Yeah a small chance in hell is right.

Q3. So what about hosting practice games or games between the fans? There has been some discussion with WICB World Cup Committee in this regard?

My Answer: From where I sit, I don’t know which rational fan would come for practice or fans games when they can't get out in the evenings after the games are over and into their rooms in St. Lucia and Antigua. Where would we put them? We might as well scratch that idea. If we were to host any of the practice or fans games we would be again sitting behind places such as St. Vincent, Bermuda and Florida and maybe even grounds in St. Marten with FC grounds and easy air access.

Q4. Ok forget about CWC07. You can say we've missed that boat. How about other events like the World Creole Music Festival (WCMF) and regular cricket tours post CWC07?

My answer: I don't see how we can just forget it (CWC07). Any stadium in the Caribbean that misses that boat has basically missed it all. When again will any cricket venue in the Caribbean be able earn a significant surplus to buoy upkeep and maintenance costs in future slow periods?

But on to other possible revenue streams, WCMF and cricket tours. If one talks to the organizers of WCMF they will understand that the biggest stumbling block to attracting the big bands, larger numbers of visitors and also international media to Dominica for WCMF is the sad state of our air access.

It is just simply murder getting into and leaving Dominica around festive times. The big names don’t even bother. Again the absence of an international airport or having only very limited night access is the recurring problem. Until air access is improved I can say with certainty that all we will experience is just a transferred small festival, crowd and bands, to a bigger venue.

In regards to international cricket teams touring the Caribbean to keep ICC commitments, we will stand behind the more popular and traditional venues in Guyana, Jamaica, T&T and Barbados. As it is Antigua, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia even St. Kitts will be in front of us as well and for nothing else but our problematic air access. It is important to note also that the Government of Dominica has indirectly given 2030 as the year for the start of construction of an international airport.

One also has to factor into all this, the low rank of West Indies team in ICC world cricket standings. The number 8 position out of 10 test teams means that most touring teams will most likely not play more than 4 test matches in the region. For the six-year period 2000-05 for example, the West Indies played 35 tests and 48 ODIs at home. This averages at just fewer than 6 test matches and 8 ODIs per year. For the Future ICC tour programme 2006-2012, I have estimated, from the total scheduled matches for West Indies, that they will play 5 tests and 9 or 10 ODIs per year at home. Do the math. We will have ten other venues besides Dominica’s post CWC07.

This means that even with a possible 10 ODIs per year scheduled for future home tours, the matches will have to be shared among eleven venues. Without the night access and hotel rooms we are hamstrung in our ability to compete with other Caribbean stadiums and this therefore may restrict Windsor Park Sports Stadium ability to earn income from even ODIs.

Zimbabwe and India will be here in 2006, but WICB has already scheduled the venues for these tours. Given the moves afoot in India to sidestep the ICC future programme, in order to play more matches against the more lucrative English & Australian teams, one would be hard pressed to put much faith in the ICC schedule beyond 2006. Additionally Australia has already indicated that they will not tour the West Indies in 2007. So that leaves England only for 2007 and those matches go to the traditional venues in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana. These games will be lucrative and they (the big four) have the power advantage in West Indies cricket. None of the other teams draw crowds to venues and so we might be granted some ODIs for the Bangladesh and Sri Lanka tours in 2008.

Q5. Prime Minister Skerritt had responded to pessimists at the start of construction of the Windsor Park Stadium by saying and I quote: "The question is would we prefer to have the Windsor Park in the state it is and nobody can make use of it?" Would one prefer to keep the eyesore that existed or accept the generous gift from the People's Republic of China of an international cricket stadium?

My Answer: Without an international airport in the near future, this Windsor Park Sports Stadium is just a waste of a showcase infrastructure in the short-term. I predict it will morph into a white elephant eventually. Do we have any idea what it will cost to up-keep the stadium? I don’t think any thought has gone into plans for transforming the stadium in order that it is utilized for other revenue generating purposes outside cricket and possibly football. I doubt whether anybody has looked that far ahead but the most important business of the stadium's management should be generating revenue from the facility. Without proper night access into Dominica at least, they are severely handicapped.

Maintenance will be a major cost to come from just having the stadium but it will not be the only cost to Dominica. Maybe it would have served us better to establish a park, another green-quiet zone in the city, with a few benches and trees. The location of the stadium is not ideal as it is down town Roseau. Granted it is in a corner of the capital but it is estimated that when the stadium is in operation, serious traffic congestion will be experienced.

The stadium is also located near the Roseau River but in spite of this there is strong suspicion that there was no full-fledged environmental impact assessment conducted for the stadium. It appears that the effects of stadium waste, traffic etc on the river have been left for discovery after they actually occur. I guess the Roseau River is something we are prepared to lose even if both landmarks could coexist. It is practically dry as it is but maybe there are plans in the pipeline to restore the river. Interestingly this year has been declared the year of the rivers by one of the more active local environmentalist NGOs. So anything is possible, I guess.

Another interesting matter is that new stadiums according to ICC requirements since 9/11 should have a perimeter buffer zone for security purposes. It is not coincidence that most of the new stadiums are built out in open areas away from the congestion of capital cities. Whatever the depth of the buffer zone, it is practically impossible to achieve it here, as Windsor Park Sports Stadium has neighboring buildings that include the Dominica Grammar School, The Government Headquarters/Ministerial Building, public main roads and the Financial Complex to name a few.

Finally it has been intimated that in order to supply the stadium with electricity/power for night events it would require that the entire capital and its environs be without power. In other words, Roseau will experience a black-out whenever the stadium is in use at night.

Call me a pessimist or party pooper, but from my analysis of information available to me on the Windsor Park Sports Stadium, it appears it may go from gift to burden in no time, more so if air access into Dominica is not significantly improved.

I know black men who hate on Oprah

2006-04-11T19:47:00.000-04:00

I often wonder why so many black men hate on Oprah so much. Well I guess she is not in the physically beautiful league of a Pam Grier, Lena Horne, Halle Berry, Vanessa Williams, Janet Jackson etc. The above women among many others are the women black men tend to hold up as attractive. It seems that most black men think that physically both Oprah and Whoopi for example are as attractive as a donkey's behind. I think both these women are beautiful in their own right and therefore I don't agree with these men but I understand. In the real world it is in this way most men's preferences are shaped. So I concede on the attractiveness quotient bit.

Oprah however is a woman who, like many black women even if they are only successful at having raised some kids into upstanding contributing citizens, has done wonderfully well for herself, by herself and most importantly with lots and lots of hard work. She has achieved and achieved big and is a mover and shaker in the world. So why no credit for that? Why do most men have to hate on the sistah so much?

Granted I don't agree with everything Oprah espouses. I often find that her politics and mine are diametrically opposite but I understand. I understand her environment, where she has come from and what she has to do achieve. I forgive her because she always intends well and I recognize the good things she does, the good part of all her work that outweighs the bad for the most part.

Does this hate of Oprah by some black men stem from the same place that gave and continue to give Alice Walker good licks for her work in Color Purple, or Toni Morrison in Bluest Eye or Terry McMillan in Waiting to Exhale? It appears once you start to open up the discussion of how men (black men more so) treat their women and ask questions of these men and the status quo, you become public enemy number one?

It seems that black women no matter how successful must bare whatever is her assigned role in private and grin but remain silent in public. Why can't black women with strong voices raise questions about incest, rape and child sexual abuse where the black man is the perpetrator? Why can't they talk about the type of black man who will knowingly father a child and leave the woman holding all the responsibility for it? The type of black man who will start a family and then just ups and leaves never looking back. Why is it blasphemy to talk about black women's experiences at the hands of unreasonable, mean black men (husbands, fathers, boyfriends etc)just because they hold the purse strings? Why is it taboo for women who have powerful voices to deal in the open with violence and abuse suffered by black women at the hands of black men?

I have come to believe that it must be for this reason that some black men hate on Oprah so much. It can't be that they think that she has sold out; there are tons of sucessful black men who care jack shit about black people, who have done fuck-all for any black person after they arrived and they are adored among other black men. They are held up for all they have accomplished.

So what gives?

Vanishing People....A Village Dying?

2006-02-02T11:46:00.000-05:00

Twice recently I have felt in the pit of my stomach the dread I must have felt the days surrounding my father's death. I was three when my pops passed but I know that event made an indelible mark on my psyche because that feeling of dread would overcome me every time I happened on death or funerals. Mark you, the funeral did not have to be of a very good friend or close family member to awaken such a visceral reaction. An accidental meeting of a funeral procession was enough.

So who died recently? Whose funeral? Well it is not who but what and I really don't know if it is a death or a major transformation. That dreadful feeling has reared its ugly head not in signal of an actual funeral but for a vanishing people and maybe for a village dying. I have been looking closely at the village where I was born and raised; my immediate neighborhood and the whole village. Recently I even had the opportunity to accompany my mother on her visits to some shut-ins in the village. What I am uncovering certainly reminds me of my friend's desolate ancestral village in Kenya.

To be accurate, two days ago as I watered some newly planted hedge in the yard of my family home it hit me. My village, my home is fast becoming a replica of my Kenyan friend's. On my visit there in 2000, my friend pointed out the number of homesteads that were empty and others where there were only young children and grandmothers. Even worse there were quite a few homesteads where only young related orphans fended for themselves. The HIV/AIDS pandemic had rendered the place, where her parents spend most of their retired days and her once alive and vibrant ancestral home, a ghost town!

Finally I understood my friend's compulsion to point out the empty and near empty homesteads in her village. I would not have otherwise known it had not always been like that. She was not just noting the impact of AIDS/HIV on her community but most likely sharing her deep sense of loss and sorrow for her vanishing people, her dying home.

What is interesting about my circumstance is that it is not the AIDS/HIV pandemic that is laying waste the population of my home village but migration; internal and external. From a cursory count of the homes that existed in my immediate childhood neighborhood, the number of children per household averaged around six. Now the majority of these homes are empty. The people who grew up here and their children are gone and their parents have died or are in their twilight.

The first wave of the exodus which really started in late 50s, though significant was not as acutely felt. Those who left the village went away for secondary school and later jobs in the capital. Back then, not every household was fortunate enough to have a member make that transition. Of those who lived mainly in the capital there was always family and friends to bring them back. Moreso entire families did not leave following them.

It was a few decades later in 1979, after Hurricane David destroyed the island, that the serious exodus to other countries started. With no employment and a severly affected banana industry, the main source of income in my village, young persons just out of school left in search of opportunities in places such as Antigua, Tortola, St. Martin, Guadeloupe and North America. As they settled and made a life for themselves in these places they encouraged and made way for siblings and other family to join them. And so the reproductive portion of my village has gradually relocated to other parts.

The inability of successive governments to turn around the deteriorating economic conditions and more so the banana industry since Hurricane David, has not helped stem the outflow. Those who had left children behind with grandmothers, clear them out as soon as they finish secondary and sometimes primary school. The primary school I attended as a child for example now hosts less than 50% of its capacity. The registered student population has dwindled from about 400 in the early 90s to less 200 today. The entire top floor of the school remains unoccupied during the normal school day.

The houses which used to be full and overflowing, when my siblings and I were children, are mostly empty or are home to mainly older and sickly persons. Young, productive and verile villagers are in the minority. The children make up the numbers but their numbers continue to decrease.

Maybe, just maybe, it is change and not death which is transforming the landscape of my village. Right now two neighborhood houses have been turned in business places; one a cable company's office and the other is home to a pharmacy, restaurant, the village library and a doctor's and dentist office.

What is undisputable though is that the people are vanishing, the numbers are dwindling. The women who remain don't have nearly as many children as their mothers and grandmothers. Imagine, the AIDS pandemic is yet to unleash its wrath on us (God forbid if it ever does) and we are already staggering. My village home is vanishing.

The Parrots of Dominica

2006-01-14T12:58:00.000-05:00

Isn't it a beaut? This is the national bird of Dominica. Its scientific name is Imperial Amazon. It is found only in Dominica and local name is Sisserou, the Carib word for parrot.

The Sisserou parrots on Dominica all but disappeared after the passage of Hurricane David in 1979. Scientists believed that only about 50 of them remained on the island after the destructive storm. As such Dominican Forestry and Wildlife officials had to wait until 2000 to get a glimpse of the huge parrot in its stumping ground, the Morne Diablotin National Park.

The Sisserou parrot resides mainly in the thick rain forest reserve situated at the foot of Dominica's highest peak [4,747 ft, Morne Diablotin]. The parrot shares the lower elevation of its home with the other equally popular Jacko Parrot. The Jacko Parrot or the Amazona Arausiaca is smaller than the Sisserou and is also endemic to Dominica.

Dominica is lucky in that these two parrots of the Amazon species have survived to this day. Parrots almost identical to the Sisserou, on Martinique and Guadeloupe, were made extinct in the 1800s. The size of the Sisserou prevents it from flying long distances. It is said that fly like a duck. The Parrots survival therefore requires that their natural habitat, the rain forest of tall trees, is maintained. [Shamefully this is something Dominican leadership seem to ignore; considering that is, the developmental activities they promote.]

The Jacko Parrot derives its name from the Jacko Flats, the area where it was first observed. Jacko Flats is an old maroon camp named after the famous runaway African slave and camp leader Jacko; who escaped into the rain forest soon after his arrival from Africa in the 1760s. Jacko, the aging rebel maroon, was killed some forty years later at Jacko Flats. So two beautiful and resilient parrots get the honour of bearing names associated with powerful and courageous people.

Of Q-Tip and Wutliss Luv

2006-01-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

Wutliss luv I define as what ordinary women do when they fall in luv with some star or personality who they will never meet or know. Like how some women just luvs them a Denzel Washington while others luv them some Will Smith or Morris Chestnut. For me it is the nondescript Q-tip of the Tribe Called Quest. Yes Q-tip!

Most people who read this would wonder “why?” I don't know either but there is something about this man that my spirit just loves....From the first time I saw him in Tribe, I was hooked. He is not remarkable physically or as a rapper. Never dresses up as Kanye West does... he certainly does not bling like most of the brothers in the entertainment business....does not seem to make much money and certainly does not appear to squander whatever he makes like most of these ‘never-see-come-see’ fools either.

The strangest thing about me and Q is that I don't follow his career and I know none of his songs off-hand. I can re-call the chorus of Bonita AppleBum with Tribe but that is about all. I don't know Q's real name, his biography nor do I have any of his or Tribe Called Quest albums...I have seen him in Disappearing Acts and Prison Song and that is it. I absolutely loved him in Prison Song though. I would say I am not a groupie at all but whenever I see him on the screen or hear his voice I stop and come back to listen or watch...to me that man is just beautiful.

Q-tip my wutliss luv, I luvs yuh some baby!

HOW ARE WE COMBATING HIV/AIDS IN OUR REGION?

2005-12-18T13:31:00.001-05:00

From the public promotion and attention the spread of HIV/AIDS is given in Dominica one would not ever believe this worldwide pandemic is a problem here. Yet we are a country of declining population, having totaled 69,625 and averaged annual population growth of -0.21, reports the 2001 Census. The decline is said to be as a result of migration and low birth rates.

Juxtapose the above picture next to one of an island where the reported cumulative HIV cases [that is dead and alive] rose by 576% between 1990 and 2002. Meaning that, in 1990 and 2002 the authorities recorded 38 and 257 cumulative cases respectively. But according to health statisticians, a true picture is obtained when the reported number of cases is multiplied by 10. So approximately 2570 Dominicans have been infected with the virus! Or there is one (1) reported HIV case per 27 Dominicans!

What is most alarming is that CAREC indicates that the fastest growing infections are among the 15-24 year olds. In this age group the number of new cases has grown steadily over the last six years, with women accounting for all the new cases. HIV prevalence among pregnant women 15-24 years also grew in the same period.

As it regards protection against the disease and condom use, primitive data show that condom sales have increased islandwide. Yet the highest demanded contraceptive by Dominican women is the injection. Female condoms purchase appeared to have spiked in 1999 to coincide with an aggressive HIV/AIDS campaign by the health authorities here but by 2001 comdom demand by Dominican women declined to below 1998 levels.

So far only two children between the ages of 10 and 14 have been recorded to be orphaned due to AIDS. Though the Government offers treatment for the prevention of mother to child transmission and free ART and testing for pregnant women, they are not well publicized. Maybe it is because there are only very limited supplies or services available.

The National HIV/AIDS Program Unit has been waiting for their allotment of funds from a regional machinery for almost two years! They are held up by some participating countries that have not fully complied with all the requisite requirements for drawdown of funds! As a result Dominica's HIV/AIDS education campaigns and other prevention and treatment activities have been severely stymied; due to no fault of their own!

But I say the country's leadership must take this matter in hand, funds or no funds. They requested and were given the responsibility of protecting Dominica's future. So they are bound by the contract of the cast vote to do whatever it takes to save the next generation of Dominicans from annihilation. What is vexing is that no alarm bells have been sounded! When indeed it is the most productive and reproductive sections of the Dominican population who are the newest victims of the pandemic. Nobody seems to notice!

Small actions that would significantly impact and promote the use of condoms among sexually active young women more so and the sharing of information should be paramount now. Our leadership must know by now that it does not require truck loads of money to do that. All they must do is endorse and give these activities their full support.

As far as I am concerned IT IS NOW OR NEVER! Tomorrow is already too late....

Voting Is Just The First Step

2005-10-06T17:28:00.000-04:00

In small Caribbean islands like ours many citizens are frustrated at the lack of ability to effect any meaningful change in the way they are governed. Voting does not seem to help because once politicians actually get in government; it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. I posit that this is so because people don't see their vote as the first step in the process of demanding accountability and good governance but instead as the end.

Between elections the real power remains unused in the PTAs, village councils, professional associations, unions, churches and the like. Politicians always want to be present for photo-ops and they like to hear themselves speak, at graduations and for ground breaking of this and that. There are many times when the politicians need our audience more than we need to hear them. People must start booing Ministers who come to their area or groups without having made good on the promises of the elections sans explanation. They must get up and walk out of functions when the non-performing politician starts talking and not inviting the Minister of Education who does not serve them well to functions like graduations which often times occur without any support whatsoever from Central Government.

In countries like ours, leaders do not go to jail for outright theft or misappropriation of public funds and rules and regulation which should assure some level of check and balance are often flouted. The people must decide within their organizations to take action for their communities and stick with it. The people who really want to make governments answerable to them must join these bodies and take active part.

We, like all humans, tend to forget the whole community when we get an opportunity for ourselves and so the politicians know how to use crumbs from their table to divide and conquer. There are those who take the crumbs thinking it is really something they are getting. What the crumb receivers don't realize is that the real beneficiaries of their actions are the Ministers etc who get to put a million dollars in their offshore accounts, while the enablers, such as the Chief Medical Officer, get maximum EC$10,000 inclusive of allowances etc. with 40% going to income tax. They, the crumb receivers, can't live above the growing crime and eroding safety with that salary; the Minister can with all the State affords him. They the crumb receivers can't go anywhere else but to the rundown hospital where there is no medicine; the Minister gets flown out as soon as the plane can touch down and all at the country's expense.

What is clear is that unless we have access to real money and or power we can not insulate ourselves from what goes on in our tiny islands. We can't hide because when the government sneezes, we all have to deal with the cold. Nobody can become an island within our already small islands. Unless we can go somewhere else, to face different issues but issues nonetheless, the approach of being indifferent, buying into the bullshit or throwing up our hands in defeat will get us nowhere. If we are to make any sort of impact “we the people” must form power blocks among ourselves in our local communities and work from there. Caribbean people need to act, take action instead of just sitting and complaining. It is at times like these that we need to remember our Christian ideal of being our brother’s keeper.

WOW! Leela James

2005-09-16T21:20:00.000-04:00

It has been long since I have really found a voice I just love and Ms. James is it finally. Jill Scott is great, so is India Arie and a few others. I have mad love for Lauryn Hill but something about her is off center and it may come through to me in her music. But for my style, the type of voice and delivery that really hits? Leela James' is just right. I like real soulful singers and she definitely is a throwback in the vein of the old soul music of Gladys Knight and Roberta Flack type.

I have been looking for a male version of this kind of voice and delivery too. John Legend, Musiq and are few others are up there but still I keep searching. The modern day Al Green has not yet been discovered but I am patient I can wait.

I hope Leela's career is not cut short by the usual music industry bullshit...where looks and physical appeal in the like Britney Spears can overshadow talent so badly. A shame really.

Are You Ready For CSME?

2005-09-14T19:42:00.001-04:00

CSME...how prepared is your island for it? Have they complied with all that the amended Treaty of Chaguaramus requires for full membership? Do people know what the requirements are? What is going to be the currency? What is the overall plan...is your country just going to be an expanded market for those who can produce competitively already... is the work force on your islands skilled enough to keep their jobs that national borders have allowed them to have up to this time? Or are they going to be displaced by better skilled workers, therefore resorting to non-skilled labour intensive jobs in other islands maybe not even in CARICOM-like Guadeloupe, Martinique and Tortola. I am also wondering about what happens to islands who have not ratified the amended Treaty of Chaguaramus..

Thanks A Million Mr. J. H. Johnson of Ebony Magazine

2005-08-20T18:31:00.000-04:00

Black people all over this world should not be able to find words to thank this man. What he did for all of us is what one must tag as priceless! That he made himself rich doing so is tesitmoney to what can come of doing for people who are marginlized and yet still having the faith and courage to do what you really want to do and enjoy. It is said that he was asked by Presidents Kennedy and Carter to take high positions in their Cabinets and he turned them down. On tv, I saw him in respone to a question about refusing the offers say that he was doing what he enjoyed and would not trade it for any other thing in the world.
Read his company's tribute to the man. A black man who dreamt the impossible and made it real, in apartheid USA 1945! AMAZING!

Stella Lost Her Groove?

2005-07-01T21:52:00.000-04:00

Isn't it funny the way I mentioned Terry McMillan in my previous post and here she is making this week's news? Well Terry based her last novel "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" on her real life relationship of similar circumstances.

As the news item reported,McMillan is now divorcing her groove. Guess why? Uhmn...He is gay. Too Sweet! But like Nfufu, the boy gets real lucky b/c under California divorce laws the poorer spouse can get half. Hahaha the Judge from what I remember off the top of my head awarded Terry's Groove a lump sum of considerable size, plus a monthly allowance as his settlement.

Terry is balking at the Judge's order and instead wants the marriage annulled. An annulment will mean no big pay out to the Groove. She feels she has grounds as she claims she did not know her Groove was gay when they got married. Therefore he would have married her under false pretense. She also says that he only married her to get his green card. Too funny.

I hear she will soon be on a book signing tour. I wondered if she has a new book out? I will be reading it whatever it is b/c that girl can write some classically entertaining real life stuff.

Choosing a Husband can be a Craps Shoot

2005-06-25T22:53:00.000-04:00

I meet this West Indian couple when I was doing my masters. The wife became a very good friend of mine because we were the only two West Indians reading for the diploma. Her man however barely finished high school. So I always wondered about the match, I thought it a bit odd. But I put it out of my mind because my friend is a very level headed person and she and her man got on well.

Well they had only been married a few months before they relocated and they were living out of their environment so they were tight, of course. It was more than that really. They seemed to complement each other very well. She studied and kept their apartment in tip top shape. He worked and cooked, something he did beautifully and which she could do little of. Although she had degrees, she did not wear the pants in the relationship and because he is older she leaned on him for guidance. Real solid relationship I always thought during the time I knew them. Yet I always thought that the real test of the relationship would come on their return home. So when we went our separate ways I wished them luck and I was rooting for them.

About two years and a beautiful baby girl later, my friend finally got up the courage to tell me that she and her man had broke-up. I listened to her story and reasons for the spilt and I kept wondering if the reals problems were not to do with the fact that she was much more educated than him and that put her above him socially and financially.

Is a woman (especially very young women) to be very mindful when choosing a mate who is far less educated and who will probably earn far less money than she will? I think the answer is yes. It is going to take some real work or a man who is not affected by societal rules to make it work. This is the main theme of Terry MCMillan's Disappearing Act.

I also know that people say women especially black educated women always complain about there being no men but that they ignore the guy who is less educated or who earns less than them. Well I believe from what I see those kinds of relationship work better if both of these people are into their second marriages and a bit older. The woman more so must be in her late 30s to middle 40s when this type of match makes a successful relationship.

A-TEAM OBJECTIVES AND SELECTION OUT OF SYNC?

2005-06-23T11:57:00.000-04:00

It appears that WICB’s main purpose for a West Indies A-team tour is that of player development. Development as in, helping fringe senior team players to eliminate deficiencies, giving the next set of senior team players international exposure and exposing the post U-19 players to a high quality of competitive cricket not readily available on a continuous basis in the Caribbean.

WICB also intends to use the A-Team as the pool from which replacements will be drawn for the senior team players, who will be touring Sri Lanka at the same time as the A-team.

This examination of the A-team which is carded to leave for Sri Lanka on June 17th 2005, should determine how well aligned A-team objectives and selection are. In the cases where the two are found to be out of sync, a more suitable selection will be proffered.

Some names make excellent sense. Among them are Tino Best, Carlton Baugh, Narsingh Deonarine, Xavier Marshall, Runarko Morton, Ryan Ramdass, Dwayne Smith, Dwight Washington. These are players who have been recently selected under the new coach, Bennette King, for training camps and/or for the senior test or ODI squads.

To a lesser extent so do Kerry Jeremy and Marlon Samuels since they suit the WICB’s secondary A-team objective. Both can be used to replace our often mid-series injury prone bowlers. Jeremy has been there about as far as top quality of regional bowling presents but he has never been given a fair shake. Marlon offers another spin and all-rounder option.

Of the two however, it is not clear why Marlon was not co-opted straight into the senior squad. At this stage he needs the developmental work provided by the high powered coaching staff of the senior team. More importantly Marlon’s special fitness circumstances could be managed best by King, who indicated that Samuels along with Lara needed to be handled carefully.

It appears that the theme of ‘discipline’ surrounds Marlon’s selection. That this A-team selection serves as the last leg of his punishment for previous transgressions and also as an opportunity for them to observe improvements in his self discipline. This place should go to Darren Sammy, a youngster who is at a stage in his career where this exposure would be highly beneficial. Darren Sammy would be a perfect replacement for Samuels as he gives the all-rounder option to the team as well.

Dave Mohammed should not have been selected for the A-team tour at this time, for it comes across as if he is being rewarded in spite of his discipline problems. Unlike Runako Morton Mohammed does not appear to recognise his problems nor has he been sufficiently reprimanded for his transgressions during the just concluded FC season. Another youngster, such as Omari Banks, with good performances, maybe a senior team stint and who is prepared to fall in line should be given this opportunity. Development tours should not be used as a disciplinary tool for senior players and all effort should be made to avoid distractions like those Mohammed seems to present, especially with Darren Ganga named as A-Team captain.

This brings us to Darren Ganga. Ganga from observation personifies the kind of young leader/cricketer that WICB top brass like to work with. He was the captain of the previous ill-disciplined plagued A-team tour to the UK and Canada. From the reports of that tour it would appear that Ganga operates well within team authority and rules. He also has requisite FC experience as captain for Trinidad and Tobago.

It is not clear however how he fits the two main objectives used for assembling the A-team. Ganga has proven on many occasions that he can master FC conditions but that he falls flat at the higher level. It is really conjecture that more FC exposure will help Ganga fix his problems. As such another deserving youngster should have gotten Ganga’s space; probably his kid brother Sherwin Ganga. Then like all thoughtfully composed teams a captain should be named from among the deserving players.

It can be reasoned that of those selected the player most undeserving of his pick is Jeramine Lawson. The reports of his lack of fitness should have barred him from selection in the first place, since there will be no pre-tour camp which he could use to improve his conditioning. What is the point of taking him along when he may not be able to do much bowling because he is coming back from a back injury and is in poor physical condition? He, it appears. will be the obligatory tourist on this tour. It has to be asked also if his action is good enough to chance him not being called by an umpire for pelting. To eliminate this waste of a space either Kenroy Peters or Richard Kelly should have been taken to SL.

No offence to Nikita Miller and Dave Bernard Jnr but Ryan Hinds and Donavan Pagon would be better selections. Ryan Hinds is a spinner and he was only recently on senior team and is off the team because of injury/illness. The last reason for his non-selection was illness from mumps. Isn’t he sufficiently recovered yet? He is a known entity to senior team management as opposed to Miller.

If Donovan Pagon is healthy he should be picked ahead of David Bernard Jnr for the same reason he was picked for the recently concluded South Africa tour. Pagon also gives the team a third option at the number 1 or 2 position. If he is not fit then Bernard Jnr is a good to go.

Darren Ganga - Captain (Sherwin Ganga)
Dave Bernard (Donovan Pagon)
Tino Best
Carlton Baugh
Narsingh Deonarine
Kerry Jeremy
Jermaine Lawson (Kenroy Peter or Richard Kelly)
Xavier Marshall
Nikita Miller (Ryan Hinds)
Dave Mohammed (Omari Banks)
Runarko Morton
Ryan Ramdass
Marlon Samuels (Darren Sammy)
Dwayne Smith
Dwight Washington

Finally, there is good cause for concern when so many players on the development team come from one territory and none is named from another. The only good reason for this to occur is because it is patently true that the players from that favoured territory far outstrip (in perofrmance and talent) players from others. There is no indication from the last few FC seasons that that is so. This is a crucial opportunity for player development and as such it must be spread around the whole region to deserving players, as much as is possible.

STRANGE LOVE

2005-03-27T15:29:00.000-05:00

According to Bryant Gumble of Real Sports and most of the NBA, the kind of relationship between NBA forward Doug Christie and his wife Jackie is just that. Mrs Christie is at all Doug's games. They signal to each other "I Love You" continuously during games. A count in one game tallied 50 odd "I Love You" signs from husband to wife.

Most people are ticked off by the fact that Mrs. Christie's job appears to be keeping Doug from women. The job of vagina blocker, to put it crudely, entails being at Doug's side every living minute when he's off court and in the stands when he is on court. She also vets all contact with reporters/media persons etc. They the reports can't be young women, most times they are men.

Doug does not seem to mind at all. He thinks that what they do is needed to keep him faithful to his wife of several years. Anybody who knows even just a tiny bit of US atheltes' lives, knows what goes on, off the court/field. It is not easy on the wives as most put up with the infidelity and embarassment and others leave, breaking up their families. It is refreshing to me to see the athlete himself take an active part in keeping himself from the temptations that are abundant in the NBA. He feels so strongly about it that he and his wife have a full wedding performed every single summer with their friends and family as witness.

Strange love? Maybe b/c it so rare to see athletes and monied people behaving as the Christies do. To be truthful though some of what they do seems extreme to me but I say hurray to the Christies, good luck and God's speed. Your way seems to work for you!

Good Parenting?

2005-02-26T17:35:00.007-05:00

I am of the firm opinion that modern parents between the ages of 30-50 years old have totaly lost all perspective as it regards good parenting. I appreciate that they have a hard row to hoe b/c they have to grow confident not rude, polite but not broken children. It is a balancing act trying to keep some of what your mother's and grandmother's generations utilized and introducing some of the modern practices.

Who Determines the Child's Diet
For example I am of the view that to grow some belief in making choices that a child can decide within reason what they will have for dinner. But the child dictating their entire diet and nutritional intake is something else altogether. I have seen parents who give their child only what they like to eat for meals; not a vegetable in sight. Sometimes no protien source except maybe for cheese and milk.

Respect For Authority and Adults?
How do parents attempt to grow respect for elders and not the attitude that the adult is always right? I see often kids ignoring requests or directives from their own parents muchless other adults.

Typical Scenario: Seven year old girl watching tv, Mummy calls out to kid "Can you please bring me the broom?"...Kid does not answer, does not even indicated she hears..not a movement in any muscle in response to her mother's request.

Mother calls out louder this time...asking if the kid had not heard her...kid responds "I am coming" and is just getting up but pausing to watch a few more seconds before she does anything about meeting her mother's request. Most times the mother comes, gets whatever it was she wanted, asking the child for the third or fourth time: "Didn't you hear me?"

Mind you this is not a one-of situation it happens all the time. Now if the child pays no attention to her mother's requests and directive can you imagine how she is at school, sunday school or girl scouts?

Responsibility through Chore
Another area I see most modern parenting having much trouble, is with getting their kids to do any chores regularly and properly. Kids refuse to clean their rooms and they don't have to do regular chores like we did growing up. When I was a kid I woke every morning knowing what I was supposed to do around the house and as I grew older the chores became more difficult etc.

Today most kids do nothing at home. Not even picking up their place mats from the table after a meal. They have maids to do that or an overworked mother who tries to keep-up with getting it all done herself but failing miserably.

From my observations of modern parents, I feel they have high ideals about the kind of parents they should be but there appears a hugh gulf between those ideals and practice. There has to be more effort put into marrying the old and good with the modern and improved parenting techniques. Most importantly though parents must be willing to use consistently the married parenting techniques.

Many parents in the West Indies I feel are exhibiting characteristics of the guilty parent b/c they spend so much time away from their children while working. Others have thrown out the old ways entirely because the hated the discipline they received as children. Unfortunately they have replaced it with nothing or with something they don't really have a handle on.

Leave the Past in the Past

2005-02-25T18:16:00.001-05:00

Is that the same as the Christian quote : Let the dead bury the dead? I never really understood this biblical quote. How is the dead to bury themselves? Does it mean that the people who concern themselves with the cultural and health related practice of burying the dead, are themselves dead? Should the dead be tossed out to rut in the open? Would the tossing of the body constitute burial? So should it be left to decay where it died? Maybe it was just a quote for an instant not be used in any other context.

Alright alright I am being too literal. But both quotes suggest a disconnect of present and past,right? That what is done is done and all concerned need to forget about it? Or is it that the advice is not to dwell on the past b/c one can't change it?

The quote in the title I hear it often during Black History month. I also hear it when others mostly black people do not want to discuss slavery and its effect on our societies. I know a lot of people who hate discussing African history whether here in the West or on the continent itself and those who really dislike any mention of affirmative action because it brings up the past too.

I have been told that the past has nothing to do with the present nor the future. Knowing ones history does noting for them. At the same time though it is told that if you don't know where you come from you wont know where you are going to.

Hmmmn.. I done wasting time :)

Do others know vexing quotes or idioms they just don't understand?

Harvard President, Summers, Sexist or Thought Provoking?

2005-02-24T13:48:00.001-05:00

Full Discussion on Statement

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, suggested at a scholarly meeting this month that one reason fewer women make it to the top in mathematics and science may be because of innate differences of ability from men. That proposition has landed him in hot water with scholars who are berating him for advancing a dangerous and untrue stereotype.

But some researchers say that perhaps he has a point: that differences in performance between the sexes may be partly attributed to biological factors. Still other social scientists say that while the suggestion is fair, the proof just isn't there.

BBC's Take

Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers argued one group outperformed the other because of genetics, not just experience, the Boston Globe said.

Considering that the

the conference (was held) in Cambridge, Mass., sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research and titled "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce: Women, Underrepresented Minorities, and Their S&E Careers."

you would probably think that this man made the damning statement to provoke discussion. Taking into consideration however that news reports say that this is not the first time that this man has been publicly disparaging of women's intellegence one has to wonder.

To me however, the word "innate" as used by Summers is worrying. According to one of the sociologist who disagreed with the distinguished Dr. Summers:

The sociologist says Mr. Summers made an illogical leap at the meeting by inferring that the underrepresentation of women in the top ranks of science and math could be due to differences in ability. "He made a simple analogy that high achievement means participation in math and science careers," Mr. Xie says. But research, he adds, shows that at the highest levels of mathematical achievement, women are still less likely to pursue math and science careers.

It must be noted however that there are scientists who support either side of the argument. I just wonder if a person in Mr. Summers' influencial position should be showing such prejudice even if he wonders about it privately? He lost credibility as provoking thought when he tried to apologise by saying he meant something else entirely. Well the majority of the people who matter at Harvard took Dr. SUmmers to task for his politically incorrect public statement by firing him but he was soon after reinstated.

I saw Allan Dershowitz say that a man should never lose his job over a statement especially if his area is in academia. I don't know about that. If Dr. Summers had said the same thing about African-Americans or Jews, because they are in the minority in maths and science fields inspite of brilliant individual achievements from both groups,would he be saying the same thing? Would Summers have kept his job?

Update Nov 08: Summers is on Obama's short list for Treasury Secretary.

How Do We Fight The Silent Pandemic: Child Sexual Abuse

2005-02-23T10:39:00.002-05:00

My main thing is how can it be reduced, if not stopped? How people who care can raise kids who are less susceptible to the seduction and less forceful or violent approaches of predators?

I remember Toni Morrison having this conversation with Oprah about making children understand their intrinsic value. Not the irrelevant pretty or cute but the deep down earnest recognition of their human value. That according to Morrison is the way to arm children with the strength to say "no!" and to speak up in their own defense.

I also will add that a more honest and continuous discussion about sex and sexuality that is age appropriate would help tremendously.

I believe however for African women in the Western world these are huge demands. According to an article I just read in Essence Magazine

:"You also see it in how we feel about our bodies and how we teach our daughters to feel about theirs. A woman who has been sexually molested or abused feels intense fear shame and anger, even though she may not share it. During slavery we had generations of women who were sexually abused, women who learned that their bodies were not their own. The legacy is that we teach our daughters to be ashamed of their bodies. We try to protect them by explaining sex and sexuality in a punitive, prohibitive way. We say" Girl, keep your legs together," rather than arming them with real information about healthy sexuality, relationships, pregnancy and birth control."

And that is when anything is shared at all.

I know it is a big ask for women steeped in the wrong way for centuries but women especially African women have performed miracles in dire circumstances before. Can we do it and can we wage war on sexual abuse by bringing forth children and daughters, who know their value, who know they are so loved that they can speak up? Are we ready to change so we can also listen to and believe our children when they do find the courage to speak up?

Of Women, Economics and Marriage

2005-02-22T08:17:00.001-05:00

As provocative as it may sound to some, it was a well argued view in some circles that marriage for most woman is glorified prostitution. For these people, often Western feminists, marriage from a cold and cynical view was most times a contract of women selling their bodies for financial return and economic stability. The woman gave sex and their reproductive functions in return for the house, etc etc.

While this view held up really well up to a few decades ago for most women, does it still hold now? For some women around the world, marriage can still be described aptly as a contract with their financial benefactor, a husband. The husband provides for them financially. He is the only one who can own property so he provides the shelter. They women usually 'work' at or around the home and they may get money actual dollars to support this 'work'.

But for modern day women in the Western world this can't apply? The women I know earn their own money, most times are an active partner in their marriages. They certainly don't get matched up with the highest bidder. The terms and conditions of their marriage contracts are negotiated partly on their terms. They have much say about reproduction and their partners share in the traditionally unpaid women's house/home work.

As women gain more economic power and share in the financial and economic responsibilities of marriage, family and home, the old definition of wife equals glorified prostitution no longer holds its sting; at least not for the majority of Western women.

Eulogie for Malcolm X by Ossie Davis

2005-02-11T18:07:00.000-05:00

The following eulogy was delivered by Ossie Davis at the funeral of Malcolm X on 27 February 1965 at the Faith Temple Church Of God

Here—at this final hour, in this quiet place—Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes—extinguished now, and gone from us forever. For Harlem is where he worked and where he struggled and fought—his home of homes, where his heart was, and where his people are—and it is, therefore, most fitting that we meet once again—in Harlem—to share these last moments with him.

For Harlem has ever been gracious to those who have loved her, have fought for her and have defended her honor even to the death. It is not in the memory of man that this beleaguered, unfortunate, but nonetheless proud community has found a braver, more gallant young champion than this Afro-American who lies before us—unconquered still.

I say the word again, as he would want me to: Afro-American—Afro-American Malcolm, who was a master, was most meticulous in his use of words. Nobody knew better than he the power words have over minds of men.

Malcolm had stopped being a Negro years ago. It had become too small, too puny, too weak a word for him. Malcolm was bigger than that. Malcolm had become an Afro-American, and he wanted—so desperately—that we, that all his people, would become Afro-Americans, too.

There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times.

Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain—and we will smile. Many will say turn away—away from this man; for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man—and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate—a fanatic, a racist—who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them:

Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did, you would know him. And if you knew him, you would know why we must honor him: Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood!

This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. Last year, from Africa, he wrote these words to a friend: My journey, he says, is almost ended, and I have a much broader scope than when I started out, which I believe will add new life and dimension to our struggle for freedom and honor and dignity in the States.

I am writing these things so that you will know for a fact the tremendous sympathy and support we have among the African States for our human rights struggle. The main thing is that we keep a united front wherein our most valuable time and energy will not be wasted fighting each other.

However we may have differed with him—or with each other about him and his value as a man—let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now.

Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man—but a seed—which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us.

And we will know him then for what he was and is—a prince—our own black shining prince!—who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/071.html

I wonder what Ossie's Eulogy was like today and who will deliver it tomorrow? Rest In Peace Ossie Davis...I hope Malcolm welcomed you home almost 40 yrs to the day when you gave im his grand send-off and farewell. RIP.

David Walker's Appeal-(circa)1829-A Call To Action and Self-Liberation

2005-02-11T17:40:00.000-05:00

David Walker's Appeal

Excerpts from the Appeal

My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens.

Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist -- the result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we, (coloured people of these United States,) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a cypher -- or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon, our fathers ourselves and our children, by Christian Americans!

... I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family. Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs? O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries, because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. -- Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty. So far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping these insults upon their slaves, that Pharaoh's daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for her own, as will appear by the following.

...
The world knows, that slavery as it existed was, mans, (which was the primary cause of their destruction) was, comparatively speaking, no more than a cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans. Indeed I should not have noticed the Roman slaves, had not the very learned and penetrating Mr. Jefferson said, "when a master was murdered, all his slaves in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death." -- Here let me ask Mr. Jefferson, (but he is gone to answer at the bar of God, for the deeds done in his body while living,) I therefore ask the whole American people, had I not rather die, or be put to death, than to be a slave to any tyrant, who takes not only my own, but my wife and children's lives by the inches? Yea, would I meet death with avidity far! far!! in preference to such servile submission to the murderous hands of tyrants. Mr. Jefferson's very severe remarks on us have been so extensively argued upon by men whose attainments in literature, I shall never be able to reach, that I would not have meddled with it, were it not to solicit each of my brethren, who has the spirit of a man, to buy a copy of Mr. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," and put it in the hand of his son.

...
But let us review Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us some further. Comparing our miserable fathers, with the learned philosophers of Greece, he says: "Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too, in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's children; Epictetus, Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves, -- but they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction." See this, my brethren! ! Do you believe that this assertion is swallowed by millions of the whites? Do you know that Mr. Jefferson was one of as great characters as ever lived among the whites? See his writings for the world, and public labours for the United States of America. Do you believe that the assertions of such a man, will pass away into oblivion unobserved by this people and the world? If you do you are much mistaken-See how the American people treat us -- have we souls in our bodies? Are we men who have any spirits at all? I know that there are many swell-bellied fellows among us, whose greatest object is to fill their stomachs. Such I do not mean -- I am after those who know and feel, that we are MEN, as well as other people; to them, I say, that unless we try to refute Mr. Jefferson's arguments respecting us, we will only establish them.

...I must observe to my brethren that at the close of the first Revolution in this country, with Great Britain, there were but thirteen States in the Union, now there are twenty-four, most of which are slave-holding States, and the whites are dragging us around in chains and in handcuffs, to their new States and Territories to work their mines and farms, to enrich them and their children-and millions of them believing firmly that we being a little darker than they, were made by our Creator to be an inheritance to them and their children for ever-the same as a parcel of brutes.

Are we MEN! ! -- I ask you, 0 my brethren I are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours? -- What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell -- but I declare, we judge men by their works.

The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority.

....to my no ordinary astonishment, [a] Reverend gentleman got up and told us (coloured people) that slaves must be obedient to their masters -- must do their duty to their masters or be whipped -- the whip was made for the backs of fools, &c. Here I pause for a moment, to give the world time to consider what was my surprise, to hear such preaching from a minister of my Master, whose very gospel is that of peace and not of blood and whips, as this pretended preacher tried to make us believe. What the American preachers can think of us, I aver this day before my God, I have never been able to define. They have newspapers and monthly periodicals, which they receive in continual succession, but on the pages of which, you will scarcely ever find a paragraph respecting slavery, which is ten thousand times more injurious to this country than all the other evils put together; and which will be the final overthrow of its government, unless something is very speedily done; for their cup is nearly full.-Perhaps they will laugh at or make light of this; but I tell you Americans! that unless you speedily alter your course, you and your Country are gone! ! ! ! !

...If any of us see fit to go away, go to those who have been for many years, and are now our greatest earthly friends and benefactors -- the English. If not so, go to our brethren, the Haytians, who, according to their word, are bound to protect and comfort us. The Americans say, that we are ungrateful-but I ask them for heaven's sake, what should we be grateful to them for -- for murdering our fathers and mothers ? -- Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite to death to make us work in ignorance and miseries, to support them and their families. They certainly think that we are a gang of fools. Those among them, who have volunteered their services for our redemption, though we are unable to compensate them for their labours, we nevertheless thank them from the bottom of our hearts, and have our eyes steadfastly fixed upon them, and their labours of love for God and man. -- But do slave-holders think that we thank them for keeping us in miseries, and taking our lives by the inches?

Let no man of us budge one step, and let slave-holders come to beat us from our country. America is more our country, than it is the whites-we have enriched it with our blood and tears. The greatest riches in all America have arisen from our blood and tears: -- and will they drive us from our property and homes, which we have earned with our blood? They must look sharp or this very thing will bring swift destruction upon them. The Americans have got so fat on our blood and groans, that they have almost forgotten the God of armies. But let the go on.

Do the colonizationists think to send us off without first being reconciled to us? Do they think to bundle us up like brutes and send us off, as they did our brethren of the State of Ohio? Have they not to be reconciled to us, or reconcile us to them, for the cruelties with which they have afflicted our fathers and us? Methinks colonizationists think they have a set of brutes to deal with, sure enough. Do they think to drive us from our country and homes, after having enriched it with our blood and tears, and keep back millions of our dear brethren, sunk in the most barbarous wretchedness, to dig up gold and silver for them and their children? Surely, the Americans must think that we are brutes, as some of them have represented us to be. They think that we do not feel for our brethren, whom they are murdering by the inches, but they are dreadfully deceived.

What nation under heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives us up into its hand? But Americans. I declare to you, while you keep us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your friends. You do not look for it do you? Treat us then like men, and we will be your friends. And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will become a united and happy people. The whites may say it is impossible, but remember that nothing is impossible with God.

I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to be offered at any moment, For what is the use of living, when in fact I am dead. But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched, degraded and abject as you have made us in preceding, and in this generation, to support you and your families, that some of you, (whites) on the continent of America, will yet curse the day that you ever were born. You want slaves, and want us for your slaves ! ! ! My colour will yet, root some of you out of the very face of the earth ! ! ! ! ! ! You may doubt it if you please. I know that thousands will doubt-they think they have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them and their children, that it is impossible for such things to occur.

See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand your won language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776 -- "We hold these truths to be self evident -- that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! ! that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! !" Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us -- men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation! ! ! ! ! !

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931.html

Unlikely Artists-Gee's Bend Quiltmakers

2005-02-05T13:11:00.000-05:00

They sang it often : "Look Where He's Brought Me From!". Highly religious people, older black women 70+ years of age, 70 odd of them in all. They are the artists, unlikely as it sounds, they are! They have other things in common too. All descendants of slaves from mainly Pettway Plantation, they lived a thirdworld existence of adject poverty from generation to generation in the poorest county in the USA, in the state of Alabama.

But about ten years ago things changed for the women and the community of Gee's Bend in a very unexpected way. The skill of quiltmaking handed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter is now the source of remarkedly improved standard of living. An art historian, "discovered" the discarded and undervalued art form among the women. The quilts had been made to keep desparately poor families warm. They were made from old scraps of cloth, from strips of discared clotes, old bags etc. One of the women for example made an entire quilt of all her deceased husband's clothes. She made it solely to comfort herself at the times she missed him most.

Through the art historian, the women of Gee's Bend discovered that their quilts were works of modern art, historical peices and that they could fetch up to US$2000 for one quilt. No wonder they sing as often as they can: Look Where He's Brought Me From". The quilts have been sold to art museums, books have been written about them and the women are an integral part of the gallerry shows presenting their works.

Unfortunately however very few of the younger women of Gee's Bend have the slightest interest in quiltmaking. Of 70+ quiltmakers in Gee's Beend only one or two grandchildren appear interested in carrying on the tradition and skill. It is sad to realise that this generation of quiltmakers may very well be the last. The irony is that the skill and art form may die soon beacuse now these women can afford to keep themselves and their families warm by other means thus reducing the need for homemade quilts.

Sorry I have been Away

2005-01-24T15:06:00.000-05:00

I just want to apologise for not updating my blog since November 2004. I will be updating soon forgive me all.

Colin Powell: Contradictions of Success?

2004-11-16T08:48:00.000-05:00

For Africans in America Colin Powell is pretty much the embodiment of success. He is the

American Dream

come true. That is even moreso for West Indian immigrants in North America; the new arrivals, first, second, third and fourth generations all.

But the contradiction of realisation of that dream and being a conscious descendent of African slaves in the Americas is what Colin Powell represents more than anything else. If he has a conscience and he is aware or has not blanked out his people's history...that man in my opinion had some seriously hard times in the last four years or so. The weight of his opinion and voice has been significantly reduced from Bush Snr. to Bush Jnr. He knows now that he was used as bait, as a vote getting gimmck in the first Bush Jnr election. I wonder how he feels now?

Powell does not seem to be like Rice or Clarence Thomas who appear to have erased the past, the history of Africans in the Americas, a long time ago, to get along and get on. The forgetting
is one of the biggest prerequisite to achieving success for African Americans, in any important American institutions, such as the Army, the Cabinet, without going completely crazy or geting sick from stress and other related diseases.

Does Powell suffer from hypertension, colon, prostate cancer etc? I never heard any of those health issues mentioned in regard to him. If he does not this man must be one strong person or maybe he is exactly as Belafonte described him a few years ago,a serious Uncle Tom.

Hmmmn..... I wonder if Alma had to write a book ... her memoires being the wife of the dutifull and loyal American servant...what she would tell in it?

Interesting people these.... but one can only speculate because unfortunately you rarely ever get to know the true story, see the real picture.

PBS is da BOMB!

2004-10-20T13:18:00.000-04:00

Recently I realised that my most satistfying tv viewing has been provided by PBS. Yes PBS!

Well last night I turned on my now favourite channel and was presented with a wonderful treat. Wynton Marsalis , a cutie :) and Ken Burns producer of historical films such as the American Civil War, Baseball and Jazz were on. They were talking about the film Jazz.

Well being able to drool all over Wynton would be good enough but like all PBS programs I have watched I learnt quite a lot. My appreciation for Jazz and Louis Armstrong grew ten fold last night. I never really paid much attention to Jazz, I guess it never really grabbed me. Then I absoultely had no respect for Louis Armstrong. I always thought he was waist-bent-watermelon-smiling-negro. Not even seeing his clip where he totally tore up some song about Dina in Carolina helped.

But Marsalis and Burns used words like genius and transforming and central to describe this man. They spoke of his God given gift and how he was basically the center piece of all Jazz. Yah through their conversation on the film, it was possible to see Charlie Parker beyond the heroin addicted jazz musician...it was possible to give Jazz and jazz muscians a second chance.

I will one day purchase Burn's 19-hour documentary film on Jazz. Until then I will pay more attention when I hear a jazz artist...maybe really listen to Billie and Ella. Thanx for the education and entertainment PBS.

Bad Things Happen When Good People Stand by and Do Nothing

2004-10-10T13:38:00.000-04:00

As I watched the local news on Friday I came to the conclusion that something is fundamentally wrong with Dominicans as a whole! Why such a dramatic statement? Well I am about to tell you about it.

A news item featured the preparation of the national table tennis team for a regional tournament. The alarming thing to me is that a certain drug dealer, with a well known criminal history especially of introducing young women to the drug underworld here, was interviewed as the Vice President of the Dominica Table Tennis Association.

I had to ask how does that happen in a small society like ours where societal disapproval should be enough to prevent undesirables like this man to officially and publicly gain access to position of importance. How did we get to this, where the local tv station would even do an interview with this man?

We have become very accepting here of low standards of behaviour, low standards generally. We seem to be a ppl who just accept anything. Parents don't complain about the poor offerings at our schools, voters ask nothing of politicians and we buy sub-standard imports but mostly a lot of good people and people who know better do not get invovled.

My generation of professionals in their thirties and forties do next to little community and volunteer work. At least not at the level that it used to be before. I remember the teachers were also the Sunday school teachers and the local/lay preacher would be coach for the cricket team. Now my generation does not get invovled. We don't share our talents beyond the boundaries of our workplace. Our only concern is our family and career.

So there is a void left that the drug dealer type can so easily step into. He well be happy we are not there b/c he has better and unobstructed access to young minds. He can impress them with his financial sponsorship. He will be their role model. We the people who should be involved are just watching, sleep walking as if this has nothing to do with us or our children in the future. Mind you it is us who will ask in the loudest voices, what has become of our peaceful and tranquil society. Well bad things happen when good people stand by and do nothing.

Life's Calling: Part II-A Response to Jdid

2004-10-08T21:37:00.000-04:00

Right now one of my niece is preparing for her A'levels and I am not convinced she is doing the righ t subjects. She is doing the sciences Physics, Biology and Maths. She thinks her future lies in some sort of engineering. She is adamant it is but she is only 17 and has little clue about what the world has to offer. I think that she is a brilliant writer and that is what she should pursue but she aint listening at all. I hope I am wrong and she is one of those people who just knows.
But I have experienced life and university and our education system here. That is where the pigeon-holing starts. You show a little bit of promise academically and you are forced into the applied sciences. A wider scope, diverse possibilities are just not part of our systems. I guess we can't afford it.

I was so amazed that on my trip to Kenya a few yrs ago that I met two Swiss girls just out of high school travelling Kenya by themselves. And they were already confident globe trotters much more than I. I think that those girls will find something they really enjoy doing in life and wont settle for a field b/c it is expected and/or safe etc. They will also have the confidence to change mid stream if what they are doing does not hit the mark at first. They already know first-hand that there is so much going on in this world.

Life's Calling

2004-10-05T14:31:00.000-04:00

It would appear that most people have no clue what they were called to do. I mean what is it that you would pay to get up and go do every morning including Sundays? I don't think most people know what that is and even those who know are not lucky to be doing it.

The irony of all this is that the few people who acutally know what their calling in life is and are lucky enough to actually do it as their life's work are often financially well-off because of it. If they are not stinky rich they just feel they are in the best place anybody can ever be. Their life is rich in all ways if not materially.

Of the people who know defintely what work/occupation would make them happy and totally fulfilled I wonder how many stumble upon it by sheer coincidence? How many just always knew that that was it? Does a liberal arts university education help in that or it is a diverse curriculum even from primary school? Does it have to do more with how broad one's experiences are pre adulthood?

Faceless Black Art

2004-10-04T20:42:00.000-04:00

It is striking that most art produced by black artists of black adults, except in photography, do not have detailed facial representations. Look around and you will see what I mean.

It is curious that from wood sculptures to paintings the details of the black face is omitted in general. There may be full lips, sometimes a distinctly African nose but the eyes nearly always are left out. It is unusual to find all the facial features displayed all together, unless distorted, exaggerated.

Most often the artist gives splendid representations of the rest the body and to scale too. For male subjects the detail is tremendous, sinewy muscles everywhere, slim waist of smallest measurements and ample ass to boot. Black women are depicted almost amazon-like but defintely curvaceous, breast, hips and ass always prominent .

Why are there so few real faces? Why is so little attention paid to the face? Black kids in art are not treated the same and so it is not about poor black artist and artisans.

Maybe it is as a result of slavery, that issues surrounding the adult black body became so overpowering that the face is forgotten. Maybe the face has never been the emphasis because we subconsciously believe there is little that is redeeming or appealing about it? Or is it that we have learnt not to look into adult eyes, really examine black faces that have experienced some living? Too much blues in those faces to wade through, too much pain to face (no pun intended) ?

Hmmmmn....... I wonder.......

The Real Implications of a Winning West Indies Team

2004-09-27T10:34:00.000-04:00

Quote Mark Alleyne: ["James Pearson is a good cricketer, England Under-19. He's struggling. He comes in, puts the CD on and he's just waiting for someone to say, `that's rubbish'. And he loves Lara and West Indies. The more he goes on about them, the more he's going to be isolated."]
http://usa.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/ARCHIVE/CRICKET_NEWS/
2004/AUG/015697_ WCM_04AUG2004.html

The above quote was taken from a piece done with Alleyne and Piper, two black British cricketers in the article “What Happened to the Black Cricketer?” James Pearson the U-19 black cricketer has been on my mind ever since I read the article. And with the victory on Saturday and the raising of the ICC Championship Trophy by the West Indians I have thought even more about this young man.

I wonder what this win will do for him. Will he be galvanized by stronger self-belief that he can do it too against all odds? Will he know now that all he has to do is work hard and it will come? Will his perception of white administrators working against him change? Will the isolation brought on by his admiration of Lara the West Indies intensify or subside? Will he have the company of other inspired black and Indian youth on his team or on other opposition teams?

Are the West Indies players and the WICB aware of what is at stake if they continue to under-perform in international cricket? It is not just how much winning means to adult West Indians in Britain and at home but what it means to the future of the young cricketer in the West Indies and those in Britain in particular of West Indian heritage.

James Pearson now has a little something to hold on to but it wont last for very long. For young cricketers like Pearson to be able to hold their heads up and deflect the barbs of lazy, instinctive and brainless, West Indies must continue to do well if not win. We can’t afford to go back because the James Pearsons will have too little to draw on when they face the obstacles created for them by themselves and others. I hope Lara’s call throughtout the recent tournament, to keep our collective eyes on the prize is not going to be drowned out by the euphoria. WICB has much work to do, work they have either neglected or poorly performed for too long now.

I have seen others ascribe the poor physical and mental state of the West Indian cricketers on male marginalization and the strides made by Caribbean women. That assertion is in my view as pure balderdash of course because the decision makers and power brokers in the Caribbean have always been and continue to be majority male.

Here is another example where the outlook, attitude and chance of success of future West Indian and British cricketers of West Indian heritage, lay squarely in the hands of mainly male West Indians. I look on to see if the almost exclusively male cricketing West Indies fraternity of players and administrators will squander yet another opportunity to take up their responsibility to build for a brighter future for all of us but mostly for male West Indians of this generation and the next, at home and abroad.

Was Merv Right?

2004-09-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

For about a year now I have learnt to dislike Mervin Dillon the player and the small part of the person I think I know . Why you may ask? Well I used to be okay with Merv the player until I realised that especially with his limited skills that he had done little to improve his craft. Merv could not bowl a slower ball, or move the ball and he could barely produce a yorker. That the most experienced bowler on the team could not bowl at the death of an ODI match got my goat. Merv has no idea how much "chueeeeps" I have directed at him.

He also appeared to laugh about everything, even his long stream of crappy performances. I would think this nonchalant man child has no idea does he? Absolutely no freaking understanding of his role. He has no heart, Mervin Dillon is just going through the paces. The last straw though none of my business was the reports that he had beat up on his wife. This is something that lowers a man in my estimation, like few other transgressions.

But why given all my negative perception, would I think that Merv could be right about anything? Amazingly, tonight, right at this moment, I think that Dillon's decision not to play through injury in the recent match against South Africa in the ICC championship Trophy was really ballsy.

I must state though when it was reported that Dillon had sustained a side strain and had withdrawn last minute from the team, the red flags flew up. Here we go again I thought, that no heart business. My perception of Mervin the quitter was not helped as the Ozzie commentator laid into Dillon for his decision not to play. He explained Merv was one of the best bowlers and that he should play injured for his team, for his country.

My red flags came flying up, right at attention. Here he goes Mr. No Commitment Dillon again. The Ozzie riffled off names of stars who had played with injuries after getting injections he said. But tonight after seeing "Real Sports" the HBO sport magazine program, more specifically the segment titled "playing with pain" and I was proud of Dillon the player for the first time in more than a year. He is still not a player I would tell any young bowler to pattern himself after except in this one aspect.

What is "playing with pain" all about? It detailed the lives of two ex-athletes who had become addicted to pain killers. The players started taking pain killers in order to play with injury, taking it on the chin for the team. Is it that the relentless win at all cost culture of professional sports does not exist in West Indies cricket? If that is so, is it a bad thing, a blessing? Or is it that Dillon's lack of intensity automatically protects him from this particular problem? Maybe it is an individual thing which has nothing to do with West Indies cricket culture. We have heard tales of players like Collins hiding injury and Edwards his brother coming back too soon after injury. From what I saw tonight though, whatever the reason for Dillon's withdrawal, I am indeed happy he decided not to play injured. So for this, I think Dillon is right.

It is these wholesome attitudes towards injury management that we must endeavor to build into West Indian sports/cricket culture as we simultaneously push towards professionalism and premier international standards. This is as critical as the adoption of technology into all our processes. Let us consider ourselves as fortunate that we don't have to learn these lessons the hard way. Others have already done that for us.

[Real Sports: Playing with Pain: Chronic injuries are common in the high-speed, high-impact world of professional and collegiate sports, and the pressure to play through the pain is intense. Athletes seek pain-numbing cortisone shots to get them off the training table and rely on prescription pills to keep themselves going through long and exacting seasons. Still, the pain often continues long after the season has ended and before long, pills are no longer sufficient. That's when some athletes turn to alcohol or illegal drugs to ease the suffering. Correspondent Bernard Goldberg talks to several athletes who have found themselves on a perilous road to drug abuse that started with a routine injury. Correspondent: Bernard Goldberg.http://www.hbo.com/realsports/stories.shtml]

WHY WOULD ANYBODY COMMIT SUICIDE?

2004-09-19T22:23:00.000-04:00

The sad news reached me yesterday that a young man of about 25 years decided to out his light in a very horrible way. His choice of exit from this world was to jump infront of a moving train. LAWD! I hope it was pain-free, an instant death.

The question remains though; what would cause someone to commit suicide? Does it take a special strength to take that fatal and irreversible step? Or is it just pure mental deterioration, a psychological meltdown that is required? I mean everybody has thought about suicide at least once in their lives but how many come remotely close to putting it into action?

Research shows however that those who do pull it off eventually, have had at least one unsuccessful practice run. Since this young man did the deed and one has to ask, how he got there? I figure whatever ailed him was as debilitating as any excrutiatingly painful disease. He must have wanted desparately to get away from the pain.

From what I know of this young man, he was brilliant and a homosexual. It also appears that most of his problems were derived from the latter. However to put his troubles with his sexuality in context, it must be known that he spent most of his teenage years in Jamaica.

Being a gay teenager in the Yard caused him lots of heartache and pain. Tough teenage years for any gay kid there, since Jamaicans are renowned for being homophobes. Due to this, his parents on the first opportunity, sent him off to university in North America. They had hoped that a more tolerant society would do the trick. They thought that they had finally given their child an opportuntiy to be his whole self and most of all a chance at happiness. Unfortunately though, it appears the psychological scarring of being a gay teenage boy, in the Yard, was already too deep and permanent for a cosmetic change of environment to really help.

One has to also consider that the new environemt here. I know from first-hand experience if as a young West Indian student one's mental health is not at least average, then a solo move to North America may very well cook your goose. Parents of young West Indians students, often have no clue about what they are sending their usually overprotected children to. They don't know that in North America it is cold not only in terms of the weather and but in terms of social interaction. The cold months are an average nine months of the year and that coupled with the fact that nobody gives a shit whether you are alright, is enough to push a mentally fragile person over the edge.

So this young man still tormented and alone, and searching for a place, called his parents to tell them buh-bye. Worried about what he might do and being all the way in Jamaica they called around frantically asking those who knew him to check on him. No one could find him or knew where he was for hours. The next time they heard news, they were told that he had killed himself by hauling his body into the path of a moving train; Sad beyond words.

Yet as it is with most suicides, this one leaves heartbroken family and friends, racked with guilt and burdened with unanswered questions. I just hope more than anything else though, that this young man has finally found peace.

Old Traditions: The Mystical & Supernatural

2004-09-17T22:43:00.000-04:00

How many people remember the old stories about persons who were born with special gifts? And the stories of the scary occurances?

I remember the mysticism that surrounded unusual births; like a child being born with a veil/caul over its face, a breech baby or even twins. The child born with the veil has supernatural powers. They could communicate with the dead and/or see into the future. After reading two books by Tina McElroy Ansa "Baby of the Family" and "The Hand I Fan With" I realise that African people in the USA shared many of those beliefs with old-time Dominicans.

If a baby was born left handed then it would always be protected from obeah spells from others. No socouyants or lougahoo could scare them. The foot first baby from what I remember would be a blessing to its mother in adulthood b/c its birth was far from anything anybody could call a blessing. For twins, I just know that they are viewed with a bit of awe and wonderment. You are just downright special b/c you are connected to another human in ways nobody can explain or understand.

I fall into three of these categories. I am a foot first baby, the side of a twin and I am left handed. I eh know about any of these special powers...my twin brother and I are not as close as I am with my other sibs... as kids we fought on a daily basis.

My left handedness has brougt me frustration more than anything else, especially as a child. My parents at least gave up forcing me into using my right hand as they had done for an older brother but I was made to operate in a right-handed world without adjustments. I could not change the cutlery settings for meals for example...could not switch the sides of the glass or knife and was not allowed to turn my books at weird angles to write either.

Lawd di foot first ting well my mum had twins and then I had to come first and foot first ontop of all that. LAWD! I guess I owe her quite a bit in my adult life then....but it is not for this that I make sure that my mum is well taken care of to the best of my abilities. It is b/c she was a super mum who did wonders in dire circumstances.

Anybody else knows about these things? Maybe if you have an old grandmother around, you should have a go down memory lane with her...see what else they believed in, back then.
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I Finally Joined the List of Bloggers

2004-09-17T16:42:00.000-04:00

Well I am here......don't know what I am going to do with this blog right now. I suspect I am much better at responding than creating original posts. Well hopefiully I will bring my varied interests to the blog and my postings.