By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 22, 2025
Hear the urine drip
From an immense bladder…
Hear words stripped of their soul
Hanging like bats from caves of rotten teeth.
—LeRoy Clarke, Douens
Continue reading Stuart’s abracadabra moment
Monthly Archives: March 2025
PNM leaps ahead
By Raffique Shah
March 22, 2025
When the history of politics in Trinidad and Tobago is written, those who are shaping our future and those who are making our history will be alarmed at how easily an epoch was erased, how a new era almost slid past the hands of historians, with hardly a note written about it. Not even the men and women who were reshaping our history were aware of this momentous change, focused as they were on winning an election.
Continue reading PNM leaps ahead
Why the US Govt Hates Venezuela and Cuba
Cooked coo coo and Obeah obsessions
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 15, 2025
In the end, it comes down to the total miscalculation of a man who talks about responsibility but is averse to planning for the future. He never examines any issue facing the country deeply enough. Now, he insists “our coo coo will be cooked if the Dragon gas deal with Venezuela goes sour”. He even asked his fellow citizens “to send your telepathic power to overcome the negative nonsense about the failure of the Dragon deal”. (Express, March 11.)
Continue reading Cooked coo coo and Obeah obsessions
A new-faced PNM?
By Raffique Shah
March 15, 2025
I imagine by the time readers get through today’s column, the People’s National Movement (PNM) will have completed its processes and revealed its full slate of candidates minus Dr Keith Rowley, who, as far as I can translate what is happening, will not be prime minister but will remain political leader of the party.
Yeah, I know: I’ve just burdened you with a long-winded sentence; bear in mind that the narrative reflects what is actually happening on the ground. So, if people are confused by what is happening, hopefully they will not be confused by my writing.
Continue reading A new-faced PNM?
PNM’s obtuse rationalisations
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 08, 2025
Blissfully, the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow will soon relieve us of our miseries. Unfortunately, he leaves his clones behind who know not what they say or do. Chief among them are Faris Al-Rawi, a former attorney general, and Stuart Young, our first unelected prime minister.
Al-Rawi complimented the Leader recently for “his policy initiatives and actions, which he said were critical in stabilising the oil and gas sector in Trinidad and Tobago. He also complimented Young for his measured approach to the imminent change in leadership”. (Express, February 27.) I am not sure what that last sentence means.
Continue reading PNM’s obtuse rationalisations
A good year for calypso
By Raffique Shah
March 08, 2025
This has been a bumper year for Carnival-related cultural art forms. I have no authority, nor do I have any qualifications to intervene in any debate or discussion on how 2025 matches up with 1962, 1964, and so many other occasions when our calypsonians gave us songs that were timeless. I most definitely will steer clear of engaging in any debate with Dr Hollis Liverpool, The Mighty Chalkdust, a calypso legend, four or five times over during his lifetime.
Continue reading A good year for calypso
Absolute foolishness
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 01, 2025
“Absolute foolishness.” Those were the words the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow used when he described “the heavy foreign exchange spending on Carnival costumes…He insists that costumes are not investments” (Guardian, February 26). Such statements are “absolute nonsense” and “absolute foolishness” combined in one.
Continue reading Absolute foolishness
For Rex and Lennox
By Raffique Shah
March 01, 2025
Where friendships are concerned, one friend, when he passes, will have all the others at his funeral, and one friend will have none of his friends at his funeral. In my circle, we are slowly but inevitably getting to the latter part of that statement.
I still cannot imagine Rex Lassalle dead. He is indestructible.
Continue reading For Rex and Lennox
Serve in order to lead
By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 22, 2025
On Saturday last weekend, we celebrated the life of Joseph Sam Phillip, a districker, at the Good Shepherd Anglican Church, Tunapuna, at which Archdeacon Kenly Baldeo, another districker, presided. Good Shepherd, one of the oldest edifices in Tunapuna, was consecrated in 1866.
Sam was an outstanding districker and citizen. We attended St Mary’s Anglican School and were/are parishioners at St Mary’s Anglican Church. His grandmother, Mother Gerald, was the chief Shango priestess in the village. My grandmother, Tan Darling, was one of the chief Shango devotees. She cooked the saltless meats for the annual Shango festival that usually took place in November.
Continue reading Serve in order to lead