Tim Kee caves in
By Corey Connelly
February 14, 2016 – newsday.co.tt
Bowing to mounting pressure, both at home and abroad, over his recent controversial statements about the death of Japanese national, Asami Nagakiya, Raymond Tim Kee yesterday signalled his intention to resign as Mayor of Portof- Spain.
Continue reading Mayor Tim Kee Set to Resign
Newsday Editorial
February 11 2016 – newsday.co.tt
THE POLICE must investigate the circumstances surrounding video images which purported to show a man being beaten by the private security guards of a Carnival band. The footage raises deeper questions which have, over the years, been left unresolved in relation to the regulation of private security guards and our national festival. The footage, which circulated on social media on Carnival Monday, shows a band of about a dozen guards from the band Yuma — identified merely by black t-shirts saying “Yuma Extraction” — ganging up on a man, who has been identified as PNM councillor Jason Alexander. The incident appears to have occurred not on private property, but rather in a public street.
Continue reading Brute force in the band
By Raffique Shah
February 15, 2015
I waited patiently for Calypso Fiesta, the Mother of all Calypso shows, which featured 41 of the top calypsonians for this year. I did not trust the 20-plus radio stations in the country since those that feature local music kill us with pumping, jarring noises accompanied by voices that all sound hoarse as if the artistes are stricken with sore throats, that they tell me is soca.
Continue reading Kaiso, boy!
By Raffique Shah
March 09, 2014
That Trinidad Carnival is today mostly a feast of the flesh in its most carnal manifestation should surprise no one. We have worked very hard, over decades, to get here. Now that we have reached the pinnacle—a sea of near-naked bodies gyrating and simulating sex acts that put the Kama Sutra to pale—we should rejoice.
Continue reading Feast of the flesh
By Richardson Dhalai
Thursday, March 06 2014 – newsday.co.tt
ARCHBISHOP of Port-of-Spain Joseph Harris yesterday attacked the lascivious behaviour of some masqueraders in the just concluded Carnival Season, conduct which the leader of the Roman Catholic faithful in this country described as symptomatic of the pervasive lawlessness in society.
In a forthright, sobering Ash Wednesday homily at Our Lady of Perpetual Help RC Church, Harris Promenade in San Fernando yesterday, Fr Harris also observed that all aspects of national life, including that of giving to the poor and indigent, must change if the Carnival-type mentality is to be transformed.
Continue reading VULGAR MAS
By Raffique Shah
March 02, 2014
Among the celebrities who have been invited to this year’s Carnival, one man stands head and shoulders above the lot, quite literally, I need add. I refer to Jamaica’s star sprinter, Usain Bolt, who flew into the country almost unannounced, courtesy one of his corporate sponsors.
Continue reading Bolt from the blue
By Raffique Shah
March 16, 2014
Two or three Carnivals ago, when Pan Trinbago introduced an exclusive party zone to the people’s Panorama, I protested, warning that the organisation that was supposed to protect and promote pan was instead disrespecting pannists and the national instrument.
Continue reading Weapon of mass distraction
By Corey Gilkes
March 04, 2013 – trinicenter.com
I had planned to make my first contribution for 2013 to be on the series of important film documentaries on Trinidad Carnival put on by the TT Film Festival, not least of which were the two on Minshall and the presentation given by Ray Funk. Some were poorly attended but they were all priceless in the way each of them opened a little more of that portal on ourselves more of us need to see. Minsh used the streets as his canvass to express his philosophy in the traditions of Bailey, Saldenah and the legions of largely (tragically) nameless persons who used the Midnight Robber, the Minstrel, the Baby Doll, the Dame Lorraine, the Burrokeet, the Jab Molassie to hold up the mirror of society and all its hypocrisy and excesses to show us what many of us really are. That aspect of our Mas, the use of the open space as a gigantic participatory (before the advent of security, ropes and the word “exclusive”) political and social theatre, is perhaps the most important message that needs to be kept firmly in the minds of those who wish to take over the Mas – specifically those who have reduced it to empty, expressionless displays of bikinis, bras and feathers as if here is Las Vegas.
Continue reading The “Pontificat”: Akilah Holder’s ‘Carnival’ Article
We the people
By Suzanne Mills
February 17, 2013 – newsday.co.tt
Everyone has the rights to Carnival except the people. Pan Trinbago cuts off our Panorama semi-finals; a newly formed, unknown copyright organisation warns revellers not to post pictures of themselves or their friends online; the NCBA and the government station wrangle over the streaming of the Parade of the Bands. It’s as if the copyright pendulum has swung completely in the opposite direction with copyright now intersecting with and infringing on people’s basic rights.
Continue reading Carnival Copyright Concerns
By Raffique Shah
February 10, 2013
WHATEVER our differing views on Carnival, one thing we can agree on is the heights of happiness that the festival engenders at all levels of the society. There is hardly a sourpuss left scowling as the music, the visuals and the spirit take possession of our beings, commanding us to listen, to look, to sing along, to dance and, most of all, to laugh and be happy.
Continue reading Carnival is happiness, harmony