By Raffique Shah
January 03, 2015
Eight o’clock Saturday morning and as I start writing this column, all is quiet on my block, suspiciously so. It’s cool and sunny, and I hear birds chirping, see them flying past my windows. Butterflies add a colourful touch to this gift of nature, a peaceful cul-de-sac located mere metres away from a busy, noisy, dusty main road.
Continue reading Killing Us Noisily
By Raffique Shah
December 28, 2014
In the spirit of the season, which for me means extra-laid-back, lazy if you will, certainly not busy with chores that people ignore all year only to attack feverishly only at Christmas time, I thought I’d round of the year on a high note even as I lay low.
Really, we cannot be so blighted to have endured yet another year of foul-ups by those on high and lawlessness from top to bottom, crime down but criminals running free, a health system that’s ready for the dreaded Ebola but takes two years to deliver cataract surgery, costly free education that churns out a handful of bright young people but a mass of dumb others—surely, we would be spared worse in the final few days of the year.
Or so I thought.
Continue reading Billboard face to launch a million votes?
By Raffique Shah
December 20, 2014
I confess I was surprised when, last Wednesday, announcements from Washington and Havana confirmed that the United States and Cuba had agreed to restore diplomatic relations and work towards the normalisation of other relations, especially trade and travel between the two countries.
I did not think that President Barack Obama had the fortitude to dismantle a 50-plus-year anachronism that lingered as the last vestige of the Cold War that all but ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Continue reading Cuba and the USA: the long thaw begins
By Raffique Shah
December 14, 2014
Some nights ago, a television news reporter covering one of the Prime Minister’s toys distribution functions asked eight children what they would like to get as Christmas presents. All seemed to be between ages five and ten. One boy said he wanted a truck and a girl screamed, “A doll house!”
Continue reading Slaves to digital devices
By Raffique Shah
December 07, 2014
“This is PNM country. The black African king anointed by the blood of Jesus Christ has decreeded (sic) that is we time again. We Africans will be the masa (sic) and the rest ah allya (sic) will be we slaves. Starting today the terror shall begin for all allya coolie and chin who feel allya better than we. Today is just a flat tire.”
For those who are reading or hearing about it for the first time, the idiotic but poisonous verses quoted above, with the PNM insignia inserted above them, formed a “flyer” that some patrons at MovieTowne found stuck to their vehicle windscreens last Saturday night. In instances, the victims found their tyres deflated.
Continue reading Satanic race-verses
By Raffique Shah
November 30, 2014
In the current oil prices turmoil that has sparked much speculation, rumours of doom and gloom, and seeming indifference on the part of Government, the few in the country who know and understand what’s happening at the global level owe it to the nation to let their voices be heard.
We cannot believe the politicians. Over the past few months, as the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude slipped from US$105 a barrel in June to below US$70 a barrel last week, Finance Minister Larry Howai and Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine were singing, “Don’t worry, be happy!”
Continue reading Politics and oil—a deadly cocktail
By Raffique Shah
November 23, 2014
The devastation of sections of the Manzanilla-Mayaro Road may have been triggered by an act of God, as many are wont to say when heavy rainfall wreaks havoc and they wish to cover up their complicity in the destruction—dumping debris into watercourses, interfering with drainage systems, or denuding hillsides and undertaking construction in the worst possible places.
Continue reading Manzanilla collapse: decades of neglect
By Raffique Shah
November 16, 2014
The land slippages and other failures that occurred on the newly-opened section of the Solomon Hochoy Highway might be a blessing in disguise if the Government could resist the temptation to play politics with the costliest public works project ever in the country. This is also no time for those who oppose the Debe to Mon Desir segment of the new highway to gloat over the defects, seeing them as “karma” or punishment for the Government for proceeding with construction even as protestor Wayne Kublalsingh remains at death’s door in his marathon hunger strike.
Continue reading Backward ever, forward never
By Raffique Shah
November 09, 2014
One of these not-so-good days, vehicular traffic in this cussed country will grind to a halt. With vehicular density (cars per 1,000 people) somewhere around 600 and growing, and Government boasting of vehicle sales as a barometer of a robust economy, we shall soon reach saturation where, if all the vehicles take to the roads at the same time, the country would be stricken with severe traffic constipation.
Continue reading Traffic Constipation
By Raffique Shah
November 02, 2014
Many among the upwardly mobile of yesteryear’s generations—politicians, car and insurance salesmen and budding businessmen—were sure to read Dale Carnegie’s bestselling book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie was one of the earliest leadership training gurus in America, and his books, especially this one, were virtual bibles for people wanting to wield power or become millionaires.
Continue reading How to lose friends and alienate people