ALL OVER TRINIDAD & Tobago, all sorts of people will claim they could bring a better Budget than the Minister of Finance today – and they might be right: a civil engineer by training and an occasionally uncivil Parliamentarian in practice, the old Colm’s greatest strength is his self-belief; would that we all shared it. Read more

“I alert my audience of the East Indian thrust toward ethnic dominance…” – Professor Selwyn Cudjoe, National Association for the Enhancement of African Peoples dinner speech, August 2006.

“If anything it is the PNM that has been pushing racial dominance... Dr. Cudjoe’s attacks on the Indian community has been given tacit support by the ruling party.” Statement in response from the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin.

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe is to be praised for his timely, necessary, sensitive and responsible remarks about Indian people which could only help unite the country. In backwater, back-a-dam places like Trinidad & Tobago, you don’t often find people who offer the combination of Professor Cudjoe’s startling intellectual ability with his flair for language and the great courage required to attack soft targets. My only problems with the old Cudjoe’s speech are: (1) it doesn’t go far enough; and, (2) it would have more impact if he had waited until Indian Arrival Day to make it. (Surely his point was that, Indian Reach!)

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The greatest modern challenge – and it’s really unique to our age – is to separate the ludicrous from the genius. We have to overcome the challenge everywhere from the Cabinet through the campuses to the catwalk: are we supposed to admire or sneer at those policies, courses or fashions? But, extreme sushi notwithstanding the contradiction of our age hasn’t so far been literally served up on a plate in front of us. Read more

I haven’t firetruckery-ied around here for some time. I’m not sure if my reluctance to post arose because the US presidential election has by itself provided more firetruckeries than the world has needed for months, so more from me seemed otiose, or because I have myself been under a lot of all kinds of pressure in the same period. For one reason or another, e.g., most of them lying outside my choice, I Read more

Today’s number one film:

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese/ 1976/ USA / Drama-Thriller/ 113 mins/ Rated R), 4.10pm Fox Classics. Watch this if you liked The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon or No Country for Old Men. Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus and one of the greatest New York movies ever made stars Robert De Niro in his greatest performance as Travis Bickle,

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