ST. JOHN ON THE ISLE OF PATHOS
Dr. Lester CN Simon
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. (Revelation 6:2).
Medical professionalism in Antigua and Barbuda is under attack. The battle began many years ago but the freeing up of national radio is bringing the frontline of the battle to the streets of the city with embedded journalists and all.
When I am confronted by a medical problem I cannot solve, my profession teaches me to consult my elders and resort to the medical archives.
The November 18, 1999 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine carries an article entitled, Medical Professionalism in Society, by Matthew K. Wynia, et al. It reminds us that the word, “profession” means, from the Latin, “speaking forth”. The authors put out a model of medical professionalism that comprises three core elements: devotion to medical service, public profession of values, and negotiation regarding professional value and other social values.
Whenever a doctor reflects on the harrowing years in medical school, two overwhelming emotions underscore those challenging years. We all remember the strong desire of be invited in, to be inducted and welcomed into the fraternity of noble men and women dedicated to the noble art and science of healing. We also recall the satisfying feeling of arrival, of actually becoming a doctor and being charged with the responsibility of doing battle against the evil forces of sickness and untimely death.
I have always wondered what is so unique about belonging to a fraternity of doctors, especially since we do not fraternise as often as we should, and, quite frankly, some of us would oftentimes prefer to socially engage other members of society. Wynia et al answer by suggesting that professionalism is a structurally stabilizing, morally protective force in society. The authors posited the triumvirate of private-sector, public-sector and professionalism as the cornerstone of a stable society.
It must be noted that the professional side of this stable, social triumvirate is both constant and manifold. Professionalism is not exclusively medical; it includes other professions and it embraces civil society.
According to Wynia et al, the first core element of medical professionalism is devotion to medical service. They remind us that physicians should cultivate in themselves and in their peers a devotion to health care values by placing the goals of patients and public health ahead of other goals. In Antigua and Barbuda, as elsewhere, this cultivation must grow out of a functional association of doctors in which we criticize and police one another. This core element of medical professionalism is so important, the authors arrive at a telling admonition.
They charge that devotion to medical service is so important, physicians must avoid even the appearance that they are primarily devoted to their own interest rather than to the interest of others. Patients in vulnerable times of need of medical service may be easily confused, used and abused in this regard. It behoves the members of the medical profession to profess, to speak forth.
The second core element of medical professionalism, the speaking forth must be done from a moral, ethical and professional base otherwise individualistic ranting becomes a big boast and an ugly, cheap, self-defeating marketing tool.
The third core element involves balancing medical needs with other societal needs as it allows other arms of the multiplex, professional bodies and the rest of the triumvirate to jostle and sway and engage in battle. The non-negotiable tenet, the sine qua non of this romantic war must be that the triumvirate forces of professionalism (including civil society), private-sector and public-sector must always underpin and rigidly stake society to the ground. Those who deliberately seek to destroy the underpinning of Antigua and Barbuda society are seeking long-term residence at the east of the Antigua Recreation Grounds.
So if you know all these things and you see any young, medical warrior return home brimming with enthusiasm, confidence and self-righteousness to do battle against sickness and untimely death, it is the sacred duty of the you the elders to temper and guide the misguided youth, curb the enthusiasm and distil the natural effervescence of the neophyte. And when the youth throws a tantrum and rants and raves and misbehaves, it is the sacred duty of the elders to remind: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things (First Corinthians, 13:11).
Verily, it cannot be acceptable that the former elders of society wantonly, barefacedly and wittingly allowed a young medical warrior to marginalize and alienate himself and then shout at the new elders and remind them that they, the new elders, proclaimed before they became the new elders that “What is wrong will be made right”. This kind of thing will make Jesus bawl, as in the Gospel According to Saint John, 11:35.
Monday, May 1, 2006
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The Bigger You Are
MAXIMUS IGNORAMUS
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Please permit me to point out to Mr. Lionel Max Hurst that he should read what I have written and not what he thinks I have written. He refers to the East Bus Station project as the “monstrosity so amiably described” by me. Nowhere in my article can anyone find or infer such a reference to the project.
The request from his side that the government should follow the law is not an “alternative proffered by the green marchers in white”. It is simply an admonition, and I must say, a commendable one coming from him, given the history of some of the members of his tribe. By alternative, I mean, according to the dictionary, what is available as another possibility, another plan that you would put in place to solve the stated problem.
The alternatives registered by me were not made because I am “wiser and more intelligent” or because I am a doctor as Mr. Hurst rudely suggested. My proposals derive from an everlasting fear of blind ignorance and unquestioning allegiance to any political party, idea, person, place or thing. My search for an alternative is derived from the same approach some of us learnt in Grammar School from doing our mathematics homework: quod erat demonstrandum (QED).
I know Mr. Hurst appreciates good humour since he related the indigestibility of his shoe’s heel compared to the rest of his edible shoe. So let me end by saying in reference to green and greenery that the three primary colours are red, blue and yellow and green is made from mixing yellow and blue, not red.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Please permit me to point out to Mr. Lionel Max Hurst that he should read what I have written and not what he thinks I have written. He refers to the East Bus Station project as the “monstrosity so amiably described” by me. Nowhere in my article can anyone find or infer such a reference to the project.
The request from his side that the government should follow the law is not an “alternative proffered by the green marchers in white”. It is simply an admonition, and I must say, a commendable one coming from him, given the history of some of the members of his tribe. By alternative, I mean, according to the dictionary, what is available as another possibility, another plan that you would put in place to solve the stated problem.
The alternatives registered by me were not made because I am “wiser and more intelligent” or because I am a doctor as Mr. Hurst rudely suggested. My proposals derive from an everlasting fear of blind ignorance and unquestioning allegiance to any political party, idea, person, place or thing. My search for an alternative is derived from the same approach some of us learnt in Grammar School from doing our mathematics homework: quod erat demonstrandum (QED).
I know Mr. Hurst appreciates good humour since he related the indigestibility of his shoe’s heel compared to the rest of his edible shoe. So let me end by saying in reference to green and greenery that the three primary colours are red, blue and yellow and green is made from mixing yellow and blue, not red.
Thursday, April 6, 2006
The Green Green Grass
THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Green is one of my favourite colours. When I was little and laid waste my schooldays in St. Thomas, all I wanted was to be Green Lantern, the super hero. His mantra was, “In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power….Green Lantern's Light!” So when I see two neaga marching, in white, for green space, I have to don my greens and become Green Lantern again.
The reported purpose of the proposed complex at the East Bus Station is to ease the vehicular traffic in the city and to allow for the setting up of a modern sewage system in St. John’s. Many of those who are against the car park part or the entire project cry out for the preservation of the greenery. Given the stated problems in the city, the alternatives proffered by the green marchers in white are untenable, nonsensical or nonexistent. To find a really green alternative, we have to challenge conventional wisdom and think outside the green and white box.
The solution is to stop designing or redesigning the city, the suburbs and the entire country around the demands of private automobiles, parking and vehicular, rush-hour traffic. We have to conceptualize urban and country planning around pedestrians, communities and public, not private transport. You want green? Take green.
The congestion in the city has already spread to the suburbs. This is clearly evident when you try to get to or from the city along all the roadways. This is a natural progression in all cities as more commuters with more cars travel from the countryside and suburbs to and from the city centre in private vehicles. The growth of St. John’s is typical of any developing or crowded city as the commercial centre becomes packed and growth occurs at the edges. Our architects and engineers must begin to redesign and rebuild this country from a master plan.
The argument against the use of the supposedly sacred greenery at East Bus Station is a tuppence hapeney argument unless those arguing against are willing to consider the whole pound, shilling and pence: the city and its environs. In their narrow, green context, the argument against the use of this particular green space becomes a storm in a teacup or a hurricane in a saucepan.
Transportation for the public requires public, not private, transport. Concentration on public transport will require express bus roads since the roads are not wide enough for dedicated bus lanes. However, we may consider express bus lanes alongside one-way lanes into and out of the city. Emphasis on public transport will require easy access, convenience and efficiency. Instead of two large, east and west bus stations we may need more, larger bus terminals at the far edges of the suburb linked to more medium-sized and smaller and smaller terminals as we get to the city.
Such a public bus system will require a transfer system using a single ticket. It will be like a subway system above ground. The larger terminals with larger buses will require commuters to pay as they enter a transparent, covered, rain-proof , properly ventilated, elevated bus stop shaped like a tube (eat you heart out London). We then exit directly from the tube into the bus and no time is lost in collecting money on the bus. Wheel chairs will be easily accommodated.
This public transport system must be operated and maintained by the private sector with a government agency such as the Transport Board acting as overseer. The bus companies and bus cooperatives will be paid by the number of miles they operate rather than by the number of passengers they transport. With proper control mechanisms in place, this can be done. We will pay less for fuel as we leave our cars at home or at parking lots far from the city and commute on public transport. We will also build bicycle paths and many green parks of varying sizes which will all connect to public transportation. Derelict buildings and empty city lots will be transformed into green spaces. No private vehicles will operate in the city separate from the public transport. You want green? Take green.
It’s amazing how we think of parks and how we use them. In the sixties when we were studying for exams the best places to study were the graveyard of the St. John’s Cathedral (with warnings of which jumbie you were sitting on) and the Botanical gardens. The connection between the two was that there was hardly anyone around (whom you could see). This is why I decided one day in London to visit the nearby park to get away from the noise in the house and practice my saxophone in peace. In less than five minutes I was surrounded by crowds of park goers. In Antigua and Barbuda we must organize activities inside the green spaces to attract people. Many of the green marchers in white would not recognize a green leafy vegetable if you stuffed one down their throats.
Since the city needs a new sewage system, let us consider waste in general and implement a recycling program. It should not surprise you if many of the green marchers in white will still continue in the same old way, dumping garbage on their beloved green spaces with pee-pee and poo-poo to boot.
Ask Ambassador Underwood to tell you about a city in Brazil called Curitiba. An article on urban planning by Jonas Rabinovitch and Josef Leitman in Scientific American in March 1996 informs my position. It chronicled Curitiba’s downplaying of the needs of private motorized traffic and prioritizing public transport, bicycle paths, pedestrians’ walkways and the environment. How has Curitiba fared since 1996? That year is crucial because at that time, official planners from all over the world including New York City, Toronto, Montreal, Paris, Lyons, Moscow, Prague, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Lagos, were visiting and praising Curitiba.
You want green? Let us go the whole hog and give them all the green they want. The next thing you know is that, as we green up the place and de-emphasize the use of private cars, they will have a protest motorcade and at the front of the motorcade there will be a certain, quaint, little green car. You just can’t win. Time to call the real Green Lantern.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Green is one of my favourite colours. When I was little and laid waste my schooldays in St. Thomas, all I wanted was to be Green Lantern, the super hero. His mantra was, “In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power….Green Lantern's Light!” So when I see two neaga marching, in white, for green space, I have to don my greens and become Green Lantern again.
The reported purpose of the proposed complex at the East Bus Station is to ease the vehicular traffic in the city and to allow for the setting up of a modern sewage system in St. John’s. Many of those who are against the car park part or the entire project cry out for the preservation of the greenery. Given the stated problems in the city, the alternatives proffered by the green marchers in white are untenable, nonsensical or nonexistent. To find a really green alternative, we have to challenge conventional wisdom and think outside the green and white box.
The solution is to stop designing or redesigning the city, the suburbs and the entire country around the demands of private automobiles, parking and vehicular, rush-hour traffic. We have to conceptualize urban and country planning around pedestrians, communities and public, not private transport. You want green? Take green.
The congestion in the city has already spread to the suburbs. This is clearly evident when you try to get to or from the city along all the roadways. This is a natural progression in all cities as more commuters with more cars travel from the countryside and suburbs to and from the city centre in private vehicles. The growth of St. John’s is typical of any developing or crowded city as the commercial centre becomes packed and growth occurs at the edges. Our architects and engineers must begin to redesign and rebuild this country from a master plan.
The argument against the use of the supposedly sacred greenery at East Bus Station is a tuppence hapeney argument unless those arguing against are willing to consider the whole pound, shilling and pence: the city and its environs. In their narrow, green context, the argument against the use of this particular green space becomes a storm in a teacup or a hurricane in a saucepan.
Transportation for the public requires public, not private, transport. Concentration on public transport will require express bus roads since the roads are not wide enough for dedicated bus lanes. However, we may consider express bus lanes alongside one-way lanes into and out of the city. Emphasis on public transport will require easy access, convenience and efficiency. Instead of two large, east and west bus stations we may need more, larger bus terminals at the far edges of the suburb linked to more medium-sized and smaller and smaller terminals as we get to the city.
Such a public bus system will require a transfer system using a single ticket. It will be like a subway system above ground. The larger terminals with larger buses will require commuters to pay as they enter a transparent, covered, rain-proof , properly ventilated, elevated bus stop shaped like a tube (eat you heart out London). We then exit directly from the tube into the bus and no time is lost in collecting money on the bus. Wheel chairs will be easily accommodated.
This public transport system must be operated and maintained by the private sector with a government agency such as the Transport Board acting as overseer. The bus companies and bus cooperatives will be paid by the number of miles they operate rather than by the number of passengers they transport. With proper control mechanisms in place, this can be done. We will pay less for fuel as we leave our cars at home or at parking lots far from the city and commute on public transport. We will also build bicycle paths and many green parks of varying sizes which will all connect to public transportation. Derelict buildings and empty city lots will be transformed into green spaces. No private vehicles will operate in the city separate from the public transport. You want green? Take green.
It’s amazing how we think of parks and how we use them. In the sixties when we were studying for exams the best places to study were the graveyard of the St. John’s Cathedral (with warnings of which jumbie you were sitting on) and the Botanical gardens. The connection between the two was that there was hardly anyone around (whom you could see). This is why I decided one day in London to visit the nearby park to get away from the noise in the house and practice my saxophone in peace. In less than five minutes I was surrounded by crowds of park goers. In Antigua and Barbuda we must organize activities inside the green spaces to attract people. Many of the green marchers in white would not recognize a green leafy vegetable if you stuffed one down their throats.
Since the city needs a new sewage system, let us consider waste in general and implement a recycling program. It should not surprise you if many of the green marchers in white will still continue in the same old way, dumping garbage on their beloved green spaces with pee-pee and poo-poo to boot.
Ask Ambassador Underwood to tell you about a city in Brazil called Curitiba. An article on urban planning by Jonas Rabinovitch and Josef Leitman in Scientific American in March 1996 informs my position. It chronicled Curitiba’s downplaying of the needs of private motorized traffic and prioritizing public transport, bicycle paths, pedestrians’ walkways and the environment. How has Curitiba fared since 1996? That year is crucial because at that time, official planners from all over the world including New York City, Toronto, Montreal, Paris, Lyons, Moscow, Prague, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Lagos, were visiting and praising Curitiba.
You want green? Let us go the whole hog and give them all the green they want. The next thing you know is that, as we green up the place and de-emphasize the use of private cars, they will have a protest motorcade and at the front of the motorcade there will be a certain, quaint, little green car. You just can’t win. Time to call the real Green Lantern.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Our Music
SHOW ME YOUR MOTION
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Pan In Education: A Sustainable Business Model for the Caribbean Music Industry by Simeon Louis Sandiford, was one of the presentations at a recent regional workshop in Antigua & Barbuda on Information, Communication and Technology (ICT). Pan In Education by Mark Loquan et al., is a watershed, double compact disc from Trinidad and Tobago. In addition to 13 calypsos in various formats including musical scores and data on Caribbean rhythms, there is a plethora of data that can be used in a classroom in the Caribbean or in any part of the world. Music and business are integrated.
The appearance of this double CD about steel pan and calypso begs the question about calypso music in general. Why is calypso less popular on the international circuit than reggae and what must calypso do to catch up? Somewhere amongst the myriad reasons must be the fact that if you line up 20 of the bests traditional reggae and calypso songs, the lyrics of the reggae songs will appeal more readily to the average international listener. Generally, calypso lyrics are more parochial. There are many more double meanings (double entendres) in calypso than in reggae.
The origin and purpose of calypso demanded a more subtle, indirect approach. Although calypso started as protest music, reggae is more direct, more “get up, stand up; stand up for your right”. Reggae will walk straight and direct along Market Street from the market to the police station, calypso will take you all around town, allow you to enjoy yourself before you realise you are locked up in the same police station!
If we can package steel pan music for education in a classroom in far off lands, why can’t we package calypso for the average listener in the same far off lands? We would have to use DVD instead of CD because in addition to music and data formats that are the confines of a CD, a DVD can also carry movies. The parochial limitations of calypso can be surmounted by displaying the lyrics, outlining the story and employing a glossary of Caribbean words and phrases using a standard source like the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage by Richard Allsopp. The same goes for the double entendres. We can also incorporate music videos of singers performing the songs with sceneries of Antigua and Barbuda, information on the locations, travel arrangements, etc., all on a single DVD.
The marketing plan would be to get the average international person who is infected by the drama and beauty of carnival and calypso to understand what the mystique is all about. We can also include in the DVD a dissertation and demonstration on the art of dancing to calypso music for those hop, skip and jump tourists who seem to be out of time, all the time, every time they go on the calypso dance floor.
An important past participle of calypso theme and strategy was used for the building of strong, narrative structure: Witty humour. Traditional reggae was terribly lacking in this element. It is a unique, marketable aspect of the verb and gerund of calypso composition. Have you ever heard a traditional reggae song that makes you band your belly and laugh your head off until the lost tears of laughter make you dizzy from dehydration? As much as I love Bob Marley’s music, you will never hear a reggae song from that era about a lying competition, a lion and donkey rematch, love in the cemetery, or a treatise on the theatrical art of two women “cussing” on Greenbay Hill.
In recent times, reggae has ventured into humour and this has paid huge dividends with lyrics responding to, and countering lyrics of a previously released song. This genre comes straight out of the calypso tent and there are knowledgeable musicians and musicologists who will “tell you flat” that reggae came out of calypso; but that is another story, which itself is another genre of the calypso art form. Both calypso and reggae have surfed onto a wave of banality to the extent that you have to search hard amongst the haystack of odious garbage to find the solitary, buried, musical gem that pierces your musical heart.
As we bridge the ICT, digital divide we expect answers to questions about computer simulation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic into and out of St. John’s city. We want to know about computer simulation of the use of the entire extended East Bus Station area as the predominant atrium of the city. This is modern town and suburban planning which must extend to the whole of Antigua and Barbuda. However, within this exciting ICT, digital milieu, the fundamental things of life still apply. It is our culture that defines us, and dictates how we deploy the ICT, digital tools. We must understand ourselves before we can export our culture with or without the ICT, digital media of CD and DVD.
A crucial part of this understanding of national self must begin with coming to terms with the singular and central lesson of slavery. The cardinal lesson of slavery is that black people are a dignified race of survivors. Amen! Once we understand the historical significance of this, we can also survive in a dignified way the nonsense we face now including the enslaving nonsense that comes even from some of our very own. With the Caribbean being the melting pot of all of the races of the world, the raison d’etre of a West Indian and Caribbean person or personality is how all these races can survive and live together in social harmony. Indeed, in the Caribbean, we are the world.
So let us celebrate the hard work that went into the Pan In Education double CD. But we must use the same ICT, digital tools to extend to packaging calypso and other forms of our West Indian and Caribbean culture for export. The requirements for this successful venture are the same requirements that schools of business administration have been trying to teach corporate executives. When the tools of business are used for culture, the learning and mastering of the tools of business will be so much easier. Indeed, Pan In Education is a brilliant attempt to apply all aspects of a business from creating to manufacturing, to selling, and investing, to creating again, using music and steel pan.
The business of culture will help us to redevelop a business culture. This propagation of culture by first understanding national self and culture and valuing our cultural icons and sending out our minstrels and jesters and traders, is not uniquely North American. It is as old as the hills. It started in the home of all of mankind: in Africa.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Pan In Education: A Sustainable Business Model for the Caribbean Music Industry by Simeon Louis Sandiford, was one of the presentations at a recent regional workshop in Antigua & Barbuda on Information, Communication and Technology (ICT). Pan In Education by Mark Loquan et al., is a watershed, double compact disc from Trinidad and Tobago. In addition to 13 calypsos in various formats including musical scores and data on Caribbean rhythms, there is a plethora of data that can be used in a classroom in the Caribbean or in any part of the world. Music and business are integrated.
The appearance of this double CD about steel pan and calypso begs the question about calypso music in general. Why is calypso less popular on the international circuit than reggae and what must calypso do to catch up? Somewhere amongst the myriad reasons must be the fact that if you line up 20 of the bests traditional reggae and calypso songs, the lyrics of the reggae songs will appeal more readily to the average international listener. Generally, calypso lyrics are more parochial. There are many more double meanings (double entendres) in calypso than in reggae.
The origin and purpose of calypso demanded a more subtle, indirect approach. Although calypso started as protest music, reggae is more direct, more “get up, stand up; stand up for your right”. Reggae will walk straight and direct along Market Street from the market to the police station, calypso will take you all around town, allow you to enjoy yourself before you realise you are locked up in the same police station!
If we can package steel pan music for education in a classroom in far off lands, why can’t we package calypso for the average listener in the same far off lands? We would have to use DVD instead of CD because in addition to music and data formats that are the confines of a CD, a DVD can also carry movies. The parochial limitations of calypso can be surmounted by displaying the lyrics, outlining the story and employing a glossary of Caribbean words and phrases using a standard source like the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage by Richard Allsopp. The same goes for the double entendres. We can also incorporate music videos of singers performing the songs with sceneries of Antigua and Barbuda, information on the locations, travel arrangements, etc., all on a single DVD.
The marketing plan would be to get the average international person who is infected by the drama and beauty of carnival and calypso to understand what the mystique is all about. We can also include in the DVD a dissertation and demonstration on the art of dancing to calypso music for those hop, skip and jump tourists who seem to be out of time, all the time, every time they go on the calypso dance floor.
An important past participle of calypso theme and strategy was used for the building of strong, narrative structure: Witty humour. Traditional reggae was terribly lacking in this element. It is a unique, marketable aspect of the verb and gerund of calypso composition. Have you ever heard a traditional reggae song that makes you band your belly and laugh your head off until the lost tears of laughter make you dizzy from dehydration? As much as I love Bob Marley’s music, you will never hear a reggae song from that era about a lying competition, a lion and donkey rematch, love in the cemetery, or a treatise on the theatrical art of two women “cussing” on Greenbay Hill.
In recent times, reggae has ventured into humour and this has paid huge dividends with lyrics responding to, and countering lyrics of a previously released song. This genre comes straight out of the calypso tent and there are knowledgeable musicians and musicologists who will “tell you flat” that reggae came out of calypso; but that is another story, which itself is another genre of the calypso art form. Both calypso and reggae have surfed onto a wave of banality to the extent that you have to search hard amongst the haystack of odious garbage to find the solitary, buried, musical gem that pierces your musical heart.
As we bridge the ICT, digital divide we expect answers to questions about computer simulation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic into and out of St. John’s city. We want to know about computer simulation of the use of the entire extended East Bus Station area as the predominant atrium of the city. This is modern town and suburban planning which must extend to the whole of Antigua and Barbuda. However, within this exciting ICT, digital milieu, the fundamental things of life still apply. It is our culture that defines us, and dictates how we deploy the ICT, digital tools. We must understand ourselves before we can export our culture with or without the ICT, digital media of CD and DVD.
A crucial part of this understanding of national self must begin with coming to terms with the singular and central lesson of slavery. The cardinal lesson of slavery is that black people are a dignified race of survivors. Amen! Once we understand the historical significance of this, we can also survive in a dignified way the nonsense we face now including the enslaving nonsense that comes even from some of our very own. With the Caribbean being the melting pot of all of the races of the world, the raison d’etre of a West Indian and Caribbean person or personality is how all these races can survive and live together in social harmony. Indeed, in the Caribbean, we are the world.
So let us celebrate the hard work that went into the Pan In Education double CD. But we must use the same ICT, digital tools to extend to packaging calypso and other forms of our West Indian and Caribbean culture for export. The requirements for this successful venture are the same requirements that schools of business administration have been trying to teach corporate executives. When the tools of business are used for culture, the learning and mastering of the tools of business will be so much easier. Indeed, Pan In Education is a brilliant attempt to apply all aspects of a business from creating to manufacturing, to selling, and investing, to creating again, using music and steel pan.
The business of culture will help us to redevelop a business culture. This propagation of culture by first understanding national self and culture and valuing our cultural icons and sending out our minstrels and jesters and traders, is not uniquely North American. It is as old as the hills. It started in the home of all of mankind: in Africa.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Our Kind of Music
I KNOW TEACHER, I KNOW!
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Some of us have experienced the joy of instantaneously raising our hand in class to signal to the teacher that we knew the answer to the question asked. Some of us have also borne the harrowing effect of another pupil slowly raising their hand and delivering an answer that was so clear and bright, our only release was to go home quietly and pretend that we were that pupil. As we grew older we realised we must learn from each other to extend the boundaries of general knowledge.
The double compact disc, Pan In Education from Trinidad and Tobago is a watershed in Caribbean music. One CD is an audio version of 13 songs played by steel orchestras. The other CD shows the full musical scores as well as the score for each instrument in three formats for viewing and listening. Additionally, there is information on Caribbean rhythms, copyright issues and a bevy of data that allow this double CD set to be used in a classroom in the Caribbean or in any part of the world.
Pan In Education was the focal point of one of the presentations at a recent regional workshop in Antigua & Barbuda on Information, Communication and Technology (ICT). The title of the presentation was Pan In Education: A Sustainable Business Model for the Caribbean Music Industry by Simeon Louis Sandiford, managing director of Sanch Electronix Limited in Trinidad and Tobago.
The appearance of this double CD about steel pan begs the question about calypso music in general. Why is calypso less popular on the international circuit than reggae and what must calypso do to catch up? Somewhere amongst the myriad reasons must be the fact that if you line up 20 of the bests traditional reggae and calypso songs, the lyrics of the reggae songs will appeal more readily to the average international listener. Generally, calypso lyrics are more parochial. There are many more double entendres (double meanings) in calypso than in reggae.
The origin and purpose of calypso demanded a more subtle, indirect approach; and even though calypso can be protest music, reggae is more direct, more “get up, stand up, stand up for your right”. Reggae will walk straight and direct along Market Street from the market to the Police Station, calypso will take you all around town, allow you to enjoy yourself before you realise you are locked up in the same Police Station!
If we can package steel pan music for education in a classroom in some far off land, why can’t we package calypso for the average listener in the same far off land? We would have to use DVD instead of CD because in addition to music and data that are the confines of a CD, a DVD can also carry movies. The parochial limitations of calypso can be surmounted by displaying the lyrics, outlining the story and employing a glossary of Caribbean words and phrases using a standard source like the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage by Richard Allsopp. The same goes for the double entendres. We can also incorporate a movie of the singer performing the songs in a typical music video performance with sceneries of Antigua and Barbuda with information on the locations etc.
The marketing plan would be to get the average international person who is infected by the drama and beauty of carnival and calypso to understand what the mystique is all about. We can also include in the DVD a dissertation and demonstration on the art of dancing to calypso music for those hopping tourists who seem to be out of time all the time every time they go on the calypso dance floor.
An important past participle of calypso theme and strategy was used for the building of strong, narrative structure. Witty humour. Traditional reggae lacked this element terribly. It is a unique, marketable aspect of the verb and gerund of calypso composition. Have you ever heard a traditional reggae song that makes you hold your belly and laugh your head off until the lost tears of laughter make you dizzy from dehydration? As much as I love Bob Marley’s music, you will never hear a reggae song from that era about a lying competition or a theatrical discourse on the art of two women “cussing” on Greenbay Hill.
In recent times, reggae has ventured into humour and this has paid huge dividends with lyrics responding to, and countering lyrics of a previously released song. This genre comes straight out of the calypso tent and there are knowledgeable musicians and musicologists who will “tell you flat” that reggae came out of calypso; but that is another story, which itself is another genre of the calypso art form. Both calypso and reggae have surfed onto a wave of banality to the extent that you have to search hard amongst the haystack of odious garbage to find the solitary, buried, musical gem that pierces you like a needle.
As we bridge the digital divide we expect answers to questions about computer simulation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic into and out of St. John’s. We want to know about computer simulation of the use of the entire extended East Bus Station area as an atrium of the city. This is modern town and suburban planning which must extend to the whole of Antigua and Barbuda. However, within this enticing digital milieu, the fundamental things of life still apply. It is our culture that defines us and we must understand ourselves before we can export our culture with or without the digital medium of CD or DVD.
A crucial part of this understanding of national self must begin with coming to terms with the singular and central lesson of slavery. The cardinal lesson of slavery is that black people are a dignified race of survivors. Amen! Once we understand the historical significance of this, we can also survive in a dignified way the nonsense we face now including the enslaving nonsense that comes even from some of our very own. With the Caribbean being the melting pot of all of the races of the world, the raison d’etre of a West Indian and Caribbean person or personality is how all these races can survive and live together in social harmony. Indeed, in the Caribbean, we are the world.
So let us celebrate the hard work that went into the Pan In Education double CD. But we must use the same digital tools to extend to packaging calypso and other forms of our West Indian and Caribbean culture for export. The requirements for this successful venture are the same requirements that schools of business administration have been trying to teach corporate executives. When the tools of business are used for culture, the learning and mastering of the tools of business will be so much easier. Indeed, Pan In Education is a brilliant attempt to apply all aspects of a business from creating to manufacturing, to selling, and investing, to creating again, using music and steel pan.
The business of culture will help us to redevelop a business culture. This propagation of culture by first understanding national self and culture and valuing our cultural icons and sending out our minstrels and jesters and traders, is not uniquely North American. It is as old as the hills. It started in the home of all of mankind: in Africa.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Some of us have experienced the joy of instantaneously raising our hand in class to signal to the teacher that we knew the answer to the question asked. Some of us have also borne the harrowing effect of another pupil slowly raising their hand and delivering an answer that was so clear and bright, our only release was to go home quietly and pretend that we were that pupil. As we grew older we realised we must learn from each other to extend the boundaries of general knowledge.
The double compact disc, Pan In Education from Trinidad and Tobago is a watershed in Caribbean music. One CD is an audio version of 13 songs played by steel orchestras. The other CD shows the full musical scores as well as the score for each instrument in three formats for viewing and listening. Additionally, there is information on Caribbean rhythms, copyright issues and a bevy of data that allow this double CD set to be used in a classroom in the Caribbean or in any part of the world.
Pan In Education was the focal point of one of the presentations at a recent regional workshop in Antigua & Barbuda on Information, Communication and Technology (ICT). The title of the presentation was Pan In Education: A Sustainable Business Model for the Caribbean Music Industry by Simeon Louis Sandiford, managing director of Sanch Electronix Limited in Trinidad and Tobago.
The appearance of this double CD about steel pan begs the question about calypso music in general. Why is calypso less popular on the international circuit than reggae and what must calypso do to catch up? Somewhere amongst the myriad reasons must be the fact that if you line up 20 of the bests traditional reggae and calypso songs, the lyrics of the reggae songs will appeal more readily to the average international listener. Generally, calypso lyrics are more parochial. There are many more double entendres (double meanings) in calypso than in reggae.
The origin and purpose of calypso demanded a more subtle, indirect approach; and even though calypso can be protest music, reggae is more direct, more “get up, stand up, stand up for your right”. Reggae will walk straight and direct along Market Street from the market to the Police Station, calypso will take you all around town, allow you to enjoy yourself before you realise you are locked up in the same Police Station!
If we can package steel pan music for education in a classroom in some far off land, why can’t we package calypso for the average listener in the same far off land? We would have to use DVD instead of CD because in addition to music and data that are the confines of a CD, a DVD can also carry movies. The parochial limitations of calypso can be surmounted by displaying the lyrics, outlining the story and employing a glossary of Caribbean words and phrases using a standard source like the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage by Richard Allsopp. The same goes for the double entendres. We can also incorporate a movie of the singer performing the songs in a typical music video performance with sceneries of Antigua and Barbuda with information on the locations etc.
The marketing plan would be to get the average international person who is infected by the drama and beauty of carnival and calypso to understand what the mystique is all about. We can also include in the DVD a dissertation and demonstration on the art of dancing to calypso music for those hopping tourists who seem to be out of time all the time every time they go on the calypso dance floor.
An important past participle of calypso theme and strategy was used for the building of strong, narrative structure. Witty humour. Traditional reggae lacked this element terribly. It is a unique, marketable aspect of the verb and gerund of calypso composition. Have you ever heard a traditional reggae song that makes you hold your belly and laugh your head off until the lost tears of laughter make you dizzy from dehydration? As much as I love Bob Marley’s music, you will never hear a reggae song from that era about a lying competition or a theatrical discourse on the art of two women “cussing” on Greenbay Hill.
In recent times, reggae has ventured into humour and this has paid huge dividends with lyrics responding to, and countering lyrics of a previously released song. This genre comes straight out of the calypso tent and there are knowledgeable musicians and musicologists who will “tell you flat” that reggae came out of calypso; but that is another story, which itself is another genre of the calypso art form. Both calypso and reggae have surfed onto a wave of banality to the extent that you have to search hard amongst the haystack of odious garbage to find the solitary, buried, musical gem that pierces you like a needle.
As we bridge the digital divide we expect answers to questions about computer simulation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic into and out of St. John’s. We want to know about computer simulation of the use of the entire extended East Bus Station area as an atrium of the city. This is modern town and suburban planning which must extend to the whole of Antigua and Barbuda. However, within this enticing digital milieu, the fundamental things of life still apply. It is our culture that defines us and we must understand ourselves before we can export our culture with or without the digital medium of CD or DVD.
A crucial part of this understanding of national self must begin with coming to terms with the singular and central lesson of slavery. The cardinal lesson of slavery is that black people are a dignified race of survivors. Amen! Once we understand the historical significance of this, we can also survive in a dignified way the nonsense we face now including the enslaving nonsense that comes even from some of our very own. With the Caribbean being the melting pot of all of the races of the world, the raison d’etre of a West Indian and Caribbean person or personality is how all these races can survive and live together in social harmony. Indeed, in the Caribbean, we are the world.
So let us celebrate the hard work that went into the Pan In Education double CD. But we must use the same digital tools to extend to packaging calypso and other forms of our West Indian and Caribbean culture for export. The requirements for this successful venture are the same requirements that schools of business administration have been trying to teach corporate executives. When the tools of business are used for culture, the learning and mastering of the tools of business will be so much easier. Indeed, Pan In Education is a brilliant attempt to apply all aspects of a business from creating to manufacturing, to selling, and investing, to creating again, using music and steel pan.
The business of culture will help us to redevelop a business culture. This propagation of culture by first understanding national self and culture and valuing our cultural icons and sending out our minstrels and jesters and traders, is not uniquely North American. It is as old as the hills. It started in the home of all of mankind: in Africa.
Thursday, March 9, 2006
The Man Talked The Truth
THE SOLILOQUY OF CHAOS
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Please afford me the opportunity to register my agreement with Dorbrene O’Marde on at least two of the points in his two-part article following his appearance on Without Limits. The “men had moved on” fact that riled the women on the programme is indeed a worldwide phenomenon. In my lifetime I have seen male cashiers move on and leave a void that women filled. In the last couple of years female cashiers have moved on and left spaces for some males who were willing to take the job.
The few men and women with whom I spoke about the “riling up” (“without limits”) suggested that some men, in like situations, where they face such extreme, unwarranted and emotional reactions to an unexamined statement of fact, simply choose to move on.
However, the more significant point in his article was his proclamation that “the education system, not the family, is the most influential vehicle in our country for socialization.” We have all been afraid to say this because we were concerned that someone would reply, “Not my family, if you please. Talk for yourself”. But this is all part of the dishonesty of adults when we regard our childhood.
Maybe we were afraid to make Dorbrene’s declaration because we would be forced to ask who, male or female, is running the education system these days. Before the misguided men run away with their short-sighted answer, like the dish running away with the spoon, Dorbrene makes the tipping point: It “is not about the gender of leadership; it is about the system within which the leadership operates and seems reluctant to challenge, much less change.”
That women and men challenge and change wrong is a noble fight, an inalienable duty. To this end the words of Senator Massiah regarding the victory of Mrs. Portia Simpson-Miller in Jamaica are noteworthy for their dual inferences. She reminded us that women have always been the backbone of political parties in the Caribbean.
If we continue to charge after quixotic windmills instead of engaging the real whirlwinds it will be, as the rapper says, “the soliloquy of chaos”.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Please afford me the opportunity to register my agreement with Dorbrene O’Marde on at least two of the points in his two-part article following his appearance on Without Limits. The “men had moved on” fact that riled the women on the programme is indeed a worldwide phenomenon. In my lifetime I have seen male cashiers move on and leave a void that women filled. In the last couple of years female cashiers have moved on and left spaces for some males who were willing to take the job.
The few men and women with whom I spoke about the “riling up” (“without limits”) suggested that some men, in like situations, where they face such extreme, unwarranted and emotional reactions to an unexamined statement of fact, simply choose to move on.
However, the more significant point in his article was his proclamation that “the education system, not the family, is the most influential vehicle in our country for socialization.” We have all been afraid to say this because we were concerned that someone would reply, “Not my family, if you please. Talk for yourself”. But this is all part of the dishonesty of adults when we regard our childhood.
Maybe we were afraid to make Dorbrene’s declaration because we would be forced to ask who, male or female, is running the education system these days. Before the misguided men run away with their short-sighted answer, like the dish running away with the spoon, Dorbrene makes the tipping point: It “is not about the gender of leadership; it is about the system within which the leadership operates and seems reluctant to challenge, much less change.”
That women and men challenge and change wrong is a noble fight, an inalienable duty. To this end the words of Senator Massiah regarding the victory of Mrs. Portia Simpson-Miller in Jamaica are noteworthy for their dual inferences. She reminded us that women have always been the backbone of political parties in the Caribbean.
If we continue to charge after quixotic windmills instead of engaging the real whirlwinds it will be, as the rapper says, “the soliloquy of chaos”.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Night is Drawing Nigh
Now The Day Is Over
Dr. Lester CN Simon
“I was planning to forget calypso and go and plant peas in Tobago.” But adults are using our adulterated logic to look at children, so the peas will have to stay in the pods a while longer.
Why would a pupil throw urine at his teacher? Is he in jail and feels that the only way to make a statement is to do what some prisoners do? Is there some perverted, attention-seeking logic running from kid to kidney to urine to wee-wee? Whatever his reasons and whatever the punishment, some escaping facts should be caught. The urine-throwing incident required expert planning, good persuasive powers and management skills to get his peers to go along with the thrower, act as look-outs, collect the urine in a leak proof container, decide whether to use fresh or stale urine, co-ordinate the timing and the location of the hapless teacher, etc. These are the attributes of someone who, if directed properly, might do well in a Master in Business Administration course.
We have to come to terms with the fact that while Derek Walcott did say that evil is limited in its rhythm, this limitation is relative to the goodness that opposes it. In the absence of a high degree of goodness, evil will seem enchanting. Adults know this and we pretend that children do not know it too.
So let us recall the pre-HIV/AIDS, blood-sucking days of Dracula and the epic battles between the evil Dracula, played by Peter Cushing and his nemesis, Professor Larimer Van Helsing, played by Christopher Lee. Both enjoyed equal admiration. We loved the fact that the good one, the star-boy, would win but the cunning of the evil one was startling. Even in defeat, the evil one would stare at you knowingly as if to register his omnipresence, prophesy his return and force you to go gently into that dark, lonely night when you walked home from the cinema.
God created the earth in 6 days and the devil destroyed it in 6 minutes, if it takes that long to eat a forbidden fruit. The devil does find work for idle hands and yet the creative hands and minds of school children are locked away in involuntary separation packages from the bright, shiny and exciting landscape that all children should know and enjoy.
Everyone has a story about their childhood, about how many licks they got and how the ascension of the brain from the buttocks to the head was accompanied by a halo chorus of everlasting licks. So here are two childhood stories about cunning and licks.
My cousin, Tyrone was taken to Dr. Wisenger on many occasions for consumption (tuberculosis) on account of a chronic, seemingly incurable cough. Dr. Wisenger could not fathom his ailment. Playing doctor, I tried in vain to diagnose the malady by watching him closely like Brer Anancy. Then one day, like all illnesses, it revealed itself. Our grandmother used to sell many things, including soda pop. Tyrone had devised a method of coughing in synchrony with the opening of the soda pop to muffle the popping sound. One day, his timing was off by a few demisemiquavers. Case closed.
One day at school, Tyrone was about to be punished by headmaster, Mr. Quinn, the late father of the Honourable Minister, Quinn-Leandro. Tyrone had committed the unpardonable sin of using a piece of looking glass to see less darkly the underclothes of a schoolgirl. Again, bad timing was his undoing as Mr. Quinn stealthily sauntered by during the doxology.
So here was Tyrone below the platform and there was the mighty Mr. Quinn on the platform with his broad strap raised, ready to descend onto Tyrone’s back. We waited in baited breath to see how he would escape this time. I have to tell you that Tyrone and I would sell different things for the family. Tyrone was responsible for selling eggs from one of our aunts (King Obstinate’s mother), whom we called Mammy. The best eggs were reserved for the parson and the headmaster.
So now then, as Mr. Quinn’s hand started to descend, Tyrone exclaimed as if he were on a cross to be crucified, “Please Sir! Excuse me Sir! Mammy has some eggs for you Sir.” The tall, correcting hand of the giant Mr. Quinn was thrown into zigzag relief as if the buckle of the beating strap was transformed from a noble noun into a vacuous verb. The mighty Mr. Quinn was stomped by the creativity of this puerile miscreant. In consonant harmony, the whole chorus of children (and teachers) erupted in sparkling laughter, including the erstwhile damsel in distress who was looked down upon in order to see upwards.
The creativity of children is boundless. We have always been that way. We had to be creative to survive the middle passage and the plantation. Creativity defines us and we define creativity. When adults look askance at the youths bellowing out rap music we must remember well.
Remember when the schoolroom was used for singing meeting? What about the time when Mammy had to defend the title of The New Winthropes Warrior against contestants, female and male from all over the island? Recall how she knocked them over by starting her elocution from outside the schoolroom with, “Behold! I bring you bounteous, mountainous tidings of great joy from the verdant land beneath the slumbering feet of the Most High and though I cannot speak with the tongues of the men who garbled before me, I pontificate in the vernacular of virtuous angels and behold my opponents become my footstool and fall away as empty, sounding brass and rusty, tinkling cymbals.” Singing meeting done. “Mash up”. Man, woman, child and opponent tumble down flat, flat, flat. That was rap music.
It takes a lot of hard work and planning to be a really bad person. Some of us would pay hard-earned money for university courses to acquire the skills that street- smart children possess. It’s not that adults cannot find the time. Adults are unwilling to talk to and learn from children and to allow children to tap into the bottomless creative well because we fear we will discover not only our former selves but also our present, adult reality.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
“I was planning to forget calypso and go and plant peas in Tobago.” But adults are using our adulterated logic to look at children, so the peas will have to stay in the pods a while longer.
Why would a pupil throw urine at his teacher? Is he in jail and feels that the only way to make a statement is to do what some prisoners do? Is there some perverted, attention-seeking logic running from kid to kidney to urine to wee-wee? Whatever his reasons and whatever the punishment, some escaping facts should be caught. The urine-throwing incident required expert planning, good persuasive powers and management skills to get his peers to go along with the thrower, act as look-outs, collect the urine in a leak proof container, decide whether to use fresh or stale urine, co-ordinate the timing and the location of the hapless teacher, etc. These are the attributes of someone who, if directed properly, might do well in a Master in Business Administration course.
We have to come to terms with the fact that while Derek Walcott did say that evil is limited in its rhythm, this limitation is relative to the goodness that opposes it. In the absence of a high degree of goodness, evil will seem enchanting. Adults know this and we pretend that children do not know it too.
So let us recall the pre-HIV/AIDS, blood-sucking days of Dracula and the epic battles between the evil Dracula, played by Peter Cushing and his nemesis, Professor Larimer Van Helsing, played by Christopher Lee. Both enjoyed equal admiration. We loved the fact that the good one, the star-boy, would win but the cunning of the evil one was startling. Even in defeat, the evil one would stare at you knowingly as if to register his omnipresence, prophesy his return and force you to go gently into that dark, lonely night when you walked home from the cinema.
God created the earth in 6 days and the devil destroyed it in 6 minutes, if it takes that long to eat a forbidden fruit. The devil does find work for idle hands and yet the creative hands and minds of school children are locked away in involuntary separation packages from the bright, shiny and exciting landscape that all children should know and enjoy.
Everyone has a story about their childhood, about how many licks they got and how the ascension of the brain from the buttocks to the head was accompanied by a halo chorus of everlasting licks. So here are two childhood stories about cunning and licks.
My cousin, Tyrone was taken to Dr. Wisenger on many occasions for consumption (tuberculosis) on account of a chronic, seemingly incurable cough. Dr. Wisenger could not fathom his ailment. Playing doctor, I tried in vain to diagnose the malady by watching him closely like Brer Anancy. Then one day, like all illnesses, it revealed itself. Our grandmother used to sell many things, including soda pop. Tyrone had devised a method of coughing in synchrony with the opening of the soda pop to muffle the popping sound. One day, his timing was off by a few demisemiquavers. Case closed.
One day at school, Tyrone was about to be punished by headmaster, Mr. Quinn, the late father of the Honourable Minister, Quinn-Leandro. Tyrone had committed the unpardonable sin of using a piece of looking glass to see less darkly the underclothes of a schoolgirl. Again, bad timing was his undoing as Mr. Quinn stealthily sauntered by during the doxology.
So here was Tyrone below the platform and there was the mighty Mr. Quinn on the platform with his broad strap raised, ready to descend onto Tyrone’s back. We waited in baited breath to see how he would escape this time. I have to tell you that Tyrone and I would sell different things for the family. Tyrone was responsible for selling eggs from one of our aunts (King Obstinate’s mother), whom we called Mammy. The best eggs were reserved for the parson and the headmaster.
So now then, as Mr. Quinn’s hand started to descend, Tyrone exclaimed as if he were on a cross to be crucified, “Please Sir! Excuse me Sir! Mammy has some eggs for you Sir.” The tall, correcting hand of the giant Mr. Quinn was thrown into zigzag relief as if the buckle of the beating strap was transformed from a noble noun into a vacuous verb. The mighty Mr. Quinn was stomped by the creativity of this puerile miscreant. In consonant harmony, the whole chorus of children (and teachers) erupted in sparkling laughter, including the erstwhile damsel in distress who was looked down upon in order to see upwards.
The creativity of children is boundless. We have always been that way. We had to be creative to survive the middle passage and the plantation. Creativity defines us and we define creativity. When adults look askance at the youths bellowing out rap music we must remember well.
Remember when the schoolroom was used for singing meeting? What about the time when Mammy had to defend the title of The New Winthropes Warrior against contestants, female and male from all over the island? Recall how she knocked them over by starting her elocution from outside the schoolroom with, “Behold! I bring you bounteous, mountainous tidings of great joy from the verdant land beneath the slumbering feet of the Most High and though I cannot speak with the tongues of the men who garbled before me, I pontificate in the vernacular of virtuous angels and behold my opponents become my footstool and fall away as empty, sounding brass and rusty, tinkling cymbals.” Singing meeting done. “Mash up”. Man, woman, child and opponent tumble down flat, flat, flat. That was rap music.
It takes a lot of hard work and planning to be a really bad person. Some of us would pay hard-earned money for university courses to acquire the skills that street- smart children possess. It’s not that adults cannot find the time. Adults are unwilling to talk to and learn from children and to allow children to tap into the bottomless creative well because we fear we will discover not only our former selves but also our present, adult reality.
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