THE ANATOMY OF A GOOD WINE
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Some people can wine better than others. The Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage defines wining as “erotic or provocative dancing with vigorous swinging and gyrating of the hips”. It goes on to note the link between wining, Carnival and vulgarity.
I want to propose to you that good wining says a lot more about the winer than simply being vulgar. According to the Oxford Dictionary, Vulgar means “making explicit reference to sex or bodily functions”. But the dictionary also notes that the word vulgar comes from the Latin word for “common people” and hence it simply means “characteristic of or belonging to ordinary people”. In this etymological sense, The Daily Observer is the most vulgar newspaper in Antigua and Barbuda.
To appreciate the sophistication and implications of a good wine we have to understand the variety of movements of the hip, the lower part of the spine and the knee. The first requirement is to discover the different kinds of movements possible by each joint in isolation. For example, the hip joint can perform six different movements all by itself. It can bend forward, backward, rotate outward, rotate inward, move outward with no rotation and move inward with no rotation. Examine the different movements of the lower spine and the knee separately.
The art of wining requires combining all or some of the possible kinds of movements of the joints to create a smooth, flowing, seemingly complex, singular movement. This leads to the central argument that persons who are adept at multitasking in any activity might make good winers. When you consider all the disparate activities women have to undertake from dawn to dusk, it is no wonder that they generally out-wine men.
But sadly, there are many women and men who seem to be good at multitasking who cannot wine at all or who wine very poorly. There are reasons for this. Some persons who are doing many things at the same time are very inefficient although they appear very busy. Others, who may multitask very efficiently, fail to bring the art of multitasking to the art of wining; or they may be too tired after all the hard work.
If it is true that poor winers might be poor at multitasking, there is hope for these needlessly hapless persons. Firstly, when you approach a seemingly complex activity, you have to put up broad headings or categories or (in this computer age) folders. Without these signposts, you will get lost among the rubble of the details. People who gossip or tell jokes by starting with the small details and end with the punch line will endear themselves to their friends and audience. However, a reversal of this approach is mandatory in learning to multitask, to study a complex subject, or to wine properly. You have to be like a manager, newspaper reporter or editor (for a vulgar newspaper) who can place the singular items in categories, brackets or columns (headlines etc) and then combine them to make a complex, exciting and organized whole or bestseller.
Being able to distill all the possible movements of the joints into a good wine is no different from cooking a good meal and really wining and dining your guests. Good wining may also be a reflection of expert negotiating skills, especially at Carnival time when you have to jostle between the Carnival Development Committee, the myriad groups and troupes, associations, and the press.
It should not surprise you that wining is regarded as vulgar, if by vulgar we refer to the common people. Common people have to multitask all the time to make ends meet. They simply carry over that art of everyday living to the art of wining. Even high-society women are now expert winers as they remember their roots and realise that they too have to multitask regardless of their vocation. Not to be left out, especially with the physical separation of the extended family, men are now being asked or forced to multitask in concert with their womenfolk to make ends meet at home. This can only be a good thing for the family and for conjoint wining which is best confined to the privacy of the home.
As you look at dancers during this Carnival season, try to determine how well they have combined the various possible movements of the spine, the hip and the knee. Look out for those winers with additional, unusual or unique movements which may include holding their head, hands or feet in positions that embellish the central movement. Is the central movement clockwise or anticlockwise? Why are the knees at a particular angle and how does that angle contribute to overall stability? Is that angle utilized in architecture? What different skills are deployed in wining while sitting compared to wining while standing or walking? Do not be fooled or enamoured by those winers who appear to be all over the shop, explicit to the extreme, only making plenty noise, like empty vessels.
One word of caution as you studiously regard parts of the anatomy in collusion and collision: Having discovered the best winer for the Carnival, please do not make the silly mistake of complementing her by asking her if she has applied for the voluntary separation package.
May we all have a happy and safe carnival 2006. Remember the ABC of HIV/AIDS: Abstain, Be Faithful, use a Condom.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
A Whale of a Time
JONAH SWALLOWED THE WHALE
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Some of us who are neither pro-whalers nor anti-whalers and who are seeking to arrive at a position on this important issue are deeply disappointed with the local debate before and during the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in St. Kitts and Nevis.
The level and content of the local debate underscored the need for a national library in Antigua and Barbuda with access to modern scientific journals. One may argue (successfully) that such journals and other materials are available on the internet with and without subscription. But those of us who frequently access these data encounter periods of disinterest and lonesomeness largely because information must be properly disseminated, churned and debated in a civilised way to be of real and lasting value.
The way information is shared says a lot about us. Simply visiting a library to borrow a book or to nestle in the unique aroma of reams of data, or surfing the internet until you are bubbling with information all fall short of the needs of a modern society. In Antigua and Barbuda we have to ferment and nurture a culture of dialog that will secure the proper format for healthy, social discourse.
The entire whaling issue is so complex it demands a diverse panel of real experts presenting and jostling scientific, economic and other relevant data in a local, public forum. This should be one of the functions of a national institute of social, natural and medical sciences. Commonsense, logic and truth tend to carry a transparent quality that most people can see through.
Before anyone makes the vile suggestion that we ask Japan for a national library to complement the school of fishes from the fishing complexes, let me simply suggest that we ask Japan for assistance from some of its manga artists. Manga is the Japanese word for comics and Japan has become the world leader in this art form.
When the whale swallowed Jonah it represented the myth of someone going into darkness and emerging transformed. In our local, manga version, we the Jonahs on all sides of the whale debate need to swallow our whales of self-righteousness and emerge transformed with a more reasoned, balanced, civil and sincere approach to the way we discuss issues of national and international import.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Some of us who are neither pro-whalers nor anti-whalers and who are seeking to arrive at a position on this important issue are deeply disappointed with the local debate before and during the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in St. Kitts and Nevis.
The level and content of the local debate underscored the need for a national library in Antigua and Barbuda with access to modern scientific journals. One may argue (successfully) that such journals and other materials are available on the internet with and without subscription. But those of us who frequently access these data encounter periods of disinterest and lonesomeness largely because information must be properly disseminated, churned and debated in a civilised way to be of real and lasting value.
The way information is shared says a lot about us. Simply visiting a library to borrow a book or to nestle in the unique aroma of reams of data, or surfing the internet until you are bubbling with information all fall short of the needs of a modern society. In Antigua and Barbuda we have to ferment and nurture a culture of dialog that will secure the proper format for healthy, social discourse.
The entire whaling issue is so complex it demands a diverse panel of real experts presenting and jostling scientific, economic and other relevant data in a local, public forum. This should be one of the functions of a national institute of social, natural and medical sciences. Commonsense, logic and truth tend to carry a transparent quality that most people can see through.
Before anyone makes the vile suggestion that we ask Japan for a national library to complement the school of fishes from the fishing complexes, let me simply suggest that we ask Japan for assistance from some of its manga artists. Manga is the Japanese word for comics and Japan has become the world leader in this art form.
When the whale swallowed Jonah it represented the myth of someone going into darkness and emerging transformed. In our local, manga version, we the Jonahs on all sides of the whale debate need to swallow our whales of self-righteousness and emerge transformed with a more reasoned, balanced, civil and sincere approach to the way we discuss issues of national and international import.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Mr. Browne
ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Good morning Antigua and Barbuda. I have to tell you I have not always called you Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua was all I used to say until I wittingly added Barbuda in order to rescue my journals from finding shore on some distant land. For over the past 2 years the new and promising UPP government has been trying to come to terms with the demands of a hotchpotch nation, a disparate brew of insipid, pepperpot people bent on forcing the government to satisfy all earthly and heavenly demands at once. Abracadabra!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find the soul of Antigua and Barbuda. Some agents claim that it is within the governing, UPP party but others maintain it resides within the opposition, ALP organization. I have to tell you too that it is also alleged by experts, to be a figment of the imagination, a banana of some mindless fool.
As always, should you or any of your forces be caught or killed in this mission, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Since this newspaper will not self-destruct in 5 seconds or 5 minutes, hours, days, years or decades, you must destroy it in the usual manner. Good luck, in your mission, Antigua and Barbuda.
Normally, as in all Mission Impossible cases, I take my leave at this time. However, because of the complexity of this important mission, I must go on to advise you that you will need the help of an agent, Melanie Phillips, a journalist from Britain. She comes highly qualified because she has been investigating a similar dilemma in Britain. In particular, she is concerned about citizenship and immigrants. It might surprise you that you have a more serious problem than Britain and it is again made more complex by your scarce resources to identify and enunciate the problem, let alone to find the solution to it.
Melanie Phillips will tell you what the economist, Professor Robert Rowthorn observed recently in a lecture about the dangers of unlimited mass migration. He reminded, ‘A nation is a community of mutual obligation that is based on a shared history’. This fact will force her to tell you that unless there is a rigid grasp of the true history of Antigua and Barbuda, civic obligations will have no bedrock in which to root themselves, and hence nationhood in this twin island state will become an effete, banal nonsense.
As the clamour mounts from all and sundry in this babbling land of new, free radio, Melanie Phillips will help you to argue that few Antiguans and Barbudans and fewer residents realise that citizenship is not about what the country owes to an individual, but what an individual owes to the country. Very few people truly understand this imperative and glibly quote President John F. Kennedy. It means that the obligation to the nation and to fellow citizens and to law and order must come first. Then and only then can you twist and shout and limbo and babble all over new, free radio about your rights, your demands, your medical benefits, schooling for your children, and your passport.
This is why the soul of the nation must be identified and held up high for all to see and behold; for without it, there is no Antiguanness, no Barbudanness, no anything but a wild bunch of assorted local, Caribbean and international neaga.
So how do you deal with immigrants, since to varying extents, we are all immigrants at some point in time? It is “a simple thing” (as the Analyst would say). You are welcome in my house, you can practise your religion and espouse your culture but my national culture comes first and foremost. This means that when the immigrant culture collides with national culture, the traffic police will automatically give national culture the right of way. Anything else is a recipe for collision and disaster.
But what is this national culture? What is this Antiguanness and Barbudanness? It is not just the food and music and the dance and the “distinctive customs, achievements, product, outlook and way of life” as the dictionary states. It also requires an honest attention to, and constant review of our history, for culture is both static and dynamic.
How then, in this hotchpotch nation can one pitch a large tent over this assorted mass of babblers? It seems that one may be better off holding on to the indigenous people and pronouncing their history, their rules and regulations, their requirements and expectations so that all visitors and welcomed non-nationals will, in time and under their own, smaller tents, do likewise as they look and see Antiguans and Barbudans meeting and surpassing the fundamental tenets of national life. Only then should one pitch a wide tent.
It is the failure of us Antiguans and Barbudans to stand up and be counted and to identify ourselves on the side of what is right, and claim what belongs to us that affords, fuels and effects the disintegration of our society.
The irony of political life in Antigua and Barbuda is that what at first might seem like a good thing, a national umbrella under which the nation can shelter, might, in fact be the wrong medicine. We now know from medical science that the same medicine does not work the same way for the same sickness, in different patients.
Meanwhile the opposing forces will have to come to terms with the simple fact that New Labour will require a more honest and critical examination of the past, with even a public reconciliation for the past misdeeds. Only one young man amongst them seems to understand this, especially in the glaring afterglow of his public tranche of election offerings from the man from the sun. How ironic it would be if that one young man becomes the Joshua of the national soul as the Moses folds up beneath the wide, frail, falling tent. So while the rose and the thorn adorns and pricks the jocular vein on babbling radio, the opposing forces will one day come to see and know that the ALP will only win again when all the leaves are brown.
Mission Impossible?
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Good morning Antigua and Barbuda. I have to tell you I have not always called you Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua was all I used to say until I wittingly added Barbuda in order to rescue my journals from finding shore on some distant land. For over the past 2 years the new and promising UPP government has been trying to come to terms with the demands of a hotchpotch nation, a disparate brew of insipid, pepperpot people bent on forcing the government to satisfy all earthly and heavenly demands at once. Abracadabra!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find the soul of Antigua and Barbuda. Some agents claim that it is within the governing, UPP party but others maintain it resides within the opposition, ALP organization. I have to tell you too that it is also alleged by experts, to be a figment of the imagination, a banana of some mindless fool.
As always, should you or any of your forces be caught or killed in this mission, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Since this newspaper will not self-destruct in 5 seconds or 5 minutes, hours, days, years or decades, you must destroy it in the usual manner. Good luck, in your mission, Antigua and Barbuda.
Normally, as in all Mission Impossible cases, I take my leave at this time. However, because of the complexity of this important mission, I must go on to advise you that you will need the help of an agent, Melanie Phillips, a journalist from Britain. She comes highly qualified because she has been investigating a similar dilemma in Britain. In particular, she is concerned about citizenship and immigrants. It might surprise you that you have a more serious problem than Britain and it is again made more complex by your scarce resources to identify and enunciate the problem, let alone to find the solution to it.
Melanie Phillips will tell you what the economist, Professor Robert Rowthorn observed recently in a lecture about the dangers of unlimited mass migration. He reminded, ‘A nation is a community of mutual obligation that is based on a shared history’. This fact will force her to tell you that unless there is a rigid grasp of the true history of Antigua and Barbuda, civic obligations will have no bedrock in which to root themselves, and hence nationhood in this twin island state will become an effete, banal nonsense.
As the clamour mounts from all and sundry in this babbling land of new, free radio, Melanie Phillips will help you to argue that few Antiguans and Barbudans and fewer residents realise that citizenship is not about what the country owes to an individual, but what an individual owes to the country. Very few people truly understand this imperative and glibly quote President John F. Kennedy. It means that the obligation to the nation and to fellow citizens and to law and order must come first. Then and only then can you twist and shout and limbo and babble all over new, free radio about your rights, your demands, your medical benefits, schooling for your children, and your passport.
This is why the soul of the nation must be identified and held up high for all to see and behold; for without it, there is no Antiguanness, no Barbudanness, no anything but a wild bunch of assorted local, Caribbean and international neaga.
So how do you deal with immigrants, since to varying extents, we are all immigrants at some point in time? It is “a simple thing” (as the Analyst would say). You are welcome in my house, you can practise your religion and espouse your culture but my national culture comes first and foremost. This means that when the immigrant culture collides with national culture, the traffic police will automatically give national culture the right of way. Anything else is a recipe for collision and disaster.
But what is this national culture? What is this Antiguanness and Barbudanness? It is not just the food and music and the dance and the “distinctive customs, achievements, product, outlook and way of life” as the dictionary states. It also requires an honest attention to, and constant review of our history, for culture is both static and dynamic.
How then, in this hotchpotch nation can one pitch a large tent over this assorted mass of babblers? It seems that one may be better off holding on to the indigenous people and pronouncing their history, their rules and regulations, their requirements and expectations so that all visitors and welcomed non-nationals will, in time and under their own, smaller tents, do likewise as they look and see Antiguans and Barbudans meeting and surpassing the fundamental tenets of national life. Only then should one pitch a wide tent.
It is the failure of us Antiguans and Barbudans to stand up and be counted and to identify ourselves on the side of what is right, and claim what belongs to us that affords, fuels and effects the disintegration of our society.
The irony of political life in Antigua and Barbuda is that what at first might seem like a good thing, a national umbrella under which the nation can shelter, might, in fact be the wrong medicine. We now know from medical science that the same medicine does not work the same way for the same sickness, in different patients.
Meanwhile the opposing forces will have to come to terms with the simple fact that New Labour will require a more honest and critical examination of the past, with even a public reconciliation for the past misdeeds. Only one young man amongst them seems to understand this, especially in the glaring afterglow of his public tranche of election offerings from the man from the sun. How ironic it would be if that one young man becomes the Joshua of the national soul as the Moses folds up beneath the wide, frail, falling tent. So while the rose and the thorn adorns and pricks the jocular vein on babbling radio, the opposing forces will one day come to see and know that the ALP will only win again when all the leaves are brown.
Mission Impossible?
Monday, May 1, 2006
Physicians Heal Ourselves
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.
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.
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.
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