THE WIND BENEATH OUR WINGS
Dr. Lester CN Simon
With the advent of the School Meals Program and the approach of 25 years of independence, I got to thinking about what Antigua and Barbuda means to me. I was also prompted to reflect on whether my days in school prepared me to take on the world, or, I should say, to know if and when to take on the world, and to always strive to be an independent thinker. Independent thought can initially be frightening because it takes on a life of its own and it pulls you seemingly un-independently along its unseeing path. You have to be confident in the process of thinking and know when to stop. So why can’t I stop thinking about the Nonfat Dry Milk they used to serve us children in primary school, and all the big loads of stinking poops we used to let go after eating or drinking it?
The study of flatus is a worthy and noble vocation if for no other reason than it affords us the acquired ability to differentiate between an authentic poop and its covert, non-gaseous, occasional companion, the doo-doo. A comprehensive study can also inform us of the type of flatus that is forthcoming: Will it be loud and explosive or will it be soft and whistling or inaudible and malodorous? This is vital and enviable information that many highly respectable members of a congregation would swap their collection money for in church, on a beautiful Sunday morning. Sitting in the middle of the pew on the windward side of the aisle enjoying the effervescent, tropical breeze; the holy sacrament of communion is about to begin; the priest says, “This is my body and my…….”....oooops! Everyone looks at everyone else in their minds’ eyes and in that fleeting, deprecatory moment it seems that we all must have read the same flatus inspired script, Waiting To Inhale.
The New Scientist journal reported in 2001 that Dr. Michael Levitt, a gastroenterologist (who else?), had been studying flatus for over 30 years. He discovered that although some women tend to produce less flatulent emissions, there was no significant difference between males and females in the frequency of passing wind. He also analyzed and correctly identified the bouquet of gases in large numbers of poops and thus paved the way for a new type of purgative to clean the gut before performing surgical operations on the bowel. Previously, the purgatives that were used preoperatively enhanced the production of some gases that were combustible and hitherto there were cases of real fireworks and explosions during surgical operations on the bowel!
The drinking of milk or suckling by newborns is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. Lactose is the dominant carbohydrate in virtually all mammalian milk. It is digested in the intestines by an enzyme called lactase. Lactase, the enzyme, breaks down lactose, the sugar in milk. Many Black school children of the Nonfat Dry Milk era grew up to learn that we lacked the enzyme lactase and so we could not adequately digest lactose and hence we could not drink large volumes of milk. We came to understand the reason for passing all the milk inspired flatus and we were made to feel that we were abnormal; that lactose intolerance was a disease at worse or a disorder at best. After all, one must not go pooping, pooping all over the place after drinking a tall glass of milk. The effects of drinking milk must be seen, not heard.
Studies reported in The Journal of the American College of Nutrition in 2000 by Dr. V S Tuula et al show that there is a reduction in lactase activity in the intestines soon after weaning in almost all animals and in many humans. Lactase deficiency is a normal physiological process. Remarkable! The prevalence of lactose intolerance is about 50% in South America, Africa, and Asia, reaching almost 100% in some Asians countries. In the United States, the prevalence of lactose intolerance is about 15% among whites, 53% among Mexican-Americans and 80% in the Black population. In Europe it ranges along a rising gradient from about 2% in northern areas like Scandinavia to about 70% in Sicily in the south. Did the Nonfat Dry milk school program extend throughout the entire world? Thankfully, Black people do not have a monopoly on passing flatus after copious milk ingestion. Black brothers and sisters arise. Wipe out those pooping lies!
History will “absorb” us. “Viva Poopa!”
Calcium has earned the title of “super nutrient”. It is an essential nutrient for critical biological functions. It can be obtained in high quantities from dairy foods, Chinese cabbage, Chinese mustard greens and bok choy, from calcium-fortified foods and beverages and supplements. The New Scientist reported in 2002 that scientific studies support the theory that all humans were once lactose intolerant, and that lactose tolerance evolved only after people domesticated animals and began drinking their milk. What do you think will happen if you give cow’s milk to an adult cow? Black populations like the Fulani of Western Africa that rely extensively on milk in their diet are highly tolerant to milk. Lactose intolerance is not a disease or a disorder. With varying degrees of intolerance, about two thirds of the world’s adult population is lactose intolerant.
It only goes to show that when you are called abnormal and different, do not accept the label. Do the hard, investigative work to understand the world around you and how you fit into the wider picture, even if, with the appropriate silent apologies in church on Sunday, you have to study an irreverent but essential subject such as Farting on the Nonfat Dry Milk.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Alternative Medicine
THE BABY AND THE BATH WATER
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I write in reference to the article, “Antiguan Naturopath Cures HTLV-I” submitted by Mr. Ted Emanuel and published in the Antigua Sun on Wednesday July 26, 2006. I telephoned Mr. Emanuel in Jamaica and suggested to him that his article did not contain sufficient information to conclude that the he cured the patient of HTLV-I.
HTLV-I means Human T cell Lymphotropic Virus type I. Like all viruses, HTLV-I needs a living cell to reproduce because it does not have the full reproduction machinery for this vital function. Viruses may show a particular affinity or tropism for certain types of cells. The members of the group of viruses called HTLV derive their group name from their affinities or tropism for human T lymphocytes, which are types of white blood cells.
HTLV-I is the first member of a distinct group of viruses. Other members of the group include HTLV-II, which cases a blood cancer, and the HIV viruses that cause AIDS. HTLV-I does not cause AIDS. HTLV-I is associated with some types of cancer, a nerve disorder, skin problems and other abnormalities. The major routes of transmission of all these viruses include sexual activity, blood transfusion and mother-to-child.
Many tests for viruses, including HTLV-I, are actually tests for the substances called antibodies that the body makes in response to infection by the virus. A person may be virus positive and antibody negative because the antibodies are in very low, immeasurable quantities. Hence the article by the Antiguan naturopath should have stated whether the test on the patient was a test for the antibodies or a test for the virus. Additionally, the sensitivity and specificity of any test should be included and referenced to a gold standard, which is a test that detects extremely small amounts of the tested material. Everyone is familiar with the fact that the inability to detect something does not necessarily mean that it is absent.
In the absence of pertinent scientific data, the article submitted by Mr. Ted Emanuel falls short of basic scientific principles. In this regard, I wish to note that there is a place for naturopathic medicine in the healing process but that place must be earned and maintain by proper attention to scientific principles in medicine, statistics and logic.
I am a medical doctor and I have no hesitation at all in saying that we must acknowledge the shortcomings of orthodox medicine and attend to them. But we must not discard the baby with the bathwater. Reverting solely to natural medicine without attention to orthodox medicine, science, statistics and logic would be akin to discarding the baby, the bathwater, the basin and the entire bathroom.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I write in reference to the article, “Antiguan Naturopath Cures HTLV-I” submitted by Mr. Ted Emanuel and published in the Antigua Sun on Wednesday July 26, 2006. I telephoned Mr. Emanuel in Jamaica and suggested to him that his article did not contain sufficient information to conclude that the he cured the patient of HTLV-I.
HTLV-I means Human T cell Lymphotropic Virus type I. Like all viruses, HTLV-I needs a living cell to reproduce because it does not have the full reproduction machinery for this vital function. Viruses may show a particular affinity or tropism for certain types of cells. The members of the group of viruses called HTLV derive their group name from their affinities or tropism for human T lymphocytes, which are types of white blood cells.
HTLV-I is the first member of a distinct group of viruses. Other members of the group include HTLV-II, which cases a blood cancer, and the HIV viruses that cause AIDS. HTLV-I does not cause AIDS. HTLV-I is associated with some types of cancer, a nerve disorder, skin problems and other abnormalities. The major routes of transmission of all these viruses include sexual activity, blood transfusion and mother-to-child.
Many tests for viruses, including HTLV-I, are actually tests for the substances called antibodies that the body makes in response to infection by the virus. A person may be virus positive and antibody negative because the antibodies are in very low, immeasurable quantities. Hence the article by the Antiguan naturopath should have stated whether the test on the patient was a test for the antibodies or a test for the virus. Additionally, the sensitivity and specificity of any test should be included and referenced to a gold standard, which is a test that detects extremely small amounts of the tested material. Everyone is familiar with the fact that the inability to detect something does not necessarily mean that it is absent.
In the absence of pertinent scientific data, the article submitted by Mr. Ted Emanuel falls short of basic scientific principles. In this regard, I wish to note that there is a place for naturopathic medicine in the healing process but that place must be earned and maintain by proper attention to scientific principles in medicine, statistics and logic.
I am a medical doctor and I have no hesitation at all in saying that we must acknowledge the shortcomings of orthodox medicine and attend to them. But we must not discard the baby with the bathwater. Reverting solely to natural medicine without attention to orthodox medicine, science, statistics and logic would be akin to discarding the baby, the bathwater, the basin and the entire bathroom.
Monday, August 21, 2006
The Music Gone To The Pigs
PIG TAIL AND PIG MOUTH
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Quite a lot has been said and written about the way we dance at Carnival time; how the wining is too rude and vulgar and is nothing short of adulterated, orgiastic sex. The good news is that you are right; the bad news is that we do not examine why and suggest how we should dance. Maybe it is our refusal to take on fundamental issues and move from banal observation to analytical discourse that makes us pig tail and pig mouth people. We don’t want no reason. We don’t want no cause. We don’t want no basis. We don’t want no sense. Everybody shout out: All we want is pig tail and pig mouth; pig tail and pig mouth!
Dance is a form of social intercourse, with emphasis on social. We dance to music. The contribution of Africa to Caribbean and world music is so emphatic that we make the mistake of thinking that only black people got rhythm. Well, all God’s children got rhythm but one man’s rhythm may be another man’s confusion.
Examine a few of the dance forms in the Caribbean and Latin America and take a hard look at two of them. Argentina developed the Tango and Martinique and Guadeloupe developed the Beguine. How do you dance to Calypso? Is there a specific and recognizable Calypso dance? Dorbrene O’Marde says that King Obstinate says there is no such thing as a Calypso dance. And Obsti should know. Could it be that the dances we develop or fail to develop in the Caribbean and Latina America are reflections of the social intercourse between the colonial Europeans and the transplanted Africans?
A recent article called Contrasting Empires by J. H. Elliott in the August 2006 edition of History Today compared Spanish and English colonialism and concluded that the Spaniards were more accommodating to their colonies. The late, Lord Bold Face must be blue vexed (with people trying to ambush market his name). I guess it’s like saying that all colonialisms are unequal but some are more or less unequal than others.
The Tango is a stylized, extremely sensual, adulterated, almost artificial form of what we are accused of doing at Carnival time. Yet it is very popular internationally and it attracts highly sophisticated people. I have never been to Argentina but I suspect you can find there a more vulgar form of Tango that will make the international, provocative Tango look like a May pole dance at a Sunday school picnic. I hear that the Beguine dance is one in which there are loads of waist movement (rolling hips, like rolling hills for crying out loud) but the upper body is stiff, stiff, stiff. Again, a more stylized, adulterated form of what we do at Carnival time. The French West Indian inventor of the Beguine must have had the good sense of humour that only a West Indian can muster.
What was it about English colonialism that differed from French and Spanish colonialism regarding social interaction between whites and natives? Is the absence of a calypso dance an indictment of the English speaking West Indian, reflecting our failure to weave a stylized, ornate, artificial dance that represents the conjoining of the two cultures? Is this one of the reasons why Calypso is not so popular internationally? Surely a music with a distinctive, accommodating dance will go further than a music to which you just do what comes naturally. Why has the English speaking West Indian middle class (the same ones rightfully crying out against the overt wining at Carnival) failed to find a dance between the staid ballroom dancing of the Europeans and the earthy “Sylvie Breakaway” of the Carnival wining dancers, especially when the literature of calypso is uniquely chock full of humour and mockery?
A word of caution is in order for those who may be thinking that African dancing is all about wining and vulgar simulation of sex. I have seen African dancers on stage with bare breasted women wining much more than the slackers you see at Carnival time. The female African dancers I saw were moving all over the stage and despite of (or because of) the naked breasts and the gyrating, the theme and purpose of the dance attracted more attention. In fact (wait for it) they reminded me of ballerinas. It may surprise you to learn that if you observe ballerinas carefully you will discover that when they move, especially when dancing on pointe their entire body is shaking. It has to do that for proper balance. The ballerinas are really wining but they are wining to a different rhythm.
So if you want the vulgar, adulterated sexual wining to stop, let us choreograph a dance in which the wining comes second and the entire dance and theme and story come first and we end up with a new, stylized, hybrid dance form. But this will require that we desire more, much more (mucho más) than just the succulent pig tail and pig mouth.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Quite a lot has been said and written about the way we dance at Carnival time; how the wining is too rude and vulgar and is nothing short of adulterated, orgiastic sex. The good news is that you are right; the bad news is that we do not examine why and suggest how we should dance. Maybe it is our refusal to take on fundamental issues and move from banal observation to analytical discourse that makes us pig tail and pig mouth people. We don’t want no reason. We don’t want no cause. We don’t want no basis. We don’t want no sense. Everybody shout out: All we want is pig tail and pig mouth; pig tail and pig mouth!
Dance is a form of social intercourse, with emphasis on social. We dance to music. The contribution of Africa to Caribbean and world music is so emphatic that we make the mistake of thinking that only black people got rhythm. Well, all God’s children got rhythm but one man’s rhythm may be another man’s confusion.
Examine a few of the dance forms in the Caribbean and Latin America and take a hard look at two of them. Argentina developed the Tango and Martinique and Guadeloupe developed the Beguine. How do you dance to Calypso? Is there a specific and recognizable Calypso dance? Dorbrene O’Marde says that King Obstinate says there is no such thing as a Calypso dance. And Obsti should know. Could it be that the dances we develop or fail to develop in the Caribbean and Latina America are reflections of the social intercourse between the colonial Europeans and the transplanted Africans?
A recent article called Contrasting Empires by J. H. Elliott in the August 2006 edition of History Today compared Spanish and English colonialism and concluded that the Spaniards were more accommodating to their colonies. The late, Lord Bold Face must be blue vexed (with people trying to ambush market his name). I guess it’s like saying that all colonialisms are unequal but some are more or less unequal than others.
The Tango is a stylized, extremely sensual, adulterated, almost artificial form of what we are accused of doing at Carnival time. Yet it is very popular internationally and it attracts highly sophisticated people. I have never been to Argentina but I suspect you can find there a more vulgar form of Tango that will make the international, provocative Tango look like a May pole dance at a Sunday school picnic. I hear that the Beguine dance is one in which there are loads of waist movement (rolling hips, like rolling hills for crying out loud) but the upper body is stiff, stiff, stiff. Again, a more stylized, adulterated form of what we do at Carnival time. The French West Indian inventor of the Beguine must have had the good sense of humour that only a West Indian can muster.
What was it about English colonialism that differed from French and Spanish colonialism regarding social interaction between whites and natives? Is the absence of a calypso dance an indictment of the English speaking West Indian, reflecting our failure to weave a stylized, ornate, artificial dance that represents the conjoining of the two cultures? Is this one of the reasons why Calypso is not so popular internationally? Surely a music with a distinctive, accommodating dance will go further than a music to which you just do what comes naturally. Why has the English speaking West Indian middle class (the same ones rightfully crying out against the overt wining at Carnival) failed to find a dance between the staid ballroom dancing of the Europeans and the earthy “Sylvie Breakaway” of the Carnival wining dancers, especially when the literature of calypso is uniquely chock full of humour and mockery?
A word of caution is in order for those who may be thinking that African dancing is all about wining and vulgar simulation of sex. I have seen African dancers on stage with bare breasted women wining much more than the slackers you see at Carnival time. The female African dancers I saw were moving all over the stage and despite of (or because of) the naked breasts and the gyrating, the theme and purpose of the dance attracted more attention. In fact (wait for it) they reminded me of ballerinas. It may surprise you to learn that if you observe ballerinas carefully you will discover that when they move, especially when dancing on pointe their entire body is shaking. It has to do that for proper balance. The ballerinas are really wining but they are wining to a different rhythm.
So if you want the vulgar, adulterated sexual wining to stop, let us choreograph a dance in which the wining comes second and the entire dance and theme and story come first and we end up with a new, stylized, hybrid dance form. But this will require that we desire more, much more (mucho más) than just the succulent pig tail and pig mouth.
Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Crocodile Tears
THE CROCODILES ARE CRYING AGAIN
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Have you ever felt that everyone else is going to heaven and you alone are going to hell? This is how I feel with all the cries for prayer in the wake of the most recent murder. Since everyone is praying and prayer moves mountains, I too have a prayer, so let us pray.
I pray that God will close all the doors of all the churches in Antigua and Barbuda for a while. And for those of us who are still found inside a church, I pray that Jesus will take a whip (the local, bovine version) and bang them, bang them, bang them, and tell them not to come back to church until we do the following things.
1. Build a modern, national library and foster a library culture.
2. Make it compulsory for all school children to join one of the youth clubs as part of national service otherwise they will not graduate from school.
3. The communities that have effective neighbourhood watch groups will pay less property tax. This will include neighbours keeping their dogs inside their own yards with properly built fences.
4. Disband the defence force and create a national security force with enough men and women to contribute to regional security and, more importantly, patrol the streets of Antigua and Barbuda.
Anything else is just crocodiles crying again and devils like me asking God for help when we already know the answers. The Lord help those who help themselves.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Have you ever felt that everyone else is going to heaven and you alone are going to hell? This is how I feel with all the cries for prayer in the wake of the most recent murder. Since everyone is praying and prayer moves mountains, I too have a prayer, so let us pray.
I pray that God will close all the doors of all the churches in Antigua and Barbuda for a while. And for those of us who are still found inside a church, I pray that Jesus will take a whip (the local, bovine version) and bang them, bang them, bang them, and tell them not to come back to church until we do the following things.
1. Build a modern, national library and foster a library culture.
2. Make it compulsory for all school children to join one of the youth clubs as part of national service otherwise they will not graduate from school.
3. The communities that have effective neighbourhood watch groups will pay less property tax. This will include neighbours keeping their dogs inside their own yards with properly built fences.
4. Disband the defence force and create a national security force with enough men and women to contribute to regional security and, more importantly, patrol the streets of Antigua and Barbuda.
Anything else is just crocodiles crying again and devils like me asking God for help when we already know the answers. The Lord help those who help themselves.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
How You Could Dance So?
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.
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.
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?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)