The Doctor In Spite of Himself
Dr. Lester Simon-Hazlewood
It saddens me to the core of my trembling heart to have to write about this matter of a doctor and denial of his registration in Antigua and Barbuda. It is my firm and confirmed opinion that the good doctor should be registered. But registered as what?
There are clear and written guidelines to register a medical doctor. In general, the medical school the doctor attended and the hospital where the internship was done after graduation are two key elements that form and inform the registration process.
For registration as a medical doctor, it does not matter one jot if the person is the nicest, sweetest, most caring and respectable person in the world proclaiming the gospel of health. It matters not if the person speaks with the tongues of men and of angels, bestows all his goods to feed the poor, heals the sick, and that the sick bellows the healing powers and charity of the healer. If the guidelines for registration as a medical doctor are not fulfilled then registration must be denied by the medical council and registration sought and obtained from some other council or body, as some other good doctor.
How then was the good doctor registered in the first place? It is my understanding and it is also my view that the first registration should not have been granted. Indeed there were copious objections in some quarters to the initial registration but the majority won. The then majority made a fundamental blunder, a cardinal error of commission that is haunting this entire harrowing matter.
But what irks me the most is this: If you are walking amongst flowers and butterflies and swarms of bees, and stepping in cow dung and horse manure moistened by leaking hoses of spraying water, you must know to yourself that you are being taken down the garden path. Why go along this wrong route when there are other legitimate paths to travel and register and conduct your good work? Why? How can you see through a glass so darkly?
So when good people from all walks of life, from sinner (like me) to bishop, in a band of sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, cry victimization, I have to cry. It cannot ever be right that because I can preach; because I can touch the sick and heal them; and because I can sprinkle red cool-aid in water and claim to turn pipe water into fine wine, that I can be registered as a cardinal, or an archbishop, or a bishop. Register me just as I am, without one plea.
Those who should know better should do better.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Parasols
What colour shall I dye my hair?
Green
Tangerine
Chatterbox red
Or weeping indigo
Parasols
Dark shadows walk beside us
In this blazing Caribbean sunlight
What parasols do we bear?
Green
Tangerine
Chatterbox red
Or weeping indigo
Parasols
Dark shadows walk beside us
In this blazing Caribbean sunlight
What parasols do we bear?
Saturday, February 14, 2015
HEALTHY CHOICE FM 94.9
Kindly listen to Healthy Choice FM 94.9 in Antigua & Barbuda, or on www.simpleradio.com or www.tunein.com; or download our App on Google Play Store or on Apple devices.
Healthy Choice FM, the Dedicated Health and Wellness Radio, is owned by Dr. Lester & Norma Simon.
Healthy Choice FM 94.9: All the health and wellness tips you need, embedded in a core of jazz with sprinklings and splashes of other musical genres.
Your ears will never be thirsty again, and your mind, body and soul will be wholly satiated.
Healthy Choice FM, the Dedicated Health and Wellness Radio, is owned by Dr. Lester & Norma Simon.
Healthy Choice FM 94.9: All the health and wellness tips you need, embedded in a core of jazz with sprinklings and splashes of other musical genres.
Your ears will never be thirsty again, and your mind, body and soul will be wholly satiated.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Cinderella's Dance
Cinderella And The Steel Band
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
Once upon a time there lived an unhappy, motherless girl with her stepmother and two stepsisters. The stepmother did not like her one little bit because she was prettier than her own two daughters. In fact, the poor girl was prettier than anyone else in the whole, wide world. She should have had a web site, www.noneprettier.com.
She was forced by her spiteful stepmother to do all the housework. Her only respite came at the end of the day. Even in her stepsisters’ hand-me-downs she had a calming effect on all around her, except her stepparents. As she ate and shared her scraps of food, the cat did not eat the mice and the mice did not eat the pumpkin. Together, they sat in the pumpkin patch near the fire, looking at the shapes of the dying embers of the coal. She gazed at these fallen cinders so much, they called her Cinderella.
One carnival day, two beautiful costumes arrived at the house for the stepsisters to go to the steel band panorama at Carnival City. Cinderella was very sad she could not go. But suddenly that evening a moko jumbie appeared and turned her raggy clothes into a beautiful carnival costume, the pumpkin into a coach and seven mice into six horses and a coachman. Before she went off to panorama, the moko jumbie warned her that she must leave carnival city at midnight, when the spell would end. And the cat said, “meow”.
As the steel bands played at panorama, Cinderella danced. She danced, she danced, she danced, until she and the steel band became one. The upper parts of her body danced to the front line steel pans, the single and double tenors and the double second pans. Her lower chest and abdomen danced with the mid-ranged pans, the guitar, cello and quadrophonic pans. All the basses from the four bass to the nine bass pans went to her lower back and behind, and the engine room was strung along her hands and feet. She danced.
All the while, her two stepsisters were gyrating rudely to the steel band, dancing out of time, out of rhyme and out of everyone’s mind. Cinderella danced so well she forgot the warning until she heard the first stroke of midnight. Quickly, trying not to miss the next beat of the clock and the next beat of the music, she ran from Carnival City, lost her glass slippers and vanished into the night.
The next day, the winning steel band, for which she had danced the best, went in search of her, using the glass slippers to find her. When they reached Cinderella’s house, her stepmother tried in vain to get the slippers to fit her daughters. But Cinderella was the perfect fit instead. As the steel band played again, Cinderella danced again. Legend has it that for every panorama since then, the band to win must make Cinderella dance the best.
The music for panorama must satisfy the criteria. The arrangement carries 40 per cent of the points. The judges and the audience must follow the intro, the outro, the development of melody, the development of motif and the re-harmonization. If you are not a very well trained and tested musician or an ardent follower of steel band, you should go to the pan yard to see how these elements of the criteria are developed, shared out, interchanged and exchanged from pans to pans.
You have to listen keenly to hear these musical elements, changes and interplay. Otherwise, it is all noise. Listening keenly simply means going to the pan yard often and just being there without trying too hard to listen. A quiet, passive, receptive mind is all you need. Witnessing the development of an orchestral performance is an invaluable tool that can assist you in all facets of life. It will really make your life dance, like Cinderella. The bounteous treasures in the steel band are yet to be fully unearthed for personal and community gains.
The general performance also carries 40 per cent of the points. This comprises interpretation, dynamics, creativity and balance. The remaining 20 per cent points are divided equally between tonal quality and rhythm.
As steel band arrangement becomes more sophisticated, the overall sound of the band becomes paramount. Cinderella must dance throughout the entire piece in such a way that the entire musical story unfolds from intro to outro, with all the nuances and surprises in between. There must be an overall harmony throughout the steel band so that crucial parts to be heard above others, at certain times, are indeed heard. Without this, remarks from a passionate pan lover, about her own steel band and mine, will include, “After the flat tune, the band played “ pure stupidniss”; “pure stupidniss”. Either the remark was correct or the inner beauty of the music was lost. It’s all about the design and architecture of sound, on the panorama stage, on the night and not just in the pan yard.
Frontline pans can become background pans and vice versa. Also, the mid-range pans can soar to the front or fall to the back. Cinderella’s dance will teach you when to listen and when to talk and how different parts can work together or work separately and still be part of one glorious, dancing whole.
Some arrangers here and in Trinidad and Tobago are calling for more sophistication in the arrangement of music for steel bands as they try to stay within the panorama criteria and yet get away from the historic, formulaic simplicity of most of the arrangements. However, regardless of the sophistication of the music, the physical setup on stage, the overall balance and the overall storytelling on the panorama stage are fundamental requirements for winning, lest all the hard work in the pan yard reap little.
During the next panorama performances, and indeed for any steel band performance, listen well. This means your mind must be open and at rest. Listen well and see if you can see Cinderella dancing from rags to riches. It will be easy to determine the winning steel band. The winner will be like the prince who puts the glass slippers on Cinderella’s feet and make her dance the panorama criteria so well, so logically and so clearly that she and the steel band will be married and will live happily after. And the cat that knows music will say, “Meow”.
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
Once upon a time there lived an unhappy, motherless girl with her stepmother and two stepsisters. The stepmother did not like her one little bit because she was prettier than her own two daughters. In fact, the poor girl was prettier than anyone else in the whole, wide world. She should have had a web site, www.noneprettier.com.
She was forced by her spiteful stepmother to do all the housework. Her only respite came at the end of the day. Even in her stepsisters’ hand-me-downs she had a calming effect on all around her, except her stepparents. As she ate and shared her scraps of food, the cat did not eat the mice and the mice did not eat the pumpkin. Together, they sat in the pumpkin patch near the fire, looking at the shapes of the dying embers of the coal. She gazed at these fallen cinders so much, they called her Cinderella.
One carnival day, two beautiful costumes arrived at the house for the stepsisters to go to the steel band panorama at Carnival City. Cinderella was very sad she could not go. But suddenly that evening a moko jumbie appeared and turned her raggy clothes into a beautiful carnival costume, the pumpkin into a coach and seven mice into six horses and a coachman. Before she went off to panorama, the moko jumbie warned her that she must leave carnival city at midnight, when the spell would end. And the cat said, “meow”.
As the steel bands played at panorama, Cinderella danced. She danced, she danced, she danced, until she and the steel band became one. The upper parts of her body danced to the front line steel pans, the single and double tenors and the double second pans. Her lower chest and abdomen danced with the mid-ranged pans, the guitar, cello and quadrophonic pans. All the basses from the four bass to the nine bass pans went to her lower back and behind, and the engine room was strung along her hands and feet. She danced.
All the while, her two stepsisters were gyrating rudely to the steel band, dancing out of time, out of rhyme and out of everyone’s mind. Cinderella danced so well she forgot the warning until she heard the first stroke of midnight. Quickly, trying not to miss the next beat of the clock and the next beat of the music, she ran from Carnival City, lost her glass slippers and vanished into the night.
The next day, the winning steel band, for which she had danced the best, went in search of her, using the glass slippers to find her. When they reached Cinderella’s house, her stepmother tried in vain to get the slippers to fit her daughters. But Cinderella was the perfect fit instead. As the steel band played again, Cinderella danced again. Legend has it that for every panorama since then, the band to win must make Cinderella dance the best.
The music for panorama must satisfy the criteria. The arrangement carries 40 per cent of the points. The judges and the audience must follow the intro, the outro, the development of melody, the development of motif and the re-harmonization. If you are not a very well trained and tested musician or an ardent follower of steel band, you should go to the pan yard to see how these elements of the criteria are developed, shared out, interchanged and exchanged from pans to pans.
You have to listen keenly to hear these musical elements, changes and interplay. Otherwise, it is all noise. Listening keenly simply means going to the pan yard often and just being there without trying too hard to listen. A quiet, passive, receptive mind is all you need. Witnessing the development of an orchestral performance is an invaluable tool that can assist you in all facets of life. It will really make your life dance, like Cinderella. The bounteous treasures in the steel band are yet to be fully unearthed for personal and community gains.
The general performance also carries 40 per cent of the points. This comprises interpretation, dynamics, creativity and balance. The remaining 20 per cent points are divided equally between tonal quality and rhythm.
As steel band arrangement becomes more sophisticated, the overall sound of the band becomes paramount. Cinderella must dance throughout the entire piece in such a way that the entire musical story unfolds from intro to outro, with all the nuances and surprises in between. There must be an overall harmony throughout the steel band so that crucial parts to be heard above others, at certain times, are indeed heard. Without this, remarks from a passionate pan lover, about her own steel band and mine, will include, “After the flat tune, the band played “ pure stupidniss”; “pure stupidniss”. Either the remark was correct or the inner beauty of the music was lost. It’s all about the design and architecture of sound, on the panorama stage, on the night and not just in the pan yard.
Frontline pans can become background pans and vice versa. Also, the mid-range pans can soar to the front or fall to the back. Cinderella’s dance will teach you when to listen and when to talk and how different parts can work together or work separately and still be part of one glorious, dancing whole.
Some arrangers here and in Trinidad and Tobago are calling for more sophistication in the arrangement of music for steel bands as they try to stay within the panorama criteria and yet get away from the historic, formulaic simplicity of most of the arrangements. However, regardless of the sophistication of the music, the physical setup on stage, the overall balance and the overall storytelling on the panorama stage are fundamental requirements for winning, lest all the hard work in the pan yard reap little.
During the next panorama performances, and indeed for any steel band performance, listen well. This means your mind must be open and at rest. Listen well and see if you can see Cinderella dancing from rags to riches. It will be easy to determine the winning steel band. The winner will be like the prince who puts the glass slippers on Cinderella’s feet and make her dance the panorama criteria so well, so logically and so clearly that she and the steel band will be married and will live happily after. And the cat that knows music will say, “Meow”.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Mr. Browne and Mr. Greene
All The Leaves Are Brown Again
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
In 2006 The Daily Observer carried an article, All The Leaves Are Brown. You can read it on my blog, www.myantiguabarbuda.com. It ended with the prediction that …… “the opposing forces will one day come to see and know that the ALP will only win again when all the leaves are brown.”
Throughout the campaign of the recent general elections, there was a very arresting and counterintuitive reaction to the promise that personal income tax will be abolished. The overwhelming, positive response came from those (the majority) who do not pay personal income tax. On the other hand, many of us who pay personal income tax wondered where on earth (or in heaven, or hell) will the replacement money come from; as if we felt obliged to pay and to issue a warning. Some even wondered what was wrong with the non-paying majority greeting the promise like the best thing since bread, sliced or not.
The study of economics, like the study of all things, has an inherent logic that appeals to the common person in less sophisticated ways than it does to the experts. Despite what was done to lessen the economic burden on the common person, taxing the middle class to the extent that there was less money in circulation for the common person was the reason for the seemingly counterintuitive response to abolish personal income tax.
Money, like blood, has to be in circulation for it to have common good. It cannot stay in one place, like the unaccompanied woman who sits or stands or, worse, lies down, and refuses to jiggle, wiggle, wriggle or waggle to the dancing music of the Mighty Shadow.
The search for what will replace personal income tax and the general question of the movement of money led me to the book on economics that is taking the world by storm. It is Capital in the Twenty-First Century by French economist, Thomas Piketty. He has been hailed as the modern Karl Marx, writing the book of the season that is influencing thousands and forcing economists to think and re-think. Any book on economics that cites the novels of Jane Austen and Honore de Balzac and contains tons of carefully researched data must be good at best or provocative at least. It is both. Read it.
The central theme of the book is the evolution of economic inequality. It speaks more to advanced economies than to those of the Caribbean but it will be foolhardy not to read it to understand capital and inequality, even if the inequality we see in our emerging economies is arguably proportionally less.
When wealth accumulates in the hands of few and money does not trickle down, the economy will not grow despite the growth of private capital. In fact, the analysis of data from the past two centuries informed Piketty that capital does not naturally tend to trickle down but to remain in the hands of the wealthy. Circumstances have to force the unnatural trickle down effect. Or governments will have to tax hoarded wealth.
A direct quote from the Economist magazine will underscore the central dogma of the book. “ Other things being equal, faster economic growth will diminish the importance of wealth in a society, whereas slower growth will increase it (and demographic change that slows global growth will make capital more dominant). But there are no natural forces pushing against the steady concentration of wealth. Only a burst of rapid growth (from technological progress or rising population) or government intervention can be counted on to keep economies from returning to the “patrimonial capitalism” that worried Karl Marx.”
For Antigua and Barbuda, it means that the burst of rapid growth that the government is pursuing fits directly into the equation to balance or offset the hoarding of capital. Hoarding, here? Additionally, with the loss of money from personal income tax, it must mean that the government will collect all the other taxes with neither fear nor favour.
But can you sense there is something missing? Look again at what the Economist magazine says, “…..there are no natural forces pushing against the steady concentration of wealth”. The central question is, what forces can we muster to counteract the unbridled tendency to hoard capital and in so doing encourage spending? Over and over again we hear of the “enabling environment”. Is this simply and only an economic environment?
If the love of money is the root of all evil, surely the world of economics and our survival cannot be based solely on the movement of money, whether is moves slowly, as on a slow boat to China, or trickles down and circulates fast as prescribed by Mr. Browne. There must be something else that makes you want to live here and put your capital to work here; indeed not just live here but be human here, in Antigua and Barbuda.
The article in 2006 in the Daily Observer, addressed the question and idea of the soul of the nation. It made reference to the definition that ‘A nation is a community of mutual obligation that is based on a shared history’.
Money is undoubtedly a unifying, and dividing, force. As we seek to find ways to grow the economy of Antigua and Barbuda, the task of capturing and securing one vital underpinning of the community of mutual obligation may very well reside in how we regard, nurture and celebrate our culture. Maybe this is why we have one composite ministry of Trade, Industry, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Sports, Culture, National Festivals and Youth Empowerment.
Indeed, for all the leaves to be “Browne”, firstly all the leaves will have to be “Greene”.
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
In 2006 The Daily Observer carried an article, All The Leaves Are Brown. You can read it on my blog, www.myantiguabarbuda.com. It ended with the prediction that …… “the opposing forces will one day come to see and know that the ALP will only win again when all the leaves are brown.”
Throughout the campaign of the recent general elections, there was a very arresting and counterintuitive reaction to the promise that personal income tax will be abolished. The overwhelming, positive response came from those (the majority) who do not pay personal income tax. On the other hand, many of us who pay personal income tax wondered where on earth (or in heaven, or hell) will the replacement money come from; as if we felt obliged to pay and to issue a warning. Some even wondered what was wrong with the non-paying majority greeting the promise like the best thing since bread, sliced or not.
The study of economics, like the study of all things, has an inherent logic that appeals to the common person in less sophisticated ways than it does to the experts. Despite what was done to lessen the economic burden on the common person, taxing the middle class to the extent that there was less money in circulation for the common person was the reason for the seemingly counterintuitive response to abolish personal income tax.
Money, like blood, has to be in circulation for it to have common good. It cannot stay in one place, like the unaccompanied woman who sits or stands or, worse, lies down, and refuses to jiggle, wiggle, wriggle or waggle to the dancing music of the Mighty Shadow.
The search for what will replace personal income tax and the general question of the movement of money led me to the book on economics that is taking the world by storm. It is Capital in the Twenty-First Century by French economist, Thomas Piketty. He has been hailed as the modern Karl Marx, writing the book of the season that is influencing thousands and forcing economists to think and re-think. Any book on economics that cites the novels of Jane Austen and Honore de Balzac and contains tons of carefully researched data must be good at best or provocative at least. It is both. Read it.
The central theme of the book is the evolution of economic inequality. It speaks more to advanced economies than to those of the Caribbean but it will be foolhardy not to read it to understand capital and inequality, even if the inequality we see in our emerging economies is arguably proportionally less.
When wealth accumulates in the hands of few and money does not trickle down, the economy will not grow despite the growth of private capital. In fact, the analysis of data from the past two centuries informed Piketty that capital does not naturally tend to trickle down but to remain in the hands of the wealthy. Circumstances have to force the unnatural trickle down effect. Or governments will have to tax hoarded wealth.
A direct quote from the Economist magazine will underscore the central dogma of the book. “ Other things being equal, faster economic growth will diminish the importance of wealth in a society, whereas slower growth will increase it (and demographic change that slows global growth will make capital more dominant). But there are no natural forces pushing against the steady concentration of wealth. Only a burst of rapid growth (from technological progress or rising population) or government intervention can be counted on to keep economies from returning to the “patrimonial capitalism” that worried Karl Marx.”
For Antigua and Barbuda, it means that the burst of rapid growth that the government is pursuing fits directly into the equation to balance or offset the hoarding of capital. Hoarding, here? Additionally, with the loss of money from personal income tax, it must mean that the government will collect all the other taxes with neither fear nor favour.
But can you sense there is something missing? Look again at what the Economist magazine says, “…..there are no natural forces pushing against the steady concentration of wealth”. The central question is, what forces can we muster to counteract the unbridled tendency to hoard capital and in so doing encourage spending? Over and over again we hear of the “enabling environment”. Is this simply and only an economic environment?
If the love of money is the root of all evil, surely the world of economics and our survival cannot be based solely on the movement of money, whether is moves slowly, as on a slow boat to China, or trickles down and circulates fast as prescribed by Mr. Browne. There must be something else that makes you want to live here and put your capital to work here; indeed not just live here but be human here, in Antigua and Barbuda.
The article in 2006 in the Daily Observer, addressed the question and idea of the soul of the nation. It made reference to the definition that ‘A nation is a community of mutual obligation that is based on a shared history’.
Money is undoubtedly a unifying, and dividing, force. As we seek to find ways to grow the economy of Antigua and Barbuda, the task of capturing and securing one vital underpinning of the community of mutual obligation may very well reside in how we regard, nurture and celebrate our culture. Maybe this is why we have one composite ministry of Trade, Industry, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Sports, Culture, National Festivals and Youth Empowerment.
Indeed, for all the leaves to be “Browne”, firstly all the leaves will have to be “Greene”.
Friday, June 20, 2014
The Charge of the Light Blue Brigade
The Twelfth Night
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
I found her at 14 past 3 in the wee hours of the morning, after the massacre of the twelfth night, naked as before she was born, awash in tears. Tears flouting gravity, ascending beyond her forehead and, on exhaustion, descending to her toes onto the floor, draining and seeping under the door. Written on the wall behind her in bright, dripping red was the reason for her torrential tears: How can we have clean, general elections without water?
I took her up, put her down on the bed and covered her nakedness with the red sheet. That was all I could find. There was a single, small blue pillow but her head needed to be flat, and her feet up, to send more red blood to her brain. Without oxygen her parched lips will turn blue, a signal, lost colour.
When she recovers I will have to explain a lot to her. One pollster had told her she will be red and another pollster held that she will be blue, after the general elections. I will tell her that polls can be wrong for many reasons. The wording and even the order of the questions can lead to error. The size of the sample and the way the sample is chosen may be faulty. Even the tone of voice of the interviewer can affect the response. She will want more details.
It is unlikely that persons will lie to one poll and tell the truth to another. The sample size may have been a critical factor to explain the consistent variance between the two polls. Let us examine these factors of sample size and response by first regarding situations that are actually opposite to how they initially appear.
In medical school we had a brilliant anatomy teacher who knew every single part of the body in fine detail. We were initially surprised to learn that he was a poor surgeon. It became obvious that his very fine, detailed knowledge prevented him from operating as quickly as the average surgeon. In effect, as perfect as he was in anatomy, very few patients attended his surgical clinic despite all the fine accolades he received from the very same patients who went elsewhere.
One of our brilliant, young, local pianists commented that he learnt so much from his piano teacher, he had immense difficulty deciding what not to play. Far too many choices came to mind during improvisation. Sometimes he had to pretend and play very simply and leave all the complicated music behind.
We all know some persons, including some politicians, who are very respectable. Yet they are so incapable of getting the job done quickly that we say yes to them and behind their backs we quietly ask or beg someone else to do the job.
When we regard the two polls, the CARUSO poll quotes a margin of error of 3% while the CADRES poll quotes a margin of error of 5%. The simple mathematics here is this. The ideal poll will access every single voter in the population. The population can be the entire constituency or the entire island. Such an ideal poll is really a census in which the margin of error will be zero per cent because you have polled every single voter. Since this is difficult or impossible for pollsters to do, they poll samples of constituencies and samples of the national population. In statistical terms, the margin of error acts as a bell curve, which means there is a point at which a large sample size becomes counterproductive to polling.
The larger the sample size, the smaller the margin of error. The smaller the sample size, the larger the margin of error. The tendency may be to get as many persons polled as possible to get a small margin of error. But hold on. What happens if there is an intrinsic or extrinsic bias in the polling population?
An intrinsic bias can mean that lots of persons like the government but are reluctant to say they will vote against the government. They are conflicted between their liking the government and thinking the opposition will be able to do things better. So they tell a little lie. They lie to both polls. However, the poll with the larger sample size will include more of these little liars, and get it wrong.
An extrinsic bias will have the same effect in that the bias is fuelled by money or gifts offered to the voters. Also, intrinsic and extrinsic biases can exist in a single voter. Look at Barbuda and the result from the CADRES poll. Landslide?
One theoretical alternative or addition to the above is if one poll had interviewers who misrepresented what persons said to them, either because the interviewers were incompetent or they were corrupted by extrinsic or intrinsic bias, or both.
The simple answer I have to give this “blue vex”, expectant, naked, dripping-wet woman, now covered in red, and “in labour”, is that bigger or more is not always better. But if I were to tell her this, she will start crying all over again. She will cry more torrential tears for five, long years with the reason for more tears emblazoned on the wall next to her bed, in dribbling ocean blue: How can you have a clean government without water?
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
I found her at 14 past 3 in the wee hours of the morning, after the massacre of the twelfth night, naked as before she was born, awash in tears. Tears flouting gravity, ascending beyond her forehead and, on exhaustion, descending to her toes onto the floor, draining and seeping under the door. Written on the wall behind her in bright, dripping red was the reason for her torrential tears: How can we have clean, general elections without water?
I took her up, put her down on the bed and covered her nakedness with the red sheet. That was all I could find. There was a single, small blue pillow but her head needed to be flat, and her feet up, to send more red blood to her brain. Without oxygen her parched lips will turn blue, a signal, lost colour.
When she recovers I will have to explain a lot to her. One pollster had told her she will be red and another pollster held that she will be blue, after the general elections. I will tell her that polls can be wrong for many reasons. The wording and even the order of the questions can lead to error. The size of the sample and the way the sample is chosen may be faulty. Even the tone of voice of the interviewer can affect the response. She will want more details.
It is unlikely that persons will lie to one poll and tell the truth to another. The sample size may have been a critical factor to explain the consistent variance between the two polls. Let us examine these factors of sample size and response by first regarding situations that are actually opposite to how they initially appear.
In medical school we had a brilliant anatomy teacher who knew every single part of the body in fine detail. We were initially surprised to learn that he was a poor surgeon. It became obvious that his very fine, detailed knowledge prevented him from operating as quickly as the average surgeon. In effect, as perfect as he was in anatomy, very few patients attended his surgical clinic despite all the fine accolades he received from the very same patients who went elsewhere.
One of our brilliant, young, local pianists commented that he learnt so much from his piano teacher, he had immense difficulty deciding what not to play. Far too many choices came to mind during improvisation. Sometimes he had to pretend and play very simply and leave all the complicated music behind.
We all know some persons, including some politicians, who are very respectable. Yet they are so incapable of getting the job done quickly that we say yes to them and behind their backs we quietly ask or beg someone else to do the job.
When we regard the two polls, the CARUSO poll quotes a margin of error of 3% while the CADRES poll quotes a margin of error of 5%. The simple mathematics here is this. The ideal poll will access every single voter in the population. The population can be the entire constituency or the entire island. Such an ideal poll is really a census in which the margin of error will be zero per cent because you have polled every single voter. Since this is difficult or impossible for pollsters to do, they poll samples of constituencies and samples of the national population. In statistical terms, the margin of error acts as a bell curve, which means there is a point at which a large sample size becomes counterproductive to polling.
The larger the sample size, the smaller the margin of error. The smaller the sample size, the larger the margin of error. The tendency may be to get as many persons polled as possible to get a small margin of error. But hold on. What happens if there is an intrinsic or extrinsic bias in the polling population?
An intrinsic bias can mean that lots of persons like the government but are reluctant to say they will vote against the government. They are conflicted between their liking the government and thinking the opposition will be able to do things better. So they tell a little lie. They lie to both polls. However, the poll with the larger sample size will include more of these little liars, and get it wrong.
An extrinsic bias will have the same effect in that the bias is fuelled by money or gifts offered to the voters. Also, intrinsic and extrinsic biases can exist in a single voter. Look at Barbuda and the result from the CADRES poll. Landslide?
One theoretical alternative or addition to the above is if one poll had interviewers who misrepresented what persons said to them, either because the interviewers were incompetent or they were corrupted by extrinsic or intrinsic bias, or both.
The simple answer I have to give this “blue vex”, expectant, naked, dripping-wet woman, now covered in red, and “in labour”, is that bigger or more is not always better. But if I were to tell her this, she will start crying all over again. She will cry more torrential tears for five, long years with the reason for more tears emblazoned on the wall next to her bed, in dribbling ocean blue: How can you have a clean government without water?
Thursday, June 5, 2014
VOTE FOR ME
The Department of Explanation
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
Today they brew, tomorrow they bake. Next day the country’s reins they
take. No one knows their political game. Rumpelstiltskin is its name.
Early one morning, a woman walks into the department of explanation. What does she want? Explanation, of course. Explanation. Explanation. Explanation. The wretched, melancholy lady wants to know why, after ten years, she has to choose between staying with her current lover, and leaving him for a new suitor.
The apprenticed heckler at the door reminds her, in a not-too-gentle manner, that she came here five years ago, and indeed five years before that, asking the very same question. He wonders why she doesn’t use her phone and call and save the trip. Her phone is out of service? He suggests she goes to church more often.
The master heckler rebukes him. She, by her very name, is of the church. She was not always like this. You can still see some history in her. A conformation that beguiles the beginner; inlets and outlets to recess and rest in reverie; a level but shapely abdomen without extensive flabs; gentle, inviolate, undulations in the right places; and, if you are up for the hike, handfuls of rolling hills rising to an elevation that makes men peak and go boggy.
The apprentice whinges. The master continues. Her problem is that men have always been fighting over her, from ancient times to now. But do they really love her? There is very little evidence of this. Greed, power, narcissism and indifference, masquerade as love for her.
The intrigued apprentice wants to know how to love an island. Leave her and go on voyages to discover lands in her name. Plant her flag on captured territory. Bring back gold and silver and curry and pepper, like Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama. The master heckler reminds him he has to first learn to swim and sail to do all that. Then he has to convert natives to Christianity and give orders to burn to death women and children as they plead for their lives.
The young heckler considers his options. He will have to invent chattel slavery and erect edifices and statues. Tourists will visit, including the descendants of the slaves who built the cities on cane and chain under the pain of death. They will admire and respect and take pictures, without flash, lest they have a flashback on history. Worse, he will have to refuse to come to the table for a civilizing discussion on reparations.
Some islands, like some women, are best left alone, before and after the meridian of life. They are not worth looking at or fighting for. But not this ardent, native one. This island-lady demands explanation but really needs no explanation at all. She comes here every five years because she has the power and the greed. What can simple hecklers tell her? Look back and see what her lover has done in 10 years and in that same fertile moment of imagination look forward to what her suitor can do. With her power and greed, she engages and enjoys this real and imaginary, uninhibited, quinquennial concoction.
But is she worse than politicians? Their divine power and rampant greed are everlasting because they pretend to give us the right to choose. And we love the collusion of pretence. They can turn straw into gold. They can move mountains, whether or not Mohammed wants to go to the mountain. We know the truth but the effervescent thought of the impossible becoming possible fills us with incandescent joy, like milligrams of viagra in a geriatric, desiccated, shrunken man.
Such nice people; some politicians. Granting favours, solicited and unsolicited, out of the sheer kindness of their heart. What can we do without them? Every five years we become desperate for real love or for play-play love. Our tender heart cannot pump alone.
And so this island-lady is garlanded with planks of aching signs, complaining symptoms and logs of political medications that can make you sick. With so many promises to fulfil and so many premises of wood, her natural beauty is lost from the full forest and the single trees.
Our island-lady knows what promises are real, unreal or surreal. She knows when politicians are lying through their teeth. She can even taste the potential misery in their five-year, greeting kiss. And yet, the department of explanation is called upon every five years to explain this consensual orgy of power and greed; this fusion of pretentious love and portentous lust. Yes, we vote with an X.
Dr. Lester Hazlewood-Simon
Today they brew, tomorrow they bake. Next day the country’s reins they
take. No one knows their political game. Rumpelstiltskin is its name.
Early one morning, a woman walks into the department of explanation. What does she want? Explanation, of course. Explanation. Explanation. Explanation. The wretched, melancholy lady wants to know why, after ten years, she has to choose between staying with her current lover, and leaving him for a new suitor.
The apprenticed heckler at the door reminds her, in a not-too-gentle manner, that she came here five years ago, and indeed five years before that, asking the very same question. He wonders why she doesn’t use her phone and call and save the trip. Her phone is out of service? He suggests she goes to church more often.
The master heckler rebukes him. She, by her very name, is of the church. She was not always like this. You can still see some history in her. A conformation that beguiles the beginner; inlets and outlets to recess and rest in reverie; a level but shapely abdomen without extensive flabs; gentle, inviolate, undulations in the right places; and, if you are up for the hike, handfuls of rolling hills rising to an elevation that makes men peak and go boggy.
The apprentice whinges. The master continues. Her problem is that men have always been fighting over her, from ancient times to now. But do they really love her? There is very little evidence of this. Greed, power, narcissism and indifference, masquerade as love for her.
The intrigued apprentice wants to know how to love an island. Leave her and go on voyages to discover lands in her name. Plant her flag on captured territory. Bring back gold and silver and curry and pepper, like Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama. The master heckler reminds him he has to first learn to swim and sail to do all that. Then he has to convert natives to Christianity and give orders to burn to death women and children as they plead for their lives.
The young heckler considers his options. He will have to invent chattel slavery and erect edifices and statues. Tourists will visit, including the descendants of the slaves who built the cities on cane and chain under the pain of death. They will admire and respect and take pictures, without flash, lest they have a flashback on history. Worse, he will have to refuse to come to the table for a civilizing discussion on reparations.
Some islands, like some women, are best left alone, before and after the meridian of life. They are not worth looking at or fighting for. But not this ardent, native one. This island-lady demands explanation but really needs no explanation at all. She comes here every five years because she has the power and the greed. What can simple hecklers tell her? Look back and see what her lover has done in 10 years and in that same fertile moment of imagination look forward to what her suitor can do. With her power and greed, she engages and enjoys this real and imaginary, uninhibited, quinquennial concoction.
But is she worse than politicians? Their divine power and rampant greed are everlasting because they pretend to give us the right to choose. And we love the collusion of pretence. They can turn straw into gold. They can move mountains, whether or not Mohammed wants to go to the mountain. We know the truth but the effervescent thought of the impossible becoming possible fills us with incandescent joy, like milligrams of viagra in a geriatric, desiccated, shrunken man.
Such nice people; some politicians. Granting favours, solicited and unsolicited, out of the sheer kindness of their heart. What can we do without them? Every five years we become desperate for real love or for play-play love. Our tender heart cannot pump alone.
And so this island-lady is garlanded with planks of aching signs, complaining symptoms and logs of political medications that can make you sick. With so many promises to fulfil and so many premises of wood, her natural beauty is lost from the full forest and the single trees.
Our island-lady knows what promises are real, unreal or surreal. She knows when politicians are lying through their teeth. She can even taste the potential misery in their five-year, greeting kiss. And yet, the department of explanation is called upon every five years to explain this consensual orgy of power and greed; this fusion of pretentious love and portentous lust. Yes, we vote with an X.
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