To Die For

I wonder just how many of us Trinbagonians would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and die for our country? Not many I suspect, for in this land of rum and roti there are many who talk the talk about how proud they are of our country, especially when our various representatives in the sporting arena (less so in the literary and artistic fields) achieve international recognition. Yet such talk is only that. In reality, none of our citizens seem to be truly proud of Trinidad & Tobago.  

Pride in our country is not only about athletic or aesthetic or artistic achievement of a few individuals. Rather, it is more about our achievements as a people, which can perhaps be brought about by adherence to our national motto - discipline, production and tolerance. We can be proud of how clean our country is by having the discipline to not litter, as many of us continue to do sans conscience. We can be proud of our country's economic status by working strenuously and diligently to produce world class goods and services instead of having a ten days laziness mentality towards labor and a civil servant's nonchalance towards service. My old friend Brian reminds me that in Trinidad & Tobago there is no such thing as a civil servant; they are all uncivil.

Having pride in our country means that we can observe the final watchword of our national motto and tolerate each other, on the roads and in the killing grounds of the crime hotspots, and that we can tolerate those we perceive to be invaders and usurpers, the visitors who come here for hospitality but more often end up hospitalized or terrorized. Perhaps we tolerate the things that are wrong overly, thus the substandard levels of service in all strata of our society.

We really have no pride in our country, and thus no patriots, for patriotism necessarily entails pride in one's country. When was the last time you heard a Trinidadian described as a patriot?

Given the foregoing, the concept of the ultimate sacrifice applied to the Trinbagonian mentality is laughable. The Roman thinker and philosopher commonly known as Horace coined the term Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - "it is sweet and honorable to die for one's country", and although such high thought is today largely dismissed as folly by the pacifists (Owen as early as 1917 referred to it as "the old lie" in his haunting poem of the same title - you can read it here: www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html) yet the idea resonates with many, especially in this time of extremism and expansionism.

Where do our current leaders fit into this scenario? Martin Daly is rightly fond of describing the current crop of leaders as "kings" because of their attitudes toward leadership, and as we know, in olden times, the kings fought all battles from the front, and the captains went down with their ships. So, would Manning and Panday make that ultimate sacrifice for Trinidad & Tobago? 

I don't believe so, yet in the context of the next election, there may be an opportunity for one of them to do just that, for given the fact that a unified opposition is required to oust the current administration (a fact proven by the results of our most recent election), and given the fact that such unity is impossible as long as Panday is alive, then all Panday has to do to ensure that we rid ourselves of the current administration (and thus save our country, hopefully) is die.

So come on Panday, be a patriot and hurry up and die.

Obama And Orenthal

Much speculation has surrounded the recent ascendency of Barack Obama in the landscape of US politics and what his eventual fate will be should he succeed in his bid for the Presidency. Some have predicted that he may suffer the fate of others who before him aspired to or achieved that office only to be denied by death in the form of an assassin's bullet, and while Obama is certainly no JFK or RFK, the possibility remains real to many.

History shows us that the track record of black men involved in social and political change in the USA does not lend itself to longevity. MLK and Malcolm X come easily to mind. So what's to prevent another fanatic white supremacist from taking a bullet to Obama? Has the psyche of such extremists changed sufficiently since the sixties to allow a black President?

There are differences besides the passage of time which make for a more optimistic outlook as far as Obama is concerned, not least of which is the fact that he is only half-black. Or perhaps he is half-white. This puzzles me: it seems that when a man has a touch of the tar brush that he is white with it, yet when he has a touch of the whitewash brush he remains black. Thus Obama, half-white as he is, is still considered black. Yet he of the black mother and the white father with the straight hair and the tan skin is considered very much white.

Color prejudice runs deep in some circles, just as class prejudice is perpetuated in certain countries and societies. The English hold onto such traditions: low class, middle class, upper middle, lower middle, high class. Class as category, just as in other societies race counts to categorize people, to put them in their place.

So Obama, in spite of being half-white, is black, and I, with perhaps a touch of the tar brush remain white. Strange.

To return to the speculation surrounding the eventual fate of Barack Obama and the possibility of the bullet, I remain optimistic that things have changed sufficiently since the sixties to ensure the fulfillment of his potential. 

After all, Orenthal Simpson is still alive.

Aging Well

If one thing's for sure it's that nothing will endure forever, especially people, if people can be thought of as things, which they surely are. It is only because we are human that we insist upon calling ourselves "beings", but after all, what are beings if not things? I may be a being but I am also a thing and when the coil is shuffled off, I, like you all, will be only a thing to place in a casket and hustled off to the cinerary and duly burned.

All of us want to age well, whatever that means. To the vain, it means looking good right up until the end. To the health conscious it can mean living to become elderly without significant illness and/or pain. To those primarily concerned with the intellect it may mean keeping one's wits about one well into the time when, according to the honcho scientists, one should be little more than a human vegetable.

Aging well will always be important to us only because we must all without exception grow old. Roger Waters put it nicely in verse thus:

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking,

Racing around to come up behind you again.

Sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,

Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death.

 I need not remind anyone of man's obsession throughout history with staying forever young, yet the fountain of youth remains merely a dream. The fact is that we are all going to age, and then die. Sad but true. Part of the human condition. Still, some of us age quicker than others. Causative factors include genetics, illness, environment, personal habits and so on. The will to live is stronger in some of us than in others, and equally, the will can have an effect on how well or how badly we age. For those concerned with vanity, modern science offers the plastic surgeon and many products designed to preserve the looks. The health conscious turn to diet and exercise to ward off encroaching debility and some believe that the intellect can be "exercised".

What's the point, though? After all, we will all die sooner or later. Some believe it is better to live fast and die young, while others eke out every living minute by hard and fast rules and regulations guaranteed to help live a longer and well-preserved life. It all comes down to one's personal philosophy concerning aging. Yes, living long may be the best revenge, but how about living well? Who wants to live to be 100 when doing so entails a miserable and painful existence?

My old friend Dave after reading some of my ramblings indicated that I sound like a grumpy old man, and frankly that scares me. Who wants to be observed as a grumpy old man when he is playing his guitar in the band, and growing out his hair for the umteenth time and winking at the young girls in the bank?

Aging well is in the mind as much as it is in the body, and when the day comes that I cease to have an independent life, when I no longer enjoy reading and writing, and listening to and playing music, and winking at pretty young girls, then I'll be old and dread, and ready to be carted off to the cinerary.

Until then, I'll go on being 25.

Art Big And Small

One man's ceiling is another man's floor said Paul Simon, and so it is in our respective appreciation of art. Art to me may not be Art to you. Or rather, Art to me may be just art to you.

Art to me is Art. Yet there is much art which I do not consider to be Art. By Art I mean some creation which stirs up a lot of emotion and which really makes me think. Some people get a high from running, and others get a high by just looking at or listening to  something: art appreciation.

The bard has associated Art with truth and beauty and there is something to this, but art, whether as communication, entertainment, expression of talent or sheer exuberance, or any of it's many other forms and purposes is really only in the eye of the beholder. Subjective stuff, art. Back to Mr. Simon: one man's ceiling is another man's floor.

In pondering this, I checked out Wikipedia (that much-maligned yet reasonable resource) and came across the following: it appears that one Arthur Danto came up with the idea that "the status of an artifact as work of art results from the ideas a culture applies to it, rather than it's inherent physical or perceptible qualities. Cultural interpretation (an art theory of some kind) is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood"

Thus Art and art, to me anyway. To me Machel is art but Rudder is Art. The Beatles performing their songs was Art. Other people playing Beatles songs is art. Once a man told me that he could tune up an engine to perfection. He described it as an art but I thought it was more like a skill. Still, I suppose that it gave him great pleasure to perfect it and to him it could very well be Art. To him.

I know some people who are so naturally talented that they could with time and patience produce some Art, but for reasons of their own choose not to pursue it. By the same token I know those with minimal talent who have such a passion for Art they pursue it to their detriment. Thus, Art drives people, yet art is seen every day in the media.

No getting away from it that the old adage applies: beauty is in the eye of the beholder and in the ear of the listener and in the brain of the perceptive appreciator.

Five Miles Per Hour

I am informed by my friend Paul that when he travels the Canadian highways his average speed is sixty miles per hour but in Trinidad his speed is determined by that of the garbage truck traveling along the Saddle Road ahead of him, and that speed is five miles per hour. 

Now, that seems to me to be a true statement which makes me very sad, as it didn't used to be so long time. Things worked better then.

Anyway, coming back to the transportation speed, I am led to think of the person responsible for handling that in this administration, that smiling and smirking fellow who constantly reassures us that all things are just fine and are only going to get better. To be frank with you I don't believe him for one second. I believe he is a prancer and a pretender, but that is just my opinion and by no means a fact.

Anyway, if I had his job one of the things I would do is offer special deals to government employees on motorbikes up to 250 cc in order to minimize traffic. 

Bikes are really good. I had a bike before I had a car and I can tell you that there are few pleasures greater than leaning into a corner on a bike at speed with your hair blowing in the wind on your face and if you lucky, a girl behind you holding on. Ah, the eternal pleasures. 

Bikes are great. I have one and now that school has started back I am riding it more to avoid the increased traffic, but many of those eternal pleasures have changed. Helmets have constrained the hair and the voice. No breeze and freedom. Hot. 

I used to go around throwing raw eggs at schoolgirls and rivals from a motorbike in the days when it was okay to do that. It surely is not now what it used to be then but I certainly did have lots of fun on a bike and continue to do so occasionally.

Back to the point: more bikes, less traffic. That's how they maximize transport in parts of Asia while minimizing traffic jams. It perhaps could work, and even if it made a small reduction in traffic initially it might catch on as more and more people learned to ride. 

I wonder how many people in T&T know, technically, how to ride a bike? I wonder if the person responsible for transport in this administration knows how many? Has the idea been looked at and discarded for more grandiose plans in an effort to spend the max?

I wonder if he knows what he is doing. Somehow I doubt it as nothing seems to be getting better.

If he does we happy, right? 

If he does not then we are all going to continue to travel along at five miles per hour.