Opinions
State gaffes
Among many troubling international issues, three, – one American, the others Guyanese and Canadian – expose the irregularities of some Government actions. US Attorney General William P. Barr’s 4-page summary of Special Prosecutor Mueller’s 300+ page distillation of two years’ enquiry into Trump’s election conduct seems inadequate. Mueller states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Barr states, “The Special Counsel's decision to describe the facts … without reaching
any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct ... constitutes a crime ... After reviewing the Special Counsel's final report … Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed … is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offence. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.” So Barr will do nothing while the other investigations proceed. Compare the legitimacy of Mueller’s investigation with the current impasse in Guyana where a cacotopic Government is flaunting the constitution, much as its original author, Forbes Burnham, had done in his heyday, and made election-rigging a PNC art-form. Granger lost the legal right to a monopoly on violence, hence any use of force while continuing to “govern” is unlawful; so are local state-authorised decisions, including rendering public services, incurring expenses, and international contacts. The appellate court ruled against Justice George in the matter of “majority” but not in other issues, like dual citizenship and need for elections according to the Constitution; Granger ignores the fact that four of his people are dual citizens versus two in the opposition; thus Granger is probably sure, like his mentor Burnham, that he can call on the Police and armed services to support any PNC government, legitimate or not. Burnham’s Plan X-13 is very much alive, doubtless updated, and perhaps even now, its main elements are being readied for action. The offer of elections in November gives ample time for vote-rigging, while the unprecedented denial of the appointment, as Deputy Chief Elections Officer, of an Indian who scored highest in the examination, in favour of the second-placed, an Afro-Guyanese, underscores the intention of the PNC to reclaim its hegemony. You note the sameness of the APNU/ AFC coalition with the PNC/UF linkage of 1964, and how swiftly the UF was discarded with election rigging. The AFC has always been similarly vulnerable, yet surprisingly its seniors ignored it. It’s the old story: those who know no history are doomed to repeat it.
In Canada, Quebec Premier Francois Legault defended his Government’s creditable introduction of the long-overdue bill to ban Government workers from displaying religious symbols at work. But PM Trudeau opposes it and the English Montreal School Board is challenging it in court. Quebec has invoked the “notwithstanding clause” to nullify the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, the preamble stating the Bill’s basis on four laudable and defensible principles: "the separation of state and religions, the religious neutrality of the state, the equality of all citizens, and freedom of conscience and freedom of religion." There is no reasonable objection to these.
Even the crucifix hanging over the speaker’s place could be removed, despite its symbolic value. I have always felt it intimidating to have to deal with government officials who openly display their religion; I cannot see why they need to do that in secular public service; religion should be practised at home or in a house of religion. Persons who must live under a religious cloak might not reasonably perform, in an unbiased way, services to people of different religions, and clients might feel that adverse decisions by someone of an overtly different religion are biased; after all taxation is not based on religion, except in those Muslim governments where only non-Muslims are taxed.
Not satisfied with his falling fortunes, Trudeau insulted a Native Canadian at a Liberal Party fund-raising, for protesting Government lethargy on the long-standing industrial mercury poisoning of the Wabigoon and English River systems, Northern Ontario, and consequent Minamata disease prevalence in Grassy Narrows and White Dog reserves. Yet his Foreign Minister beguiles herself toadying to a wayward Saudi teen, with public hugging and VIP welcome as a refugee to Canada, while First Nations residents suffer for over fifty years the chronic effects of poisoning, so far addressed half-heartedly and ineffectually, hence the Native protesters, who would not qualify for a Freeland hug.
In Canada, Quebec Premier Francois Legault defended his Government’s creditable introduction of the long-overdue bill to ban Government workers from displaying religious symbols at work. But PM Trudeau opposes it and the English Montreal School Board is challenging it in court. Quebec has invoked the “notwithstanding clause” to nullify the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, the preamble stating the Bill’s basis on four laudable and defensible principles: "the separation of state and religions, the religious neutrality of the state, the equality of all citizens, and freedom of conscience and freedom of religion." There is no reasonable objection to these.
Even the crucifix hanging over the speaker’s place could be removed, despite its symbolic value. I have always felt it intimidating to have to deal with government officials who openly display their religion; I cannot see why they need to do that in secular public service; religion should be practised at home or in a house of religion. Persons who must live under a religious cloak might not reasonably perform, in an unbiased way, services to people of different religions, and clients might feel that adverse decisions by someone of an overtly different religion are biased; after all taxation is not based on religion, except in those Muslim governments where only non-Muslims are taxed.
Not satisfied with his falling fortunes, Trudeau insulted a Native Canadian at a Liberal Party fund-raising, for protesting Government lethargy on the long-standing industrial mercury poisoning of the Wabigoon and English River systems, Northern Ontario, and consequent Minamata disease prevalence in Grassy Narrows and White Dog reserves. Yet his Foreign Minister beguiles herself toadying to a wayward Saudi teen, with public hugging and VIP welcome as a refugee to Canada, while First Nations residents suffer for over fifty years the chronic effects of poisoning, so far addressed half-heartedly and ineffectually, hence the Native protesters, who would not qualify for a Freeland hug.
Refreshing sno-cone on a warm day
Romeo Kaseram
On those extremely hot days back home the chickens watched the sno-cone vendor with envy as he waltzed up the streeta, each bird breathing heavily through wide-opened beaks, first looking one way, then tilting the head for the other eye.
A sure sign the day was heading into the neighbourhood of a scorcher was when the chickens started early in the morning with breathing exercises, instead of futilely scratching the dry, coarse ground, fussing over wayward broods, or gossiping and cackling with bowed heads by the water-trough.
That the humidity was on the way up was an easy read early in the morning, when in the higher echelons of the chicken coop, a rooster climbed heavily onto a railing, unsteady with prosperity, the strut straining to hold up the higher reaches of the chicken-run.
Then lifting up a fine-feathered chest of red streaked with gold, as if inflating an instrument’s air-sack, this rooster made ready for a tremendous boost of crowing, an exhibition of nothing less than machismo prowess and lung capacity. So it was he inhaled an entire barrelful of air, as if making ready for a choral marathon, and a well-robed, flapping display of boastful sovereignty.
But instead of the king of his roost lifting a heavily-crowned and well-combed head, closing both eyes for concentration, and then vainly throwing up his beak to give better flight to his voice using a ventriloquist’s thrust, and so proclaim territoriality as far as a staccato burst of sound travels, this rooster then breathed out slowly, and followed up with a deep intake of another lungful of cool morning air.
Gaping in astonishment, his subjects far and wide in this kingdom of subservient fowls took note, comprehension dawning among them with a show of gaping beaks, and soon each chicken was performing similar, preparatory breathing exercises.
Such was the preparation for the incoming heat of the day, the chicken coop a barometer predicting a sun rising with malignant intent, its diurnal objective being to slash-and-burn, its scorched-earth policy to render down with intensity galvanised and wooden roofs, so each house hissed, crackled, and popped; that any red earth not in the shade of a tree, a rock, or a roof, warped, then splintered, and cracked like heat-stressed china; and young plants, freshly pushed out and still moist with the success of germination wilted, shrivelled, and then curled up to be baked crisped, later to be pronounced dead, having untimely perished due to desiccation.
By the time mid-day arrived, even the dogs were sweating, tripping clumsily over extended tongues, with ears drooping like large, oval leaves, and eyes glazed so at times a snout bumped with snarling irritation into a companion’s rear end.
The merest thought of leaving the shade of the kennel was draining, and each movement was a tentative step, since to walk out meant having to test any open ground using the pads on the feet, the way a cat hesitates before extending a finicky paw into cold water. At times, having ventured out too far re-enacted the clumsy, painful, and comedic dance of humiliation: imagine a dog, proclaimed and celebrated as the best friend of man, dancing clumsily, animated like shreds of sautéed garlic in hot oil in a sizzling frying pan; or worse, like a cat on a hot tin-roof.
In this time of day a heavy stillness reigned with the weight of a too-warm blanket, the singing of the birds silenced as if sound itself had become de-energised. If there were any signs of life in displays of energy and vibrancy, it was noticeable in the heat waves that danced upwards with aerobic animation, radiating and visible off sun-impacted surfaces as galvanised roofs, concrete walkways, and the twisted black ribbons of hard-baked, asphalt roadways.
Then, arriving like the scent of the ocean and its promise of a cool breeze touching wet, sticky skin came the distant tinkle of a small bell. With snouts frozen in motionlessness between front paws, the only movement from the dogs was the flicker of the ears tuning in to the ringing of the bell. Gasping heavily through opened beaks, each chicken oriented an alerted eye, then the other, pivoting the head on the mechanics of its lengthy, tilting neck towards the lilting sounds of the approaching sno-cone vendor.
The siesta world woke up from its imposed lethargy. Each breath of oven-warmed air began to be drawn within the anticipation of a countdown; soon, the song of the sno-cone vendor itself became a measure of distance and time approaching a point of convergence and relief.
The arrival of the sno-cone vendor was a gift from the gods. In the rise of paper cones was a leaning tower of promise, containment for the elixir of the gods, the shaved ice swimming in its syrupy, fruity flavours, its convergence in the mouth a heady swim of touch with taste, cold and sweet a condensed milk of mingling in marriage.
Later, further relief came with rain, its first drizzle a sizzle lifting the heady petrichor, this scent from the gods rising off the sun-blasted earth.
Then lifting up a fine-feathered chest of red streaked with gold, as if inflating an instrument’s air-sack, this rooster made ready for a tremendous boost of crowing, an exhibition of nothing less than machismo prowess and lung capacity. So it was he inhaled an entire barrelful of air, as if making ready for a choral marathon, and a well-robed, flapping display of boastful sovereignty.
But instead of the king of his roost lifting a heavily-crowned and well-combed head, closing both eyes for concentration, and then vainly throwing up his beak to give better flight to his voice using a ventriloquist’s thrust, and so proclaim territoriality as far as a staccato burst of sound travels, this rooster then breathed out slowly, and followed up with a deep intake of another lungful of cool morning air.
Gaping in astonishment, his subjects far and wide in this kingdom of subservient fowls took note, comprehension dawning among them with a show of gaping beaks, and soon each chicken was performing similar, preparatory breathing exercises.
Such was the preparation for the incoming heat of the day, the chicken coop a barometer predicting a sun rising with malignant intent, its diurnal objective being to slash-and-burn, its scorched-earth policy to render down with intensity galvanised and wooden roofs, so each house hissed, crackled, and popped; that any red earth not in the shade of a tree, a rock, or a roof, warped, then splintered, and cracked like heat-stressed china; and young plants, freshly pushed out and still moist with the success of germination wilted, shrivelled, and then curled up to be baked crisped, later to be pronounced dead, having untimely perished due to desiccation.
By the time mid-day arrived, even the dogs were sweating, tripping clumsily over extended tongues, with ears drooping like large, oval leaves, and eyes glazed so at times a snout bumped with snarling irritation into a companion’s rear end.
The merest thought of leaving the shade of the kennel was draining, and each movement was a tentative step, since to walk out meant having to test any open ground using the pads on the feet, the way a cat hesitates before extending a finicky paw into cold water. At times, having ventured out too far re-enacted the clumsy, painful, and comedic dance of humiliation: imagine a dog, proclaimed and celebrated as the best friend of man, dancing clumsily, animated like shreds of sautéed garlic in hot oil in a sizzling frying pan; or worse, like a cat on a hot tin-roof.
In this time of day a heavy stillness reigned with the weight of a too-warm blanket, the singing of the birds silenced as if sound itself had become de-energised. If there were any signs of life in displays of energy and vibrancy, it was noticeable in the heat waves that danced upwards with aerobic animation, radiating and visible off sun-impacted surfaces as galvanised roofs, concrete walkways, and the twisted black ribbons of hard-baked, asphalt roadways.
Then, arriving like the scent of the ocean and its promise of a cool breeze touching wet, sticky skin came the distant tinkle of a small bell. With snouts frozen in motionlessness between front paws, the only movement from the dogs was the flicker of the ears tuning in to the ringing of the bell. Gasping heavily through opened beaks, each chicken oriented an alerted eye, then the other, pivoting the head on the mechanics of its lengthy, tilting neck towards the lilting sounds of the approaching sno-cone vendor.
The siesta world woke up from its imposed lethargy. Each breath of oven-warmed air began to be drawn within the anticipation of a countdown; soon, the song of the sno-cone vendor itself became a measure of distance and time approaching a point of convergence and relief.
The arrival of the sno-cone vendor was a gift from the gods. In the rise of paper cones was a leaning tower of promise, containment for the elixir of the gods, the shaved ice swimming in its syrupy, fruity flavours, its convergence in the mouth a heady swim of touch with taste, cold and sweet a condensed milk of mingling in marriage.
Later, further relief came with rain, its first drizzle a sizzle lifting the heady petrichor, this scent from the gods rising off the sun-blasted earth.
