Stories about Trinidad & Tobago from January, 2006
The Caribbean Single Market
It's rare to find Caribbean bloggers across different islands talking about the same issue at the same time, but one would have thought that yesterday's historic signing in Jamaica of the document ratifying the Caribbean Single Market (CSM), might have created a little buzz. That, however, is exactly what it...
Caribbean: BlogHer's site launches
BlogHer's new “internationalized” site is now online, with Karen Walrond covering Latin America and the Caribbean.
Caribbean: The Taíno & Catholicism
Indigenous issues blog Voice of the Taino people links to an article entitled “Christianity, Capitalism, Corporations, and the Myth of Dominion”, noting that the “Roman” Catholic Church still has not properly addressed the call by the Taíno and other Indigenous Peoples world wide for the revocation of the 1493 Inter-Ceatera...
Trinidad & Tobago: Carnival
Nicholas Laughlin is finally embracing Carnival, the national festival of his homeland of Trinidad and Tobago. Caribbean Free Radio, on the other hand, may just have seen a few too many.
Trinidad & Tobago: The sacred and the profane
CaribPundit notes with delight that Trinidadian Carnival designer Peter Minshall is back after a two-year absence with a Carnival band called “The Sacred Heart”, reporting in the same post on an incident in southern Trinidad where police attempted to quell a demonstration over poor road conditions using tear gas, mace...
Trinidad & Tobago: Calypso exhibition
Richard Bolai discusses the travelling exhibition “Calypso Music, Photographs and Illustrations in Postwar America from 1945 to 1960″, now on in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Caribbean: McWatt wins literary prizes
The Caribbean Beat Blog announces that Guyanese writer Mark McWatt has taken both the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book in the Canada/Caribbean region, and the prestigious Casa de las Americas prize for Caribbean literature in English or Creole.
Caribbean: Does “pre-Columbian” also mean Chinese?
JT at the Caribbean Beat Blog writes about the “ancient-looking map” which turned up last month, suggesting that a Chinese admiral may have visited the Caribbean before Columbus.
Caribbean: Musical collaborations
The Dancehall Blog notes some of the collaborations happening between artists from different Caribbean islands. Among those involved in inter-island projects are Kevin Lyttle of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Spragga Benz, Macka Diamond, Mr. Vegas and Elephant Man from Jamaica, Machel Montano and Denise Belfon from Trinidad & Tobago,...
Trinidad & Tobago: Trinidadianness
J9 takes a break from some Carnival-related work to think about what makes Trinidadians Trinidadian, while Caribbean Free Radio‘s 41st podcast investigates the truth of the song lyric “Trinidad and Brazil we have the same vibration” by talking to a friend in Salvador da Bahia. Meanwhile, Elspeth Duncan continues her...
Trinidad & Tobago: Dear Michelle Malkin
Taran Rampersad writes an open letter to conservative US pundit Michelle Malkin.
Trinidad & Tobago: Carnival critique
Caribbean Free Radio posts its 40th podcast, an interview with Trinidadian rapso ground 3canal in which the band's members are highly critical of some of the new trends in the national Carnival.
Caribbean: Introducing Indigo Leaf magazine
Karen Walrond unveils her ambitious new venture, a Salon.com type web site called Indigo Leaf magazine featuring work by writers and artists previously unpublished in the US.
Trinidad & Tobago: Did Kitch steal from Lady Day?
Jonathan Ali is going through a Billie Holiday phase — which leads him to wonder whether the great calypsonian Lord Kitchener may be guilty of plagiarism.
Trinidad & Tobago: Chinese heritage
Christopher Yee Mon learns about his heritage from a newspaper article on the Chinese presence in Trinidad; and in an international business course he learns that anyone of Chinese descent is considered a citizen of China under Chinese law. “Nice to know I still have a home to go back...
Trinidad & Tobago, India: Hutch prize for Naipaul?
The Caribbean Beat Blog speculates on whether V. S. Naipaul may have Indian citizenship. The Trinidad-born Nobel laureate, a long-time British subject, has been nominated for a Hutch Crossword Book Award — “the Indian ‘Booker Prize'” — whose eligibility rules state that authors “must be Indian citizens or must hold...
Trinidad & Tobago: Ethnic profiling in the press
Indira takes issue with references to the ethnicity of a couple accused of murder in a headline in the Trinidad Express.
Trinidad & Tobago: Prime minister wannabes & music
Elspeth Duncan conducts the first interview in her “If I were prime minister” project, and concludes that she needs to make some adjustments to her questions and approach. Attillah Springer primes for writing an article for a UK publication by making a playlist of her top 11 jouvay tunes.
Trinidad & Tobago: Education blog
Caribbean Free Radio
Caribbean: A blogger's book awards
For the fourth year in a row, Trinidadian Nicholas Laughlin publishes the “Nicholas Laughlin Book Awards” for Caribbean books — “i.e. books written by Caribbean authors, set in the Caribbean, or otherwise of particular Caribbean interest”. As interesting as the selections is Laughlin's analysis of his own reading patterns over...
Caribbean: Caribbeing
“In this CSME time. In this time of dancehall self-righteousness versus soca wutlessness. In this time when Trinis don't want to hear about “small islanders” reaching to the Billboard charts with soca music. In this time when Haitians still call out for our help and we still studiously ignore them....
