Stories about Trinidad & Tobago from October, 2006
Trinidad & Tobago: Halloween
At Halloween, “not a tradition associated with the English-speaking Caribbean,” Trinidadians seem happy to mimic the styles coming out of North America, observes Laura at the Caribbean Beat weblog, but perhaps that's merely a symptom of some of the country's other positive attributes.
Trinidad & Tobago: Rock band offers free downloads
Christopher Yee Mon reports that Trinidadian rock band Tripped and Fallen is offering their latest album as a free download.
Trinidad, UK: Between two worlds
Trinidad blogger Jeremy Taylor returns to the “quiet corner of the mudder country” (England) where he grew up: “There ought to be a name for this state of mind. (Perhaps there is.) When your head is split between two worlds.“
Trinidad & Tobago: Crime comes home
Trinidadian blogger Jonathan Ali receives a stark reminder that the country's deep-seated crime problem affects everybody.
Trinidad & Tobago: Anti-smelter movement gains momentum
The movement protesting the establishment of an aluminium smelter in a community in south-western Trinidad gains momentum with the setting up of a protest camp in the north of the island, reports the Rights Action T&T blog. The camp will be launched on Friday to coincide with a demonstration in...
Trinidad & Tobago, UK: Review of “Londonistan”
Trinidad blogger Jeremy Taylor reviews the book Londonistan by British journalist Melanie Phillips: “What causes intelligent people to slither across the political spectrum from left to right (and sometimes the other way) as they get older? When she was a young journalist, Melanie Phillips used to write outstandingly sensible and...
Russia: The Second Blog War
(more buttons and userpics are here) The Russian-language blogosphere (commonly known as ZheZhe) is on fire: some users are shutting down their blogs, others are emigrating to the virtual Trinidad & Tobago – all because LiveJournal.com's owner Six Apart has decided to team up with the Russian internet company Sup,...
Trinidad & Tobago: The globalisation of Second Life
Trinidad blogger and Second Life player Taran Rampersad looks at Second Life in the context of the global economy: “Issues of Digital Divide are as much of a factor as the dominant cultural trends within SecondLife itself, but as more people come online – more people will enter virtual worlds....
Trinidad & Tobago: Folk wisdom
Christopher Yee Mon dishes out some Trinidadian folk wisdom gleaned from his Auntie Kim. An example: “To Cool You Down in the Sun (Heat Stroke?): Drink Maryshutyuhdoor. Maryshutyuhdoor is the grass in the savannah whose leaves close up when you walk on it. (Could Kill You)”
Trinidad and Tobago: Mobilised or immobilised?
Elspeth at Now Is Wow reflects: “Funny how a statement like ‘I'm mobilised’ (which sounds so positive, proactive and ready-to-go) when condensed into one word, becomes the exact opposite: Immobilised”. She writes about her frustration and anger at the news that an acquaintance has been murdered.
Guadeloupe, Trinidad: Young Rotarian Conference
Guadeloupe Attitude writes (Fr): “Patrick Verdol, Livio Lison and Bella Mado are the 3 Guadeloupeans chosen by the seven Guadeloupean Rotary Clubs to participate in the 2006 RYLA of District 7030 … Chosen by the clubs and districts for their potential leadership, youth aged 14 to 30, attend all expenses...
Trinidad and Tobago: Burning Rawan
Ramleela, a folk theatre version of the Ramayan performed by Trinidadian Hindus each year in the weeks before Divali, traditionally ends with the burning of the effigy of the villainous Rawan. Mani of The Manicou Report visits the final night of Ramleela in a nearby village, and is worried by...
Trinidad & Tobago: Poet Mervyn Taylor
Geoffrey Philp launches a new writers series called “In My Own Words” with Trinidadian poet Mervyn Taylor.
Trinidad & Tobago: Double-agent graphic designer?
Nicholas Laughlin is convinced that an advertisement for a meeting of Trinidad & Tobago's opposition party was designed by a double-agent from the ruling party. He supports his claim by annotating a copy of the ad posted at caribbeanfreephoto‘s Flickr page.
Trinidad & Tobago: On Jack Straw
Trinidad blogger Jeremy Taylor weighs in on the Jack Straw affair: “Jack starts to sweat. He tries hard to be liberal and tolerant, poor fellow. On the other hand, he was the man who with Tony Blair helped to plan and execute Britain's role in the disastrous Iraqi war. And...
Trinidad & Tobago: More long weekends
Hassan Voyeau has a proposal for Trinidad and Tobago: “All holidays should be changed to fall on the closest Monday or Friday thus always creating a long weekend thus maximising the usefulness of a holiday.”
Trinidad & Tobago: Different strokes
“While the rest of us are lining up for visas, being groped by security guards, having our fingerprints taken and our eyeballs photographed (not to mention having our phone numbers, credit card numbers and meal preferences sent ahead to Homeland Security if we're crossing the Atlantic), US citizens are still...
Trinidad & Tobago: Mousepads for bandwidth
Taran Rampersad takes the mickey out of two quotes relating to technology from the budget speech read this week by Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister.
Trinidad & Tobago: The 2007 Budget
Saucydiva offers an assessment of the budget presented today by Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister, with a special emphasis on its potential effects on the upcoming Carnival season.
Trinidad & Tobago: “Please stand. . . for something”
Click on the image to play video On the day of the reading of Trinidad and Tobago's 2007 budget — which, from the talk on the streets, could include all manner of life-changing proposals — I figured this conceptual video by Trinidadian multimedia artist Elspeth Duncan would be a timely...
Trinidad & Tobago: Power to the . . . who??
“The alarming thing about this document is the amount of extra power it concentrates in a president's hands,” writes Jeremy Taylor, reviewing the scary new draft constitution being proposed by the Trinidad & Tobago government.
