Stories about Trinidad & Tobago from September, 2009
Trinidad & Tobago: Digging a Hole
“It’s like a jamette woman in a rumshop shouting she does go to chuch!”: B.C. Pires blogs about issues of governance in the Trinidad & Tobago government.
Trinidad & Tobago: Thinking & Drinking
Trinidadian blogger Andre Bagoo republishes an article he wrote in which he “began to think in earnest about the reasons why I drink.”
Trinidad & Tobago: The Price of Progress is High
“As if the stink of the uselessness of the building weren’t enough…here comes talk that toxic fumes from the Performing Arts Academy are making people in the neighbouring buildings fall sick. Yes, this is progress at its best”: Trinidadian Attillah Springer says the whole thing “is a tragic kind of...
Trinidad and Tobago: against anti-gay violence
gspottt reacts to news that a member of Trinidad's GLBT community has been killed.”The murder comes … in the middle of an ongoing spate of internet dating-initiated violence and blackmail of community members…. It’s beyond time to take stronger community action to prevent and address such violence.”
Trinidad and Tobago: film partners
The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival blog offers notes from a panel discussion of “the future of co-productions in the Caribbean”, with contributions from filmmakers and other creative professionals.
Trinidad and Tobago: a fine balance
Jumbie's Watch shares a joke about the “balance” between Trinidad's many assets and advantages and the failings of its political leadership.
Trinidad and Tobago: GLBT religious service
gspottt reports on a recent Anglican religious service in Trinidad “targeted to GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] people and their loved ones on the theme of peace, human rights and inclusion…. The sermon challenged GLBT people to not see our struggle as so unique … and to recognize that...
Trinidad and Tobago: tranquil temple
Now Is Wow Too posts a tranquil, meditative video filmed near the famous Temple in the Sea in central Trinidad. “In the background, water laps, a bird sings in the tree and a woman sings in the Temple.”
Barbados: listening to Chalkdust
The Bajan Reporter attends a lecture on “Calypso and Crime” by Trinidadian calypsonian Chalkdust, and files a report. “In the Question & Answer section, I got a chance to ask if Bloggers and Calypsonians serve the same purpose in showing problems and solutions few would dare touch normally.”
Trinidad and Tobago: “poor man's food”?
“Why are we so angry about the rise in the price of doubles?” Coffeewallah considers the popular Trinidadian street snack as an economic indicator. “The cost of living has increased for everyone, even your doubles vendor. They are really a barometer for society.”
Trinidad and Tobago: “appalling reporting”
The Liming House responds to a news report in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper suggesting that Trinidad and Tobago has a dangerously high rate of alcohol abuse. “There is no evidence in this story of either fact checking or even the most cursory editing.”
Trinidad and Tobago: pommecythere chow
Simply Trini shares a recipe for a Trinidadian speciality: pommecythere chow, i.e. a kind of spicy pickle made a with a fruit popular in the Caribbean (also know as golden apple or June plum).
Trinidad and Tobago: a tribute to Wayne Brown
B.C. Pires writes an eloquent tribute to the Trinidadian writer Wayne Brown, who died on 14 September, 2009. “Wayne’s greatest gift … was the illustration of the relationship between the artist and his work.”
Trinidad and Tobago: public decency?
News of seven people murdered in a single incident in Trinidad prompts bitter reflections from B.C. Pires: “what Trinidad’s ‘leadership’ reveals, more and more plainly each day … is what little sense of public decency there is left in the place.”
Trinidad and Tobago: who pays for justice?
Jumbie's Watch reacts to news of a huge apparent shortfall in funding for the judicial system in Trinidad and Tobago's national budget for the coming financial year.
Trinidad and Tobago: touring Chacachacare
In words and pictures, My Chutney Garden recounts the history of the former leprosarium on Chacachacare, an island off the northwest coast of Trinidad.
Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago: literary obituaries
Litblogger Geoffrey Philp posts short tributes to two Caribbean writers who have died within 24 hours of each other: Trinidadian Wayne Brown (1944-2009) and Jamaican Trevor Rhone (1940-2009).
Trinidad and Tobago: budget “daggering”?
Writer Attillah Springer blogs her most recent newspaper column, comparing the Trinidad and Tobago government's annual budget presentation with the violent “daggering” trend in dancehall music.
Trinidad and Tobago: filmmakers speak
The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival blog posts short interviews with filmmakers Dalton Narine, Mariel Brown, and Jaime Lee Loy.
Trinidad and Tobago: Anton Nimblett's stories
gspottt posts a review of a new book of short stories by US-based Trinidadian writer Anton Nimblett: “Sections of an Orange is … perhaps the first work of literature to portray Trinidadian men who both love other men and are not psychologically conflicted or destroyed by their sexuality.”
Trinidad & Tobago: “Soccer” Warriors
As Trinidad and Tobago's hopes of making it to the 2010 World Cup are further dimmed by the team's loss against the U.S.A. yesterday, B.C. Pires says: “It’s not so much a cry of, ‘Ye of little faith!’ as one of ‘We of much experience’.”
