Severely Stressed

Most of you know that I have been under a great deal of stress lately.

The migraines are having their way with me on a regular basis so I decided to pay my specialist a visit.


He made me take a test. I don't know exactly how it works but it turns out that it is amazingly accurate.This test has been used in case studies in the USA.

The picture below has two identical dolphins in it. During the test, I was closely monitored. It was said that inspite of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find that there are differences between the two dolphins. Apparently the more differences the person finds, the more stressed they are.

I've been sent on sick leave!!

And when I am less stressed I will stop putting the same blog on both my sites!! Until.............

The Country Running Smooth.....

This is going to sound very anti government of Trinidad and Tobago as I write about the three day Fifth Summit of the Americas which begins on Friday.



The country is on virtual lock down, front pages of the newspapers show heavily armed security looking as though they should be in Somalia instead of here, passes for the Red Zone which have been paid for are not issued, the external security forces have said that the proposed route from the airport to the Hyatt is vulnerable so the alternative route has to be used - never mind the millions that was spent hiding shanty towns and the undesirables behind walls -, the numerous dry runs that have put citizens out and caused them to miss planes, appointments, weddings and the like and yesterday, the electricity company sending panic and chaos through the International Finance Centre which is housing the National Secretariat for the Summit when there was power failure. Fire alarms went of, people were stuck in elevators and there was a mad rush for the emergency exits. One newspaper reports between 1,000 and 2,000 people including international media were ordered to leave the building by the fire services! It was passed off as an 'emergency drill' but once one has lived in this country one knows that there was either an almighty cock up or the electric company workers decided to sabotage the proceedings.

Talk about a three ringed circus!

The floating hotels have arrived. Two Princess Line cruise ships which will house security - 200 local police officers have already moved on board - they must think they have died and gone to heaven - our rat and cockroach infested, car less police stations leave a great deal to be desired. The police officers will filter among the guests, delegates and journalists staying on the ships for the next seven days.

In the meantime there are long delays in Accreditation Centre - people cannot get their passes including the programme coordinator for Transparency International in the Americas. I bet she's pissed off! Her pass it at the airport which is where she should have collected it from when she arrived but no one told her. So now she's on the other side of the island hoping that some courier will be able to get through the road blocks!

And three days before the Summit Active Democracy Citizen Network which is made up of 21 countries, has given Trinidad and Tobago a bad rating for non implementation of decisions from previous Summits of the Americas!

The money that has been spent on this three day event when there are homeless and starving people in this country, is immoral. Seven or so years ago, a new airport was built. Contractors and ex government ministers (living and dead!) are still under investigation for the corruption. One contractor and an ex minister are fighting extradition to the US because of charges laid. So this government decides to rebuild the old airport to accommodate private jets bringing in Heads of States. Add to that the TT$60 million (USD = 6 TTD!) that it cost to build a hangar - yes one hangar - to accommodate Air Force One and its accompanying fleet and the bill is mounting up! We won't even go into the amount of money that was spent on brand new vehicles to transport delegates - car salesmen and fleet managers are having a ball because in time of supposed financial crisis, their commissions are out of this world. Over 200 new vehicles which will afterwards be used by government officials!! They don't have to provide a vehicle for Obama - the 'beast' is already here!

There is so much preparation here - walls painted, grass painted, trees planted, vagrants removed from the streets, buildings painted, roads paved, police and security services working etc... that I think we should have a Summit every two months. That would guarantee a clean and safe country.

The joke is that whilst the demi god Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago is busting out of his shirt with pride, there was but a mere mention in passing on MSNBC, CNN et al of Obama's trip to Trinidad. It seems according to the US media he is going to Mexico on Thursday and then 'to Trinidad'. No mention of what for!!

Obama and Chevaz in the same room? This should be interesting!!!

Janet Jagan 1920 - 2009

I wonder how many are familiar with the name Janet Jagan. For those who do not know of her, she was once the Prime Minister of Guyana and later President of Guyana.


Not very remarkable one might say but this is remarkable because Janet Jagan was an American born socialist politician who made Guyana her home many years ago.


Janet was born as Janet Rosenberg to middle class Jewish parents in Chicago, Illinois. I know - I know - you don't need me to tell you all know where Chicago is!! In December 1942 while working as a student nurse at Cook County Hospital she met Cheddi Jagan, an Indo-Guyanese dentistry student at Northwestern University. They were married in August 1943 after which Janet moved with her husband to Guyana.

In Guyana she took part in labour activism along with her husband and joined the British Guyanan Labour Union at the same time working in her husband's dental practice. In 1946 she founded the womens political and economic Organization and co-founded the Political Affairs Committee.


Jagan unsuccessfully ran for a seat from Central Georgetown in the 1947 general election. On January 1, 1950, she and her husband were co-founders of the left-wing People's Progressive Party (PPP) and she served as the party's General Secretary from 1950 to 1970. Also in 1950, Jagan was elected to the Georgetown City Council. She was subsequently elected to the House of Assembly in the April 1953 election. She was one of three women to win seats in that election; following the election, she was chosen as Deputy Speaker of the Legislature.
The PPP, a socialist party, opposed British colonial rule of Guyana. After its electoral victory in April 1953, the PPP briefly formed the government, but the British government had the PPP government removed later in the year, and Cheddi and Janet were jailed for five months. They were subsequently kept under house arrest for two years. In 1957, she was re-elected to the House of Assembly from Essequibo constituency and became Minister of Labour, Health and Housing. She later became Minister of Home Affairs upon her predecessor's death in 1963. She resigned from the Cabinet in 1964. As a member of the Elections Commission for the opposition in 1967, she expressed concern about the possibility of vote rigging. She was also the editor of the PPP newspaper Mirror 1973 to 1997.
Jagan was elected to Parliament in 1973 and was re-elected in 1980, 1985, and 1992, eventually becoming the longest-serving member of Parliament. Cheddi Jagan was elected as President of Guyana in 1992, and Janet Jagan became First Lady. She represented Guyana at the united Nations for three months in 1993.
After Cheddi Jagan's death, Janet Jagan was sworn in as Prime Minister as well as First Vice President on March 17, 1997. Jagan was the presidential candidate of the PPP in the 1977 election. After the PPP won the election, she became the second female President in the history of South America (after Isabel Peron of Argentina) and the first to be democratically elected. Janet Jagan not only became the first female President of Guyana, but she was also the first U.S.-born and the first white person to lead the nation.
False allegations were made against Jagan because being both Jewish and Marxist she was the subject of anti-Semetic conspiracy theories in the United States. There were false reports that she was related to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, American communists who were executed in 1953 at Sing Sing after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. The charges were in relation to the passing of information about the atomic bomb to the then Soviet Union. A connection between Jagan and the Rosenbergs was never proved.
Jagan announced in August 1999 that she was resigning as President because her health meant that she was no longer capable of "vigorous, strong leadership". Sshe said that Finance Minister Bharrat Jagdeo would be her successor and he was then sworn in as president, a post he still holds today.
At the PPP's 29th Congress, Jagan had received the second highest number of votes (671) in the election to the party's Central Committee, held in August 2008. She was then elected to the PPP Executive Committee, in addition to being elected as editor of the PPP paper Thunder, also in August 2008.
Janet Jagan was long involved with the literary and cultural life of Guyana. She published early poems by Martin Carter in Thunder and supported the publication of early Carter collections such as ‘The Hill of Fire Glows Red.’ She strongly believed that Guyanese children needed books which reflected their own realities. She had several published works including 'When Grandpa Cheddi was a Boy and Other Stories".
Janet Jagan who was an icon in this part of the world died on March 28, 2009 at the Georgetown Public Hospital due to health problems. After a state funeral, her body was cremated on March 31, 2009.
Not bad for a nurse from Chicago, Illinois.

Preparation for the Fifth Summit of the Americas

What is this you may ask? No it is not another foto of an overcast sky!

I took this whilst in my car on Wrightson Road (reclaimed land), Port of Spain. To the right, out of sight is the sea. In the distance, the yellow building to the right is the new Hyatt Regency Hotel. The building with the turquoise coloured windows (as yet, unfinished - like many government buildings on the sea front) is going to house some government department.

The building on the left with the circular roof is the Crown Plaza Hotel. When I came to Trinidad in 1992 it was a Holiday Inn and apart from the government financial complex, was the tallest building on the island! The 'round top' is a revolving restaurant.

I am posting a Hyatt foto because that hotel is the venue for the Fifth Summit of the Americas which takes place from the 17 April. The Summit lasts for four days and will be attended by thirty three Heads of State together with their spouses. President and Mrs Obama will be here and there is apparently a contingent of 1,000 coming from the US.

The preparations for this event are well under way with frequent dry runs which is turning our already traffic nightmare into one of even larger proportions. Walls are being built to hide the shanty towns and the Prime Minister is now telling those living in them that they are living in 'gated communities'. The residents are buying it!! The price of a house in a real gated community runs into millions of dollars. There is an ongoing massive planting and clean up campaign which leads me to believe that we should have a summit every two months. The homeless are being taken off the streets and put, God alone knows where.

Port of Spain and environs have been colour coded, the immediate area of the venue being red. My daughter is in that area and her company applied for ID badges for its employees. That entailed her filling out a very detailed form which asks for everything personal - the only thing it doesn't ask for are the names of her great grand parents!!! However it means that my car gets a pass to go into the red zone so who knows, I may get to catch a glimpse of the US President's car (which is being brought in!) as it makes its way to the Hyatt. No, he is not staying there.

All government buildings will be closed which means yet another holiday for government workers and it appears that the government of Trinidad and Tobago may well enforce a Public Holiday to 'keep people off the roads' during that period. Better they make it a curfew because I hear that thousands of Trinis are coming out in a bid to see the saviour of the United States of America.

Way to go, bro!

Changes to royal succession?

Headline taken from the London Mail on Line - Friday 27 March 2009

Revolution at the palace as Brown plans to give female Royals equal succession rights

OMG whatever next?

Wee Gordy Brown wants to bring in a Bill that if passed, will allow sisters to have rights over their younger brothers to succession to the throne.

This could end the centuries old law that gives men priority over their older sisters in the Royal line of succession It would also allow Royals to marry Catholics.

I have to question Brown's agenda. Is this a ploy to rid the United Kingdom of the monarchy? Or a ploy to cover his inability to run the country? In an effort to distract, does he want to be seen as a modernizing reformer who is all for championing the rights of women and Catholics long discriminated against?

"The Act of Settlement has long been a target of the political Left, who believe the 308-year-old pillar of the constitution is an offence against human rights" says Steve Doughty.

"What fun for the Left to fire a cannon ball into our history" says James Slack.

If this is seriously taken, there will be considerable doubts as to whether the Labour party has the best interests of the Monarchy at heart. Many Labour MPs are openly anti-monarchy and there are others I think who are "closet republicans" as Harry Phibbs has pointed out. It is said that many Nu Labour MPs, behind closed doors, do have not got a great deal of good to say about the monarchy.

Oh please let there be an election. My father served "King and country" in WW11 and "Queen and country" later and he did not do it to allow a bunch of lefties to leave a trail of devastation in its wake when it has finished ruining what was once Great.

I will be first in line at the door of the British High Commission here in Trinidad to cast my vote!

But Do You Know Me?

BUT DO YOU KNOW ME?

I am a wife
A lover
Friend
But do you know me?

I am a mother
A protector
Guardian
But do you know me?

I am a friend
A companion
Listener
But do you know me?

I am a teacher
A mentor
Guide
But do you know me?

I am a servant
A worker
Humble
But do you know me?

I am a fighter
A survivor
Scarred
But do you know me?

I am a wall
A block
Barricade
But do you know me?

I am laughter
A delight
Beguiling
But do you know me?

I am gold
An ingot
Precious
But do you know me?

I am a soul
A strength
Immortal
But do you know me?

BL ©

Trinidad 2008

Forgiveness or Self Perpetuation?

There is a battle almighty going on in the British press and it concerns Senator Edward Kennedy described by some US political analysts as the most hard working, honest and courageous member of the Senate.

However, there are those on the other side of The Pond who don't see it that way.

Why is this suddenly an issue one might ask? Because the senior US Senator is to be given an honorary knighthood by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It always creases me when she is referred to as the Queen of England - she is much more than that - Scotland, Northern Island and Wales to say nothing of the Head of the Commonwealth. A bit like Prince Charles's wife being described as Princess Camilla on a local news spot last week. She is not a princess and she is not the Duchess of York - that honour goes to Sarah Ferguson albeit that they have dropped Her Royal Highness bit since the divorce. Camilla is the Duchess of Cornwall taking one of her husband's many titles - there was a public outcry nearing her marriage when it was suggested that she became the Princess of Wales - no way - that title belonged to the late Princess Diana although she too was stripped of the "her royal highness' bit upon divorce.

However I digress which many of you know I am wont to do. Knighthoods can only be given to Brits and when the Queen decides (or rather her government decides) to honour someone of another nationality e.g. Bob Geldorf, Speilberg - more hereunder, it is as an honorary.


So why the hoohah??? Andrew Roberts of the London Mail writes:
"The decision to award an honorary knighthood to Senator Edward Kennedy shows Britain at its most masochistic, New Labour at its most cynical and - if he accepts it - Kennedy at his most hypocritical.
To bestow such a distinction on a man who has spent almost all his adult life profoundly opposed to the United Kingdom's best interests also makes a mockery of the honours system.
Ever since Patrick Kennedy (Ted's Irish great-grandfather) set foot on Noddle Island, Boston, on April 21, 1849, the family has nursed a deep resentment against the country that they blame for forcing them out of County Wexford during the Great Potato Famine.

Over all matters concerning Ireland, the Kennedys have taken a pro-Nationalist line that has been deeply antagonistic to the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is why it is absurd for Gordon Brown to make this award, in the words of its official citation, 'for services to U.S.-UK relations and to Northern Ireland'.

For it is no exaggeration to say that Ted Kennedy did his damnedest to poison U.S.-UK relations over Ulster during the long decades in which he has castigated successive British governments. Rather than expressing any genuine commitment to peace in Northern Ireland, he would always play exclusively to his own Catholic-Irish voters in Massachusetts, whom he has represented in the Senate for more than 46 years.

Although he was always careful to use weasel words to condemn violence on both sides, it was always for Britain and the Ulster Protestants that he reserved his most withering rebukes. For the Queen to be obliged to honour this man is nothing less than an obscenity.
Let us look more closely at his record in relation to Ulster. In 1971, Kennedy likened the British presence there to the American invasion of Vietnam - a despicable analogy at a time when U.S. troops were using the poisonous chemical Agent Orange and napalm against the Vietcong.
He went on to state that the Protestants of Ulster 'should be given a decent opportunity to go back to Britain'. The fact that they had been in Ulster for 360 years - three times as long as the Kennedys had been in America - clearly passed him by. It was not until St Patrick's Day 1977 that Ted acknowledged that the Protestants might be allowed to remain in their homeland.
In 1978, he successfully pressured President Jimmy Carter's administration not to allow the U.S. to sell arms to the Royal Ulster Constabulary - sanctions which effectively equated Britain's Ulster police force with repressive dictatorial regimes in Africa and Asia.
It was no coincidence that he raised the flag of Irish nationalism whenever his Senate seat came up for re-election. His call for British withdrawal from Northern Ireland in 1980 was condemned as ignorant grandstanding by the great Irish statesman Conor Cruise O'Brien, but it went down well in the Irish pubs in Boston where money was raised for the shamelessly pro-IRA fund raising organization Noraid.

True to form, Kennedy blamed British 'insensitivity' for the 1981 hunger strikes led by the terrorist Bobby Sands in Belfast's Maze prison, rather than the IRA for the continuing murderous strife in Northern Ireland. We can only be thankful in Britain that Ted Kennedy narrowly missed being elected as Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1986, for he might have won the White House. His chances were wrecked by those still unanswered questions about the death by drowning 11 years earlier of 29-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, a pretty political assistant, in a car driven by Kennedy.

It is important to go back to that horrific incident - and to Kennedy's despicable behaviour on the night - to explain why his character alone ought to disqualify him from any British honour, irrespective of his shameful support for the terrorist IRA."

*************************************
I'm not going into the Chappaquidick episode as no one needs reminding of something that he has probably lived to regret. Alcohol combined with youth and panic are terrible things.
Roberts goes on:

"Yet this is the man Labour intends to award the same honour as has previously been given to true American 'greats' such as Ronald Reagan, 'Stormin' ' Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell, Caspar Weinberger, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton and several other equally distinguished military, diplomatic and religious figures.
Without the tragedy of his brothers' assassinations, and the magic of his family name, Ted Kennedy would be nothing.

Now, Labour, which is supposed to abhor nepotism, is about to reward the most egregious example of nepotism in America today. That Kennedy is suffering from a brain tumour is very sad, but surely it is no reason to honour him.

Labour argues that Ted Kennedy aided, and was a great supporter of, the Northern Irish peace process and, therefore, deserves this honour - but, once again, let us look at his record.
It is true that he lobbied President Clinton hard in 1996 to award Gerry Adams an American visa (Adams promptly used his subsequent U.S. visit to raise money for Sinn Fein) and later to get him invited to the White House. But it is quite wrong to suggest, as the American historian Arthur Schlesinger does, that these initiatives 'led to the IRA ceasefire and the Good Friday accords'.

These, in fact, only came about as a result of the IRA's political and military leadership recognizing that they had been defeated on the ground by 1996-98. All that these American invitations afforded Adams, apart from flattering his ego, was to lend Sinn Fein an utterly spurious respectability on the world stage.

Only after 9/11 - when Americans discovered on their own soil how loathsome terrorism truly is, and how far from a noble romantic struggle - did Kennedy cynically distance himself from Adams and fellow Sinn Fein stalwart Martin McGuinness, refusing to meet them in 2005 after the IRA brutally murdered Robert McCartney in a Belfast bar in January that year.

Now, Gordon Brown wishes to ingratiate himself to the President by giving a knighthood to Obama's political ally, using the Northern Ireland peace process as the excuse even though it is utterly inappropriate."

Mary Ellen Synon writes in the same newspaper that being a friend of Gerry Adams was hardly the worst that Kennedy has done in his life. Tories are outraged that the Queen is to confer this honour on Kennedy who for decades has been allied to the Irish Republican movemement.

Synon refers to Kennedy as coming from bad stock (is that stock or stork??) which I hardly think he had a choice in. Neither did he have a choice in his father's decisions to have affairs, bootleg and to be part of organized crime. But money talks and Kennedy was reinstated into school after being caught having paid another student to sit his Spanish paper for him.
So in Britain (I am loathe to use the word Great anymore) tempers are running high, opinions are being given and questions asked as to why this man who apart from his other misdemeanors has been a consistent supporter of the most ruthless and cruel form of abortion, a procedure known as partial-birth abortion that allows a full-term baby to be killed in the birth canal - without anaesthetic, is being given this honour,
As someone commented, this tells exactly what one needs to know - not necessarily about Edward Kennedy but about the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The man who is trying to woo the new President of the United States, Barak Obama!!