“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”
Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Friday, December 31, 2010
Trinidad and Tobago's first President dies at 93
Sir Ellis Emmanuel Innocent Clarke, an only child, was born on December 28 1917 into a middle class family from Belmont. He received his high school education at St Mary’s College, where he won an island scholarship in mathematics.
He pursued his tertiary education at London University where he obtained his LLB. He was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn, London in 1941.
Not long after his return to Trinidad and Tobago, Ellis Clarke was called to the Bar in his homeland, engaging in private practice from 1941-1954.
Between 1954 and 1962 Ellis Clarke held several posts in the Colonial Government: Solicitor General, Deputy Colonial Secretary, Attorney General and Constitutional Advisor to the Cabinet.
After the attainment of Independence, Ellis Clarke became a foreign diplomat, holding numerous posts between 1962 to 1976, sometimes simultaneously, including Trinidad and Tobago’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
He was an ambassador for Trinidad and Tobago to the United States and Mexico. He was also Trinidad and Tobago’s Representative on the Council of the Organisation of American States. He also held the post of Chairman of BWIA from 1968 to 1973. He was appointed Governor-General by Her Majesty the Queen of England in 1972, and assumed duties on 31st January 1973.
Upon proclamation of Republican status on September, 1976, the post of Governor-General became obsolete. Following a meeting of the Electoral College, as provided by the Constitution, Ellis Clarke was elected unopposed as President, becoming the first President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago - an office he held until 1987.
Ellis Clarke was involved in the draft Constitution, culminating in his attendance at the Marlborough House Conference from May 28 to June 8, 1962.
He was bestowed the Companion of St Michael and St George (CMG.) in 1960 and made a Knight Bachelor (Kt Bachelor) in 1963. He was one of the first to be awarded this country’s then highest honour, the Trinity Cross (now known as the Order of Trinidad and Tobago) in 1969.
Source
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/SIR_ELLIS_IS_DEAD-112698464.html
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,133297.html
http://www.guardian.co.tt/beta/news/2010/12/31/sir-ellis-passes-93
A great son of Trinidad and Tobago soil may he rest in peace.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The sad saga of Judah: Burn victim faces multiple surgeries in Miami
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| Judah Lovell... scarred in a bamboo ‘bussing’ incident. Photos: Dalton Narine |
Miami—A father and son occupy a room at Spring Hill Suites, Miami, 2,600 kilometres from their hometown in La Canoa, Santa Cruz.. They have become guests of fate. And they wait on time. Judah Lovell, seven, has been scarred by two surgeries performed 15 months ago at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope. An innocent observer of innocent fun, he had taken a full-frontal assault from a “bamboo-bussing” adventure that went awry in the presence of neighbourhood children and his brothers, Eron, 12, and Jamal, 10.
From that moment on, Michael Lovell and his son—who comes from a mixed-race heritage—have been trapped in an enduring downhill roller-coaster trip that he hopes will take a new slant and bend upward, someday, somehow, to the disposition of a higher power. Meanwhile, at the family home “up Kingston Avenue,” Oma Jankey, wife and mother, might have located the will and faith to decipher the hard knocks of a life that has buckled so primitively just so; nevertheless she finds guilt, and pain over her grief that “something like that shouldn’t have happened while I was at home.”
“It hard, it hard,” she says. “It sad.” Jankey places a daily call to her husband and son, holed up, like hibernating animals, at the Spring Hill Suites near the Jackson Memorial Hospital in an unseasonably wintry sub-tropical city, where the first surgery of Judah’s new life will be performed perhaps in a matter of weeks. “He’s in good spirits,” Jankey says. “But he cries sometimes. He says he’s missing me. I tell him I’m waiting until he comes back. He knows I must take care of his year-and-a-half-old sister, Sapphire. He and I have such a close relationship.”
Vivid recollections of trauma haunt her: Judah’s Lakers jersey is ablaze, grabbing at the upper body and neck, peeling the skin away. Her mother, Indra Jankey, celebrating her birthday that Sunday, October 11, 2009, rushing toward him. He bawling, she pulling the garment over his head. Jankey making the call to his father, who is on a landscaping job four minutes away. The son, a lefty, his body blackened, rolling the eyes wide with fright. Burns from belly to neck, and on the left hand, too, pushing him to ask, “Daddy, am I going to die?” Michael dashing off in his car with the boy, horn screaming and lights blinking all the way to the hospital.
But the nightmare is barely in its infancy. Lovell and Jankey spin a single thread into the longest rope that doesn’t seem to have an end. The unspooling begins, really, at the hospital. She, pleading with the doctor not to graft skin on the healing wounds. The doctor, shooting back that the throat is a tricky area, and she’ll have to live with that if he doesn’t graft. Two skin grafts later, emotions run helter-skelter within the family. Allegations of irregular bandage changes—sometimes five days overdue—reach the ears of doctors and nurses. Untreated flesh stink like rotting meat, is how the couple press their case. “The doctor’s negligence disfigured my child for life,” Jankey says.
(A head nurse informs a caller that “everything went well,” and promises to transfer the call to the doctor, which, weirdly or not, leads to a dead end.) More bitterness piles on. Lovell is searching for answers from authorities, but there seems to be no recourse. No remorse, either. A stroke befalls him. Now, Jankey is flashing back again. There’s an open wound in Judah’s neck, like someone had cut off a piece of skin. The neck has a pocket, like a kangaroo’s. Bacteria settle in. The skin is bursting around the neck, forming holes. Two, then three. Pus, a product of inflammation, oozing from the neck and filling two glasses. It smells like death. So, it’s back to the paediatric ward.
A recovering Judah lucks into a routine of arts and craft, which is taught by a person affiliated with a non-governmental organisation (NGO). Unable to tilt his head up or down and left or right, without bending or turning his body, he finds the sensation of stringing coloured beads into objects of his fancy a compensatory occupation. And bestows his artwork upon patients in the ward, as he does with gifts he receives from family and well-wishers.
In the meantime, good Samaritans have been rallying to Judah’s predicament. Ian Alleyne, presenter of Crime Watch on WinTV, Carol Boon, Anna-Lisa Habib, Dave Surajdeen and Kathryn Stollmeyer-Wight, among a host of others, bring national focus to the family’s plight. Stollmeyer-Wight is encouraged by a Mt Hope doctor’s summation about multiple surgeries to be performed in Miami. “By then, Judah’s story had become an incredible journey,” Stollmeyer-Wight says. “I put the story on my Facebook page. Then it took on a life of its own. People saw the wounds in the photographs. It opened their hearts. I grew up ‘bussing’ bamboo myself in Santa Cruz, and I just couldn’t see this little boy growing up so scarred.”
Facebook friends reach out from every corner of the world, shovelling all manner of aid and relief to the family.
Now it is left to someone like St Clair-based Ian Kalloo, managing director of Dalian Medical Concierge Services Ltd, an interactive medical management for people with group health insurance, to provide the key role in the final chapter of the Trinidad saga of Judah’s struggle. Because, since specialist medical care was required in the US, it was necessary to liaise with Olympus Ltd, Dalian’s US counterpart.
Kalloo would need to run interference between both companies on behalf of Judah. Kalloo and Dr Dale Maharaj, his business partner, hooked up with plastic surgeon Dr Ravindra Lalla and Deputy Speaker Fuad Khan. The association’s brainstorm inspires Dalian and Olympus to negotiate an initial deposit from US$250,000 to US$40,000.
Two major surgeries will address a majority of Judah’s problems, according to Kalloo. “Cosmetic surgery will be necessary, too,” he said. Stollmeyer-Wight and Ian Alleyne, Kalloo reminds, “have been instrumental in putting it all together,” including the trip to Miami. Judah and his father arrive with Stollmeyer-Wight. Facebook friends Trinidadian-born Jinnah Emamdee and his wife Carol greet the party at the hotel. Emamdee remembers Judah’s face as calm but sad. “I saw a child that was in pain,” he said. “It was the necklace made out of rope around his neck that really caught my eye... It was the skin of his neck.”
His new friends bring warmth whenever they visit, and Judah gifts them key chains from his alligator and lizard collection and a tiny Christmas tree, all of which he manufactures from a stash of beads he keeps next to his stuffed animals at his bedside. The other day, father and son, accompanied by Stollmeyer-Wight, swing by the popular, cavernous Dadeland Mall. She buys the boy a balloon. Minutes later, she notices that he has pulled his shirt over his neck and face; and now he’s shielding his distortion with the balloon. “People were gawking at him and he didn’t want them to see him disfigured,” Stollmeyer-Wight recalls. “Judah will get these operations somehow,” she says. “We’re not going to give up on him. He deserves better.”
Friday, December 24, 2010
Merry Christmas
Isaiah 9:6
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Cape Town Carnival crisis at 11th hour.
This time around Melvyn Matthews of the Kaapse Klopse Association is threatening high court litigation against the city and Kevin Momberg of the Cape Town Minstrels' Carnival Association said his organisation has already briefed its advocate.
A crisis meeting between the city, province and organisers of the carnival was held a week ago. And at that stage it wasn't even certain when the minstrels would march.
The problem is that January 2 -- the day the carnival is normally held -- falls on a Sunday. The minstrels refuse to march on a church day and proposed Monday January 3 as an alternative.
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| Cape town carnival 2010. |
City spokesperson Kylie Hatton said the city counter-proposed January 1, as January 3 will be the first working day of 2011 and the SAPS are against the march being held on that day.
Momberg said it's a matter of tradition. When a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the Monday replaces it.
Cape Town tradition
The Tweede Nuwejaar (Second New Year) carnival, although not an official holiday, is unique to the Cape and has been held since 1907, when the first formal event drew 7 000 spectators.
"It celebrates the freedom of the slaves," said Momberg. "The attitude [of the city authority] is 'just go back to your townships'." He believes the city has a duty to sort out the logistics. "It is our right," he said. |
| The minstrels do not want to march on January 2 next year because it falls on a church day. (Carina Beyer) |
Asked why problems around the carnival arise each year, DA councillor Belinda Walker said the applications are "unsupported by documentation" and the city and province are "not dealing with a homogenous organisation".
There are, she said, differences among the carnival associations about what they want. Walker said the carnival has grown substantially over the years. With upwards of 50 000 people, public safety is a major issue and SAPS approval is needed. The city is trying to help, she said.
Matthews and Momberg maintained that they started negotiations early in the year. Matthews said they had been ignored throughout the process. But it's not just the date that is in dispute. The exact route the carnival will take and the many costs involved -- such as who will bear what and how much -- are also at issue.
Mayor Dan Plato told the recent council meeting that the route had been agreed on November 25. But the city and the organisers appear to be at cross-purposes again -- and the carnival cannot happen without both parties agreeing.
"Not apartheid, not the [world] wars, nothing could kill off the carnival," said Matthews.
source
Monday, December 13, 2010
Taking back Carnival for 'ordinary' people
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Minister Winston Peters |
CARNIVAL is being taken away from the ordinary man and Minster of Arts and Multiculturalism Winston Peters wants to reverse this.
Peters was speaking yesterday during a press conference prior to a tour of the construction of the Grand Stand at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain.
Peters said the availability of the "ordinary man" like himself, to benefit from Carnival by selling items at the side of the road during the Parade of the Bands was being taken away and he would not allow it.
"These bands now advertising everything, drinks, premium drinks, premium toilets and leave out the other people from Carnival," Peters said, adding that the ordinary man could no longer "make a little money to mind his children" for a few weeks from what he sold during Carnival.
He said the North and Grand stands will be completed "way before Carnival".
Peters said Carnival must become a better product to promote the country and there were plans to make it bigger and better.
Peters said after Carnival next year, a competition will begin for local contractors to design a permanent structure to house Carnival.
He said the "Carnival Village" will be designed and built by locals and would be a tourist attraction with constant cultural activities taking place.
Next Carnival there will be the People's Band where anyone can join and as for security "the people are going to police themselves".
He added that the "unsanitary" "wee wee trucks" would be flushed out of Carnival 2011.
"I don't want it and we're not having it," Peters said.
As for the incorporation of steelband within mas Peters reiterated that Panorama had killed pan, and that steelbands should make themselves more viable.
Earlier in the day Derek Hamilton, project manager for the construction of the Grand Stand said the construction of the stand, which will house VIP and concession booths along with toilets for both general and VIP customers will be completed by the February 10 due date.
Though work has begun, a budget will not be ready for another two weeks for the construction, Peters said.
Hamilton added that the erection of the Grand Stand will begin on January 3, 2011 as "50 to 60 per cent" of the foundation work had already been done.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Specalist Entertainment thank you Party 2010
Specialist Entertainment's annual Members Thank You Party is a night dedicated to showing our appreciation to all our members/members of the public who have supported Specialist Entertainment from 2007 to the present. We know they are the backbone of everything we do and so, on the chosen night allow us to say --
THANK YOU!!!!
On the night our hand-picked DJs will be playing you all the tunes you want to hear: 70% Soca, 30% all other flavours!
SOURCE
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Spoilt Rotten ‘Nomads’ for Kiddies C2K11
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| Taureg “Blue Men of Africa. |
Spoilt Rotten Kids (Terry Ann Roach–designer, Christine Nunes–bandleader, and Liz Inniss) recently launched their 2011 junior Carnival production Nomads at then Morne Coco Road mas camp. Parents and children excitedly chose costumes from the five displayed sections: Bush Babies (boys/girls 2-3); Aborigines “Walkabout” (boys/girls 4-6), Vagabonds of Rajasthan (boys/girls 7-9), Roma Gypsy Fortune Teller (girls 10 plus) and Taureg Blue Men of Africa(boys 10 plus).
In 2010, the Kids celebrated their 10th anniversary of competing in either the small or medium category, portraying Colours of the Wind. Other outstanding past presentations were The Forbidden City in 2009; The Casbah 2008, and Viva Las Vegas 2007 for which designer Roach won the Mini Band Designer of the Year Trophy. In one of the best productions, Mardi Gras in 2004. the young masqueraders distributed colourful beads and coins along the route to spectators.
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| Roma “Gypsy Fortune Teller. |
The band’s kings and queens have also reached the junior king and queen final nights on many occasions, and appeared on the savannah stage with the NCC Kings and Queens semi-finalists. The band’s individuals have also done very well annually, in all competitions.
A reasonable band fee includes tee shirts for the masqueraders, refreshments at all competitions, with a special treat on Red Cross competition day and personal attention to every little detail by the organisers.
Registration is ongoing through calling Christine at 221-5735 and/or Liz at 622-5189 or 741-1769.
source
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