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Of Toenail clippers, Zrs, Prayers and Guns! (The ramblings of a troubled mind)

2/22/2019

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​Part I The God Letter!

Foreword:

This letter came to me in a vision! Auditory hallucination, more accurately, but that hardly sounds… biblical… but it came to me in the form of a slow clear voice whispering like a groaning tree in my ear as I struggled (as usual) to get to sleep. While it was happening it felt very real to me, the air around me seemed to pulse and crackle with energy and my body felt as if it were vibrating.  Despite this, the truth is, that the fact that this letter came to me in this fashion is almost meaningless, this is just how my imagination has always worked. My creative output is as often as not the result of some intrusive sensory glitch(?). I mention this only to say the following: 
  1. My visions are real and profound to me, but I know they are not real.
  2. I am comfortable sharing them in my opinion based blog.
  3. They are similar to weird declarations about God using earthquakes to move oil veins closer to Barbados inasmuch as no such nonsense belongs in a national news publication.
  4. I am puzzled by the hopeful tone of the letter… but it’s probably nothing… 
  5. Apparently I can’t help being snide 
​


​THE LETTER

Dear Barbados,

I am deeply troubled and, quite frankly, slightly offended by the recent (officially sanctioned) call for prayer and silence in response to the most recent spate of violence in Barbados. It with a heavy heart and weary mind that I write* this letter to you, but I am compelled by the feeling that not to do so would be to renege on my (albeit self-designated) responsibility to our tiny little nation. I am after all, as many are at pains to point out every hurricane season, a Bajan. And while “Bajan” is by no stretch of even the most elastic imagination, the only nationality I can claim, as a Bajan I want only the best for my Barbados.

I vacillated about writing this letter for several days because, as I’m sure you can appreciate, I am loath to create the misperception that I am in some way anti-prayer. It should come as no surprise to you that I like prayer… that’s why I invented it. Before I go any further I do want to point out that, while I don’t want to appear to be anti-prayer I have no such concerns regarding appearing anti-moments of silence. In fact I am unabashedly anti-moments of silence. What the hell (pardon me) are you calling for a moment of silence for? The absolute last thing Barbados needs regarding our violent crime is yet more silence.

But I digress, I was saying, I like prayer, I understand how prayer can be valuable. I appreciate that violence is terrifying and prayer can afford many great comfort. Also, while I’m not saying that I’m above (pardon the pun) a miracle or two (more on this later) isn’t it reasonable to expect that I too must have faith in man? Is it too much to imagine that, as you’re made in my image and all, that I would  hope (have faith) that you would be discerning and proactive enough to use the sense of community that prayer often engenders as a starting point … as a place to truly think about what is causing the violence, truly think about it… not hide behind convenient myths and comfortable clichés. I would think that, as you have the attention of so many people of like mind, you would at the very least start a meaningful conversation about violent crime in Barbados … is that too much to ask?! Instead I have to listen to people proclaiming that since the few days of prayer they’ve “noticed a decrease in crime”. Let me tell you something!! I had nothing to do with that, what happened there (as I’m sure some of you are recognizing now) was a lull. It was a mathematical inevitability… that’s how nature works… things ebb and flow… I ought to know! And the other day I read in the papers (before you say anything…I don’t have to read the papers…I know the news before it happens, but I like reading) some idiot saying that people need to double down and pray and fast!!!! STOP IT!

I didn’t create this problem, I’m not fixing it… you can pray and fast until you ascend to the glorious incoherence of glossolalia or until I come back come back for all I care (and I’m seriously considering not returning) I’m NOT fixing this!  

I have to tell you, and this may come as a surprise to some of you… I like prayer… but sometimes I’m sorry I invented it… it has turned out to be more of a nuisance than the devil.
There really is no gentle way to put this…

FREE WILL!!!! 

USE IT!

GOOD ME MAN!!!

I don’t get it! I could have made you in three seconds?!! Three seconds!! I who can manipulate the structure of atoms, I who can control the very fabric of time, I who made the glue that holds reality together… human beings aren’t that complicated… trust me! A head, two arms, two legs, bubbies for some, balls for some, some get both, some get none, basic internal organs… done! I could have done that in the blink of an eye… but no! I took my good time and I crafted free will, and intelligence and imagination to give to you. Do you even appreciate how subtle and complex a gift that is? Or how much effort it took to make? It’s because of free will that I decided to rest for a whole day.

Why do you think I would go to such great lengths, give myself so much work??? Precisely so you WOULDN’T have to bother me for every blasted thing!!! God do this, god do that, god stop the violence, god fix the economy, Jesus take the wheel, lord come for your world… ME DAMMIT!!! And… while I’m venting… STOP PICKING ON MY BOY! Why is it that every time there’s a crisis you’se got to bring up Jesus? Talking about, one, “the people have turned away from Jesus! We need more Jesus in the schools…” really? Jesus is in the schools every morning at assembly, the place is peppered with Christian youth groups… what more you want from the boy??! How about courses in problem solving and conflict resolution? Huh? How about that??! And how can you reasonably claim that people have turned away from Jesus? All you have to do is listen to yourselves on any given day… calling out for Jesus all day… every stumped toe, lost car key… orgasm!!! It’s all we hear up here…”Jesus Christ… Jesus Christ…”

SUS CHROIS!!

Sorry I got a little… wrathed there…

What I’m saying is… for my sake use your ME given initiative. I really did put a lot of time and effort into it, it works… trust me. You have to stop humbugging me…  have you ever asked yourselves why I stopped doing big flashy miracles like parting seas and talking donkeys? In those days people took the initiative. Moses didn’t pray for me to stop the Egyptian man from beating Hebrews he bust loose the man’s head and buried him in the sand (probably not the best example I could have used given the context... but you get the point). I hadn’t invented the internet yet as a result Moses couldn’t google, “how to organize a mass exodus”, so I spoke to him directly. When I parted the red sea the people were prepared to walk… I often think that if I were to do such today you lot would immediately start praying for airconditioned buses to take you across… there’s a reason your old people used to say “God helps those who help themselves.”
You can’t seriously expect me to come all the way from heaven just to fix simple problems that I’ve already given you the ability to solve. You can do it… have some faith man.

LOVE
         THE SOURCE.

PS.
Obviously I didn’t inspire this letter… this is nothing more than a writer’s cynical use of a literary device to communicate an idea. If you’re offended remember it’s satire, that’s how it works, it’s not too mysterious the ways in which satire and metaphor perform.
(I really, really can’t help being snide 😊)**
 

 
 


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Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking??

7/19/2016

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You know those ridiculous plastic bags that they have on rolls in the fruit and vegetable section in the super market? The ones that are essentially impossible to open? Well, once I was in the super market fumbling with one of these bags trying my damnedest to get it open.
After fighting with the bag for what seemed like ages I came up with the desperate idea of blowing sharply on the edge of the bag. when I did so the bag made a high pitched squeak and I had a very visceral memoryof my nursery school days and a girl called Renee who used to make the same noise with a piece of paper and a comb (we all thought she was a genius... we were four years old)
The memory was sudden and unexpected and it made me cackle out loud. One of the packers asked me, " Ras wha happen that you laughing so?"
I said, "This bag reminded me of a girl I used to know!"
He said, "Because you can't get it opened? Ras you is something else!"
Before I could respond a woman behind us, who had obviously heard the exchanged scolded, "That's not funny, you have no respect for women!"
They both left me there knowing that if I lived to be 187 I would still not live long enough to convince them that I was not thinking what they were thinking!

​Nala (The $2 Philosopher) 
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Young and Old (Alike)

7/16/2016

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The other afternoon I was walking past the bus terminal behind a group of excited school girls, from their uniforms (skirt and shirt) I would say they were fourth or fifth form girls. They  were, in every sense, typical teenagers, completely oblivious to their surroundings, self involved (in a healthy teenaged way), loud and animated, and every so slightly smelly (all school children smell funny at the end of the school day... teenagers especially).
On top of that, these girls were trying their own simplistic version of womanhood (another typical teenaged behaviour) on for size; this manifested in an overly excited conversation about a schoolboy who they clearly thought was, "hot is cunt" (very sexy) and what they would do to him if they caught him "offside". It was a completely silly exchange, and while my memories of my own adolescence forces me to acknowledge that it is entirely reasonable to assume that some of the young ladies may well be sexually active, the naivety of their conversation was undeniable.
I thought it was hilarious, so when the elderly lady walking on my left turned to me and asked me, knowingly, if I heard what the young ladies were talking about I assumed that she shared in my amusement and offered, "They're just being young", as a response. The next thing I knew I was in the middle of one of those, "the problem with young people today", conversations that I try my best to avoid. 
"Young girls and all they studying is man, man, man! I don't know what happened with these young people..." 
I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I'm not built that way, and I was still amused, so I stupidly said, "I'm pretty sure they're talking about a boy... not a man."
"You right! Children having children! How these children get so?"
She went through all the cliches, young people are violent, they're sex obsessed, don't know right from wrong, need Jesus and have no respect. The respect thing has always tickled me because it assumes that we (the un-young) are inherently deserving of respect. In reinforcing the idea that young people have no respect she mentioned her 62 year old son who still treats her with the utmost respect despite the fact that he is a big man.
I have always found this kind of conversation difficult, and as I mentioned before I find it hard to keep my mouth shut. So I challenged her at every turn. "No I don't find today's youth to be different from any other youth!" "No I don't find them more disrespectful these days!" "I don't know about you but when I was a teenager I used to be studying sex... a lot". 
Eventually she got frustrated with me and suggested that I should be more respectful (lol) of the wisdom that her 77 years of life afforded her. I caught it immediately; the fatal lack of introspection.
Do the maths! In many ways this interaction was the perfect metaphor for how we are failing today's young people by failing to look critically at ourselves.
Nala (The $2 Philosopher) 
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Random Thoughts on Roots and Snoop

6/23/2016

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I saw Roots in the seventies. The original one, I haven't seen the remake, I might, but I haven't seen it yet. But I saw Roots in the seventies and Roots in the seventies was groundbreaking and almost consciousness changing. It's not farfetched to imagine that many in and around my generation can identify Roots as having some hand in shaping their race awareness and politics. Roots was awesome is rass-hole.

I understand the importance of the remake, though I don't think that given the current landscape it can be as impactful as its predecessor.

​It was silly of Snoop Dogg to call for a boycott of Roots in his rant, but his weariness at seeing "niggas getting dogged out" I understand.

I don't get why Snoop Dogg's rant about Roots was important enough to get upset about. This may be because I don't get celebrity culture. It has always baffled me as to why every nonsense uttered by a celebrity on any subject is given as much weight as it is. Snoop is a boss rapper and when he talks about rap and the rap game... I'll hang on every word... the other stuff not so much. 

I understand why some of the people that called Snoop out, did so. He wanted fucking calling out, he's one of the ones who got out from under. Snoop really should focus less on what other people are doing, and more on what he could do.

I'm not sure how relevant his past, no matter how sordid, is. 

Calling Snoop on his bullshit made sense, being dismissive of his perspective... not so much.

I think that, distasteful as his ideas may have been to some, Snoop Dogg does speak for a small subsection of black people when he expresses what, on the surface, seems to be frustration at Roots. 

I think Snoop Dogg is frustrated at the feeling of being forced to wallow in the fact of his abuse (whether the feeling is based on reality or not).

 The frustration of being forced (by life) to wallow in the fact of your own abuse is real I'm sure of this because Snoop is not the only person that I've heard voice these sentiments and though I don't agree with Snoop, I too often feel the weary desperation of having to see "niggas getting dogged out" (yet again... or still) 

I am sick of the argument that tries to say that because slaves owners used the word "nigger" black people should not appropriate or refashion it. This is not to say I approve (or disapprove) of "nigga", but the argument is simplistic, reductive and completely lacking in an understanding of how language can evolve.

Saying "nigger" on radio and TV only became a fucking problem when black people started to take the stingers out of the word and make it their own. 

"The N word" is far more offensive than "nigger". One at least owns what it is, the other is cowardly (either say it or don't)

It is a grotesque false equivalence to juxtapose the making of holocaust films with the making of slavery films. To do so ignores that the two groups (that the films represent) have very different relationships with the sociey they live in; on group is reminding the world of their historical suffering from a power position, the other is still largely underfoot. It ignores the reality of who owns the film making platforms (One set of narratives is almost gauranteed awards in that context the other...not so much). To dismiss the "topic fatigue" some black people feel, by pulling this bullshit juxtaposition out of your arse is to dismiss the very real psychological suffering of you brothers and sisters (I use those terms for the people claiming "wokeness").

It seems to me that if we are to truly heal we need to be far more honest and understanding with ourselves about where we are in the struggle. We need to be less willing to chastise and more willing to nurture, brutally honest about when and how we have failed ourselves, and far more robust and vocal in celebrating our triumphs.

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)


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when the circus came to town

5/30/2016

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Like so many other Bajans I attempted to follow the recent motion of no confidence debate in the house (and the attendant parade that followed). I say "attempted" because in addition to finding the proceedings mildly nauseating, I couldn't really understand what was going on. Truth be told, I just don't get it! 
I listened to the politicians and pundits who declared that the motion was unwinnable but a positive because it afforded the general population with a chance to see for themselves how government has truly performed (as if we're not already living it). Conversely I listened to the other politicians and pundits who claimed that the motion and the march which followed were the ill conceived political ploys of a party leader under seige (meh). I listened to as much of the actual debate as I could stand and even read the many reactions to it on social media... and I still don't get it.
To begin with,  I have no idea which side presented the stronger case. How does one even gauge such a thing? How can the average politically ignorant citizen (like myself) know what to believe when, when politicians speak it, more often than not, sounds as if they are servicing an agenda? Facts in the mouths of politicians (the world over) are malleable and ductile and the lack of transparency in local politics puts fact checking a little out of the reach of the  clueless layman. 
I don't know what the intention of the opposition was in bringing the no confidence motion (well I do... but I don't), but I came away from the proceedings with feelings of no confidence not only in our government but in the entire political class. I got the distinct impression that our political machinery is in dire need of a competent mechanic.
It is clear that our politicians have (for the most part) become pointedly self-interested, myopic, disconnected, insensitive and complacent. How else does one explain reinstating the 10% cut from parlaimentarians salaries at a time when the population has been reduced to hand to mouthedness? What apart from insensitivity and disconnectedness can explain how MP Denis Kellman would think it was alright to post a Facebook rant that in essence chastised the electorate for being upset with the thoughtless decision of his party?
It is very easy for politicians to appear noble and altruistic when in the opposition, after all it is then that they can call for transparency in politics or extol the virtues of cooperating with the auditor general (random example :) ) or any number of other things that are promptly forgotten once they win the government. But what other than political self interest would cause the issue of the reinstated 10% (essentially a non issue that the public had already made its decisions about) to given prominence by the opposition? How does one explain objecting strenously to the idea of having to take a 10% cut in salary on the grounds that it makes no difference to the economy and then organising a protest march objecting to the reinstatement of the 10% because all of a sudden it makes a difference? Is it not complaceny that would lead you to believe that the citizenry would not notice the faint scent of insincerity and political expediency in the air? 
I don't want to create the impression that I was disappointed by the debate. I am a devout practising cynic, I was not disappointed! The debate lived up to every one of my cynical expectations. I had anticipated a circus, complete with mental acrobats, and slieght of fact magic and ad homenim jousting and buck passers and flambouyant self serving puffery... I was not disappointed, I just don't get it... what was the point? What were people hoping to achieve? Who won? I have absolutely no clue!
It's not that I don't trust the analysts who have made declarations as to "won" the debate and what the impact of it was... or maybe it is precisely that... but clearly the yard  in which one gets one's scratch grain deeply impacts one's analysis of things. And while I know in my heart that this is not the case with every analyist, I have no confidence in my ability to distinguish between people and fowls in people clothes. In addition it is impossible from my position, which is one of limited political understanding and no political affiliation, to decipher who "won" the debate. I have no idea what that even means... but it is very clear to me who lost.

I feel an (uncharacteristic) need to be fair to our politicians at this juncture: I do not, believe that all (or even most) of them entered into politics with misintent.I do, however believe that there is something horribly wrong with our political system inasmuch as it lacks checks and balances
​and real consequences for malfeasance. It was inevitable that without such we would end up here. I believe that we the public have a responsibility to hold politicians to a much higher standard than we currently do and that we have a responsibility to find a voice greater than merely casting a vote every five friggin' years. That' if nothing else is what the motion of no confidence made very clear to me.

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)
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kicks and bites pt1 (our youth?)

4/29/2016

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Our schools have been in the news quite a bit lately haven't they? If you, like many of us do as we age, tend to romanticise the past or (in some cases) forget it altogether, you probably find yourself looking at the situation of late and lamenting the state of today's youth, or our declining moral standards, or the dissolution of the Bajan family structure and discipline, or any one of the many unexamined, bullshitty cliched ideas that we tend to trot out whenever faced with (what we percieve to be) youth deviance.
These ridiculous notions are encouraged by our media's tendency to run what I call diet stories, (low fact, high sensationalism, zero analysis). These stories do not challenge us in anyway to look critically at these situations nor to confront our baseless notions. In fact, in the most recently covered stories of untoward incidents in schools the media in their initial coverage managed to, rather deftly ignore/omit the complexity of what had transpired. When a student at one school refused to pick up a wrapper as she was ordered to do, the media focus was on her defiance and her (hilarious and rather witty) declaration that her mother had not sent her to school to collect garbage. The journalists (?) covering the story failed to ask, or even raise the most obvious questions; the first of which would be, why the child responded in this way. This question is, of course, easy to miss if your premise is that the nations youth are an inherently problematic group. Having missed that first question it was only natural that questions about context would be absent too. The reports failed to ask whether or not the student and teacher had a history, or whether the student and/or teacher had behavioural problems or even what the prevailing culture of the school was. Similarly the coverage of the alleged assault of a teacher by a student at another school gave us mere reportage that barely resembled journalism. We got a superficial story that focused merely on the fact that kicking and spitting had occured and yet again failed to ask both the obvious and the deeper questions. I don't believe that there was any attempt in either case to deliberately villify the students in question nor do I believe that it is the responsibility of the media to do our thinking for us. However they do have a responsibility to challenge us to take a more sophisticated look at situations like these which, quite frankly, have implications that extend far beyond the boundaries of the school yard. Nothing in the coverage of these stories did anything to militate against our tendency to ascribe blame without hearing both sides of the story, or even to make us consider that the story could have another side. As a result many of us (including some in a significant official capacity), proceded with the misguided notion that we are dealing with a new breed of young person and I think failed to see the full extent of the problem.
For those of us who remember our adolescence (really remember it in all its chaotic glory) the stories are troubling yes, but altogether unsurprising. If you consider that schools manage the development of young minds and that the mind is a volatile element such occurences, though not to be taken lightly, are inevitable. If you consider too, the state of our schools; the lack of resources, the fact that most of our schools are in some state of disrepair, the demonising that school children face and the public disrespect that teachers have to endure from the Minister of Education, if you consider these things it is a testament to the fucking awesomness both of our teachers and our youth that such incidents are not everyday occurences.
Because the thing is that incidents like this have always occured in our schools. When I was a schoolboy schoolchildren were rude, they were defiant, they got into physical confrontations with teachers, they used to fight and cuss (a schoolgirl murdered one of her schoolmates in my time) and even foop in the bushes. The people who would tell you, "Yes we used to do our shite coming up, but at least we had some respect!" are both full of shit and delusional. Nothing has changed. All students were not wild and unruly in my day all students are not wild and unruly today. 
As an aside, a good friend saw me while I was putting this article together and he was very offended by the "foop in the bushes," comment. He chastised me saying, that while it is true that some of us were sexually active in school,  we never had the "unmitigated gall" to post our sexual escapades online. I would just like to point out, because I have been told this bullshit far too many times, that that has less to do with our being respectful and more to do with the fact that neither cellphones with cameras nor the fucking internet existed at the time!
Anyhow, the unhealthy notion that some of seem to hold, that we are dealing with a special breed of vagabond youth who need to be punished into social compliance is not at all useful. I understand that it is a comforting idea because it absolves us of our culpability and to some extent, our responsibility. But here's the thing, if we allow ourselves to believe it, and allow ourselves to long for the (non-existent) good old days when youngsters had respect and didn't defy or challenge authority we are doomed to  repeat the same mistakes that got us here in the first place. The situation is not getting worse because things have changed but rather precisely because they haven't, in much the same way that one's debt gets increasingly worse because one's money management habits don't change. 
Continuing to see the problems in our schools as a problem with our youth and not with our society as a whole (and I do mean the society as a whole not just teachers or parents or any other scapegoat group) will condemn us to the rather unenviable fate of continuing to attempt to get back to a destination that never existed on a horse with no legs.
 

 Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

next: what hasn't changed?
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Punishment PtII

2/13/2016

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After some heavy consideration I’ve decided to connect my blog and The Philosopher’s Corner (my performance season). I made this choice for two major reasons, one almost purely pragmatic and the other more philosophical (I am The $2 Philosopher after all). On the pragmatic side; the cost of advertising an event in this country is prohibitive, especially for a fledgling venture such as mine. It occurred to me that having my own blog was akin to having my own copywriter, who I don’t have to pay. I figured that there is no sin in taking advantage of myself (I feel the same way about masturbation- It can’t be self-rape if I give my consent). The philosophical reason requires a somewhat more long winded explanation...
  Almost three months ago I wrote a blog entry titled “Punishment Pt I: Sitting in a ZR”. I wrote the article convinced that it was the first in a series (hence the presumptuous title suffix “Pt I”). I had intended to explore the concept of punishment and what I think is the weird relationship that we (Bajans) have with it. I had intended to use the experience I’d had whilst waiting in a ZR van to explore our ideas about punishment. I wanted to show how the colonisers had, with their dubious gift to us of Christianity (with all its attendant notions of unworthiness before god) left us with an unhealthy love of punishment.
The article was a dismal failure, what many of my readers seemed to come away with was, “...yes $2, ZR men does do bare shite on the people’s roads!” Which, though true, was not the point I was trying to make.
It turns out that punishment is a highly complex and emotionally charged subject.
Having failed to clearly express my ideas on the subject, I decided, in my infinite wisdom and maturity, “Fuck it! I’m never writing about punishment again!”.
I had just about deluded myself that punishment was nothing worth writing about (too vast and too vague) when the European Union’s ambassador to Barbados’ Mr. Mikael Barfod expressed his (inevitably) paternalistic and condescending “disappointment” in Bajan’s attitudes towards corporal punishment in schools. Suddenly, as if mocking me, punishment, albeit in schools, was thrust into the national psyche.
Mr. Barfod’s statements triggered an immediate, national, almost debate (no I didn’t mean “almost national debate”). It was as if the subject of corporal punishment had been broached for the first time, despite the fact that the Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs Adriel Brathwaite had been talking about taking corporal punishment out of schools for quite some time before Barfod opened his mouth.
As an aside; why is that? Why is it that the issue of corporal punishment only seemed to capture the imagination after Mikael of the E. U. Spoke to it? Is it that we have become so jaded by the consistent inaction and failure of our politicians to implement programmes that nothing they say is real to us until (the rare occasion that) something actually happens? Or is it that Barfod’s statement clued us into the fact that the real impetus to end corporal punishment in schools is likely coming from the E.U. (and therefore may well come to pass)? Do I dare allow myself a moment of (uncharacteristic) optimism and believe that it is because we are raising our voices in dissent because we are tired of these former colonisers entering our spaces, with their thinly veiled notions of cultural superiority, and deigning to tell us what to do?
Certainly on of the most visible voices (lol “visible voices”) was that of former Principal Matthew Farley who admonished Barfod to keep his “nose out of Barbados’ affairs” and stopped just shy of suggesting to him that he use his “disappointment” as a suppository. Needless to say this ramped the (almost) debate up a few notches.
Maybe it is my devout cynicism, but I found the discussions surrounding corporal punishment largely dissatisfying. On the one hand there was the anti-corporal punishment school of thinkers who, clearly had no access to local research and data on the subject (I assume we have done our own research) and forced to resort to vague references citing extra-cultural studies that suggested that, “corporal punishment is bad”. On the other hand were the pro-corporal punishment people (the cuter group, by far) who remained firmly in the realm of the anecdotal and trotted out the age old cliché’ “I got licks as a child coming up... and I turned out ok!” Which in addition to being to being a non-argument is patently untrue* (look at the state Barbados is in today and tell me that “I turned out okay!” isn’t completely delusional). It seemed to me that the discussion never evolved past unsubstantiated opinions from either side.   
Despite this I did learn a few things as the (almost) debate on corporal punishment unfolded; 1. there is indeed an old school, almost biblical, attitude towards corporal punishment amongst some Bajans (and it is probably this attitude that poor little Barfod mistakes for the “disappointing” attitude towards corporal punishment) 2. this attitude is not held by all Bajans because, 3. there is no, one homogenous attitude to corporal punishment in Barbados (not even amongst the people who support it) 4. often in Barbados, when it comes to serious matters anecdotalism abounds 5. self-delusion is a phenomenon as common as self 6. national discussions on issues such as this are too often superficial and short lived (note that the corporal punishment discussion is already fading into oblivion)  7. We seem not to have gotten past our tendency to jump on the developed world band wagon (they are preaching “no corporal punishment” so, so are we) 8.The discussion about corporal punishment is one of several important discussions we need to be having regarding education and the school system... the discussion is (should be) far from over. I also learned that I am neither in favour of nor opposed to corporal punishment schools. Which was surprising to me until I considered a few things: I have no idea if it is good or bad, because I don’ really know anything about it.
And now for the shameless plug.
Here’s where my season comes in: I have dedicated the first night of my season to looking at our education system because I think the issue of corporal punishment in schools (and the state of our education system in general) is well worth discussing. I think t could be useful fun to hear what the people on the ground in education feel about the situation; should we continue with corporal punishment? Should we stop it? Should we take a scientific look at the situation for ourselves and devise our own solutions?
I’ve asked a number of people (stay tuned to find out who) who work in or around our education system to come and talk to me in The Philosopher’s Corner so that maybe we can make some sense of this.
Come to the Philosopher’s Corner starting Friday March 5th  in the Cove (formerly Reggae Lounge) let’s hear some comedy, play some games, have some fun and talk about the things that affect us!

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)




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Punishment pt1  (sitting in a ZR)

10/14/2015

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The other day I was thinking about punishment, it was (my thinking about punishment), in many ways, an inevitability I was, after all, using public transportation.
Don’t get me wrong, I love using public transportation in Barbados; not for the transportation obviously, only a crazy person or a political yard fowl would make a statement like that! Between the lacklustre, apathetic, highly inefficient service and epically long waiting times of the transport board and the highly chaotic, ofttimes confrontational, highly inefficient service and constant brushes with death of the privately owned PSVs and the highly unreliable schedules of both, the transportation part of public transportation is indeed… punishment (though this is not why I was thinking about punishment).
But I do love using public transportation in this country! It could be argued that having to negotiate public transport in order to get to work and appointments on time can cause one to develop almost mystical planning skills, but that is not the reason I love public transportation. I love public transportation because it gives me a window into the society I live in. I love the raw unfiltered energy of thousands of Bajan commuters living the ugly truth that hides behind the mask of social acceptability.
Using public transportation makes me think deeply about things.
On this day I was thinking about punishment.
If I am to be honest with myself (a rare occurrence for most human beings) my initial thoughts on punishment barely even qualified as thoughts (a far more common occurrence). I was stuck in the back of a hot sticky ZR van. I was painfully aware that neither the idiot driver nor the idiot conductor had any intention of moving the van out of the van stand until it was full to capacity… no matter how long that took. I was even more painfully aware that they were the rule and not the exception and their van was closest to being full. The driver and conductor, through their wilful arseness were making me late for an important meeting (despite the fact that I had left home two hours early). I was, quite naturally, consoling myself with revenge fantasies; I was imagining locking the driver and conductor in a room and forcing them to listen to the market vendor on a two hour repeating loop until their brains exploded and drained out through their ears. My thoughts on punishment lacked sophistication at this point.
In my frustration I politely suggested to the conductor (whose name I assumed was Jonathon) that he (Johnnie) get in the “rass-hole van” so that we (the commuters) could get up the road before we died from “fucking old age”. The conductor (who really must have been named Jonathon Johnson) pointed out for everybody to hear that he was “studying money” and didn’t actually “give a fuck” about me or anyone else in the van for that matter, and that if at all any of us felt the need we could just “get to fuck out” of the van and carry our collective lady parts!!
Naturally, the passengers took great exception to this. The van erupted in protest. Only a Johnnie would have expected otherwise. The woman in the seat next to me mockingly reminded the conductor that PSV operators were in the papers last year lamenting the severity of the fines and penalties they faced. She suggested (to resounding agreement) that if this was how they treated their customers not only should the fines be more severe but that they “wanted locking to hell up too!” The man in the front passenger seat added that they wanted “beating… real real bad!” and from there the suggestions came fast and furious.
At first I was thoroughly enjoying it all; I took great comfort in the fact that I was not the only person who had been indulging in revenge fantasies, but as time wore on and the suggestions for punishment grew more extreme and the alacrity with which they were made grew more intense I began to feel uncomfortable. By the time “beating with the cat ‘o’ nine tails” and “hinging” (I assume by the neck until dead) came up I was having an unnerving epiphany.
The punishment we wished on the driver and conductor for the inconvenience they had caused us was completely out of proportion with the sin.
 The driver, perhaps sensing that he could lose the passengers he already had in the van (Ordinarily I would have gotten out and encouraged everybody to follow suit long ago) urged the conductor to get in the van. He did, and off we went and of course the discussion (for want of a better word) continued.
I was mildly amused by the fact that the conductor seemed genuinely hurt by the fact that we harboured such ill will towards him; he seemed oblivious of his wrong doing. My epiphany continued, punishment by itself does not really work. The fact that the already overloaded van, full of complaining passengers, stopped at the first bus stop it encountered to cram three additional passengers on board reinforced this idea.
I wondered why, if that were the case, we are always preaching punishment; every time school children are seen misbehaving we say they want beating, if men on trial for violent crime make the mistake of smiling in public we are deeply offended and the cat ‘o’ nine is bound to be mentioned. I even remember when a number of little boys, a few years ago raped a school girl and so called rational adults felt that it was reasonable to suggest that they should be “bulled” as punishment for their crime. I often think of the photos and the horribly insensitive accompanying comments that circulated Facebook after a young girl with a socially unacceptable love of motorcycles had a fatal accident. We are quick to rejoice when misfortune befalls those who break the society’s rules. We are happy to see them punished.
It dawned on me in the back of that ZR that we love punishment!
It may be a little unfair to say, “We love punishment!” because clearly we don’t love it in the same way we love sugar or rum.  That is to say we don’t love punishment when we are receiving or are about to receive it, but when it is others being punished for their sins (real or imagined) we seem to find great relish in that! I find myself wondering more and more why that is…

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

Next PT II Love of Punishment.
 
 
 




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demons amongst us pt 2

7/17/2015

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There's a hole in my head where the wind comes in...

It is clear to me that if our resident demonologist had done even 15 seconds research on the internet they would have realized that Charlie Charlie was a joke. As it turns out neither they, nor (apparently) the journalist who covered the farce bothered to do any real research. People seemed more comfortable trusting hearsay, gossip and rumour as proof of this fantastical story.

As an aside, to all those people who, when I told them that the whole thing was bullshit asked me, “yeah well how do you explain the fact that reliable sources told me they saw desks floating in the classroom?” I say remember Bumba! Because I remember in the 90s when everybody knew from “reliable sources” that our calypsonian Bumba had died in a hospital in Canada (helpless, in pampers and other graphic, sordid details). I often wonder how traumatic it must have been for Bumba (who is alive and well up to today) when he came back to Barbados to discover he was dead!

I don’t know what I find more disturbing, the fact that we are clearly a research averse people who prefer ridiculous gossip over practical investigation, or the fact that we tend to focus on fuckery while real problems go unnoticed and unmanaged.

Because, Charlie Charlie aside, Barbados is full of demons… real real demons, and nobody seems particularly concerned about them.

We have all kinds of demons all over the damned place. We have the apathy demons that make some people sit back and expect the government to do everything for them. The demons that possessed people to pull strings and get jobs they are not qualified or prepared for. The demons that then took the attitude that “Xbody put me here so nobody can’t get the rid of me!” How come we aren’t warning our young people about them?

We have some kind of ant-social fucked up demon that likes dumping garbage in the gullies and allowing certain people to destroy the coral reef to build things. Blind demons who talk about sacrifice but don’t want to sacrifice pay or jobs or perks for the greater good. Blind demons that over the years allowed the country that invented rum to be reduced to importing second rate molasses to make “Bajan” rum instead of retooling the sugar industry to sugar Barbados and produce top shelf molasses for the highest end rum in the world (as we fucking invented it!!).

Demons of entitlement believe that a position of power means you take from a man in a wheelchair and then complain about persecution, or steal millions and be vexed with a man who complains that you got a slap on the wrist while people that t’ief sardines are in jail. And nobody is screaming “DEMONS!” and shutting down things to have prayer meetings for them???

What the fuck is really going on??? We’re freaking out about a demon that rattles a little furniture!!! Good grief!!!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not scoffing at the spirit world, I’m not saying that demons like Charlie Charlie don’t exist… They don’t exist, but that’s not what I’m saying.

 I’m saying that we’re surrounded and possessed (all of us) by real demons, and nobody seems to be freaking out about that.

Because… I have never heard about parliament being shut down for prayer meetings… and parliament is over-run with demons!

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that politicians are demons…

I’m not. I don’t believe in witch hunts, mainly because I don’t believe in witches. What I believe in is broken systems. I believe that as long as there are no real consequences for shenanigans, shenanigans will happen, with impunity.

That being said I wondered during the budget what caused a discussion that should have been about solutions to significant economic problems to devolve into allegations and counter allegations about who had questionable dealings with who and who wasn’t really qualified to do what.*

I do believe that our politicians on both sides have a hell of a lot to answer for; but I am also aware that we don’t import them from some strange isle called Politicio. We breed them and rear them and imbue them with our values and then loose them on ourselves to do what we trained them to do because they are us, or sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers and friends.


So no, politicians are not demons, but there are demons in parliament. If nothing else, what I learned from the Charlie Charlie experience is that you know demons are present when things levitate and people start acting weird.

And certainly taxes levitated and everybody started acting weird!

 

 

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)



* I am aware that some good came of it in as much as the public is now (properly) aware of Cahill and seems to be being proactive about it.
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Demons Amongst Us      Pt 1

7/16/2015

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There's a lot of shit is happening in Barbados right now isn’t there? It’s a veritable buriffle of fuckery, so to speak. There certainly is a lot of serious shit that we NEED to talk about as a nation; we need to talk about our struggling economy, we need to talk about the implications of having to pay for education in a society like ours… we have a regional responsibility to talk about what the FUCK is going on the Dominican republic, we need to talk about the epidemic of non-communicable diseases in Barbados...and as a natural extension of that we need to talk about the price of soft drinks.
It is because we urgently need to discuss important issues in Barbados that I feel it is imperative that we have a serious talk about Charlie Charlie!
If you don’t think that this is topical now you should consider that just mere weeks ago everybody in Barbados knew that Charlie Charlie was a matter of importance greater than mere physical life or death! You should ask yourself why it’s “no longer an issue” when a few weeks ago people were all over the media frantically warning our youth against the dangers of dabbling in the spirit world. We shut down schools and held prayer meetings, and a bunch of… ! Clergy men declared that our youth needed to be protected from demonic forces. A man in a position of responsibility, who makes decisions that affect other people’s lives was in the media lamenting that Charlie Charlie was a herald and that there was "greater evil" to follow.… there were folk all over Facebook proclaiming that they “have has extensive experience with the spirit world,” and that “although some people may take it for a joke Charlie Charlie is real!”

Charlie Charlie, Charlie Charlie, Charlie Charlie, a few weeks ago that was all everybody and their grandmother in Barbados was talking about. Everybody, that is, except me! When Charlie Charlie was current I didn’t talk about it, I refused to, in fact I vowed not to…


I was of the opinion that Charlie Charlie and the way we handled it was (at best) a national embarrassment… we had struck an incredible new low… and then the budget happened.


I'm not saying that I think the budget was an embarrassment… I do think so, but that’s not what I’m saying!

What I’m saying is that Charlie Charlie was an absolutely ridiculous moment in our modern history and that for some reason the budget managed to distract us from that. Whatever that means to you… it’s a pity because Charlie Charlie is too important an event for us to be distracted from.

Charlie Charlie holds for us some very important insights into ourselves as a society.

To begin with Charlie Charlie put the question of free education in perspective for me, because after the whole Charlie Charlie fiasco I realized that we could as well try making people pay for their education because obviously the free education thing isn’t working.

I’ll try to explain: So allegedly we had an ancient Mexican demon terrorizing our school system… (one more time for emphasis) ancient MEXICAN demon!

Naturally, as always happens with this sort of thing, all kinds of spiritualists and exorcists and demonologists materialised out of nowhere and hit the road running like a burst main… and they began proselytising about the spirit world, how we need to guard against these extra worldly evils, and we need to warn our youth that the spirit world is not to be trifled with!


Apparently it never occurred to these experts on the esoteric, almost all of whom passed through our free education system, that an ancient MEXICAN demon called Charlie Charlie might be suspect! Charlie Charlie??? An ancient Mexican demon? Not Tezcatloptic or Quetzalcoatl or even Carlos or Carlitos?


Incidentally an ancient MEXICAN demon would more than likely not be called Carlitos either, as being ancient; it would predate the Spanish conquistadors, a fact which may have eluded the spirit world experts.


The other thing is, what great evil exactly did this big, bad, fearsome, demon come all the way from the other side to exact upon us? Apparently this deadly demon came to levitate desks, rattle windows and make teenagers act weird! Is this what evil has come to, the levitation of desks and rattling of windows? If I eat two lentil patties and drink a strong coffee I can do that every time I fart!


And as for a demon making teenagers act weird! Clearly these people have never seen a teenager, or looked at the way teenagers dress, or listened to the music teenagers listen to. Here’s a heads up, teenage ARE weird! Teenagers are hormones in skin with undeveloped brains. No ancient Mexican demon is making teenagers act weird, it’s hormones… hormones and hysterical adults who clearly have nothing better to do.


Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these Barbados scholars are full of shit... they are full of shit, but that’s not what I am saying.



What I’m saying is that none of these spiritual experts would recognise a real demon if it were sodomising them in a Spanish class.



Nala (The $2 Philosopher)


Next Part II Demons in Barbados.
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    The $2 Philosopher is a devout cynic and practicing curmudgeon! He believes whole-heartedly in change, not as a result of social will but rather as an inevitable consequence of the passage of time. 

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