THE $2 PHILOSOPHER
  • $2 house
  • My $2
  • $2 videos
  • $2's Performances/appearances
  • $2 pics
  • The $2 store
  • $2 Comix!!
  • Page of THANX
  • contact $2
  • $2 Links

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

2/22/2019

2 Comments

 

​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 😊)**
 

 
 


2 Comments

kicks and bites pt1 (our youth?)

4/29/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture



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?
2 Comments

Punishment pt1  (sitting in a ZR)

10/14/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
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.
 
 
 




0 Comments

demons amongst us pt 2

7/17/2015

2 Comments

 
Picture
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.
2 Comments

Demons Amongst Us      Pt 1

7/16/2015

2 Comments

 
Picture
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.
2 Comments

How can you tell when a politician is lying!

11/7/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Masquerader II (The Politician)
You know that old joke about politicians telling the truth? I’m sure you’ve heard it, it’s an old joke. 


“How can you tell when a politician is lying? ... Their lips move!”

That’s a classic politician joke, classic; it speaks to the inherent dishonesty in politics… it’s also a stupid unfair, misleading joke… I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I don’t like that joke because it is unfair to politicians! (wait for the lightening) The joke implies that politicians are inherently dishonest and lie all the time for no reason other than that they exist… it’s such a dishonest joke that I feel a politician made it up during an election campaign.

Politicians do lie, (who doesn't) but they don’t do it all the time, nor do they do it for no reason.

Politicians lie for three main reasons:

·         They lie for votes

·         They lie to cover up the lies they told for votes

·         And last but by no means least they lie because that is precisely what WE demand of them.

A far more accurate version of that joke would run something like this,

“How can you tell when a politician is lying? … When they’re telling you what you want to hear!” 

Using that metric it’s easy to know when they’re telling the truth too.  



This is just something I like to keep in mind while I complain about the current state of affairs.


Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

0 Comments

An Apology to the Minibus Men! (Part II)

10/23/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
What is the message being sent by the PSV drivers?

On the surface we have a bunch of men asking, not that questionable laws be changed (they seem to have no problem with the law per se) but rather that the penalties for breaking these laws be made less onerous as they want to break the laws several times a day and the stiff penalties act as a (ahem) deterrent... in theory.

It seems a pretty psychotic request when you think about it; even more so when you consider the omissions.

Would that it was, these men were only stopping illegally and failing to use their seatbelts. Anyone who has used our roads more than five times knows that that is simply not the case. No mention, whatsoever was made of the other sins they commit regularly such as speeding, or reckless frigging overtaking, or working off route, or overloading, or deliberately blocking the road when picking up or dropping off passengers so other vehicles (particularly other PSVs) can’t pass, or driving so obscenely slowly that their passengers run the very real risk of dying of old age long before they reach their (forgive me) RAS-HOLE destination.

And you know of course that PSV drivers will site “working off route” and claim that they only do this in an effort to provide a better service to their customers. However, if, like me, you’ve ever been told about your dear old mother’s parts for asking a conductor to turn down the blaring music or been brusquely reminded that “You could get to fuck out whenever you ready you know dads I ent studying you, I studying money!” when you asked that they not drive so unbelievably slowly (or quickly), you may suspect that that justification is mongooseshit.

So what message is it that they’re really sending us? 

If you look at it they’re really being quite disingenuous and the sense of entitlement and disregard for the convenience and safety of others borders on sociopathic. Which should be a weird thing to say about a group of people that you’re trying to apologise to, but it’s not!

 Although this is a sincere apology, it can’t be an apology for characterising their behaviour as nonsensical because it is, even a three month old poodle can see that! But far from condemning them we should be asking what could be going on in our society that would make a group of grown men feel comfortable in publicly making such an infantile declaration?

Could they have been lulled into a sense of correctness by the recent actions of the PSC (police Service Commission)? The PSC (which in essence is supposed to oversee the smooth running of our primary law enforcement agency… LAW enforcement) concerning a matter before the courts involving the promotion/non-promotion of fourteen officers, declared that, regardless of any decision made by the court, they were going to proceed as initially planned. Then, in a strong argument for social anarchy, did just that while court proceedings were… proceeding. No ridicule was heaped on them: the PSV drivers were asking for an (albeit ridiculous) ease, the PSC was, in essence, (in my opinion) saying “Fuck you!”

Or maybe their nerves were steeled by their observation of two administrations that, one after the other ignored the courts decree that they as government were to pay some dude for work done and rent owed on his buildings; A man who had to come, like the steel donkey, rattling his chains, in the dead of night (in the morning actually), to re-open “negotiations”. I know there are probably details that we are not privy to (duckspeak) but isn’t that true of everything?

Perhaps they were inspired by the faceless but known vote buyers who attempted to procure votes for a few hundred dollars (or more) here and there or bottles of rum or (rumour has it) weed. People who managed to remain so un-investigated that up to now no one has even said to the public “our investigations show that this NEVER happened” (because surely if it had someone would have been prosecuted).

Or mayhap it was the often overlooked vote sellers who happily took the “lil hundred” or the “big mout' drink” (whether they voted or not) and then felt entitled enough to gripe about incompetency and a lack of integrity in politics as if they were not an inherent part of the problem.

It is conceivable that the PSV drivers merely felt that the lack of accountability that exists in the upper echelons of our society should filter down to them. The lack of accountability that allows people to have questionable relationships with construction companies and never have to truly explain it, that allows diplomatic bags with questionable contents to remain unexplained, that allows people to commit fraud to the tune of four million plus dollars and get a slap on the wrist (I know that I DON’T understand the intricacies of the laws… but I am speaking to perception).

I don’t know they could have been motivated by the droves of people in the work for who feel that they are entitled to a paycheque but not obligated to a job. There are so many examples as to where the motivation for their unfortunate stance came. What is clear is that self-interest and avoidance of consequences and responsibility have become the norm.

And that, I think is the message.

I think that the minibus men are (deliberately or otherwise) asking us to take a long hard look at ourselves.

I want to apologise to the minibus men for missing that. I also want to apologise because we won’t, we won’t take that our look at ourselves.

If I cared I would be disappointed by that, but I don’t, so I’m not. I’ve lived here long enough to know that caring is a waste of time. We will continue to mock the minibus men until, as with everything else nothing what so ever comes of this and it fades from memory… into oblivion!


Nala (The $2 Philosopher)




1 Comment

Would You Like a Bag Of Jobby or a Box Of Jobby?

8/18/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture


Today Government is inconveniencing me greatly, and at the same time equally greatly assisting me in expressing a point, that has consistently given me trouble to communicate. 


I don't vote (I never have) this is not out of complacency or lack of interest; I'm very interested  (in the political process) I have just always considered voting to be a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME! It has always been apparent to me that unless one was Gallus Gallus Domesticus and lived in the correct yard it made no difference to anything who had the reins of power. For a long time now we have had,for the most part,  to rely primarily on luck and the instincts of the horses to keep the coach from careering off the road. The Coachmen have, regardless of party affiliation, been consistently lacking in vision and accountability (I just felt I would flog the "reins of power" metaphor to death).


So today I find that I am unable to attend to urgent business with CAIPO because Al Barrack the "owner" of the buildings that house their offices quite rightly* wants what is his and has locked off his building. His grouse is not partisan, it is with government, he wants his money which one party (when in government) refused for whatever reason (despite a court and later high court ruling) to pay and which the other party (when in government) failed for whatever reason (despite promising to honour the high court ruling) to pay.


Before anybody starts making distracting noises about not having cash to pay the man, bear in mind that political will trumps cash and if there had been a real desire to resolve this some one would have brokered a deal in lieu of cash.  


In my opinion the elephant in the room is the tendency for our political class to feel that is is beyond the rule of law and somehow untouchable. This thinking tends to breed vindictiveness, myopia and inefficient, ineffectual governance and it is one of several reasons that I don't vote.
 
So, to summarize, one set of naked emperors runs up a bill and refuses to pay, then another set of naked emperors refuses to honour a recognised debt. The man get vexed and lock-off his building and my urgent business with CAIPO immediately becomes irrelevant!


Next election anybody telling me stupidness about my HAVING to vote because my forebears fought for my right to vote (which by the way would include my right not to vote... look up the difference between a right and an obligation) is going to get pissed on (literally not metaphorically). 


When offered a choice between a box of jobby and a bag of jobby I feel justified in saying... "whatever... it makes no real difference... I have plenty of bags and boxes and jobby is jobby! "


*He is quite right to want his things.  ... I cannot speak to the legality of his locking-off the building.


It was drawn to my attention that I may have mixed up my buildings. This doesn't affect my main point about bipartisan inefficiency, but it does mean that I can proceed with my business as planned today.

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

1 Comment

Old Tricks!

7/24/2014

0 Comments

 
Government don't know how to govern, opposition don't know how to oppose, the masses don't understand critical mass and the information age is the age of the uninformed!!!

Hey old dogs... time to learn some NEW tricks!!!

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

0 Comments

A Letter To Peter Wickham

2/14/2014

14 Comments

 
Dear Mr Wickham,

                            I am writing you for two main reasons: I am hoping that you can help me resolve a small problem and I want to share a discovery with you that maybe you could pass on.

First my small problem; I am not a politician (this is not the problem) and I have come over the years to accept and be quite comfortable with the fact that I don’t understand politics, at all (that is not really the problem either). My already limited understanding of politics is further restricted by the fact that from my position (that would be underfoot) all politicians look like heels, and when they speak in their hyperbolic, oft times disingenuous, political jargonese about “failed policies” and “fiscal measures/deficits” and “no, we will not, not even as a symbolic gesture of solidarity cut our salaries”*, they all sound exactly the same to me. From where I stand it appears that Barbados has only one political party, possibly with two chapters (but I’m not even really convinced about that). Can you imagine the abject confusion I experience, particularly these days, when listening to the “everything is the other party’s fault!” political speeches that are so popular now? I never know who is talking about whom. The only clear message that I come away with is that EVERYBODY is to blame.  

Up till now, I had never considered this lack of mine to be a shortcoming, I am after all a mere civilian and apparently my responsibility (according to at least one politician I can think of) is to be civil or get my head cracked. That aside, I have never, again up till now, felt that I needed a particularly deep understanding of how politics and government really work to participate in the political process, after all how many microwave users truly understand how a microwave really works?

 I realise now that this is analogy falls apart when you consider that most microwave users at least understand what a microwave is supposed to do. I suspect that if we really knew what government was supposed to do we would have realised a long time ago (more than ten years) that artificially creating jobs for yard-fowls (among other things) is a sign that government is malfunctioning…though by the same token we should have realised that expecting and/or accepting such jobs is indicative of a malfunctioning electorate.

But I digress, my problem, Mr Wickham is that I know something is wrong (with the economy…perhaps?) I know something is wrong because our politicians are behaving like the unlikely offspring of skittish horses and headless chickens (headless horsckens?). I know something is wrong and I want to be proactive but I have absolutely no idea how to proceed!

 If I didn’t know better (which I barely do), when I listen to one side of DBLP I would be convinced that they were blameless and that our dilemma is indeed vaguely connected to some global crisis or other but exists primarily as a result of the B side of the party squandering times of plenty, failing to plan, mislaying resources and leaving the D side to inherit an unprepared mess while they (the B side) systematically hinder or directly block moves to recovery. However when I listen to the B side I would (again if I didn’t know better) come away with the belief that they are blameless and that our problems stem from the fact that the D side has fallen asleep at the wheel, and run out of ideas and that they have, in essence, betrayed the trust of an entire nation. More recently I get the impression listening to Minister Mottley that everything, including the recent heavy rains, is Chris Sinckler’s fault. I’m sure all of this talk has provided a rich substrate for plant growth but it leaves me not knowing who to (dis)believe.

Clearly it is time to figure out what the fuck a microwave is supposed to do! This is, in my opinion, where you come in Mr Wickham, you are after all, a political analyst, and as such I want to ask your assistance in making sense of this interminable mess.

Before I ask for your help, however, I think I should explain that I don’t really understand what a political analyst does. I know some smarty pants is probably laughing at me now and saying “a political analyst analyses politics moron!” But it stands to reason that if I don’t understand politics I may also not understand political analysis.

I raise the issue of my lack of understanding because it is entirely possible that what I am about to ask of you falls outside the duties of a political analyst and if so I beg your forgiveness in advance. I also mention my lack of understanding because the first thing I am going to do is complain (I do it so well!).

The complaint: I have noticed that you and other political analysts have been writing political commentaries that seem to focus on internal power struggles and how the two chapters of DBLP are positioning (or failing to position) themselves to handle the next election. The problem with this is… how can I put this delicately? NOBODY GIVES A FUCK!!

 Let me explain. A week or two ago by now, I saw an article in the Nation Newspaper captioned “Wickham raps PM’s Absence”. I started reading, but was unable to finish, distracted by what seemed to me at the time (and now) the far more important task of assiduously picking my nose. I was able to discern that you had expressed concern as to what message the Prime Minister was sending by failing to attend MP Estwick’s meeting, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care then and I don’t care now whether or not MP David Estwick is staying with the party or crossing the floor, or starting his own party, or retiring from politics or going to mars on an extended vacation.

Similarly regarding the “misunderstanding” between leader of the opposition Mia Mottley and former PM Owen Arthur, I don’t care! I don’t care if Mr Arthur regains leadership of the party or if Ms Mottley retains it or if they get married pack the unbreakables and join MP Estwick on the red planet resort. I simply don’t give a fuck!

It’s not that I don’t understand how these internal power struggles compromise a country’s stability, I do. Those of us on the ground (as opposed to in the air?) live daily with the dearth of practical ideas that are a consequence of this bickering we don’t need anyone to expound on the message being sent because we got the message loud and clear a long time ago. We (well I) don’t care how well or badly positioned they are for the next election because there is life between elections and it is we who have to survive it.

I would be much more interested in getting some insight as to whether Mr Estwick’s idea regarding the United Arab Emirates is a feasible one, or if Mr Arthur's suggestion that the private sector needs to pick up the slack from the public sector has merit or if Ms Mottley’s eminent persons group could really help to get us out of this mess. It doesn’t make sense to rely on our politicians for clarity on this as it seems they can only speak opositionally i.e. if A suggests it, B says it is bullshit or vice versa (that should have read “if D suggests it, B says it is bullshit”)

One more thing before I solicit your help. A confession; I acknowledge (without absolving our politicians) that we the public are not blameless, we have participated greatly in the creation of an inefficient, ineffectual, monolith called the public sector, we have done so through a disgraceful work ethic (the visible minority) and our consensual silence about it (the silent majority). It is we who trained our politicians into believing (or at the very least reinforced the belief) that pandering to our basest, short term, short sighted needs was a sustainable political strategy. Consider shenanigans like the free money that appears in peoples’ hands around election time*2 or the people who have jobs that they are barely qualified to do but (until recently) have no reason to fear being fired as X person of power had put them there.

Mr Wickham I would love to hear from a political analyst how we go about redressing that. I would love to see a discourse on how the public can show political maturity and recognise that going to the polls is not the only time that we have an influencing voice. I want an exploration as to why administration after administration in this country has suffered from ID (Implementation Dysfunction) and how we can inject some political Viagra into the bloodstream. I want someone to explain to me why it is that every time someone (like myself) who clearly doesn't understand politics suggests that this calls for a bipartisan approach they are told that the way it works is that the opposition opposes as if we are automatons and therefore cannot adjust.

Another quick confession before I get to my discovery: It is very easy to talk about the stupidity and corruption of our politicians, it’s easy, it’s fun and, in my case, it helps me professionally, but it is, for the most part fallacious. With one or two notable exceptions our politicians are highly intelligent and accomplished people who, I believe are fully aware (I venture more so than we) of the dangers we currently face, I fear that part of the problem is that we are all trapped in a paradigm. But we are not automatons so that is no excuse.

Which leads me to my discovery; I was walking along a paved road, I’m genuinely not sure if it was paved with good intentions or with empty promises that looked like good intentions but I am certain it was the road to hell, anyhow as I walked I came upon a paradigm in which oppositions opposed governments indiscriminately and the political elite were not truly held accountable for their actions/inactions. Mr Wickham the paradigm was broken; maybe you should let someone know!

Sincerely

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)


* I am fully aware of the 10% cut to be taken at some yet to be determined time.
*2 I know that depending on who you ask these things "never" happen.

14 Comments
<<Previous

     The $2 Philosopher!

    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. 

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Categories

    All
    $2 Life
    $2 Life (ramblings And Quips)
    $2 Poetry
    All
    Ramblings
    The Country Bus Chronicles
    Thoughts International
    Thoughts On Local/regional

    Archives

    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    October 2015
    July 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    January 2011

    RSS Feed