Guy Fawkes Day

Elections have been scheduled for November 5.

I do not mind saying, I voted for Elizabeth Solomon in the last election.

I voted for her because she has been working for years to try to get abortion legalised in Trinidad.

I would vote for her again.

Things I want.

1. A water management project that involves the community.
Do not bring people from outside to clear our drains, it is our responsibility to clear our drains.

It is the government's job to replace and maintain the water pipes, that will ensure that one day I may have hope that I may stop having to drink shit before I die from it.

2. I want less military spending.
I do not want 4Billion spent on guns for the next fiscal.
This is how you are going to finance the water project.

3. I want an immigration crack down.
Not just the colombian prostitutes, I want my sengalese security guard, chinese construction workers all out of MY country.

4. I want abortion legalised.

5. I want the school meals programme to only serve local fruits.
Thus creating demand for local fruits ie sugar apple, mama sepo, pewah.
Making sure that our culinary heritage does not die.

Trini's not smart

So in the wonderful budget, the allowance for contributions to an annuity (Individual pension plan) were increase to $25,000 for tax deduction benefits.

So I decided to take a look around.

All the insurance companies are front end charging.
i.e. on average they are taking 40% of contributions made in the first year.

So what does this mean. Well if you were thinking of taking out a new annuity in order to take advantage of the increase tax deduction like me, it is worth your while to start from now and only take the $12000 for the first year still, collect your tax return for 2007. Then increase your contribution to $25000 in October 2008 so that you will only pay 25% in charges.

As it is it is pretty disgusting that in the first instance you are actually paying the insurance companies more than the tax benefit in the first year.

Also the returns are not that great. You can get better returns on some of the mutual funds being offered.

A Winter's Tale

I saw A Winter's Tale at the premier in Trinidad on Sunday.
It is absolutely fantastic. I was lost for words at the end.

All kudos to Frances Anne Solomon for lugging her baby all the way down.

Kudos also to Bruce Paddington for organising the whole festival.

Come on Trinis come out and support the people who give we voices

Antagonising the contender

I posted this on the wall of COP's facebook group for a laugh.

I haven't actually decided if I am going to vote COP as yet.

I have a few questions. I trust they will get passed on.

How exactly is COP going to get the PNMite public servants to implement these grand plans of theirs?

This is going to go the way of the NAR.

ie PNM public servants will not give change a chance, because they do not want change.
COP will be left toothless and if we have a repeat of the Prevatt scandal - Valley will take the Heritage Fund with him.

W D will end up like ANR with a gun to his head and his knee caps blown out.
But the perpetrator will not be Abu Bakr. It will be someone from the TTDF.
Who will have gone to one of those military academies either School of Americas or Sandhurst.
He will be backed by either USA or Chavez.

Now I am actually willing to vote COP.
But I want WD to say that he is willing to become a cripple. ie. he knows this is a possibility.

I will not condemn a naive man.

Running...........

"If you leave for a better life, you will have to fight for that life where ever you arrive. You need to fight the life you want, you can only choose your battleground."

I have tried life in the north. I don't really care for it.
Trinidad has lots of problems.
A third of our population is illiterate. When I used to work at the Ministry of Education we had a big celebration when we achieved a pass rate in Maths of 43%. It was the highest in a decade!
Our water supply is erratic and gets contaminated with the sewage run off.

But everyday I get to see the hills and the sea. I get to speak in our comic bantering language, a dialect of English, and I get to eat food I love.

So problems aside, I will stay in my dinky little third world country with the civil unrest and bad water.

Things I love about living in Trinidad

I love the way Trinis talk.

Trinis does speak with dey hands, dey feet, every bit of dey body.

I love we green, green hills and de sea.

I does laugh at the bad service and inefficiency.

I prefer it to the cold northern skies.

I feel alive as I smell the rotting garbage in the streets, I get my exercise trying to dodge de canal water.

I remember in dem cold winters missing de cat calls of a real trini man.

It is here I want to be

Ignorance

"Ask no questions
Be told no lies"

I'll never forget the first time I actually got told that from a supervisor at work.
It was indirectly related to the article that comes up when you google " Trinidad water failure to thrive".

The other study also says that "... degree of contamination of drinking water in households poses a health hazard to consumers."

And still some insist our first priority is to put computers into primary schools.

Computers get stolen and the children are still drinking shit.

Independence Day

I hate to say this but I don't think we really want independence.
As a people I mean. With real independence would come responsibility.
And nobody really wants to take responsibility. We want to be taken care of like children.

The COP radio add is annoying me... "Moving on .....Never look back."

The truth is

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
And we already have serious memory problems.

What I want is a day to stop and mourn, mourn for the ten thousand dead and the four years decrease in life expectancy during the PNM administration since 2002.

I suppose I should be grateful I now only have to endure 67 years of misery rather than 71.