"May you live in interesting times"

The title of this blog post is supposed to be an old Chinese curse; it may be apocryphal but it resonates nonetheless. I like "boring" times; boring translates to peaceful for me, a respite from horror, loss, devastation and sadness. The prospect of "interesting times" is downright chilling. So, right on time, interesting times have arrived with the force of planetary collision in the guise of Covid 19--just when we thought the state of the world was as "interesting" as we could bear.

So much has changed...

...There are people in my writing network who have lost beloved relatives and friends to Covid 19. 

...I've visited my mother once in the past 5 months. It's not safe for me to visit her; she's 84. She forgets the reason we're not visiting and perceives it as neglect. The older we grow, the more sensitive we become to real and imagined slights, so it doesn't matter that my mother and I chat on the phone almost every day. I'm not visiting so it must be that I've thrown her away.

...A germaphobe I've always been, but my paranoia is off the charts now. It would be funny if it weren't so exhausting: the stripping at the door as I come in,  the flinging of said clothes into a bag in the entry, the scrubbing of everything that comes in from the supermarket (I never thought I'd be scrubbing onions with dish soap, ffs!), the struggle to focus on anything, the elevated stress levels--and maybe the uncertainty most of all.

...My blog buddies from 12+ years ago when I started this blog might remember my son--barefoot surfer boy who loved nothing more than a good adventure. Well, a brand new adventure found him when he visited Panama earlier this year on business and found himself stranded there when the country went into lockdown, closed its borders and the airline canceled his flight back. He should have returned at the start of April. Instead he's still there. He's nothing if not resourceful, though, and is fortunate in that he loves the place and has very good friends there. Two weeks ago he started vlogging his journey, with the encouragement of Kaylee and Jordan of The Nomadic Movement, a popular YouTube channel. You can find him at Adventure Rich which is off to a great start. The fact that he's a professional videographer puts him at an advantage; hopefully he will be able to monetize his vlogs soon and this will go a long way toward helping him survive in a very challenging situation.

...And finally, speaking of changes... Facebook has dumped me. 😂😂😂 Seriously. A few months ago I tried to sign in and couldn't: they said I had violated their community guidelines, which is absolute BS unless photos of my spider plants are somehow threatening to the Facebook community. I can get back on if I give them my phone number, they say. Well, my response is Up yours, Mr. Zuckerberg. I can buy a burner phone and use that, but I have other priorities. I lost the gardening page that was helping to preserve my sanity during the lockdown since it was tied to the Liane Spicer account, but my FB author page survived because there are other admins there and I access it through them. Ironic, this divorce, as I've always hated FB and was there only to keep in touch with my writing network. I've wanted to leave FB for years.

I've missed this blog. Some of my old blog buddies are still active on their blogs, I know. I'll try to drop by now and then. I enjoy the peace here. I certainly don't miss the rudeness and crassness and insane politics and sensation-mongering and click-baiting and conspiracy theories and outright lies and malignancy of FB. Now to wean myself off WhatsApp...

Inhale...

Exhale...

Be kind. 

Take care of yourself. 

You're stronger than you know.

Local Color

Writing coaches recommend that writers use local color in their stories to make them come alive. Every location, real or fictional, has unique sounds, sights and flavors. The characters in a story don't live in a generic town; they live in a town in a particular place where the stench of the swamp permeates when the wind blows south,

where little blue buses called "Conchita" bustle along the main street, where a paraplegic veteran sits in a cart in front the courthouse and curses the gov'mint every Saturday morning.

I'm from the Caribbean so a reader might expect to find a certain island flavor in my stories—infusions of hot sunshine, white beaches, clear turquoise waters, lush vegetation, and market stalls heaped with mangoes and pineapples forming the perfect pictorial background to my scenes. They might expect colorful characters from the postcolonial melange of cultures, the syncopation of reggae, calypso and reggae—and they would very likely find these. But local color extends far past the touristic image of a tropical paradise. Those elements are not the whole picture.

Particularly exciting to me are the languages, myths and legends of the region. There are many versions of English, English Creole and French Creole spoken in the Anglophone Caribbean, varying from island to island and even within territories.  Then there are the myths—the tales of jumbies in Trinidad (duppies in Jamaica, ghosts elsewhere), the lagahoo (loup-garou or werewolf elsewhere), douens and La Diablesse... Penetrate deeper and a kaleidoscope of fantastical human, animal and supernatural characters emerge.

Some myths blur the lines between reality and fiction. When I was a child one of the tales with which my father held us in thrall was the story of the giant snake. It lived in forest pools, he said, and every so often it would come out and raid nearby villages, swallowing livestock and children whole. This horrifying creature was called a wheel, and years later, whenever I swam in deep forest pools after a long hike, the image of the wheel lurking below never failed to send shivers down my spine even as I laughed and splashed with my fellow adventurers. Suppose the thing was real? Why was it called a wheel anyway? Did it put its tail in its mouth and roll through the forest like a hoop? Suppose one lived down there? Would it emerge from the green, shadowy depths and pull me under where it would proceed to swallow me whole as I thrashed in vain, while my companions ran (or swam) for cover?

I subsequently discovered that the snake is not a wheel but a huile, French lexicon creole for oil, and the name is derived from its fluid movements in the water. The huile is also known locally as macajuel, a Spanish creole form, I think. It is a type of boa constrictor and is related to that famous South American giant... the anaconda. My father did not invent the huile; the darned monster is real.

The more I write, the more I feel the urgency to capture the colors of this place. The old spaces are being razed; the old words are dying out, replaced with the Americanisms of cable television. I remember standing in front of a literature class a few years ago—we were reading a novel by local novelist Michael Anthony—and not one of those teenage suburbanites knew what laglee was. (It's the sticky white sap of the chataigne or breadfruit tree that's spread on twigs to trap birds.) When I was a child no boy worthy of the name would be ignorant of the existence and applications of laglee. The colors are fading fast, including those of the old characters, the lagahous, douens and that man-eating she-devil, La Diablesse, who are retreating further and further into what's left of the tropical forests.

There's only one way to keep them alive: on the pages of our books. Keeping them alive has become an important part of my mission. Do you feel a compulsion to conserve the colors of your patch of earth?

—Liane Spicer

Burglars & snakes. There's paradise for ya...

Maybe it was just a matter of time, the state of crime being what it is in these parts, but we've been robbed. Almost everything of value is gone: laptop, jewellery, DVD player - even my LL Bean backpack, apparently appropriated by the thieves to carry their haul away. I'm trying to be upbeat but seriously? It was horrible. It still is. I alternate between wanting to throw away whatever the thieves left behind, scrub the house again and again with every detergent and antimicrobial agent known to man, and planning elaborate and extremely painful retribution for the perps.

Can there be a silver lining to this cloud? The answer may surprise you. Come join me as I post today on the Novel Spaces author blog: Adversity: Friend or Foe?

Oh, the snakes. I promised snakes. Yup, we've been busy around here. As the repairman finished fitting a new back door to replace the one the thieves broke down to gain entry to the house, he trod wearily out the front gate - it was nighttime, after all, and he'd had a long day - only to start dancing around and shrieking because he had almost stepped on - you got it - a mapepire right outside our gate. Mapepire is the local name for fer de lance, a deadly pit viper. We have lots of them around here, and believe me, they're not what one wants to face after a hard day's - and night's - work.

Never a dull moment, I tell ya.

Hugo Chavez vs. President Obama at the 5th Summit of the Americas

I just watched President Obama get off his plane and lope along the red carpet at Piarco Int'l Airport here in Trinidad - watched on television, that is - and my initial impression, obviously shaped by my profound analysis of the issues surrounding this 5th Summit of the Americas, is: Lawdie, Lawdie! He's hawt! My sister doesn't see what I see, though. She insists I just like skinny guys.

Now that I've succeeded in disgusting you, let's get back to those issues...

• Trinis, with my mother spearheading the torrent of aggrieved citizens, are annoyed because there are no meet-the-public events scheduled for this historic president. If I have to hear her complain about this one more time I'll scream. Very loudly. Because I know she would never brave the milling crowds of Obama-crazed Trinis to catch an in-the-flesh glimpse of the man, or shake his hand, or genuflect at his feet, or whatever his local worshippers think they have been unfairly deprived of the opportunity to do.

• I, on the other hand, am looking forward to some fireworks from the defiant president of Venezuela. According to Mr. Chavez, "We are ready to attend the meeting of the Americas and let's hope that the US President comes and not follow the example of the King of Spain when he told me to shut up, because we are going to speak our truth." And I can't wait to hear it. He thinks Cuba should not have been omitted from this summit, and I happen to agree with him.
  

• The fallout, the aftershock, the backlash from T&T's hosting of this summit promises to be entertaining in the extreme. Why? Because the snowballing public outcry against the obscene amount of money spent on this event may well determine the outcome of the next general election. The current estimate of the cost to taxpayers is $1 billion to $2 billion TT dollars (US$161 million - US$323 million), or about 13% of the GDP of Trinidad and Tobago. That's about 10 times the cost of hosting the recently convened G20 Summit.

Yes, folks. There's lots of excitement ahead.

My super(market) award

Fiona's post Death by Shopping made me think a bit. I thunked and thunked and then decided I'd better 'fess up and be done with it. I'm a poseur, a hypocrite, another shame-faced contender for the If You Think You're a Naturalist or Environmentalist or Conservationist or Humanist or Whatever Grand and Noble Label You Love to Apply to Yourself You're, Like, Totally Deluded award.

I remember the little shops of yesteryear. My grandfather owned one. These shops fascinated me as a small child - a fascination that turned into aversion as I grew older and joined the throngs stampeding our way to the supermarkets.

Supermarkets are spacious. They have parking. They are clean. They don't smell. The goods are shiny and spotless, tastefully arranged, and the choices border on bewildering. They are impersonal. The little shops and mini-marts, on the other hand, are none of the above. My grandfather's shop smelled of the salt fish, the buckets of pig's tails in brine, the smoked herring that used to be an important part of the local diet. Produce was weighed on a crude scale (like the one pictured above) and wrapped in brown paper. There was a system of 'trust', or credit. No one ever went without because they were short of cash; Grandfather would remove the pencil from behind his ear and write the amount owed on a scrap of paper, which he would then slip on to a wire hook that hung from a nail in plain view. Customers settled their account when they were able, and there were no late-payment fees. No money for bread? You could 'trust' it, and some butter and milk too, from my grandfather.

The lady who served at the counter was chatty, and I could never get away until I had answered a stream of enquiries about the health of every member of my extended family, and assured her that I was doing well at school. Going to the shop was a social event for many, and Miss Olive would not even notice my presence if she was engrossed in a lively conversation with her customers. As a child, back then, I couldn't ever betray signs of impatience. To do so would be 'womanish', and an accusation of womanishness would get back to my mother resulting in dire consequences for me. So I stood in the hot, close space, surrounded by odours and humanity - humanity that knew me and every member of my family for generations back - and suffered in silence.

Do you know what I love most about supermarkets? The air conditioning. Really, I'm an AC whore. I live on a tropical island but I hate to sweat. There are exceptions, of course, such as when I'm exercising. If I'm hiking in the forest with the prospect of the sea of a rock pool ahead of me, I tolerate stuff oozing out of my pores. Outside of these and a couple other special circumstances, I try to live a no-sweat existence. So, I bypass all the hot little shops struggling for survival and sashay into the cool and cavernous, overpriced supermarket, conveniently forgetting that it contains all those tons of plastic - yes, that non-biodegradable stuff that ends up in the landfills, the waterways, and the sea. I shop in splendid isolation, avoiding eye contact with the strangers around, silently bitching about all the high-cholesterol, high sodium, high sugar, high trans fat, high everything processed foods from which I must choose.

See why I'm a contender for that award? The little shops and minimarts are so much better for the environment, for the community, for health, for humanity. They are usually within walking distance, mind you, but I ignore them and join the streams of cars headed for the huge, shiny, electricity-guzzling, plastic-spewing, air-conditioned box on the horizon, our toxic exhaust and stupidity puffing in our wake. And heaven help me if I run out of cash, or the snarky little machine declines my bank card - as it has done on occasion with no provocation whatsoever.

Maraval in the rain

An old photo of the Saddle, a narrow pass connecting the Maraval and Santa Cruz valleys. (Photo courtesy the Trinidad Guardian archives)

If you've read Café au Lait you might recall mention of the Maraval Valley. The novel is a work of fiction, but this valley isn't, and I drove through it today to pick up my nephew from school. I lived there once, right after I separated from my husband, and for years I traversed this valley every day on my way to work. It was a longer drive than going through Port of Spain and taking the highway, but there was no traffic and the drive through valleys and over hills was lovely. My son was just five during the months that we lived in Maraval, yet he has vivid memories of the birds hopping around on the windowsill of his bedroom, of playing with the children who lived on the ground floor, of listening to music with his mom.

That was a weird time in my life. My ailing marriage was finally over; I had to come to terms with the prospect of raising my child alone; I was living on my own for the first time in my life. I surrounded myself with beauty as an antidote to all that I had suffered through: the special brand of coffee that I liked, music, my plants, a perfume I'd always wanted, long visits from an old friend whom I'd neglected during the tortured years of my marriage. He'd visit and we'd talk far into the night, catching up, drinking wine, playing Scrabble. After work each day I'd pick up my son and we'd go on an 'adventure' before going home. Some days we went to the mall, others we'd stop by the Queen's Park Savannah and I'd buy fruits from the roadside vendors while he ran around and climbed the trees. Or we'd drive to the marina in Chaguaramas, or to the back of West Mall (this was before all the high-rise condos went up) and sit and watch the sea. It was a shadowed yet strangely happy era. My son still loves the music of the 80s best of all; he says it takes him back to the Maraval time.


The Maraval Valley in the rain today. Photos taken above the golf course at Moka.

My son grew up. I left the teaching behind, lived abroad for awhile, came back. I haven't driven through Maraval in years - until today. It was raining. I like the rain. It was cool and lovely, the hills misty and shrouded, lush, green. Naturally, time has not stood still in the intervening years. The channel of the river that runs alongside the road is wider. There are large supermarkets and pharmacies higher up the valley where before there were only small shops and minimarts. Entire high-end developments have sprung up, and many others are under construction. Enormous brown gashes wound the hillsides which have been bulldozed for even more 'development'. The house with the tall rose bushes that I admired every day on my way to and from work is now indistinguishable from the numerous other houses flanking it. The house is there; the roses aren't.

So much has changed. The narrow bridges have been widened, and the road too in places, but the traffic jams, they tell me, begin way up in the valley where the road begins to rise sharply into the hills. They also tell me that the Saddle, that pass into the Santa Cruz Valley pictured above, is itself unrecognizable, bulldozed and widened, no longer the dark, one-lane tunnel with the sharp blind curve at the Santa Cruz end where I drove for so many years on my way to work, horn blaring to warn any unseen oncoming vehicle.

Those were different times; the Saddle Road was practically deserted then, and if the thought of being blocked and held up at gunpoint ever entered my head, it was for a fleeting moment. My solitary drive through Maraval, into the Saddle, then the descent into Santa Cruz where scarlet immortelles blazed over cocoa trees and pouis splashed the valley with riotous colour, was a daily adventure. It was spiritually refreshing, buoying me for the struggle ahead, and soothing me as I made the return trip when the battles had been lost and won for one more day.

I didn't get as far as the Saddle today, and I dread the day when I'll see for myself the mutilation of this lovely spot. Despite all the change, though, the valley retains its charm, its essence. But for how long? The prognosis, in view of what I saw today, is not hopeful.

Remembering

Happy Martin Luther King Day, American friends.

From Kevin over at It Only Seems Random: Remembering Martin Luther King.

From Nyc/Caribbean Ragazza: Happy Birthday MLK.

"He had a dream. For everyone, not just his own people." - Stephe

Vox populi, vox dei

I have never been more proud of my American brothers and sisters. Hope lives.

PS:
My friend D sent me an excerpt from an article entitled "Obama's private prayer" published in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper of Saturday, July 26, 2008 pg.A30. It says that Obama left the prayer in the cracks of Jerusalem's Western Wall when he visited Israel. D asked if I would put it on the blog and I'm happy to do so.

OBAMA'S PRAYER

LORD - PROTECT MY FAMILY AND ME. FORGIVE ME MY SINS, AND HELP ME GUARD AGAINST PRIDE AND DESPAIR. GIVE ME THE WISDOM TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT AND JUST. AND MAKE ME AN INSTRUMENT OF YOUR WILL. AMEN

The night before the day after

Zinnia's post put me in mind of this poem, and I decided that on the night before this critical US election I could do worse than post a poignant reminder of the futility of lives lost to war, and the futility of war itself. The poet is Wilfred Owen, a soldier who didn't come home from the battlefields of World War I.

Futility by Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Reality Bites

One of my writer friends recently received a review of his collection of short stories and although it was a mixed bag (from "part-gripping, part-lackluster" to "Stanford captivates with shocking plot twists and turns") the overall tone was negative. Several of the criticisms with regard to my friend's execution of the stories may well be merited, but I take issue with the reviewer's claim that although the stories are set in Trinidad and Tobago they provide no "insight into Caribbean history and culture". The events could have taken place in Anytown, USA, he claims.

This brings me to the whole question of people's preconceptions. My friend did not attempt to write a travelogue. He did not write his stories to acquaint foreigners with the culture and history of 'the islands'. He wrote about the violent crime that is right now tearing the fabric of his homeland to shreds. According to the reviewer, the stories "tell little of island life". Oh, really? What the reviewer means is that the stories tell little about his preconceptions of island life. In fact, the stories showcase the reality of life on this island right now; violence is an issue that Trinidadians confront every day, and I don't believe the writer should be chastened for omitting titillating cultural soupçons and historical tidbits from his stories.

Our similarities transcend our differences. Our struggles are universal. The reviewer himself says that "Stanford gives much more attention to exploring universal questions: What is right? What is wrong? What is justice?" If these are concerns that Anyone, from Anytown, USA can relate to, what of it? Why is this considered a flaw in the work? An American writer of similar stories would not be rebuked for his laser focus on the central issues. He would not be told to include more cultural and historical elements in his stories.

Criticize the writer's pacing, his prose, his characterization, his use of dialogue or whatever, I say, but please, don't censure him for not writing about limbo dancers drinking rum under coconut trees to pander to the assumed preconceptions of a 'foreign' audience.

Mating rituals circa 2008

In my mother's youth a boy who liked a girl and wanted to see more of her had to ask her parents' permission. In my teens we were a lot freer, but a boy would be on his best behaviour, bringing little gifts, saving seats on the bus, and generally trying to create a good impression. Now it's the turn of my thirteen year old niece, and courting has gone to the dogs.

I held this particular boy in my arms when he was a squalling newborn. His parents are family friends. His neighbours are another set of close family friends. Imagine my dismay when I heard that he had approached my niece with, um, amorous intentions. It was not the fact of his liking the girl that took me aback, but his approach.

Did he bring her a flower? A chocolate? Did he dedicate a song to her, as another little fellow did some time back? Maybe you're thinking that he wrote her a cute little note, something like the serviceable 'Roses are red, violets are blue...' Or just held her hand and stared into her eyes while building up the nerve to ask her to the cinema or something?

None of the above. He sauntered up to her in sailing class and just... popped the question:

'Hey, you wanna deal?'

I'm horrified. Horrified. What is puppy love coming to these days?

Baby mama? BABY MAMA? WT*?

I published this post a few days ago, then deleted it because I'd like to stay away from politics on this blog, to focus on books, writing and writers, on publishing, occasionally on the beauty of my island. But sometimes it's hard to keep a discreet distance from ugly realities, as evidenced by my last post on the state of crime in my country.

Now it's the elections brouhaha in the US. I read about the latest Fox News (Faux News? Fox Noise?) obscenity earlier this week and, thanks to Kevin over at It Only Seems Random, found a terrific post by writer John Scalzi on the issue. I'm really grateful to the Internet, and to bloggers in particular. I'm continually reassured that there are indeed Americans of all races and walks of life, many, many of them, who are as horrified as the rest of us at the bigots* in their country who continue their desperate, pathetic stranglehold on their outdated prejudices. (*I'm not implying that the US has a monopoly on bigots; they're a common species that thrives even in the most hostile environments, much like cockroaches.)

And while I'm at it, here's a link to another great article, this time by Tim Wise who so eloquently examines an issue that has appalled me - the assertion I've read on blog after blog, in hundreds of comments in a number of threads, that women who supported Hillary Clinton will not support Barack Obama unless he makes her his running mate, and in fact will either not vote at all or vote for McCain. Don't get me wrong. I understand their hurt and disappointment. And people are free to vote for whoever the hell they want, or not at all. But to hand the election to McCain based on this kind of rationale? What kind of lunacy is that?

Cry, the Beloved Country

The title of Alan Paton's classic novel has been haunting me of late. I seldom blog about the runaway crime situation here in Trinidad. The horrors are too rife, piling one on top of the other everyday, shocking past the point when you think you can't be shocked anymore, escalating beyond the point where you thought it couldn't get worse.

I'm sitting here at five before midnight, blogging when I should be editing novel number two, and a gunshot rings out. That particular sound was virtually unknown to this nation up to a decade or two ago; a loud explosion used to mean that someone's old jalopy was backfiring. Not anymore.

A week or two ago it was the rape and murder of an eight year old child. Days ago it was the murder-suicide of a couple who lived mere houses away. I didn't know them, but that is irrelevant. A man across the street was gunned down yards away from his home two years ago. The secretary who worked at a school where I taught was strangled and tossed over a cliff by a male acquaintance a month or two ago. A guy who used to belong to my hiking group was found knifed to death on a coast road. One of my old students, a lovely, joyous girl, was found strangled in a ravine just a year or so after she graduated high school. And every day, almost, the body count of 'gang-related' or 'drug-related' murders soars. One night recently there were six murders. Six. Few of the murderers are ever brought to justice. And no wonder - the few witnesses to murders who have the temerity to testify for the state tend to meet grisly ends.

All this on an island with a population of less than a million and a half.

This used to be a beautiful valley. I still go outside in the middle of the night and look up at the stars, gaze at the moon, savour the touch of cool night breeze on my skin. But now I am watchful and wary. My reveries are tainted by the expectation of gunshots shattering the night. By blacked out police helicopters and blimps that circle the skies for hours, the choppers sometimes beaming their ferocious spotlights down on the houses. What do they seek with that bright beam? Robberies, kidnappings and murders in progress? Criminals skulking in the shadows of fences?

We used to call this land a paradise. Poets have written so many paeans in its honour, from the classic calypsos to the patriotic songs that now seem to recall an imaginary place. I think of The Mighty Sniper's Portrait of Trinidad, Gregory Ballantyne's Calypso Rising, David Rudder's Song for a Lonely Soul with nostalgia and sadness.

The chopper is circling now. How did we come to this? Where do we go from here? Whatever happened to Paradise?

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

This was such a shock to me. I loved his work in every movie I've seen him in. Actors tell stories, just like writers do. He was wonderful at telling his, always totally convincing in his roles.

He was just 28. I'll miss him.

The ties that bind... and gag

There's been a rash of weddings around here. My mom has been to three, my sister one - all within the last couple of months.

I was married once. I was 25, the boy was 22, and it was an unequivocal disaster. My upbringing was Roman Catholic and strict. I had attended only single-sex convent schools. I suppose something of the conditioning got through to me because I never fooled around. This guy was my first boyfriend, first lover. I was supposed to marry him, although I think that in my heart I knew I was making a mistake.

When I'm asked my marital status I always say I'm happily divorced, and that's the truth. So, would I marry again? I don't rule it out, but I'm, ahem, middle-aged now, so I don't have the time for an experimental marriage, or a rotten one.

People marry for love, but love alone won't cut it. I'm old enough to know that now.

People marry to raise a family. I've already raised mine, thank you.

People marry for financial security. I'm capable of providing for myself adequately.

People marry for companionship. I really like my own company so I couldn't marry for that reason alone.

People marry for sex. Ha. I know married couples who aren't getting much... And I believe in the updated adage about the cow and the milk: Why buy a whole pig just to get a little sausage? (Vulgar but true.)

People marry to conform to other people's, and society's, expectations. I was never much of a conformist to begin with, and as the years pass I'm even less so.

So where does that leave me? Happily divorced. Happily (most of the time) single. Thankful that I'm not one of those many, many unhappily married, 'fronting' people, putting on a pretend smile in public. And truly admiring of those few couples I know who actually got it right.

Quote of the Day

"Hypothetical numbers are great to send into rhetorical battle."

Jim McCulloch, on his blog Stone Bridge, in the post Ken Burns's War which, among other things, takes issue with Burns's estimates of the great numbers of lives that would have been lost if the atomic bombs had not been deployed at the end of World War II.

September 11 - Belated observance

My computer was down and I was sick, so I'm late with this. But I'm going to do it anyway. I just left a comment on anti-wife's blog in response to her post on 911, and I'll repeat it here.

I was in Miami when it happened, visiting a friend at his office. A patient called, and I could hear my friend going, "What? What? Really!" I realized he was trying to calm the caller. Then he put down the phone and laughed - an uncertain laugh. It was one of his patients, he said, ranting about planes crashing into buildings all over the country. He'd have to check the old man's meds. Then another call came, from someone sane and reliable, and when he put down the phone and told me what was going on, there was just shock. Disbelief.

Well, the phone began to go crazy. By midday the Florida authorities were telling everyone to get home, that the turnpikes were open, just get home. My friend closed up his office and took me home. When I got in and turned on the TV I saw my first images, and I sat there, tears pouring down my face, until the small hours of the morning. I've seen those images hundreds of times, and they are still so incredible that I doubt my eyes.

Over the next days, I would go outside at night and stare at the sky. The long string of aircraft on the flight path to Fort Lauderdale Airport had disappeared. The sky was empty. It was very uncanny.

I didn't suffer a personal loss, or a connection to a personal loss like you did, but I know what you feel. I remember. I was there. Fourteen Trinidadians died in those towers. The tragedy of those days reached everywhere, and touched everyone.

Update on Black and White

Earlier this month I posted a link to Kevin's discussion on the rise of interracial marriage in the US. Here's a Salon article on the same subject.

I tend to agree with this writer on most points. She mentioned the three positions taken by African Americans surveyed: approval of black-white relationships, disapproval, and the belief that people should marry whomever they please and that their choice is nobody's business but their own. I'm solidly in the third camp. Legislation didn't succeed in keeping the races from mingling intimately, and guilt and parental pressure won't succeed either. Erect a taboo and there will always be people who revel in breaking it. I like to think that western society is evolving beyond segregation in any form.

Don't know why I find this discussion so fascinating - maybe because I live in a truly multicultural society and find the racial tensions in the US and elsewhere somewhat startling. It's not that there aren't tensions and prejudices here, but like I've mentioned before, it's a question of degree.

Patriot Games

Hurricane Dean is wallowing into the islands north of us. Makes me ponder a peculiar idiosyncrasy of my countrymen - namely their deep-rooted conviction that God is a Trini. It makes for a certain... complacency.

Every other island in the Caribbean falls right inside the hurricane belt. Trinidad is located just south of the southernmost reaches of this swath. What this means is that we generally get tropical storm warnings and even hurricane warnings when a big storm is threatening the islands, but those storms don't hit us full on. Our sister island Tobago is a few miles north of us and as such isn't as lucky.

About 15 years ago a hurricane was running south of the usual path and the weather centres predicted that we would get a direct hit. Panic ensued. Supermarkets, gas stations, etc were packed with frantic Trinis who waited until the last possible moment to venture out and buy up everything in sight. If the generalized feelings at the time could be encapsulated into one word, that word would be 'unprepared'. So strong is the belief that God would never visit a full-fledged hurricane on this island - He's a bona fide citizen after all - that many people ignored all warnings and threw hurricane parties. Popular watering holes overflowed with merrymakers on the night the storm was supposed to slam into the island. The lager and rum flowed, people danced in the streets...

Yeah. Down here we're crazy that way.

It so happened that the eye of the hurricane passed precisely midway between Trinidad and Tobago, and the storm proceeded to devastate Venezuela. You'd think that such a near miss, that the news of widespread death and destruction on our South American neighbour would have sobered us up a bit, huh? That we'd swear to act more responsibly the next time around? Heed the warnings, be prepared?

Uh-uh. The next day, the national conviction was stronger than ever. Faith was fully restored. We had nothing to fear. Ever.

After all, God is a Trini.

Black and White

Kevin has an interesting post on the rise of interracial marriage in the US... Black and White.