Nasty...!!!! Blasted Fools ....!!! Stink....!!!!
On my radio this morning. But I digress...
Its 9:00 a.m. Traffic is crawling along the Uriah Butler Highway into Port-of-Spain at 5 km/hr at best. Manufactured US pop from most stations and could only find my prized "Sting Greatest Hits" to feed my CD player, but the DJ in my head decided that it wasn't quite right for the mood this morning.
While "When we dance" is a great song, its not something to mull over when you want to delve into the evolutionary ancestry of the driver that just cut in front of you.
So I arrive at Power 102 on the dial and caught myself listening to...
Ricardo "the Gladiator" Welsh is extolling the comparisons between Pregnant Mary and Joseph and a displaced family in his studio to anyone listening. The father is an ex-national boxer, of African descent, the mother is in a wheelchair and is of East Indian descent accompanied their teenaged daughter. Not that the daughter had a home she could stay at. (East Indian is a local term for descendants of Indian Indentured labourers)
The father has been applying to the Ministry of Sport for a coaching job for twenty years, is currently temporarily employed at PETROTRIN, our white elephant crude oil refining facility.
Apparently, their humble abode was razed by fire and after spending the night on the streets of POS, having nowhere to go, they were asked to vacate the Brian Lara Promenade in the wee hours of this morning by our police, they made their way to the steps of the Power 102 radio station and was subsequently found by the Gladiator. Unsheathing his sword, The Gladiator investigated their situation, voila, radio show material. On air appealing for help.
While that is all fine, our esteemed Gladiator invites calls from the public and is instantly barraged by abuse. To which he responds in kind...in spades. Nasty...!!!! Blasted Fools ....!!! Stink....!!!! Dutty, Nasty People...!!!!
Just as an aside, the Gladiator is crass, moody, envisages himself as a champion of the poor, speaks broken english, controversial and hence, totally marketable.
He then calls on our National Housing Authority (NHA) to respond, calling on the Minister of Housing and his "cohorts" to call the station to be abused. The Communications Officer of the NHA calls in and promptly tries to explain the NHA business objectives, then recognising the family highlighted, he tries to explain the position of the company that writes his cheques, certainly resulting in abuse and being hung up on. Poor fellow. Collective national chuckles. Traffic entertainment.
The interesting thing is this: The family is multi-ethnic.
The callers begin to subtly polarise themselves on air in many ways. Pro-NHA, Pro Indian, Pro Gladiator, Pro Trinidad, Pro African. And all of the converse.
In case you didnt know, Trinidad and Tobago is a multi ethnic and therefore multicultural society. Faith in reality is a wonderful thing. I switched when a guy called in and invited The Gladiator to his home for Divali.
My point is this: Our Government sells homes at marginal cost to qualified citizens. And they really try to make it affordable. There are temporary shelters available for displaced families, at least I think there should be. For every one family highlighted like this, there are dozens more, each with their own challenges. While we shouldn't subscribe to the "free t'ing" philosophy, help should be available when needed. Not handouts. Vision 2020 my ass...
Highlighting the bullshit in our governance is the right of any citizen. Certainly, no one does it quite like The Gladiator.
Private citizens stepped up and contributed money, clothes and a temporary place for this family to stay, renewing my faith in the obvious.
The Gladiator served his purpose, at least this morning:
Unknowing hordes of other drivers were spared my Godlike, all encompassing road rage,
Some help was recieved for this family and last but not least,
He upset people in the process.
If upsetting people gets the job done... so be it.
To blatantly plagiarise B.C. Pires, you can email your firetrucking NHA houses to me at nhasucks@tt_no_help.com
On my radio this morning. But I digress...
Its 9:00 a.m. Traffic is crawling along the Uriah Butler Highway into Port-of-Spain at 5 km/hr at best. Manufactured US pop from most stations and could only find my prized "Sting Greatest Hits" to feed my CD player, but the DJ in my head decided that it wasn't quite right for the mood this morning.
While "When we dance" is a great song, its not something to mull over when you want to delve into the evolutionary ancestry of the driver that just cut in front of you.
So I arrive at Power 102 on the dial and caught myself listening to...
Ricardo "the Gladiator" Welsh is extolling the comparisons between Pregnant Mary and Joseph and a displaced family in his studio to anyone listening. The father is an ex-national boxer, of African descent, the mother is in a wheelchair and is of East Indian descent accompanied their teenaged daughter. Not that the daughter had a home she could stay at. (East Indian is a local term for descendants of Indian Indentured labourers)
The father has been applying to the Ministry of Sport for a coaching job for twenty years, is currently temporarily employed at PETROTRIN, our white elephant crude oil refining facility.
Apparently, their humble abode was razed by fire and after spending the night on the streets of POS, having nowhere to go, they were asked to vacate the Brian Lara Promenade in the wee hours of this morning by our police, they made their way to the steps of the Power 102 radio station and was subsequently found by the Gladiator. Unsheathing his sword, The Gladiator investigated their situation, voila, radio show material. On air appealing for help.
While that is all fine, our esteemed Gladiator invites calls from the public and is instantly barraged by abuse. To which he responds in kind...in spades. Nasty...!!!! Blasted Fools ....!!! Stink....!!!! Dutty, Nasty People...!!!!
Just as an aside, the Gladiator is crass, moody, envisages himself as a champion of the poor, speaks broken english, controversial and hence, totally marketable.
He then calls on our National Housing Authority (NHA) to respond, calling on the Minister of Housing and his "cohorts" to call the station to be abused. The Communications Officer of the NHA calls in and promptly tries to explain the NHA business objectives, then recognising the family highlighted, he tries to explain the position of the company that writes his cheques, certainly resulting in abuse and being hung up on. Poor fellow. Collective national chuckles. Traffic entertainment.
The interesting thing is this: The family is multi-ethnic.
The callers begin to subtly polarise themselves on air in many ways. Pro-NHA, Pro Indian, Pro Gladiator, Pro Trinidad, Pro African. And all of the converse.
In case you didnt know, Trinidad and Tobago is a multi ethnic and therefore multicultural society. Faith in reality is a wonderful thing. I switched when a guy called in and invited The Gladiator to his home for Divali.
My point is this: Our Government sells homes at marginal cost to qualified citizens. And they really try to make it affordable. There are temporary shelters available for displaced families, at least I think there should be. For every one family highlighted like this, there are dozens more, each with their own challenges. While we shouldn't subscribe to the "free t'ing" philosophy, help should be available when needed. Not handouts. Vision 2020 my ass...
Highlighting the bullshit in our governance is the right of any citizen. Certainly, no one does it quite like The Gladiator.
Private citizens stepped up and contributed money, clothes and a temporary place for this family to stay, renewing my faith in the obvious.
The Gladiator served his purpose, at least this morning:
Unknowing hordes of other drivers were spared my Godlike, all encompassing road rage,
Some help was recieved for this family and last but not least,
He upset people in the process.
If upsetting people gets the job done... so be it.
To blatantly plagiarise B.C. Pires, you can email your firetrucking NHA houses to me at nhasucks@tt_no_help.com
1 comment:
you forgot "walking vomit".
It's Welch though.
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