For the past ten days my brother C*POP and my almost-brother Walt have been following Trinidad and Tobago recording artists Maximus Dan, Jah Melody and Marlon Asher as the three tour various cities in Europe. C*POP and Walt have been sending frequent updates, photos and videos which they’ve been posting at the Beach House Entertainment Facebook page. This video, the fourth in the series, is

a montage of scenes of the T&T Entertainment Co contingent leaving Berlin, arriving in Oslo, the June 3 show The Source Club in Oslo featuring Marlon Asher and Jah Melody, and the deejays who rushed to record dubplates with the two artists the day after

I also think it’s the best of the series yet. See the complete set of Europe tour videos here.

While Trinidad and Tobago’s press freedom record pales in comparison with that of many of the countries which feature regularly in GVA’s pages, recent events in this country suggest that we shouldn’t be taking this freedom for granted. In November of last year, the Hon. Patrick Manning, prime minister of this nation, paid a visit to a radio station that resulted in the suspension of two commentators who had said things on air he didn’t like. And yesterday the news broke that Kevin Baldeosingh, a columnist at the Newsday, one of the country’s three dailies, was dismissed from his job at the paper, allegedly on account of a letter, published in the Trinidad Express on May 7, in which he exposed a Catholic priest as a plagiarist. A Catholic priest, moreover, who had just been appointed by the President to lead the Trinidad and Tobago’s Integrity Commission.

That the priest in question admitted his sins and stepped down (recalling, in the process, that the church’s Canon Law would have prohibited him from accepting the position anyway) thereby validating Baldeosingh’s claims, appears to be immaterial to the powers (Newsday alone? Newsday egged on by other parties? Who?) who are now attempting to silence him. The more important point, however, is that Baldeosingh was dismissed from his job for doing—regardless of where he happened to be doing it—what journalists are supposed to do, i.e. investigate a matter of public interest and present the information to the public. I imagine that Baldeosingh would have preferred to publish the information in his own paper and earn money in the process, rather than in a rival publication’s Letters to the Editor section; I also imagine that there must be a good reason he did not do so.

There are numerous writings on freedom of expressions from which I could insert an excerpt here, but I’ll quote from the one I happen to be engaged with at the moment—Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word, portions of which I’ve been receiving in installments from the ingenious DailyLit, yet another one of my daily obstacles to personal productivity that nevertheless enrich my life. This is from the essay by Toni Morrison, who is also the book’s editor, though the emphasis is mine:

We all know nations that can be identified by the flight of writers from their shores. These are regimes whose fear of unmonitored writing is justified because truth is trouble. It is trouble for the warmonger, the torturer, the corporate thief, the political hack, the corrupt justice system, and for a comatose public. Unpersecuted, unjailed, unharassed writers are trouble for the ignorant bully, the sly racist, and the predators feeding off the world’s resources. The alarm, the disquiet, writers raise is instructive because it is open and vulnerable, because if unpoliced it is threatening. Therefore the historical suppression of writers is the earliest harbinger of the steady peeling away of additional rights and liberties that will follow.

And now for the obligatory line, as per Solana’s post: I vote for Global Voices Advocacy, because freedom of expression, online and elsewhere, is a right that we often value insufficiently until it’s taken away from us.

Write your own post supporting Global Voices Advocacy (or your charity of choice) by following the instructions at http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/.

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” (http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/) campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about. 
 

Image taken with my iPhone of the traffic on the highway leading into Diego Martin, Trinidad on May 1, 2009 (this evening). The overpass referred to in the photo’s title is a fancy new interchange officially opened today at the intersection of the Churchill Roosevelt and Uriah Butler Highways just outside of Port of Spain. The new overpass is supposed to alleviate the age-old traffic flow problem between east and south Trinidad and Port of Spain.

(The LolCats phenomenon does not appear to have captured the Trinidadian imagination, so those confused by the odd spelling in the title and graphic may wish to visit icanhazcheeseburger.com/)

But if it’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that the path of least resistance is usually where it’s at. I’ve never seen myself as the diarist sort of blogger, but as my main preoccupations these days are very close to home, here goes: below is the latest of the renovation photos from the “Don’t try this at home” photoset, accompanied by a fairly substantial caption.

Mixing cement, along with pumping gas at the gas station and filling a brown-paper bag with loose flour or sugar and neatly folding the top, was one of the activities that fascinated me as a child.

I can now vouch for the overrratedness of gas-pumping, and wrapping thousands of presents over the years has erased a good part of the wonder involved in folding paper of any kind (maybe I should take up origami?). But I'm yet to mix cement, though it's an activity that takes place almost every day around my house these days.

I was lucky to have checked on the goings-on in the back yard just as Ronald had finished carting several wheelbarrowloads of gravel there in preparation for a marathon round of cement-mixing, and found these neat peaks resembling a mountain range in a child's drawing.

Global citizen news platform GroundReport.com is looking for Trinidadian bloggers and digital journalists to attend the upcoming Summit of the Americas and provide digital coverage from a local, insider perspective. GroundReport is interested in all formats of digital media coverage, including video, text and photos. This position is unpaid but will include press credentials, publication on GroundReport, and potential wider syndication, under your name, to larger media outlets. Share your voice with the world to show the Trinidadian experience of the Summit of the Americas.

To apply, please send an email describing your interest and credentials to info@groundreport.com titled ‘Summit of the Americas’. Include links to your previous work/blogs and a resume or CV if available.

If selected, you will be required to post 2 items per day on the event to GroundReport.com. Publications can be in English, Spanish, French or other local languages.

Had I not left Trinidad yesterday to attend the We Media Miami conference, I would have been prancing in the streets dressed as a cow, as these beautiful images by Nikipedia demonstrate. Ah well.

Episode #6 arrives a day late courtesy of the carnival week frenzy, which is not to say the show is without substance. Au contraire: in the final episode in the cut+clear carnival 2009 series, the members of 3canal and I visit with photographer, carnival connoisseur and Belmont native Jeffrey Chock at his home on Clifford Street for a chat about the carnival of yesteryear, the philosophical underpinnings of the changes taking place in today’s version of the festival, and—naturally—the experience of photographing one of the world’s most visually spectacular events.

This week’s 3canal track: “Paradise” remixed by Keshav Chandradath Singh

LINKS

Trust the cut+clear carnival podcast’s most freewheeling and raucous show to date to be the one featuring women (it’s also the first CFR episode to feature explicit language!). In episode #5 the members of 3canal and I sit down backstage at Queen’s Hall with Cecilia Salazar, Dionne McNicol and Elisha Bartels, three key members of the 3canal Show, and discuss matters ranging from performing while pregnant to the banning of songs featuring “daggerin’” from the Jamaican airwaves. We also remember the late, great John Isaacs, the fourth member of 3canal, on the ninth anniversary of his passing.

Previews of this year’s edition of the 3canal Show begin on Thursday 12 February, 2009 at Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain, Trinidad. The full run begins on Monday 16 February.

This week’s 3canal track: “Where Do We Go From Here” from the album “Joy+Fire”

LINKS

Roger Roberts, Glendon Morris, Stanton Kewley and Wendell Manwarren with part of a bee costume at the Belmont Jewels mas' camp, Belmont, Trinidad

cut+clear carnival episode #4 takes us to Belmont, a community rich in carnival history, where we visit with Glendon Morris at the Belmont Jewels mas’ camp for a chat about the ups and downs of making traditional, hand-crafted mas’ in an age of mass production, the allure of playing fancy sailor and working with his late father, the legendary master metal craftsman, designer and bandleader, Ken Morris.

Belmont Jewels mas' camp, Belmont Trinidad

Wendell Manwarren, Glendon Morris, Stanton Kewley and Roger Roberts at the Belmont Jewels mas' camp, Belmont, Trinidad

The countries of the English-speaking Caribbean are hardly the United States’ most challenging interlocutors, especially when compared with the Middle East, China, the former Soviet Union, Cuba or the country that lies just a few miles west of where I sit writing this (Venezuela, in case you’re wondering). But our relationship with the the US isn’t a simple one, as any Caribbean national who’s ever applied for a visa knows only too well.

That our gaze wanders so easily and longingly northward; that our countries are commonly considered transshipment points for drugs; that deportees from US prisons are contributing to the increase in our crime rates; that most of Trinidad and Tobago’s natural gas is purchased by the US; that Venezuela lies across the water just a few valleys west of where I sit writing this; that I can write this, then publish it instantly to the internet: all of this makes us important to the US in the way that small, unimportant places can be. “Important”, meaning, of course, “strategic”.

Because small and strategic is not an unproblematic combination, an event taking place on Tuesday 3 February, 2009 (tomorrow, in this part of the world) in Washington D.C. should be of interest to many of us in the Caribbean (not that anything in the programme is specific to us–but we’re used to that). The event is called Media as Global Diplomat, and it’s designed around the premise that

We are in a disruptive period in media, the result of an explosion in digital distribution, social networking, and user generated content. And with disruption comes opportunity. This summit, moderated by Ted Koppel and entitled Media as Global Diplomat, is a forum to ask key public and private sector leaders how the United States can best use media to reinvigorate its public diplomacy strategy and international influence in order to strengthen efforts to build a more peaceful world.

The event is also a response to the Obama administration’s promise to distinguish itself from its predecessor by taking a different approach to public diplomacy, one focused on listening instead lecturing.

How to participate? I won’t be physically present at the event, of course, but my Global Voices colleagues Ivan Sigal and Rebecca MacKinnon will, and I’ll be tuning in to the live webcast and chat which Ivan will be moderating and parsing for questions and comments to be passed on to Ted Koppel.

Rebecca will be liveblogging at http://rconversation.blogs.com/, which, given her fierce intelligence, outspokenness and sharp wit, not to mention her skepticism about the event’s actual goals, is bound be both informative and entertaining. “It’s unclear to me,” Rebecca says, “whether they really just want to explore how to use digital media to get the world to like the U.S. better – or whether they’re truly open to a paradigm shift: moving from broadcast “messaging” mode to conversation mode, in which the U.S. would be listening and learning as much as informing others.”

Rebecca also notes the dearth of new media vibe on the program “…my initial reaction is that the only panelists who might be considered “new media” people are Google’s Andrew McLaughlin and Mika Salmi of MTV’s Digital Networks. And they work for huge Internet and media companies. No citizen media or grassroots voices are speaking on the panels at all. Lots of “old media” and/or establishment foreign policy elites. Will there really be any new ideas coming from this crowd? Hard to know. Maybe you can help thorough your remote participation?”

Maybe you can. Let’s get some Caribbean spirit into that chat room. Visit this page for the event schedule, and the live chat will be taking place here. See you online tomorrow!

In cut+clear carnival episode #3 we visit veteran producer and steel orchestra arranger, Pelham Goddard, at his home in St. James for a chat about the evolution of music for steel orchestras and 3canal’s foray into the steel band arena with Pelham and the Exodus Steel Orchestra. In addition, Wendell treats us to a series of audio vignettes explaining certain aspects of the steel band scene in Trinidad and Tobago.

This week’s 3canal track: “Festival Time”

LINKS

On episode #2 of the cut+clear carnival podcast 3canal and I chat with Curtis “C*POP” Popplewell and Walt Lovelace, the men behind the Beach House Carnival fête and some of the country’s most original music video work.

Tune in to hear Curtis and Walt hold forth on why they prefer not to be referred to as fête promoters and the state of music video production in the country.

This week’s 3canal track: “Joy+Fire”, from the album of the same name.

LINKS

I’ll be heading down to cut+clear productions shortly to record episode #2 of the cut+clear carnival podcast w/ 3canal. Today’s special guests: C*POP and Walt Lovelace. The show will be released tomorrow.

And above, photos from last night’s launch of 3canal’s carnival presentations at Queen’s Hall. That includes their 2009 release, JOY+FIRE, which, for a limited time, can be downloaded for FREE at http://www.trinidadtunes.com.

For the 2009 carnival season I’ve teamed up with 3canal to produce a series of down and dirty (dutty?) podcasts called cut+clear carnival. We’re keeping it deliberately simple and free-flowing: the plan is for us to meet on Mondays, riff for 15 or so minutes on things carnival-related, preferably with a guest, then have the show edited and uploaded by Tuesday.

In this pilot episode Roger Roberts and Wendell Manwarren of 3canal shoot the breeze with MPC wizard Keshav Chandradath Singh of the cut+clear crew and Canboulay.

See you at the launch of 3canal’s 2009 release, Joy+Fire, on Sunday 19 January at 6pm at the Queen’s Hall Courtyard, Port of Spain, Trinidad!

3canal’s web site
3canal at Trinidadtunes.com
3canal on iTunes
3canal on Facebook
3canal on Twitter

Nearly four years later, CFR finally hits the half-century. For show #50 I return to the place where it all began—cut+clear productions, headquarters of CFR’s “house band”, 3canal, for a leisurely chat with Wendell, Roger and Stanton about “Boom Up History“, the music track they’re giving away for free on Trinidadtunes.com, life on the road and the making of Joy + Fire, their 2009 release.

And here’s the Boom Up History video, filmed and directed by Walt Lovelace.

Boom Up History from 3canal on Vimeo (Director: Walt Lovelace)

As many of you know, I’ve been involved with Global Voices since 2005, and now work for the organisation full-time. At the beginning of the year we left the safety of our birthplace, the Berkman Center at Harvard University, and struck out on our own as an independent nonprofit. We’ve done some astounding work this year, reporting on and aggregating citizen media coverage of events like the Mumbai attacks and World AIDS Day. Our Outreach section has helped scores of people in communities throughout the world gain access to citizen media skills that we hope they’ll pass on to hundreds more, while Global Voices Advocacy has worked tirelessly on issues around online freedom of speech. And we’re now translating our content into 21 languages. Our Caribbean coverage has grown as well, thanks to the efforts of editor Janine Mendes-Franco, whose team now includes authors from the French Caribbean and Jamaica.

As ‘08 draws to a close, however, we, like every other organisation in the world, find ourselves working hard to secure the funding that will ensure our future ability to do the job of amplifying stories and images from ordinary people across the globe who use the internet to communicate with their fellow world citizens.

So if you believe in our mission and would like to help promote the diversity of voices and points of view that citizen media makes possible, please consider supporting Global Voices with a financial donation. And even if you can’t, then do help us spread the word by flying one of our adorable badges (or one of our more serious ones).

Happy holidays!

It was only after reading the comment Renata left at Flickr that it occurred to me to look into the science behind why I felt compelled to take a photo of the full moon last night: at this time of year (though more so in October) the moon is at its perigee, or closest approach to earth, and therefore appears larger and brighter.

J9 will probably also be wondering if this photo was taken with her 18-250mm lens, which I took for a test run yesterday. She’ll be happy to know it was.

It’s been a while since I posted something from the family photo archives. An aunt in Canada recently sent my mother this 1953 photo take at the annual car rally held on or around its eponymous saint’s feast day (July 25) by the St. Christopher’s Anglican Church in Siparia, Trinidad. My mother recalls that the event was also called the Travellers’ Rally, and included among its activities a parking competition.

I found references to the St. Christopher’s Rally on web sites like the Trinidad and Tobago Rally Club’s (TTRC) now defunct blog, which refers to it as the St. Christopher’s Rally and Treasure Hunt. According to the TTRC blog, the event—”one of the oldest ralles in Trinidad”—was re-introduced in 2006 “after a long absence on the TTRC calendar”. It was held on July 30 of that year, began at the Gulf City North Car Park in La Romain and ended at the church in Siparia. The Zorce racing magazine forum has a reference to a 2007 edition taking place on July 29. Anyone know whether there was a 2008 edition?

I’m not much of a car enthusiast, but I do like the idea of road rallies with their emphasis on navigation and teamwork. Even more appealing to me is the idea of a parking competition, though I have a hunch that that part of the event is a thing of the past, rather like the photo above.

“So long as we can call (sic) get fired, Radio will never be free.”

So went the anonymous e-mail message I received last night. Did the sender of this message so desperately need to vent his/her feelings about Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s visit to radio station 94.1 FM that any Trinidad and Tobago-identified entity with the word “radio” in its name sufficed as a target? Or could it be that he/she thinks CFR is a radio station? Or perhaps a warning that I should expect a visit from the PM some time soon?

I’m also wondering what, apart from temporary stress-relief, this person expected to achieve by sending me the message, and, moreover, in a manner (ie via anonymous remailer) that did not permit me to respond, or, even better, enter into dialogue with him/her. Unless he knew I would write this blog post, which, given my recent record, would be way against the odds.

But I agree that the day a Prime Minister pays a visit to a media company that results–either directly or indirectly–in two people being suspended from their jobs, is a sombre day indeed for those who work in what has come to be known as the mainstream media. And when that same Prime Minister declares, in a post-Cabinet news conference, that he was well within his rights to visit the radio station, denies any connection between his visit to the station and the suspension of the employees, announces his intention to sue the TNT Mirror for their report on the incident, asserts his right to “sue any media house whose reporting aggrieves him” and to “visit any offending media house ‘as the spirit moves [him]‘”, who can blame the citizens of the country for feeling that freedom of expression–indeed, democracy–in Trinidad and Tobago is under serious threat?

For those unfamiliar with the details of the radio station visit, here’s the version of the story circulated by the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT):

MATT received reports of an incident involving Prime Minister Patrick Manning at the Abercromby Street, Port of Spain, offices of Power 102 and 94.1 FM.

The association contacted the station’s Vice-President of Operations O’Brien Haynes, who confirmed the Prime Minister had visited the station on October 25 to express his displeasure at the contents of the station’s 12:25 pm newscast. He described the Prime Minister’s demeanour as calm and cool.

Mr Haynes said the Prime Minister expressed concerns about crosstalk during the newscast on statements he made at Thick Village with regard to the increase in the price of premium gas and drivers converting from diesel to CNG.

The Vice-President said after an internal investigation it was agreed by management at the station that a newscaster and presenter were in breach of programming protocol. Mr Haynes added the employees were suspended.

Perhaps even more offensive than his threats are Mr. Manning’s efforts to shroud the clearly personal reasons for his beef with the media in the sheep’s clothing of officialdom. “Too many of the commentators either in the newspapers or on the radio do not respect our institutions,” he is reported as saying. “It is a question of being disrespectful to institutions and authority and pursuing a course of action that can cause the image of these institutions and individuals to be tarnished in the minds of those in whose interest they are set up to serve. And therefore they can become completely ineffective.”

Which I take to mean that our “institutions” are so feeble as to be rendered ineffective by the fact that the public thinks they’re not doing their job. And of course the reason the public thinks this they’re not doing their job is solely because the media tells them so, not because members of the public have dealings with these institutions and draw conclusions themselves. In addition to the impending suspension of our right to freedom of expression, should I also be bracing myself for the announcement that thoughtcrime has been added to the list of criminal offenses? Now there’s something that would aggrieve me.

People finding themselves in Mr. Manning’s situation are also fond of falling back on the old line about rights not being absolute. “They exist,” he said yesterday, “to the extent that they don’t encroach upon the rights of others, and if my rights are trampled in that process then I too have redress under the law.” Today MATT issued the following press release in response to the comments made by the Prime Minister in yesterday’s post-cabinet meeting, reminding us what those rights are:

Freedom of speech is enshrined in Section 4 of the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago. The Media Association takes this opportunity to remind its members and all members of the population that we have a responsibility and right to comment on the actions of public officials and issues of national importance.

While we agree Mr. Patrick Manning has the same rights as any other citizen, a prime minister has greater power, which should be exercised in the public interest, with due care and responsibility.

MATT notes it is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, a prime minister has taken issue with a media house. Mr. Manning has every right to consult his lawyers whenever he feels aggrieved.

The association notes that in the Privy Council’s 1936 ruling in the Ambard case, Lord Atkin said, “The path of criticism is an open way: the wrongheaded are permitted to err therein.”

With regard to the Prime Minister’s statement that “expecting redress from the media is asking too much,” MATT begs to differ. Individual media houses have mechanisms for dealing with such matters and members of the public are also free to ask the Media Complaints Council to intervene if they are not satisfied.

MATT maintains its position that the Prime Minister’s visit to 94.1fm was inappropriate and unnecessary.

Well done, MATT. But let us keep talking about this. Let us not take this sitting down. Let the media also harness its power to help the citizens of this 46 year-old quasi-democracy internalise the idea that the right to free speech is as precious as the right to wine, and that it is in fact a “gateway” right to other critical rights.

Mr. Manning is also free to visit Caribbean Free Radio at any time the spirit moves him.