Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Be a Saint Lucian for Change

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

As an outsider (Brit) with a lot of love for st lucia I think a little more humility in the political class would go a long way. Often I see lucians running themselves down and I tell them to lift their heads high. You have the sun, sea with fish in, fertile land. this is actually a lot more than some countries. More than enough to build an economy if managed properly.

you'll never have the money for a western lifestyle but it isn't something to aspire to. The fact is, UK and the western powers have no money because of massive government programs which they can't afford. It's just waiting to topple.

With a decent education system and modest expectations then everyone should be able to have a decent standard of living.

The citizens also give their votes too easily to politicians promising things which, if properly analysed, can never be delivered. No government can conjure up jobs and money, it's impossible, but you seem to fall for it everytime then end up so disappointed. Be suspicious of those who claim to have all the answers.

Best wishes to all lucians for Independence.

February 18, 2014 at 11:38 AM
Anonymous said...

You analyzed it very well @ 11:38 am. All we have is fertile land so let's use it productively. Plant a seed no matter how small the plot. The seed planted brings new hope. One has to do something to get hope and results.

February 18, 2014 at 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...

Most Saint Lucians are happy to be fed crumbs from political platforms. Those poor things! They swallow everything like guppies. They seem to have sawdust for brains.

February 18, 2014 at 3:18 PM
Anonymous said...

Did you say the Sea with fish in it with no price tag attached?
Fertile Land to plant seed in?
You see my friend, that's what I, who have lived most of my life away from St. Lucia, have been beating my head against a Brick wall, trying to get it into people's heads, but no one listens.

The politicians have put it into the minds of the simple ones, "vote for me and miracles will happen".
Lets add to that, a tendency to be 'lazy' Party all the time, live on credit, big cars, too many girlfriends and babies to feed, and the drug habit.

That bubble is about to bust anytime and I fear for a major revolt. I have given up preaching to my young relatives back home and I've told them, no more handouts, so get up and get; sorry, no more Mr.Nice guy.



February 18, 2014 at 4:09 PM
Unknown said...

Great writings that truly exalt us to carry on, take the bull by the horn, up and at 'em, try and try you will succeed at last, dust off and get back in the saddle; are like cool waters running in a deep verdant valley. They quench our parched crusted palate with moist soothing optimism enough to bridle untapped stamina; for a resurgence of effort in the quest for potential opportunities.

The test of the elixir within said writing is its setting-amidst the swirl of doom and gloom. These optimistic writers are like the spontaneous sunny and calm vistas created by the eye of a hurricane.
Their thematic lineage can be read in the olive branch speeches of the late King Hussein of Jordan as he negotiated peace in a most volatile region –that many predict to be the site of Armageddon.

These optimistic writers also share the theme of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address=if ever there was a site of political-economic and sociological carnage. The added insult for that gloom and doom found families divided by uniform and killing fields.

We find optimism in Kennedy’s writing’s as he rebuked the gloom and doom of the cold war era by deploying the Peace Corps and sharing agricultural surplus with the world.

WE hear and feel it in the riveting speeches of Dr.MLKing amidst the barren, desolate urban centers teeming with the down trodden shouldering economic despair. A significant segment were driven to near and partial anarchy fueled by unfair if not punitive laws (written and unwritten and other sociological atrocities in pockets of former confederate states.
Thankfully, the vast majority was touched by the optimism of his writings and rewarded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The strong thread that connects the quilted sections of these optimistic writers is change. Mr. Bishop encourages us to internalize / become the instrument of change. Positive change is always a winning ingredient in the recipes of success n'est pas?

Optimism energizes empowerment as in I can do this. Milking’s optimism led to increased enrollment in all levels /types of education/ job training and other steps towards economic empowerment.

Positive change can be as simple as rethinking “what can I do to make my circumstances better “instead of passively expecting government to make the change for me? Change in thinking motivates proactive efforts to overcome the hurdles that impede our progress.

Change also means taking stock of where I am , what sacrifices I need to make and putting them into effect “so that we act like each tomorrow will find us further (forward) than today” (Longfellow-Psalm of life)

“Forward ever and backward never!” (Jacob Miller-reggae song writer-

"You can get it if you really want-but yoiu must try try and try you will succeed at last" (Jimmy Cliff-Grammy award winner)







February 19, 2014 at 12:58 AM
Unknown said...

The following poem had a rhymed set of stanzas and made for serious recital at Boy’s School (vintage?  ) Any who I wish to share it in light of the theme authored by Mr. Bishop.

A Psalm of Life By H.W. Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

February 19, 2014 at 1:48 AM
Anonymous said...

Good managers manage both chaos and the status quo -- adroitly. Leaders manage change.

Change however, comes with leaders, and not just with our repeated selection of simply managers of our current dysfunctional status quo.

If we remain moored to our past behaviour of not electing real leaders and just pretenders as the politicians, who make clever political noises about managing our current dysfunctional institutions, we may well continue to celebrate on end, our post-independence years, all singing and dancing ritually, every February, and without ever marking any significant positive national advancement towards sustainability or economic independence.

Change demands a vision.

What quite obviously has been lost on most of our bright-eyed and bushy-tailed commentators, as we go through yet another year of largely nominal independence, is that such actions as repairs to roads and bridges, while fine in themselves, simply represent a maintenance of the status quo.

Such repairs do not in themselves and in any way, mark any genuine societal progress in our most critical areas of sustainability and economic independence.

Even when done properly, we are set right back to a place and time where we were, before the unsuspecting but mostly self-inflicted leadership onslaughts by continuous social, political and economic damage.

Witness the squandamania, the debt, financial waste, and recently, the ministerial malfeasance in the public sector.

If therefore, those infrastructural developments, for example did not make a significant dent in our quality of life, or national welfare with respect to sustainable economic independence in the past, it is today very unlikely that national budgetary expenditures or outlays on returning them to their state, say as in the pre-Tomas years, will not amount to anything but simply a return to the status quo ante.

On a less sombre note, it's a national holiday. It represents a much-needed respite from the grinding poverty associated with the deprivations of need that pervade households in an uncomfortably large segment of our population.

(Instead of only seeking after the rights of known criminals, one would hope that our human rights activist lawyers would also seek to represent the common man by securing the right of every child born in this country, to grow up to be the best that she or he can be, by not having to suffer from arrested development because of mal-nourishment, or the working poor, their basic needs going unmet.)

To the chagrin of some observers, the holiday serves mainly as a celebration of the characteristic poverty of leadership that pervades almost all of our major national institutions, political and otherwise, where the holders of titles that presume leadership, reveal in reality, a persistent cultural vacuum of national leadership, in addition to the very unsettling ramifications of its absence.

As a nation, we have yet to discover that someone will not divide us. We have yet to savour the benefits that emerge with a national leader, meaning, not one who gets the majority of the votes, but one where an overwhelming majority of both the voting and non-voting public rally behind his or her vision. It's a vision thing.

February 19, 2014 at 2:09 PM
Unknown said...

Wow!"shiver me timbers" That was quite a gauntlet and javelin thrown in ON TARGET for accurate measure (@ 2:09).

Got to heave to port, get out of the the way of sloops and trawlers to digest this very sobering analysis. Dessert seems to be out of the question. This astute writer has me synthesizing a la MOOG, as I recall a crescendo that riffed aside the 7 mile beach of Grand Cayman.

What was in that Cayman cultural chord structure that I longed to hear about as part of the St.Lucia vibe. Quite simply, everyone you interact with -as a paying customer treats the encounter in an ambiance of hospitality that subliminally reminds you to come back -be a repeat customer.

I was first made aware of the importance of the repeat / returning customer by an older relative who offered his own treatise on the wide availability of Chinese restaurants in every neighborhood in Brooklyn. His explanation was that the Chinese owner /workers will put in 12 or more hour shifts- (far more than the other resident cultural groups),limit their net profits in the interim while banking on the larger gross profits over the long haul- via repeat customers. They seemed focused on regular high volume of customers rather than a quick profit in the interim.

So the Cayman Islands who depend on a Tourism product, show lots of hustle as in work ethic (not shakedown). The current profile of a tourist is far more savvy & discerning than the carefree with loads of disposal income types of yesteryear. Most sift through Lonely Planet and similar travel blogs to gauge the risk /cost factors-before their reservations are sealed. Bad customer reviews are posted in nano seconds of a negative event- available instantly to potential customers- worldwide! .

Even the Florida Keys are putting out Tourism ads that could easily be mistaken for a Caribbean Island marketing project. The barely subtropical cutting into the Caribbean travel pie at the high noon of shrinking markets.

Helen's hospitality industry needs to find ways to distance itself from the "shake-down" that takes place on the periphery of its major establishments. The importance of repeat customers is most vital to an industry that depends on the whims of disposal income of their potential customers.

The petty indiscretions that tourists may tolerate at home seem grossly appalling to them when the same set of circumstances are played out in the setting of their "dream vacation". Moreover, they have budgeted for it within their own compressed national economies.

After all we sold them the glossies of "carefree -laid back paradise". We can get so much more profit(repeat customer)if we nurture if not cater to their idyllic expectations or vacation dreamscape?

In closing and in homage to the columns mandate for CHANGE, may I share this rootsie-tootsie reverberations popularized by the Paragons, John Holt and Dennis Brown. The Paragons version is a mix master's DUB matrix,oui!

Hooligans, hooligans stop for a while
Change your hooligan style
Don't fight your brothers
You must use your head
Give a helping hand instead

Ooh what a great sensation
When love is in your soul
Spread it across the nation
Hooliganism is cold
Let only love fill your soul
Fill up your soul

What a man gain by doing wrong
Only letting down mankind
Check on yourself if you're doing alright
Forget about your pride




February 19, 2014 at 6:40 PM
Unknown said...

Wow!"shiver me timbers" That was quite a gauntlet and javelin thrown in ON TARGET for accurate measure (@ 2:09).

Got to heave to port, get out of the the way of sloops and trawlers to digest this very sobering analysis. Dessert seems to be out of the question. This astute writer has me synthesizing a la MOOG, as I recall a crescendo that riffed aside the 7 mile beach of Grand Cayman.

What was in that Cayman cultural chord structure that I longed to hear about as part of the St.Lucia vibe. Quite simply, everyone you interact with -as a paying customer treats the encounter in an ambiance of hospitality that subliminally reminds you to come back -be a repeat customer.

I was first made aware of the importance of the repeat / returning customer by an older relative who offered his own treatise on the wide availability of Chinese restaurants in every neighborhood in Brooklyn. His explanation was that the Chinese owner /workers will put in 12 or more hour shifts- (far more than the other resident cultural groups),limit their net profits in the interim while banking on the larger gross profits over the long haul- via repeat customers. They seemed focused on regular high volume of customers rather than a quick profit in the interim.

So the Cayman Islands who depend on a Tourism product, show lots of hustle as in work ethic (not shakedown). The current profile of a tourist is far more savvy & discerning than the carefree with loads of disposal income types of yesteryear. Most sift through Lonely Planet and similar travel blogs to gauge the risk /cost factors-before their reservations are sealed. Bad customer reviews are posted in nano seconds of a negative event- available instantly to potential customers- worldwide! .

Even the Florida Keys are putting out Tourism ads that could easily be mistaken for a Caribbean Island marketing project. The barely subtropical cutting into the Caribbean travel pie at the high noon of shrinking markets.

Helen's hospitality industry needs to find ways to distance itself from the "shake-down" that takes place on the periphery of its major establishments. The importance of repeat customers is most vital to an industry that depends on the whims of disposal income of their potential customers.

The petty indiscretions that tourists may tolerate at home seem grossly appalling to them when the same set of circumstances are played out in the setting of their "dream vacation". Moreover, they have budgeted for it within their own compressed national economies.

After all we sold them the glossies of "carefree -laid back paradise". We can get so much more profit(repeat customer)if we nurture if not cater to their idyllic expectations or vacation dreamscape?

In closing and in homage to the columns mandate for CHANGE, may I share this rootsie-tootsie reverberations popularized by the Paragons, John Holt and Dennis Brown. The Paragons version is a mix master's DUB matrix,oui!

Hooligans, hooligans stop for a while
Change your hooligan style
Don't fight your brothers
You must use your head
Give a helping hand instead

Ooh what a great sensation
When love is in your soul
Spread it across the nation
Hooliganism is cold
Let only love fill your soul
Fill up your soul

What a man gain by doing wrong
Only letting down mankind
Check on yourself if you're doing alright
Forget about your pride




February 19, 2014 at 6:51 PM

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