THE EDITOR: The people’s Parliament is to be shunted to a new home and the Magistracy is to move out of its brand new quarters it has not yet occupied, all because the experts say there isn’t room enough in the Red House lodgings. After hearing, at the Piarco enquiry, so much about the frailties of “experts”, we claim patients’ privilege of a second opinion. What do the Permanent Secretaries say, the TT Institute of Architects, the Association of Professional Engineers, the Joint Committee of Parliament, the Judiciary? I am not implying that the experts who made the recommendation are incompetent or dishonest. The bald fact is that we are not happy with the move: the Red House is rich with our history of Government, a building of distinctive architecture deeply embedded in our consciousness as synonymous with Parliament.

Should the second opinion confirm that space is inadequate our options may include the following: Firstly: adapting building and uses to needs by (i) modifying size of rooms but making partitions harmonious with the original designs yet flexible enough for future modifications. (ii) clearing out from the Red House every group not totally part of Parliament and its essential functions. Should further elimination be necessary, those further away from the centre of its needs may be accommodated in the renovated Old Police Headquarters across the street. At least they should be well protected there; I don’t see a recurrence of 1990. (iii) adding two storeys on the St Vincent Street side, an extension that should maintain the design characteristics of the main building. Secondly: finding an appropriate site potentially usable at reasonable cost. Incidentally, it seems wasteful and unfair to provide generally decent facilities for the Magistracy then taking them away (any cattle boils?) and, worse yet, holding no prior consultation with the Judiciary. Can Government easily answer the charge of being insensitive, autocratic, arrogant?

Our Spanish heritage gives us the charming tradition of plazas or squares in the total picturesque environment of our municipal and government buildings. The proposed site doesn’t fit. But there are other sites that do: the north, east or west of Lord Harris Square and Adam Smith Square. The northern side of Tamarind Square is not to be ignored: it may help to make our leaders more conscious of their main function to provide for all the people, especially the disadvantaged. Appropriately, the original role of Kings in the Old Testament was not to rule but to protect the poor. The final cost of acquiring a new site, providing for displaced government facilities in this prime real estate area and erecting the new building is likely to be astronomical. Is it necessary? Aren’t there higher priorities like a National Parenting and Counselling Programme, reduction in the size of classes at all levels in the school system, rapid increase in computer education in schools, a residential rehabilitation centre for vagrants, quality training at all levels in the Public Services (including lower and upper management), improved facilities and incentives for the arts, improving and maintaining roads in agricultural areas, improving our forest protection and drainage efforts, exterminating poverty by developing skills and facilities for ‘fishing’ rather than by doling out massive quantities of ‘fish’. I must stop here; needs are too numerous for one letter. But the money hasn’t come in yet. If it does, can’t we fit in first the needs of our children and our people, and the rebuilding of a middle class, a most important stabilising factor in a nation?

VAN  STEWART
Diego Martin

THE EDITOR: Please grant me a space in your paper to state some of the facts or problems we have been facing in Cedros for the past twelve to fifteen years. To be honest since I left the Cedros Government School there have been no sports or no sporting facility to keep the youths active – what was once a pavilion is now a “weed” house for juvenile delinquents. Please I am pleading to the authority to address us. We are in need of help. It seems that the Minister of Sports as well as the other Ministers do not care about what is taking place in Cedros. As the saying goes Cedros is behind God’s back. I guess the Ministers are practising that saying.

I have lived in Cedros for the past eighteen and a half years, and from what I have observed, is that there are a lot of young talented and good athletes living in Cedros. And due to the fact that we are not getting introduced to the rest of the country we are forced to give up our ability as well as our liking. Therefore we have no other choice but to pick up bathing on the beach for a hobby since that’s what really left of Cedros, the beach for us to play. Despite the non-existence of any sporting facility the youths are still making the best of what they have, for eg, night cricket is going on at present and I am sure there would be no football competition due to the fact that the recreation grounds are in a deteriorating state. Other than that there isn’t any other sports being played. I can go on and on, but I guess I would not make the Government look or feel bad.

AYANA CADETTE
Concerned Teenager
Cedros

THE EDITOR: If anyone observed the articles that I have written to the editor in the past, they would have noticed that, not only are they few, but they are also far between — and most importantly, my writings are centered around specific areas of national life eg crime, poverty and the excuse that passes for leaders in this country.

Of late, because of the latter, I have had to put pen to paper much more frequently than I would care to do! In the news recently, someone — I wish not to mention his name because of the disdain with which I regard him, stood in our national parliament chamber and warned: “I don’t threaten anybody, I am telling you that your security cannot be guaranteed.” The gentleman ended by saying to a government minister “you will be the first one we’ll deal with.” And we wonder why our youths are so violent, delinquent and crime-oriented? Need we look further?

The general decline in the moral fabric of our society did not just occur yesterday, it started a very long time ago, and the people in this country contribute to this decline by electing these characters to represent us. I would like to advise the goodly gentleman that he is flirting with danger – the price of which, I am certain he is not prepared to pay. Need I remind you of how easy it was for some to fly to Grenada when trouble began? A word to the wise is sufficient!

GARNET JESSOP
San Juan

THE EDITOR: I wish to congratulate Fr Ian Taylor, Roman Catholic priest of Moruga for the bold and decisive instruction given to the catholic community to abandon Carnival (Newsday 25/2/2002).

It will be most encouraging if other church leaders can do likewise. I have always wondered why church-goers (I didn’t say Christians) and particularly those of the catholic church participate in such unspiritual activities. No one in the church has stood up before and dealt with the situation in such a stringent manner like Fr Taylor. Is it because some of them in authority are involved in the ecstasy that prevails? Would Jesus have been on the streets at Carnival time? Church-goers revelling in Carnival activities have been described in scripture as men becoming lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God. How can someone profess to love God, be an example to others, propagate the righteousness of God, attends church with humility and piousness and participate in the jamboree? The catholic church once respected as a mighty force of Almighty God is now being looked at as an elephant beaten by a dinosaur and people like Fr Taylor and others can be the ones to heal the wounds.

It is about time somebody takes a stand before the cankerworm eats away at the heart of the church. There is still hope for the church. Miracles are wrought under the hands of a group of catholic brethren who visit the Mon Repos church from time to time. The church has serious spiritual people who are pressing the battle on. I am almost certain Fr Taylor will not find favour with many church-goers, not only from the catholic church, but other denominations who are guilty. Fr Taylor has stood out like Elisha in the test of faith among the heathen gods. Listen to him. Press on Fr Taylor there are many Christians standing at your side.

BR MELLY
Port-of-Spain

THE EDITOR: The presence of one of the most conservative anti-choice organisations in our country should be more than enough of a cause for us to wake-up. It is time to open our eyes. That group is from Virginia in the United States. Sharing its ultra-conservative ideology, late last year, the US attempted to block the proposal of the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children for education to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Which other countries voted with the US, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria?

In the Caribbean, half the persons with HIV/AIDS are women. Worse, for every one teenage boy with HIV there are three or four teenage girls with the infection. Our women are more vulnerable. If that alliance of countries is not a sufficient wake up call I do not know what else we need to jerk us out of our lethargy. As a democracy we should not be scared of other voices. But as a democracy we have a duty to take a stand. We all know the truth of ASPIRE’s messages, Yet we remain silent. Why?

  V  GEORGE
Sangre Grande

The Editor: I have no problem with women wanting to play mas in a bikini with beads and paint and feathers or whatever on their heads. This is a democracy and everyone apparently has the right to dress or undress to suit themselves. But don’t insult my intelligence by talking to me about “design”. On Tuesday afternoon I was watching TTT when the band Poison crossed the stage. Everyone was having “a ball” as the commentator kept reminding us.

Good for them I thought as section after section flew past the cameras in their bikinis. What amazed me, however, was the spokesperson of the band who kept repeating that “this section was designed by Miss A or the next section was designed by Mr B”. What absolute nonsense.  There was no design of any kind in the band. None whatsoever. Every section was identical except for colour or an additional feather here or more beads there. I cringed when I watched a section with large red feathers sticking out of people’s heads and heard this woman state without the least embarrassment that the section was “Cockcomb”. Who could guess? Not me. How great it would be so see a really designed “cockcomb” as a headpiece!

As I stated earlier I have no problem whatsoever with people playing their mas in the nude if that is what Carnival means to them, but don’t insult my intelligence by telling me who “designed” the sections all of which were the same boring stuff. The same could easily apply to almost all the bands that paraded at the Savannah on Tuesday except that unlike Poison they knew better than to take the TTT microphone and tell us such rubbish about who “designed” what. Oh for some good Carnival designs!

J L Martin
Maracas Valley

THE EDITOR: The carnival festivities and the Ash Wednesday “cool downs” and other activities in various venues which continue after ‘we cultural holidays’ have convinced me that Trinidad has become a hedonistic country.

Hedonism according to the Oxford Dictionary is: the belief in pleasure as the highest good and mankind’s proper aim; and that is what we have become. What a pity. This has been brought on by the greed to make money thanks to the media, advertising agencies all the rest who make money out of feting and partying and are laughing all the way to the bank. Is better we just forget about Lent!

B  SANDY
Maraval

THE EDITOR:
The book is spent.
And, now, an Eternal Lent
To confront the navel string
To rise again, from this thing.

Our land is our History book
Glad to have had more than a look
Ancestral footsteps did toil
Never ponder a victory and the spoil

The light is night
The might, all that was right
And twinkle, twinkle little star
We have to wonder what you are.

O, land of glory
We have to worry
When all the power of our brain
Had to go down the drain!

RICHARD DINDIAL
Cunupia