Aiding and Abetting the Criminal Element

I received a message via Blackberry Instant Messenger recently that was quite disturbing. I had previously spoken about this application concerning matters of the heart. Now I want to address matters relating to crime. It has become popular now for people to send broadcasts messages via BBIM. These messages range from stolen items to fete and club promotions to protest on the Beetham. My issue is when the messages involve the activities of the police. The message I received and I quote “Police road block on the bus route by aranguez savanah”. It is a quote so I had to spell Arranguez and Savannah wrong. The average citizen usually does not know the reason for a road block simply because the police do not need to indicate the purpose of a road block. Even if the road block is routine and they are not looking for anybody in particular the point is to catch people who break the law. That is the job of the police which would assist in them achieving their mandate of protecting and serving. Why would you want to alert people of this activity? Is it that we as Trinidadians are friendly with criminals and we want to help them avoid the police?

There are several implications of this activity that we often do not consider. The first is that supposed there is a rapist driving along his merry way. This person has gone undetected for several years, however his insurance happens to be expired. Stopped in the seemingly innocent road block he is apprehended and taken to the station where he is charged and his fingerprints taken. These fingerprints then happen to match a series of rapes in East Trinidad. Would the rapist have been caught if he was alerted to the road block in advance? Now don’t in your mind say this scenario is farfetched because the point is that we should not circulate this type of information as the only people who benefit from this are law breakers. We do not know where this information would end up. We do not know the motives of many of the people around us. The police already have a difficult time staying ahead of criminals who do not have rules, regulations and laws that govern their operations. Please I am begging everybody to be responsible in the information that we disseminate. Once the information leaves us we have no control over where it would end up. Finally people should question the type of friends they have that would benefit from receiving a message of that nature and possible have a chat with the person about their illegal behaviour or distance themselves from the person.

Needless to say the person who sent me the message to me got an earful. Admittedly she was not aware of the implication of transmitting the message. So my friends fix the ME in criME and stop making the work of the police more difficult.

Good Luck SEA Students

Today a little over 17,000 primary school students would be taking the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) Examination. This reminded me of my big day. The amount of pressure that this test places on children is unbelievable. I wrote this examination when it was still common entrance and a place was not guaranteed to every student. There were various possibilities that could come from the exam including failure, not passing for a seven year, or five year school. This is too much pressure for an eleven year old to endure.

My experience was quite interesting in that the night before the exam I did not sleep. This by the way was my first memorable case of insomnia, which is something that has plagued my adult life. Tossing and turning the night before the exam I was thinking of all sorts of things as I was quite nervous about doing the exam. Needless to say on the day of the exam I fell asleep while writing the essay, which was the first section. The sleep I got during the exam was probably better than the sleep I had gotten the night before. I awoke to the sound of the bell signaling the end of that section of the exam and I had only written two paragraphs. The sad thing about that scenario was that the person supervising my room was my neighbour whose daughter was my friend. The lady saw me sleeping and did not wake me up. Anyways I went on to do the rest of the exam without major incident.

I passed for a five year secondary school. I remember being a bit disappointed but I was grateful because I honestly thought I was going to fail. My neighbour’s daughter who was writing the exam that year for the second time passed for the illustrious St. Joseph Convent a seven year school. This whole thing about five year and seven year schools is nonsense because in seven year schools entrance into the A’Level programme is based on performance at CXC. However at the time of common entrance I was given the impression that it is was a guaranteed placement. Strange enough the young lady and I ended up in the same Senior Comprehensive School to do A’Levels. Essentially what I am trying to say is that please don’t put any undue pressure on the students. Even if the results aren’t what we as parents and adults would like all is not lost. Keep in mind that many times what we want for our children is often what we did not achieve for ourselves so while we may want the best it is important to love and support our children regardless of the outcome.

I wish all the SEA students the best of luck today.

Water Problems in T&T

This morning when I woke up it was raining. I don’t know how long it had been raining, but I was thankful for the rain. Although I am thankful, I am not naive to think that fifteen minutes of rain fall is going to solve the water problems in the country. I was thankful for the rain because I hoped that it would have extinguished some of the bush fires that have been burning for almost two weeks now, specifically the one on the southern side of the Beetham. I have been blessed in that I do not even have a tank and I always have an uninterrupted supply of water. Also strange enough my main problem would have been low water pressure but during this period of water restriction the water pressure has been excellent. Being mindful of the fact that there are a number of people who are without a regular supply of water I have followed the instructions of the Water and Sewage Authority. I have not washed my car, wash down my yard or use my hose for the year. However I cannot say the same for some of the people in my neighbourhood. Imagine that people are simply getting up in the very early hours of the morning to water their plants using a hose. This is not even a kitchen garden, I am talking about decorative plants and lawn. The beautiful thing about lawn grass is that it would withstand drought, winter and other harsh conditions and when the environment returns to conditions conducive to its growth, it grows back. Amazing isn’t it? The fact that people are getting up in the very early hours of the morning to wet their plants using a hose it tells us that they are aware that what they are doing is wrong. Pretty soon even the areas that traditionally had a constant water supply would be affected and these are the same people who would blame the government for not providing water.

How has the water shortage in the country affected you? Do you think that members of the public should report water wasters to the WASA Police?

Blackberry Instant Messenger is the Death of Traditional Romance

Forgive me if I am old, but I grew up in the age prior to cellphones. Cellphones became popular after I left secondary school. Recently thanks to Bmobile and Digicel the Blackberry has become the cellphone of choice for the masses. BBIM is an application that facilitates blackberry to blackberry messaging at no additional cost as long as both devices have a data plan. So for the last three years while I had five people in my BBIM contact list I now have about thirty. It has now become a trend when you meet a new guy to exchange pins instead of phone numbers. While this may be the modern thing to do, I think it takes away from the romance of a new encounter. Dating has actually been reduced to random disjointed messages. This is annoying on several levels. First Bmobile has proven itself to be probably the most unreliable mobile network in the universe hence there is no guarantee that the messages would be delivered in a timely manner, if even delivered at all. Secondly it allows womanizing men to carry on multiple conversations with various members of their harem. Therefore you no longer have the undivided attention of this man while chatting with him or in person because he is constantly tied to his phone. Third, men no longer feel the need to even pay for a phone call to make contact. And do not be fooled ladies the savings from these calls would not be seen in an improvement in the quality of dates. Finally, BBIM makes people think it is ok to message you all hours of the day or night. As opposed to a call where you would have to think about what the person may or may not be doing prior to placing the call. There is a reason that Machel did not sing “BBIM me anytime you want” and Jah Cure certainly did not sing “If you need a lover BBIM me”. That being said the next man to pick up the phone and call me I feel I will instantly fall in love simply because it has been so long. How has BBIM affected your dating life? Do you prefer dating life with or without BBIM?