Sep
27
After repeated requests for an interview, I finally got the author of The Secret Blog of Patrick Manning to agree to talk to me via IM in the wee hours of this morning. The transcript of our chat is below, lightly edited, with typos corrected and relevant links inserted. I’m none the wiser as to who this person is, but s/he types like the wind and is evidently a night owl.
GP: I’ll start with the question you’re least likely to answer. Who are you?
PM: I’m Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
GP: OK. Let’s try it from a different angle. Are you a journalist? A columnist?
PM: I am Manning.
GP: Some people think you’re a member of the COP.
Get the whole story »
Sep
03
All of this is enough to make me think that the population is really politically savvy and educated despite the lack of structured civics education in our school system. What I worry about is whether the online community, with ready access to computers and the Internet, are an accurate representation of the general population. What about the political opinions of those on the other side of the digital divide? And it may be that the Internet is just the latest forum for Trinis to do what they do best, talk. How much this translates into action is another question. Like a friend of mine, wary of all the online talk that has been taking place, recently wrote: “While we, 'the future', sit and occupy our time amusing ourselves with all these…discussions, the true leaders in the real world are doing as they please.”
Blogger Shivonne du Barry, expressing some healthy skepticism about the “alternative spins” on Trinidad and Tobago politics being provided by blogs and social networking sites. And now it’s my turn to play devil’s advocate, and a highly optimistic one at that!
Juxtapose the 12% internet penetration rate and Danah Boyd’s infamous findings about Facebook and class (assuming they apply to Trinidad and Tobago) and you conclude that Shivonne’s concerns are well taken, as of course they are – they’re the concerns perennially expressed in discussions about the role/value of the the internet in “developing” societies. But they also assume that, in the absence of Facebook and its equivalents, the political dialogue/activity taking place among this select group would have taken a different (and possibly superior) form (as well it might). Or taken place at all.
They also assume (more than likely correctly) that there’s not some innovative parallel activity taking place “on the other side of the digital divide” using cell phones and SMS. They also assume that all online political activity will necessarily be partisan. Might we not see some serious citizen reporting this upcoming election season? Might some ordinary person not happen to capture some priceless image or bit of footage on a cell phone camera that the jaded media practitioners have missed?
Aug
27
Colours of Notting Hill: Over at Global Voices, Nikipedia has posted a selection of photos from this year’s Notting Hill Carnival celebrations in London.
The Manning blog: The Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago is blogging! Would love to know who’s behind this, but on the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t — knowing who it is might just spoil the fun. Hazel “Breakfusses” Manning chimes in from time to time.
Barbados apartment tragedy: Barbados Free Press posted three lengthy reports (one, two, three) on the collapse of an apartment containing five people into a cave in Brittons Hill, Barbados. According to BFP’s last post, it is “highly unlikely there are survivors”. The latest post had attracted 79 comments when I last checked. Barbados Underground and Pull! Push filed reports as well. YouTube user izellajaouda has posted a video of an eyewitness’s account of the collapse recorded from the local television news, and another video from the Voice of Barbados radio station shows a car being rescued from the site.
Jun
05
Bloggers on the “terror plot”: Over at Global Voices, Nikipedia has posted an article rounding up the reactions from the Trinidadian and Guyanese blogospheres to this weekend’s announcement of a “terror plot” against New York’s JFK International airport allegedly masterminded by three Guyanese and a Trini.
Meanwhile, over at Antilles. . . : Maybe I should have called this the “Nikipedia’s roundups edition” instead. Over at Antilles, the tireless young scribe has posted a roundup of the latest coverage on the Calabash Literary Festival, along with my contribution to his “bedside books” series, prefaced by the following barb: “Georgia Popplewell of Caribbean Free Radio hasn’t written for the CRB in ages, but perhaps her contributing this list–of books she’s taken on her nearly-three-week sojourn in Tobago–is a sign that she’ll soon reappear in our pages.”
We’ll see about that.
Mar
10
He looks like a man, but I suspect he’s really a machine (he claims the objects he carries around in that small bag are insulin and a glucose meter; but has anyone really checked?) Only a machine could live-blog the way Ethan Zuckerman does.
This week he’s been live-blogging the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, each day of which is packed with numerous talks by “thought leaders” presenting ideas designed to shift paradigms and blow minds. If I’m not mistaken, Ethan has blogged all the sessions.
In order to keep up with him, I’ve had to give him his own little section on my Google personal page.
