By George!

A good deed

Lest it be said that the Eyewitness has a jaundiced eye (it may be red, but never yellow!) we take cognisance today of a good deed done by the good old ex-brigadier. Now you know we couldn’t possibly be speaking of Granger… we mean Joe Singh. The good general (the U.S. calls them ‘general’) wrote a heart-warming letter to the press that the 200th anniversary of the naming of our capital as “Georgetown” will fall this May 5.

In a pretty civic lesson, he reminds us that our capital was named after George III of Britain on May 5, 1812. Now this is the same George – dubbed ‘Mad George’, not surprisingly since he was absolutely stark, raving bonkers – who precipitated the American ‘War of Revolution’! If George didn’t look kindly at his own white countrymen running their own affairs in the Americas, imagine what his views would have been on us natives!!!

Don’t forget that it was while George was comparatively sane the screws were tightened on slavery. George Washington, you would remember didn’t just confess he chopped down the cherry tree, he led the fight to throw out mad King George (his namesake even!) and made his country independent, and all that.

So when our general brought up the 200th anniversary of the naming of Georgetown, we thought he was going to suggest that we change its name to something more independent like Cuffyville, Qwaminatown or Jagan City or something. (For the partisans out there, please note that we already have Linden, OK?) But to our disappointment our general suggested that we all put our shoulders to the wheel and spruce up the city of George.

Imagine that! Spruce it up and still call it George??!! But the local Boy Scout gave us an idea. He reminded us that much of the old sea wall was constructed by convict labour. We use the same for the face lift and still rename the city. And we don’t have to worry about sourcing the convicts – most of those running the city, if justice is done, should be in Camp Street.

Having them do hard labour in cleaning the canals would make sure we don’t overcrowd the Camp Street accommodations.

Stoking the fires

Talking about Mad George, we have our share of loonies right here in mudland. Take Kissoon who seems to have abandoned his Muckraker hat for a political one. Yesterday, for the umpteenth time, he berated APNU and its acolytes for abandoning the deadly ‘mo fyah; slow fyah’ of Desmond Hoyte.

It was revealing that he used the esoteric, coded language made famous by Forbes Burnham before and during his dictatorship. We remember, for instance the call and response of the dictator to let loose the dogs of war: “Who dug the gold??… Who has the gold??.. . Who must take the gold?”… We’ll let you fill in the response.

So the political Kissoon lambastes APNU whose supporters, he yells, expected that it would emerge as the “firebrand” they knew it to be before Mr Corbin went “soft.” It was “slow fyah; mo fyah” that Corbin was accused of abandoning. The ‘firebrand’ that APNU should become is to set ablaze the fire once again.

Freedom of speech does not give you the right to yell “FIRE!!!” in a crowded theatre. What say you about exhorting that the whole country be on fire?

Moral blindspot

Brigadier David Granger had pronounced that the rape allegations against CoP Greene have created a “moral crisis” in the GPF. So the CoP must go because of an allegation – rejected by a sitting chief justice for want of evidence? What say Granger about the ex-CoP who was caught on tape betraying state secrets? No moral issues there? A bit of moral relativism?