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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 3/9/2019

Good MORNING #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Saturday 9th March 2019. Remember you can read full articles for FREE via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS) OR by purchasing by purchasing a Saturday Sun Nation Newspaper (SS).

‘NOT ME!’ – Former minister for social transformation and parliamentarian Hamilton Lashley has rubbished reports that Opposition Leader Joseph Atherley has invited him to be part of a new political party. Lashley told Barbados TODAY that he did not know where such a suggestion came from, and indicated that as Barbados struggles to overcome economic challenges, now was not the time to talk politics. Lashley said: “I was amazed to hear that the Opposition Leader invited Hamilton Lashley to assist in the formation of a political party. That is the farthest thing away from the truth. Forming a political party? Of course not, what they want to put Ms Lashley son in?” Media reports earlier today quoted Atherley, who won a seat in last General Elections on a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) ticket, and crossed the floor just days later, as saying he has been involved in discussions with Lashley who has been showing interest in what he has been doing. The Opposition Leader said that yesterday Lashley attended a meeting with his team of spokespersons to look at matters related to culture and the arts, according to reports. Atherley said: “Whether or not he is to be identified as an official spokesperson with reference to any specific area, I am not at this point wanting to say that. “Suffice it to say we are happy with the interest level that he has demonstrated and with the input that he has been making for some of the discussions that we have been having. “We certainly would be happy to have him involved with us totally, but that is a matter, which he would have to speak to himself.” Lashley, who confirmed that he attended the meeting at Parliament Buildings yesterday, said there was no discussion about joining or forming any party. “Yesterday’s meeting was not a political discussion of any sort,” Lashley stressed. He told Barbados TODAY: “It was strictly a meeting of national interest and of national concern in terms of providing ways of assisting the transformation of the Barbadian economy, using culture and the arts. “And then on the other hand in the event that there was a national emergency, how best to deal with it and what systems they are putting in place. Of course I had an interest in that. “I think any Barbadian would have an interest in that. My thing is that I believe the good Reverend should carry these type of initiatives that he is talking about across the entire country.” Lashley, who served as a minister under both the Democratic Labour Party and the BLP, said his focus was on seeing what he could do as a community activist to help Barbadians deal with the austerity measures of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Programme (BERT). (BT)

BIG SHIFT – While president of the National Union of Public Workers Akanni McDowall appears set for a court battle with his general secretary Roslyn Smith, another executive member has shifted his loyalty and is making a bid to replace the leader. In an exclusive interview with Barbados TODAY, the union’s first Vice President, Fabian Jones, who at one point wholeheartedly backed the current president, announced he was ready to enter the leadership race with less than a month before the nation’s public sector workers vote for a new executive. Saying he now fears the NUPW has lost its direction, Jones argued that union leaders had allowed in-house fighting to detract from the union’s chief obligation of attending to the wellbeing of workers. He said this has prompted him to mount an election campaign that he claims is centered on unity, transparency, and renewed activism. Jones declared to Barbados TODAY: “I am a man for all seasons and I know people will understand that if Fabian Jones is breaking the ranks right now to run for president, he must have a real fundamental problem with the way how things are being done right now and that is true. In previous elections, Jones presented himself as an ardent supporter of McDowall even in the face of pressure from former union president Walter Maloney, he said. Jones added: “Some may say it looks like a back stab, but the union is bigger than any one person. It is thousands of members strong, so if I have to do that for the betterment of the majority while probably offending one person, I will, because it is a duty and I feel duty bound to do it. “I came through the youth league with Akanni. I saw him grow and develop and mentored under Walter [Maloney] and for a time I liked that the union was standing up and I was part of that and not being silent anymore. But that is only one aspect of it. The union as an institution has to be run on a day-to-day basis. There are rules to respect and there’s a way of doing things, which should always be based on consensus.” The union’s pending election of officers at its annual general meeting on April 3 is to take place amid a longstanding rift between Smith and McDowall that has spilled onto the public scene. On Thursday morning, Smith released a statement signalling her intention to sue McDowall for defamation over statements made to the NUPW’s National Council about Smith’s use of the union’s credit card. Jones described the current saga as “unfortunate”, conceding that the union needed to take better care of its finances. He said: “There was no theft or wild spending, but I would say that some procedural rules were flouted. “At the end of the day, we are talking about the members’ money and I believe that the resources of the members should be used to forward their cause. Making a case for his leadership, Jones declared: “I believe in frugality and not excess and I can assure the membership that under a Fabian Jones presidency, I’m going to lead with a conscience, fairness and love. “I want to restore confidence in the union, because as we know, membership is dwindling. “The successful operation of a union requires a certain level of harmony and I believe right now there is some tension between the current President, who is head of the executive and the General Secretary who is head of the secretariat. It’s all in the media. “I want to bring harmony between the executive and the secretariat” The trade unionist of 17 years’ experience has served on the NUPW’s youth league as public relations officer from 2011 to 2013, a floor member from 2013 to 2015, as 2nd VP from 2015 to 2017 and as 1st VP from 2017 to the present. During his most recent term, Jones said he brought many workable solutions and ideas to the table in the interest of improving the lot of local public workers. “I don’t really feel as though my views were taken and utilised. I was just like a voice in the wilderness saying ‘do it this way and do it that way’ and just being ignored.” Jones added that his plans included a major push to get young workers interested in the union’s vision by using modern methods of communication to reach them and other workers who had become disgruntled with the union’s direction. Jones said: “Young people are the future of the movement. Right now most of the members are older people and the young people are going to be a hard sell, because those are the ones who really suffer under the retrenchment programme. “The NUPW as one of the oldest unions in the region is often sought by others for guidance and if our own people are questioning our strength and our relevance, it bothers me. I want to bring more harmony to the NUPW.” (BT)

MORRIS APPOINTED PRESS SECRETARY – Veteran journalist Roy R. Morris has taken on a new role. He was appointed today by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley as her first Press Secretary. In announcing the appointment, Prime Minister Mottley said: “I am delighted that Mr Morris has agreed to serve as Press Secretary. I have taken my time to make this appointment as I believe it is a critical position in communicating our programmes to our people. With his tremendous experience in journalism and media in the private sector, I am confident that he will add value and make a difference as we work to build the best Barbados together as a people.” Morris, whose journalism career started in 1979, currently teaches a number of journalism courses at the Barbados Community College. The former Editor-in-Chief at the Nation Publishing Co. Limited and founding Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive Officer of Barbados TODAY will take up the appointment on Monday. (SS)

‘WILL, NO CASH’ TO FIX WOMEN’S ISSUES - At a time when political leaders seem to be paying attention to women issues for the first time in the country’s history, there is no money to fix them. Reflecting on this year’s International Women’s Day theme: Balance for Better, the public relations officer of the National Organisation of Women (NOW), Marsha Hinds-Layne, told Barbados TODAY of mixed feelings as she observed the day. For Hinds-Layne, now that there was the political will to improve the problems affecting women, the financial resources were lacking. “For the first time in the history of Barbados, we are seeing clear political will and understanding, in the political leaders of Barbados, with respect to women’s issues. She told Barbados TODAY: “It is coming at the point where Barbados is in the deepest economic recession it has ever been in. The finance and the ability to deliver on the political will now has to be worked out.” The activist said since the Labour Party won the Government in 2018, she has been having discussions with several Cabinet ministers on a daily basis, to discuss the struggles women in Barbados daily, including abuse, unemployment and lack of finance. Hinds-Layne acknowledged that she would be lying if she said they did not show a keen interest in helping, but she knew their hands were tied since the public’s purse had limited funds. The public relations officer said effort now has to be placed on finding the right balance to tackle women issues. Hinds-Layne said: “Basically now, it is how do we find the balance. And balance for a third world country is going to look very different from balance anywhere else. “This is what we are grappling with in Barbados, on this international day of the woman 2019. What does balance look like for a vulnerable Third World Caribbean island? (BT)

UWI CAVE HILL SAYS BIG TURNAROUND IN FORTUNES – While enrollment is still nearly half its peak levels five years ago, the University of the West Indies (UWI) at Cave Hill is reporting a steady increase in Barbadians studying there, campus principal Professor Eudine Barriteau revealed today. The Government’s decision to restore the payment of undergraduate tuition fees for its citizens attending UWI is paying dividends for the campus, and halting a slide in enrollment triggered by the previous administration’s policy to end 50 years of tuition-free university education. Noting that numbers are still 40 per cent lower than they were in 2014 when the policy was introduced, this year’s enrollment is up 12 per cent from last academic year, she said. Barbadians account for 71 per cent of the student population at UWI Cave Hill. Professor Barriteau, who addressed this morning’s open session proceedings of the UWI Cave Hill Campus Council meeting, said: “On June 24, the Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw articulated the policy in Parliament, reversing the earlier Government policy introduced in 2014. By the first semester of the new academic year, the total student population at the Cave Hill Campus was 5856 students, a 12.8 per cent increase on the previous year.” Students who were forced to drop out of UWI because they could not afford tuition are said to be making up a large percentage of the enrollment for this academic year. Practically crippled five years ago by lack of finance and declining enrollment. Professor Barriteau declared, that the Cave Hill Campus now stands ready to reap the rewards of prudent management and revolutionised curriculum through several key partnerships with international counterparts. She told the university council: “This morning our prospects are looking up and like our iconic blackbird, the campus is ready to soar. We are now poised to feel the sunshine of our prudent management and careful navigation of austerity. For the past four years I have reminded my colleagues and students that the UWI Cave Hill Campus is greater than and will not be defined by its combination of challenges that it had to confront and contain.” She said that much of the campus’ resurgence culminated in the last two years by prioritising limited resources towards the better delivery of services, while broadening the scope of learning through linkages with higher tertiary institutions in China and Africa. Pointing to additional reasons for the turnaround in fortunes, she continued: “It has been a productive and eventful year. In 2018 I said Cave Hill Campus has begun the dawn of our strategic planning. I spoke of mapping our recovery and being determined to achieve our goals even though we were navigating financial austerity, declining student enrollment, mounting government debt, aging plant and equipment and an IT [information technology] on the cusp of obsolescence. “We survived because we place the required overdue capital upgrades on hold, concentrated on building a first-class quality environment by prudently deploying scarce resources to enhance the teaching and learning environment, services and programmes for our students.” (BT)

HOPE FOR LIAT – LIAT may get a lifeline.Funding to keep the cash-strapped airline will be discussed by five Caribbean Heads of Government in St Vincent and the Grenadines today. Leaders from Guyana, Trinidad, Grenada, St Lucia and St Kitts/Nevis are expected to attend today’s meeting, according to a CMC report yesterday. The report also quoted a statement coming out of Antigua’s cabinet meeting as saying: “The states which enjoy services from LIAT, but are not owners of LIAT’s shares, are likely to be asked by the four contributing/ownership states to purchase shares in LIAT, or to make a financial contribution, or to enter into a minimum revenue guarantee for LIAT flights which enter their country.” The plight of the financially-troubled regional airline was a major item on the agenda at last month’s 30th Inter-Sessional Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government in St Kitts and Nevis, where a rescue plan was devised by the CARICOM Heads. In it, shareholder governments proposed to inject the additional financial resources that LIAT desperately needs, while other member states were encouraged to commit to providing necessary capital injections into LIAT and to coming on board as new shareholders. This came about as last week Friday it was reported that the airline needed $10 million to keep operations on track or close operations in ten days. The ten days would have been marked tomorrow. Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica are the major shareholder countries in the regional airline. (SS)

FORTRESS UPBEAT AFTER ‘WEAK’ 2018 – Despite recording an “unusually weak” 2018, Fortress Fund Managers is still positive about growth for its mutual funds’ investments this year, Chief Investment Officer of Fortress Advisory and Investment Services Peter Arender has told investors. Speaking last night during the 9th Annual Fortress Investment Forum at the Frank Collymore Hall, which focused on regional and global investment updates, as well as the performance and outlook of Fortress’ range of funds, Arender said he was optimistic about the future after a disappointing 2018. Arender told the forum: “The year 2018 was an unusually weak one in which the Fortress funds held their value reasonably well, but still saw declines. “The lower prices go, however, the greater the potential for future gains. The end of the year gave us a ’20 per cent off’ sale in many areas and we responded in the Caribbean Growth Fund by steadily investing cash which had been saved for just such an event.” While a director at Fortress, Roger Cave, gave a similar positive summary of the investment climate, he revealed that the company’s assets remained steady at $650 million across 11 different funds with regional and global investments. Cave said that with excellent value across its global equity investments, Fortress was more constructive on future returns now that it had been in some time, borne out by strength in the first weeks of 2019. He said Fortress would be focusing on pensions and global funds which “continued to grow very nicely”. Cave said Government’s move to implement the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme was a positive step in the right direction. “I think there is positive in it. We got an IMF [International Monetary Fund] programme done in the shortest possible time and I think it is a better alternative than what could have been,” Cave said. The director also noted that the completion of government’s bond restructuring, the corporate tax reductions and work on economic reforms gave Fortress hope that there would be better opportunities in “its own backyard”. (BT)

BREATH TEST – The workers of the Arawak Cement Company Limited in St Lucy – about 100 in all – will have to subject themselves to breathalyser testing on arrival at work from Monday, March 22, according to an internal memo obtained by Barbados TODAY. But before that, the company is to begin carrying out random testing, the workers were told. In the memo dated today, new general manager Yago Castro said those workers who fail the test are to be barred from entering the compound. A source at the company familiar with the decision told Barbados TODAY that the testing was scheduled to be implemented today against a workers’ protest. But following a last-minute meeting with management it was agreed to reschedule the date and involve the Barbados Workers Union (BWU). As a result, the protest was also called off for the time being. While not mentioning the protest, the memo confirmed that a meeting was held on Wednesday, March 6 to inform the staff that the testing would begin today, but that it has been rescheduled. But the source claimed that up to late this afternoon, the union had not been informed. In explaining the procedure, the memo explained that the tests are to be administered using a hand-held breathalyser and employees entering the facility will be required to blow into the device as directed by security guards. The circular went on to say: “A negative result verified by the appearance of a green light on the device means that the employee will be admitted on the compound. This means he or she has an acceptable blood alcohol concentration of below 0.08 per cent. “Employees who have a positive result indicated by a red light, will not be admitted on the compound, as their blood alcohol concentration would have exceeded 0.08 per cent at the time of the test.” Turning specifically to the implications for testing positive, the circular stated that once an employee is tested positive and is subsequently prohibited from entering the compound, the security officer will submit a report to the firm’s Health and Safety Coordinator (HSC). It noted that the HSC would then send a report to the employee’s supervisor and copy the Employee Relations Officer and Human Relations Manager. “Each time an employee is not permitted on the compound, the company will record it as an uncertified sick leave/casual leave day. The employee will be expected to return to work at the beginning of his or her next scheduled work day,” the Arawak Cement Company staff were told. Upon returning to work, the memo added, the Supervisor will be required to hold discussions with the worker and record that meeting on a special discussion form. “If the employee exceeds three positive results in one month or uses all of his or her uncertified sick days due to positive results, he or she will be scheduled to meet with the Human Resources Manager who will decide on the next step,” it read. The circular said such steps could include an internally-designed programme set up for the employee to monitor his or her progress; drug treatment and counselling through the company’s Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) or progressive discipline. “The three occurrences in one month may be adjusted due to evidence or trends suggesting abuse of this restriction,” the memo said. The document noted that even though treatment or counseling was not mandatory, it is considered a step that the company was taking to assist the employee to bring him or her in line with its policy. “If the employee refuses the efforts made to assist him or her, the company may need to resort directly to the company’s progressive disciplinary progress,” it warned. When contacted tonight, General Manager Yago Castro confirmed to Barbados TODAY that the breathalyser testing was in fact being implemented with one purpose in mind. “Our first priority is for the health and safety of our people,” Castro said. “That is the only purpose. That is why we are investing heavily in the plant . . . last month and last year . . . . You can come and see the improvement in the equipment and the facility; that is the most important thing for us is to keep our people safe. The company has invested over $2 million dollars in the last two years, he said. (BT)

APRIL 1 DEADLINE FOR PLASTICS BAN REMAINS – The April 1 deadline for the importation, wholesale and retail of petro-based plastics remains in place, and Government will be closely monitoring the prices being charged for alternative products. Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy, Kirk Humphrey, made this clear as he addressed a media sensitization workshop at the Ministry recently. However, he expressed concern for vendors who purchased petro-based single use plastics and styrofoam plates at discounted prices from large suppliers without fully understanding that they would be unable to use them after April 1. “Perhaps, we need to have a conversation around how do we accommodate them after April 1. We extended the moratorium on plastic bags for a whole year because I never wanted to affect local manufacturers and people who are on the street trying to make a dollar. “Perhaps that is a conversation that we are going to have to see how best we can accommodate them - can we find a way through the other agencies of government to help them deal with the loss, or do we give them a little more time; just that very small group,” the Minister stated. However, Humphrey was firm in his resolve that the importation, wholesale and retail of petro-based single use products and styrofoam from April 1 would not be allowed, unless he said differently. He acknowledged that the law did not speak to people who had styrofoam and single use plastics in their personal possession, but urged persons to recognize the purpose behind what government was doing and join in the effort. Humphrey also told members of the media that government met with wholesalers and retailers from the beginning and had even made adjustments to allow them to get rid of existing stock. He added that most large scale wholesalers were fully aware of government’s position on the matter, and had already started importing alternative products. “The fact is that Barbadians are not going to stop using cups, plates and bowls; they just will not be using the petro-based ones. So, there will still be a market for all the things that they import; it will just be a different quality product,” he said. (BGIS)

NO MORE EXCUSES – In an impassioned plea in the wake of the recent jump in gun violence, Prime Minister Mia Mottley today urged young people and parents to make choices that would best serve them for the future. Speaking this afternoon at the opening of the Chesterfield Brewster Youth Empowerment Centre, Silver Hill, Christ Church, the Prime Minister told the gathering that Government was determined to give young people and their parents a wider range of positive things to choose from, as opposed to the negative alternatives that currently wreak havoc on society. Mottley declared: “We have a duty to raise young people in a way that their lives can be productive and where they can make a difference. “Life is about choices and I ask the people of Silver Hill to make the choice to take your children and determine if you want to see them in a youth service uniform or you want to see them on a platform singing, entertaining and making you proud. But you don’t want to see them in the middle of the road bleeding.” The Prime Minister referred to the new youth centre, which was built by the Maria Holder Trust, at a cost of $2 million, as one of the new positive options now open to young people. She also noted that Government has approved $5 million for sports and cultural training across the island, adding to the significant number of initiatives including trust loans and the restoration of free tertiary education. The Prime Minister said: “We as a Government made the choice to pay for your children to go to university or the polytechnic if they want to go. They must not be prevented from going because people cannot afford it in this country. This is who we are as a people. “We have equally made the choice that the training that regrettably stopped [in the last ten years] that used to happen across Barbados, will not only be resumed, but will be significantly enhanced.” Mottley suggested that the pool of excuses for poor choices was fast shrinking, as several keys have now been provided to unlock entrepreneurial and creative talent among the youth. She said: “Life is fundamentally about choices, even in terms of building back the economy we were so concerned about giving you the right to choose because freedom is choice. Quite often when you can’t make choices it is because something is curtailing you. “I want the people of Silver Hill to be able to say that even though things were hard along the way, you stayed the course and your children have now achieved and are making you proud.” But she warned that these choices will only remain available if individuals play their part by properly maintaining facilities or repaying the trust loans, so that all Barbadians can benefit and not just a few. The Prime Minister said: “Whether we can continue depends on everybody understanding that we have a role to play together. So for example if the people who benefit from the trust loans don’t pay it back then the country won’t have the opportunity to keep it going. “The Maria Holder Trust is prepared to create a public space where children can go into and learn. We don’t want to see anybody come and put garbage around this building because we are going to make the choice to take care of this building and make the choice for our children to enjoy this building.” (BT)

LEAD POLICE FORCE REFORM, SERGEANTS TOLD – Police sergeants were today told to be agents of change in a 183-year-old constabulary “in serious need” of reform. The officers received the charge during a closing ceremony for the Sergeants General Duties Training Course at the Regional Police Training Centre. Two dozen police sergeants from Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Belize, who completed the course, were warned that their attitude to members of the public desperately needed to change. During his address, commandant of the training centre, John Maxwell, criticised frontline police supervisors for sometimes taking a hands-off approach to important matters. Commandant Maxwell said: “When a member of the public telephones or goes to the police station, it is because he needs our assistance. By the very oath of office that we took, we swore that we would provide the best quality service that can be given. You must ensure that your charges treat these people with respect and respond promptly to their reports. “As sergeants, you must be familiar with your respective force’s rules, policies, standards and procedures and of course the laws of your countries,” said the commandant. “It serves no good to procrastinate or worse yet become discourteous by bluntly refusing to ensure that reports are addressed promptly. Failure to take the appropriate action can at worst result in bodily harm or death.” During the two-week training programme, participants were required to display critical thinking skills, better understand their roles as sergeants and improve efficiency in the execution of their duties. The syllabus covered a diverse array of topics including the issuing and receiving of firearms, communication and public speaking, briefing and debriefing and drafting charges. Deputy Commissioner of Police Lila Strickland warned that with the local force struggling to increase its recruitment numbers, the sergeants needed to better nurture younger officers who join the force. The deputy police chief said: “Serious reform must come and come soon to the organisation. We must in short order conduct a serious audit of our resources and our quality of service. We cannot continue doing business as usual. Drastic changes must be implemented if we are to remain on the cutting edge of service delivery.” She also urged the officers to ensure they act within the confines of the law, maintain high ethical standards and lead by example at all times. “All [senior police officers] should make every effort to handle all disputes of a domestic nature,” she said. “You have many years of training and experience and could better guide on these matters.” (BT)

APPEAL COURT HAS BAIL SAY – A landmark decision by the Court of Appeal could open the floodgates for several accused who have had their bail applications turned down by a High Court. On Thursday, murder accused Pedro Deroy Ellis and his attorney Queen’s Counsel Larry Smith scored a victory when president of the Court of Appeal, Andrew Burgess, held that the appellate court did have jurisdiction to hear an appeal stemming from a bail application and then set aside the High Court judge’s decision to deny Ellis bail. However, Justice of Appeal Burgess, who presided with Justices of Appeal Kaye Goodridge and Margaret Reifer, refused to release the accused. The court said the strength of the evidence that [Ellis] had committed the killing; that he had admitted to it, albeit claiming it was done in self-defence and the fact that he had a previous conviction for manslaughter “weighed very heavily in favour of refusing bail to [Ellis]. “It must be that the public has every right to expect to be protected from persons who repeat offences involving the taking of human life.(SS)

PENSIONER’S MOUTH LANDS HIM BEFORE COURT – A pensioner believes he would not have landed before the law courts – for alledgedly assaulting a senior police officer – if he simply talked less and stayed at home to do his chores. Elwin Leon Young, 74, of Trellis Walk, Grazettes, St Michael expressed that view to Magistrate Douglas Frederick earlier this week when he appeared in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court charged that he assaulted Superintendent of Police Margaret Stephen as she executed her duty on March 5 as well as telling her to “move your **** off the sidewalk. I went to Central (Police Station) and get unfair . . .” He pleaded not guilty to the charges but Sergeant St Clair Phillips stated that Young looked as though he was in need of an intervention at the Psychiatric Hospital where he is an outpatient. The prosecutor also revealed that the accused man’s antecedents showed that he had a propensity for challenging members of the public and the police. “I does talk to much. I should be at home washing my clothes. I came to town to have breakfast,” Young stated before he was remanded to the Black Rock, St Michael institution for observation until March 26. (BT)

UNABLE TO AFFORD CAR INSURANCE, PLATES, FINES – A 46-year-old St Joseph man who appeared in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court today was unable to pay fines after pleading guilty to a number of offences – including not having motor insurance he claims he could not afford. Derek Delisle Bullen, of Blackmans Development, St Joseph, admitted to Magistrate Graveney Bannister to driving without due care and attention, without reasonable consideration for other road users, fraudulent use of number plate and registration card, no insurance and failing to register the vehicle. PC Kevin Forde told the court that Bullen was driving along Canewood Road, St Michael, going to Lears junction when he veered into the path of traffic and collided with another vehicle. Police responded to the accident and a check revealed that the registration disc and licence plates did not match that of Bullen’s car. Bullen explained that he had bought the car and had possession of it for the last six months but “did not have the money for the insurance”. Describing the situation as bizarre, the magistrate imposed fines totaling $2,250. (BT)

‘BACKPACK CRAZE’ – The recent fad of young men walking around with haversacks has caught the attention of Bridgetown Magistrate Douglas Frederick, so much so that the judicial officer wants to know what is the fascination with the backpacks. “Why it is that every young person has a haversack on their back. What is contained in those haversacks — weapons, drugs?” the Magistrate asked Oswaldson Erickson Hutson Small in the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today. “Mine had in drugs sir,” the Lot No. 1 St Christopher, Christ Church resident responded moments after he had pleaded guilty to charges of possession, possession with intent to supply and possession with intent to traffic cannabis on June 7, 2015. Police were on patrol along the ABC Highway when they had the occasion to stop the vehicle that the accused was driving. The marijuana – estimated to fetch $90 on the street – was discovered in Small’s haversack after he consented to a search. “That was a case of helping out somebody. The person that own the car was drunk,” said Small who also disclosed that he used the drugs for about six years. “But I don’t do drugs or nothing so no more, sir. That’s why I come and deal with this. My girl caused me to change. I realise that to get a better life for myself I had to stop certain things,” he told Magistrate Frederick. Small’s conviction card revealed he had received chances in the past when he appeared before the court on two occasions for the same offence, resulting in a conviction, reprimand and discharge. This time around he was slapped with a $700 fine, which he must pay in one month if he wants to avoid spending one month in prison. (BT)

LIMIT CWI PRESIDENCY – There should be term limits on the presidency of Cricket West Indies (CWI).Speaking on Wednesday at a conference call press briefing streamed to regional media, presidential challenger Ricky Skerritt said no president should exceed six years in office. “The first change we (his team) would like to make if elected, would be to have term limits put in place. We believe that no president needs to serve longer than six years continuously. “Some people have said two three-year terms or three two-year terms, that will have to be discussed, a constitutional review committee will have to be put in place, and that has to be done internally without nay pressure from outside. “We are not going to be reacting to Caricom governments. We are going to be communicating, collaborating and cooperating with all stakeholders including Caricom governments and we have no doubt that we can find the kind of approaches that meet the needs of a future dynamic and progressive CWI,” he said. Jamaican, Wycliffe “Dave” Cameron, 47, is running for a fourth consecutive term as CWI president after being first elected back in 2013 when he took over from St Lucian diplomat Julian Hunte. He will be partnered again by vice-president Emmanuel Nathan. (SS)

WOEFUL WI BADLY BEATEN – England dismissed West Indies for just 45 – the second-lowest score in T20 internationals – to win the second T20 by 137 runs inSt Kitts and wrap up the series with a match to spare. Chris Jordan took four for six, the best figures by an England bowler in T20s, to skittle the dismal hosts in 11.5 overs. Sam Billings earlier hit a career-best 87 and Joe Root made 55as England recovered from 32- to post 182-6. England have an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. Only the Netherlands have scored fewer runs in a T20 international, making just 39 against Sri Lanka in the 2014 World T20. This was England’s biggest margin of victory by runs in T20s and the fourth biggest of all time. (SS)

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bestoftheyear · 8 years

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Best Songs of 2016

Year number six. I’m honestly surprised I still have the time to do this, listen to as much music as I do with all the adulting and life stuff happening. But I’d have it no other way! I’m keeping the list the same as last year, going down from 301 (because darts? idk) to number one, a song that has been at the top since February. My music taste is still ever growing, so much that I actually downloaded a country album for the first time ever--shout out Maren Morris.

Last year I went stats, keeping with that, I went with about fifty more songs in my playlists, just under 1800, so keep that in mind. For a personal project, I do a lot of judging. Judging started last December 16 and stopped December 15, or bascially after Kid Cudi released Passion, Pain & Demon Slaying--which is why there is music from Pusha T’s last album and likewise, nothing new from RTJ3. I already released the top 100 on the gram, so if you aren’t following me there then what the hell man! Anyway--hit that jump for the list

301. Blackbear - idfc (Tarro Remix)

300. Hamilton Leithauser & Rostam - A 1000 Times

299. 24hrs - You Know

298. The Skins - Bury me (feat. D.R.A.M.)

297. Astrid S - Hurts So Good

296. Lil Durk - Eyes (feat. Talib Kweli & James Fauntleroy)

295. Foxes - Devil Side

294. The Strumbellas - Young & Wild

293. Roy Woods - Only You (feat. Ty Dolla $ign & 24hrs)

292. Kacy Hill - Lion

291. The Japanese House - Face Like Thunder

290. Bridgit Mendler - Atlantis (feat. Kaiydo)

289. Allan Kingdom - Believe

288. Wild Belle - Throw Down Your Guns

287. Meek Mill - Shine

286. Bishop Briggs - The Way I Do

285. Anderson .Paak - Room In here (feat. The Game & Sonyae Elise)

284. FKA twigs - Good to Love

283. Post Malone - Leave

282. AURORA - Conqueror

281. Kendrick Lamar - Untitled 03 | 05.28.2013

280. Elohim - Hallucinating

279. TWENTY88 - On The Way

278. Banks - To The Hilt

277. Bryson Tiller - Rambo (The Weeknd Remix)

276. Frank Ocean - Ivy

275. Declan McKenna - Isombard

274. Daye Jack - Finish Line

273. Young the Giant - Titus Was Born

272. The Naked and Famous - Laid Low

271. White Sea - Bloodline

270. Ra Ra Riot & Rostam - Water

269. Beck - Wow

268. Isaiah Rashad - Smile

267. Warpaint - New Song

266. PARTYNEXTDOOR - Not Nice

265. LIV - Dream Awake

264. Bankroll Mafia - Out My Face (feat. Tip, Shad Da God, Young Thug & London Jae)

263. Isaiah Rashad & Goldlink - Untitled

262. The Weeknd - Attention

261. Tory Lanez - Luv

260. Justice - Safe and Sound

259. Chance the Rapper - Grown Ass Kid (feat. Mick Jenkins & Alex Wiley)

258. Lil Yachty - Minnesota (feat. Quavo, Skippa Da Flippa & Young Thug)

257. D.R.A.M. - Misunderstood (feat. Young Thug)

256. Louis the Child - Fire (feat. Evalyn)

255. Jack Garratt - Worry (feat. Anderson .Paak)

254. ZHU - Generation Why

253. DJ Khaled - Jermaine’s Interlude (feat. J. Cole)

252. Ab-Soul 0 Huey Knew THEN (feat. Da$H)

251. Raury - Neveralone

250. Banks & Steelz - Love and War (feat. Ghostface Killah)

249. A Tribe Called Quest - Conrad Tokyo (feat. Kendrick Lamar)

248. The 1975 - The Sound

247. James Blake - Timeless (feat. Vince Staples)

246. Kweku Collins - Stupid Rose

245. Bob Moses - Tearing Me Up

244. James Vincent McMorrow - Rising Water

243. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie - My Sh*t

242. Post Malone - Deja Vu (feat. Justin Bieber)

241. The Americanos - In My Foreign (feat. Ty Dolla $ign, Lil Yachty, Nicky Jam & French Montana)

240. Travis Scott - Lose (feat. Cassie)

239. Drake - Sneakin’ (feat. 21 Savage)

238. Chance the Rapper - Juke Jam (feat. Justin Bieber & Towkio)

237. Run River North - Run Or Hide

236. Lil Uzi Vert - You Was Right

235. Amber Coffman - All to Myself

234. Kid Cudi - Frequency

233. Euro - Georgia

232. KAYTRANADA - GOT IT GOOD (feat. Craig David)

231. Tiggs Da Author - Swear Down (feat. Yungen)

230. Jorja Smith - A Price (feat. Maverick Sabre)

229. Khalid - Let’s Go

228. Amine - Baba

227. Pusha T - MPA (feat. Kanye West, A$AP Rocky & The-Dream)

226. Young Thug - Wyclef Jean

225. Love Thy Brother - Love Me Better (feat. Ariel Beesley)

224. The Weeknd - Party Monster

223. Drake - Controlla

222. Liss - Sorry

221. dvsn - Hallucinations

220. Phantogram - Cruel World

219. Rory Fresco - Lowkey

218. Saba - Church/Liquor Store (feat. Noname)

217. Francis and the Lights - See Her Out (That’s Just Life)

216. Drake - Hype

215. Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness - Fire Escape

214. Theophilus London - Revenge (feat. Ariel Pink)

213. XYLØ - Fool’s Paradise

212. Glass Animals - Pork Soda

211. Post Malone - Congratulation (feat. Quavo)

210. Transviolet - LA Love

209. OnCue - 3AM

208. Wet - Small and Silver

207. Banks - Trainwreck

206. Bon Iver - 22 (OVER S∞∞N)

205. Beyonce - 6 Inch (feat. The Weeknd)

204. Rob $tone - Chill Bill (Remix) [feat. D.R.A.M., Denzel Curry & Cousin Stizz)

203. Raury & Jaden Smith - Losing Your Mind

202. Chance the Rapper - Finish Line/Drown (feat. T-Pain, Kirk Franklin, Eryn Allen Kane & Noname)

201. Rae Sremmurd - Swang

200. Travis Scott - Coordinate (feat. Blac Youngsta)

199. Chairlift - Crying in Public

198. Allan Kingdom - Renovate (feat. D.R.A.M.)

197. Adam Vida - I’m Juiced

196. Logic - Wrist (feat. Pusha T)

195. Mac Miller - Cinderella (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)

194. Hundred Waters - Show Me Love (feat. Chance the Rapper, Moses Sumney & Robin Hannibal) [Skrillex Remix]

193. Bruno Mars - That’s What I Like

192. Travis Scott - Wonderful (feat. The Weeknd)

191. Frank Ocean - Rushes To

190. Lil Uzi Vert - Money Longer

189. Salaam Remi - Come Through and Chill (feat. Miguel)

188. ScHoolboy Q - Ride Out (feat. Vince Staples)

187. Joey Purp - Girls @ (feat. Chance the Rapper)

186. Kanye West - Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1 (feat. Kid Cudi)/Pt. 2 (feat. Desiigner)

185. Domo Genesis - Dapper (feat. Anderson .Paak)

184. The Head and The Heart - Colors

183. Cashmere Cat - Wild Love (feat. The Weeknd & Francis and the Lights)

182. Judah & the Lion - Take It All Back

181. Post Malone - Money Made Me Do It (feat. 2 Chainz)

180. Chance the Rapper - Blessings (Reprise) [feat. Anderson .Paak, BJ The Chicago Kid, Raury & Ty Dolla $ign]

179. Young the Giant - Something To Believe In

178. A Tribe Called Quest - Kids... (feat. Andre Benjamin)

177. Twelve’len - Star Dust

176. Sara Hartman - Stranger in a Room

175. Bishop Briggs - Be Your Love

174. The Hunna - You & Me

173. Hare Squead - Herside Story

172. Solange - Don’t Touch My Hair (feat. Sampha)

171. Belly - Consuela (feat. Young Thug & Zack)

170. Birdy - Wild Horses

169. Lil Yachty - One Night

168. Kanye West - FML (feat. The Weeknd)

167. Meek Mill - Litty (feat. Tory Lanez)

166. Charli XCX - After the Afterparty (feat. Lil Yachty)

165. Drake - Child’s Play

164. Big Gigantic - All of Me (feat. Logic & ROZES)

163. Ro Ransom - Doppelganger

162. T.I. - Dope (feat. Marsha Ambrosius)

161. Skepta - Man

160. DJ Khaled - Nas Album Done (feat. Nas)

159. ScHoolboy Q - THat Part (feat. Kanye West)

158. Milky Chance - Cocoon

157. Wet - The Middle

156. Mac Miller - Stay

155. Post Malone - Patient

154. 21 Savage - X (feat. Future)

153. Ava Wolfe - xkss

152. JONES - Melt

151. Local Natives - Past Lives

150. Caleborate - Options (feat. Pell & Sylvan LaCue)

149. Vince Staples - War Ready

148. Chance the Rapper - Smoke Break (feat. Future)

147. Kevin Abstract - Empty

146. Rihanna - Love on the Brain

145. Lady Gaga - Hey Girl (feat. Florence Welch)

144. 2 Chainz - Good Drank (feat. Quavo & Gucci Mane)

143. The Weeknd - I Feel It Coming (feat. Daft Punk)

142. 070 Shake - Trust Nobody

141. Beyonce - Don’t Hurt Yourself (feat. Jack White)

140. Kanye West - Saint Pablo (feat. Sampha)

139. Lecrae & Leon Bridges - On My Own

138. Run The Jewels - 2100 (feat. BOOTS)

137. Post Malone - Monta (feat. Lil Yachty)

136. KAYTRANADA - GLOWED UP (feat. Anderson .Paak)

135. Phantogram - You Don’t Get Me High Anymore

134. Mura Masa - Love$ick (feat. A$AP Rocky) [Four tet Remix]

133. Father John Misty - Real Love Baby

132. Sampha - Blood On Me

131. Nick Grant - Get Up (feat. WatchTheDuck)

130. Drake - One Dance (feat. Wizkid & Kyla)

129. Verite - Underdressed

128. Jon Waltz - Riot

127. Jon Bellion - Maybe IDK

126. Meek Mill - Offended (feat. Young Thug & 21 Savage)

125. The Strumbellas - We Don’t Know)

124. The Weeknd - Six Feet Under

123. Clams Casino - All Nite (feat. Vince Staples)

122. Snakehips - Money On Me (feat. Anderson .Paak)

121. Isaiah Rashad - Wat’s Wrong (feat. Zacari & Kendrick Lamar)

120. Anderson .Paak - The Waters (feat. BJ the Chicago Kid)

119. Kendrick Lamar - Untitled 08 | 09.06.2014

118. Kid Cudi - Baptized in Fire (feat. Travis Scott)

117. Jay Prince - Father, Father

116. Daye Jack - Hands Up (feat. Killer Mike)

115. Jorja Smith - Something in the Way

114. Migos - Bad and Boujee

113. Kodak Black - Too Many Years (feat. PnB Rock)

112. Pell - In the Morning (feat. Stephen & Caleborate)

111. Frank Ocean - Pink + White

110. Big Sean - Living Single (feat. Chance the Rapper & Jeremih)

109. Gucci Mane - Last Time (feat. Travis Scott)

108. Beyonce - Freedom (feat. Kendrick Lamar)

107. Rihanna - Needed Me

106. Roy Woods - Gwan Big Up Urself

105. KYLE - iSpy (feat. Lil Yachty)

104. Flume - Never Be Like You (feat. Kai)

103. Vic Mensa - Free Love (feat. Le1f, Halsey, Lil B & Malik Yusef)

102. Logic - Tree of Life (feat. Slug & Killer Mike)

101. J. Cole - Immortal

100. Shannon Saunders - Pure

99. Royal Teeth - Kids Conspire

98. Gallant - Bourbon

97. Banks - Gemini Feed

96. Run The Jewels - Talk To Me

95. A$AP Ferg - Strive (feat. Missy Elliott)

94. Kanye West - Real Friends (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)

93. Grouplove - Good Morning

92. Divine Council - Dememba (Remix) [feat. $ilk Money & Andre Benjamin)

91. Drake - Fake Love

90. 21 Savage - No Heart

89. Phantogram - Same Old Blues

88. Sara Hartman - Monster Lead Me Home

87. Chance the Rapper - All Night (feat. Knox Fortune)

86. Bruno Mars - 24K Magic

85. Khalid - Location

84. Alicia Keys - Blended Family (feat. A$AP Rocky)

83. Kid Cudi - Surfin’ (feat. Pharrell Williams)

82. Ta-ku & Wafia - Meet in the Middle

81. Frank Ocean - Nights

80. Bon Iver - 33 “GOD”

79. Big Sean - Bounce Back

78. Isaiah Rashad - AA

77. The Avett Brothers - Ain’t No Man

76. J. Cole - Deja Vu

75. Ab-Soul - RAW (backwards) [feat. Zacari]

74. Kanye West, Gucci Mane, Big Sean, 2 Chainz, Travis Scott, Yo Gotti, Quavo & Desiigner - Champions

73. Rag’n’Bone Man - Human

72. Chance the Rapper - All We Got (feat. Kanye West & Chicago Children’s Choir)

71. Kaiydo - Fruit Punch

70. Desiigner - Tiimmy Turner

69. Rihanna - Same Ol’ Mistakes

68. The 1975 - Somebody Else

67. A Tribe Called Quest - We The People...

66. Bishop Briggs - Wild Horses

65. Kanye West - Fade (feat. Post Malone & Ty Dolla $ign)

64. The Weeknd - Reminder

63. ScHoolboy Q - By Any Means

62. Danny Brown - Really Doe (feat. Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul & Earl Sweatshirt)

61. Glass Animals - Youth

60. Travis Scott - The Ends (feat. Andre 3000)

59. Anderson .Paak - Come Down

58. Chance the Rapper - Mixtape (feat. Young Thug & Lil Yachty)

57. Mick Jenkins - Spread Love

56. Maggie Rogers - Dog Years

55. Denzel Curry - This Life

54. Kanye West - Wolves (feat. Vic Mensa & Sia)/Frank’s Track

53. The Chainsmokers - Closer (feat. Halsey)

52. Beyonce - Formation

51. Young Thug - Kanye West (feat. Wyclef Jean)

50. Misterwives - Same Drugs (Chance the Rapper cover)

49. DJ Khaled - Holy Key (feat. Big Sean, Kendrick Lamar & Betty Wright)

48. Kid Cudi - By Design (feat. Andre Benjamin)

47. Joey Bada$$ - Devastated

46. Starrah - Rush

45. Sampha - Timmy’s Prayer

44. Post Malone - Go Flex

43. J. Cole - False Prophets

42. Drake - 4PM In Calabasas

41. The Weeknd - Starboy (feat. Daft Punk)

40. Frank Ocean - Nikes

39. Kendrick Lamar - Untitled 07 | levitate

38. DJ Shadow - Nobody Speak (feat. Run The Jewels)

37. SAINt JHN - Reflex

36. Noname - Diddy Bop (feat. Raury & Cam O’bi)

35. 6LACK - Prblms

34. J. Cole - Change

33. Beyonce - Hold Up

32. Francis and the Lights - Friends (feat. Bon Iver)

31. John Legend - Penthouse Floor (feat. Chance the Rapper)

30. Future - Low Life (feat. The Weeknd)

29. Wet - All The Ways

28. Childish Gambino - Redbone

27. Travis Scott - Goosebumps (feat. Kendrick Lamar)

26. Frank Ocean - Solo (Reprise) [feat. Andre Benjamin]

25. Rae Sremmurd - Black Beatles (feat. Gucci Mane)

24. Young Thug & Travis Scott - Pick Up The Phone (feat. Quavo)

23. Mac Miller - Dang! (feat. Anderson .Paak)

22. The Strumbellas - Spirits

21. Beyonce - Sorry

20. The xx - On Hold

19. Flume - Smoke & Retribution (feat. Vince Staples & Kucka)

18. The Head and The Heart - All We Ever Knew

17. Chance the Rapper - Summer Friends (feat. Jeremih & Francis and the Lights)

16. Kanye West - No More Parties in L.A. (feat. Kendrick Lamar)

15. Glass Animals - Life Itself

14. Bishop Briggs - River

13. Childish Gambino - Me and Your Mama

12. The Weeknd - Sidewalks (feat. Kendrick Lamar)

11. Solange - Cranes in the Sky

10. Amine - Caroline

9. Frank Ocean - Solo

8. D.R.A.M. - Broccoli (feat. Lil Yachty)

7. Chance the Rapper - Blessings

6. Jorja Smith - Blue Lights

5. Maggie Rogers - Alaska

4. Travis Scott - Through the Late Night (feat. Kid Cudi)

3. Anderson .Paak - The Dreamer (feat. Talib Kweli & Timan Family Choir)

2. Chance the Rapper - No Problem (feat. Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz)

1. Kanye West - Ultralight Beam (feat. Chance the Rapper, The-Dream, Kelly Price & Kirk Franklin)

#music #best of 2016 #top songs #best songs #chance the rapper #kanye west #anderson paak #travis scott #maggie rogers #jorja smith #dram #frank ocean #amine #solange #the weeknd #kendrick lamar #childish gambino #bishop briggs #glass animals

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bienready2122 · 4 years

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Your Own Brand of Celebrity - 5 Signs That You Are Ready For It!

In this day and age, big name isn't only for big names any longer. We have superstar political savants, VIP cooks, legal advisors, money related specialists, wellness masters, even VIP bail bondsmen! Experts from a wide cluster of fields are presently exploiting this new media age - and the "New Age of Celebrity" we are living in! My Celebrity Bio For instance, it may be a specialist turned writer like Timothy Ferriss, whose first book The 4-Hour Workweek turned into a moment exemplary and enduring success, propelling his status as a highest quality level advisor, speaker, master, intellectual... and so on.

Or on the other hand, more as of late, it could be web sensation and media dear Susan Boyle, who ventured onto the phase of the hit demonstrate Britain's Got Talent to low desires, opened her mouth and sang perfectly, intriguing none other than Simon Cowell and prevailing upon the world as a real YouTube sensation.

Furthermore, "overnight achievement" Tim Ferris flaunts a BA from Princeton University just as a not insignificant rundown of scholarly, expert and individual accomplishments that went into the composition of his smash hit book. And keeping in mind that Susan Boyle may have jumped to national noticeable quality on the quality of one generally disseminated TV execution, she in certainty examined theater and move and may have sought after it before in the event that she wasn't occupied with thinking about her debilitated mother without any assistance.

So while the genuine "short-term achievement" might be uncommon, there is no denying that right now age big name isn't just ready and waiting - however can surprise you in case you're ill-equipped. So in what manner will you realize when it's your opportunity to open the entryway to distinction? Here are a couple of top signals that you're prepared for that next enormous advance toward your own image of superstar:

1. You are certain about your capacities. Certainty is an aptitude vital to all superstars; they know their stuff and, also, they "know" that they know their stuff. You can just "counterfeit it until you make it" so some time before being gotten short in the superstar office. Genuine VIPs, be they easily recognized names or industry pioneers such as yourself, let certainty be their pass to notoriety.

2. You talk achievement easily. Achievement truly is a perspective. In the event that you base accomplishment on your financial balance, your stock value, your units sent or your ROI, there will consistently be somebody greater and better at what you do. New York and LA don't hold the licenses on VIP; any place you are, whatever you do, whatever specialty you own or aptitude you appreciate, that is your pass to VIP anyplace on the planet.

3. Your partners as of now consider you to be a big name. Despite how much cash we make or our situation throughout everyday life, we are on the whole fit for VIP in our own extraordinary manners. We may never star in a blockbuster film, compose a top of the line business book or sing on live TV, however when we find - and own - our own specific specialty we can become famous people of equivalent stature in our little (or not all that little) corner of the world. Perhaps you as of now are; possibly you have just wowed the neighborhood correspondents, aced the nearby television show circuit and are as of now the go-to individual for talk with cites in your locale. Or on the other hand possibly you're only the person or lady everyone goes to with inquiries on money, wellbeing, wellness, the tango or tomato developing. Try not to accept that blockbuster status comes one day to your doorstep, blessing wrapped with a card declaring itself. I meet big names throughout the day; they simply don't have any acquaintance with it yet.

4. You can "run with the large canines." Celebrity requires a specific energy, eagerness and aptitude that is difficult to counterfeit. You can't feign your way through a 2-hour workshop - or even a 2-minute fragment with a neighborhood correspondent. In case you're perspiring each answer, staggering over each answer and edgy to run back to your office, individuals will see that and big name will escape you.

5. Superstar is the following coherent move. There comes a point in your vocation when you have gone the extent that you can abandon an infusion of something unique; being perceived as the big name master in your field is something exceptional - to say the very least!

They state "timing is everything," except that is just incompletely obvious; timing is a major piece of the Celebritize Yourself condition yet so too are ability, drive, understanding, expertise, inspiration, vitality, energy, and so on.

At the end of the day, in case you're not prepared at the ideal time - or not certain enough or experienced enough or energetic enough, and so on - at that point not exclusively is the time not right yet big name will keep on escaping you. Things being what they are, when IS the correct time for you to turn into a VIP? At the point when everything looks good for YOU.

Let these five signs alert you to the way that your time may very well be at the present time!

For a long time Marsha Friedman has been a main expert on advertising as CEO of EMSI, a national pubilc relations firm. Her firm speaks to companies and specialists in a wide cluster of fields, for example, business, wellbeing, nourishment, way of life, governmental issues, money, law, sports and diversion. A portion of the more conspicuous names on her customer program are Teamster's President Jimmy Hoffa Jr., Sergeant's Pet Care Products, Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane and the popular Motown Group, the Temptations.

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secondsightcinema · 5 years

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Raw Deal (1948): Crashing Out of Corkscrew Alley

“I believe in the nobility of the human spirit. It is that for which I look in a subject I am to direct. I do not believe that everybody is bad, that the whole world is wrong. The greatness of Shakespeare’s plays is the nobility of the human spirit, even though he may destroy the character.” —Anthony Mann, 1964, cite source, p.8 (Introduction)

First and most important, if you don’t know this movie and you love noir, see it.

If you don’t know much about noir but appreciate exciting, beautifully made movies, see it.

If you are moved by great storytelling, acting, and extraordinary cinematography, see it.

If you have 78 minutes and feel like something thrilling, creepy, romantic and tragic?

Well, you get the idea.

Watch Raw Deal, and don’t do it on the fly—sit down, turn off your phone, and give it your full attention. You will be rewarded.

There, my job is done. Now we can talk about the movie. Here’s a link to a synopsis if you are so inclined: here you go.

Corkscrew Alley is a crushing habitat for nobility of the human spirit. It’s great shorthand for the corrupt world so many noir characters desperately try to escape. It’s just that most of its denizens have had the aspiration knocked out of them by brutality and poverty, and their spirits are in moth-eaten tatters. Even when they act on an impulse toward decency, they get it in the neck and are knocked back into crime, shabbiness: Corkscrew Alley.

In Raw Deal, Mann focuses primarily on four characters, three in a romantic triangle. The fourth is an impressively disgusting villain, a sadistic pyromaniac criminal whose efforts to kill the protagonist before he comes to claim the $50,000 owed him create the simple, on-the-lam plot.

But it’s the romantic triangle, particularly the two women, who Mann develops beyond the usual scope of noir. As Jeanine Basinger notes in Anthony Mann (2007), it is in Raw Deal that Mann for the first time creates two characters who are deeply fused, almost mirror images, a dynamic he would develop further in his westerns. In this case it’s two great actresses and noir goddesses, Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt, who form this dyad.

I always wonder when in the thrall of a work of collaborative art, if those who made it had a sense of its quality or importance while caught up in the process of making it. Was the power of (forgive me, I date myself) Blonde on Blonde, or Sgt. Pepper, or Astral Weeks apparent to the musicians and producers as they worked?

Maybe the lower the budget, the less likely those involved are to be aware of having a part in making something extraordinary, something that could live on for many decades and in some cases become celebrated in ways unthinkable in the movie’s own time. It’s great the Edgar Ulmer lived to see Detour celebrated, and the same of Joseph H. Lewis and Gun Crazy. But in an interview with Claire Trevor, decades after making Raw Deal, she hardly remembers it. And you can see why. She was a busy actress, going from one movie to another. Noir didn’t exist yet, not as an artistic designation, and so Trevor’s noirs when she was making them were just low-budget crime movies. Raw Deal was for Trevor just another gig.

Marsha Hunt’s memories of working on Raw Deal mostly centered on her perception that Mann didn’t direct the actors, focusing instead on lighting and camera placement, leaving his cast to work out their own characterizations and bits of business. The director, who had himself been an actor on Broadway before moving into film, knew he could trust this fine cast. The versatile Dennis O’Keefe, equally at home in comedy and drama and was also a published writer who aspired to direct, holds his own with his leading ladies, two of the very best.

To Anthony Mann, still in the first phase of his Hollywood career, Raw Deal was just a follow-up to his previous year’s success with T-Men, also starring homme fatale Dennis O’Keefe, also shot by John Alton. Like Trevor’s experience going from one film to another, Mann’s was as a busy journeyman director, air-dropped from one project to the next, so that he couldn’t afford to invest much emotionally in any of them.

//////***MOVE THE NEXT FEW ‘GRAPHS UP TOWARD THE TOP*** “There has been so much yapping over the years about the film director, the film *auteur*…that it has been very difficult for the general public and even for the informed public, to realize that making a film is an industrial process and it is perfectly possible to edit, alter, present and have a resounding success without the director having anything more to do with the film from the moment he stops shouting at the actors.” —Michael Powell

Right! Great thing to bear in mind when we love a film and imagine that the director had overall control of the project, that directing was for most an artistic endeavor rather than the reality that they were hired guns who came in, shot a movie, then moved on to the next one. Yes, there are exceptions among directors (and even stars). But in the main, Hollywood filmmaking was, as Powell says, “an industrial process,” not a personal artistic one.

That makes the greatness of so many movies made in this industrial process even more miraculous. Sometimes the stars and cinematic elements aligned—the right producer, script, director, cinematographer, and cast, and the result is a thing of beauty that continues to delight, disturb, and enrich us many decades later.

Raw Deal is one of those.

So what is it that sets it apart from a couple hundred other noirs?

First thing is what Mann said in the quote at the top of this piece, in 1964. There is a yearning for redemption, to express “the nobility of the human spirit,” that curls around the characters like cigarette smoke, like that San Francisco fog that Alton evoked so convincingly. Joe (O’Keefe) is a gangster, but when he was a kid he risked his life to rescue some other kids from a fire—Ann (Hunt) tells Joe that’s what first got her interested in him. She wants something better for him, and though he resists her pressing him away from the dirty life he’s trapped in, toward “a little common decency,” as she says, she gets under his skin. And even Joe longs for “a breath of fresh air,” not a feature of his gangster life, prison, Corkscrew Alley.

Joe wants to crash out, like weary gangster Roy Earle (Bogart in a break-out role) in High Sierra (1941). He dreams of living like normal people, not under constant threat from the law or your own crime boss.

Joe’s moll, Pat (Trevor), is so broken, so beaten down from Corkscrew Alley life that she takes insults and abuse without flinching. But still, even Pat has a pilot light of yearning for something better. It’s just that she’s so damaged she can’t imagine anything better than a life with career criminal Joe. Unlike some other noir dames Trevor played (thinking particularly of *Murder, My Sweet* and *Born to Kill*), who are the sociopathic equals of any onscreen, Pat has the vulnerability of Trevor’s most famous role as TK in Stagecoach*(1939), as a prostitute, and in Key Largo (1949), as Edgar G. Robinson’s battered, alcoholic moll.

Course part of that is just sex, not spiritual yearning. Joe knows he’s hot for social worker Ann, but Ann isn’t quite as honest with herself about her feelings for him. She tells herself it’s just professional concern for a client, but Joe knows better. (One thing about Corkscrew Alley: it attunes you to the basic, baser motivations.)

Ann (Hunt) is the only one of the four principals who wasn’t formed by Corkscrew Alley. She grew up in slightly more genteel poverty, her father a schoolteacher who imbued her with ambition for a better life—”He died in the war of the Depression, only we didn’t get any medals,” she says bitterly to Joe when he accuses her of having had it easy. She hits back, hard, telling him she’s had to fight, just not “that stupid way,” with a gun. She’s managed to get an education, a decent apartment and car, a solid job. Her interest in Joe is a threat to everything she’s accomplished, but she’s blind to that until it’s too late. But when she tells Joe all she wants is “just a little decency, that’s all,” he looks like she’s broken through his defenses.

The third member of the triangle is Pat (Trevor), a hard-time girl who loves Joe desperately. She reminds me a little bit of Marie, Ida Lupino’s character in High Sierra, so emotionally damaged that she doesn’t know if she’s good enough for aging gangster Roy Earle. Marie and Pat are so battered by life that they have no experience of tenderness, kindness, love. The crooks they fall for look good to them because anything better is beyond the scope of their dreams.

Jeanine Basinger writes about how Pat and Ann are almost twinned, two characters who reflect each other, I would say in their differences as well as their similarities. In the first scene, at the prison, we first see each woman hatted and veiled, so their faces, which give away their feelings, are fenced off from the world and the unstable feelings it evokes. Pat wants nothing but Joe, her slender hope for any kind of happiness is all condensed into her desire to be with him, while Ann, who has relied on self-discipline to make her way in the world, is less connected to her own feelings about Joe, and if she were aware of them, she’d see instantly how hopeless they are. Toward the end, Pat finds that as much as she wants to hate Ann, she can’t—she recognizes her as another woman who loves Joe. This approaches compassion, an astonishing spiritual attainment for someone as emotionally beat-up as Pat, and a kind of metaphorical fresh air that lifts her above her own suffering.

But it’s the feelings we don’t recognize that control us, and while Ann didn’t ask to be taken hostage on Joe’s and Pat’s cross-country odyssey, and her revulsion at their casual criminality and violence are authentic, this good girl finds herself drawn closer to Joe’s way of life than she could ever comfortably acknowledge.

One of Raw Deal’s novelties is its use of the almost ubiquitous noir voiceover, usually a male voice relating past-tense events, often in flashback. Here the first difference is that the film’s voice is present-tense, and it belongs to Pat, her feelings are about the only things she owns. The second difference is that it is a female voice, not the norm in noir. It’s fitting that Pat should speak directly to us, or rather that we are allowed to eavesdrop on her internal storytelling of the narrative in which she finds herself. One of my only quibbles with Raw Deal is the theramin that underscores all of Pat’s voiceover. It feels like one of those club-us-like-baby-seals things where someone—perhaps Mann, perhaps not—decides we need something to tell us we’re hearing a voiceover. Like we need a frickin’ neon sign. The theramin is intrusive and stylistically at odds with the very good score. I’m guessing it was a producer who insisted on it: PRODUCER, flicking cigar ash: What’s—what’s she saying? Why isn’t her mouth moving? ASSISTANT: Right, sir. It’s a voiceover. PRODUCER: Voiceover…but it’s a dame! ASSISTANT: Yes, sir. It’s a little bit different, but we thought— PRODUCER: Never mind what you thought! Put some kind of sound with it, so the audience knows why her mouth isn’t moving! ASSISTANT: Well…we have an hour’s credit at the recording studio. I’ll talk to the composer, we just need one cue, we can repeat it every time the voiceover comes in… PRODUCER: Yeh, whatever, just make sure when we hear the dame’s voice and she ain’t talking, we know it’s on purpose. ASSISTANT: Sure thing, L.Q….

Most oft-discussed of Raw Deal are its visuals: the glorious cinematography, how Mann and Alton trap Joe and his girls in tight, closed spaces. Joe is suffocating for lack of fresh air, that’s how he expresses his drive to escape the dirty dead end of Corkscrew Alley. From the film’s opening, through its series of action sequences, we and the characters are repeatedly crammed into tight shots in cars, closets, freighter cabins, and framed in windows, behind bars or mesh.

Mann makes use of his female stars’ extraordinary acting in long closeups. Their faces pass through what would take paragraphs or pages to express, and we feel an intimate connection to their interior lives.

The film’s final bravura sequence, with a thrilling gun ambush in the street followed by a knock-down, drag-out fight in the middle of a raging fire, brings us back to, where else?—Corkscrew Alley. Pat does the right thing, partly because she knows she will never really have Joe and partly because she’s not quite bad enough to let her rival face grievous harm. Joe does the right thing, too, and finally gets that breath of fresh air he’s spent his life searching for. Both of them have found a little bit of grace they didn’t know they had, but it doesn’t change their fate.

Rick meets his fate, too, and Mann and Alton make sure it’s as baroque and horrific as anything Rick could dream of doing to an enemy (or a girlfriend, but you’ll have to see the movie to understand that ref).

And Ann? Her boundaries broken, her understanding of the world and her own psyche shattered, she has to go back to the life she worked so hard to attain, but neither she or that carefully crafted life will ever be the same. At the beginning of the story, she is a kind person, but it takes the events of Raw Deal to force her to confront her own unruly desire and even potential for violence.

Everyone loses what they prize most. And three of the four find that they are able to sacrifice their own fondest desires to serve something larger than themselves. Apparently there’s room for a spark of nobility, even in Corkscrew Alley.

This post was written for the Classic Movie Bloggers’ Association 2019 Spring blogathon. Do yourself a favor and head on over to read more noiry goodness.

from Second Sight Cinema | http://bit.ly/2IK0sAv via http://bit.ly/2GuQYYm

#Second Sight Cinema |

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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As Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke catapults into rock-stardom for his long shot bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, another Democrat in a red state — Tennessee’s Phil Bredesen — has a fighting chance, perhaps more so than O’Rourke, of bringing the blue wave to Trump country.

But Bredesen’s run for Senate isn’t making him a national celebrity — and he doesn’t want it to.

If he wins on Election Day, Bredesen will have mounted one of the biggest upsets of the year, and it will have gone largely under the radar. It’s by design. He is aiming to join the growing list of low-drama Democratic campaigns running against a very very loud Republican Party — and winning.

Trump maintains a 58 percent approval rating in Tennessee, so Bredesen isn’t running a #resistance-style campaign. A popular former governor, he is running as a measured, middle-of-the-road message to counter the Trump-loving Marsha Blackburn, a congresswoman whose opening message to Tennesseans was that the Senate wasn’t partisan enough.

President Trump with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) during a rally in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 29, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

“Too many Senate Republicans act like Democrats or worse,” she said in her first ad, promising to fight to repeal Obamacare and fund the border wall. In a recent Vanderbilt University poll, Bredesen had one-point edge over Blackburn. The Real Clear Politics polling average gives Blackburn a 6-point advantage in the race. (For comparison, Cruz is up by an average of 7 points, and though O’Rourke has come close, he hasn’t yet led in a single poll.)

Bredesen is making a bet that voters are tired of the Trump era of politics; they’re tired of hearing scandal after scandal out of the White House, sick of Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell’s spats, and exhausted by the fear mongering ads about undocumented immigrants jumping the border.

“People are over the drama,” one Democratic campaign aide told me. “They are tired of the fighting. They want us to talk about the issue and the issue is not the border wall — their issue is whether their kid is going to get off of opioids.”

In other words, Bredesen is hoping people want politics to be boring again.

Bredesen says the most pressing issue facing Tennesseans is partisanship in Washington, DC. He blames both Democrats and Republicans.

“So many issues that affect Tennesseans economically and and in every other way are stalled in many ways because because of the lack of ability to Washington to engage with issues,” Bredesen said in his opening comments at a debate with Blackburn. “I think a lot of the problem in Washington is with the leadership we have there now whether it be whether it be a Ryan or Pelosi or McConnell or Schumer they’re not doing the job we need to get new leadership.”

Blackburn then turned to attack Bredesen for being a Democrat — she likes to say Schumer is paying for his campaign.

Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen and Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn debate at Cumberland University in in Lebanon, Tenn., on September 25, 2018. Lacy Atkins/The Tennessean via AP

“Phil had a choice: he could have run as a Republican or an Independent,” Blackburn said in response. “He’s running as a Democrat so he will be with Chuck Schumer if he were to go to Washington.”

It was an exchange that perfectly captures this low-profile race for the Senate. Blackburn, despite her base-emboldening message, has failed to get a strong footing in the race, despite having the Republican cavalry behind her. Americans for Prosperity, the Koch network’s political arm and the Senate Leadership Fund together have spent close to $10 million on Blackburn. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Eric Trump have all come to the state and rallied for her. Still the polls show the two candidates neck in neck — and women in the state, who are more likely to vote, favor Bredesen.

A two-term governor, Bredesen is one of the last Democrats elected statewide and with any name recognition. And Bredesen isn’t trying to be a rabble rousing star in the Democratic party. He’s trying to be as apolitical — and inoffensive — as possible.

In the US. Senate race, his record as governor is being defined by the times he was most moderate — like having to make large cuts to the state’s Medicaid expansion program to keep the budget under control. He likes to talk about tariffs (Trump’s trade wars have put the state’s agricultural and auto industries at risk), and how the invasion of a kind of fish, the Asian carp is a real threat to the Tennessee economy. His Senate website even sells a baseball cap embroidered “Phil Bredesen Against Asian Carp.”

“He’s running a really good campaign with a very on target message: the theme throughout is that I’m not running against Trump i’m running for Tennessee,” Tom Ingram, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)’s former chief of staff, said.

Phil Bredesen onstage at Marathon Music Works, in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 20, 2018. Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Perhaps Bredesen’s boldest move in the race was his support for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed in the midst of several allegation of sexual assault against him. Bredesen, who faced backlash for the decision, said there wasn’t enough evidence to disqualify Kavanaugh.

The decision was perhaps his most politically fraught, but also the biggest display of this political calculus.

“He’s going to have to be very clear and repetitive about his independence from Democratic leadership,” Ingram said. “That’s the only path for a Democrat in Tennessee.”

Nearly a year ago, Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) proved a Democrat could win in the Trumpiest of Trump countries — Alabama. Then Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) gave a repeat performance winning a special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, which voted for Trump by 20 points.

Bredesen would welcome the comparison.

There were certain extraordinary circumstances in Alabama; namely the Republican candidate, Roy Moore, was accused of multiple instances of inappropriate sexual behavior with teenage girls, one as young as 14, when he was in 30s, had questioned whether Muslims should be allowed to serve in Congress, and stated homosexuality should be illegal.

Moore, as a candidate, was as close to Trump as Republicans could get. In Pennsylvania, Republican state legislator Rick Saccone, a man who calls himself “Trump before Trump was Trump,” was trying to be.

Democrat Rep. Conor Lamb, who delivered a shocking upset to Republicans this year, exits a voting station with his grandmother Barbara Lamb in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, on March 13, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Lamb and Jones were comparatively quite boring. They didn’t talk about about the Democratic party — other than to say they weren’t bound to it. They didn’t let Washington’s press corps in. Lamb, as The Atlantic’s Elaine Godfrey described him, was “pleasantly inoffensive — like vanilla ice cream or a pair of well-pressed khaki pants.” Jones, was the same, running on the less-than-rousing campaign messages of “quality, affordable health care,” and “discrimination cannot be tolerated.”

Being inoffensive, according to Jones’ campaign adviser Joe Trippi, a prominent Democratic strategist, it turns out, was key.

“I thought that Trump was actually driving people to want to end the chaos,” Trippi told Vox in December of last year after Jones won. “Even if you liked [Trump], you didn’t want more chaos in Washington than what he was already creating.”

The strategy is playing out across the country, from Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) who is trying to unseat Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada, to Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, who has been consistently leading the polls with her main message, “Fix the Damn Roads.”

In Tennessee, Bredesen is taking a page out of the same playbook: he’s keeping it to the “kitchen table issues,” his campaign aide said.

If being a boring Democrat is the model for flipping Trump-friendly states blue in 2018, it requires Democrats to correctly identify why Trump won. Trump won the Tennessee by 30 points in 2016; it’s a certainty that the state is conservative.

“There are two parts of Trump,” says John Geer, who directs Vanderbilt University’s political polling said. “One part is the anger in the rural areas about ‘Make American Great Again.’ The other part is [Trump’s] incivility — that part people don’t like.”

Supporters of President Trump shout toward members of the press during a rally for Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), in Nashville, Tennessee on May 29, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Tennessee’s Republican primary for the governor’s race was an early litmus test. Rep. Diane Black, a high-ranking, well established Republican politician was the early favorite, only to come third place, in what most Republican observers in the state saw as a failed attempt to out-Trump her opponents.

“Those that support Trump run a pretty wide ideological spectrum and what’s common about them is that they are frustrated voters that feel left out,” Ingram said.

Tennessee’s conservatism, in particular, has a more pragmatic streak. The current governor, Gov. Bill Haslam, and Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker are part of a dying breed of business-centric conservatives. Corker now-famously announced his retirement after vocalizing his deep concern about the direction Trump was taking the Republican party.

“We just always have been a state that has — minus me — not only elected more thoughtful folks, but also people that have been in many cases national figures,” Corker said. Former Vice President Al Gore — another notable bore — who very nearly unseated President George W. Bush in 2000, is from the state, as well.

Trippi explained the dynamic this way:

Trump’s creating energy among the Democratic base that wants to come out and wants to make the change and wants to do something to fight back against what’s happening. At the same time, he’s creating enough chaos and divisiveness and hostility that Republicans who would never ordinarily vote for a Democrat say, “Okay, well I’ve got all the chaos and hostility I can handle right now. I’ll vote for somebody who wants to try to find common ground and get things done for me, even if they’re a Democrat.”

As Blackburn rests on the notion that Bredesen has disqualified himself in Tennessee by simply having a “D” for Democrat by his name. Bredesen is making a very different bet: that Americans are tired of worrying about the fires being started in Washington.

“If Phil Bredesen is our next senator, people are angry about government,” Geer said.

President Trump waves as he leaves a rally for Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in Nashville, Tennessee on May 29, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Original Source -> Democrats’ new bet: boring can win

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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mtalviharju1983 · 6 years

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Love, prayer strength quotes 9-9-2018

love quotes

Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”

— Lord Byron

“If I know what love is, it is because of you.”

— Herman Hesse

“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”

— Roy Croft

“Love is a friendship set to music.”

— Joseph Campbell

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”

— George Sand

Prayer quoteS

Prayer does not change God, it changes us. It deepens insight, increases intuitive perception, expands consciousness. It transforms personality. Wilferd A. Peterson, The Art of Living Treasure Chest

Prayer is a positive force, worry is a negative force. Joyce Meyers, Be Anxious For Nothing

Before you go to sleep, run over your personal world mentally and thank God for everyone and everything. Norman Vincent Peale - Have A Great Day

I began to see my life and each breath I am given as a living prayer to God and a way to pray for others for our world. Mary C. Neal, MD, To Heaven and Back

Sometimes prayer is the only connection you may ever have with some people. Marsha Marks, 101 Amazing Things About God

Strength quotes

Always remember, there is more strength in you than you ever realized or even imagined. Certainly nothing can keep you down if you are determined to get on top of things and stay there.--Norman Vincent Peale

Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that's what makes you strong.--Sarah Dessen

Some people strengthen others just by being the kind of people they are.--John M. Gardener

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.--Napoleon Hill

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks.--Phillips Brooks

Each day brings new life, new strength, new dreams and new hope. May you find courage, confidence and hope to reach out for your dreams.--Lailah Gifty Akita

#love quotes #prayer quotes #strength quotes

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years

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What Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama had to say to Tennessee Democrats

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=3910

What Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama had to say to Tennessee Democrats

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U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., speaks to the Tennessee Democratic Party Three Star Dinner at the Wilson County Expo Center in Lebanon on June 16, 2018.(Photo: Price Chambers / For The Tennessean)Buy Photo

LEBANON — Alabama Sen. Doug Jones told Tennessee Democrats on Saturday night that the South isn’t “ruby red” and by electing good people to higher office they can help change the state.

“I don’t think Alabama and the South are ruby red,” Jones said. “This is time to elevate good people to our state offices and Washington. There can be a state of change in Tennessee.”

The Democratic senator defeated Republican Roy Moore in a closely watched special election last year that drew national attention. His victory has given hope to Democrats elsewhere in the Republican dominated South that they too can win.

Complete coverage: Tennessee’s 2018 U.S. Senate campaign

Tariff debate: Bredesen calls tariffs ‘troubling;’ Blackburn says she’s ‘not a fan’ but calls them ‘part of a negotiation’

Jones took center stage at the Tennessee Democratic Party’s statewide fundraiser in Lebanon, urging civility and working across party lines to get things done in Washington.

He said he felt voters were tired of polarization and that he came to the Senate to find common ground.

“That’s the only way we are going to get things done,” he said. “I have partnered with my Republican colleagues to do that. But we have an obligation to stand by our principles with civility.”

Listen now: Grand Divisions Episode 2: Tariffs and whiskey

Jones’ speech before the Tennessee Democratic Party comes at a time when Democrats in Tennessee are fielding more candidates for office than they have in recent years and as Democrats compete in two statewide races — the campaigns for U.S. Senate and governor.

This year, 100 candidates are running for the state House and state Senate, which is larger than any election cycle in recent memory, according to party officials. Democrats are also running in all nine of the state’s Congressional districts.

A bump for Bredesen

But it’s the high-profile races for U.S. Senate and governor that are drawing most of the attention.

Former Gov. Phil Bredesen, the last Democrat to win a statewide campaign in Tennessee, is in a competitive contest with U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Brentwood, for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Corker.

Some Democrats across the country are looking to Tennessee as part of an effort to retake control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim 51-49 advantage.

Bredesen has made a point not to campaign against President Donald Trump and has said he expects to be in the minority party if elected, given the challenges Democrats face in other states.

Before he left the dinner, Jones said he would look forward to having Bredesen working alongside him in the Senate.

“Our opposition shouldn’t be our enemy,” Jones said. “People all over the country want to see their elected officials working together. His opponent isn’t going to do that.”

“Today, as the senator of Alabama, I ask my staff who have we heard from and what can we do for them,” Jones said. “That’s how you get elected in Alabama. That’s how you get elected in Tennessee, even if you don’t have all the answers.”

Bredesen introduced Jones at the dinner and said the Alabama senator is “focused on kitchen-table issues.”

“That’s what anyone ought to do,” Bredesen said. “That’s how anyone should operate in the U.S. Senate.”

For his part, Bredesen urged Democrats to help his campaign.

“I need your help,” he said. “But I won’t pay you back. Instead, I’ll pay it forward by being the best damn senator you’ve laid eyes on.”

Republican response

Tennessee has become increasingly Republican in recent years, but the state’s Senate race is considered a toss up by many experts, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Republicans have sought to portray Bredesen as a candidate in lock-step with national Democrats, someone who would work against the GOP agenda and Trump, who campaigned for Blackburn last month in Nashville.

Trump rally in Nashville: President Trump calls Bredesen ‘total tool’ for Democrats during Marsha Blackburn rally

On Saturday, Tennessee Republicans continued pressing that theme.

“Phil Bredesen — just like Doug Jones — likes to paint himself as a moderate Democrat who isn’t beholden to liberals like Chuck Schumer, but the reality is far different,” Tennessee GOP chairman Scott Golden said.

“If Bredesen and Jones had their way, there would have been no tax cuts, no bigger paychecks, and no bonuses.”

Abbi Sigler, a Blackburn campaign spokesman, echoed that, saying that as soon as Jones got to Washington, “he fell right in line with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.”

“That’s exactly what Tennesseans expect from Phil Bredesen. A vote for him is a vote for the policies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Tennesseans know they can trust Marsha Blackburn to represent their values in the United States Senate.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidates Karl Dean, the former Nashville mayor, and Craig Fitzhugh, the state House minority leader, also attended and spoke at the Democratic dinner.

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The Tennessee Democratic Party Three Star Dinner begins at the Wilson County Expo Center in Lebanon on June 16, 2018. (Photo: Price Chambers / For The Tennessean)

Reach Emily West at [email protected], at 615-613-1380; or on Twitter at @emwest22.

Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/tn-elections/2018/06/16/doug-jones-alabama-senate-race-tennessee-phil-bredesen-marsha-blackburn/705301002/

Read full story here

#Democrats

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josephkitchen0 · 7 years

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Victorian Farmstead

By Alan Harman

When Adam and Laura Parks were launching their northern California-based meat business in 2010, Twister Hill Ranch owner Bruce McGlochlin sold them their first load of sheep for just $5 a head.

The-way-below cost, start-up price has a story that details a 30-year family friendship.

Back in 1980, Adam’s grandfather Roy Parks, who died when Adam was 12, helped McGlochlin expand his Sonoma County ranch operation in Tomales, adding sheep to go with his Scottish Highland cattle herd.

“While Bruce and Marsha McGlochlin were deciding how to buy their first sheep, Bruce asked Grandpa Roy for advice,” Adam says. “Grandpa ended up selling him a half dozen older ewes for $5 each to get him started.”

Cut to 2010.

“I ran into Bruce after moving back to the county,” Adams says. “He asked if I was interested in buying some lambs for the meat company we had just started in Sebastopol.

“I was. And so we settled on a time for me to come out to his ranch and check them out. I selected six lambs I liked and started to ask his price.”

It was then McGlochlin told Adam the story of how Grandpa Park had helped him get started.

“He told me that he and his wife Marsha had discussed it, and they would only accept $5 per head for this group,” Adams says.

Adam & Laura have bought many more lambs at market price from Bruce for his Victorian Farmstead Meat Co. over the years, but those first six lambs remain very special.

Adam grew up in Tomales, 60 miles north of San Francisco, on an 800-acre sheep ranch.

After studying agri-business with an emphasis on marketing, he ended up in the world of professional golf as tour director for the Canadian Professional Golf Association.

When the 2008 financial crisis hit he and Laura were living in Stockton, CA, with their young children Jackson and Molly.

“I’d like to say that we were a victim of circumstance, that we lost everything (home, car, business) because of the corrupt housing lenders. But a lot of it was just poor choices by me,” he says, in a characteristically humble honesty that can win a hesitant buyer’s confidence.

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Uphill Toward the Goal

He moved to a small farm owned by his other grandfather, Marvin H. Good.

To put food on the family table, he bought 25 meat chickens and a couple of piglets and fed them out to fill the freezers. Then he added a couple of sheep and a steer.

“It got me thinking about how people that didn’t have the land to raise their own meat could purchase it,” Adam says.

That’s when his marketing training from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo kicked in.

The farmers markets were a place that seemed like a natural fit.

“Meat wasn’t common at farmers markets, and we learned early on that that was a great opportunity to educate folks on where the meat came from and the way the animal was raised—and why it mattered what it ate,” Adam says.

“There were and still are so many customers we encounter who want to eat better quality meat, but don’t know who to trust: It became the mission of our company to be the most trusted, transparent source around.”

There were plenty of hoops to jump though, due to opposition from health inspectors, the Department of Food and Agriculture, farmers market managers and the competition.

“The main problem was there was no precedent for this type of setup in our area,” Parks says. “Once we got the first obstacles circumvented and had our setup in use, we were able to prove that we could do this in a safe and sustainable way that the customers leaped at.”

Victorian Farmstead became the first local meat company to offer fresh meat in clear vacuum-packs displayed on ice, rather than as a frozen white-wrapped product.

Developing a “Meat Annuity”

It’s difficult for small operations to get into a USDA-certified slaughter facility on a regular and profitable basis.

“I figured if I could have a steady flow of animals, I could solve two big problems,” Adan says.

“First, with the right volume and consistency, the local USDA facilities would be happy to have us as a customer.”

Second, the consumer problem is that buying a whole or half animal to fill their freezer is great until they realize that they have used up all their rib eyes and filets and still have to go through 200 lbs. of ground and stew meat.

“If we could harvest all four animals—lamb, beef, pork, chicken—and give consumers a variety of cuts from each, it would solve this imbalance for them.

“We called it the meat annuity.

“We decided that the best place to market our program was at local farmers markets. My wife Laura designed a booth, pulled a nice selection of cuts from the freezer and we headed out to our first market.”

They sold $19 worth of meat.

“We were devastated,” he recalls. “We had put all this time and money into our set-up and nobody wanted what we were selling.”

The next night they were scheduled for their second farmers market. With nothing to lose, they headed to the Occidental farmers market.

“We were thrilled with a sales total of over $400,” Parks says. “We did as many farmers markets as we could over the next few weeks and learned a few things very quickly.

“Everyone we talked to thought the meat annuity was a stroke of genius, but nobody wanted to sign up,” he says.

“What they wanted was to buy cuts of meat on the spot. What we were using as a talking point—the few cuts we brought to display—was what they wanted.

The other huge take-away from those first few markets was that folks wanted fresh meat.

“There were very few farmers markets that had a meat vendor at all, and those that did typically had someone with a couple of coolers packed with freezer paper wrapped cuts of an indistinguishable nature at best.

“If we could bring vacuum-sealed cuts so that people could see the product, it would be a game changer.”

Adams says they quickly realized it wasn’t feasible to raise everything and handle sales and marketing.

“We went to ranchers that I grew up with: Our families had known them for generations. We asked them to raise for us,” he says. “We had the best beef guy, the best lamb guy, and quickly became known for bringing the very best that Sonoma and Marin counties had to offer to the local farmers market.”

Sonoma County, of course, is legendary wine country, and with a nod to a well-known saying in that sector, Adam adapted a slogan that became his company’s watch word—Life’s too short to eat crappy meat.

“Truth be told, my wife and mom had to talk me down from a more vulgar word,” Adams confided to sheep!

“I came up with it after a long day of pouring concrete for what would become of our first retail store. The slab for the Chop Shop, as it is called, was completed around 8 p.m. and I wrote it out in block letters in concrete at the front.”

Red Tape Forces A New Course

They no longer sell through an on-farm retail shop.

“The original on-farm Chop Shop was kind of a ‘meat speakeasy.’ where we sold our products until we were shut down by the county in 2013, due to lack of a $14,000 ‘Use’ permit.

“Turns out you can raise agricultural products, but you can’t sell them without a use permit, because sales are not an ‘ag-related activity’” Adam says.

They worked for 18 months trying to build their own retail butcher shop and production facility in a then-new market development in Sebastopol.

“It wouldn’t pencil out. So as a last-ditch effort, I went to their anchor store, Community Market, and begged them to put in a meat counter that we could lease and run,” he says.

It opened in November 2013!

“It remains our very small, but efficient bricks-and-mortar shop. And it makes it possible for us to offer much more to our customers than our farmers market competition: House-made sausages, custom cuts, marinades and rubs, etc.”

Adam and Laura’s Victorian Farmstead Meat Co.—the name comes from the beautiful Victorian-era home on their farm—has evolved into a unique blend of community, online and store-front sales, driven by his eye-catching slogan.

About 40 percent of the business is from the retail butcher shop, 40 percent from retail sales at area farmers markets and 20 percent from community supported agriculture (CSA) sales, in which the customers sign on to receive a regular “meat box” in exchange for a discount on regular prices.

One key to the Victorian Farmstead lamb meat website’s success is having careful, simple, clear presentation: Customers neither get confused, nor do they make big mistakes in ordering. Each picture links to its own description and order page. Most prices named are by the pound, others (mainly specials) are flat rates for bulk packs with “at least” weights. Customers get more for their money when they help move more product.

Three Great Package Deals

Their CSA offers two main types of Victorian Farmstead meat packages: The premium and family boxes. And the company selects what goes in each box.

The boxes save the customer an average of 20 to 25 percent off retail pricing and they can save an additional 10 percent by committing to six months! All Victorian Farmstead subscribers also get a 10 percent savings on anything they buy outside their box.

A third CSA deal is the custom box: The customers choose what they want with a 15 percent saving. Parks says the custom box is perfect for those that know exactly what they want in their subscription. Buyers select from the web store. It requires a six-month commitment and subscribers get 10 percent off anything else they purchase from the company.

The family box is designed for those that like larger portions—and saving money. There’s an ever-changing selection of meats in portions meant for four or more. Beef, pork, lamb and chicken are included, as well as bacon and sausages.

The premium box offers a variety of smaller cuts. It includes a selection of meats in portions meant for one or two people. Beef, pork, lamb and chicken are included, as well as the bacon and sausages.

Customers can alternate between the premium and family boxes.

The small custom box costs $50 and buyers get $57.50 worth of product. The large premium box costs $100 and buyers have $115 to spend at the web store.

Customers can cancel any time with 72 hours’ notice.

“We simply charge back any discounts they received if they cancel before their commitment is up,” Parks says. “We have never had to do that.”

Box frequencies can be monthly, bi-weekly or weekly—customers’ choice.

There’s a one-time set-up fee of $25, but Parks says he has frequent promotions offering $20 off that cost.

There are about 120 CSA customers.

“We expect to double that by the end of 2018, as we’ve spent the last six months revamping our program,” Adam says, “most of that in the tech systems area of being able to manage it efficiently and making our public site more user friendly for both retail and CSA customers.”

Lamb is the favorite meat in Adam’s blood. Growing up on the sheep ranch, he recalls, his mom drove a Chevy station wagon sporting this great promo plate. Wouldn’t that be a great addition to a local sheep delivery truck or trailer in the U.S. today?

Still True to His Ranching Origin

The company offers a wide range of meats and meat cuts—beef, lamb, pork, chicken and eggs, duck, turkey and veal—including cured and processed meats such as bacon, ham and sausages.

But Adam admits lamb is in his blood. His mother even drove a 1978 Chevy station wagon with the license plate “EATLAM”.

“We may be biased, but we think that Northern California Coastal lamb is as good as it gets,” he says.

“My grandfather used to say that it tasted so good because the fog carries in the ocean water and seasons our pastures. I don’t know it that’s really how it works, but I sure love the idea of it.”

Adam says lamb is the most interesting meat he sells as it creates the most conversations.

“Folks that we meet for the first time generally either love lamb or won’t eat it.

Those who claim to not like lamb usually have one of two objections”, Adam says—it’s either the “cute and cuddly” thing or it’s the “greasy/gamy” thing.

“Our lamb, raised by BN Ranch in Bolinas, is fed pasture only. It has a very clean, almost sweet flavor. Even the fat has incredible lamb flavor. We have found that those who tell us they don’t like the flavor of lamb they have had in the past are quick converts if they take a chance and try ours.”

Setbacks, Perils, Triumphs: Small & Great

Lamb represents about 20 percent of total meat sales, well ahead of a typical U.S. meat market’s lamb popularity.

But, he says, “We no longer raise any animals for production: It became clear

fairly early that I could either be a rancher or sell ranch-fresh meat to the public. But doing both was not sustainable.”

“We butcher the equivalent of about 100 lambs a year. We get one or two whole carcasses a week and then supplement with cases of primal cuts, all from BN Ranch.

“Primal butchering is done by our partners at a local USDA butcher shop. And our staff and Laura and I do the final retail butchering. I’m the head butcher for our business.”

His main marketing is done though a “weekly-ish” newsletter.

“We collect e-mail addresses at all our locations and communicate through the newsletter,” Parks says.

“We are starting to use Facebook ads and Google ad-words more these days as well. We have done some radio ads, but they are much harder to track for efficiency.”

The website has gone through a few iterations, and now is at its most efficient state. Customers can establish an account and sign up for the CSA or simply place a retail order.

Customers can also create an account to store their credit card information with the site so that they don’t have to have it in hand at a farmers market.

“Our public site is WordPress-based, but it’s highly customized. And our “back room”–Point of Sale (POS) site is completely custom,” Adams says.

“One of the hurdles is that there is no “out-of-the-box” POS management software specific to meat. Given that it’s generally sold by weight, it was important to be able to account for that dynamic. Most software bundles would only handle “unit pricing.” The genesis of our custom software is a lengthy story all to itself.”

The meat cuts are listed on the website and by clicking on each cut’s link, a price per pound is shown, along with a photo of that cut.

The list of meats also has an optional function that includes sorting by popularity.

With the business growing, their progress was set back last year, when disastrous wildfire swept through the region.

The Tubbs Fire that razed Sonoma County last October (2017) consumed 37,000 acres and caused 22 deaths and at least $3 billion in losses, with almost 12,000 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed.

Adam says their business was closed or had shortened hours for several days because of a loss of electricity, but a number of their customers lost everything.

“We have certainly had our struggles,” he says.

“At the end of the day, I think that if we honor my grandfather’s legacy and make sure that our customers get what they pay for, we will be just fine.”

The Victorian Farmstead website allows searches by price and by popularity.

A wide range of lamb cuts is offered, including custom orders. The top 20, sorted by popularity at the time of our interviews appear here—with prices per pound:

Originally published in the March/April 2018 issue of sheep!.

Victorian Farmstead was originally posted by All About Chickens

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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 3/3/2020

Good Morning #realdreamchasers ! Here is your daily news cap for Tuesday 3rd March, 2020. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

COME CLEAN – Four senior Government officials on Monday urged Chaps Restaurants Limited to come clean on its accusation that unfair and excessive taxation by the Mia Mottley administration is among the main reasons for its decision to suddenly close three upscale restaurants leaving 150 on the breadline. In addition to declining visitor spend, Chief Executive Officer Joanne Pooler blamed a 2.5 per cent increase in VAT, an additional five per cent levy on restaurant bills and an “unfair” policy of granting duty free concessions to hotels, which are attached to hotels. “We are satisfied that what was suggested with respect to the levies and taxes in the sector is not the full story,” said Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle moments after exiting a meeting with the representatives of the company’s chairman Andy Stuart. She also promised that as the Government attempts to get to the bottom of the restaurant’s decision, authorities would also try to provide as much support as possible in the “transition that has to take place”. But speaking on national radio along with co-finance Minister Ryan Straughn, the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary Roy Morris revealed that according to his information, the real issue surrounds a dispute between the company’s two principal owners, adding that a notice left on the entrances to the three restaurants shed no light on this and other issues. Morris said: “It makes no reference to the fact that these are three top class restaurants that lost their top class chef and therefore people are talking about the standard of service as well as the standard of food. Then you have the principal owner…left the island last night. “If there are other issues, you should put all of them on the table. “Don’t just refer to the financial issues. Refer to the other things and the principal really is a dispute between the two owners.” He argued that many other restaurants of the same class were overbooked. But at Cin Cin on the Sea, the oldest of the company’s three restaurants, the CEO denied such suggestions and added that the release was not intended to cast aspersions on Government’s taxation policies. “From my perspective, there is nothing sinister involved here,” Pooler said, while pointing to the fall of the British Pound. “We didn’t intend to say that this is the Government’s fault, because it’s not… and certainly things like the duty free concessions that the hotels get, that the stand alone hotels get is not actually the Government’s fault.” Minister Caddle revealed that Government and tourism stakeholders were extremely close to reconciling the country’s incentives regime and concessions. She told Barbados TODAY: “We have been looking at this for a long time and we are almost at the point of having an agreed framework. “It is therefore unfortunate that we are only now hearing of this and all of Barbados is only now waking up to this. “That is why we had to come and have a conversation with operators to see how we are going to address these potentially dislocated 150 workers and also to find out whether this was a fatal decision and whether it is something from which there is no coming back and that is something the operators will have to make a decision on”. Caddle added that it was agreed that the restaurant levy was considered to have been “more bearable” in the quest to “equalise” the Value Added Tax. “Certainly if you drive up and down the coasts of Barbados, you will see that restaurants are full. So there are other issues at play and it is unfortunate that it was framed in the way it was framed,” she said. The Economic Affairs minister also indicated that new businesses in the local market are forcing players to up their game. “So I would say that the fact that you have heard other restaurants and operators saying they can make profits and be successful tells us that there is something else to the story,” she stressed again. Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds argued that the thousands saved when Government slashed corporation tax from 30 per cent to five per cent would have benefitted restaurants like Cin Cin by the Sea, Hugo’s Barbados and Prime Bar and Bistro. (BT)

SHOCKER – Emotions ran high yesterday evening at the meeting called by management of Chaps Restaurants Ltd. to formally inform 149 dismissed employees about the abrupt shutdown of its three high-end restaurants. Still reeling from the shock many of them received at 6 a.m. yesterday that the three restaurants – Cin Cin By The Sea, Primo Bar & Bistro and Hugo’s Barbados – had been closed, several of the former employees flew off the handle especially when they were informed by chief executive officer of Chaps, Joanne Pooler, that the National Insurance Department might have to pay them severance. Cin Cin was in operation at Prospect, St James; Primo Bar & Bistro in St Lawrence Gap, Christ Church, and Hugo’s in Speightstown, St Peter. In an early morning memo, Pooler had told staff it was no longer financially viable to keep the restaurants open. She said Government taxes, competition and a decline in visitor spend had negatively impacted the businesses. The impasse even saw Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds, Cabinet colleague Marsha Caddle and other Government officials meeting with Pooler at Cin Cin in the afternoon in a bid to address the matter. (DN)

WORKERS IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS AFTER SUDDEN CLOSURE OF THREE RESTAURANTS – Workers of three of the island’s major restaurants, Cin Cin By the Sea, Primo Bar & Bistro and Hugo’s Barbados are anxious for answers after Chaps Restaurants Limited abruptly closed operations today. The 149 workers who were not notified by their employer have been summoned to a meeting at its Canewood office at 4 p.m. this evening. In a statement issued today, Chief Executive Officer Joanne Pooler blamed the closure of the restaurants on a significant drop in visitor spend over the last 12 months, a decline in the British Pound Sterling exchange rate and increased taxes on tourism-related restaurants. Pooler said, “These reductions were primarily as a result of factors outside of our control. In Barbados, it is very easy for the general public to be comforted by the tourism statistics that are quoted. Unfortunately, the increase in arrivals from our airport and seaports has not reflected the revenue spent in our restaurants and our locations are heavily reliant on tourist spending.” She also pointed to the negative impact of a hike in Government taxes imposed on tourism-related restaurants, including a 2.5 per cent increase in Value Added Tax and 2.5 per cent levy imposed in the past two years. “This is an additional five per cent on restaurant bills which based on the already high costs pushes the prices up for customers. The wider public may not be aware of a very unfair duty-free tax concession that is given to restaurants attached to hotels but not to stand-alone restaurants. In simple terms, this means that the food is significantly cheaper for hotel restaurants than restaurants, which are not attached to hotels, such as ours,” Pooler claimed. She added that this does not represent “a fair playing field to try and run a business and is in our opinion, is discriminatory.” She called on the Government to address the matter urgently, saying that stand-alone restaurants cannot compete in the current environment. (BT)

NEW EMPLOYEES CAUGHT IN SHOCK CLOSURE – One hundred and forty-nine staff members, some of whom were supposed to spend their first day on the job today Monday after leaving their former jobs, have been cut deepest by the abrupt closure of three upscaled restaurants. With mounting bills, families to support and children to feed, employees of Cin Cin by the Sea, Hugo’s Barbados and Primo Bar and Bistro, all members of Chaps Restaurants Limited are now facing an uncertain future about when and how severance will be paid to them. The confused and frustrated former employees vented their frustration while attending a meeting at the company’s Canewood, St. Michael offices around 4 p.m after being informed of the company’s closure while preparing this morning for another day of work. Hours before, Chief Executive Officer Joanne Pooler explained the company’s decision not to inform workers of the closure was to ensure they maintained the high quality of service expected of them. The workers still don’t know how much money they will be getting beyond last week’s pay. “I just took on three guys who quit their jobs to come to Hugo’s last week. All last week they could have told us not to let these guys quit their jobs and come to Hugo’s. This is very unprofessional and this has hurt me to the core,” revealed an assistant manager at the Sand Street, Speightstown restaurant. He explained that some of the company’s directors had not even been informed of the decision. In a memo sent to staff and printed on the front of each restaurant, Pooler explained that the decision to close was based on declining revenues due to overall guest spend, increased government taxes and “unfair” duty-free tax concessions given to restaurants attached to hotels but not to standalone restaurants. “It was six in the morning [on Monday]. I just woke up. How am I to tell all of my staff that they are out of a job and we hadn’t been informed formally. It’s just chaos… total chaos,” the assistant manager told Barbados TODAY. In the parking lot of the Canewood offices, a 25-year-old man stood aimlessly in the parking lot. He told reporters he had just quit his job at KM2 Solutions as a Data Entry clerk and was eager to start work on Monday as a host at Hugo’s. “I am disappointed, a little angry. I am pissed because I have other things that I have to do like paying rent, child support, and bills. I really don’t know what to say about that. I just have to wait and see,” he said. Casey Collins, 33 also resigned from his previous job and officially started as a waiter just last week. He explained that he was the only employed person in his household and bills had been mounting. For other more longstanding employees, rumors had been swirling for as long as two years. But such questions were often quelled by the CEO, they said. During the day, Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds blasted the company’s top brass for its treatment of workers as he walked out of a meeting at Cin Cin along with Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle. At the time, Symmonds indicated that the development caught the Barbados Government by surprise, but expressed hope that efforts would be made to minimise the dislocation caused as a result. “In all of this, I think it is important for us to understand that labour matters in this country and it leaves a bad taste in everybody’s mouth if you create a situation where there is no prior notice given and people just come to work to find out there is no job and that is the part that I will not accept because tourism cannot be about the investor only. It has to be about the people who are making it work on a day by day basis. “So we have made it very clear, even if we can come to some form of cooperation going forward, there has to be an understanding that that type of approach to investment is not going to be acceptable in Barbados,” he said. Barbados TODAY understands workers were informed that the company needs 700,000 to pay severance and is contemplating filing for bankruptcy so it can liquidate its assets. (BT)

MORE IN THE MORTAR THAN THE PESTLE – We do not for a moment dispute the very sobering process by which the owners and management of Chaps restaurants arrived at the decision of their closure. Curiously, the mere mention of the word “taxes” has acted with dog-whistle effectiveness on the administration, such that ministers of the Crown immediately engaged in talks with the view to solving, presumably, the problem facing their viability. But this cataclysmic event for the closure of three high-end restaurants and the loss of 150-odd jobs at the very height of the winter tourist season can only be viewed as such But inadvertently, these closure raises difficult, sobering questions and sounds other alarms about the state of our tourism product as we embark on the second decade of the 21st century. As far back as 1992, the tourism expert, Dr Auliana Poon noted that Barbados had become what had been described as a mature destination. It had, for want of a euphemism, maxed out its potential among its core demographic of older, more financially secure clients, looking to be pampered as they sun themselves during the winter months on cliched, white sand beaches Then, as now, experts like Dr Porn warned that tourists would be seeking experiences, not mere exposure to sunlight, time and time again. We were warned to evolve our product into a multifaceted melting pot of cuisine, heritage, leisure and sport, conventions and good old Barbadian hospitality. But all the while, as we were racking up visitor rivals in the hundreds of thousands, engaging in self-congratulatory rhetoric loosely summed up as “the more the merrier we will be”. The truth is that we were slowly advancing towards the mass-market end of the tourism spectrum: those who come in droves but pinch pennies as they spend, those people who want to be able to say: “I did Barbados”. They are not so much interested in experiences as in the experience of being here without having to pay too much for it. And administration after administration, hunting airlift and hotel rooms. got sucked into a vortex of mass marketeering, all-inclusive resorts, so-called packages, and the bundling of services to be sold in bulk to our major source markets. And now, we regret to say, the chickens have come home to roost. Almost immediately after coming to office, tourism minister Kerrie Symmonds noted the precipitous decline in visitor dollar spend levels even as record after record tumbled in both cruise ship and aeroplane arrivals. For too long we have paid lip service to these additional niches. For example, we sought and the coveted designation by Unesco as a world heritage site for “Historic Bridgetown” – even one by one we tore down Georgian-era houses, mostly owned by the Government of Barbados. even the projects that seek to revitalise Bridgetown has little to do with the restoration of old buildings and historic sites. We also, however, cannot dispute the politically savvy move of blaming the closures on the deafness of an administration known for obsessive attention to image-building and optics. That the restaurant took on new hires mere days before the decision to close – which bear all the hallmarks of timing, coordination and planning – smacks of an anti-worker experience more apt for the sugar plantations of 1950 than a service industry of 2020. Our hearts go out to the 149 families and individuals whose lives have been turned upside-down by the closures. But we also suggest that, as there is more in the proverbial mortar than on the pestle. We hope for a swift resolution of the problems facing the Chaps restaurants but Barbados must begin to ask whether our continued obedience of the dictates of a singularly important industry is in the long-term best health of the nation. (BT)

TREASURY WORKERS WANT OUT OF UNFIT BUILDING – After several missed deadlines, which included assurances last October by Minister of Finance Ryan Straughn of a speedy relocation from the Treasury Building, workers at the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) walked out of the building deemed environmentally unfit, declaring they have had enough. The workers were called out by their bargaining agent, the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) after management failed to meet the last deadline of February 29 for relocation to Weymouth. Barbados TODAYwas told that the workers are now being asked to bear with the conditions for another month, a proposition the union deems unworkable. Deputy General Secretary Wayne Waldron said: “The NUPW is extremely concerned that we are still dealing with this issue of staff relocating from this hazardous building. “It is not fit for work and it is a threat to their safety and health. “We would have written the management and the assurance was given that by the end of February that the relocation would have happened. This is a matter that goes back two years. “We met with Minister Straughn last year and we would have set certain deadlines. “Obviously there are adjustments which are sometimes made in processes like this because of logistics, but we are saying in the spirit of reasonableness the time has come to say enough is enough.” Five months ago, Straughn gave the workers the assurance that they would be moved into new accommodation at Bridge Street Mall by October 14. He also apologised to the workers for what they would have endured for the past year, pleading with them to hold strain for the next 12 days. The minister said then: “A few months ago, I met with your union representatives to discuss a range of matters including the state of the Treasury Building. “We set out in that meeting to execute a move which I had anticipated would have been completed by the end of August. “Clearly that has not happened, and I want to apologize on behalf of the Government for that not happening. “I have had conversations both with the Minister of Housing and the union delegates to execute a move that will enable us to move some of the staff over to the first floor of the Bridge Street Mall. “We are exploring moving the Rural Development Commission and Urban Development Commission (who currently operate from the second floor of the Bridge Street Mall) to another location, so that second floor can accommodate the remainder of the BRA staff.” But Waldron explained that since then, several sections of the BRA still remain in the Treasury building, where conditions have gotten worse. Waldron told Barbados TODAY the staff are currently working four hours per day, but he contends that even this arrangement was untenable. He said: “The workers are feeling that they are not been taken seriously. “The Parliament was relocated recently and that was treated with a level of priority and we are saying that the workers at BRA are people too. “It cannot be business as usual, workers will have to take steps to protect themselves from the environment. It has been reduced to a four-hour shift but even that arrangement is problematic because being in the environment is dangerous. “People are still getting sick and are coming down with respiratory ailments, so the authorities need to have this matter rectified like yesterday.” (BT)

BWA ‘PROGRESSES SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT UPGRADES’ – The Garbage and Sewage Contribution (GSC) that Barbadians have been paying as part of their water bills for the past 18 months has been used to carry out much-needed repairs and upgrades to the Bridgetown and South Coast Sewage Treatment plants, a senior water utility official noted today. Speaking during the Estimates debate, which this evening focused on the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, Director of Engineering at the Barbados Water Authority, Charles Leslie, said: “Over the last couple of months we have been doing upgrades to the South Coast Sewage Plant. “We replaced screens there, while in Bridgetown we replaced screens and are making upgrades in terms of replacing the blowers used in the treatment processes. “The monies coming in from the GSC are being used to upgrade the treatment plants and maintain our waste water systems, and this is a continuous process. “Wastewater treatment has been neglected owing to a lack of funding, so the money being used from the GSC is being used to bring the plants and networks up to a reasonable standard.” Minister of Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams stressed that the Barbados Water Authority only used less than 17 per cent of the money collected by the levy. While some people complained that they should not pay the levy if they did not live where the plants were located, Dr Hugh Sealy of the BWA noted that ensuring the sewage systems were up to scratch was a matter of national interest. He said: “When the south coast plant was being done they had thought of only having the people in that area pay for it, but at the end of the day, it is a matter of national interest because any problems with a sewage system will eventually affect our coral reefs, and that is one of our major economic assets.” Dr Sealy also spoke of plans to move towards a tertiary level sewage treatment system in Barbados, but this would need some cultural buy-in from Barbadians to become fully accepted. “This administration’s policy is to reuse every drop we can, so we have to upgrade the Bridgetown and south coast plants to tertiary treatment, that is we have the technology to take sewage to drinking water standards. “The question is what is culturally and socially acceptable rather than what is technically possible and to look at the economic returns. “The technology is available for us to go directly from toilet to tap, and to recharge the water aquifers, for example the Belle and Hampton wells with the aim os recovering this water for potable use. “We can also use this water to irrigate crops, for example those that can be eaten without processing such as tomatoes, and those that are not edible like cotton, so the analysis has to be done. “Presently we are producing four million gallons of waste water a day, and this method can go a long way in reducing our water deficit which is about seven million gallons a day.” Dr Sealy also reported that the current categorisation of water tables in Barbados, which dates back to the early 1960s, would soon be upgraded to bring it in line with the country’s present and future needs. He said: “The 1962 policy is no longer fit for purpose. It was supposed to protect the public supply wells from contamination from above ground sources, primarily housing, so we restricted development in Zone One areas, then we went from Zones Two to Five, with Five dealing mostly with coastal areas. “We are now looking for a more integrated approach, which will protect the public supply as well as our coastlines. “There may be a direct benefit to changing to the new system – and we have already prepared a paper on this – because with the advances in technology we can still protect the public water supply and the net result should be a release of about four per cent of our land mass for development, moving from nine per cent currently listed as Zone One to 5 per cent, so this is an economic benefit. “However, it does impose restrictions on houses that were not there before, for example you can no longer use only a suck well to dispose of water, there must also be a septic tank, and all housing developments of a particular density may be required to put in a treatment plant. So in some areas this new system will be more relaxed, while in others it will be more strict.” (BT)

HOPE FOR SUGAR INDUSTRY – Despite another year of expected low yields, one of the island’s main private sugarcane farmers is optimistic that there is room for improvement in the fortunes of the struggling industry. In fact, Director of Barbados Farms Limited Edward Clarke is predicting that farmers should see efficiency improvements in their operation as a result of a new measure that was implemented for this year’s sugar harvest, which got off to somewhat slow start for some plantations last Monday. Following discussions between private cane farmers and Government last year, not only did the sugar producers receive outstanding payments up to last year, they also implemented a new technique to their harvesting and some were given a wage increase. Large can producers were to receive up to two 10-tonne tipping bins while some of the smaller ones would receive a six-tonne bin. This move would allow for transloading of the sugarcane by the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC) in 20-tonne lorries instead of using the old multi-crate trailers travelling the full distance from farm to factory. Clarke said he saw this as a huge improvement for the industry, which should help to create efficiency and reduce fuel costs. “So we are hoping that the efficiency side of the operations will improve quite a bit,” he said. Clarke added as far as he was aware all the sugarcane producers were still willing to “make a go at it” to save the industry and get more value added from it. “We agree with Government that we should not be shipping bulk sugar. We have been clamouring for that for a long time. We also believe that we need to see a better use of the end product,” said Clarke. “We have to be able to provide for the rum producers of Barbados. We have to have an agreement with them that they will take up as much molasses as they can get, but we need to get the volume of production up,” he said. He said private sugarcane farmers were also hoping to work with government on producing biomass energy. “Hopefully we will see better use of the end product through biomass, molasses for rum production and basically through energy,” he said. Barbados TODAY understands that Government and private sugarcane farmers could soon be entering into a five-year agreement, which would include a new pricing arrangement. Clarke said as a result of the changes he was confident that the period of lingering uncertainty over the sugar industry was slowing disappearing. However, he quickly pointed out that for the industry to grow there needed to be more rainfall, pointing out that the ongoing drought condition has had the most devastating impact in recent years. “We have suffered tremendously. I mean, 40 to 50 per cent production in yield and that is not by planting less, that is just because of poor rainfall,” said Clarke. “All the farmers are still willing to make a go at it, and by God’s grace we are hoping that we get some rainfall this year and the crop next year will be better,” said an optimistic Clarke. Predictions are that less than 7,400 tonnes of sugar will be produced this year. (BT)

CORONAVIRUS COULD IMPEDE FARMING GROWTH, SAYS WEIR – Barbados should brace for some impact in its agricultural sector due to the worsening global COVID-19 outbreak, said Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir, who revealed plans to increase the production scale here which could be impeded by the virus’ spread. Weir said: “Barbados does not have the scale at this point in time to be impacted by what is happening in China, but it certainly can impede our progress in getting production up to the extent that we can export. “So we might be a little fortunate at this time, but for our long term plan and our mid-term plan, it will certainly impede what we can do in terms of scale for export.” Weir was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of regional agricultural ministers at UN House this morning. Backing up Weir’s perspective was his counterpart from St Vincent and the Grenadines Saboto Caesar who told Barbados TODAY that Vincentian agriculture was already feeling the impact. He explained that the Vincentian fishing industry has already taken a hit, as transporting goods to China, the country hardest hit by the virus, is now proving difficult. The Vincentian farm minister said: “We have already witnessed a reduction in export of fish and fish products because we export significant quantities to Hong Kong. “At the moment the international carriers going into Hong Kong are not as readily available as they used to be. “So it is already impacting upon us, but it would be interesting to see over the next six weeks how it unfolds with regards to the impact on trade and the movement of food.” But Weir contended that while Barbados has plans to scale up its agricultural production in the medium to long term, the Government is immediately focused on local food security. “I am focused on how we can get back to the production levels of 2006, production levels that have declined massively over the last ten years. “Our focus now is on growing those 4-6 weeks crops like lettuce and tomatoes that have been on the decline and moving agriculture to the stage where we have more greenhouses because production will increase in those environments.” Weir said he first needed to organize the local market to ensure that there are no gluts or shortages of any products. He said: “We need to move farmers to the stage where they are not duplicating and unnecessarily creating competition for each other. “We have to identify which farmers would do what crops so that we can have continuous scale all year round. “If we can replicate this, we can ensure that we have consistent supply for the local market as well as the tourist sector.” (BT)

GAMERS GAME CHANGE – Bajan game developers are to get help from Government to take their mobile apps to the next level, as the Ministry of Innovation and Smart Technology has launched a programme to “make culture our business”. The Game Changers programme was inaugurated on Saturday to lend assistance to those who create digital games, Senator Kay McConney reported today during her presentation on the Appropriation Bill, 2020. She told Parliament: “Last Saturday at the Barbados Community College we launched what is called Game Changers. “It was approved by the Cabinet just a couple of weeks ago. “Game Changers is really an opportunity for us to get young people involved in the mobile gaming industry.” The senator said that Government was not only providing training but it was also engaging the services of a company to give expert help as well She added: “There were over 100 children at BCC last Saturday who are interested. “What we are doing is providing training for them we will help them develop the mobile games and we have contracted a company that will assist them in moving winning games from where they have developed them all the way to the market.” Senator McConney said Government was eager be a part of the global billion-dollar gaming industry. She said: “We are excited about that rolling out given that the gaming industry is over $150 billion dollars of which 45 per cent of that is in mobile games. She continued: “In the manifesto of the Barbados Labour Party we said we would not only help people to develop those kinds of opportunities but we would also seek to use the heritage of Barbados and the culture of Barbados as content. “We will help them develop that content not only for economic reasons but also because we make culture our business.” (BT)

RODENTS, A PROBLEM AT THE ST LUCY CORRECTIONAL HOME FOR GIRLS – Authorities at the island’s juvenile correctional centre are battling a rat infestation that last week resulted in the closure of one of the control rooms at the female section in St Lucy. But Principal of the Government Industrial School (GIS) Erwin Leacock said while access to the room was prohibited as a precautionary measure, both he and an environmental health inspector who visited from the Maurice Byer Polyclinic in St Peter, acknowledged that the leptospirosis-carrying rodents could also invade other parts of the facility. In an exclusive interview with Barbados TODAY at his office located at the male section in St Philip, Leacock revealed that management has had to be setting bait for the rats, which has not been working. He disclosed that even after the health inspector recommended that specific action be taken to block an area at the bottom of the door to the room where the rodents were entering, the initial method also failed, forcing them to use alternate means. “Yes, there were reports about rodents which we bait on a regular basis. In response to the recent report, one of the persons that we use came in the day after it was reported…did a thorough baiting…and we can’t do the traditional baiting because we are dealing with children; so we can’t have that kind of material floating around. So it has to be more discrete and more of the [rat] traps,” the juvenile correctional institution’s head stated. Leacock added: “That was done. It didn’t work as well as we would have liked…and the public health inspector, one of them came from Maurice Byer; he did the inspection and we asked him for some suggestions to assist with the problem. “He suggested that the area where one rat was observed, we should have it thoroughly cleaned. The day after that, we had contacted a professional cleaning firm that we use…and the room was closed for one day to facilitate the cleaning. They came the next day and did a thorough cleaning,” he told Barbados TODAY. Leacock said the environmental health inspector from Maurice Byer returned to the correctional centre after the cleaning and expressed his satisfaction with the remedial work. However, the GIS principal admitted that the health official advised them to place a strip at the bottom of the door to the room where the rats were gaining entry; and they did. “That didn’t work…we put a metal one…and it’s a wooden floor. The metal didn’t work. So we are getting a heavy duty rubber strip…and that will satisfy,” the soon-to-be retired senior public officer disclosed. Leacock, who plans to retire from the job he has held for 19 years in November, said there was concern that the rats might have also been entering the facility through the windows which do not have mesh. “You would appreciate you can’t use the fly mesh. So, the maintenance officer at the Project Unit [Ministry of Transport and Maintenance], visited on two occasions last week and he was getting a quotation to get the mesh fabricated,” he said. Leacock also explained that that original type of window, which was built by a company called Meridian, is no longer being manufactured by that firm. According to him, it would therefore have to be custom-made by another source. While attributing the rat problem to the existence of large tracks of nearby agricultural lands, the GIS head told Barbados TODAY the Ministry’s Project Unit has had to be routinely carrying out maintenance at the correctional institution. He said even with the rodent problem being somewhat remediated, there is still need for additional baiting on the outskirts of the facility. “We will do a heavier baiting on the outskirts. But as I indicated to you, we can’t do the traditional baiting because of our population to have any rat bait exposed…we don’t do that kind of thing on the inside. So that will be done on the outskirts, the outer boundaries. This is something that we do all the time,” he declared. Leacock also had other concerns with respect to the maintenance issues at the male and female facilities. “One of the challenges that we have had is that, in the recent retrenchment process that Government had, we lost both of our general workers. The one down there [in St Lucy] and the one up here [in St Philip]… that has affected us obviously. It has affected the girls more so than with the male residents,” he told Barbados TODAY. “And it has been a challenge with the maintenance because there is no day-to-day [work] as we have had in the past. That is out of our purview. So there is not much we can do, so we just have to get creative,” he added. The principal of the centre said management has therefore had to hire private persons to maintain the area as much as possible. A source had earlier told Barbados TODAYthat health inspectors from the Maurice Byer Polyclinic had ordered the administration to close the room and have it cleaned within a specified period. “The rodents are such a pest to staff and the girls, that the girls are taking it upon themselves to kill them with anything in reach when seen. They are climbing through the windows and coming in. The entire place is a mess,” the source close to the institution had said. The informant said the room in question, which stores keys, some medical supplies, toiletries and the switches for the lights, is situated upstairs on the outside of the dorms. (BT)

GIS MOVE LAUDED – Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Supreme Counselling for Personal Development Shawn Clarke agrees with Government’s move to release several wards of the Government Industrial School (GIS) earlier than scheduled. In fact, he suggests that it’s an “injustice” to send children to the institution for simply “wandering”. However, he is hoping that these children are not sent back to the same home environments which may have contributed to the delinquency that sent them there in the first place. Clarke believes the youths should first be exposed to mandatory counselling and mentorship programmes. Last week, Home Affairs Minister Edmund Hinkson revealed that the number of children at GIS was down to under 30 after another batch of seven from the girls’ and boys’ facililities were released two weeks ago. Hinkson made a strong case for an overhaul of how the criminal justice system treats juveniles, as he addressed the New Directions for Youth Justice Conference, hosted by the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus Institute for Gender and Development Studies the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management. The Minister said there were now 11 females and 17 males between the two schools, and noted that there were twice that number when he became Minister 30 months ago. “I am quite sure that the Minister would not have released a young person who would have been involved, or suspected to be involved in serious crime. But to have a young person imprisoned at the Government Industrial School (GIS) for something as simple as wandering I think that that is really an injustice to the young person,” Clarke said. “The reality is that you might have a young person who is living in a household where every night there is a lot of quarreling and fighting and there could be a drug trade going on in the home that this child could no longer deal with it. “But to get up and to walk away from what is happening to clear his thoughts might be his only avenue of dealing with the situation. So then to be dragged before the law courts and to be sentenced to the Government Industrial School for two, three, five years for wandering, is an injustice to the child,” he added. However, Clarke said it would be wrong to release the young people from GIS without any kind of mechanism, structure or system put in place to help them. He suggested that the charges should be summoned to report to a psychologist or for some other professional counselling. “After the child has gone through counselling with the psychologist, then we should have a national mentorship programme where that child should be attached to a mentor to work on other social and developmental aspects of his/her life to get that child on the right path. Hinkson also promised that Government intended to change what he described as an outdated child justice system by the middle of this year, through the tabling of a new Child Justice Bill. (BT)

EX-CONS ‘TO GET BUSINESS START-UP HELP’ – Ex-convicts are to be given a structured opportunity to start-up businesses after they have served their time, Minister of Youth and Community Empowerment Adrian Forde has told Parliament. The Ministry is to roll out a post-prison programme – the Youth Prison Programme, Forde announced today during debate on the Appropriation Bill in the House of Assembly. He said: “Our department started a new programme which will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks. [It] is called the youth prison fellowship programme. “The [Youth] Entrepreneurship Scheme will work with the prison. “They have a programme up there which deals with inmates while they are incarcerated but there is nothing when they come on the outside so it is like dropping or cutting off the umbilical cord prematurely.” The Minister explained how they intend to go about executing the programme. “We will partner with the Prison Association, the Prison Fellowship and we will ensure that those young people will have a chance to have a commercial business space so that they can become entrepreneurs in their own right that they can support themselves and their families,” Forde said. “ It goes back to the old adage: ‘the devil finds work for idle hands to do.’” The Christ Church West Central MP said that figures showed that most inmates become re-offenders. Forde told the House: “The figures are startling to say the least. Sixty per cent of prisoners and if we are talking about 1,000, that’s 600. At least 20 per cent recommitted to prison – these numbers should be at the door front of the concerns of every single body in this room.” He continued: “It means the level of recidivism is very high. “When they go looking for a job and the employer sees that they are an ex-convict there is a barrier there. “We are saying as a ministry and as a good Government to respond to this concern that we will marry our entrepreneurship department. “I spent some time up there (HMP Dodds) the other day speaking at a graduation class and when I saw the talent that those youngsters brought out in terms of the painting the clothing, some who were involved in the cultural aspects of it. “Some were involved in mechanics and agriculture. If you hear the stories of these young men… all they want is an opportunity and a chance and the one thing they will have this opportunity with in society is if we make them small business men… working along with the Trust Loan that will seek to change the way that we deal with the ordinary folk in this country.” (BT)

SURETIES BAIL ON ACCUSED WHO FAILED TO APPEAR IN COURT – In the space of an hour an accused lost three sureties after breaching their trust while two others bowed out of taking on the responsibility of ensuring that he appears at all his court hearing. His time before the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court was not a pleasant one for Ravi Sheldon Shankar, of Spencers Gap, Baxters Road, St Michael who had been on three sets of bail. When he appeared before Magistrate Douglas Frederick today he was told that he had been missing court since March last year and a warrant had been out for his arrest. Shankar told the court that he appeared on March 22 but the security guard at the gate told him that his name was not on the list and as such could not walk across the precinct. He claimed that the guard advised him to call the court in order to arrange his business and he did so that day. However, after a female employee told him that his name sounded familiar but he was not on the list she promised to call him back but never did. After giving that explanation the magistrate requested that he get all his sureties to court to settle the matter. The first surety, a childhood friend, had posted bail for him in the sum on $1,500 on a fraud charge. When informed that he had not been attending court the surety replied: “I thought he was coming.” However, the magistrate said “thought” did not suffice under the circumstances as she had given the court an undertaking that she was up for the responsibility. Shankar then told his surety why he missed court but the explanation did not get him any sympathy. With $1,500 in peril the surety seemed hard press on how she would get the funds to the court at the soonest possibility. However, the magistrate gave her a reprieve resulting in the woman making it clear that: “I am not signing bail for him anymore. No, I am not willing to continue”. She was relieved of her duty. The second surety, a man, told the court that he was “in the ground in St Lucy digging potatoes when he received a call from police about Shankar absconding from court. “I was shocked because I expected him to be more responsible. I know him from since he was a little boy. When I spoke to him I was of the impression that he was coming. I didn’t make sure he came but I expected him to come,” the surety who had $2,500 riding on a trespassing and criminal damage charge said. “It was a shocking thing to me.” He too got a reprieve from the court but also bowed out of his duty as a surety. “ I can’t sign again. No, I can’t do it,” he said before signing the necessary documents. A potential surety was also in court but told the magistrate that she kept hearing that Shankar was on three charges and wanted to know the situation before she made any decision. The charges were then read. He is charged that on June 30, 2018 he unlawfully assaulted Tracelyn Bellas. He pleaded not guilty and was granted $1,500 bail. He is further charged that on May 29, 2018 he entered Bellas’ house as a trespasser and damaged a $100 door. He also entered a not guilty plea to that charge and had been on $2,500 ever since. The third charge pending was that he on August 8, 2018 dishonestly made Tropical Print Services Limited his creditor, wait for payment in the amount of $1,931.70 for printing 500 packs of playing cards but failed to pay when called upon to do so. However, the potential surety said Shankar never gave her such details and the charge that he had spoken to her about were none of those. “No I don’t want to stand as surety. He knows me,” she said before she too left the court. The last surety had $2,000 in bail money in limbo. However, she explained that Shankar came to her church for help and she stood bail for him but had not seen him since. “I tried and I tried,” she stated saying that she went as far as to published and have other people publish on social media that she and the church were searching and trying to contact Shankar. “All of his social media was then deleted,” the surety informed the court. When asked whether she was willing to stand bail for him again after hearing his explanation for absconding the woman stated; “Not at all”. Shankar also got an officer to make a telephone call on his behalf but that person too said “no” they would not sign his bail. With no more options available the accused was remanded to HMP Dodds until March 30. “You have to get yourself organised, get a surety,” the magistrate told the accused. (BT)

CASES DISMISSED AGAINST SISTERS – Evidence given by prosecution witnesses was “at war with each other” in court proceedings against two St Michael sisters. As such Magistrate Douglas Frederick dismissed the matters against Shamar Latoya Carter and Sherece Shanice Carter, both of Princess Royal Avenue, Pinelands, St Michael. Shamar had been charged with failing to obey the lawful order of move and keep moving given by police constable Jamar Yearwood on September 26, 2017. She is also charged with resisting and assaulting him causing him actual harm. Her sister Sherece was charged with obstructing and resisting Yearwood on the same day. They pleaded not guilty and went on trial in the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court were the prosecution closed the case against them this afternoon after calling the final witness. The sisters opted to remain silent when asked whether they wanted to give evidence in their defence. Magistrate Frederick in handing down the ruling stated that one of the witnesses who said he saw the incident between the officer and the siblings “made a serious error” in identifying the two. Frederick explained that the witness commented on the colourful hair that the sisters were wearing at the time but “mixed up the two of you all”. However, a policeman who gave evidence said “it was the other way around.” “So the prosecution has created doubt. The prosecution was at war with itself,” Magistrate Frederick said before he dismissed the case against the siblings telling them they were free to go. (BT)

FIRE IN ROCK HALL – There was a fire at the Rock Hall squatter village in St Philip late last night. It could not be determined how many houses were affected because of the lack of electricity. At least three fire tenders responded to the incident. More details as they come. (DN)

BASA HEEDS PM’S CALL FOR SWIMMING LESSONS – The Barbados Aquatic Sports Association (BASA) and the National Sports Council have agreed on a proposal that will teach more persons within the community how to swim, says first vice-president of BASA, Madame Justice Cicely Chase-Harding. Delivering the address during the association’s Awards and Dinner ceremony held last night at the Radisson Aquatica Hotel on behalf of BASA president Tony Selby, Chase-Harding said following a meeting on January 2, 2020, with NSC director Neil Murrell, the decision was taken to not only teach individuals how to swim but introduce them to aquatic sports like water polo and artistic swimming. BASA already has a learn to swim program in collaboration with the Ministry of Education for 40 of the island’s 83 primary schools. However, the decision to create more swimming programs for Barbadians has intensified following an appeal made last year by Prime Minister Mia Mottley. The Prime Minister’s call came following the drowning of a mother and child in Christ Church, and the rescue of two young boys on the West Coast. “Clubs associated with BASA have learn to swim programs as part of their development programs and one or two clubs also have adult learn to swim programs. “This year a meeting was held with Mr. Murrell of the NSC, members of the Barbados water polo club and myself, to review the development of aquatics in Barbados, particularly at the primary and secondary school level,” Chase-Harding noted. “Coming out of that meeting, Wayne Beckles proposed that one day every two weeks or once a month, be designated toward the teaching of swimming to members of the community, where individuals in the sport give of their time and experience to teach community members how to swim and introduce them to the aquatic sports of water polo and artistic swimming as their skills improve.” During the awards ceremony, Danielle Titus and Olympian Alex Sobers were named Most Outstanding Senior Female and Male swimmers for 2019 respectively. The Most Outstanding Junior Female swimmer went to Toni Walrond and Jaden Lavine captured the male equivalent. The Barbados Olympic Association’s (BOA) Secretary-General, Erskine Simmons was the featured speaker and revealed that BASA will receive a grant of $130, 000 this year, a significant increase from the $72, 000 paid in 2019. It is among the highest-paid to a national federation. Simmons also praised BASA for being one of the most efficiently run sports organisations in Barbados. “You are viewed by my board as one of our very important members and we hope that BASA will be a major player in helping us to achieve the strategic objectives we have developed in our recently approved strategic plan which focuses on five strategic pillars. “These pillars are excellence and passion, transforming lives through sports, building capacity, sustaining our legacy and being a leader among leaders,” he said. Simmons explained that the BOA is hoping to take approximately 16 athletes to the Tokyo Olympics Games and plans are still on stream despite the global epidemic coronavirus. After a phenomenal year in the pool, Titus and Sobers repeatedly visited the stage after their names were announced for numerous awards. The 17-year-old Titus broke several records and is one of the most talented backstrokers in Barbados. She appears destined to ensure her name is written among the list of Barbadian swimming greats which include the likes of three-time Olympian Nicholas Neckles who received special recognition for his three world masters records set last year in Gwangju, Korea, where he won three gold medals at the World Master Swimming Championships. Among the list of prizes received for her accomplishments last year, Titus captured the trophy for the Most Outstanding Swimmer at CARIFTA Games named after another Barbadian Olympian great, Leah Martindale. The Victor Norville Memorial trophy for Most Outstanding Swim in the 100m backstroke and top performer at the Central American and Caribbean Swimming Federation (CCCAN) also went to Titus. The St. Michael School student was not finished as she collected an award for Best Overall Female performance at the Pan American Games and FINA World Championship held in Korea. Sobers was adjudged Top Male Performer for Pan American and CCCAN, while Jack Kirby stood out at the FINA World Championship. Other outstanding swimmers were recognised for their achievements, including Kaiel Johnson who was named the Most Motivated Swimmer for Goodwill 2019, along with Amiya Harrison and Nikolai Sisnett – both eight and under competitors – who were named Most Valuable Female and Male swimmers respectively for Goodwill. The award for Best Overall Female and Male performances at the FINA World Junior Championships went to Danielle Treasure and Tristan Pragnell respectively. Olivia Treasure had the Best Performance for artistic swimming and Samaiyah Forde was the Most Improved. For water polo, in the 18 and Under division, Luke Kelshall was the Most Dedicated and Lamar Mayers named Most Improved, while In the 16 and Under, Nathan Walker was Most Dedicated and Marcus Whittington won the award for Most Improved. FINA’s Sonia O’Neal was named Official of the Year while Coach of the Year went to Akeem Nurse (water polo); Fiona Bethell (artistic swimming) and Darny Hernandez Olade of swimming. (BT)

WALES GO TOP WITH WIN OVER EMPIRE – Former two-time champions Weymouth Wales have opened up a three-point lead at the top of the standings after earning a hard-fought 2-1 victory against Empire when the Coca-Cola Premier League continued last night at the Wildey AstroTurf. The victory propelled the Renaldo ‘PeeWee’ Gilkes coached Wales to 13 points. They had previously been tied with Premiere Classe Paradise at the top of the table. The lads from Carrington Village were handed the lead after an own goal scored by Empire’s marksman Arjuan Bourne in the fifth minute. Substitute Ray Snagg, brought on for Nathan Skeete in the 54th minute, capitalised on a defensive blunder at the back by Empire and scored the winner in the 70th minute. Claytons Kola Tonic Notre Dame wormed their way into third position after snatching a 2-1 thriller and handing second placed Paradise their first defeat of the season on Saturday. Five red cards were shared out during that dramatic encounter. Notre Dame’s Zeco Edmee who scored a brace in the 28th and 49th minutes was sent off during injury time, while his teammates Carl Joseph and Shane Mottley (85th) and Jeneico Baptiste in the 88th were also dismissed. Senior national midfielder Jomo Harris was the only Paradise player to be sent off. Paradise’s lone goal of the night came through Jabbary ‘Papi’ Chandler in the 38th minute. Wales, Paradise and Notre Dame all sit in the top three of the standings ahead of defending champions Barbados Defence Force Sports Programme who flogged University of the West Indies Blackbirds 5-1 during yesterday’s opening encounter. BDFSP’s utility player Rashad Smith got the ball rolling with the opener in the 27th minute. From there on the soldiers scored goals frequently as senior national captain Rashad Jules accounted for a brace in the 34th and 35th minutes. Fellow national player Omani Leacock registered one in the 44th and Nicholas Best added number five in the 54th. National Under-20 captain Niall Reid-Stephens produced UWI’s lone goal in the 79th minute. BDFSP are in fourth position on nine points, just ahead of fifth-place Deacons Football Club (seven points ) who were also victorious yesterday in the second game of the evening. Deacons defeated Brittons Hill 2-0 with a goal each from Shaquon Haynes (36th) and Keon Atkins in the 60th. (BT)

ROACH BOWLS PRIDE TO VICTORY – Keron Cottoy’s maiden first class hundred was in vain as Test seamer Kemar Roach snatched a six-wicket haul to spearhead Barbados Pride’s emphatic 127-run victory over Windward Islands Volcanoes yesterday. Resuming the final day at Kensington Oval on 73 for three chasing 398 for an unlikely victory, Volcanoes were dismissed for 271 in their second innings about 20 minutes before tea. Cottoy, batting at number seven struck a superb unbeaten 103 while Alick Athanaze chipped in with 33 at number three and Ryan John made 28. Entering with his side in trouble at 100 for five, Cottoy struck a dozen fours and four sixes off 114 balls in just over two and a half hours to keep the innings afloat. Roach, with two wickets in the first innings, finished with six for 84 to end the sixth round encounter with match figures of eight for 147. Fast bowler Keon Harding supported with three for 65 to follow up his two wickets in the first innings and move his season tally to 28. Much of Volcanoes’ hopes of a miracle rested on veteran Devon Smith but he failed to add to his overnight 16, falling to the fifth delivery of the day when he was lbw to Roach before the visitors had also added. Three wickets then went down for 41 runs to leave Volcanoes stumbling on 114 for six before lunch and they needed a 46-run seventh wicket stand between Cottoy and John to reach the interval without further loss. Cottoy also put on 50 for the eighth wicket with Ray Jordan (10) and 45 for the last with Josh Thomas (15) as Volcanoes resisted in the second session. (BT)

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