Corbin undergoes surgery
Wednesday Ramblings
Stabroek News
April 21, 2004
Yesterday, Opposition leader Robert Corbin underwent an elective appendectomy as part of World Health Day.
This year the theme is "The Hazards of Public Sector Hospitals" and politicians were invited to have a real life experience, just as they had previously ridden in a minibus.
Also in the hospital was the PPP's MP Odinga Lumumba, who had broken both his legs so as to see firsthand the work being done in the orthopaedics department. Eight hours later, a heavily cast Lumumba was confident he would be able to walk again in two or three months.
A still groggy Corbin said the experience had been revealing as only hours after his surgery a nursing assistant had ripped off his oxygen and frog-marched him to the washroom.
Last week was World Education Day and President Jagdeo and Corbin spent the day at a city nursery school as pupils. According to eyewitnesses, the two were very badly behaved and were seen throwing press releases at each other. Five-year old Tricia Adams said the new students were disruptive, stole food and lost the cricket ball over the wall during the lunch break.
One exasperated teacher observed that the pair had a lot of growing up to do. After the break they were separated to other sides of the room and there was a measure of calm.
And the previous week, Minister of Agriculture Satyadeow Sawh became a cow for a day as part of World Drink Milk Day. Actually, he played the front part and his permanent secretary the back of a pantomime suit. "Chewy," was Sawh's only comment with a mouthful of fresh grass. His secretary was stretchered away after undergoing a harrowing experience with a milking machine.
One in the eye for Dabydeen
Guyanese poet Cyril Dabydeen has come in for some tough criticism for his latest collection of works entitled "Hemisphere of Love."
Writing in the Globe and Mail, the critic with the everyday name of Sonnet L'abbe is not very nice in her review, she calls 'Post-colonial Disappointments":
"I was first introduced to the work of veteran Canadian poets Rienzi Crusz and Cyril Dabydeen in a university course on post-colonialist literature. Both born in tropical countries (Crusz in Sri Lanka, Dabydeen in Guyana), these two writers are known in academic circles for articulating their uneasy claim to Canadian identity.
"I was excited to have the chance to review Crusz's and Dabydeen's latest works for a nationwide readership. How disappointed I was, then, to find that of the 100 or so poetry collections I've read over the past year, these two ranked among the worst...
"At least Cyril Dabydeen is aware of himself as a darling of post-colonial theorists who don't necessarily care about the quality of his writing, as long as he keeps producing quotable quotes on a fraught Canadian identity. "Let literary theorists have their say . . . I aim only for the perfect line," he writes in his ninth collection, "Hemisphere of Love." Dabydeen's idea of poetic perfection must not include coherence, grammatical correctness, or consistent tense. Here is the opening of Upper Canada Village:
"Nothing takes us by surprise but a time of long ago transplanted to Morrisberg as I view history with a cannon here at my young daughter's side.
"She holds her own against enemies across the river or lake; and a train comes along without fanfare while I try to understand history more than Upper Canada Village."
How did the cannon like the view? How well does Upper Canada Village understand history? Most of these poems read like undergraduate essays that attempt to discuss complexities beyond the writer's power of articulation. Dabydeen is definitely giving a lot of thought to the Canadian landscape and his place within it, but only a few of the poems speak of his experience with the focus and clarity one would expect from any other poet being published in a small Canadian press today...
Let's hope it was the writers' academic marketability, and not just their visible-minority status, that got these collections published, because as far as improving the mainstream reputation of "multicultural" writers, these books aren't going to help."
Ouch...But at least the writing is original unlike the story plagiarised by the student.
Two Sharmaisms
"How many boy son you got?"
"Everyone pay your water bill before you get your lights cut off."
Question of the Week
Which sick mind at the unmentionable rag decided to publish a photograph of a foetus?
Tip on how to get into Bourda without paying
Have your friend go in first, get his 'return' tag, let him put it in a plastic bottle and then throw it over the fence.