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| Friday, 23 July 2010 01:26 |
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IT'S HARD TO understand the determination of the government to keep the ill-considered manifesto promise of giving every new secondary school student a laptop computer while happily reneging on the Prime Minister's far more important promise not to move into Mr Manning's palace; especially when keeping the one and breaking the other will result in social damage, while breaking the one and keeping the other would be socially beneficial. How did the laptop replacement for the traditional 11-Plus bicycle even come about at all? Did no one in the entire UNC/COP/OPP think about it in any depth? Many commentators have pointed out the glaringly obvious flaws. What happens, e.g., when Daddy uses the computer to do his own ‘research' after midnight? Will Luddite Daddy even know how to erase website history? Or will it be deemed educational if, next morning, Junior clicks on Firefox and discovers the poems of Sapphos, or at least the forms (and acts) that inspired them? Assuming the little one is not relieved of the laptop by one of the many predators between home and school, what happens when the scrawny 11-year-old meets his brawny 16- and 17-year-old computer-less schoolmates? Technology transfer? This laptop idea seems to have come out of the lap, or its environs, in truth.If simply giving children a computer made them smart, we could make them musicians by hanging a pan around their necks. Columnist William Lucie-Smith this week denounced the laptop idea as poor, quoting an American study that found no evidence of a link between "technology immersion" and "self-directed learning". It's hard not to see a destination of Hell at the end of the road paved with this good intention. If, however, you overcome the problems of abruptly dropping thousands of new computers into schools (and, perhaps in many cases, households) with absolutely no preparation for them (see Mark Lyndersay's perceptive BitDepth column this week), the project could conceivably be a runaway success; but any such success will come as a result of what people with the new computers do with them, not from the computers themselves having been doled out; you might as well give every ten-year-old boy a football & cleats and expect Trinidad & Tobago to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Which leads to the other bright idea emerging from the halls of government/FIFA in the last couple o' weeks. As acting prime minister, Mr Austin "Jack" Warner loudly called for the resumption of state executions. The TT Humanist Association - of which I was a founding member and the first PRO - issued a statement debunking all that "Hang Jack" put forward in support of a country putting its own citizens to death; most notably, the humanists dispatched the wild hope that popping a neck will reduce murders by pointing out that in 2000, the year after Dole Chadee and eight of his associates were hanged, murders rose by 30 per cent. Now, if it's hard to understand why the government is happy to renege on the promise not to move into the palace but determined to carry out the one to give children laptops, it's even harder to understand how the same people who treat the breaking of the promise not to move into the Great House as unimportant also seem to think the government is bound by honour to buy the computers. It's an oddity, with the same eyebrow-raising quality as the anti-abortion people who are almost always pro-hanging (and vice versa). The duty to keep a promise does not change from case to case; and, if you are going to break one and keep one of these two promises, it is logistically far easier to keep the promise not to move into the palace than the one to slip a laptop into every book-bag. The only problem to be overcome with the palace promise is President Richards' own reluctance to move in (does Max understand something about that palace that Kamla does not?) while, in the case of the computers, there are many, many challenges to be conquered, if the promise is to be kept. More than the keeping or reneging upon of a promise by a politician, though, is the need for some sort of principled basis for the action itself. One may have to go away and come back to Trinidad to perceive the everyday chaos that strangers see at once, but the real threat to the place is its refusal to impose any form of standard upon itself. It almost doesn't matter what the People's Partnership does, once it is consistent with itself. In that context, then, I put forward what I think are several elegant solutions to the several unfolding UNCOP dilemmas that will dish them all up like pelau while maintaining principle. 1. Keep both promises: the computers go in, Kamla stays out; 2. Break both promises: Kamla moves into the palace, laptops are thrown out of schools; 3. Brew a pelau of promises: Kamla stays out, computers go in, hanging comes back; 4. Keep all three promises, including Hang Jack's new one to pop necks: Kamla stays out, laptops go in, every new form one student gets his own gallows; 5. Keep no promises at all: Kamla moves in, laptops are thrown out, Death Row inmates are sent to live in Morvant-Laventille; 6. Try, just once, to do the right thing, even if it requires being man enough to say you were wrong before. BC Pires is hanging on to principle . Read more of his writings at www.BCraw.com Comments (5)
  written by Edmund Gall, July 23, 2010
Nice one, BC. Some pieces for you in case you haven't read them:
Humanists made a mistake? - http://www.knowtnt.com/node/219 everything written on knowtnt.com related to the laptop issue: http://www.knowtnt.com/taxonomy/term/450 Cheers! Ed Btw, the reCaptcha phrase I had to enter below to post this comment on your website was 'psychos Department' - you writing the database of phrases for this software too, or what? ;-)
 written by ABigBri, July 23, 2010
BC, not sure why you reckon staying out of the palace is more important than supplying laptops. Perhaps you articulated your argument elsewhere and I missed it.
To the TnT population, however, the laptops represent a promise made to children. I reckon it's more politically damaging to break that promise. What doesn't seem to be appreciated, however, is that to firetruck up that promise in delivery is going to be even more politically damaging than not providing any laptops at all. There are so many pitfalls to the delivery that as of now it is almost guaranteed to come with considerable pain, spiraling cost and much talk and stupidity. On hanging, is the jury still out? Has there really been a definitive study that has looked at its effect (or lack thereof) on the crime rate? Your observation of the effect of hanging Dole and accomplices, for example, neglects to point out that Dole was a jefe. Take out a jefe and his lieutenants and what you're left with are opportunities for like-minded "businessmen" to explore. This would require vigorous jockeying for positions. This in turn is a recipe for an escalation in murders and serious crime - as we observed. With lousy detection rates and lousy conviction rates, one stands a very good chance of escaping formal justice (street-justice is still likely to gain expression) and so hanging cannot be a deterrent in TnT - as things stand. The PP is in danger, however, not just from the Obama effect (sky-high expectations in a voting public hungry for quick change but destined for a meeting with reality) but from unpolished neophytes, anxious to bring positive change but prone to repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot - they are so far turning out to be a surly, clumsy bunch. Full disclosure: I voted for them!
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The death penalty, however, I think NEEDS to come back. I believe that Dole's death didn't deter crime because EVERYONE knew it was purely political and it wasn't a reflection on the then-government's stance on criminals. Criminals knew they won't be hung once Dole & Co. were done with. If criminals knew that crime WOULD be their end, it may help... Texas has one of the lowest crime rates in the US, doesn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong... that's a lot of research time...
Also, the biggest argument human rights groups always tout is the "rights of the criminal". I always ask "what abt the rights of the victim... the dead and his/her family... the raped woman and her now abused son/daughter... etc?" And I am YET to get a response. Where were the human rights organisations when the mother and son (or at least pieces of them) were found in the Beetham??? A criminal throws away some or all of his/her rights when he/she CHOOSES KNOWINGLY to commit a crime...