Skin.

By Shawnelle Martineaux

Your shipwreck got to shore without crashing.

Your cargo was splayed and frayed by its unbelonging.

They were marked black and glistened

In the heat.

They were not home.

They made do.

There was no home to go back to.

But there was history to make.

And lives. For you to take.

And time. For you to keep.

Just like their bodies kept score.

Sweet sugar and hot tea was had.

Every burden, they bore it.

For you.

One day, your mirror cursed at you.

You are not the fairest of them all!

So, you clenched your teeth.

You swiped your pen.

And of livestock, you made men.

They were free. For your taking.

Their identities, for your making.

No expectation of them waking.

Just go. Be.

But freedom brought the kiss of love.

And eyes opened wide and

touched the horizon, wanting…

more.

With your earworms whirling

in their minds

they got back on your ship that you built

with their blood, sweat, and tears.

Your shores beckoned them home.

And, when they answered,

you pretended they were not yours.

They were marked black and

It was harsh against the coldness of your

grey gloom.

Their skin is just a vessel

at your border.

Mother. Land.

It carries your stories.

It speaks your truth.

The gnarled thing inside it is all you.

Do you fear what you have become?

Is it true that the same sun

that never set on my back

never set on your empire?

Was it not you who made me

an English child

at bedtime, cradled at your breast?

Why can’t I come home?

Why don’t you claim me like you own me now?

You must be too good for your own devices.

But I’ll be sleeping

in the conservatory with the other delicate

things

you conveniently forget to tend to.

Maybe one day in the spring sun,

I’ll grow into your prized courgette.

And you can peel me and see that I

am good inside.

Then, you can have me for lunch.

Every Good Day

By Shawnelle Martineaux

To fear life is a funny thing

And though grim may its tidings be

We hope for loves we sow in spring

And then, come winter, bend the knee.

So free is he who can not fear

He holds all things he wants at once

He’ll let go of his burden here

Devotee of old limerance.

His smile shall wane and wax and fall

His empty nest, no wherewithal

Investments made a day too late

He’s no friends left to celebrate.

I wish I could believe in life

Or even if

Or maybe some

I wish I’d re-begin in spite

To greet you with my good news won.

But birthdays I will always fear

And holy days fill me with fright.

To have another I hold dear

Will always be my sole respite.

I want, I wonder, are my home.

“I wish,” will always be my own.

I need to need you. I cannot.

You’re gone from me, but I am not.

Our memories are tug o’ war

And I’m the rope

And you’re the score.

Nobody really wins. I’m sure.

It’s best to live, but hope?

No more.

************************************

For my Dex and my Shells, who will own my bar anniversary and birthday forever, despite my better efforts to the contrary. Rest in peace, or whatever it is dead people do when they’re still alive in our heads.

Chris Must List Arrest

I see we’ve gotten back to the Sedition Act, Trinidad and Tobago! How fun!

In 2019, I wrote about the Vijay Maharaj sedition/constitution case, and why I disagreed with the High Court finding of unconstitutionality despite hating the Act. That judgment has since been overturned on appeal (duh!). I continue to hold the view that the Act is constitutional despite hating its substance and being a free speech absolutist. Now, Canadian vlogger, Christopher “ChrisMustList” Hugh has been arrested for sedition (from what I can tell).

Do I think he is guilty under section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act? Long story short, yes.

As a watcher of his vlogs, I recall one video in which an interviewee called for an uprising to the system. This was included in the vlog, which was published on the ChrisMustList YouTube channel. For reasons discussed in my previous Sedition Act essay linked above, the mens rea under sections 4(c) and 4(d) of the Act is not “a seditious intention,” but an intention to publish. ChrisMustList, as a vlogger, always intends to publish his vlogs. The sole question in respect of that sedition charge under subsections 4(1)(c) and (d) would, therefore, be whether the thing he published was seditious. I think a call to uprise and overthrow the system in the manner I recall in the video is, by definition, seditious. That’s the boring part.

Do I think this should be a law? No. Arresting and convicting people for acts carried out with seditious intention in the narrow sense contemplated by the Act in sections 4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b) is fine. Arresting people for passively publishing under sections 4(1)(c) and 4(1)(d) simply does not accord with the purpose of criminal law. It does not prevent, deter, reduce, or punish for the substantive crime. It does not rehabilitate criminals. It is just a law for having a law’s sake, and it gives government the power to arrest people for passively (even unknowingly) disseminating seditious content.

If we think it through, what does arresting, prosecuting, and convicting ChrisMustList do about the threatened uprising by the interviewee? Absolutely nothing. What does it do about crime or gang violence in Trinidad and Tobago? Absolutely nothing. What does it do for Trinidad and Tobago? Zip! It is convenient to arrest him because it adds a notch to the TT Police Service’s belt if they achieve a conviction, but it is simply productive unproductiveness. I find it shameful.

The more interesting conversation that we should be having is why this section of law is still on the books. Why has our Parliament not done its job by enacting up-to-date legislation to address our modern needs? The same can be said about the mandatory death penalty and other sections in the Offences Against the Person Act and the Sexual Offences Act, and several other pieces of legislation. Why do we keep having to do judicial gymnastics to get around parliamentary laziness?

I believe that there is too much job security for elected officials who have no real incentives to offer sensible policy solutions. They are reelected regardless of what they do, say, or omit to do. Can we please vote more sensibly next year? What would that even look like?

An inheritance, an identity, and some words of questionable wisdom.

It is 5:40 a.m. on Tamil Thai Pongal 2024. My insomnia is in full swing, and my brain is working overtime. For some reason, a preoccupation with my own identity has overcome me this morning. My primary suspicion is that the talks of removing Colonial statues and of deporting immigrants triggered it, so I am sticking to that theory. My identity is not in crisis because of colonialism, and immigrants are not the devil. I feel grateful. I am happy that biology, war, culture, time, luck, technology, love, and hate if I am being completely honest, conspired to bring me into existence, just so that I could want for sleep in this very moment and tell the world about it as if it is some profound thing. Isn’t that funny?

Generations ago, my Tamil great great grandfather took a trip from Ceylon to the much smaller island of Barbados for some business of which I have not been apprised. There, he met the love of his life. Emily Alleyne was a mulatto chick with an adventurous spirit, who clearly couldn’t get enough of him. After their long honeymoon back in Ceylon, they settled in San Juan, Trinidad, of all places. My great granny, Nora, and her siblings, eventually came along. That was how I would come to be a Trinidadian a century later.

Nora would marry, too. He was of Chinese, Indian, and African heritage with a Muslim dad. He somehow turned out to be an Anglican and a Roman Catholic at the same time. Their marriage would last, though not their relationship, and Nora would eventually tell me of how much his name—Lionel—suited him because truth was his mortal enemy.

Before their permanent separation, they would make their first-born, Victor, and their identical twins, Rodney and Senley, the former of which would turn out to be the little man who funded my university studies, despite barely being able to read.

Rodney would leave home at a young age because of verbal and physical abuse by various stepfathers who came along. He would move to Arima, where at 22, he would meet Miriam Makeba’s long-lost twin of pure gorgeousness, from whom I inherit the majority of my good looks, Paulina. She was training to be a midwife. He would ask her to stop, promising to take care of her. She would, and he would keep his word until her dying day in December 2017.

Paulina’s dad, Clifford Meyers (pronounced Mares), was an English, Spanish, and French patois-speaking man of mixed heritage. She was his twin. He would meet Juliana Torres, a Mestizo woman of Venezuelan heritage. With her, he had two boys and two girls. After all that baby-making, he would marry someone else… Because of course he would. 😅

Paulina and Rodney would make my mother Alison, along with the twins, Ashton and Arlene. These people had no idea that they would all come to be some of my most cherished humans, despite our myriad differences.

Meanwhile, in the sleepy, seaside village of Blanchisseuse on Trinidad’s North Coast, some other magic (or madness) was happening.

Maureille Elie, who spoke not a word of English or Spanish, met a mixed Venezuelan woman who spoke English and Spanish by chance. I only know her as Mamita, and I have only seen one photo of her. With her, he would have a relationship (don’t ask me how, but I reckon it was short given the limited communication capabilities) and make his only biological child, my granny Louisa Edith De Leon. The Vene would move to Belmont after they broke up. I presume she learnt English. She would make several more daughters of non-Elie paternity.

Maureille would keep his daughter and would marry an absolute witch by all accounts. The very smart and promising Louisa, who became fluent in English at primary school and spoke French-patois at home, would be withdrawn from school altogether on her stepmother’s orders. Her teachers begged. Her headmaster pleaded. It did not work. As such, she did not even have a primary school certificate, despite being a really smart cookie. The joys of being a girl back in the day!

Louisa would, nevertheless, become skilled in various domestic arts, as well as crochet, which would take her to Tobago and her mother’s Venezuela for competitions. She would make two sons for two men—the older, Herbert, whose father was a lawyer, would win an island scholarship. The other, Courtney, was for some other professional man from Couva, Trinidad. He would become a soldier, then a drug addict after his batch made a drug raid. He would also become my most loved paternal uncle despite this flaw.

Louisa would remain in her father’s house until the unlucky (for her, not me) day that a Vincentian man of French and African roots, Ralph Martineaux, would stumble into her life and marry her. They would make a few children in Blanchisseuse, then move to Arima where they would make the rest of their 9 gremlins together. The unfortunate man I would come to call my father, John Martineaux, was their second-to-last child and favourite boy child.

John and Alison would grow separately in the same little village in Arima. They would go to primary school and secondary school separately, and they would have somewhat separate friends. One day in 1990, his best friend, Derek, and her best friend, Carol, whom I would grow up calling Uncle Derek and Aunty Carol, would get married. John and Alison would meet at that wedding and would later learn that their families had intermarried before while planning their own wedding four years later.

Four years later, they would also be building a house together while I was brewing in Alison’s tummy after what, in hindsight, I consider to be a really bad decision to date below her league. They would marry the December after I was born, in a huge wedding ceremony, planned for almost a year. My dearest brother would come about three years later, looking like Emily Alleyne, who had travelled to Ceylon with her love. More importantly, he would share Emily’s adventurous spirit.

None of the things which I’ve outlined above would have happened if empires were shy about imperialism and if borders were impenetrable fortresses meant to protect against so-called cultural degradation and ethnic replacement. Quite frankly, us racial and cultural mutts have as much of a right to exist freely as anyone else, and we would prefer it if you didn’t try to get in our way. We are not some disease that needs to be contained, lest we contaminate the prized flock. Continents and histories had to join forces just to bring us about, and we intend to not disappoint them for their efforts.

Had colonialism and immigration not happened, some random man from a South Asian island owned by a monarch of two European islands, who also happened to own, among other things, a bunch of smaller islands on a new continent, wouldn’t be able to take a ship, sail to the other side of the globe, meet a woman with slave and planter blood, marry her, move to another island where neither had roots, and make Trini babies. The ship would not exist, and neither would the empire.

Some man by a Trini beach wouldn’t be speaking a derivative of French, and the woman he fell for wouldn’t have been speaking English or Spanish. There would be no school from which little Louisa could be pulled, and she would have no Arima to move to with Ralph. There would be no such thing as a Trini, as the island would still be called Iere. It would be inhabited by a handful of my ancestors who had a proclivity for feathers and cassava-use. And god bless pone and farine!

There would be no Paulina and no Rodney. There would be no Alison or John. There would be no me to write you this long piece of prose about myself, defending the merits of ancient empires in this beautiful English language. There would be no phone on which I could type it from my American-made bed under the cooling breeze of a Chinese-made fan. There would be no you to write it to, and no internet to which I could publish this manner of madness.

As the insomnia that probably kept Emily awake and dreaming of adventure keeps me awake now, and as my yearning to travel across oceans to see what life has to offer continues to arrest me, I am amused that anyone would want to remove statues that commemorate a period in Trini history that had to happen for me to happen.

As the citizens of countries of immigrants pontificate about why their borders should be closed to protect “their culture”, and as they try to justify why us third-world scum should be seen as inferior, I wonder whether they would hold their own ancestors to these newfound standards. Are people willing to be closed to their own existence?

An open world that is honest about and at peace with its past will likely honour it and make a great future. A world where people can move, meet, mix, and mingle is the best world. Sometimes, those opportunities turn into pensive lawyers with asocial sleeping patterns who really understand what it means to be a Westerner. Happy Tamil Thai Pongal! May we reap the fruits of our labour and stare at the sun. Maybe one day, soon again, there will be another empire on whom she never sets!

Populists, Anchor Babies, Diplomats, and Vivek Ramaswamy.

When Vivek Ramaswamy withdrew from the US presidential race, I was overjoyed. He has since endorsed ex-president and fellow businessman Donald Trump… It’s not ideal… but he’s no longer running, which is great. My issues with Vivek can be summed up in two main points: 1. I think that he is an opportunistic and unprincipled populist, and 2. I think that he is a hypocrite. These points overlap in many ways, but I’ll discuss them seriatim below.

Opportunistic Vivek

It is, of course, at the forefront of my mind that Vivek was a politician marketing himself as a businessman first. He is a brand, first and foremost. It is the fact that he is a successful businessman who chose to enter the political ring that makes him a politician. All politiciams should be scrutinised because they are inherently opportunistic until they prove otherwise. Substantively, I think that much of the guy’s campaign focussed on undocumented immigrants and “securing the border,” not because he was particularly passionate about the subject matter, but because he knew that it worked for Trump in 2016.

He chose to adopt the populism that Trump exploited because he knew that it was a formula for incensing the working class masses of Middle America. I am not a fan of populists or anti-immigrant sentiments, but the borderline fascistic ideology is only a small part of what grinds my gears. It is the insult that upsets me more.

The intentional exploitation of xenophobic tendencies for political gain gave me pause, especially because I knew that it was intentional. Everything he did was intentional. It may be the libertarianism values I espouse, or the bored theatre kid in me, but when I close my eyes and think of Vivek, the image that energes is a seething Patrick Bateman mid-bludgeon, enjoying his orgasmic, psychopathic thrills. Only, instead of bludgeoning someone to death, he is insulting people’s intelligence.

Deep down, I genuinely believe that Vivek thinks that “those people” are too silly to be reasoned with, and as a result, he has to emotionally manipulate them into supporting him by fuelling their sense of lack. It is run-of-the-mill marketing, but it is still insulting. I would more quickly trust a shark that told me it just wanted to speak about its lord and saviour Jesus Christ while I had an open wound and was bleeding out on the Pacific Ocean floor than trust a word that comes out of opportunistic Vivek’s mouth!

To facilitate his condescending opportunism, he opined that the children of undocumented immigrants should be denied birthright citizenship in the same way that the children of diplomats are denied the same. The argument was dumb. Vivek proffered that it was because diplomats were not subject to the law that they could not receive that citizenship benefit. His dubious analogy was that undocumented immigrants were criminals and, therefore, were not subject to US law. As such, their children born on US soil should not receive the Constitutional birthright citizenship.

To the drunk or the illiterate, the comparison was sensible. To the sensible, it was drunk and illiterate. The pesky little fact that being a criminal requires a person to be subject to the criminal jurisdiction (which diplomats are not) and be convicted as such (which diplomats cannot be), gets in the way of that tirade. A smart, Harvard-trained lawyer would know that this was foolish circular reasoning…but convenience trumped reasoning because those people are too stupid to know that. I rest my case on this point.

Hypocritical Vivek

A perfect example of that unfortunate man’s opportunism was his hypocrisy when it came to market principles. Our dearest Vivek took to Twitter to praise Javier Milei’s deregulation of the Argentine housing market and the consequent doubling of supply with 20% down and decreasing rents. Vote for him, he said, and it would be a vote for deregulated markets! He conveniently knew of the benefits of deregulated markets but refused (or failed—which is worse) to acknowledge that those same principles applied to labour… and therefore immigration by extension!

This was a most disturbing foursome among himself, Hayek, Friedman, and Keynes, and was very disappointing. Protectionism has never known a prettier, more deceitful face!

To add insult to injury, all this lamenting and fomenting about anchor babies while using market economics like a Miss America world peace campaign came from the chief anchor baby!

Vivek, a first-generation American immigrant, was, through his magical birthright citizenship, the means by which his own mother could become an American. His father, who was on a non-immigrant visa, and who is still not a US citizen, was his family’s route to the US and the only reason dearest Vivek was able to have the opportunities that he could in Ohio. He chose to become the chief campaigner against himself, making a narrow distinction based on the fact of his father’s visa, knowing fully well that his intelligent Indian compatriots whom US citizens want to hire are unable to get work visas because of systemic failures brought about by the kinds of policies he was endorsing. Much less for the remainder of non-Indians whom US citizens also want to hire, who cannot legally enter the US workforce because of counterproductive, bureaucratic nonsense.

I don’t know about you, but a person who not only warns but tries to prevent me from doing the very thing he did, which worked for him, is not trustworthy. That is the epitome of hypocrisy. With that thought, I leave you to think, knowing that in about four years, this man will show up again to try and charm the boxers off many a Midwestern, beer-drinking uncle.

Is life inherently valuable?

I do my best to be mindful of when I hold beliefs and not opinions. Beliefs are conclusions I make without evidence, based on my feelings. Opinions are the conclusions I come to based on thinking through the evidence available to me. When I do notice myself believing rather than thinking, I make it my business to explore evidence and scrutinise my beliefs so that I could test their internal validity. After that, I either maintain or reject them.

The latest of my forays into the domain of my skull has involved my belief in the inherent value of human life. I am not sure when I started having this presumptious belief, but its unsteadiness became clear to me while I was listening to a podcast on abortion. The guest, Dr. Calum Miller, was a pro-life medical doctor. The hosts were both pro-choice comedians. While these descriptors are quite propagandistic, one thing stuck out. Dr. Miller boldly asserted, “Well, the starting premise is a belief in the inherent value of life. We can agree on that.” I am not sure whether I was particularly sleep-deprived or just keen on playing the devil’s advocate, which happens because that is how my personality works, but the first thought I had was “Is it? Must we?”

As I lay in the dark, pillow bent into the most comfortable shape possible, it dawned on me that I did not have any reason to maintain this belief. I was begging the question, and that is a no-go for fundamentals as a rationalist! There is no objective reason to conclude that human life is inherently valuable. We happen to prefer ourselves because that’s what genes have evolved to do. But, to look at the vastness of the universe and think that we, as specks of dust on an inconspicuous planet, are valuable, seems juvenile. This is also often a tool used to justify otherwise immoral things. Any good intentions that underpin this idea should not really count if the idea itself is faulty.

Do I have any idea of what should count? Nope. But just as I had no objective reasons to believe in gods when I became an atheist, and just as the absence of objective reasons did not render life meaningless, I think that if we put our heads together, we could come up with sensible principles. It really all depends on where we start our moral reasoning, and that depends on temperament, as Johnathan Haidt has shown. Circular reasoning, for sure, but in the end, I think the great Tim Minchin said it best. We’re just f***ing monkeys in shoes!

What do you think?

Newspapers are Unserious.

I’m a libertarian, and as a libertarian, very few things provoke an emotional response in me. My sacred cow is that I do not believe in the veneration of sacred cows, and generally speaking, I prefer pragmatism and efficiency over much else. Be that as it may, encroachments on freedom of thought and expression cause me a particular kind of gripe which I must address. I am at least somewhat moralistic about these topics, but there are practical reasons, such as the need for efficient social intercourse, and the value of having the most information available to the public, which I use to justify my moral fervour in this regard. It disappoints me that the journalistic standards applied in Trinidad and Tobago, much like the politics, are from and for the gutter. Everyone seems to be in a race towards the bottom of a very deep, very murky drain.

In 2016, a gang of blood-thirsty dogs, armed with social clout, credentials and, frothing at the mouth, successfully conspired to expel my friend, satirist Kevin Baldeosingh, from the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. The stab to the back came mere days after the paper’s management had confirmed the renewal of his contract as a columnist. The excuse given was finances, but it was obvious that the contents of his weekly column making the case that a Muslim woman was making a rational choice by choosing to wear her hijab at the expense of a job, was twisted to make him seem discriminatory and used to justify the sudden 180. The newspaper even apologised, and only one other columnist said anything to defend Kevin’s right to think and say what he wanted…he eventually was convicted of attempted murder and conspiring to execute his ex-girlfriend in Florida, but that’s a story for another day. Kevin was and still is a devoted family man. He had two toddlers and a young wife who was studying at the time. He had bills. It must have been a shock. I can only imagine how disorienting that experience would have been.

Now, I must clarify that the newspapers also have a right of freedom to associate. By no means are they obligated to hire someone unless they want to do so. If it was a matter of merely ending a contract, I would have very little to say. The media massacre that ensued, followed by the obvious blacklisting and silencing of a writer who had the longest-running and one of the highest-grossing columns in Trinidad and Tobago history distinguishes this situation and makes it more than an expression of the newspapers’ freedom to associate. This is especially so, because some months later, a columnist and gender feminist, Dr. Gabrielle J. Hosein, would casually thank her co-conspirators for assisting her with Kevin’s ousting using her column. The crime was, in reality, him daring to disagree with her ideas over the years, but she framed it as him targeting and bullying her. All he did was provide evidence which was contrary to her narrative and obvious agenda in a satirical way? Hosein’s lack of compunction and her clear use of her victim card to gather her troops—typical of female bullies—no doubt disturbed me. But it was the fact that she used the media to champion her anti-free speech, tribalistic position which made me want to vomit. That felt like mockery of liberal democracy itself!

Perhaps the problem lies there? Maybe the expectation that the Trinidad and Tobago media would seek to preserve its own reliability and integrity was too high. Maybe it is filled with members who are morally bereft. I know that what disgusts me clearly does not disgust others and I suppose that that sufficiently explains what transpired. This would also explain the complete failure of the journalistic institutions during the Covid-19 Pandemic of the last three years. I do not think that freedom of thought and expression should be partisan issues. These encroachments should disgust anyone remotely interested in living in a free, prosperous and healthy society. I am not sure how to make that ideological front the true and only tribal war.

That being said. imagine my complete surprise, though, when I read the March 1, 2023, Editorial by Mr. Curtis Williams, Trinidad and Tobago Express’ new Managing Editor, and learnt that contrary to my understanding, the media powers that be in Trinidad and Tobago care about protecting freedom of thought and expression. Utter shock! Understand that I try my best not to be a hypocrite. That others can freely engage in grand acts of hypocrisy such as this without feeling anything is the eighth wonder of the world to me. Mr. Williams and his editorial team are worthy of a place in The Guinness Book of World Records for this feat. I know that Kevin has been trying to write locally again. I know that I (and others) have been petitioning to have him write locally again since 2016. And, although Mr. Williams is fairly new to his role as managing editor, I know that he knows of this miscarriage of justice, because I wrote a letter to the editor in response to his flowery editorial some time ago. Has he actually attempted to adhere to his alleged principles? Nope! Will I let it rest? On principle, absolutely not! I refuse to allow media institutions to rot without talking about the smell. I am not ethically impotent.

Principles aside, as a fellow human, I know what it feels like to be targeted by a mob in my professional and academic life. I know what it is like for people to intentionally misinterpret and then misrepresent what I say, then use that misrepresentation and their social ties to exclude me from opportunities and groups. I went to girls’ schools all my life up until university. It did not get better at university or law school, mostly because I am not the kind of person who can see wrong things happening and just leave it be. These are not experiences I would wish upon my worst enemy, not because it is insurmountable, but because it is an immense waste of time and resources. I feel driven to say or do something when I notice wrong, and my big mouth gets me into trouble with bureaucrats in love with corruption and the status quo. I could live with that.

The kind of professional thuggery that is overtaking our institutions is unseemly and counterproductive. This misuse of the media and the infusion of female-typical aggression into the professional sphere where merit ought to be supreme is unbecoming. The media is an institution which ought to be preserved for the benefit of all, and its undoing in a manner this juvenile, anti-intellectual and anti-human is disgraceful. This is why no good writers remain on staff locally, why the editing skills are atrocious, and why our local intellectual life will continue to be sub-par. The same anti-intellectual forces that have tried to silence Salman Rushdie, that have killed Theo Van Gogh, that have made Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s security detail necessary, that have tried to get Bruce Gilley to stop asking questions and sharing heterodox ideas, and that have made V.S. Naipaul a local pariah are the ones which are conspiring to undo Kevin. This needs to stop before it is too late.

You may support Kevin by clicking this link and purchasing his books on Amazon. He writes really well, and he thinks!

The Hero

by Shawnelle Martineaux

The sun shines boldly on the west today.

With its light,

a shadow is cast coldly

upon the faceless smirk of freedom’s might.

It barely hides the graves.

Half-men were scattered.

Before grief could countenance the scene,

ashes were thrown.

The slates of victors were wiped squeaky clean

The brown brows of “others” sorely battered.

His name is written on a stone.

It is planted

on the ground

in a park

by the swings.

They chant it to kill the voices of ghosts

screaming hymns of judgment from the shadows.

Freedom stings.

Balls, Bacchanal and Back to Basics…

Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles caused a bit of a stir this week! I will probably NEVER have the opportunity to write anything remotely close to that opening sentence again, so carpe diem!

True or not, though— and I neither know of its veracity, nor trust Teary Terrance to inform me of same— it has brought to light a major issue that many have been ringing the alarm about since early 2020: why are we being censored about something that is supposedly apolitical? I will share some of my thoughts on the COVID-19 response and then share my vaccine experience.

COVID-19 restrictions have brought the world to its knees in most places. Government after government has imposed measures which have only increased in their austerity over time. It started off with social distancing and mask mandates and very rapidly devolved into lockdowns and states of emergency with suspended constititional rights and strict curfews in some countries. And to what end? Cases have skyrocketed, the virus has mutated more than thrice and there seems to be no light at the end of what was supposedly a tunnel in March 2020.

Initially, COVID-19 was thought to proliferate via large droplet spread. The information that it was actually spread through aerosols was suppressed, until one night, silently, WHO updated its website.

There was discussion that it spread from a market in Wuhan, China that sold bats as food…then there was mounting evidence that it was a lab leak…now we can’t talk about that without being called cooks.

We all hoped for a vaccine. At first, there was talk about immunity…then there was talk about “It doesn’t give you immunity, but it prevents severe symptoms!” and now, you mention a leaky vaccine and become a social pariah.

Hydroxychloroquine initially didn’t help and was not approved, then it did, then whenever you asked about it, it was as if you cursed somebody’s mother straight to her face.

This international COVID-19 response (with the exception of countries like Sweden, which is ironically atheist) is like a bad religion. State and international agencies have banded together to preach their doctrines of divide and conquor without any regard for truth, and in all the mêlée, hymns of “Trust the science!” and “Vaccinate to operate!” have been sung as offerings to the gods in heaven with no sign of rain. If ever there was a shining priesthood, it would be the media houses!

I am of the view that these restrictions have long ceased to be about public health, and have become a governmental experiment on how much oppression citizens would tolerate…at least here in T&T. I realise that by saying this, many will be upset with me or choose to shun me, but it is what it is. I am fed up of seeing people divided on what is supposed to be a unifying issue. I find it particularly annoying that many are treating their fellow citizens like lepers just for having questions about what the authorities say, especially when it pertains to their own health and well-being. And, while I am grateful that I know, with a fair degree of certainty, whose side most people would have been on in Nazi Germany or under Soviet communism, I can’t say that it isn’t disheartening to witness. I tried to shut up and just ignore it all until it blew over because I was getting depressed, but that attempt was a massive fail. I don’t have the personality for it. I really don’t.

As a budding bioethicist, I never thought that the pendulum would swing back in the direction that questioned whether individuals could have control over their own bodies. I thought that the Tuskegee experiments were enough of a smear on certain reputations to prevent such a reversion, but I was wrong. I have seen lawyers who have made careers talking about constructive dismissals pretending that mandates by employers could not possibly constitute constructive dismissals. Everyone seems eager to please the government and it is scary! While I may not be as erudite as these legal scholars, having just finished my studies, I know that concentration camps like Auschwitz and institutions like slavery were once bolstered by legality. We can make all the legal arguments we want, but legality does not necessarily translate into morality and ethics. Issues of health require us to operate according to basic principles of legitimacy…like bodily autonomy and parental responsibility for their own children. I’m too principled to make this an academic argument and I’ll never apologise for that. I am sorry for whoever is willing to do that. To be clear, here is where I stand:

1. Denying children socialisation and schooling for two years is child abuse.

2. Mandating that they will only regain normalcy if their parents let you put a substance into their bodies to help protect adults (this is not a disease that is particularly threatening to children) is child abuse.

3. Threatening people’s livelihoods after reducing their earnings for two years is governmental overstep.

4. Having weekly press conferences to disseminate whatever information you tailor to your own desires is propagandism.

5. Cursing and hissing at the populace that pays you, Honourable Mr. Prime Minister and Honourable Madame President, and showing contempt for regular people who are struggling to eat while your state salary has not stopped running is despotism.

6. Parading yourselves on social media after vaccination, and figuratively (though sometimes literally) spitting on citizens who have valid concerns about the vaccine makes you the modern equivalent of a gulag guard. It isn’t cute. It’s tacky.

7. As for the chambers of commerce calling for more lockdowns, your behaviour is exactly why anti-trust laws were developed. Everyone can see that you’re leveraging the governmental overstep to stamp out small businesses.

This nonsense must stop! Honest, uncensored conversations must be had about whatever concerns us all. Some do not need to be treated as if they are more equal than others!

Now for my vaccine experience…apologies in advance for this being T.M.I.

I took the Sinopharm two-dose vaccine in August because it was what was available when I went. My reasons for getting the vaccine shall remain private. I did not want to share my vaccine status because I think that it is nobody’s business, but I did take it, and I had side effects.

My period after my first dose came a staggering EIGHT DAYS EARLY and was much worse than I was accustomed to having…and I’ve grown accustomed to going through hell once per month!

On my first day, my cramps were so bad that I could not walk. I spent the day doubled over in bed, scarfing down NSAIDs and hoping for the best. My liver is probably still recovering. I typically would get milder pre-period cramps, but this time, I had none. Usually, my bad period cramps would start on the second day and would last two and a half days, but not this time.

My first day is also usually light, followed by two heavy days, one medium to light day and one very light day, but post-vaccine, on day one, I was running through pads and tampons like Elaine Thompson-Herah and Usain Bolt’s love child.

Never before had I ever leaked through a tampon, but in a record-breaking three hours, I leaked through two of them, switched to an overnight pad, and filled that to the brim in another hour.

My period blood, which is usually a dark crimson colour and a bit thicker, but not as thick as clots, was a bright vermillion, as if I had been cut open, and was a liquid consistency and not thick. I continued filling overnight pads and chugging diclofenac for four days straight (and there was breaktgrough pain despite overdosing on these) until on day five, I had moderate flow that was still crampy. On day 6, my period was gone.

I told the Dr. at my vaccination site (Wallerfield) what had happened when I returned for dose 2. He told me that a couple women had mentioned having the issue, but it didn’t seem to be permanent. How he knew that it was impermanent when he likely only saw them once (there were different doctors when I went for the two doses) is unclear to me.

I spoke with friends and with other women on the net. Most of them reported changes in their menstrual periods post-vaccine. For some, it came earlier. For others, it was later. Almost invariably, they had abnormally heavy and abnormally crampy periods post-vaccine…irrespective of the brand of vaccine they received (I spoke with AZ, Pfizer, J+J and Sinopharm recipients).

It does not seem that these reports are being taken seriously, and as a 26 year old woman who wants children in the near future, I cannot say that I am unconcerned about my prospects given this experience.

I was called an anti-vaxxer AFTER receiving the vaccine because I asked questions and dared to say that I was pro-choice about it. I’ve had people who did not know that I took the vaccine tell me that as an “anti-vaxxer”, if I die from not taking the vaccine, it would be what I deserved. I’ve seen people call for the culling of the unvaccinated and I’ve seen them celebrate people’s unfortunate deaths. I see no reason why my experience should be presumed to be different from anyone else who has raised questions or concerns. This is absolutely ridiculous and I never thought that I would see certain people embody this level of atrocity in my lifetime!

I have not yet had my period after dose 2. It is due today, and I already feel nauseated, crampy and sometimes, dizzy. My experience will be added here so that this portion of the blog post will be updated in due course.

UPDATE: My period came this morning 17/09/2021. It is heavy!!!!! I have cramps. I’ve had 4 diclofenac tablets already for the morning and I am still having breakthrough pain. I can walk though. Cramps aren’t as bad as last month, but still worse than my “normal”.

UPDATE: It is 18/09/2021 and I have EXTREMELY BAD cramps and my period is still heavier than usual. I took my diclofenac painkillers, but I am having breakthrough pain. The pain never fully stops. I can walk, but I have to stop intermittently to withatand the cramps which are terrible, which have me bent over and bracing myself against walls, cupboards or whatever else is in reach. My stomach is burning from the painkillers.

UPDATE: It is 10/01/2022. I did not get a period for December 2021. The last day of my last period was 12 November 2021. I presume that I ovulated, because my skin usually becomes glowy around ovulation and I look extra pretty. That happened around 25 November, 2021 for my bar call (lucky). I don’t know what is going on.

My PMS/PMDD for November into December 2021 was very strange. It started off with vertigo, an intense migraine with both a flashy visual aura and an auditory aura (this one was very scary, as I don’t recall ever having one), then a smaller migraine with just visual aura. I was in bed for three days, laying in the dark. After that, I had nausea and got cramps. Since then, I have vacillated between feeling sort of normal and feeling absolutely crappy, both physically and mentally. My skin has not been doing well. It has been very irritated. I feel bloated and I am getting bouts of depression. I am getting menstrual cramps intermittently, but still no period. My tracker says I am on day 63 of this cycle. I’m scared.

UPDATE: On Friday 18th February, 2022, my period kind of maybe sort of returned? Flow is light and is not red. It is brown and has been brown for three days so far. I’m not sure what to make of this. I have mild cramps, fatigue and mild nausea. It’s a step up from how I’ve been feeling since November with almost permanent PMS/PMDD symptoms. Hopefully, the worst part of this thing is over. I think going outside to garden has helped as I’ve gotten more sunlight. That’s anecdotal.

11/03/22 My period came yesterday. Was lightish snd brown. It seems to be picking up. I have normal flow today. Bad cramps but not as bad as the first cycle after vax. I am exhausted and low energy and sore.

12/03/22 So much for normam flow! I woke up in a pool of blood this morning. Bathed and stuff. Changed into a tampon from the pad I was wearing. Well, I leaked through that in 3 hours. And badly. My light grey panty is red. Like not exaggerating. WTF?

15/03/22 STILL going with cramps.

Given all that I am seeing, I am not at all going to be a coward about this. We are going back to basics. Repeat after me… “People’s bodies belong to them and them alone. Nobody has a right to make anyone else put any substance into his/her body without consent. Nobody has a right to silence discourse on any subject whatsoever. Everyone has a right to ask questions.”

This pandemic is about our fundamental rights! Wake up!

The Death of Civilisation?

Two ideas popped into my head at about 2 a.m. today and I thought that it would be best to write them down. They are somewhat connected, albeit loosely. I am still processing them, so they are more postulations than conclusions, but in the words of JBP, you write to find out what you think!

The first idea is that as a civilisation moves beyond its physicality, it begins losing its identity and the people within it also become more prone to losing their identities.

Western civilisation has moved more and more away from the physicality of industry and more and more towards a digital age of ideas. Things which have been traditionally physical, such as newspapers, money etc. have gone digital for the most part and have gone through process of stripping them down to their bare bones. The idea of a newspaper or of money is what remains.

Similarly, the idea of identity seems to be less tethered to the body and what it does. There is a popular description of things as social constructs and seemingly constant experimentation in that regard on the one hand, yet people seem to be in more identity crises than previously.

My suspicion is that this social trend towards disembodied identity is a response to the world itself becoming less embodied. Humans are, after all, a part of their world. It would explain why these ideas take root much easier among intellectuals than working class people.

The second idea is much easier to conceptualize, though I am not entirely sure if it is original. I think that western civilisation has an autoimmune disorder.

As information becomes more available, it seems that autoimmune disorders are linked to leaky gut. The tight junctions between intestinal cells are weaker because of some chemical process and so things which typically would have remained on the outside of the body (the digestive tract is actually a long tube through rather than inside of the body) are leeching into it. This seems to be tied, at least in part, to ingesting certain proteins like gluten in quantities which are too large and for periods which are too long. The weakening of these tight junctions and the leeching in of these toxins cause the body to malfunction and mount an immune response against itself.

Similarly, western civilisation seems to have ingested the ideas of postmodernism that there is no inherent value in its precepts and that everything is relative. These ideas are leeching into its institutions and these very institutions are malfunctioning and self-destructing by adhering to select values. e.g. openmindedness, intellectualism, markets.

Anyway, those are some crude explanations which are far from thorough I’m going back to bed.