Martin Joseph and Michael Jackson: So much in Common. Click and read my letter to the Editor.

As the world mourns the loss of Michael Jackson , Trinidad and Tobago can reflect on its own MJ.

Martin Joseph, the Minister of National Security has his own version of the Jackson Five-MJ provides the lead role for James Philbert, the inept and inadequate still acting Police Commissioner, Brigadier Peter Joseph, head of the SAUTT also known as the BLIMP (But Like Is Make-believe Police), Prof Mastroski, the $80 million man and Commander Jim Something, the Retired Canadian General, unto whom taxpayers have already forked several million. After every murder, MJ tells the public that he Wanna be Startin' Someting, as though the mere utterance of a promise to make a plan will cause criminals to Beat It.

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Five dangers of the Internet

The recent discussion on plagiarism missed a key element: the traditional rules are being pushed. The widespread availability of free online research and commentary on every subject puts information into a lot of hands, but this same easy accessibility tests claims of originality. Claiming ownership and failing to acknowledge use of original material are different: with almost everything being researched there is very little to be completely original about.

No one has fed the storm of originality and ownership more than Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online Huffington Post (HuffPo). Described by Time as the “web’s new oracle”, HuffPo attracts one million comments a month: the key word in the debate is “aggregator.”

The internet presents opportunity but also provides danger.

Click the link and read my column on the Five Dangers of the Internet.

Justice John goes looking for Green Horses. Click and read my letter.

Published in the Trinidad Express, June 12th 2009.

As though his attack on two magistrates was not sufficient, Appeal Court judge Stanley John is quoted as saying that the two would have to see "a green horse" before he apologises to them. Click and read what I have said to Justice John.

BUYERS BEWARE: Prices are actually falling. Click to read my Newsday column.

Though it was never really in doubt, it became obvious at the end of May that it’s a buyer’s market. Our real estate agent sponsored the Disney Pixar hit UP and treats to go along. UP was certainly a good choice, not only because it deals in a far-fetched way with moving house, but also because the sight of a house floating above the clouds sums up the global real estate situation up to 2008.The buyer’s market is not only in real estate. There are other areas where consumers are smiling, like automobiles, airline travel, cruise ships and at restaurants and department stores.

Still, like Disney Pixar’s UP there is room for reality. Just as Carl and Russell find themselves sitting on the curb after their adventure, consumers may find that lower prices may only be a fantasy. After all, jobs still have to be found to pay for even these low prices. Those jobs must come soon. At the start of June gasoline prices were pushing up and the Bank of Canada, fearful of a Canadian dollar in flight, inched up mortgage rates.

Click and read the full column.

The generational stall: One generation must make way for another. Click and read my Newsday column

With a select group of persons holding or being recycled through different positions of power, politics and leadership, the generation which might ordinarily be groomed to take over is stalled. They appear quite prepared to create and exploit new media for opinions and consensus, while the monopolists hold firm in their generational places. The pages of the newspapers and other forms of mainstream media remain populated by the usual array of commentators and views. In the interim, for the stalled generation, online social networks are the platforms for opinions and consensus building, if not organising.

Without training in writing or journalism and without much concern for the laws of libel and slander, this generation impatiently tap their views out on their keyboards and publishes them for the world to see. It’s an impulsive and informal form of publishing and commenting and two things are very obvious: they reflect the generation’s preference for function over form and they are instantaneous, reflecting the generation’s penchant for speed.

Click the link above and read the full Newsday column.