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thecomicsnexus · 5 years

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TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ADVENTURES #19-20 / MIGHTY MUTANIMALS #1-3 APRIL - JULY 1991 BY RYAN BROWN, DEAN CLARRAIN (STEVE MURPHY), GARRETT HO, DAN BERGER, BARRY GROSSMAN, KEN MITCHRONEY, GARY FIELDS, ART LEONARDI, MIKE KAZALEH, BRIAN THOMAS, BILL WRAY, HILARY BARTA, JOHN BEATTY AND MARK PACELLA

SYNOPSIS (MIXED FROM COMIC VINE AND TMNT ENTITY)

Leo, Mike, Don and Mondo are enjoying the view high atop a New York skyscraper. Donatello is studying the building with the familiar logo and pondering what the strange meteors that had been floating around it could have been when April and Master Splinter arrive. The Sensei states that Raph is on his way. O'Neil announces that Splinter has begun to teach her how to use a katana and that the pair have been investigating the owner of the building that Donatello was wondering about. April states that the news is not good - the skyscraper is owned by a businessman named Null. Our heroes begin to ponder what other evils Null has his fingers in...

Meanwhile, Mr. Null is negotiating with the buggy Skul and Bean. The aliens are unhappy with Null's proposal that a contract must be signed and state that their Queen Maligna's word is enough. The pair then reveal how they had disguised their ship as a meteor and followed Cudley the Cowlick across the universe to the planet Earth, where they met Null. The bogus businessman dictates the terms of their agreement: Null wants Maligna to give him the means to take his businesses off-planet and in return he will give the bugs the Earth. Maligna's ambassador agrees to the deal and shakes hands with the crooked capitalist. Skul and Bean state that Maligna is on her way to the planet.

Meanwhile, Man Ray is swimming with some dolphins when he discovers a strange array of meteors on the floor of the ocean. When the mighty mutant investigates, one of the asteroids springs to life and crashes into his chest, carrying him out of the sea and high into the sky at tremendous velocity.

Soon enough, the meteor comes crashing down onto a beach - that's inhabited by Jagwar and Dreadmon! Ray is dazed from the crash, but recovers quickly - as does the asteroid, which begins to crack apart.

Back in the Big Apple, April, Splinter and Don are trying to come up with a plan on how to get inside Null's headquarters when they're interrupted by The Kid - who holds them at gunpoint. Fortunately Raphael shows up and knocks out the Kid. As everyone congratulates Raph for his quick take down, Skul and Bean arrive and a battle ensues. Our heroes have a hard time as the bug's body armor is tremendously durable. Eventually Bean launches a stink bomb out of his skull, which creates a noxious cloud that knocks out our heroes. As the aliens congratulate each other for a job well done, Mr. Null arrives and reveals his true form - that of a devil!

After a recap of the important events leading up to this issue, we rejoin Jagwar, Dreadmon and Man Ray on the South American beach as they observe the strange meteorite crack open. The meteorite turns out to be an “egg” full of Maligna’s spawn: weird blue caterpillars.

Speaking of Queen Maligna, back at her outer space headquarters, she has Stump and Sling held prisoner. She isn’t pleased with their interference during the battle of Hirobyl and sentences them to be burned alive in her furnaces. As they’re being dragged off by guards, the two tree-guys are rescued by their employee, Leatherhead. As Leatherhead wrestles with the guards, Wingnut and Screwloose swoop in and airlift Stump and Sling out of the fracas. They all manage to escape through a window and into the maw of Cudley the Cowlick.

Back at Null’s corporate headquarters in New York City, the Turtles, April, Splinter and Mondo Gecko have been subdued and tied-up by Null, Skul and Bean. As Kid Terra comes to, he makes up a hasty (and fake) excuse that he was trying to take down the Turtles for Null when Raph took him by surprise. Null gloats over his victory and then leaves with Skul and Bean to finalize the sale of planet Earth to Queen Maligna. Left alone, Splinter asks everyone to stop struggling and create an environment of tranquility so he can focus on mentally summoning some back-up.

At the Stump Arena, Stump tells what he knows of Maligna’s plot to Leatherhead, Wingnut and Screwloose. The three anthropomorphic animals aren’t about to let anything happen to Earth, so they hitch a ride there with Cudley the Cowlick. The ride is an unpleasant one, though, as Cudley is shot down by one of Maligna’s ships.

On the South American shore, Man Ray and friends inspect the meteorite “egg” and find the last remaining “caterpillars” feasting on their dead brothers (yuck). They then follow the caterpillars and find them munching down the rainforest. The environmentally-minded Jagwar protests, resulting in the hungry caterpillars stampeding toward him and his friends.

At Null’s building, Splinter’s back-up arrives in the form of a pack of rats. The rats chew through their bonds, setting the heroes free. The Turtles grab their weapons (which Kid Terra “accidentally” left in the room with them) just as Skul and Bean return. Better prepared, the Turtles put up a better fight with the aliens this time around. Bean then fires another smoke-bomb from his head and when the fog clears, the Turtles are left to watch as the bad guys escape in their spaceship. As the ship zooms off into the distance, Splinter realizes that both Raph and Mondo have stolen away on it.

In South America, Man Ray, Dreadmon and Jagwar flee the approaching bugs, only to stumble upon the downed Cudley amongst a field of grazing cattle.

At the Hive World, Queen Maligna probes the mind of one of her children and discovers that he successfully shot down Cudley the Cowlick. Grateful, she rewards her child by eating him.

In the Amazon, Jagwar, Dreamon and Man Ray are investigating the downed Cudley, who is having his wounds licked by several local bovine. They quickly make friends with Cudley, only to be ambushed by Leatherhead, Wingnut and Screwloose, who haven’t figured that part out yet. The mutants brawl with one another until Cudley screams some sense into them, redirecting their attention to the forest full of cocoons which were formerly Maligna’s caterpillar-like spawn.

On Skul and Bean’s ship, Null is ecstatic over the prospect of taking his business into outer space; a goal he had been striving for even before be met Maligna’s stooges. Meanwhile, Kid Terra sneaks Mondo’s skateboard over to Mondo and Raph, who have stowed away on the ship. Terra silently gives them a thumbs up, thoroughly confusing the two heroes. The ship then docks at the Hive World.

After everyone has left, Mondo and Raph sneak out. Knocking out a guard, they find the exoskeleton leftovers of several of Maligna’s children whom she had devoured. They slip into the exoskeleton “armor” (though Mondo remarks at how creepy what they’re doing is) and skulk around the Hive before being sniffed out by several guards. They defeat the guards and begin gloating over their easy victory, unaware that Queen Maligna lurks behind them.

Back in the Amazon, the mutants observe the cocoons. Wingnut and Screwloose want to burn them all to death before they can awaken, though Dreadmon and Leatherhead reject the strategy, as it’s tantamount to killing someone in their sleep. Wingnut and Screwloose disagree and fly away as the mutants prepare camp.

That night, Jagwar tells the story of how he came to be. His mother, seeking enlightenment, journeyed to a temple deep in the Amazon to commune with the Jaguar Spirit (named Yaguaro). The two fell in love (um…bestiality?) and eventually spawned Jagwar. After his twelfth birthday, Jagwar’s mother traveled north to seek further enlightenment while his father journeyed into the heart of the rain forest in an attempt to keep it alive.

Dreadmon then picks up the cue to spin his yarn. His family originated from South Africa, where his father was a fierce opponent of apartheid and segregation. When things became too dangerous, he sent “Dreadmon” to live in Jamaica (in poverty). “Dreadmon” grew to resent the rich white tourists and began stealing from them, eventually acquiring a totem of a Tasmanian wolf from an Australian sheep rancher. The totem gifted him with super speed, but cursed him by transforming him into a wolf-man after the first full moon of his puberty. The totem was subsequently stolen from him, leaving him stuck that way. After the locals began threatening him with bad voodoo, Dreadmon fled to the Amazon.

Storytime is suddenly interrupted by the return of Wingnut and Screwloose. They alert the mutants to the awakening of the cocoons. The heroes then prepare to make their stand.

Back at the Hive World, Queen Maligna pounces on Raph and Mondo. The pair put up a fight, but are eventually subdued. As she orders them to be put in prison cells and fattened up for her feast, Maligna announces to Skul, Bean, Null and Terra that they have at last arrived at planet Earth.

On Earth, the Mutanimals prepare to battle Maligna’s fully-grown children. As the battle begins, Screwloose explains how Maligna destroys planets: Her children eat the planet’s rain forests, converting them into carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbon gases which heat up the planet and destroy the ozone, allowing ultraviolet radiation to destroy plankton and crops, thus crippling the food chain (convoluted!). The Mutanimals aren’t about to let that happen and fight on.

Back at the Hive World, Raph and Mondo are being basted in a paralyzing honey in order to make them more palatable to Queen Maligna.

In South America, the Mutanimals continue to take down Maligna’s children with relative ease as Cudley transports the fallen warriors back to a safe place in Dimension X. As soon as they believe they’ve won, though, the Hive World touches down on Earth. With the power of her hive mind, Maligna unleashes thousands of war ships which begin attacking all over the world. The Mutanimals begin to lose hope, only to be attacked by Skul and Bean. The Mutanimals fight back, but find this pair of Malignoids to be far tougher than the others.

Onboard the Hive World, Kid Terra makes his move. He shoots the two Malignoids holding Raph and Mondo hostage and helps them clean the paralyzing honey off of themselves.

Outside, the fight against Skul and Bean remains at a stalemate. Skul requests that Bean launch another smoke bomb from the spout on his head. Bean complies, only to have the spout clogged by a well-aimed rock from Screwloose. The bomb explodes inside his head, rendering him unconscious.

On the Hive World, Raph, Mondo and Kid Terra take Maligna by surprise. Kid Terra shoots off one of Maligna’s antennae which she uses to control the hive mind. Without it, her children become lost and defenseless. Maligna surrenders and orders all of her children back to the Hive World.

Outside, Leatherhead puts the finishing touches on Skul. Raph, Mondo and Kid Terra then teleport over to their location and force Maligna to admit defeat, making her promise to leave Earth. As Maligna leaves with the Hive World, however, she vows to return for vengeance some day.

Later that night, Kid Terra asks Man Ray for forgiveness for accidentally killing Bubbla. Man Ray says nothing and turns his back Terra. Just then, he notices several eyes watching him from the forest. They turn out to be cattle. As the Mutanimals celebrate their victory by a campfire, a very unhappy Null lights up a cigar and marches off into the wilderness. Out in space, Stump, Sling, Tyme an Fayme thank everyone for watching.

Meanwhile in New York...

As the smoke from the rubble created by the spaceship begins to clear, police helicopters arrive and our heroes make their escape to the streets. They find a nearby bin filled with clothes and don disguises. As the Turtles make their way through China Town, Donatello asks Splinter what they're going to do about Mondo and Raph, and the Sensei replies that there's nothing that they can do other than trust in Raph's abilities and have faith that they will return. The group hears sirens and makes for cover, as a fire truck races by. Splinter suggests that they do some shopping at a nearby curio shop, but when they get to the store, they discover that it's the building that has caught fire.

An old man is trying valiantly to save his goods, but a police officer grabs him and holds him back, saying that the items aren't worth the fellow's life. Just then a woman screams that her baby daughter is trapped in the building - the TMNT immediately decide that they have to save the child, but a fireman rushes into the failing structure first. He finds the baby, but as he picks her up, the roof collapses!

Outside, the old curio shop owner clutches a golden dragon statuette and states, "This must not be..."

Inside, the fireman begins to transform - and he becomes a gigantic, golden dragon! The dragon gives the baby girl to her mother, and then collapses, reverting back to the fireman. Splinter and the Turtles speak with the owner of the curio shop and they carry the fireman off to receive treatment.

Meanwhile, the fire continues to blaze out of control as a giant Foot robot appears in the city and begins to wreak havoc!

The curio shop owner, Chu, has done what he can for the fireman. Splinter compliments the man on his healing techniques, and Chu explains that they have been handed down to him from his forefathers. Splinter asks if the dragon spirit is also a family heirloom, and Chu asserts that it is. Suddenly, the TMNT hear the sounds of the Foot robot's attack and rush to investigate.

Outside, the monstrous Foot is demolishing everything in sight. The Turtles attack, but their efforts seem useless. They decide to climb to the head of the robot and do what they can from there - which proves to be very little.

Back inside, the fireman is finally awake. The old man explains that the fireman, Chu Hsi, is now one with the Warrior Dragon spirit. Splinter asks the young Chu if he can summon the dragon again, since the city is under seige by another giant. The fireman is unsure if he can manage it, but for the good of all, he makes the effort, and the Warrior Dragon walks once more.

A gigantic battle ensues, and the Dragon eventually defeats the robot. The TMNT congratulate the golden avenger on his accomplishment, and head for home.

REVIEW

This is kind of a new story to me. I originally read the TMNT issues, but Mighty Mutanimals was never published in my country. It makes much more sense now.

Thanks to the TMNT Entity blog, I also just found out that Dean Clarrain was Steve Murphy’s pseudonym.

Anyway, at this point I am used to this book having an ecological agenda, but I feel like it’s being too heavy-handed. There is one page where Screwloose explains the greenhouse effect in the middle of a fight that just doesn’t work. If you want kids to learn these things, put your exposition in the art.

I was always impressed by the art in issue #20. The style fits Chinatown too well, and I kind of wished these were the regular artists of the book (this title will start experiencing a series of fill-in artists, some of them legends).

Were the Mutanimals a cash grab? Probably, but they didn’t prosper that much (other than a short-lived ongoing, and the eventual revival from IDW and I think the 2012 cartoon).

Speaking of long arc, this story is still not over and it never really had a break since issue 5. It is a good thing that they managed to make every issue its own thing.

I give this story a score of 8.

#ryan brown #ken mitchroney #tmnt #archie comics #comics #review #1991 #modern age #mighty mutanimals #teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles adventures

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geegirlsworld · 3 years

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The Vassall House

According to Wikipedia George Washington's second headquarters was in the John Vassall House in Cambridge MA. It still exists, though it is today called the Longfellow House (because the poet's family lived there. It's also currently closed, which is a bummer.) Washington chose the place because it had room for his staff and, having been seized from its Tory owner, he did not have to negotiate a lease. By the summer of 1775 Cambridge was not the place to live if you had Tory sympathies, which was why John Vassall had fled to Boston.

Cambridge made up in wealth what it lacked in population because a fair number of planter families made their homes there. As a result there was a sizable black population, both enslaved and free. Amongst them was Anthony "Tony" Vassall and his wife, Cuba.

Samuel Batchelder, a local Cambridge historian, published an account of the Vassalls, both white and black, in 1917 and it makes for, how shall I put it, interesting reading. According to Batchelder Tony was born in the "Spanish Empire" and then "shanghaied" when young. It isn't clear where in the Spanish empire he was born (around 1713) but he ended up on Jamaica in the hands of Henry Vassall. When Vassall took up life in Massachusetts he brought Tony along as the family coachman.

Henry Vassall

Henry Vassall married Penelope Royal (of Medford MA and Antigua) in 1742 and proceeded to run through both their fortunes. Some of this was probably spent on Tony because a well-dressed driver was a visible reflection of your wealth. Maybe that was Cuba's first sight of him when she arrived in Massachusetts from Antigua, brought there by Penelope's father.

Cuba became Penelope's maid and by the 1750s she and Tony were married, or at least recognized as a couple. They started a family.

Penelope Vassall

Their lives took a risky path in 1752 when Tony was implicated in a burglary. Tony's brother-in-law, Robin, and a laborer named William Heley, stole a chest from William Brattle, a high mucky-muck who lived down the road. They were caught with the result being Heley consigned to servitude for twenty years and Robin was sold away. According to the Longfellow house website Tony was also involved. The plan was to finance an escape to Canada and then France. Nevertheless Robin took the fall, testifying at his trial that though Tony knew where the money had been hidden he never had possession of it. It would be interesting to know how Tony explained himself to Henry Vassall, what we can say is that he suffered no repercussions. Tony had a reputation as a raconteur and he no doubt used his gift for gab to allay Henry's suspicions and continue in his good graces. Henry, along with Penelope, regarded Tony as a trusted servant and by outward appearances Tony gave every indication of devotion and fidelity. But how did he really feel about the Vassalls? This is what his son, Darby, had to say.

Col. Henry Vassall was a very wicked man. It was common remark that he was the Devil.' He was a gamester and spent a great deal of money in cards and lived at the rate of seven years in three,' and managed to run out nearly all his property ; so that Old Madam when she came back after the peace was very poor. He was a severe and tart master to his people ; and when he was dying and asked his servants to pray for him, they answered that he might pray for himself.

Darby was born in 1769, the same year that Henry Vassall died, so he obviously got this view from his parents.

Henry Vassall's profligate lifestyle left his widow in debt, the result being the selling of Cuba (who was pregnant with Darby) and several of her children. Her new enslaver was Penelope's nephew, John, who lived across the street and I have to wonder if Tony had a hand in this. He could not have stopped the sale but perhaps he was able to call in some chips to make sure Cuba did not go far. But if that was the case even he could not stop the selling of his youngest, Darby, to George Reed, who lived in Woburn.

I don't know how old Darby was when he was taken to Woburn, but he was very young, possibly an infant. Batchelder says:

...Many slaveholders regarded their property's offspring as troublesome incumbrances [and] gave them away like puppies...

When the revolution broke out in 1775 Penelope and her nephew fled to safer political climes. It's unknown whether she tried to get Tony to come with her but my guess is that she would want a trusted person to stay put and watch the property until they could return. They never did and that is how Anthony Vassall ended up as the last man standing at the Vassall homes on both sides of the road. He built a dwelling behind the John Vassall house and farmed an acre of land nearby. When the rebel government seized the Vassall properties they allowed Tony to continue as caretaker and even compensated him to do so. In December of 1776 he was paid £4 as "Mrs. Vassall's negro" but in January 1777 he got the £4 as "Toney Vassall" and never again was referred to as chattel. Thereafter Anthony Vassall conducted himself as a free man of color and the powers that be recognized him as such. It was convenient for everyone since someone had to look after the properties until they were sold. There is no record that Gen. Washington utilized his services while at the Vassall house but I find it hard to believe that Tony would not have tried to ingratiate himself with the commander in chief.

George Reed's tombstone. No, I can't read it either.

But wait, hold on there, what happened to Darby?

In 1775 Darby accompanied his enslaver, George Reed, to the battle of Bunker Hill. I can't imagine of what use Darby, who was all of six, was on a battlefield, but there he was. As we all know the British won, but their casualties were high. One of these was the aforementioned Reed, who perished a few days after the battle from "a surfeit or heat," whatever the hell that is. Darby took advantage of the unexpected event to make his way back to Cambridge, and a happy reunion with his family. I can only imagine the joy his family must have felt. But all this begs the question: how did Darby get home?

Bunker Hill is only a few miles from Cambridge so Darby could have easily walked home along the well-established roads. Still a young black child of six was in great peril of getting kidnapped, it happened to people far older and bigger than Darby. Perhaps one of Reed's other servants made sure he got home. Then of course it is possible that Tony came for him. Woburn is about five miles from Medford where Tony took care of another Vassall family property and it would not have been difficult for him to keep in touch with his son. However Darby got home that is where he was in July 1775 when history accosted him. Batchelder's account is as colorful as it is racist so I'll turn this anecdote over to Ron Chernow from Washington: a Life

Although George Washington had never attended college and regretted his lack of education, he moved into the Harvard Square home of college president Samuel Langdon, who retreated to a single room. Politicians and officers soon descended on Washington en masse, including the two New England generals Artemas Ward and Israel Putnam. By mid-July Washington had transferred to grander quarters on Brattle Street, occupying the three-story Georgian mansion of John Vassall, a rich Tory who had fled behind British lines in besieged Boston. The Vassalls had owned a slave family that remained in the house, and when Washington toured his new headquarters, he found a slave boy, Darby Vassall, swinging on the front gate. In a friendly manner, Washington expressed interest in taking him into his service, but Darby, imbued with the spirit of liberty, asked what his pay would be. At that interjection, Washington evidently lost interest. “General Washington was no gentleman,” Darby later said, “to expect a boy to work without wages.”!

Washington's response goes unrecorded.

People, if I had the money I would fund a commission to have this scene commemorated in bas relief and erected in the Capitol Rotunda.

Tony and his family were eventually evicted from the Vassall house grounds after his petition for squatters rights was refused. But the next year he was awarded a small pension to take care of those other Vassall properties, namely Cuba and her children. In 1787 he bought land in another part of Cambridge and settled there, working as a yeoman farmer and farrior. (Batchelder claims he gained a reputation for over charging people, another reason to believe he knew Washington). He died in 1811 at the age of 98. Cuba died the next year, she was in her seventies.

The National Park Service has a very good article about the Vassalls.

Darby and his brother, Cyrus, would go on to become fixtures in the Boston community, pressing for more rights for African Americans. He lived to a ripe old age, being able to participate in a commemoration of the Boston Massacre in 1858. He died in 1861 and was buried in the Vassall family vault beneath Christ Church in Cambridge, which was a promise he had gotten from Henry Vassall's granddaughter, Catherine. He was apparently the last person laid to rest there.

Christ Church, Cambridge MA

I did wonder why Darby would want to spend eternity with people who had enslaved his family but it makes sense. Having a fancy tomb was a big deal in the 19th century and the best part for Darby was he wouldn't be paying for it. Also, unlike many other African Americans he wouldn't end up in an unmarked grave or prey to the resurrection men. No doubt the white folk saw it as devotion to ole massa but Darby and his family would know the truth. And let's face it, he's probably the most famous person buried there.

Rest in Power, Darby.

#Tony Vassall #Darby Vassall #amrev history #george washington #Darby sassing George should be required telling in every history class

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imagineclaireandjamie · 7 years

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Adopted Daughters - Part Two

An AU in which Jenny turned Laoghaire over for shooting Jamie so Marsali brings Joanie along when she elopes with Fergus.

Part One

The ship rocked hard and Claire rolled into the wall of the top berth, catching herself just before she smacked her forehead. From Marsali’s groan below, she hadn’t fared as well.

There was a quiet murmur and further subdued grumbling from Marsali as Joanie slept on, buffered by her older sister’s body and her own smaller size.

Claire yawned and squinted at the small porthole window on the other side of the small cabin. It was difficult to tell whether the light coming in was the glow of predawn or unfiltered moonlight. The water could be incredibly reflective when there was little cloud cover and the moon was close to full. It didn’t matter what time it was. The sloshing of the water so close was triggering the need to void her bladder.

There was a trick to climbing in and out of the top berth without bashing her head on something or falling unceremoniously out and onto the floor. Claire was getting closer to mastering it. She rubbed her head where she’d grazed it on the lip that came down from the ceiling as she crossed to search for the chamber pot, praying the ship would stay steady long enough for her to pee without either falling over or sloshing the pot’s contents onto her bare feet.

She felt Marsali’s eyes on her as she ducked behind the small curtain in the corner that offered her a little bit of privacy. It was more unnerving to discover Marsali still watching her through narrow eyes as she made her way back to the berth.

When she got close enough, Claire saw the way Joanie was familiarly sprawled in the berth with her limbs thrown across Marsali and making an already cramped berth even smaller. It reminded her of when Brianna would crawl into bed with her during thunderstorms or after she’d had a nightmare. No matter how many times Claire would straighten Brianna out and shuffle her to her own side of the bed, she would always wake with a hand or occasionally a foot in her face and only an inch of space to call her own.

The memory had summoned a nostalgic smile, one that Marsali saw and resented. She took hold of Joanie’s limbs and rearranged them so that her sister was back on her side of the berth, then with her eyes still on Claire, Marsali resettled herself lying on her side with her back to the wall. Finally she draped her arm over Joanie though whether it was meant to be protective or to restrict the smaller girl’s movements as she slept was unclear.

Claire bit her lip to conceal her amusement as she successfully negotiated her way back up and into her berth. She lay on her back and smiled as she stretched her limbs to the full extent the cramped space allowed. There were moments when Joanie looked so much like Brianna had as a child… And then seeing her with Marsali…

Would Brianna have come to her bed seeking comfort half so often if she’d had Faith to turn to as well? Claire had never had a sibling of her own and so always had little experience to base her wonderings on when her mind drifted to what Faith would be like if she’d lived and how she and Brianna would have been together as sisters. Marsali certainly expressed a stubbornness that some would see as Fraser in nature but what was the underlying force driving that stubborn streak? For the Frasers, it was undeniably love, the need to protect those most dear. That’s what would have driven Faith as Claire had seen it drive Jamie, Brianna, and Jenny.

She turned her mind back to the sisters sleeping below her. What drove Marsali’s stubbornness? Was it the same as what had driven Laoghaire’s for so many years? That selfish need to have what she wanted and damn the consequences to anyone else, even those who depended on her? Laoghaire’s stubbornness in holding onto Jamie—not even to have him for herself, but to prevent anyone else from having him—had left her daughters in an incredibly vulnerable position. What would Marsali do if she ever had to choose between having Fergus and protecting Joanie?

Claire shivered and rolled over. Just because Joanie looked like Brianna didn’t mean they were entirely alike and the same was true for Marsali and Laoghaire. The girl might be Laoghaire’s daughter and have her hair and some of her attitude, but Marsali was her own person and it was up to her to decide who that was.

Marsali put the extra bowl of parritch in front of Joanie as she sat at the table across from Fergus. She hadn’t swallowed three bites before she felt the pressure of his foot on hers. She felt her cheeks go hot and lifted her eyes to meet his.

“Is there honey I can put on this?” Joanie asked, drawing Marsali’s attention away from Fergus. “It’s so thick I can hardly mix it and it doesna taste like anything.”

“There’s no honey and no like to be any till we make port in Jamaica in a few months’ time so ye’d best get used to it while there’s parritch at all.”

“If you ask Milady, she might be able to speak with the cook to find something that will make it taste better,” Fergus suggested.

Marsali used her free foot to kick Fergus’ off hers. He raised an innocent eyebrow to her glare.

Joanie looked up from the parritch sticking like glue to her spoon and caught the glances back and forth between them. “I think I’m done. My stomach isna fully settled yet from yesterday. Do ye ken where Da is?”

“He is indisposed. His stomach is not settling well either. Perhaps some fresh air will help you, though,” Fergus said with a look to Marsali. “There is not much to do aside from walk on the deck but I would be happy to go with you and answer your questions.”

“Can we, Marsali? Please? I didna get to see much when we came aboard yesterday. Ye had us below deck so fast and then we were barely up top again when—”

“Aye, Joanie, I was there too, was I not? I ken how it was and yes, we can walk about up top just as soon as I’m done with my parritch. I’m no so choosy about it as you,” she said in a scolding tone before taking a big mouthful to demonstrate her own willingness to adjust to their new circumstances without complaint. It tasted terrible and stuck to the roof of her mouth but she grimaced through the bite and managed to swallow.

She gave Fergus a small kick under the table when she caught him from the corner of her eye trying desperately not to laugh. He looked more triumphant than she did when she swallowed the last bite and he pushed himself up from the table.

“Shall we, mademoiselles?”

They made their way up onto the deck and started to stroll along the rail. Fergus was able to give explain the technical terms for some of the rigging and was relieved that his limited knowledge hadn’t been completely exhausted before Joanie’s interest in it. They’d come across Yi Tien Cho with a bucket of water and an odd looking paintbrush tracing unfamiliar characters on the boards of the main deck.

Fergus and Marsali left Joanie learning to draw the Chinese characters and continued on their way together, more alone than they had been since the final decision to forge ahead together had been made. There were several of the crew on deck busy in their own ways. There were some in the rigging tending to the sails and a few sitting and mending nets while others tossed the repaired ones over the side to test them and hopefully catch something to supplement their suppers.

Marsali slipped her arm through Fergus’ and leaned her head against his shoulder as they sidestepped the slippery mess on deck where the latest catch had been dumped. She felt the chuckle ripple through his chest before his kiss pressed to the top of her head.

“Were you as miserable last night as I was?” she asked. “I’d hoped to share my bed with you and instead I had Joanie kicking me in shins and smackin’ me in the face.”

“And what makes you think I will not do such things sleeping next to you?” Fergus teased.

Marsali laughed as they reached the end of the stretch they could walk and turned to head back. Joanie was on her hands and knees beside Yi Tien Cho, mimicking his movements with the long-handled brush.

“Though, I would take the kicks and the elbows and the hitting over the smell and the sound of Milord’s retching,” Fergus confessed. “One is bad enough but both together is enough to make my stomach sour in sympathy.”

“Poor Da. Is there nothing to be done for it?”

“Milady is giving him a special tea that is supposed to help but it does not stay in his stomach long enough to work yet,” Fergus explained. “But I am sure she will think of another way to help Milord.”

Marsali groaned. “Will ye stop goin’ on about her like she’s a saint? Ye ken she’s the reason—”

“Marsali, stop,” Fergus snapped. “I understand that you have heard things about Milady from your mother but what about the things you have heard from me, hmm? I knew her too and so did Milord. Have you not seen how happy he is now she is restored to him? Do you think he could love someone so awful as what your mother says? She is not a saint but she is not a witch or a whore either. And given what your mother did to Milord and how she speaks of me, she is not one to be speaking ill of others.”

Marsali pulled her hand from Fergus’ arm and stormed off only to realize they’d reached the far end of the deck again and needed to turn back once more. It was true that her mother could be ungenerous with her words and Marsali had told her so on many occasions—especially when her mother fell back to calling Fergus a son of a whore—but Marsali couldn’t help the way hearing other people say such things riled her up to defend her mother. And look at all that her mother had suffered over her years? Two husbands dead and buried, two mouths to feed and those lassies who couldn’t help with the farm the way sons would have. Another husband who at the very least sent money and didn’t beat her but who promises to leave her altogether when another woman comes along.

Marsali sighed and looked to Fergus who was standing waiting for her to rejoin him as she made her way back along the rail. Before she moved again she saw a flurry of activity past his shoulder and squinted to see better. He turned to follow the direction of her attention and hearing something, ran to the hatch and called down for help.

Looking back to the group, Marsali spotted Yi Tien Cho gesturing for people to back away. That was when she spotted Joanie’s legs. She wasn’t standing watching the commotion; she was lying on the deck. Whatever had happened, had happened to Joanie. Marsali ran.

#;mod lenny #adopted daughters au #featuring: joanie #featuring: marsali #featuring: fergus #featuring: yi tien cho #alternate universe #show!verse

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roxanatedeschi-blog · 4 years

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semissouristate · 6 years

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SEMO Loves Alumni

We love our alumni and aren’t afraid to shout it! Every semester, graduates from Southeast go out into the world and start new chapters in their journeys. And every unique story is another opportunity for us to be proud of the magnificent work they do. Here is just a snapshot of what some of our alumni are up to these days.

Roy Thomas ‘61

Roy Thomas graduated from Southeast in 1961 and is from Jackson, Missouri. Roy is a comic book writer and editor. He was Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Roy was responsible for writing many comics, such as Conan the Barbarian and Justice Society of America. Roy has also written for Marvel's X-Men and The Avengers, and DC comics All-Star Squadron. Roy was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2011 and is the recipient of numerous national awards.

Kimberly Speight Nordyke ‘97

As managing editor for The Hollywood Reporter Online, Kimberly Speight Nordyke has helped inform and entertain millions. She began as a reporter and copy editor in 2000 and by 2017, she was promoted to managing editor. In addition to editing breaking news and features, she is also responsible for overseeing awards show coverage (Oscars, Emmys, Globes, Grammys, etc.), coordinating and optimizing the rollout of print stories to online, working with the public relations team and top editors to promote approved content, and coordinating with their sister publication, Billboard, on music coverage. At Southeast, Kimberly earned a Bachelor of Arts in mass communication with an emphasis in journalism. She also holds a Master of Arts in journalism from the University of Missouri.

Michael Bricknell ‘07

Michael Bricknell was employed as a cartographer for the West Point History of Warfare, The West Point History of the American Revolution, The West Point History of the Civil War, and The West Point History of World War II. After finishing nearly five years with an educational startup in New York City, Michael has begun working as a data visualization designer for the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2018.

Andrew Bauman ‘11

Andrew Bauman recently graduated from law school at Saint Louis University School of Law in May 2018, earning his J.D. with a concentration in urban development, land use, and environmental law. He then passed the Missouri Bar Exam and has recently begun work as an attorney at Wegmann Law Firm in Hillsboro, MO. Andrew also won first place in the 35th Annual Smith-Babcock-Williams Student Writing Competition with his law paper “Legally Enabling a Modern-Day Mayberry: A Legal Analysis of Form-Based Zoning Codes,” which he wrote as a third-year law student. This contest is open to law students and graduate city planning students across the country. The paper will also be published in an upcoming publication, The Urban Lawyer, a national law journal which is the official publication of the American Bar Association's Section of State and Local Government Law. “I credit the SEMO History Department and the historic preservation program for helping me foster this interest in place making and the built environment as an undergrad, which has proved instrumental in shaping my areas of interest of municipal/local government law and land use law,” said Andrew.

Geoffrey Ogden ‘11

After graduating from Southeast, Geoffrey Ogden commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. He attended SLU law, and proceeded to active duty where he spent the majority of his time as a criminal defense attorney. He plans to transition to the Marine Corps reserves and begin civilian employment with the Department of Justice. Geoffrey studied political science and history at Southeast. “History is something I have always been passionate about, and I chose it because I intended to either teach or go to graduate school. Professor Joel Rhodes’ lectures were always captivating, and he had a way of making history come alive. He could tell a story better than anyone, and it's a skill I have tried to develop and perfect as a trial lawyer,” said Geoffrey.

Jessica Halter-Powell ‘93

After interning with Boyd Gaming during her senior year at Southeast, Jessica Halter-Powell secured a job with the gaming company's advertising agency, which eventually led her to Las Vegas and work at the marketing firm that represents many of the city's casinos. From there, Jessica moved to Chicago and joined Leo Burnett working on the Walt Disney World and Disney Cruise Line brands. Since then, she’s worked for some of the world's biggest and best advertising agencies such as McCann, DDB, and David&Goliath. Her latest role as the vice president of marketing and brand strategy for the Bellagio brought her back to Las Vegas. “Southeast allowed me to create an interdisciplinary studies major, with concentrations in graphic design and mass communications that provided the hybrid education I needed. Southeast taught me nothing is handed to you. Work hard and show perseverance and people will want to help you. Dr. Bodenheimer and Dean Jones helped me find the scholarship opportunities and part time jobs that not only got me through college but set me up for a wonderful career,” said Jessica.

Jan Pensel ’72, ‘74

Jan Pensel received her Bachelor of Science in education and Master of Arts in education from Southeast. She is retired, having worked as a teacher, elementary counselor, and a computer programmer. Jan and her husband, Ron, have been living in the Northwest since 1976. Jan enjoys quilting and, several years ago, decided to help the community by donating her quilts to a nearby hospital. In addition, Jan makes prayer pillows and port pillows for patients. The hospital uses the quilts as lap quilts for neonatal patients, the prayer pillows are given to the hospital chaplain so they can put their business card in the slot on the pillow to give to families in need, and Jan makes port pillows for those patients that have surgically implanted ports to help cushion the port while wearing a seat belt. Jan has often said that if she worked in a quilting or fabric store, she would never come home with a paycheck. In addition, one of Ron's Navy buddies has asked if Jan ever comes up for air because she quilts so much.

Rosemary Jones ‘64

Rosemary is a retired public housing social worker, medical social worker, and refugee resettlement worker. Serving as chair of the Jamaica Pond Association, secretary of the Howard Benevolent Association, and active member of JP@Home, which is a program of Ethos, the senior services organization that helps seniors and disabled individuals age in place. Rosemary considers “chronic volunteer” to be her new job title in retirement.

Caitlin Clark ‘07

Caitlin Clark has developed her corporate real estate career with what is now Cushman and Wakefield (formerly CTMT, Cassidy Turley, and DTZ). Her current role as associate vice president in portfolio administration is a specialized focus on lease audit and recovery, which aims at forensic accounting and research of corporate tenant leases to validate expenses. She leads a team that negotiates overcharges with landlords on behalf of corporate clients. Caitlin earned a degree in business administration with a focus in integrated marketing communications from Southeast. “I had a lot of good core classes that led me into my ultimate focus in a finance role. I currently use my degree as I have been elevated in a more sales and marketing role to expand our services to new clients,” said Caitlin.

If you are a Southeast graduate, share your story with us!

#semoalumni #alma mater #Semo #alumni

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jamaicahomescom · 6 months

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Becoming a Top Realtor in Jamaica: Expert Strategies, Tips, and Tricks Unveiled

In Jamaica’s dynamic real estate landscape, rising to the top as a premier real estate agent and or realtor involves more than just closing deals; it’s about nurturing connections, its about understanding market intricacies relevent to the jamaican real estate market, and also mastering negotiation. Whether you’re a newcomer on the real estate scene or a seasoned agent aiming for excellence,…

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#Career advancement #Expert strategies #Jamaica #Market insights #Professional development #Real Estate #success #Tips #Top realtor #Tricks

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yasbxxgie · 6 years

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My love for walking started in childhood, out of necessity. No thanks to a stepfather with heavy hands, I found every reason to stay away from home and was usually out—at some friend’s house or at a street party where no minor should be— until it was too late to get public transportation. So I walked. The streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1980s were often terrifying—you could, for instance, get killed if a political henchman thought you came from the wrong neighborhood, or even if you wore the wrong color. Wearing orange showed affiliation with one political party and green with the other, and if you were neutral or traveling far from home you chose your colors well. The wrong color in the wrong neighborhood could mean your last day. No wonder, then, that my friends and the rare nocturnal passerby declared me crazy for my long late-night treks that traversed warring political zones. (And sometimes I did pretend to be crazy, shouting non sequiturs when I passed through especially dangerous spots, such as the place where thieves hid on the banks of a storm drain. Predators would ignore or laugh at the kid in his school uniform speaking nonsense.)

I made friends with strangers and went from being a very shy and awkward kid to being an extroverted, awkward one. The beggar, the vendor, the poor laborer—those were experienced wanderers, and they became my nighttime instructors; they knew the streets and delivered lessons on how to navigate and enjoy them. I imagined myself as a Jamaican Tom Sawyer, one moment sauntering down the streets to pick low-hanging mangoes that I could reach from the sidewalk, another moment hanging outside a street party with battling sound systems, each armed with speakers piled to create skyscrapers of heavy bass. These streets weren’t frightening. They were full of adventure when they weren’t serene. There I’d join forces with a band of merry walkers, who’d miss the last bus by mere minutes, our feet still moving as we put out our thumbs to hitchhike to spots nearer home, making jokes as vehicle after vehicle raced past us. Or I’d get lost in Mittyesque moments, my young mind imagining alternate futures. The streets had their own safety: Unlike at home, there I could be myself without fear of bodily harm. Walking became so regular and familiar that the way home became home.

The streets had their rules, and I loved the challenge of trying to master them. I learned how to be alert to surrounding dangers and nearby delights, and prided myself on recognizing telling details that my peers missed. Kingston was a map of complex, and often bizarre, cultural and political and social activity, and I appointed myself its nighttime cartographer. I’d know how to navigate away from a predatory pace, and to speed up to chat when the cadence of a gait announced friendliness. It was almost always men I saw. A lone woman walking in the middle of the night was as common a sight as Sasquatch; moonlight pedestrianism was too dangerous for her. Sometimes at night as I made my way down from hills above Kingston, I’d have the impression that the city was set on “pause” or in extreme slow motion, as that as I descended I was cutting across Jamaica’s deep social divisions. I’d make my way briskly past the mansions in the hills overlooking the city, now transformed into a carpet of dotted lights under a curtain of stars, saunter by middle-class subdivisions hidden behind high walls crowned with barbed wire, and zigzag through neighborhoods of zinc and wooden shacks crammed together and leaning like a tight-knit group of limbo dancers. With my descent came an increase in the vibrancy of street life—except when it didn’t; some poor neighborhoods had both the violent gunfights and the eerily deserted streets of the cinematic Wild West. I knew well enough to avoid those even at high noon.

I’d begun hoofing it after dark when I was 10 years old. By 13 I was rarely home before midnight, and some nights found me racing against dawn. My mother would often complain, “Mek yuh love street suh? Yuh born a hospital; yuh neva born a street.” (“Why do you love the streets so much? You were born in a hospital, not in the streets.”)

* * * *

I left Jamaica in 1996 to attend college in New Orleans, a city I’d heard called “the northernmost Caribbean city.” I wanted to discover—on foot, of course—what was Caribbean and what was American about it. Stately mansions on oak-lined streets with streetcars clanging by, and brightly colored houses that made entire blocks look festive; people in resplendent costumes dancing to funky brass bands in the middle of the street; cuisine—and aromas—that mashed up culinary traditions from Africa, Europe, Asia, and the American South; and a juxtaposition of worlds old and new, odd and familiar: Who wouldn’t want to explore this?

On my first day in the city, I went walking for a few hours to get a feel for the place and to buy supplies to transform my dormitory room from a prison bunker into a welcoming space. When some university staff members found out what I’d been up to, they warned me to restrict my walking to the places recommended as safe to tourists and the parents of freshmen. They trotted out statistics about New Orleans’s crime rate. But Kingston’s crime rate dwarfed those numbers, and I decided to ignore these well-meant cautions. A city was waiting to be discovered, and I wouldn’t let inconvenient facts get in the way. These American criminals are nothing on Kingston’s, I thought. They’re no real threat to me.

What no one had told me was that I was the one who would be considered a threat.

Within days I noticed that many people on the street seemed apprehensive of me: Some gave me a circumspect glance as they approached, and then crossed the street; others, ahead, would glance behind, register my presence, and then speed up; older white women clutched their bags; young white men nervously greeted me, as if exchanging a salutation for their safety: “What’s up, bro?” On one occasion, less than a month after my arrival, I tried to help a man whose wheelchair was stuck in the middle of a crosswalk; he threatened to shoot me in the face, then asked a white pedestrian for help.

I wasn’t prepared for any of this. I had come from a majority-black country in which no one was wary of me because of my skin color. Now I wasn’t sure who was afraid of me. I was especially unprepared for the cops. They regularly stopped and bullied me, asking questions that took my guilt for granted. I’d never received what many of my African American friends call “The Talk”: No parents had told me how to behave when I was stopped by the police, how to be as polite and cooperative as possible, no matter what they said or did to me. So I had to cobble together my own rules of engagement. Thicken my Jamaican accent. Quickly mention my college. “Accidentally” pull out my college identification card when asked for my driver’s license.

My survival tactics began well before I left my dorm. I got out of the shower with the police in my head, assembling a cop-proof wardrobe. Light-colored oxford shirt. V-neck sweater. Khaki pants. Chukkas. Sweatshirt or T-shirt with my university insignia. When I walked I regularly had my identity challenged, but I also found ways to assert it. (So I’d dress Ivy League style, but would, later on, add my Jamaican pedigree by wearing Clarks Desert Boots, the footwear of choice of Jamaican street culture.) Yet the all-American sartorial choice of white T-shirt and jeans, which many police officers see as the uniform of black troublemakers, was off limits to me—at least, if I wanted to have the freedom of movement I desired.

In this city of exuberant streets, walking became a complex and often oppressive negotiation. I would see a white woman walking toward me at night and cross the street to reassure her that she was safe. I would forget something at home but not immediately turn around if someone was behind me, because I discovered that a sudden backtrack could cause alarm. (I had a cardinal rule: Keep a wide perimeter from people who might consider me a danger. If not, danger might visit me.) New Orleans suddenly felt more dangerous than Jamaica. The sidewalk was a minefield, and every hesitation and self-censored compensation reduced my dignity. Despite my best efforts, the streets never felt comfortably safe. Even a simple salutation was suspect.

One night, returning to the house that, eight years after my arrival, I thought I’d earned the right to call my home, I waved to a cop driving by. Moments later, I was against his car in handcuffs. When I later asked him—sheepishly, of course; any other way would have asked for bruises—why he had detained me, he said my greeting had aroused his suspicion. “No one waves to the police,” he explained. When I told friends of his response, it was my behavior, not his, that they saw as absurd. “Now why would you do a dumb thing like that?” said one. “You know better than to make nice with police.”

* * * *

A few days after I left on a visit to Kingston, Hurricane Katrina slashed and pummeled New Orleans. I’d gone not because of the storm but because my adoptive grandmother, Pearl, was dying of cancer. I hadn’t wandered those streets in eight years, since my last visit, and I returned to them now mostly at night, the time I found best for thinking, praying, crying. I walked to feel less alienated—from myself, struggling with the pain of seeing my grandmother terminally ill; from my home in New Orleans, underwater and seemingly abandoned; from my home country, which now, precisely because of its childhood familiarity, felt foreign to me. I was surprised by how familiar those streets felt. Here was the corner where the fragrance of jerk chicken greeted me, along with the warm tenor and peace-and-love message of Half Pint’s “Greetings,” broadcast from a small but powerful speaker to at least a half-mile radius. It was as if I had walked into 1986, down to the soundtrack. And there was the wall of the neighborhood shop, adorned with the Rastafarian colors red, gold, and green along with images of local and international heroes Bob Marley, Marcus Garvey, and Haile Selassie. The crew of boys leaning against it and joshing each other were recognizable; different faces, similar stories.

I was astonished at how safe the streets felt to me, once again one black body among many, no longer having to anticipate the many ways my presence might instill fear and how to offer some reassuring body language. Passing police cars were once again merely passing police cars. Jamaican police could be pretty brutal, but they didn’t notice me the way American police did. I could be invisible in Jamaica in a way I can’t be invisible in the United States. Walking had returned to me a greater set of possibilities.

And why walk, if not to create a new set of possibilities? Following serendipity, I added new routes to the mental maps I had made from constant walking in that city from childhood to young adulthood, traced variations on the old pathways. Serendipity, a mentor once told me, is a secular way of speaking of grace; it’s unearned favor. Seen theologically, then, walking is an act of faith. Walking is, after all, interrupted falling. We see, we listen, we speak, and we trust that each step we take won’t be our last, but will lead us into a richer understanding of the self and the world.

In Jamaica, I felt once again as if the only identity that mattered was my own, not the constricted one that others had constructed for me. I strolled into my better self. I said, along with Kierkegaard, “I have walked myself into my best thoughts.”

* * * *

When I tried to return to New Orleans from Jamaica a month later, there were no flights. I thought about flying to Texas so I could make my way back to my neighborhood as soon as it opened for reoccupancy, but my adoptive aunt, Maxine, who hated the idea of me returning to a hurricane zone before the end of hurricane season, persuaded me to come to stay in New York City instead. (To strengthen her case she sent me an article about Texans who were buying up guns because they were afraid of the influx of black people from New Orleans.)

This wasn’t a hard sell: I wanted to be in a place where I could travel by foot and, more crucially, continue to reap the solace of walking at night. And I was eager to follow in the steps of the essayists, poets, and novelists who’d wandered that great city before me—Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Alfred Kazin, Elizabeth Hardwick. I had visited the city before, but each trip had felt like a tour in a sports car. I welcomed the chance to stroll. I wanted to walk alongside Whitman’s ghost and “descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them.” So I left Kingston, the popular Jamaican farewell echoing in my mind: “Walk good!” Be safe on your journey, in other words, and all the best in your endeavors.

* * * *

I arrived in New York City, ready to lose myself in Whitman’s “Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!” I marveled at what Jane Jacobs praised as “the ballet of the good city sidewalk” in her old neighborhood, the West Village. I walked up past midtown skyscrapers, releasing their energy as lively people onto the streets, and on into the Upper West Side, with its regal Beaux Arts apartment buildings, stylish residents, and buzzing streets. Onward into Washington Heights, the sidewalks spilled over with an ebullient mix of young and old Jewish and Dominican American residents, past leafy Inwood, with parks whose grades rose to reveal beautiful views of the Hudson River, up to my home in Kingsbridge in the Bronx, with its rows of brick bungalows and apartment buildings nearby Broadway’s bustling sidewalks and the peaceful expanse of Van Cortlandt Park. I went to Jackson Heights in Queens to take in people socializing around garden courtyards in Urdu, Korean, Spanish, Russian, and Hindi. And when I wanted a taste of home, I headed to Brooklyn, in Crown Heights, for Jamaican food and music and humor mixed in with the flavor of New York City. The city was my playground.

I explored the city with friends, and then with a woman I’d begun dating. She walked around endlessly with me, taking in New York City’s many pleasures. Coffee shops open until predawn; verdant parks with nooks aplenty; food and music from across the globe; quirky neighborhoods with quirkier residents. My impressions of the city took shape during my walks with her.

As with the relationship, those first few months of urban exploration were all romance. The city was beguiling, exhilarating, vibrant. But it wasn’t long before reality reminded me I wasn’t invulnerable, especially when I walked alone.

One night in the East Village, I was running to dinner when a white man in front of me turned and punched me in the chest with such force that I thought my ribs had braided around my spine. I assumed he was drunk or had mistaken me for an old enemy, but found out soon enough that he’d merely assumed I was a criminal because of my race. When he discovered I wasn’t what he imagined, he went on to tell me that his assault was my own fault for running up behind him. I blew off this incident as an aberration, but the mutual distrust between me and the police was impossible to ignore. It felt elemental. They’d enter a subway platform; I’d notice them. (And I’d notice all the other black men registering their presence as well, while just about everyone else remained oblivious to them.) They’d glare. I’d get nervous and glance. They’d observe me steadily. I’d get uneasy. I’d observe them back, worrying that I looked suspicious. Their suspicions would increase. We’d continue the silent, uneasy dialogue until the subway arrived and separated us at last.

I returned to the old rules I’d set for myself in New Orleans, with elaboration. No running, especially at night; no sudden movements; no hoodies; no objects—especially shiny ones—in hand; no waiting for friends on street corners, lest I be mistaken for a drug dealer; no standing near a corner on the cell phone (same reason). As comfort set in, inevitably I began to break some of those rules, until a night encounter sent me zealously back to them, having learned that anything less than vigilance was carelessness.

After a sumptuous Italian dinner and drinks with friends, I was jogging to the subway at Columbus Circle—I was running late to meet another set of friends at a concert downtown. I heard someone shouting and I looked up to see a police officer approaching with his gun trained on me. “Against the car!” In no time, half a dozen cops were upon me, chucking me against the car and tightly handcuffing me. “Why were you running?” “Where are you going?” “Where are you coming from?” “I said, why were you running?!” Since I couldn’t answer everyone at once, I decided to respond first to the one who looked most likely to hit me. I was surrounded by a swarm and tried to focus on just one without inadvertently aggravating the others.

It didn’t work. As I answered that one, the others got frustrated that I wasn’t answering them fast enough and barked at me. One of them, digging through my already-emptied pockets, asked if I had any weapons, the question more an accusation. Another badgered me about where I was coming from, as if on the fifteenth round I’d decide to tell him the truth he imagined. Though I kept saying—calmly, of course, which meant trying to manage a tone that ignored my racing heart and their spittle-filled shouts in my face—that I had just left friends two blocks down the road, who were all still there and could vouch for me, to meet other friends whose text messages on my phone could verify that, yes, sir, yes, officer, of course, officer, it made no difference. For a black man, to assert your dignity before the police was to risk assault. In fact, the dignity of black people meant less to them, which was why I always felt safer being stopped in front of white witnesses than black witnesses. The cops had less regard for the witness and entreaties of black onlookers, whereas the concern of white witnesses usually registered on them. A black witness asking a question or politely raising an objection could quickly become a fellow detainee. Deference to the police, then, was sine qua non for a safe encounter.

The cops ignored my explanations and my suggestions and continued to snarl at me. All except one of them, a captain. He put his hand on my back, and said to no one in particular, “If he was running for a long time he would have been sweating.” He then instructed that the cuffs be removed. He told me that a black man had stabbed someone earlier two or three blocks away and they were searching for him. I noted that I had no blood on me and had told his fellow officers where I’d been and how to check my alibi—unaware that it was even an alibi, as no one had told me why I was being held, and of course, I hadn’t dared ask. From what I’d seen, anything beyond passivity would be interpreted as aggression.

The police captain said I could go. None of the cops who detained me thought an apology was necessary. Like the thug who punched me in the East Village, they seemed to think it was my own fault for running.

Humiliated, I tried not to make eye contact with the onlookers on the sidewalk, and I was reluctant to pass them to be on my way. The captain, maybe noticing my shame, offered to give me a ride to the subway station. When he dropped me off and I thanked him for his help, he said, “It’s because you were polite that we let you go. If you were acting up it would have been different.” I nodded and said nothing.

* * * *

I realized that what I least liked about walking in New York City wasn’t merely having to learn new rules of navigation and socialization—every city has its own. It was the arbitrariness of the circumstances that required them, an arbitrariness that made me feel like a child again, that infantilized me. When we first learn to walk, the world around us threatens to crash into us. Every step is risky. We train ourselves to walk without crashing by being attentive to our movements, and extra-attentive to the world around us. As adults we walk without thinking, really. But as a black adult I am often returned to that moment in childhood when I’m just learning to walk. I am once again on high alert, vigilant. Some days, when I am fed up with being considered a troublemaker upon sight, I joke that the last time a cop was happy to see a black male walking was when that male was a baby taking his first steps.

On many walks, I ask white friends to accompany me, just to avoid being treated like a threat. Walks in New York City, that is; in New Orleans, a white woman in my company sometimes attracted more hostility. (And it is not lost on me that my woman friends are those who best understand my plight; they have developed their own vigilance in an environment where they are constantly treated as targets of sexual attention.) Much of my walking is as my friend Rebecca once described it: A pantomime undertaken to avoid the choreography of criminality.

* * * *

Walking while black restricts the experience of walking, renders inaccessible the classic Romantic experience of walking alone. It forces me to be in constant relationship with others, unable to join the New York flâneurs I had read about and hoped to join. Instead of meandering aimlessly in the footsteps of Whitman, Melville, Kazin, and Vivian Gornick, more often I felt that I was tiptoeing in Baldwin’s—the Baldwin who wrote, way back in 1960, “Rare, indeed, is the Harlem citizen, from the most circumspect church member to the most shiftless adolescent, who does not have a long tale to tell of police incompetence, injustice, or brutality. I myself have witnessed and endured it more than once.”

Walking as a black man has made me feel simultaneously more removed from the city, in my awareness that I am perceived as suspect, and more closely connected to it, in the full attentiveness demanded by my vigilance. It has made me walk more purposefully in the city, becoming part of its flow, rather than observing, standing apart.

* * * *

But it also means that I’m still trying to arrive in a city that isn’t quite mine. One definition of home is that it’s somewhere we can most be ourselves. And when are we more ourselves but when walking, that natural state in which we repeat one of the first actions we learned? Walking—the simple, monotonous act of placing one foot before the other to prevent falling—turns out not to be so simple if you’re black. Walking alone has been anything but monotonous for me; monotony is a luxury.

A foot leaves, a foot lands, and our longing gives it momentum from rest to rest. We long to look, to think, to talk, to get away. But more than anything else, we long to be free. We want the freedom and pleasure of walking without fear—without others’ fear—wherever we choose. I’ve lived in New York City for almost a decade and have not stopped walking its fascinating streets. And I have not stopped longing to find the solace that I found as a kid on the streets of Kingston. Much as coming to know New York City’s streets has made it closer to home to me, the city also withholds itself from me via those very streets. I walk them, alternately invisible and too prominent. So I walk caught between memory and forgetting, between memory and forgiveness. [h/t]

#garnette cadogan #walking while black #while black #walking #literary hub #long reads #jamaica #kingston jamaica #new orleans #new york city #police brutality #police terrorism #racism #ruddy roye #boing boing

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historybehindassassinscreed · 7 years

Photo

In Game:

Woodes Rogers was an English privateer, the first royal governor of the Bahamas, and a member of the West Indies rite of the Templar Order, although he was eventually expelled for trading slaves.

In July of 1715, Woodes was with a handful of other Templars in Havana, expecting the arrival of Duncan Walpole, an Assassin traitor, who was to deliver a blood vial of a Sage, and maps of Assassin encampments throughout the West Indies. They were met instead with the pirate, Edward Kenway, who had killed Walpole and took his identity in a hope to gain the reward himself.

Woodes introduced Edward to Julien du Casse, a French arms dealer and a fellow Templar, and the Grand Master and governor, Laureano de Torres y Ayala. The four of them discussed how they would locate a First Civilization site known as the Observatory.

The Templars and Edward headed down to the docks to collect Bartholomew Roberts, a Sage who could lead them to the Observatory, and managed to fend off an assassin ambush. Afterward, Woodes returned to England in hopes of becoming a governor.

In 1718, Woodes returned to the Caribbean, having been appointed the governor of the Bahamas, to enforce British rule in Nassau. He offered pardon to the pirate leaders residing there, including Edward Thatch, Benjamin Hornigold, and Charles Vane, as well as ordering a blockade of Nassau by the Royal Navy, although Hornigold was the only one to accept the pardon. However, Edward Kenway and Charles Vane managed to escape Nassau after killing Woodes’ military associate, Commodore Peter Chamberlaine, who had intended to disregard Woodes' orders and sink every pirate vessel docked at Nassau.

Shortly after his affairs in Nassau, Woodes visited the Caicos Islands to deal with remaining pirates who had turned down the King's pardon. With a British war fleet under his command, he encountered two French pirates, who had just recovered an artifact known as the Fragment of Eden and, upon seeing Woodes' war fleet appear on the horizon, they decided to split up. In response to this, Woodes sent six of his vessels to attack. However, the pirates sank all ships, delaying the fleet to give his friend time to flee.

In 1719, Woodes was sent back to England by Torres, assigned to collect blood samples from members of the British Parliament, for eventual use when the Templars discovered the Observatory's location.

In 1721, Woodes accompanied Torres to Jamaica to interrogate Edward Kenway after his betrayal by Bartholomew Roberts and capture by British forces. As the men observed the sentencing of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, Woodes and Torres made what Edward perceived as veiled threats towards his estranged wife, Catherine Scott Kenway.

The Templars offered Edward a reprieve from imprisonment and likely execution in exchange for helping to lead them to the Observatory, with Torres warning Edward that Woodes could only block the British from executing him for a certain time. However, Edward was freed by the Assassins before the Templars could acquire the information they wanted from him.

Edward returned to Kingston later on that year, impersonating an Italian diplomat, Ruggiero Ferraro, to get into a party with the intent of confronting Woodes and killing him. Edward confronted him about the Templars' plans for the Observatory and demanded information regarding the Sage's location, to stop the pirate misusing that power. Woodes, amused that Edward would help the Assassins after they had tried to kill him, informed him of Roberts having been sighted on Príncipe, before supposedly succumbing to his wounds.

However, Woodes survived and returned to England, though he continued to trade slaves, which lead to his eventual expulsion from the Templar Order.

In Real Life:

Woodes Rogers was an English sea captain and privateer and, later on, the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas.

He was born around 1679 the eldest son and heir to Woods Rogers, a successful merchant captain. Woodes spent much of his childhood in Poole, England, where he likely attended the local school. His father, who owned shares in many ships, was often away for most of the year with the Newfoundland fishing fleet, leaving his son behind. His father would occasionally deal in human cargo as well.

Sometime between 1690 and 1696, Captain Rogers moved his family to Bristol, and in November of 1697, Woodes Rogers was apprenticed to Bristol mariner John Yeamans, so that he could learn how to be a sailor. At around age 18, Woodes was somewhat old to be starting a seven-year apprenticeship, on average. Nevertheless, he completed his apprenticeship around November 1704.

The following January after his apprenticeship was over, Woodes married Sarah Whetstone, daughter of Rear Admiral Sir William Whetstone, who was a neighbor and close family friend. Woodes became a freeman of Bristol because of his marriage into the prominent Whetstone family. In 1706, Captain Rogers died at sea, leaving his ships and business to his son Woodes. Between 1706 and the end of 1708, Woodes and Sarah Rogers had a son and two daughters.

Woodes owned four ships that were given letters of marque, which gave permission for them to attack and capture enemy ships that belonged to the French or Spanish. One of his ships, the Whetstone Galley, was captured on its way to Africa to capture slaves. Partly in response to this loss, Woodes lobbied his fellow merchants to fund an ambitious privateering circumnavigation mission to raid Spanish shipping in the Pacific Ocean. He was placed in charge of two frigates, the Duke and the Duchess, both of which departed from Bristol on August 1st, 1708.

(Image source)

Woodes encountered many problems along the way. Forty people in his crew were deserted or were dismissed, and he spent a month in Ireland recruiting replacements and having the vessels prepared for sea. Many crew members were Dutch, Danish, or other foreigners. Some of the crew mutinied after Woodes refused to let them plunder a neutral Swedish vessel. When the mutiny was put down, he had the leader flogged, put in irons, and sent to England aboard another ship. The less culpable mutineers were given lighter punishments, such as reduced rations. They also had gone more south than they had intended, at their lowest point closer to the yet-to-be-discovered Antarctica than South America. However, of all of the problems that Woodes and his crew dealt with, he did have enough forethought to stock a large supply of limes to ward off scurvy, a practice that was not universally accepted at the time.

In 1709, the expedition captured and looted a number of small vessels, and launched an attack on the town of Guayaquil, today located in Ecuador. When Rogers attempted to negotiate with the governor, the townsfolk secreted their valuables. Woodes was able to get a modest ransom for the town, but some crew members were so dissatisfied that they dug up the recently dead hoping to find items of value. This led to sickness on board ship, of which six men died. The expedition lost contact with one of the captured ships, which was under the command of Simon Hatley. The other vessels searched for Hatley's ship, but to no avail—Hatley and his men were captured by the Spanish.

The crew of the vessels became increasingly discontented, and Rogers and his officers feared another mutiny. This tension was dispelled by the expedition's capture of a rich prize off the coast of Mexico: the Spanish vessel Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación y Desengaño. Woodes sustained a wound to the face in the battle from a Spanish musket ball; from then on, when painted or drawn, Woodes tended to be portrayed in profile to hide the disfigurement.

(Image source)

Upon his return to the British Isles, Woodes encountered financial problems on his return. Sir William Whetstone had died, and Woodes had failed to recoup his business losses through privateering. Thus, he was forced to sell his Bristol home to support his family. He was successfully sued by a group of over 200 of his crew, who stated that they had not received their fair share of the expedition profits. The profits from the book he published about his voyage were not enough to overcome these setbacks, and he was forced into bankruptcy. His wife gave birth to their fourth child a year after his return—a boy who died in infancy—and Woodes and Sarah Rogers soon permanently separated.

He decided that the best way to overcome his financial troubles would be to lead another expedition, this time against pirates. In 1713, Woodes led an expedition to purchase slaves in Madagascar and take them to the Dutch East Indies, this time with the permission of the British East India Company. However, Woodes' secondary purpose was to gather details on the pirates of Madagascar, hoping to either destroy or reform them, and colonize Madagascar on a future trip. Woodes collected information regarding pirates and their vessels near the island. Finding that a large number of the pirates had gone native, he persuaded many of them to sign a petition to Queen Anne asking her for clemency. While his expedition was profitable, when it returned to London in 1715, the British East India Company vetoed the idea of a colonial expedition to Madagascar, believing a colony was a greater threat to its monopoly than a few pirates. As such, Woodes turned his sights from Madagascar to the West Indies.

On January 5th, 1718, a proclamation was issued announcing clemency for all piratical offenses, provided that those seeking what became known as the "King's Pardon" surrendered not later than 5 September 1718. Colonial governors and deputy governors were authorized to grant the pardon. Woodes was officially appointed "Captain General and Governor in Chief" by King George I on January 6th, 1718. He was granted seven ships, 100 soldiers, 130 colonists, and supplies ranging from food for the expedition members and ships' crews to religious pamphlets to give to the pirates, whom Woodes believed would respond to spiritual or religious teachings.

The expedition arrived in the West Indies on July 22nd, 1718, surprising and trapping a ship that was captained by the pirate Charles Vane. After negotiations failed, Vane used a captured French vessel as a fireship in an attempt to ram the naval vessels. The attempt failed, but the naval vessels were forced out of the west end of Nassau’s harbor, giving Vane's crew an opportunity to raid the town and secure the best local pilot. Vane and his men then escaped in a small sloop via the harbor's narrow east entrance. The pirates had evaded the trap, but Nassau and New Providence Island were taken by Woodes.

Less than a month after Woodes had gained control of the island, Vane sent a letter to him threatening to retake the island with Edward Teach (better known as Blackbeard). There was also the constant threat of an invasion from Spain. He took out lots of loans trying to protect and fortify the island.

Woodes’ strategy was ultimately successful, ending the pirate republic and dispersing the remaining pirate gangs across the world with most of them ending up picked off, one by one. Nonetheless, he was fired from his governorship in 1722 and wound up in prison for personal loans he took out to protect the colony from invasion. His reputation was restored after the publication of A General History of the Pyrates (1724), ultimately resulting in compensation from the crown and, in 1728, his restoration to the governorship of the Bahamas. He died in Nassau on July 15th, 1732.

Sources:

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol30/pp359-381

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4125577/Diaries-of-swashbuckling-hero-who-rescued-Robinson-Crusoe-unearthed.html

http://www.republicofpirates.net/Rogers.html

http://www.thepirateking.com/bios/rogers_woodes.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Crusoes-captain-Woodes-colonial-governor/dp/B0007IXYLC

#Yes I know #two templars in a row #sorry #Assassin's Creed #AC 4 #People

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shieldsupportstaff · 8 years

Text

Virtanen, Taina H. - Translator/Negotiator.

Taina Hilkka Virtanen, PhD. Born in 1984. Translator/Negotiator. Born in Helsinki, Finland. Dark brown skin, grey eyes, keeps her hair in short twists, tall and slender. Favors slim fitting skirt suits with soft ruffled blouses in pastels. First in her class, graduated with Masters in Psychology from the University of Tampere in Finland, a Masters in Linguistics and a PhD in Political Science from Oxford in England.

The only child of a Finnish Ambassador, Taina has lived all over the world. She does not know her father. Her mother told her he was a fling while she was stationed in Jamaica, and she had never spoken to him again. Uncharacteristically, Taina took her at her word and quit asking.

In crowds, Taina remains quiet until her skills are needed, officially or unofficially. But she watches and listens, taking in everything going on around her. Long before she actually speaks to you, she already has your number. There are a few exceptions to this: Ethel is the main one. Taina cannot get a read on Ethel no matter how hard she tries. For this reason Ethel fascinates her.

Taina had decided to follow in her mother's footsteps with a career in ambassadorial service, when she happened to be at the scene of a bank robbery in New York during a vacation. Not only did she negotiate the release of the hostages, including herself, but she convinced the theives to turn themselves in. This pinged hard on SHIELD's radar and Ethel recruited her.

Taina frequently flies to hot spots around the world to negotiate the release of prisoners or prisoner exchanges, for information, or other goods. She has disguised herself as a man to work in more hostile areas, and laid the helpless female schtick on in others. She is a social chameleon and would appear as at home in a biker bar as she does in a fancy lounge on Fifth Avenue or in Paris.

Taina was in the middle of complex negotiations for the release of several SHIELD agents from China when the news came of the Helicarriers fall. The second they heard, one of the agents acting as her bodyguards drew a weapon on her and her other bodyguard. Taina managed to talk him down long enough to grab the gun and knock him unconscious with it, before strangling him with a handy curtain cord in her hotel room.

Then she and her remaining body guard packed minimal clothing into a briefcase and large purse, and walked out of the hotel room as if going sightseeing, saying her other guard was taken ill and not to disturb him. The two of them made it to an extraction point and her pilot, who was nearby and thankfully not HYDRA picked them up and they flew back to DC citing an emergency call. Taina feels bad about leaving those SHIELD agents in the hands of the Chinese, but with just three of them, she didn't feel they could get them out, or that there would be a guarantee that any of them weren't HYDRA.

She did return several months later on a Stark Industries jet, apologizing for leaving in such a rush, and if the Chinese know she killed her bodyguard, they still haven't mentioned it. After interviewing the SHIELD Agents China held, she allowed them to execute the four HYDRA plants they had, and took the others home.

Taina listens to Scandinavian Death Metal through noise-cancelling earbuds to relax. She works out in the gym, and since joining SHIELD has taken several hours of hand to hand combat, knife and gun training. She also enjoys ballroom dancing, and periodically borrows Anton from Gigi as an escort. Taina would rather go with Gigi, but she's not sure if she wants to sleep with someone in the company.

The HYDRA Agent in China was not the first person Taina has had to kill in the line of duty. She is not thrilled about that facet of the job and tries not to, but some people cannot be reasoned with, and nazis are all of them.

Currently, she works for Pepper, negotiating business deals and translating. She admires Pepper greatly, not only for her business sense, but for her ability to still flind Tony lovable after everything he's put her through. She and Pepper tend to cut a swathe through international meetings like Bilderberg.

Taina speaks English, Finnish, French, Russian, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Arabic and Hindi. She reads ancient Greek, Latin and Sumerian.

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thechasefiles · 5 years

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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 4/11/2019

Good MORNING #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Thursday April 11th 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 Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

GOVT MAY NEED TO TAKE ADDITIONAL MEASURES TO ACHIEVE FINANCIAL GOALS – A top International Monetary Fund (IMF) official is warning that Barbados’ ambitious target of a fiscal surplus of six per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the current financial year will not be an easy goal to achieve. In fact, Assistant Director in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF Cathy Pattillo said while the Mia Mottley-led Government has been implementing important measures to achieve this, it must be prepared to take even more steps if needed. “The overarching objective of the Barbados programme is obviously to restore debt sustainability and in our view, the proposed adjustment mix, which includes upfront fiscal consolidation, meaningful debt reduction, including a hurricane clause and structural reforms to boost growth, is appropriate,” Pattillo told Barbados TODAY on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington on Wednesday. “Now, the budget for 2019/2020 does provide a solid basis for reaching the targeted primary surplus, but the Government will need to stand ready to take additional measures if needed,” she warned. So far, Government has managed to shave the fiscal deficit from over five per cent of GDP to just over four per cent towards the end of last year, as a result of new taxes and reduced spending due to layoffs in the public sector as part of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transportation (BERT) Programme. In her marathon Budget presentation last month, Mottley also announced sweeping measures aimed at raking in over $117 million in revenues, including an increase in bus fare and new taxes, in an effort to help drive down the fiscal deficit. “Barbados is making good progress in implementing its ambitious and comprehensive economic reform programme. So on the fiscal side, achieving a primary surplus of six per cent of GDP in 2019/2020 and maintaining that for several years after is going to be challenging, and reforms of state-owned enterprises is critical to reduce Government transfers to those [agencies],” Pattillo said. The IMF’s fiscal monitor expert also pointed out that adequate and efficient social spending and an improved social safety net for the most vulnerable should be important priorities for Government’s recovery programme. Additionally, building physical and financial resilience to deal with natural disasters was also critical given the high risks the country faces. While commending Government for slashing its debt from a staggering 160 per cent of GDP to around 125 per cent in under a year, Pattillo acknowledged that debt levels in Barbados were still too high. Stating that the sharp reduction in debt levels was mainly due to the swift completion of the domestic debt restructuring, Pattillo said it was important that Government completed the restructuring for external creditors. Government has missed its March 31 timeline for winding up negotiations and agreeing on a deal with external creditors, and is yet to announce a new date to complete this part of the restructuring. “Progress is being made by the authorities in furthering good-faith discussions with the external creditors and that is very welcomed. So here we just stress that continuing open dialogue and sharing of information will remain important to the completion of an orderly debt restructuring process,” said Pattillo. Government’s projection is that debt fall to around 80 per cent of GDP by fiscal year 2027/2028 and to about 60 per cent by 2033/2034. Commenting on the fiscal situation in Jamaica, the IMF official said that country has managed to maintain fiscal discipline with a primary surplus of about seven per cent, which has helped to place debt on a downward trajectory. “So public debt is expected to fall below 100 per cent in Jamaica this fiscal year 2018/2019 for the first time since 2000/2001. So it is really falling and the projections are for it to fall close to 66 per cent by 2024,” she pointed out. Delivering the Fiscal Monitor: Curbing Corruption report this morning, Director of Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF Victor Gasper stressed that country-specific circumstances required that fiscal policy decision-makers pursue sound policies. “Governments would be well advised to pursue smarter and more agile fiscal policies to facilitate change in the face of fast-pace technological transformation, globalisation and demographics. Sustainable and inclusive growth requires improving tech systems and more and better investment in people and infrastructure,” Gasper recommended. “What we do know from historical experience and empirical analysis is that financing conditions are volatile and they can change abruptly. There is no scarcity of financing crisis, some involving advanced economies, some involving emerging market economies and some involving low-income countries,” he said, while advising that ministers of finance carefully manage risks associated with the roll over of high debt levels. (BT)

GOVT TO BUILD NATION’S QUALITY STANDARDS SYSTEM – Admitting that Barbados’ national quality infrastructure is not yet fully developed, the Minister of Commerce has pledged urgent attention to the system by which international standards are measured and enforced here. Assuring delegates to the 34th meeting of the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), Minister Dwight Sutherland said the Barbados National Standards Institution (BNSI) and CROSQ would ensure the infrastructure’s development, under a new NQI policy aimed at boosting export competitiveness. “Government considers this goal as urgent, and of very high priority, in our efforts to enhance the national competitiveness of our local micro-small and medium size (MSMEs) businesses, industries and the promotion of fair trade,” he said. The Commerce Minister said the proposed NQI policy is to improve the export competitiveness of Barbados’ goods, services and produce, and strengthen the capacity of MSME businesses and entrepreneurs to flourish and succeed locally, intra-regionally, and in extra-regional markets. Stressing that the NQI policy would also serve to defend our domestic and regional borders from inferior, hazardous and illicit goods and services, he said that it was also Government’s objective to use the application of the NQI to rebuild the economy “in a sustainable manner”. Sutherland said to expand international trade, countries cannot underestimate the importance of adopting and implementing internationally recognised and accepted metrology, accreditation, standardisation, and quality practices. Meeting global standards is the gateway to global trade, market access and export competitiveness, and contributes to consumer confidence in product safety, quality, health and the environment, he told the delegates. Sutherland said regional economies needed to continuously upgrade on new trade standards and be able to conform to an increasing number of new regulations, or question the validity of proposed regulations that they consider discriminatory, and put the region’s perspective strongly. He added that the basic enabling environment for providing proof of compliance was the national quality infrastructure, and he stressed if CARICOM countries wanted to attract foreign investments, they must keep in mind that infrastructure, including quality infrastructure, was one of the key pre-requisites which foreign investors considered. Sutherland said: “In the case of a national quality infrastructure (NQI), they must at the very least ensure access to international standards and technical regulations, guarantee reliable measurements, and set up a system that will allow accreditation of their testing and certification facilities in such a way that the results of these bodies will be internationally accepted.” (BT)

‘ROUTE MASTER’ – The Transport Board is in the early stages of developing a new and improved “master plan” for its future operations, which could see Government’s role reduced to a mere regulator of a privately-owned, public route network. Chairman Gregory Nicholls in an interview with Barbados TODAY indicated that it is still “early days yet”, but predicted that the new structure would significantly reduce the financial burden currently placed on Government. “All the buses will be painted the same, the drivers will continue to wear the same uniforms, but the Transport Board, instead of being an operator of 300 plus buses, will instead be a route manager,” said Nicholls. “Instead of sinking $60 million of taxpayers’ money into the Transport Board, we will be trying to create a platform for the public transport sector to operate on a much more regulated and orderly basis but without the requirement of being subsidised to that extent by the public purse. “We’re talking about a system where the Transport Board is not the owner of 300 plus buses, but more the regulator of a route network which will have much more private sector participation in the delivery of those services. That is the Government’s plan going forward,” revealed Nicholls. He added that the new, profit-making endeavour would afford drivers at least a 20 per cent stake in the new entities to create opportunities for current drivers and operators to have an ownership in the business. On Wednesday, Nicholls revealed that Government had awarded a tender for the provision of electric buses, adding that the Transport Board was well on the way to having the buses in the country by year-end. “First of all, we have to sit down and negotiate a contract that is beneficial to the Government and people of Barbados while ensuring that the entity which won the bid is happy with the arrangement as well. So we have to make those determinations during negotiations,” he said. Approximately two weeks ago, 85 workers, mostly bus drivers, accepted voluntary separation and early retirement packages as the Transport Board intensified restructuring efforts. With further reform on the horizon, Nicholls said the Transport Board was engaged with trade unions on the structure of the entity amid numerous operational challenges, reduced subvention and a significantly depleted fleet. “No one is anticipating that the Transport Board will have to own in excess of 300 buses again in order to service the network,” he said, adding that the plans could only be rolled out, when all stakeholders were on the same page. “We have designed a master plan which we have submitted to Cabinet for approval. The unions have responded to a number of things that concern them and we have to continue those discussions and negotiations,” said Nicholls. (BT)

BUS FARE INCREASE ADDING TO LABOUR PAINS – Workers in Barbados cannot continue to bear the brunt of Government’s restructuring programme says president of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations (CTUSAB) Edwin O’Neale. And he has criticised the Mia Mottley-led administration for its recent decision to raise bus fares by 75 per cent, saying it would further add to the “labour pains” currently being experienced by workers. In a press conference at its Garrison, St Michael headquarters this afternoon, O’Neale contended that since the implementation of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) Programme, workers had paid a heavy price. He said the programme had led to a loss of jobs, the lowering of disposable income and increased crime. O’Neale said the move to increase bus fares from $2 to $3.50, which is set to take effect on April 15, would be a huge burden on the island’s lower class. “Labour has, from the time this mission critical agenda has been embarked on, been the one facing and taking the brunt of the loads. So labour pains now in this economy are not just about the state of the delivery of the infant, but now has a real meaning on work and workers and disposable income. “If ever a time that labour pains are being experienced in the economy, it certainly is now,” O’Neale said. He said what further compounded the difficulties for low income earners was the increase in water bills as well as the sewage tax. O’Neale added while he understood there was a need to improve the efficiency of the Transport Board, workers were being asked to make all of the sacrifices. “Labour is concerned with the increase in bus fares. There are all kinds of statements about the need to retool, refurbish, increase and repair the rolling stock of the Transport Board, which in any developing society is the principle means by which the labour force is moved,” he acknowledged. “Any difficulties, any shortcomings in mass-based transport is going to impact on the profitability and earning capacity within the economy, so I don’t for one moment try to minimise the fact of the difficulties of the Transport Board. “ . . . Something has to be done, but when the cost of that falls on workers in the manner with the percentages in which it has done, there cannot be an easy way out. That translates into hardship, that translates into a reduction in disposable income…” O’Neale added. The union’s general secretary Dennis Depeiza described Government’s proposal to absorb retrenched workers as a “myth”. He accused Government of giving those workers false hope. “The suggestion that those workers will be re-absorbed is nothing short of a myth, because if there are other jobs that are being created in sectors . . . are we to understand that these administrators are now going to be turned into carpenters or artisans? “There is a sense that persons are being given hope in the economy when we can see that there is little opportunity which readily avails itself,” Depeiza said. He contended that at a time when thousands of workers were being retrenched, Government was continually hiring large numbers of consultants who were being paid millions of dollars. (BT)

TEACHERS TO FACE POLLS – Safety, environmental hazards and dwindling membership have emerged as the major issues among a trio of presidential candidates, as the country’s largest teachers’ trade union prepares to elect a new executive. On Friday, a new contender will challenge two familiar faces for the leadership of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) amid mounting challenges facing workers in the critical sector. Nathaniel Boyce, a teacher for over 12 years assigned to the Luther Thorne Memorial Primary School has blamed a lack of strong leadership over the past 12 months for an increasing level of disrespect shown by the country’s leadership. “I don’t know if everybody is quiet because government has changed, but certainly the BUT has been quiet and sat back and allowed certain statements to be made that were very disrespectful to teachers. “The reason why I decided to run was not simply to address the issues, but to solve the problems going forward. Critical issues such as discipline in schools as well as health and security, because these things are causing teachers a lot of stress. Boyce argued that teachers remained passive in the face of an education crisis, waiting on the union to respond. “Even at my school recently, we had a situation where an irate parent threatened a teacher. We have a lot of broken fences where people can just wonder onto the compound. We have rats in schools, which I see on a day-to-day basis. At some schools there are no groundsmen and there is trash in the gutters and the pastures need to be cut,” he said, while declaring that he could spearhead the changes needed. In contrast to newcomer Boyce, veteran union leader, Pedro Shepherd who served as the BUT’s president for six years is staking his claim for a return to leadership after standing on the sidelines for just a year. In his 32 years as a teacher, Shepherd has served on the executive from 1996. Shepherd told Barbados TODAY that after presiding over a union, which oversaw 749 appointments between 2015 and 2016, improvements to the union’s properties and continuous agitation for the rights of teachers, he was confident that his record would speak for itself. Like his younger counterpart, Shepherd complained that a lack of “vocal leadership” was preventing the teaching profession from returning to its former glory. Stressing that he felt no urgency to return to the position Shepherd said he entered the race after being urged by numerous teachers to return. “I think that people saw my worth and my record and asked me to come back, because they saw in the last few years that the union was not as vocal as it was in its 44 or so years of existence and they missed seeing and hearing the union,” added Shepherd. The veteran has placed unification of teachers and a level of respect from external parties for the teaching service as two major priorities. “There are other issues of health and safety, better conditions under which the teachers work, discipline and so on. But I think as a body, we have a lot to do in terms of getting the status of teachers back up to where it was and if I am elected, I intend to meet with membership more than once a year. We have over 1700 members and we have to afford them the opportunity to operate in the union’s business,” he added. Current President, Sean Spencer meanwhile defended his representation of teachers as he made a case for his re-election. Despite some criticism from opponents, Spencer indicated that his chance of retaining the presidency was as good as any. “There’s no mathematical certainty, but I have a chance and I would like to think that what I have done over the past months would speak sufficiently for persons to give me another mandate,” said Spencer. He also admitted that there was much work to be done in restoring a greater level of respect and awareness of issues affecting teachers. “We have been openly castigated on various platforms and I think that it’s time we took our good work further afield to the wider public. We also need to start to secure a certain measure of direct benefits and services for our members. Spencer said plans were in place to facilitate greater collaboration with corporate partners to restart the unions discount programmes to help educators “stretch their dollars”. In a second term, Spencer promised to investigate to a greater extent, best practices in education, to spearhead educational reform and improve conditions for teachers. “While I was campaigning, the point was reinforced that we really need to address the deficits in the maintenance of the school plants. Perimeters, facilities, furniture and a number of areas need to be examined, because these are causing serious problems for the teachers and for the student bodies as well.” The three candidates all pleaded with members to display a greater level of participation in this year’s election which will be held on Friday, April 12. (BT)

SMOOTH START - On the eve of elections for a new executive of the Barbados Union of Teachers, president Sean Spencer is predicting a smooth start to the Trinity school term next week, despite what he has described as myriad challenges facing teachers. Spencer said that while remedial work on some schools would have to be inspected before the all-clear was given, the majority of schools are expected to reopen as scheduled. Speaking to the media at the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations press conference today, he said: “As it stands right now, we would anticipate a smooth start to the third term, however, there are cases in certain schools where work which would have been commenced would have to be evaluated before I can speak definitively to those individual schools.” He said teachers across the island’s schools had several concerns. Some of these related to the non-payment of allowances and increments, the issue of contracts, health and safety challenges and an inadequate number of teachers and general workers at some schools, he said. But as Spencer faces the polls on Friday in the BUT’s elections he declared that some of those issues were being addressed. “Many of the issues have been outstanding, some of them have been in a cycle where they have not been entirely resolved, but these are issues which we keep driving home. “I am able to say that we are now getting attention from the Minister herself, and in some cases they are now being pressed home. What would have obtained before would have been a matter where we would have sent correspondence, but that correspondence would not have been responded to, but at least we are getting responses now and we’re seeing some level of action in that regard,” he said. Despite acknowledging the ministry’s willingness to address the union’s concerns, the BUT president said teachers were prepared to stand up for their rights if necessary. He call for an end to verbal and physical attacks on teachers by parents and guardians and for more respect to be shown to the profession. (BT)

SUPPORT FOR TIGHTER SCRUTINY ON CHARITIES -Two charities have backed Government’s decision to closely scrutinise the activities of aid organisations, arguing that it could help to weed out fraudulent and nefarious players masquerading as charities. And Barbados Vagrants and Homeless Society president Kemar Saffrey and National Organisation of Women spokeswoman Marsha Hinds have both suggested Government do even more to crack down on illegitimate charities. Attorney General Dale Marshall revealed Tuesday that people desirous of setting up a charity would have to divulge certain information about the proposed charity in the interest of transparency. The changes will require charities to provide information about the occupation of trustees and information on the properties they own. New measures will also require more information on applicant trustees or beneficiaries who held prominent public office in any international organisation. The Attorney General told lawmakers the regulations would address money laundering commitments and transparency issues. Hinds said: “Over the years, legitimate charities have been hard hit by sponsors who are hesitant to work with you, because of their experience with individuals who just set up charities to syphon money into personal accounts, so it is long overdue.” She argued that in addition to guarding against corruption, Government needed to put steps in place to demand minimum standards from charities for the provision of services. But the women’s advocate has questioned a recently announced project by the Salvation Army to set up a shelter for battered women. “Not only were they free to set it up, but they are free to operate it without minimum standards. Those things are problematic, because at the end of the day, the ones that you’re serving are the ones that are abused, manipulated and taken advantage of. “Just because somebody opens a charity and starts offering a service doesn’t mean that they have the ability or the know-how to do it,” she said. Saffrey indicated that for sometime, he was concerned about the number of people registering charities who had no intention of helping people. “With this new framework in position, it would really minimise or cut out a lot of that, especially because the legislative framework is involved as well. It’s something that we at the NGO network have been calling for and it’s definitely something that we support. “Obviously if the international donors can’t find enough information about the individual running the charity, the trustees or the charity itself, then they are more reluctant to give. So having this information out there would be good and if my organisation has to put forward its information when the law is passed, we will willingly do so,” he said. (BT)

WORRELL BLASTS MINISTER ON PLASTICS BAN – A former Democratic Labor Party (DLP) senator wants Minister of Maritime Affairs Kirk Humphrey to be muzzled by the Prime Minister over his response to food vendors’ complaints over the plastics ban. Declaring that the Minister was “inconsiderate” and harsh on vendors who complained of expensive and flimsy alternative food containers, Andre Worrell accused Humphrey of ignoring the vendor’s plight. He said the minister’s comment, “If you buy cheap then you are going to get cheap”, which was directed to food vendors was callous and insensitive to the realities of everyday vending. In light of those comments, Worrell, a former DLP vice president, suggested that Humphrey should face action. Worrell said: “The DLP is of the opinion that Minister Humphrey should be muzzled or placed under the direct supervision of a senior minister who has a real-world appreciation of the struggles of the average Barbadian. “How can a Minister be so out of touch with the small vendors’ struggle? Is he aware that scores of these entrepreneurs have seen a drastic decline in revenue since the start of this Government’s massive layoffs? Does he know some now sell less than ten meals some days? “His heavy-handed approach to the implementation of his first sensible policy has been fraught with blunders. This has resulted in contempt for an initiative which really should be embraced by all.” The former senator said the Labour Party Government should have provided concessions in the Budget to allow vendors to purchase high-quality alternate containers. He said this would have put vendors in a financial position to be able to afford those alternatives. Worrell added: “Concessions could have been offered to veg-ware vendors in an effort to cushion the losses made by the dumping of petroleum plastics. That would also make the price of the veg-ware products comparable to the banned items. That is what a caring Government which is motivated by concerns for the environment would do.” He also took issue with the ban’s timeframe. He said that it did not allow suppliers sufficient time to source alternatives, reduce their stock of petro-based plastic products, and order large enough quantities of the alternatives at comparable or competitive prices. (BT)

UNSIGHTLY PILE-UP – Former Democratic Labour Party candidate for St Michael South East in the 2018 General Elections Rodney Grant is charging that the area of Golden Rock, Pine, St Michael has been neglected by Government. “It is a problem with neglect and marginalisation of certain areas. We have to find a way to treat these kinds of communities better [if not] the things that we face will not change. If we continue to treat the community [as if it’s]derelict, then the residents at times will act derelict. We create ghettos and slums because we do not put the extra effort to make these communities look aesthetically pleasing,” he told Barbados TODAY. The area which is filled with heaps of garbage, as well as a dilapidated minibus was spotted by a Barbados TODAY team on Tuesday. Grant claimed that in other areas you would not see an overflow of garbage to the point that it is posing a health hazard to the residents of the community. “You would never see this in certain parts of Barbados. So why you allow it to happen in the Pine where you have garbage overflowing to the point where it could become a hazard? You would never see it happening in certain places because if the garbage gets to a certain level people would have the resources to call in private contractors or the system would deal with it,” he said. Resident Rhonda Hollingsworth told Barbados TODAY she is at her wits’ end with the garbage collection in her community as it is leading to an unhealthy rat infestation. “This is very bad for the community because of the stuff in the area. The wells in the community are filled with stuff; they are not doing anything about it. Rats are running out of the stuff during the day. I have a shop and it is very bad for people’s health. It is very unfair,” she said. Hollingsworth noted garbage collection in her area comes ‘when it feels like’ and on top of that the area no longer has a skip for residents to place their garbage in should their garbage cans be filled. This concern was raised by another resident in the area who wished to remain anonymous. He told Barbados TODAY the area has not had a skip in approximately four weeks. The unemployed resident said dogs and chickens interfere with the garbage heap resulting in some of the debris travelling along the area. “When the water settles it smells. The dogs pull out all of the garbage,” he said. Today, less than 24 hours after a Barbados TODAY team stumbled upon the garbage pile-up a skip was placed in the area. Residents in Avon Lane said the problem affecting their area was as a result of people from other districts travelling to Golden Rock, Pine, St Michael to dump their garbage. Resident Cheryl told Barbados TODAY that from the wee hours of the morning scores of people come to the area to dump their garbages. “They come and dump things [such as] old fridges, old stoves and carpets,” she said. “Rats are jumping out of the skip. It’s not easy for me [because] I am a businesswoman at my home. I sell my sugar cakes and snacks from my house,” she said. Another female resident who did not wish to be identified said, “As long as people see stuff they are going to keep putting it out whether the skip is there or not. People who are not from the district put stuff there also. So I don’t know what they can do about it but I would like them to do something because even the smell alone is really terrible,” she said. (BT)

NCC THREAT – Does public space in Barbados belong to a select few? This is the question that entrepreneur Shawn Morris needs answered as his three-week-old beach chair rental business at Bathsheba, St Joseph, is threatened with closure by the National Conservation Commission (NCC). This morning Morris told Barbados TODAY that despite giving him a licence to operate in the first place, the NCC has given him until Saturday to remove several integral structures of his business. “There is a little PVC booth there that I didn’t dig any foundation for. I just put some soft stones on the ground and levelled the ground with some mortar. The booth is made light enough to be moved if the waves come in. Also, when you are coming onto the beach there is a steep hill, so I built steps using sea rocks and wood. This morning the NCC called me and told me that I have to move by Saturday or they will come and remove the things themselves,” he said, revealing that he has sunk close to $15,000 in the business. The businessman explained that the 6×6 hut was vital for storage and shelter while the steps provided access, noting that without them it was pointless being open for business. However, Morris is claiming that the pressure to move his fledgling business first began when some frequent beach users deemed the project a detractor from the natural aesthetics of the beach, which has become famous for its surfing. “To be honest with you I don’t even like to discuss race because I believe that we are all Bajans and we should be living in unity. But I think that there is a bit of racism in this because there is a white guy right now at Batt’s Rock that is doing a lot more than me and nobody is complaining for him,” he said noting a photo of his business recently appeared on the Barbados Photographic Society’s Facebook page and the image drew quite a bit of negative comments. Barbados TODAY visited the page and saw the comments in opposition to the business. Morris explained that when he first began setting up the business the area was filled with rotting sargassum seaweed and debris. In addition, the coconut trees on the beach were unsightly due to a lack of care over the years. “I would have invested about $15,000 into the business after I received permission from the NCC to operate there. When I went on to the spot it was full of debris and overgrown coconut trees, which had dry coconuts that could fall on people’s heads at any time. I got somebody to cut the limbs and remove all the old coconuts. It took about nine truckloads to move all the stuff away,” lamented an emotional Morris, who claimed that three Government Ministers visited the spot recently and applauded his efforts. This account was supported by public relations officer of the St Joseph Independence Parish Committee, Victor Morris, who was equally baffled by the opposition to the project. “I have been living in this parish for 69 years and I was very happy to see things starting to happen here. Two Friday’s ago, I saw three Ministers visit the area. One was Minister of Culture John King, Minister of the Environment Trevor Prescod and Minister of Foreign Affairs Jerome Walcott. While they were here, I complimented the youngster on how beautiful he had the place. All the moss is gone, so I was shocked this morning when I heard that the poor chap has until this weekend to move. It is unfair because this is the type of business we need,” he said. Barbados TODAY made several attempts to reach NCC General Manager, Keith Nebblett for comment but was unsuccessful However, this morning Morris said he felt as though the fates had conspired against him as he was recently forced out of the boating business after one vessel was destroyed in an accident and another by fire. “To come here now and be feeling this kind of pressure just feels like I can’t get away from the stress. It is really stressful for me because for the past couple of nights I couldn’t even sleep because I don’t understand what I did wrong. I have not done anything to anyone, I just came and clean the area and try to make a living and to receive so much pressure is really unbearable,” he stressed. (BT)

EMMERTON FOLK SET BACK – It was déjà vu in the worst possible way for scores of Emmerton Lane residents yesterday. Just like they did 14 months ago, The City folk turned up at the Supreme Court building hoping their civil suit against the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) would get off the ground. And just like last February, they left a frustrated lot when the case had to be adjourned for the umpteenth time. The Emmerton residents now claim that people involved in the lawsuit are dying, as one passed away this week, and they fear many families could be affected by death long before the case reaches a conclusion. (DN)

DRUGS GO UP IN SMOKE – A million-dollar stash of cocaine and cannabis seized last year was incinerated today by police. Just over 238 kilogrammes of drugs with a street value of $1,124, 600.00 was destroyed. Police supervised the destruction of 93 bags of cannabis weighing 232.4 kilogrammes , and five bags of cocaine weighing 6.5 kilogrammes. Senior Superintendent Acting Bruce Rowe, who supervised the destruction, told reporters that the drugs came into police custody following an investigation last year in which three people were charged. (BT)

DEEJAY PLEADS GUILTY TO COCAINE POSSESSION – His ticket for his trip to the Big Apple this Saturday has been purchased but a 25-year-old who believed he could make fast money selling cocaine will not see those bright city lights anytime soon. Shaquille Alexander Thornhill, of No. 37 Hillview Apartments, Durant’s Gardens, Christ Church appeared before Magistrate Douglas Frederick today and pleaded guilty to possession, possession with intent to supply and possession with intent to traffic 5.6 grammes of cocaine on April 10, 2019. Police were in the area of St Lawrence Gap when they spotted Thornhill around 2:10 a.m. He was stopped and he consented to a search. A Ziploc bag containing a white powdered substance suspected to be cocaine was found in a bag he was carrying. A vial with the same substance was also found in his possession, Sergeant St Clair Phillips revealed. “I get lay off from . . . [and] I had it to sell,” Thornhill allegedly told police when he was arrested with the illicit drugs which had a $275 street value. Attorney-at-law Harry Husbands in mitigating on his behalf revealed his client was unemployed and was scheduled to leave the country for New York for work that had been lined up for him as a disc jockey. “He made a silly mistake of having this item for sale . . . he has not wasted the court’s time and is not known,” Husbands told the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court as he sought to get a sentence for his client that would not appear on his record and allow him to keep his travel plans. But Frederick made it clear that the travel plans would need to be cancelled. “He was selling cocaine only today and wants to travel to a bigger society. We have to put him through a drug rehabilitation programme. He has to delay that trip because he was selling cocaine just a few hours ago. He is not ready to go anywhere,” the magistrate stated. The lawyer however argued that keeping Thornhill here would only cause more hardship for him given the harsh economic times. “If he stays here . . . he will still be unable to support his son and still be unemployed,” the attorney stated. But Magistrate Frederick replied: “When you hear a Bajan man get hold for cocaine . . . it reflects on all of us”. Thornhill also addressed the magistrate informing him that he had been a deejay at one of the island’s major hotel chains. “Actually it is my first time . . . me and a tourist lady became involved . . . I got laid off a few weeks ago . . . I saw an opportunity because she said there is a good set of money involved,” the accused said. He was informed however that was just the beginning. “They are going to offer you money to bring it back too,” Frederick told him adding, “I need to wean you a little bit more before you can get to the bright city lights”. The magistrate then ordered that Thornhill report to the Probation Department for counseling regarding drug rehabilitation. The matter has been adjourned until April 26, 2019 and he is on $2,000 bail in the meantime. (BT)

BUS STOP BRAWL – Two Jamaicans who have been living here illegally were handed over to immigration officials this afternoon after admitting to assaulting a female compatriot. Twenty-four-year-old Shelly-Ann Shareace Welcome, who resides at Bonnetts, Brittons Hill, St Michael pleaded guilty to the charge that she assaulted Lenica Townsend on April 8, 2019 occasioning her actual bodily harm while her co-accused 25-year-old Olivia Thompson of the same address pleaded not guilty. In relaying the facts Station Sergeant Carrison Henry said Townsend was at bus stop in front of Government Headquarters when Welcome, with whom she had an altercation earlier that same day, approached her. A confrontation ensued and Welcome hit Townsend across the nose with a Bluetooth speaker belonging to the complainant before fleeing in the direction of Bush Hill, St Michael. The matter was reported to police and Welcome was subsequently seen on Bay Street and arrested. “She is the one lic me first. She wasn’t at the bus stop. Me and she (pointing to Thompson) walk from the stoplight in Bay Street and . . . she cross de road. My foot sick and me choose to sit and she choose to sit at the bus stop and plug in the boom box,” Welcome explained. She went on: “De gal say ‘B-clat gal when you dey see me, don’t see me’ and I tell she me don’t know what she talking bout. She pick up de boom box and lic me and me tek it an hit she back.” Frederick then asked what was the genesis of the problem between the two. “Me nah know. Me and her never have anything before,” Welcome stated. An immigration officer who was in court with two other colleagues informed the magistrate that Welcome arrived in the island on September 24, 2018 and was granted six months as a visitor in care of a gentleman with a St George address. Her status expired in March and she has not regularised it. Welcome responded by saying that she had plans to leave Barbados this coming Monday and was going to buy the ticket online today. Magistrate Fredrick convicted, reprimanded and discharged her and handed her over to the Immigration Department for their consideration. Thompson who denied the charge, was told that she would be remanded to HMP Dodds as she had no ties to Barbados and no status, after the immigration officer told the court that she had been residing here illegally since 2017. Prosecutor Henry also objected to bail. “Sir send me home. Which part de girl dere? Me nah want spend no time inna custody, send me home,” the woman said just after 12 p.m. before Magistrate Douglas Frederick informed her that the system did not work in such a manner. Thompson was later escorted out on the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court in preparation to be transported to the Dodds. However she returned a little over two hours later and changed her plea to guilty. “Sir me wan go home,” Thompson who was also convicted, reprimanded and discharged said before being handed over to immigration officers. (BT)

SHOP HILL MAN TO RETURN TO COURT NEXT WEEK – A 40-year-old vendor who admitted to pushing a woman will return to the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court next Wednesday. Nealson Oneal Mason, of Shop Hill, St Thomas had been charged with assaulting Philica McPherson on April 5, 2019. Sergeant St Clair Phillips told Magistrate Douglas Frederick that McPherson was walking along High Street when she came across several persons standing in front a store where the accused was also vending. The woman tapped Mason and asked him for an excuse to pass but he responded by pushing her into the road. When she asked him why he had pushed her, he reportedly replied: “You is not from here so you can f*** off.” However, Mason said the incident did not occur exactly in the manner the prosecutor outlined it. “It was Friday . . . and customers were rushing all around . . . it was rush hour . . . we sell on the side walk . . . and she push me and I push she back. It did no lil tap . . . she tell me I blocking de road and she push me and I push back . . . and told her go off of me . . . it was a reaction because I don’t like she . . . . “This morning . . . me and she eyes butt and mek four and she said ‘just wait’,” said Mason who explained that he was arrested, charged and appeared today which is his birthday. He was released and given a stern warning to stay away from the complainant. The two sides are expected to appear in court on April 17. (BT)

STABBING LANDS TEEN IN COURT – An ongoing dispute between two teenagers on New Year’s Day landed before the law courts today. Seventeen-year-old Renako Robin Holder, of Whitehall Tenantry Road, St Michael appeared before Magistrate Douglas Frederick and pleaded guilty to unlawfully and maliciously wounding Avery Lorde on January 1, 2019. Sergeant St Clair Phillips told the court the two, who were involved in a previous dispute, were walking along Browne’s Beach around 1:30 a.m. when Lorde bumped into Holder. A scuffle erupted when the accused saw who it was. During the fight Holder took up a broken bottle and stabbed Lorde in the stomach. Lorde went to the police to make a report and he was transported to hospital, treated and discharged. “He threatened to kill me,” Holder disclosed after he was asked whether he had anything to say about what the prosecutor had said. “He attacked four of my friends,” the first time offender told the magistrate saying that Lorde also issued threats towards him on social media and in his presence. “He bumped into me . . . I was on a patch and he bump into me . . . I stabbed him with a bottle that I found,” Holder added. Frederick asked the teenager why he had not reported the matter the authorities. “Suppose he had died, you would be on a more serious charge . . . you didn’t think about that? He threatened you, why didn’t you go to the police, your mother, your father anybody like that?” A pre-sentencing report was ordered on Holder who told the magistrate that he had been “kicked out” of one of the island’s prestigious secondary schools. He was granted $2,000 bail to reappear in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on June 11, 2019. (BT)

OISTINS SHOCK AS CREWMAN DIES – Fisherfolk at the Berinda Cox Market in Oistins were thrown into a state of shock this morning with the discovery of the lifeless body of a man floating in the sea. Just after 10 a.m., members of the Coast Guard recovered the body of Benjamin Burgess, 23, a British national, from the water. Burgess worked as an engineer aboard an oil tanker anchored just off the fish market’s pier. Police at Oistins had received a report of a body submerged in the water around the jetty. Several fisherfolk told Barbados TODAY they saw Burgess in the area of the neighbouring Bay Garden, last night. “This got me real surprised,” one vendor said. “He was out here last night. Now he body getting bring in on a boat. I hear he was working on that ship.” A statement issued by a spokeswoman for Pritchard-Gordon Tankers, Sally Bishop, said the company was awaiting details of the incident from the Royal Barbados Police Force. “The Master and crew of the vessel Lucy PG (IMO: 9229013), together with the company are cooperating fully with all local authorities who are carrying out the investigation into these tragic circumstances.” Burgess’ next-to-kin had been informed about his death, and were being kept up to date with information as it becomes available, the statement added. “Everyone at Pritchard-Gordon Tankers is devastated by what has happened. All our thoughts and condolences go out to family and friends of the deceased at this very sad and difficult time,” the company said. Police have asked anyone who may have information related to the incident to contact Oistins Police Station at 418-2612, Police Emergency 211, Crime Stoppers 1-800-8477 or any police station. (BT)

SHERATON VICTIM LAID TO REST – AS DAMIAN STEVENSON TROTMAN, the 20th murder victim, was laid to rest yesterday amidst heavy police presence, young people were advised not to turn to violence to resolve issues. Reverend Sylvan Payne also reminded the grieving relatives and friends of Trotman that the Lord was still present. “During your time of sorrow, Jesus does not become distant; He is even closer to you than before. He is always faithful and He will be your refuge and strength in time of war and in every crisis He will be there,” he said before praying for the young people present. Scores of mourners, some wearing tribute shirts, turned out at the Fairview Church of the Nazarene, Fairview, Christ Church, to bid farewell to the man gunned down in a brazen daylight shooting at Sheraton Mall on March 21. (DN)

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envirotravel · 7 years

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Two Tanks Are Better Than One: My Review of the PADI Sidemount Course

This post is brought to you by PADI as part of the PADI AmbassaDiver initiative. Read my latest ramblings on the PADI blog!

I didn’t get to hit up many exciting dive destinations in 2016. While I absolutely did some very cool dives — in Thailand, Brazil, Jamaica, and Hawaii! — I didn’t go on any dedicated dive trips and didn’t find myself anywhere that was a bucket list diving destination. And so, as many of you know, I instead focused on keeping myself engaged and excited about diving by jumping headfirst into a trio of continuing education courses.

So, my fellow dive enthusiasts know that there is kind of a derogatory term in the scuba community which refers to someone who is obsessed with racking up specialty certifications — “card collectors.” Well, I’m saying loud and I’m saying it proud — I AM NOW OFFICIALLY A CERTIFIED CARD COLLECTOR. If I could take a PADI specialty in getting PADI specialities, I would probably enroll right now. I loved these courses.

I kicked things off with the Self Reliant Diver course at Master Divers, then made my way to Ban’s for an Enriched Air certification, and finally rounded it out with a Sidemount Diver speciality at Sairee Cottage.

So what is sidemount? It’s basically a new gear configuration — it simply means that you carry two tanks at your sides instead of one on your back. I’ll get into why you’d want to do that in a bit! Sidemount originated with sump diving in Europe, where pioneers realized sidemount allowed divers to keep a lower profile and remove one or both cylinders as needed to squeeze past restrictions in caves. The modern sidemount configuration mostly evolved into what it as today in Florida and The Yucatan. And now it’s spreading around the world.

My friend Gordon is a long-time PADI Instructor who got super pumped about sidemount after traveling to Egypt to continue his advanced tec training. He enthusiastically brought a set of the specialized gear back to Koh Tao and started singing the sidemount siren song! I’m so grateful that he did — I have to admit that not long ago, a sidemount course wouldn’t even begin to get my attention. Tec related courses are kind of intimidating to me, and I just didn’t get what the point of sidemount was. But after a year or so of watching so many of my close diving friends take his course and rave about it, I just had to join the club and see what all the fuss was about. And it turns out I really had nothing to be intimidated by — it was the simplest of the three courses I took in 2016 and required only an Open Water Certification and twenty logged dives to start.

You have two choices when it comes to sidemount training — the PADI Sidemount Diver course introduces divers to sidemount techniques for recreational scuba diving, while the Tec Sidemount Diver course teaches technical divers how to mount at least four tanks for their technical diving adventures. I enrolled in the former.

One of the best things about my little continuing education experiment here on Koh Tao was finding a new dive shop that was the perfect fit for me. I get asked for advice on this constantly and I now have a much wider range of personalized recommendations to dole out. While I had excellent experiences at all three of the dive shops I studied at, it’s Sairee Cottage that has become my go-to for fun diving with friends ever since.

For me, it’s the perfect size — not so big that you get lost in the mix, but still buzzing enough that there’s always someone to grab a coconut with at the swim-up bar after a dive. What’s that? I should have just opened with the swim up bar? Tell me about it! Between the fabulous pool, the coolest classrooms on the island, and a great team of instructors and divemasters — many of whom are my close friends! — I know where I’d sign up to do my Open Water if I was doing it all over again.

The PADI Sidemount speciality consists of one confined and three open water dives. For Gordon and I, that translated to one pool session, one shore dive from the beach right in front of the dive shop, and two open water boat dives that we checked off on a super fun trip to Sail Rock!

It also consisted of coursework from the PADI Sidemount and Tec Sidemount Diver Manual — section one pertains to PADI Sidemount Diver, while two and three are for Tec Sidemount Diver. I carefully read section one of the manual, completing quizzes along the way, and wrapping up with a knowledge review to ensure I’d absorbed the information. Of my trio of courses it it was the least time in the classroom, as there isn’t really any complicated dive theory behind sidemount.

Instead, the primary focuses of the course were learning a new equipment setup, perfecting “trim” (your underwater body position and posture) and practicing “back-finning” (swimming backwards using just your feet and fins), learning gas management, and practicing emergency procedures. When I first jumped in that pool with this strange new gear setup I had a flashback to trying drysuit diving for the first (and only!) time in Iceland. After being a certified diver for eight years a lot of my dive routine is on autopilot, but not on these days! My whole body was like, whoa, what is this crazy thing we are doing! If you need to be shaken out of a dive routine — this is one way to do it.

I actually found the perfect trim and backfinning focus to be among the most challenging and the most interesting of the course takeaways, considering those are both important skills that can be used on any dive. Your trim underwater is as important as your posture on land, and though back-finning is primarily of interest to cave divers who need to be able to negotiate tight spaces, it is also a fabulous skill for underwater photographers and videographers who need to nail the perfect composition, too.

After a long day in the pool and digging into my manual and another day putting our skills into practice with a sixty minute shore dive, Gordon and I were joined by several of our friends for the final day of our course on Sairee Cottage’s popular weekly trip to Sail Rock, where I’d really get the chance to put the pieces of the course together and see how I felt about this whole sidemount situation once and for all.

I was absolutely thrilled to be out on the water and surrounded by so many of my favorite people. The Sail Rock trips typically consist of two dives at Sail Rock followed by a third back closer to Koh Tao. Because diving sidemount gives you double the air, you can have a significantly longer dive time — so we decided to do one big long dive instead of two shorter ones.

Our friend Brian joined Gordon and I on sidemount, and so while a big group of us all kicked off the dive together, when the single-tank crew surfaced the three of us on sidemount were able to stay down and complete one super-long dive instead of popping up, taking off gear, having a surface interval, putting gear back on and descending a second time.

We set a goal of a 100 minute dive time — crazy, right?! — and while I admit I was getting a tad chilly towards the end, it was a pretty fun milestone to cross. Over and hour and a half kicking it with these amazing underwater critters? Who wouldn’t love that!

After our amazing underwater marathon at Sail Rock we took it easy and did a typical 45-minute dive at the third site for the day, my beloved Shark Island. It was a beautiful dive and the perfect note to end the course on.

Well, that and the swim up bar drinks we had when we were back on dry land!

So after three days and many, many hours underwater, I definitely got a feel for what all the fuss is about when it comes to sidemount. The benefits are actually major — increased air supply (which increases dive time), accessibility of all stages and gauges (as they are under your arm instead of on your back), self reliance in out-of-air situation,a more streamlined underwater profile, easier equipment transport (two small cylinders vs one big), and versatility (it’s great for those with physical challenges that make a traditional setup tough).

What are the drawbacks? Well, you do have to switch between tanks throughout the dive, which make it a more complex gas management system. Also, since sidemount is still fairly rare, you’re unlikely to find a buddy who’s familiar with the equipment unless you BYODB (Bring Your Own Dive Buddy, duh). But mostly, it’s just plain cost.

Want more underwater? Read more diving posts here!

portrait by my friend Paddy of Peach Snaps

Personally, I loved the sidemount configuration. As a 5’1″ woman, I often struggle with the traditional tank-on-the-back setup. Between the system of attaching weights to the tanks and getting the tanks off my back and under my arms, the lower back pain that normally plagues me after a day of diving was completely non-existant! And with slightly smaller cylinders, I’d have even more mobility both above and below the surface. I greatly look forward to sidemount configurations becoming more widely available as I personally would be thrilled to dive this way more often.

I had a blast with this course. Between our hundred minute dive record, the skills I learned, the amazing day I shared with my friends and the absolute badass I felt like underwater, it was not a course I’ll forgot anytime soon. There are only a few schools on Koh Tao currently offering the PADI Sidemount Diver speciality. The course generally lasts 2-3 days and costs 12,000B. I can’t recommend it — or Sairee Cottage — more highly.

Divers, would you consider a PADI Sidemount speciality?

All underwater photos in this post were taken with the Canon PowerShot G7X and its Canon Waterproof Housing. See a full list of my photography gear here.

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