Rihanna might indeed be Guyanese....

For a while, like most of us love to do, we claimed and believed that Rihanna was of Guyanese Heritage. Isn't that just like us, trying to pick up stars from anywhere? it's annoying at times, all the time actually. Who the skunt cares if some man/woman who has never touched this land, maybe not even heard of Guyana has family or parents from this land. That doesn't make them Guyanese and we shouldn't be running crazy trying to claim them. It is sickening.

Well for a while, people were saying that the Barbadian songstress actually hailed from Guyana and I'm one of those who cussed out and rejected that notion. However, recent events have me thinking that I might have been wrong.

So she took a mauling from her boyfriend, reported it to the police then after a few days reunited with said boyfriend. Now this is pure, downright, typical Guyanese behavior. This is what most of the abused women of this country do; they take the licks then get back together with their abuser shortly thereafter. Rihanna is a role model for so many girls and women around the world and her most recent actions sets a bad example to those who admire and look up to her.

One thing that is very and exceptionally different about this situation though is that unlike Guyana where after reporting the crime the woman can withdraw them, it doesn't happen like that elsewhere. Rihanna reported this to the police, they investigated and subsequently charged Chris Brown and even though she has now reunited with Chris, he is still going to face charges for his crime. A crime is a crime.

In Guyana, the man and woman would get back together, she withdraws the charges and that would have been the end of it but in other places if the police find that someone has abused you, they are going to charge that individual, with or without your help. In Guyana, if we are serious about protecting women from abuse over here, we need to get rid of the system where the aggrieved party can withdraw charges against someone. It doesn't make sense, then again few things in this country do.

Justice for the alleged torture victim...not likely

So one of the guys who were allegedly tortured by the members of the joint services made his report to the police, for them to conduct an investigation...

Among the allegations made are:
*ranks held him by his pants and dragged him down the road
*slapped him several times
*forced him to lie on his belly and forced to crawl.
*put wood on his shoulder and stood on him for several minutes before shoving the barrel of a gun in his ears
*he was placed to lie down in an ant nest for several minutes.

Remember the last set of torture allegations, according to the authorities they amount to 'roughing up', so there is very little to indicate that this will be different. The people that are accused of the crime are the very ones that are conducting the investigation and if it's not them, then it's their friends. Absolute nonsense in this land of glorified nonsense. Isn't there an independent body established to hear and investigate claims of this nature? It should not be left to members of the same fraternity to investigate their colleagues.

For those of you who missed it though, the link show is being held over on Sunday and Monday nights. This production has a wonderful chapter called 'Torture". It give a realistic opinion of what the authorities idea of 'torture' is.

A Lesson for GTT...

For our Blue Cell phone company, I'm going to offer a lesson in adjectives today, especially in their comparative and superlative forms.

Now the first word is. GOOD. Comparative Word would be BETTER (obviously because we are comparing between two entities) and the superlative form would be BEST.
So the progression goes: Good, Better, Best (we know this since primary school though, thanks to Junior English Revised)

Second word is, and this is easier than the previous one. STRONG. The comparative word would be STRONGER and the superlative form of the word would be STRONGEST.
This progression goes: Strong, Stronger, Strongest.

Now keeping that in mind, we come to the point of this confabulation of ours. There are two cell phone companies in this country being GTT and Digicel. Digicel's slogan is "The Bigger Better Network" Whilst GTT proclaim themselves to be "Best Network, Strongest Signal"...WRONG WRONG, WRONG GTT!!! Simple primary school english tells you that you are wrong. If you can't even get your slogan right, (which is probably one of the easiest tasks to get done) how the heck are you intending to get your entire network right? The proper phrasing should be "Better Network, Stronger Signal", GTT Ya hear, you guys are setting a bad example, fix it!

Most grade 5 students know that when you are comparing two things, the comparative form of the word is used (Ok, granted kids might not know the rationale for using them, BUT they know that when there are only TWO, the second form is used) so if school kids can get this right, why the heck can't the folks at GTT get that right? are they that starved for intelligence and simple English skills over there that they cannot get a few words grammatically correct? GTT should be ashamed of themselves.

Some people are not fans of Digicel but one cannot deny that they really do pay meticulous attention to even the small things. GTT, still leaves much to be desired.

Bharrat is such a hypocrite...

In this land, it appears as though Mr. Jagdeo is the only official who can speak and speak freely, even if he is indulging in hypocrisy as he frequently does.
This time he has leveled some pretty heavy accusations, accusations lacking in evidentiary support against the opposition AFC party as being linked to individuals in the illegal drug trade...excuse me Bharrat but WHATTTTTT??

Does the name Roger Khan mean anything to you Mr. President? The known drug lord that your government allegedly gave permission to purchase spy equipment, the same Roger Khan that aided your government in the 2002-2004 crime free that threatened the very existence of life in Guyana.
Talk about hypocrisy.

Who thinks this is the real reason Living Guyana Died?

With the CLICO fiasco now firmly in the public spotlight, the issue of blogging has become very popular and controversial. By now most persons are aware of the two flawed entries that Living Guyana posted on their blog which subsequently led to public condemnation and accusations of mischief leveled against them. While we do not condone the manner in which the report was published nor condemn the accusations leveled against them, a valued question must be asked.

Was Living Guyana targeted because of their anti-government stance? Our reason for asking that is quite simple (we're a bunch of simpletons over here at Bitch Please), Living Guyana AND Evening News carried this report, BOTH of them subsequently admitted an inaccurate report, apologized and withdrew the comments but yet ONLY Living Guyana has been singled out for criticisms and accusations and sanctions. Why was the Evening News let off so lightly, especially considering that some might say that the news broadcast would reach a wider audience than the blog in question? Who disagrees?

Opinions over here are varied but the general consensus is that the GBTI fiasco finally gave the government, Jagdeo in particular something solid to go after Living Guyana for and they made the most of that opportunity. Sad, not surprising, but true...

The Frequent Flyer is off again

This time our most notorious airline user has whisked himself off to the US. For a small third world country our president sure does tour a lot.
I'm not sure but I'm of the opinion that Jagdeo might be the world's most traveled head of state. The thing though, is that his trips hardly ever brings any direct benefit to us, which begs to wonder if the taxpayers money cannot be better spent...then again, it's the PPP government we're talking about, they lack economic wisdom among other things.

Double Standards coming from a budding dictatorship

I tell ya, with each passing day this government does things that does nothing to help their perception in the eyes of the general public. As I write this I wonder if I can also be classified as part of the new opposition, or if the police will be investigating me sometime soon. It's for that reason I don't report anything, I just speak my mind. Freedom of expression I think is what they call it, or was it Freedom of Speech, either way I think I'm constitutionally covered, but with this government you are never too sure.

All across the world countries and individuals are facing the worst financial crisis in decades and there have been numerous discussions about the crisis, accusations leveled, suggestions offered, criticisms given. The point is, people have been freely talking about the crisis and no one has been censored for their views. Now here we are in Guyana and the signs that democracy is fading is once again showing. This time the government has ordered CNS 6 to cancel a scheduled broadcast of a program discussing the CLICO debacle. It was reported that the television station was allegedly threatened with a lawsuit and another suspension of his license. Now tell me, are these not signs that we are living in a dictatorship? When the government officials head to NCN/GINA and spit out those polished nonsense to the Guyanese public no one tells them anything. The country we're living in I guess...

An afternoon in the National Park

This afternoon after a long while I decided to head out and get some cardiac exercise. This quest for some exercise led to the National Park where I was gonna jog a few miles.

When I entered the park however, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of persons that were using the park for the same purpose as I was and I was truly happy. I was very glad because the perception I had was that many Guyanese are too lazy to get up and get some exercise. I've noted a growing number of fat people around these days and honestly I think most of them allow themselves to become that way so I harbor some disdain for them. But today in the park, I saw that there were quite a few overweight persons who were doing laps very purposefully and I realized that some people really do try to do something about their weight and their health all-together.

I've noticed for a while that people are more health conscious when shopping in the supermarkets or when they're eating out and I must say that it is indeed very commendable that we're taking that step to take care of ourselves. However there are still many lazy people out there and we need to get them healthy. So if you're a jogger or you get some exercise, start encouraging your friend(s) to join you.

For me it was a realization, as I said for the most part I thought fat people are lazy, eat-all, self-pitying individuals who are good subjects for fat people jokes and insults but today in the park, some of them proved me wrong.

Living Guyana is now Dead

Just got my daily dose of the Guyana Times and I was surprised to know that the popular blog Living Guyana has been shut down. I've never been a constant reader of that particular blog but from what I know of it, it was very much popular and anti-government.

I'm not sure if the Government had a role to play in the eventual closure of this blog because of the recent false reporting on the GBTI matter. Last week, however Freddie Kissoon who usually gets most of them right was wrong when he wrote that the Canadians are going to be cutting aid from Guyana a claim, which was later denied by the Canadian authorities. Now is anyone going to censor Freddie for that? I doubt it.

I'm not sure but I would assume that the folks at Living Guyana did not deliberately try to mislead the Guyanese public however with that said, in the current time that we're living with this Global financial crisis which has now spread to our land, a report of that nature should have been fully checked and verified before being published. For a website that was intended to expose the flaws and critiques of the media, Living Guyana broke one of the basic rules of reporting by not fact-checking which is what eventually led to their downfall.

My personal opinion is that I think they had it coming, they had it coming, they had it coming all along. It was only a matter of time before they got it, and now they got it. I'm thinking that they are going to pop up again somewhere, sometime soon.

Quoting Bharrat....this man is really full of nonsense.

I'm gonna quote the president again, this time taken from Stabroek News at the 12th death anniversary ceremony of Cheddi Jagan.

Speaking about reporters her said "some do that because of lack of understanding or to make the government look bad. They are the new opposition"
Well then, somebody's got to do it! It's not like the opposition is doing much. And by the way, have you noticed that once a reporter writes something bad about the government then they are automatically branded 'opposition'?

He then carried on by saying this “There are many good reporters so I don’t want them to say I criticize all the reporters. But some of them are like that and some papers are like that.”
I'm sure the many good reporters and the good paper are those that report for NCN, Times, Chronicle, Mirror and all the other government propaganda machines. Yes Bharrat, reporters are only good when they are the governments' lap dogs right? I really don't know why people are not that appreciative of the independent newspapers in this land.

Then the asshole said "I get so frustrated sometimes at press conferences; I guess it is the ignorance that comes out. What I am frustrated about is that these are the people who have to educate the people…"
What the fuck is his problem? if you want to talk about incompetence, start with your damn fucked up cabinet. You would not hear any decent president anywhere in the world speaking like this. Can you imagine Obama speaking this way, heck no! and Obama is the man Jagdeo wanted to campaign for, I'm not totally certain but I'm pretty sure that Obama would have vehemently refused him. Jagdeo is a liability anywhere he goes.

The reporter's words "He also told the gathering - which was not as large as in previous years"
ahhhhhhhh what can I say other than people are finally realizing that the man they are turning out to remember isn't worth remembering anymore and the party that he founded is not the same party that exists anymore.

Come on Digicel, rid us of those internet charges

No people, I'm not picking on Digicel, it's just that when you use their service you are entitled to ask, even demand certain things from them, so I'm just doing that. I'm fulfilling my role as a customer.

So here I go again. Like many persons (myself included) when Digicel entered the Guyana market we rushed to switched to them because they were fresh and new, with such great promise, but more importantly we had gotten tired of lame ass, exploiting Cellink. But in the time that Digicel has been here, Cellink has made some great improvements to their networks and I must say that they have done a good job. They're giving the red company a good fight for their money and in the end that is just great for the customers. Competition is great. Unlike some people, I do not want GTT to just fold over and let Digicel have the entire mobile market because then we're right back where we were before...so now for customers it just comes down to preference while some people don't make that choice and eventually carry around two phones (myself included).

I have a tendency to ramble on when I get started but here is the gist of this entry, I would like to know if Digicel ever does intend to stop charging us to use the internet on our phone? It's about damn freaking time don't you think? The other network has free internet browsing so why is Digicel charging their customers to use this service? And I must add, it's not a very small charge either. With that in mind, can they really and honestly call themselves "THE BIGGER BETTER NETWORK" I severely doubt that. I have to wonder if they haven't realized that one of the reasons that a lot of Cellink subscribers have retained their numbers is simply because they would like to browse the net and not have to pay for it? Come on Digi, if I wanted to use the net and pay for it, I would find myself at an internet cafe where it costs much less to browse. You guys should really eradicate this particular charge and please don't even get me started on the fact that I have NEVER EVER won anything on a Digicel promotion. That's for another day though...

Congratulations are in order for Ramnaresh Sarwan

All of us, not just in Guyana but in the Caribbean should join in congratulating Ramnaresh Sarwan for a gem of an innings. It was a true masterclass and deserves the unconditional respect and recognition and admiration from anyone who has played or followed the game. It is a great moment for the guyanese people and West Indies cricket all-together.

Currently, another fine Guyanese batsman is ranked number one in test cricket but at this moment, there would be no denying that Sarwan is the best batsman right now. Since I wrote that, You and I should also keep in mind that Chanderpaul was ROBBED when he was playing quite well so there is no telling what he might have gone on to do as well, but ya know what, let us try to forget about those dubious decisions and not let them distract us from this monumental innings that Ramnaresh Sarwan produced.

Watch out for Chetram Singh, Frank Anthony and Bharrat Jagdeo to be dispatching congratulatory letters pretty soon...some people just always want to be involved, even that publicity whore called Robert Persaud might want to get in on the action...anyways congrats Ronnie, you're finally delivering on that promise you've held for so long.

Quoting Bharrat...

"I wouldn't want trade one Ashni Singh for one hundred Christoper Ram"

No matter how much I can't stand the Prezie at times, he does have his moments, and when I heard this, I just had to howl. It was damn freaking funny. Bharrat can be such a frigged up man sometimes.

Digicel -- Sleep Deprivation

Free Night Talk eh? I'm guessing your aim is to deprive the Guyanese people of sleep just so they can use your so-called free service.

Don’t worry GT&T Cellink, we’re coming for you too.