Well, well, well! Ding-dong battle shaping up between cool, calm, collected Freundel “Obama” Stuart, the incumbent, and Owen “Mitt Romney” Arthur, the challenger from the so-called “white people’s” party.
Some say Obama doesn’t have much to show for the last four years; others that he kept things ticking over in difficult times. And while Mitt’s supporters brag how he cleaned up after Hurricane Sandi, his detractors remind us why he got skinned out of office and see no change of direction in his new 15-pint plan.
Many years ago Richard Nixon allegedly did surveys to find out what most people wanted. Then he promised those things. And got elected.
True enough, a government is elected to lead. But shouldn’t the concerns of citizens be considered too?
I don’t know. But, just in case, I did a rough survey of comments from visitors and elsewhere:
Visit by Christ Church Girls’ School teachers: pleasant all-round chat especially with head Mrs Heather Bryan, who also comes from the Vaucluse area. One lady teacher noticed a buck straining to get out at some females.
“He handles about 60 does,” I told her, “sometimes three or four a day.” She wasn’t satisfied. “Mr Hoad,” she chided, “you suffering that ram goat!”
Visit from Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell and his wife: discussed weighty topics like, but not necessarily including, numismatics and supralapsarianism. Mrs Worrell is a positive lady and I got kinda worried she might deal with anyone constantly criticizing her husband. Made note to warn Mitt . . . .
Customer Lloyd from St Lucy commented: “The problem in this country is that they don’t punish criminals.” This is an oft-repeated concern. We have now had two householders wantonly shot; a retired policeman in his 90s suffocated on a gag; six young ladies burnt to death in a fire deliberately set; and a girl bound and forced to stand on two paint tins with a noose around her neck. When she fell off and hanged, the house was set on fire.
In each of these cases, the perpetrators didn’t face murder but instead manslaughter.
Another visitor lamented how, once appointed, it is impossible to get Government workers to work.
Dedicated neighbouring farmer “Killer” mourned the loss of a Holstein cow, heavy in calf, the sixth animal stolen from him in recent months. Later found butchered. That hurts.
And a frustrated Boscobellian stopped by on Sunday: from his story I gathered that a young lady invited him to do a job last week and he must’ve taken along his father to help.
“Hoad, you wouldn’t believe I was getting through licking when brups! the old man let me down. And when I get home he looking up in my face like he want something more to do.”
Of course, goat’s milk is the sovereign remedy for such afflictions but, it being the Lord’s Day, I didn’t want to advertise.
Then I in turn was hamming it up at the launch of the Farmer’s Choice Season Of Ham. Pleasant discussions with notable gentlemen, including MP James Paul and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Michael King. Topics included cricket, porkology, ladies loved and lost, and why the exact same problems have featured on agricultural agendas for the past 50 years but not one has been solved.
And finally I noted Al Gilkes’ unequivocal endorsement of pork-eating for a longer and better life. With the proof to boot.
You notice something here, peoples? Not one soul even mentioned the need for any change in the Constitution as proposed by the Bees. Nor is there any interest in most of the other items in their 15-pint plan. On the contrary, columnist Sherwyn Walters has come up with an entirely different set of manifesto demands.
We need to be careful here. First, when politicians say they want to “serve” their constituents, they’re not talking about “perform duties for”. They mean “serve” as in what a stallion does to a mare, preferably with her back legs tied.
Secondly, politicians never lie, they “evolve”. As in when Obama backed off from his stance on homo marriage or pledge to close Guantanamo. He was “evolving”.
That old saying needs to be updated to: “The voice of the people is . . . largely ignored.”
• Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
