Light up de light…
Satiricus knew he wasn’t the brightest bulb around. So who was he to doubt Suspenders Ram when he claimed GPL was “cocking de wuk” in its call for a 26 per cent raise in electricity charges? In fact, with the blackouts and all, the Missus was so furious with the business of electricity in general – that Satiricus had just gotten an earful. Satiricus, in fact, was quite inclined to go along with the Suspenders Man.
Surveillance state
Satiricus is a patriot. Hey, what the heck…it might not be the coolest virtue to admit to right now. Some might even say it wasn’t even a virtue… patriotism is the “last refuge of the scoundrel” and all that. But Satiricus was unrepentant. He loved his Guyana. And because he loved his country, he understood why Barack Obama had to extend the surveillance programme in America.
Not only “understood” but “agreed with”. That’s right, folks. Satiricus had no qualms about keeping tabs on those who would harm your country. Was Obama supposed to “throw back” while unwashed foreigners plotted harm to his country? No siree Bob!!! “Hit them before they hit you” sounded like a good motto to Satiricus.
And it wasn’t as if Obama had anything against foreigners. His father had been one from Africa. OK…OK…maybe Obama did have something against his father who abandoned him when he was a baby. But that wasn’t why he’d expanded the spy network, was it? Anyhow Satiricus didn’t feel the U.S. government listening in on some domestic conversations was any problem. He figured freedom had to have a price, right? And if the price was the government knew Satiricus sometimes “talked dirty” to his wife when he called home from New York when he was visiting, Satiricus was willing to put up with the shame and embarrassment.
But Satiricus was very upset that his own government didn’t seem to understand to keep people under surveillance in these troubled times. Didn’t they think Guyana was also under threat? So when he saw the headline in the government’s paper about “GNBS surveillance exercise!!” as he drove to work, he smiled. He wished he could’ve stopped and bought the paper from the vendor who’d flashed him the headline. But it was too late.
Satiricus hadn’t even known that Guyana had a surveillance agency – and he was a newspaper man. But then Satiricus figured a surveillance agency wasn’t going to be of much use if everyone knew of its work, would it? With the work of America’s National Security Agency (NSA) out in the open, Satiricus guessed his government didn’t mind letting everyone know that Guyana was also spying on its citizens. After all, thought Satiricus, “we have to keep up with America, where democracy is concerned!” He felt a glow of pride when he thought of the local U.S. ambassador learning how close we were to the real thing.
“GNBS?” Thought Satiricus, “I wonder what that stands for, Guyana National Bureau of Surveillance?” Not bad…he concluded. He wondered also as to who had been caught in the “surveillance exercise”. Satiricus just knew that those Trinis, who were spending billions to import food, were spying on us to learn the secrets of how to grow rice. He hoped some of them were nabbed. The thought of rice being planted by those voluptuous Trini carnival gals in their skimpy outfits was too much for Satiricus.
He stopped at the very next newspaper vendor and bought the government newspaper. GNBS stood for “Guyana National Bureau of Standards” and they’d just conducted a “surveillance” exercise on market scales!
Satiricus sucked his teeth and threw the newspaper out of the window.
In hot water
Satiricus was not amused. Here he’d just defended the U.S. ambassador against his buddies’ claim that the Americans don’t really practice the democracy he preaches to us, in their own country. And now this story about trillions – that’s right, trillions! Fumed Satiricus – of phone calls and info from Verizon, Facebook and Yahoo and so on had been collected by the government. Without a single citizen even being told. “Smile!!! You’re on candid camera!”
Satiricus wondered idly what Barrack Obama would be telling his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping when the latter demanded that U.S. shape up on respecting citizens’ rights. “Oh…we didn’t really listen in. We just collected the data” just wasn’t going to cut it. The irony was, before the exposé on the super-spying by the U.S. government on its own citizens, Obama was supposed to be bringing up what the Americans claim to be “cyber hacking” by the Chinese! Who was hacking who now??
But Satiricus had other matters to attend to. His favourite niece, maid to the opposition, had brought him Rum Jhaat’s diary for his perusal. Satiricus had to read the latest entry quickly while his wife fed the niece some of the duck curry that was her reward. Satiricus, as an old newspaperman (none of that “journalist” handle for him – too pretentious) knew that you had to keep “sources” happy.
Dear Diary,
Ah lawd, Dear Diary. Ah in real sh*t right now. Now don’t say I always in sh*t…this one is big time. Ah doan know what Ah gonna do. All right, lemme get to de point. You know Ah does go up every now and den to New York to collect some funds fuh de party, right?
You don’t know? How de arse you think Ah does seh “gonna” dis and “gonna” dat. You think Ah does pick up that kinda foreign talk in Number 47 Village? Well, allrite. Ah does pick up some foreign talk when Ah carry news to de U.S. ambassador. But most of it is from dem basements in Bronx.
(Ah had to take two drink when Ah remember how mouldy dem basement is.)
Anyhow Ah in trouble because of dis phone tapping Obama carrying out. Deh find out that Ramdhanny and dem bais in Bronx give me US$50,000 when Ah been up deh last month. Deh musee have Guyana pon deh radar after that chap from the People’s National Congress (PNC) get caught for terrorism. Ramdhanny bin call me to tell me the good news.
So imagine de U.S. ambassador ask me how come Ah only give de KFC US$5000 fuh deposit in de bank. Oh lawd…Ah in trouble! So many times Ah do dis, and now dis happen ! Ah hope deh throw out that Obama quick! Is he fault.
Now Ah got fuh mek up more news to carry to de ambassador. An doan tell me is blackmail. Ah know all about blackmail.
(Goodbye, Dear Diary. Ah gonna finish dis large. Ah in real trouble.)