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1/22/2010 By: Earl Clarke Dear Reader, my topic today is a reflection of the many articles that I have written on Captain Lindsay Fitzgerald Grant, the green sailor, who wants to captain a Cruise Ship. I have tried my utmost to convince the passengers that this captain is unable to captain their ship because he is too inexperienced to do so, having never achieved or passed the necessary test for him to acquire the necessary documentations or certification. This was borne out a few Sundays ago in Sandy Point when the River Boat Captain went on the political rostrum and discredited himself, showing to the whole world that what Earle Clarke has been writing and educating the passengers, week after week, was prophetically true. Before proceeding with the subject matter, I would like to educate my reader about the topic or headline of my article, for he or she might not have or possess any prior knowledge of what radar is. In the New English Dictionary and Thesaurus, a dictionary of over 70,000 clear and accurate definitions and a thesaurus of over 100,000 synonyms, the meaning of the world Radar is described as “a system or device for detecting objects such as aircrafts, by using the reflection of radio waves. It goes on to describe Radar Beacon as a fixed radio transmitter that sends out a signal which allows a ship or an aircraft to determine its own position. Those of us, who observe any kind of ships entering our shoes, will see, mounted on the top of the ship, a device with a broad top, which keeps spinning around all of the time. This is the ship’s radar and every captain knows how to read the ships radar. On the screen of the radar which is situated inside the ship’s command centre, impending disaster is detected./ storms, objects or any device which lies in the pathway of the ship can be detected way in advance and impending disaster avoided. A few Sundays ago, our good captain of the River Boat M.V. PAM, went on the rostrum of the People’s Action Movement (PAM) and informed and educated the whole world that he is, was and shall ever remain a river boat captain, having been found lacking in all the credentials necessary to be elevated from the river boat captain to a cruise ship captain. Apparently, Mr. Grant was overwhelmed by the occasion and wanted to prove to his company how matured he was in handling a situation he failed to observe on his radar screen. In trying to prove to his company how matured he was, he ended up showing to the whole world how really and truly immature he is and, how lacking in intelligence and experience he was. Here was Captain Lindsay Fitzgerald Grant, telling his company and share holders, that a certain man whom he did not know, invited him to his room at the Marriott hotel and he accepted the invitation. Dear Reader, did you hear what Mr. Grant just said? Let me repeat: Mr. Grant said that a certain man whom he did not know, invited him to his room at the Marriott Hotel and he Mr. Grant who did not know this stranger, who could have been a gangster, a money launderer, a homosexual, a set-up, accepted the invitation just like that. He did not gaze at his radar on the M.V. PAM to see if there were any warning signals. He did not discuss with his inexperienced crew about the invitation. He did not discuss the matter with his shareholders. He is a macho little man and he was going to show everybody that he can handle serious matters, so he accepted the invitation. He went alone. Could you imagine that, dear reader? Mr. Grant went all alone to meet this total stranger about whom he knew nothing. What would have prompted Captain Grant to proceed on a course of action like that? Was it lack of intelligence? Was it lack of experience? Was it greed? Was Mr. Grant myopic? What could have prompted , really, really prompted Mr. Grant to pursue this course of action and, not only that, to come up with all his bravado to tell his shareholders what he did, expecting praise and adulation for his short-sightedness and his stupidity? There is a TV Programme where adult participants match their intelligence with that of a third grader. When he or she loses, they proclaim that they are not more intelligent than a third grader. The actions of Mr. Grant shows him up to be a preschooler, for, one of the things we teach our children, especially in this day and age, is not to accept gifts from strangers. These tips come on every day on ZIZ’s Crime Prevention Tips. If Mr. Grant cannot read the radar, at least he could listen to ZIZ’s Crime Prevention Tips and this would have educated and alerted him to the danger he was exposing himself to? Any toddler who could speak or who could understand a little, would have nodded his or her head indicating to that stranger, that his invitation was not accepted. A total stranger to you, somebody whom you do not know, inviting you to a hotel room and you ain’t smell a rat? You really have to be a very gluttonous person or a really stupid person to accept an invitation of that nature and, moreover, to go it alone? And that is the kind of person who wants to captain a tourist or cruise ship? Accepting such an invitation like that in an election year when the campaign is in high gear; political suicide; irreparable damage. Mr. Grant really has disappointed us as Kittitians and Nevisians. I have to put a question mark when I say Kittitian, for Mr. Grant is now without a nationality. Could this, dear reader, be one of the reasons why he acted so recklessly? If Mr. Grant is without a nationality how does he want to skipper the cruise ships St. Kitts and Nevis? Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the stranger invited Captain Grant to his room, because, here is a person who now owes no loyalty to anybody. He was a US citizen. He denounced his citizenship because he wanted to take away the captaincy from Dr. Douglas. A person like Mr. Grant is like a rudderless ship, knocked about by the waves of life and accepting whatever handouts pass their way. Such persons are dangerous and cannot be trusted to serve the national interest. It is their benefit to look after their own benefit - Pure and simple. So Mr. Grant accepted the invitation, went all alone and discussed his party’s financial campaign funding with the man. He said that this unknown man offered to fund his campaign by offering him 1.5 million dollars. He said that he asked the man if he cannot up (increase) the figure to which the total stranger of a man, upped it to 1.7 million dollars. Nothing in life is free. You scratch my back, I will scratch yours. Of course the man would want a favour in return, for nobody gives away millions of US dollars just like that. The man asked Mr. Grant to sell him 200 acres of land at a give-away price (less than 50 cents per square foot). Here is a man who wants to captain our cruise ship and making deals to give away our lands already. Are we all PAM, Labour, Kittitians and residents of St. Kitts and Nevis as myopic as Mr. Grant to really place this man at the helm of our cruise ship? Were we to do so, we would be sealing our doom. One day we will awake to find out that our country has been sold out and we are strangers in our own land. If we really, really love our paradise of an island, we cannot allow Mr. Grant to skipper our ship. Let him continue to sail the waters of the river. Having destroyed any chance of his becoming the captain of our ship, Mr. Grant then resorted to devious means. He tried to demean the character of Dr. Denzil L. Douglas, but it did not catch on. He then went back to the old crew whom he discarded and begged and pleaded with them to come to his rescue. Those who came to his rescue cannot show the palm of their hands, for they are tarred. They dare not put up their hands in the air. They, it was, who used to disconnect your phones and electricity on a Friday afternoon so that you and your children cannot see in the house, watch television or use the fridge Friday night, Saturday all day, Sunday all day and perhaps Monday all day and night as well, for you had to take off a day to go to the bank, withdraw the monies to pay the lights, the telephone and the water. What kind of wretched souls could treat human beings like that? Lock off the water for a whole weekend. No washing of clothes, no washing of skins, no water to drink for a whole weekend from Friday afternoon to Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning? What kind of miserable souls like these could dare to show their naked hands to the public and say that t heir hands are clean? They would have to wear gloves and, even so, the tar would stain the gloves and we would know that their hands are not clean. Our automatic cars are in drive. Keep it that way; we do not want to reverse to those horrific days when men in power took pride in dehumanizing their fellow and sister human beings. |
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