Now if you were to tell someone in the States to “Go fly a kite!” he wouldn’t be so pleased!! In fact, he’d be downright insulted. What you’ve told him was to leave – basically, you didn’t want him around – mostly cause he’s irritating or annoying the hell out of you!! Like in “Go take a hike!”, “Go jump in the lane” or “Beat it”!! Now all of us know about “Beat it!”, don’t we?? It’s only one of the biggest rock songs of all times by Michael Jackson from his monster album, “Thriller”!!
Good for Michael, though, he was giving some solid advice to a young man who wants to use violence to resolve a beef!! Rather than fight – which doesn’t really solve anything in the hood, just “beat it!!” On this Easter Monday, there’s a whole lot of Guyanese youth who should take Michael’s, rather than those street-corner geriatrics’ advice: They’re out to get you, better leave while you can/ Don’t wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man. You wanna stay alive, better do what you can/ So beat it, just beat it!! You have to show them that you’re really not scared/ You’re playin’ with your life, this ain’t no truth or dare/ They’ll kick you, then they’ll beat you/ Then they’ll tell you it’s fair So beat it, but you wanna be bad!!
Anyhow, today most Guyanese are either going out to “fly a kite” or telling their kids to do so!! And in the latter case, some parents ARE telling the kids to get out of their hair!! So dear reader did you ever wonder where we Guyanese got this tradition of flying kites on Easter Monday?? After all, we’re the only country in the world to do so other than Bermuda – that dot in the Atlantic that also has a British heritage. This should be researched – and romanced! – to become the basis for us promoting our dear Mudland and lure in those tourists!!
Cause if Christians believe on this day Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven – which is somewhere in the sky, they believe – what better way to represent that than having little humble homemade kites also rise up into that same sky?? Guyana might become a pilgrimage site to the billion or so Christians around the globe, no?? Ok…OK. Maybe your Eyewitness’ head is too much up in the skies!!
Anyhow, on this Easter Monday, we can think about our OTHER Easter traditions that DO draw in some tourists – like our Rupununi Rodeo and Bartica Regatta. Incidentally, whatever happened to our Rupununi cows?? The one being lassoed was so scrawny, it made the cowboy look like a blimp!!
…GECOM subverters
If there’s one constant in Guyanese politics, it’s the PNC’s messing around with our electoral mechanisms. But then it’s in their DNA, ain’t it?? They went down on their knees and begged and begged the Brits to make that “fiddled electoral arrangement” on FRTP to PR to oust the PPP and ease them into office in 1964!! Then as early as 1967, Burnham appointed a diffident fella named Desmond Hoyte from his law office to the Elections Commission to prepare to rig the mandated 1969 elections!
The latter created the National Register of Registrants (NRR) from which the Preliminary voters List was extracted – and elections in Guyana were never the same again!! So here we are, just three years after their latest – and most shameless –rigging attempt – and they’re doing their darndest to throw monkey wrenches into every PPP-led effort to professionalize GECOM!!
Their latest is to complain about the new DCEO to replace the former one who’s before the Courts!! Seriously, can anyone be LESS partisan than her?!!?
…Brit establishment!
Slowly, the stiff upper lip of the British Establishment is trembling under the pent-up contradictions of insisting it was “fair”!! First, the Liberal Guardian was shown to’ve been founded on slave ownership – and now LSE has honoured Arthur Lewis!!
