Remembering…the aftermath

You’re gonna have to bear with your Eyewitness today as he pecks away (slowly) at this piece the day after his Boxing Day debaucheries!! He’s firmly convinced that the only reason we, in our Cooperative Republic of Guyana, keep observing the British holiday of “Boxing Day” is to give us an extra day to recover from our excesses of Christmas Day!! Never mind the received wisdom that the name came from the custom of our British overlords. We know for sure that ain’t no Guyanese goes around sharing “boxes” of leftovers to the needy!! While it may’ve been practised back in old Blighty when the nobility still enjoyed droit du seigneur (the right to take the virginity of lower-class damsels) – the lower-class planters didn’t practise it here! The sharing of boxes of leftovers – NOT the bedding of damsels, which – as we can tell from the quite extensive “coloured” strata that emerged out of slavery – was practised lustily!!
Now your Eyewitness can understand folks being happy the Messiah was born on Christmas Day. It’s rumoured some folks attend church on Christmas Day… but they gotta be an endangered minority in Guyana! But we express our happiness with such licentiousness and drunkenness!! Starting from Christmas Eve, the revelry continued through the night, so one woke up on Christmas Day with “stale booze”, like on J’ouvert morning! And then – under the philosophy of “fighting fire with fire” – we continued the spirituous merriment to wake up on Boxing Day as if we’d (barely) survived a boxing match with Mike Tyson!!
So Guyanese fervently observe the convention of “NO WORK ON BOXING DAY”!! The truth is we wouldn’t be in a condition to work even if someone had a whip in his hands to back up the order – as was the case even during slavery!! We’re told the no-work convention started because of the number of accidents occurring if anyone was foolhardy enough to work on Boxing Day!! Most think it’s some kind of superstition. But have they considered the more prosaic reason that folks ain’t in NO condition to be operating any sort of machinery after the Christmas revelries – much less HEAVY machinery!!
So today (actually yesterday!) your bleary-eyed Eyewitness lifted nothing heavier than his (two) fingers over the keyboard of his (very light) laptop – that’s literally on his lap!! Quaffing beer doesn’t count!! That’s reviving!! Over the decades his missus knows it’s useless to get him to help with even cleaning up the usual Christmas detritus!! But because the Boxing Day no-work convention is staunchly observed by your friendly neighbourhood paper delivery man/woman – no newspaper was produced, and your Eyewitness had to scrounge around for grist for his laptop!!
Ain’t it wonderful??

…Mad Maduro
Mad Maduro’s not one to lose ANY opportunity to turn the screws on the Opposition forces in Venezuela. Not surprising since by all impartial accounts – including the Carter Center – he had to massively rig last year’s elections – where the electronic versions of SOPs have never been released!! The Mad Maduro-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly just passed legislation that imposes a 20-year sentence on anyone who “promotes, instigates, requests, invokes, favours, facilitates, supports, finances or participates” in the US campaign to seize ships carrying Venezuela’s oil!! Whew!!
The question ain’t that such actions might be objectively considered “treasonous”. But that it encourages the regime’s paid henchmen – like the colectivos! – to “carry news” on anyone they have a grudge against and get them arrested. Life then becomes a Kafkaesque struggle to extricate oneself from a system that’s self-referentially designed to smother you!!
But we know that the action itself reveals the desperation of Mad Maduro and his inner circle to buy time as they search for a haven to flee to!!

…Sanction Man
Another (predictable) act of desperation was Sanction Man’s move to the High Court – claiming the amendments to the Fugitive Offender’s Act under which he’s being processed for extradition – is unconstitutional!! He’s vainly banking on the CCJ to ill-delay his Florida “vacation”!!