Well dressed …Opposition MPs

One thing that stuck out like a sore thumb – and as you know, dear reader, these are PAINFUL!! – was the Opposition constantly bemoaning the level of poverty in Guyana while decked out in finery befitting a Balenciaga fashion show or a fundraising party at the Met!! Now, don’t get your Eyewitness wrong; not because someone’s in politics they gotta dress in sackcloth and ashes!! But still, they should have a sense of proportion, that the messenger can’t be so dissonant from the message. It deguts the premises of that message. Kinda signals that a whole lotta hypocrisy is in play!! We see the same types in the NGOs for the poor.
From the US, we learn about the phenomenon of “poverty pimps”. In the words of Thomas Sowell, the black Harvard Sociologist, “There are whole classes of people who live off the poor, or rather, off the vast sums of money that are poured out from the public treasury and private philanthropy in hopes of helping the poor”. Haven’t these Opposition MPs been collecting their huge salaries – and their duty-free vehicles and other perks? “Those who intercept the money intended for the poor have been aptly called ‘Poverty Pimps’. The poor are a commodity to these people, who include not only local politicians, community activists and small-time hustlers, but also people with impressive titles and academic credentials, who likewise milk the larger society in the name of the poor”.
Sowell’s satirical poem, “Poverty Pimps”, describes them well: “Let us celebrate the poor, let us hawk them door to door. There’s a market for their pain, votes and glory and money to gain. Let us celebrate the poor. Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction. Flavour our songs and spice our fiction. Their hopes and struggles and agonies, get us grants and consulting fees. Celebrate thugs and clowns, give their ignorance all renown. Celebrate what holds them down, in our academic gowns. Let us celebrate the poor”!!
One critic of “Poverty Pimps” offered some clues on “how to know a poverty pimp”, so you can easily recognise them (local practitioners). 1: When they start a series of not-for-profit ventures. They’re “not for-profit”, but the profits remain in their pockets. 2: When getting financial donations has become the vast majority of their effort and time, and not actually working WITH the poor. 3: When they’ve become really, really, really good at using race, class and gender discussions to prevent any criticism of what they’re doing. 4: When their offices are furnished much better than anything their clients will ever own in their entire lifetime. 5: When most of the money goes for four-star hotels!!
Or when MPs take their salaries and don’t attend sittings!!

…local film star
Well, well, well, we finally got a taste of paparazzi mobbing a movie star – or as we say in Mudland, “Film star”! Which is most appropriate in this instance, since the star in question is Letitia Wright, who plays the Princess Shuri in the mega Marvel hits Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. After her stellar performance as the tech wizard who created most of the wonders of Wakanda, and her bravery and wits to defeat Morlun and save T’Challa and Storm from the underworld, the Panther God finally recognises Shuri as the new Black Panther. This is big time!!
Anyhow, Pres Ali, in his single-minded pursuit of his One Guyana vision, had invited Letitia – who was born in Guyana and migrated at age seven with her parents to England – to come on down!! So now we can see in the flesh this African Princess who’s given so much pride to non-whites in the new non-steppin and fetchin role in Hollywood flicks.
Go, Letitia!! Go girl!!

…Venezuelan rehabilitation
Dinorah Figuera, a 61-year-old doctor from the Primero Justicia party, has been chosen to lead the Venezuelan Opposition’s National Assembly preparatory to picking a presidential candidate and pushing for renewed talks with Maduro.
More pivot to Venezuela??