BC Pires

You al­ways know the ex­act mo­ment a gov­ern­ment runs out of steam: they at­tack the me­dia. This week, some clown in a Cab­i­net packed with jok­ers called for the li­cens­ing of jour­nal­ists to "im­prove" the pro­fes­sion. Wait for the next two con­fes­sions of in­com­pe­tence: the de­c­la­ra­tion of "A War," and then, "Ze­ro Tol­er­ance of Crime."The surest sign the me­dia is do­ing its job is the gov­ern­ment of the day be­ing vexed. When­ev­er a Trinida­di­an gov­ern­ment fails, it sics its pothounds on the me­dia, even though it's the same me­dia they praised in Op­po­si­tion, and whose most bi­ased (in their favour) prac­ti­tion­ers they re­ward­ed up­on gain­ing of­fice.Be­fore the elec­tion, ap­par­ent­ly, the me­dia were serv­ing the na­tion; af­ter the elec­tion, the me­dia be­came ter­ror­ists with type­writ­ers, at­tack­ing all the Gov­ern­ment's good work, in­stead of sup- port­ing it. Failed gov­ern­ments al­ways do it. In 1988, a friend in the 1986 Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion gov­ern­ment chas­tised me for not us­ing my col­umn for na­tion-build­ing. (Be­fore I could use TGIF for na­tion-build­ing, I said, I had to use it for bull-ca­ca-wreck­ing.)

(Trinida­di­an ra­dio sta­tions aren't "me­dia," just elec­tron­ic mech­a­nisms for col­lect­ing state mon­ey through ad­ver­tis­ing. They are open­ly bi­ased and so in­com­pe­tent they reg­u­lar­ly broad­cast "un­con­firmed re­ports" as news; with on­ly a few ex­cep­tions, I wouldn't wipe my feet on Tri­ni-dad ra­dio; al­though many of its oc­cu­pants pub­licly wipe oth­er parts of their own anato­my there­upon.)The Cab­i­net clown wish­ing to li­cense jour­nal­ists point­ed at the me­dia with­out notic­ing three fin­gers point­ing back at him. If any­thing in Trinidad needs li­cens­ing to raise its stan­dard, it's firetruck­ing Par­lia­ment; though, it prob­a­bly wouldn't help: smart peo­ple turn dunce the mo­ment they walk through its doors.But, as al­ways in the every­day tragedy of life in Trinidad, there are com­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties in this last "idea." Here then are sto­ries we all know in­ti­mate­ly, as rewrit­ten by a li­censed UNC jour­nal­ist whose stan­dard has been raised to a lev­el ap­proved of by the par­ty.

Bril­liant new Se­cu­ri­ty

In­tel­li­gence Agency head

By ARS Lick­er

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Trinidad's most com­pe­tent head of state ever, yes­ter­day an­nounced Resh­mi Usha Ram­nar­ine would head the SIA. Ram­nar­ine is ex­treme­ly well-qual­i­fied for the post, hav­ing watched read sev­er­al pages of a Robert Lud­lum nov­el. She al­so owns a Jack Bauer T-shirt. At 31, she ra­di­ates the youth­ful en­er­gy need­ed for wise de­ci­sions. She knows every­thing about the SIA, af­ter four years of typ­ing mem­os from every de­part­ment. Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma is ex­pect­ed to vis­it Trinidad, now that we have strong se­cu­ri­ty lead­er­ship.

Jan­ice Thomas

busts ter­ror­ist ring

By Sasha Mo'ba­con

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a tee­to­taller, yes­ter­day ex­pressed the na­tion's thanks to the elec­tron­i­cal­ly-caped cru­sad­er, Jan­ice Thomas, whose e-mails re­vealed that Omatie Ly­der-no­tice the name: LIE-der-is ter­ror­ist-in-chief of an an­ti-gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da cell. The e-mails were sent from the com­put­er of a for­mer in­sur­rec­tion­ist, Sasha Mo­hammed, who was re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed in­to an ad­vis­er to the PM. Ms Mo­hammed works for a mere pit­tance of sev­er­al mil­lion dol­lars a month, plus ex­pens­es.

PNM stooge an­ti-woman

bias ex­posed

By Spe­cial Co-Re­spon­dent

Min­is­ter of Af­fairs, Su­ruj Ram­bachan, yes­ter­day oust­ed an an­ti-woman ter­ror­ist-a known Mus- lim-from his in­flu­en­tial post as morn­ing pre­sen­ter of the best me­dia house, CN­MG, which re­ports the good news of the res­cue of the na­tion by the UNC. Ram­bachan paint­ed the gang mem­ber, Fazeer "Stumps" Mo­hammed, in­to a cor­ner, from which Mo­hammed was forced to con­fess he "jeal­ous the PM bad-bad be­cause he had was to take or­der from a gyul." Un­der the new "in­stant crime" cre­at­ed by the Jour­nal­ist Li­cens­ing Act, Mo­hammed was au­to­mat­i­cal­ly im­pris­oned. His of­fence of ap­pear­ing to dis­agree with a Cab­i­net min­is­ter car­ries a manda­to­ry life sen­tence. Ac­tu­al­ly dis­agree­ing with the UNC is an in­stant crime cap­i­tal of­fence. As soon as the leg­is­la­tion clas­si­fy­ing the PNM as me­dia work­ers is passed, they will all be shot. Thank­ful­ly. God bless our na­tion.

Jack Warn­er's sac­ri­fice

By De­vant Ma­haraj

For­mer Con­ca­caf pres­i­dent, Austin "Jack" Warn­er, was tar­get­ed yet again by Eng­lish ter­ror­ist re­porters from the Dai­ly Ter­ror-Graph. The pa­per's web­site post­ed a video in which Jack is clear­ly heard say­ing, "These bags of un­trace­able cash are not a bribe" but, in an ef­fort to dis­tort that truth, they put one long tape to make Jack look bad. Mr Warn­er doesn't tell any jour­nal­ist to haul they white a-- or ask they moth­er in this video, but they still bring all that up. Un­der the Jour­nal­ist Li­cens­ing Act, the Eng­lish ter­ror­ist re­porters would have to pay their salaries to Mr Warn­er.

BC Pires ex­e­cut­ed for

lack of con­tempt

By Raf­fique Yes-Shah

Madam-PM-Shah

For­mer jour­nal­ist, BC Pires, was hanged yes­ter­day. Pires, who reg­is­tered as a "satir­i­cal colum­nist" un­der the Jour­nal­ist Li­cens­ing Act, failed to write any­thing bad about op­po­nents of the glo­ri­ous UNC gov­ern­ment. His death was greet­ed by loud cheers on the Gov­ern­ment bench­es in Par­lia­ment, now housed in Rien­zi Com­plex, for sim­plic­i­ty.

BC Pires is one of the liv­ing dead. Read a longer ver­sion ofthis col­umn at www.BCraw.com