Barbados DLP Website Back From The Dead – Sort Of…

The website of the Barbados Democratic Labour Party appears to be alive. For the first time in 2006, visitors to the DLP website see activity other than the "Under Construction" logo that had been displayed for almost a year.

Now, DLP website visitors are greeted with a fairly nice looking template that has obviously been created with the Joomia content management system. (This program used to be called "Mambo" for the old hands.)

Keep working ladies and gentlemen… those folks from the BLP are cranking up their internet activities and some say they can smell an election in the wind. Ever notice how the summer storms tend to strike when people are not yet prepared?

Now, where is the PEP website…?

Barbados Big Snake Hunt

We have this little problem on Barbados… well, maybe not so little…

Over the years, people illegally imported baby snakes as pets, and then when they became too big to feed – or too dangerous to keep in the house – they just let them go wild. The website of the Caribbean Herpetological Society says that about 10 very large snakes are loose in various places on the island, with the largest being at least 18 feet long.

The website just tells it like it is and provides further reason for concern. Here is what it has to say about our little friend shown above… the Reticulated Python…

An aggressive temperament, and a proven hunter & killer of human beings on land in its South East Asia natural range. Babies are suspected of having been smuggled into Barbados from the USA or Canada since 1993.

Our friends from the Caribbean Herpetological Society have been conducting public awareness campaigns and snake hunts, and will respond to calls. You can read their latest Public Report here.

And just in case you see one of the little crawly fellas, here are the phone numbers of the members who might come to your aid. No calls except for the real thing, please.

Damon (231-2975), Geoffrey (262-9984) & Corey (233-8740)

Jamaican Author Geoffrey Philp: “Blogging Bypasses Gatekeepers, Challenges Pervasive Elitism In Caribbean”

It looks like our week of blogging about blogging is being continued by Jamaican Author Geoffrey Philp at Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot.

Well worth reading the whole thing, but here are some excerpts from Philp's article Liming In Cyberspace…

…Blogging alaso challenges the elitism that pervades the Caribbean and is a great experiment in the democratization of data. To be sure, a digital divide exists, but anyone with access to a computer and an email address can set up an account at Blogger and become a blogger. It’s that easy. This is very disturbing to some people, who as Bob Marley once said, “Still want to divide the people. But how can they divide the people when them don’t have four foot?”

It should be noted that early in his career, Bob faced similar problems with exposure from the gatekeepers of the record industry. He couldn’t get any airplay on the radio stations and a highly respected Caribbean bandleader once said that he would never play reggae because it was ghetto music. Of course, when Chris Blackwell began producing Bob Marley and the Wailers, then everybody was convinced that it had to be great because the music was being produced in England. Similarly, the careers of Lamming, Brathwaite, Walcott, and Naipaul (who are great writers by any standard), would have taken different paths had it not been for Caribbean Voices which gave them the exposure with the authority of the BBC behind them.

To be honest, Caribbean Voices was produced by the BBC because of their commitment to Commonwealth culture that continues to this day, but the level of attention during the fifties was also due to colonial guilt. That guilt has now disappeared and many of us now have to depend upon the “kindness of strangers” because our own governments/ countries cannot (will not?) support activities in the arts. This is not only because of limited budgets, but limited minds. Blogging provides the kind of freedom that is anathema to many gatekeepers who want to control the flow of information throughout the Caribbean.

Well said, Geoffrey!

To make it easier for Barbados Free Press readers to enjoy more of Geoffrey's excellent work, we've added a permanent link to his blog under "Blogroll" on our sidebar links.

For the tip, a glass of rum-punch to Nicholas Laughlin at Global Voices Online 

Singer Joss Stone – That’s Who… Says “New Look” A Result of Barbados Food

Singer Joss Stone is back in Barbados and has been seen visiting a friend at a local address. Our Shona (who may have a few friends in the music industry) says that Joss has been working up some songs for her next album that will have a distinctly island flavour.

As to Stone's new and thinner look, the Daily Mail is reporting that she is crediting our healthy island foods for her weight loss.

Hey… Joss always looked OK to me, but now… nice!

Cliverton

photo courtesy of Splash! and The Daily Mail

AN SHONA SAY TO CLIVE – you betta watch out cause you be in BIG trouble you get home. doan go put up de photo like that no more! 

Caribbean Blogging Seminar May 31 – National Library – Port Of Spain

Prolific blogger Nicholas Laughlin will be hosting a Caribbean Blogging Seminar on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at the National Library in Port Of Spain, Trinidad.

Here is an excerpt from his blog…

–This is the "abstract" I wrote a few months back for an event called "Global Voices, Caribbean Accents: A Roundtable on Blogging in the Caribbean", which is part of the programme of the Caribbean Studies Association's annual conference, currently ongoing in Port of Spain. The theme of this year's conference is "The Caribbean in the Age of Modernity", and Alice Backer, the Francophonia editor for Global Voices, had the bright idea that a panel on blogging would fit in very neatly.

So tomorrow morning at 11.15 in the first-floor seminar room at the National Library in Port of Spain–a couple of blocks from the CSA conference headquarters at the Crowne Plaza Hotel–Georgia, Attillah, and I will have a decidedly unscholarly, free-form public dialogue about the current and potential roles of blogging and other forms of participative web media in the Caribbean.

A special-edition Caribbean Free Radio podcast–incorporating interviews with various CSA members which we recorded this morning–will debut, we'll talk about our personal experiences with blogging and about the Caribbean blogs we think most interesting, and if the library's wi-fi and audio-visual equipment are as spiffy as we've been told, we'll stage a fully multi-media event, including live access of webpages on a big screen and who knows what other marvels. (It would be super if a member of the audience came equipped with laptop and decided to liveblog the proceedings.)

We'll post detailed reports afterwards, including selections from our notes and links to all the blogs and other sites we refer to during the roundtable. There was talk of a Skypecast, but we may have quite enough on our hands already….

Who Was Seen Yesterday At Green Ham Barbados?

Shona just had a call. YOU-KNOW-WHO was seen yesterday evening visiting an old friend at Green Ham. We didn't even know that this person was back on the island.

There may be a photo!

Oh My… So Exciting!

Blogging Around: Socialism vs. Capitalism at Booker Rising

Detroit Blogger Akindele Akinyemi puts forward this idea…

"We should reject socialism because it is a form of psychological slavery that keep us dependent on a larger system to take care of us."

Answers Roderick in the Comments at Booker Rising…

"And pure capitalism is physical and financial enslavement. Neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism is the answer. I like the balance that America has achieved."

Open for Discussion in The Comments Section of Barbados Free Press…