I guess that is a question that is often asked in Saint Lucia now for much more serious reasons than I intend to ask it tonight.  While I do not negate the seriousness of the crime wave that is sweeping through our nation at this time, I cannot allow it to restrict me so much that I cannot use the words I find most appropriate.

 “IT’S TIME TO CHOOSE A QUEEN”

The Cultural Development Foundation invites applications for this year’s National Carnival Queen Show.

It’s a great chance to become Saint Lucia’s 2010 Carnival Queen. Applications are open to young ladies meeting the following criteria:

Kaiso Body Sets Election Dates

After months of discussion over form and structure, the new Calypso Association seems ready to deal with the question of leadership before it begins to consider whether it should re-take ownership of the big calypso and soca shows of Carnival 2010, which runs from May 30 to June 20.

Financial and leadership issues which came to a head in the old Association around 2005 forced the Cultural Development Foundation (CDF) to take over control of the big shows, namely the Calypso Semi-Finals and Finals; and the Groovy and Power Soca Finals.

Meindad ‘Ratchie’ Raggie’s sudden, violent and untimely end last Saturday, apparently by the guns of thieves in the night, sent me on a search of my meagre and disorganised personal ‘calypso archive’ for whatever information was available on his calypso career. Ratchie’s murder is as shocking as that of any other young, talented person, but it confirms that the scant regard for life by a ruthless generation of deviants puts everybody else’s life at risk something as routine as minding your own business; going to work; or as in Ratchie’s case, going home from a hard day’s work.

I did an unforgettable interview with him (‘Age Of Maturity’; Mirror 6/20/2008), with TOT Executive Cecil Charles by his side, during the 2008 calypso season, when he appeared confident enough to see the senior, calypsonians as equals.

Another meeting is scheduled for tomorrow and one can only hope that at the end of it the St. Lucia Calypsonians Association (2009) will produce a more convincing press release about progress made in trying to get the new body “up and running” by the end of jazz.

That’s when the first calypso tent show for 2010 is “expected”, says the new Association’s last press release, perhaps the most vague of the three so far received by this newspaper since December 15, last year.
Meetings of the new association are closed to the members of the press, who have to rely on press releases distributed by Ezi Hall, the calypso show emcee. The new body had promised that “all founding members” – total 21 -- would have met on Saturday January 9 at the National Cultural Centre “to discuss and hopefully ratify the constitution which shall serve as the operational guide for the organization.”