The Wrong Palm of Calypso and Politics will Hunt you

This business of alleged palm cheating is extremely worrying and disturbing. Well, let us quote veteran Calypso commentator, critique and observer, who have over 35 years' experience in this business, Magistrate Ossie Lewis. His words and observations have to be taken seriously and with care.

"Even though there is no law against it, it is not ethical, definitely not ethical," he told Q95′s Matt Peltier when the issue came up during the carnival season. "I don't know what the rules are … so it may not be illegal but certainly it is not ethical."

There we are! I am reliable informed that this is a usual occurrence and if I am not mistaken the president of the Dominica Calypso Association indicated so during a DBS morning news with Curtis Mathew. Well if so, it is sad news for one of Dominica's premier and well loved calypsonian.

It appears that there are serious questions about the ethical behaviour of those who profess to be leaders and usually come up with makeup and silly, well crafted excuses to justify their wrong doing. To name a few: the French citizen fiasco, the bin bobol, the passport scandal affair, villas, upon villas of nuisances and lies and deception just to stay at the top and despite this some loyal supporters rather than submit and admit, they wish to say and believe that "it did not fit so acquit", even if the lie and the evidence is starring them in the face, sorry, in the palm.

The question now is who are our leaders to champion our up and coming youth and young calypsonians? As I write the Teen Calypso King Competition was taking place at Crazy Coconut; how do we explain that to them? How do we say it is wrong, or do we teach them the art of deception by justifying it with lies?

We must be the guardians of the youth and refer them to our real heroes who stood for something: Dr Clarrissa Etienne, Dame Eugenia Charles, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King, and E.C. Loblack, to name a few of our heroes. It is difficult to go forward to include in this list current sitting government politicians who appear to sit idle back and condone corruption and cheating in high places.

Observer