Wayne Brown

In our time I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. (J Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, quoting from the Bhagavad Gita upon the successful testing, in New Mexico in July 1945, of the first atom bomb)Now we are all sons of bitches.

In Our Time Seventy years ago last week, the armies of Hitler swept into Poland, in the opening act of what would soon be World War II.

In Our Time Some time around midnight on July 18, 1969 (easy to remember the date, since it was my 25th birthday), on Chappaquiddick Island off Martha’s Vineyard, a ’67 Oldsmobile drove off the rail-less Dike Bridge, flipped and sank upside down in an inlet.

In Our Time It’s an emotion under siege by our explanatory, know-all, internet age: Wonder, I mean.

In Our Time It’s a thought to madden a Manichaean, but the usual outcome of any struggle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ isn’t victory for one or the other, but stalemate.

In Our Time Six months ago, Barack Obama came to office with his plate overflowing: a stricken US economy, two wars, and ambitious (and politically expensive) plans to reform health care and move the US towards (clean) energy independence.

In our time Jokes about Jamaican ostentation abound — jokes mostly told by Jamaicans themselves.

In our time   “Dr Du Bois took the lead in making the United States and the world recognize that racial prejudice was not a mere matter of Negroes being persecuted but was a cancer which poisoned the whole civilization of the United States.”

Water, water everywhere?When, many years ago, VS Naipaul referred to the land of his birth as “the little island in the mouth of the Orinoco,” Trinidadians resented what they interpreted as an intentionally belittling description.

The world on his plate Ten months ago, when John McCain suggested that rival Barack Obama join him in suspending his campaign to make a dramatic dash back to Washington to ‘fix’ the US’s suddenly looming financial catastrophe, Obama declined.

The Obama era Wayne Brown is a well-known Trinidadian writer and columnist who now lives in Jamaica.

The muse of hatred Back in mid-April, the US Department of Homeland Security under new Obama appointee Janet Napolitano released a sobering report on the recent rise of right-wing extremism in the US.

The silent majority Wayne Brown is a well-known Trinidadian writer and columnist who now lives in Jamaica.

A new AmericaWayne Brown is a well-known Trinidadian writer and columnist who now lives in Jamaica.

by Wayne Brown(Wayne Brown is a well-known Trinidadian writer and columnist who now lives in Jamaica.

Wayne Brown is a  well-known Trinidadian writer and columnist who now lives in Jamaica.

Danger signs Wayne Brown is a well-known Trinidadian writer and columnist who now lives in Jamaica.

Worse than Vietnam ‘The good news: Obama understands what’s wrong in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Obama era Wayne Brown is a well-known Trinidadian writer and columnist who now lives in Jamaica.

Heart of darkness ‘The trouble with torture is that sometimes it works; and when it does, the devil sings.