Editor,
I have designed a special artificial intelligence (AI) tool to make life easier for Guyanese newspaper and news site readers. It is called ‘The all-purpose Guyana Commentator’. Five simple steps to write a Guyopinion column:
i. Swallow a dictionary preferably the OED. Plenty big words to use that will baffle the readers. Put them together in some logical order
ii. Show off all the books you have read. Freud, Marx, Lacan and Milton Freidman for starters. Assume others have not. A little academic knowledge can be a very dangerous thing.
iii. Don’t ever hide your prejudices. Gabriel Lall hates Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP. Randy Persaud loves them-he is paid to, Freddie Kissoon is a PPP ‘comebackee’ a born again lover of Irfaan Ali. Prejudice runs through their columns like a town’s name on a stick of seaside rock.
iv. Don’t economise on length. The more words the better. Looks good. Say you do not have enough space constantly.
v. Finally some advice from the First World. Less is usually better. The very best and most perceptive columnists write once or at most twice a week. Read Guyana Boy Sir Trevor Phillips in the Times of London. Carefully crafted, carefully edited. Always a cracking read. Few signs of that in the Guyopinion columns.
These men (and they all are…) shape the discourse in Guyana. Should they do it better?
Sincerely,
John’ Bill Cotton/Reform’ Mair