There is a movie, Dumb and Dumber, staring Jim Carrey, but Trinidad has gone one level higher; we have dumb, dumber and dumbest.
A few months ago, we heard utterances from our Ministry of Finance indicating that the global financial crisis would not affect us, then, shortly after, we heard our PM state that we need to tighten our belts in an attempt at preparing for the financial storm which was approaching. Now, that's dumb.
Last year, our Health Minister stated categorically that there was no dengue outbreak as there were no confirmed cases of dengue deaths. This was in contrast to the WHO's pronouncement, and lo and behold, I recently read a statement issued by our Health Ministry that there are less dengue cases this year than last year. How could you have less of something which you never had? Dumb, once again.
One of our finance ministers did not know the difference between "break" and "roll over". Talk about dumb. Yet the PM still has full confidence in her. That's even dumber.
Even our President has suffered from a level of dumbness, by selecting a man who was guilty of plagiarism to head the Integrity Committee as he believed it to be a minor offence. Sorry, pres, but that's dumb.
Recently, an Opposition member stated in Parliament that there was "ethnic cleansing in the Health Ministry", yet most of the doctors who were either let off or left have denied that there is any type of ethnic cleansing in the health sector, but still, this "learned professional" has decided to stick by his story. Sorry, Tim, but that's dumber.
Our PM spoke about having special knowledge that would make people think differently in the brutal murder of a child. That was both dumb and insensitive. Now, more recently, he has told the citizenry to loosen their belts, but about a week later in the August 5 Daily Express, the headline reads that we are in a confirmed recession. Mr PM, you descended to the dumber category.
We have had 550 murders in 2008 with about a two per cent detection rate, and as for finding any of the 550 missing persons, we have had a zero per cent success rate, yet people are actually expecting the police to miraculously solve the recent attack on two foreigners in Tobago. Once again folks, that's dumber.
Our Opposition Leader is insulting everyone one day and, then calling for unity with the same insulted people and actually expects a positive response. Talk about dumber.
Now, finally, the highest level of dumbness is reserved for the population of this country because they still support and will vote for these persons, regardless of the level of dumbness they display. Now that's real dumb, dumber, dumbest, or in local parlance, "plain dotishness".
10 Aug 2009
Dumb, dumber and dumbest
