EDITOR: It is Christmas time once more. The season for feasting and celebrating. I can well understand part of the feasting, but, certainly not the reason for the celebrating. True to form (like clock work) at this particular time of year the fresh vegetables which are best for our health are either not available, or, the small amounts that are, are not only very expensive – they are for the most part of equally poor quality as well, and, to lend insult to this poverty alleviation fallacy, those foods are imported.{{more}}

There is a song which says, “I talk to the trees but they wouldn’t listen to me.’’ Surrender? Hell no! There can be no good reason, that a tropical country like St. Vincent and the Grenadines should continue to take the route of an escapist. The heads of the wisest in this country have to meet to plot the course. That has to happen not tomorrow not next week; time has long gone past us, it must happen now.

I have to admit that I am in a continuing struggle with myself to apply the basic minimum common sense to our tourism fallacy (one needs to point out right here and now, if only for the benefit of our trans-fixed political bias, that this tourism fallacy began taking root over 20 years ago and is continuing) of spending very large amounts of monies promoting tourism and bringing large numbers of visitors to our shores only to feed them with imported foods.

Please don’t take me back to the dark and unfathomed days of ancient Africa. Please.

Stanley M. Quammie