Plain Talk - Phillip Edward Alexander
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Give Jack his Jacket....
Ahhh Jack, Jack, Jack........not since the movie 'Titanic' has that one name captivated so many and held them so spellbound for so long. Austin Jack Warner, our teflon antihero with that quick, stuttering wit, you who should be fodder for the media (if we had an independent media of course), but never mind, I will do my best to record your shenanigans for posterity as best as I can.
Unlike the hero from the aforementioned movie, our Jack is straight up 'in your face' constant, wanna-be action-hero with a bullet, and now that he has an entire police force and an army to boot, things could get interesting.
Make no mistake, not a day goes by when I am not caught completely off guard by what comes out of this man's mouth so effortlessly, and I would like to thank our Prime Minister for elevating this national treasure to the post of Minister of National Security because, while there was little if any opportunity for his now famous 'Jack-isms' while talking about roads and bridges, as National Security Minister there seems to be no limits to the crazy-speak that flows trippingly from his lips with such little effort on a daily basis.
Someone got killed?
Send the police home with guns.
Someone else got killed?
Send them home with the cars too.
Another murder?
Draft the firemen into the army.
Never one to stick around long enough to see the actual results of his plans or proposals, when confronted with a headline '35 murders under Jack,' his deadpan response that he did not kill any of them was trademark 'voop first and answer questions later' Jack.
I remember the first time we realized that, of all the jokers in Kamla's pack, Jack was destined to be chief jester for at least the full five years (barring of course, the need for some reason to leave town in a hurry).
Threatened early on for the position of chief clown by that lovable loon Therese Baptiste-Cornelis (then Minister of Health & Silly Tantrums) and comic gymnast - 'huggable' Herbert Volney (Minister of Justice, fine brochures and WASA fetes), Jack had to establish himself in quick time and in quick time he did when, during his first stint as acting Prime Minister he offered a little boy who was kidnapped, subsequently abandoned for some reason and who found his own way out of the forest a National Award and a FIFA watch.
The negative public response was so severe I thought Jack was finished, complete, kaput, but without missing a beat or a step he showed us his now trademark doublespeak two-step and convinced everyone watching (including the very media that recorded what he said the night before) that it was not a National Award he meant but something else, something he could not name, something entirely new, so we named it for him, and at that moment a superstar and the Jack Award's were born.
They said of Apple founder Steve Jobs that he had the ability to distort reality and I would like to say that our Jack has that gift too.
Able to walk through fire and come out not even smelling of smoke. How do you explain him having his nuts so far over the fire over the 'cash for votes' bribery scandal that rocked world football governing body FIFA to its very core and appeared destined for international courts, charges and an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies, and yet Jack walked away from that clean as a whistle, unbleached, unblemished and un-neutered, save and except of course for the disgraceful expulsion from world football with the caveat that he not even step on a football field anywhere on the planet, Jack spun his way out of even that.
Now he is Minister of National Security, and while at first many thought the rumors of the coming appointment had to be a joke, turns out the joke was on us.
Take the announcement on his first day in Office as a prime example, that the firemen were going to be drafted into his crime plan. This came so far out of left field it caught people unsure as to what position to take and mind you, this is a country that added a red, white and blue blimp to its crime fighting arsenal so nothing at this point should be able to shock the weary public.
Is this a good thing?
Do firemen know how to shoot?
And if the firemen were busy fighting crime, who would fight the fires? It didn't matter because like most things Jack says, it isn't meant to be real, just to confuse, distract and confuffle.
Anyway, Action Jack, fresh from his first stint in 'the field' together with Colin Partap (who has since been dubbed Robin to his (Warner's) Batman), and having arrested notorious crime lord Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh and demolished his evil lair, next proposed the drafting of cadets into the police service, again to a confused public response. Someone sarcastically suggested at this rate maybe Jack was about to enlist doubles vendors and T&TEC workers into his new army, leaving me to wonder what about the homeless, caught in the tug of war between Louis Lee Sing's desire to clean up Gotham and Glenn Ramadharsingh's desire to do nothing at all, maybe this was something worth looking into.
I have always been a proponent of arming the homeless just to see what they would do, and here was an opportunity to go all the way and give them badges and police cars too.
Could make for interesting nightly news other than the tired boring 'this one was gunned down' and 'that one was murdered' fare night after night after night after night, wouldn't it? - “Madman arrests pigeon for jay walking, film at eleven.” It could work.
How about store clerks, singers and actors, can they be police as well? What is the limit or the criteria? Street walkers and street sweepers, sign painters and paint makers, can they be police?
How about the clergy, the imams, priests and nuns, the head of DOMA, Om Lalla, where does it stop? Should we enlist everybody?
Maybe that is Jack's master crime plan after all. With one point three million people playing police, there will be nobody left to play thief. It's such a crazy idea it just might work......
Posted by Phillip Edward Alexander at 4:43 AM
Poll