TOURIST BOARD ANNOUNCES MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR INVESTMENT IN THEATER & ARTS

In a surprise move, this week, SLTB is getting set to announce a major multi-million dollar investment in theater and the arts.

In an exclusive interview, DIS FLOGG's favorite frenemy, Louis Lewis, director of the St Lucia Tourist Board, announced a major turnaround and refocus in St Lucia's marketing.

"I don't know," said Lewis to DIS FLOGG, brushing his non-existent blonde tresses out of his wannabe blue eyes. "I just woke up one morning tired of wasting people's money on trade shows and first class tickets and per diems and shit. I thought to myself, 'Why should we continue down this current course with tourism that lets Russian mafia money buy both political parties? Why should we force people to sell their land in the World Heritage Site so that criminals they can set up their marinas and hotels, fence our people out and then try to buy the beaches that the law clearly says we cannot sell?"

Of course, Louis Lewis has to much vested interested in the self-loathing that causes Caribbean people to try to become something they are not in order to attract the worst kind of foreign investors.

I was just trying to get some lulz and kix into this story before the bullets start to fly.

WHERE IS DEREK WALCOTT'S MILLION DOLLAR ANNUAL PLAY/FESTIVAL?

Question: What country in the right mind would have an internationally adored writer/artist at their disposal and not give him at least a cool million every twelve months so he can put on local productions and do local training?

What kind of country fails to capitalize on the international renown and expertise of their greatest living son?

The correct answer is China. You thought I was talking about St Lucia, didn't you? Ha! Why is that? Whose plate did that fall in? Who did the cap fit?

While you shoot a myriad of government agencies and ministers past and present for this failure, I'm havig an idea.

Pause. Reload.

It's good to spend money on Shakespeare.

For two years in a row, The Globe, Shakespeare's old theater conpany, has visited St Lucia, blessing the island with performances that we might otherwise only enjoy in the sterile, streaming world of YouTube.

It's probably the best investment the St Lucia Tourist Board ever made - even though, frankly, it wasn't their idea and they failed to take it seriously last year.

Certainly better than the investments Tourist Board makes in first class travel and accomodation to international trade shows that they never show up early for because of they're still en bas dlo.

But think about this:

With more than forty million a year to blow away, a Nobel Laureate at their disposal and several other renowned directors ready for service.....TOURIST BOARD HAS YET TO INVEST A CENT IN ST LUCIAN THEATER.

Now tell me how it is possible that they somehow neglected to kill a whole flock of birds with one stone, by showing Derek the money? A million a year would pay Derek Walcott handsomely, keep him on island for longer periods, attract some truly excellent high end visitors to St Lucia and expose and train young St Lucians to the world's most excellent theater.

With a million a year, Walcott could probably produce plays by other writers and directors.

His name in the production credits alone could bring international acclaim to excellent directors like Drenia Frederick, who are only just beginning the struggle to make their brand names escape the local gravity and free itself up on the international stage, where Lucians would have no choice by to respect and revere them.

Now, I know what they're saying over there in the cesspits of corruption: "Derek is an old man. He's on his last legs. Puting money on him is liking investing in vinyl records."

That's almost true. The old poet has worked himself to the edge. Even though some of us hope and pray, we read his work and know that he can already see the day. But Derek is a hard-ass and he will keep working until the day the angels wrestle him to the ground. So we probably still have a few million to invest over the next few years. Imagine how valuable to video productions and rehearsal footage of those last productions will be to future generations.

Of course, as we just said, he can see the end.

Lucky for us, Derek Walcott is not an isolated incident in the history and culture of St Lucia.

He is merely the apex of a tradition of excellence in theatre and playwriting. It's already clear to everyone who is paying attention who Derek's natural successor is.

THE NEW DEREK WALCOTT (Except With Better Hair)

His name is Kendel Hippolyte.

He was either the youngest of the Arts Guild generation of artists or the oldest of the next generation that gave birth to popular theater, street theater, etc. He is the man of the cusp of generations. He is worshipped as a theater god, an immortal genius in every Caribbean island and diasporan community except St Lucia itself. When CDF sends his productions to CARIFESTA, Trinidadians and Jamaicans come to worship at the feet of St Lucian actors in the hopes that the second hand scent of 'Straw', as he was known, because the was the smallest and shortest of a family of thespians, including Alvin Hippolyte, will rub off on them.

And he is an even better director than Walcott.

Little Straw is not so short anymore. In fact, he is the single tallest tree of the generations of thespians who followed the Walcott brothers and the Arts Guild generation.

He is also the greatest literature teacher and theater trainer, perhaps in the entire Independence era. While this sounds like a subjective statement to some, to those who know theatre, it is an unequivocal fact. He has trained more of the current generation of professional theatricians than anyone. He deliberately set out to create a new generation of St Lucian actors, writers and directors in the 1980s. By the year 2000, he had totally achieved it. How do I know that?

I'm one of them.

As a child, I was exposed to him in the theater by my mother, who was something of an actress herself. As a young adult, I was in several plays before I crossed paths with him. But I was never a real actor before he laid his holy hands on me and slapped the fakery and foolishness from my ego so that I could never again return to being one of those people who wants the glory more than they want to do the work.

The result was that later on, when I worked with one of my least favorite Lucian directors and was very unhappy with the production we produced, Derek Walcott looked on me and still saw a real actor, not just another wannabe, and recruited me to galavant across the Mediterranean with him and a mixed cast of Lucians, Trinis, Italian and Spanish actors.

With a million dollar a year investment in theater, Tourist Board would educate St Lucians, give the youth some hope other that 680 in a plastic bottle, bring international renown and train and evelate dozens, maybe hundreds of talented Lucians over a short period.
With a million dollar investment in theater and perhaps sports events like Blackheart Football, Tourist Board could rain on the spiritual drought that drags many young people into the BET lifestyle that is killing Black America. Young people hardly have decent recreation and entertainment, which explains the high rate of alcohol and drug abuse among the youth. If creative arts are the spiritual energy of a nation, then it's no wonder that most St Lucian youth recognize that their country is giving them malnutrition of the mind and soul.

It's too bad. The next generation of Dereks and Kendals are already here. Like their forebears, they will probably have to run away to make their names and voices heard.

As for me, Negmarron is tired of running.

I'm going to have to convince them of their responsibility to invest some of those marketing multi-millions in the future of St Lucia.

Or I'm going to have to fight them.

Either way, something's going to have to give.

SECURITY & COPS STOP FLOGG BLOG FROM ENTERING HIGH COURT OPENING

BUT WE BADDER THAN THEM....

THEY DON'T KNOW THE LAW

You would think that anyone would be welcome to attend the opening of this year's High Court sittings, on Wednesday 17 September.

Not if you're the FLOOOGG Bloooog...

When I walked into the security entrance, an erstwhile private security officer stopped me and asked for media ID.

"I don't have media ID," I answered honestly. "Haven't had media ID for 20 years."

"Well, you need ID to get in..." he insisted.

"No, I don't," I insisted. "I come in here all the time. Ask them."

Two cops sitting to the side were paying attention. Officer 448 answered the question definitively. I needed a media ID. The only problem with that was he already recognized me as Jason Sifflet from The FLOGG Blog.

"If the two cops recognize me as Jason Sifflet from The FLOGG Blog, what do you need ID for?"

"Because those are the rules," Officer 448 lied. It was not his fault. The slaves of the system must always go above and beyond the law to please their masters if they want to keep their jobs in the system.

"Those are not the rules, 448," I replied, confidently.

He jumped and looked at the number on his shirt as if he forgot for a moment that he was the only 448 on the RSLPF. The runaround continued for a while, but I didn't let them get to me. In fact, I joked with them about how ridiculous the situation was.

In my head, I was already writing the article headlined: FLOGG BLOGGER DENIED ACCESS TO HIGH COURT OPENING!!!! The private security, realizing that I was right in every respect and that he and his cop friends were being backed into a corner, decided to pass the buck. He went looking for courthouse staff to confirm that he was right to wrongfully deny me access.

A redskinned man in the white shirt shouted to me from across the waiting area outside the High Court: "It's too late. You can't go in. We have to keep the door closed because of the air conditioning."

"That's a lame excuse," I smiled, through tiger's teeth. Even the cops and the security guard laughed at him.

Belittled but not beaten, he drew closer. In this moment, he was the defender of the system, the onyl thing standing between their continued corruption and their exposure. He recongized that he would have to coax me out, somehow, because I wasn't leaving on my own.

"You should have come on time," he said, raising his eyebrows, hanging his justification on my impunctuality. Suddenly, instead of Officer 448 being the star of the story I was writing in my mind, the redskinned liar was. Officer 448 was immediately absolved of his sins. The cop was just a slave, after all. This red skinned liar was a house servant. A much more valuable target for Negmarron justice.

I gave up on breaking into the High Court opening session. I was satisfied to start digging up his grave while he was still alive and expose everything I found in there. I was literally ready for a strategic withdrawal.

But a funny thing happened on the way to being denied my rightful access to the halls of justice.

"Hi, Jaaaasooon," a civil servant friend said, as she slipped undisturbed past security. Another woman came from another direction. They both headed for the door of the High Court.

I looked at 448 and the red skinned liar and slowly, deliberately turned my back on them and went to hold the door open for the gentle ladies.

As any good gentleman should.

The open door revealed a room that looked like a cheap Nigerian movie version of EYES WIDE SHUT. The killuminati of the legal fraternity were all decked out in their black satanic cloaks. They were seated according to rank and privilege, with High Court judges like Justice Belle and Cumberbatch sitting high up over everyone, House Speaker Peter Foster and Queen's Counsels Michael Gordon and Peter Foster sitting near the front. The rest of the killuminati dutifully and obediently sat in the, uh, stands, I guess you would call them....

The ladies politely went inside as I held open the door.

Without looking back at the red skinned liar, the chickenshit security guard and the slavish Officer 448, I entered the court room. I walked as far up front as I could and sat down.
I had finally broken in.

Now they would not be able to get me out without facing some terrible consequences.

For the next few months, we will take a look at what kind of justice they mete out to Negmarron. 

While they put others on trial, The FLOGG Blog will put them on trial.

The judges.

The lawyers.

The system itself.

Because, if Dame Janice Pereira DBE, Chief Justice of the OECS Supreme Court is right, small island justice has progressed far beyond the cruel, classist, slow and corrupt affair that it was when native islanders first started going to law school in the hopes of changing everything.

If what she says is true, then Lucians are about to get a taste of hi-tech, upgraded, compassionate justice that protects the weak and the helpless.

Somehow, though, it seems more realistic to expect that nothing has changed. Dame Janice was expressing her best wishful thoughts. All the evidence so far only confirms that the native lawyers who should have changed everything did nothing but perpetuate the abusive, slow and corrupt system they inherited from the British. They collaborated with it and then made it more corrupt than colonialism ever was.

And then, they want to bitch about working conditions in court and delays in justice. Lol, slap!

If judges really wanted to speed up justice, like Dame Perreira insisted they do, they would be using smartphones instead pen and paper in paper in court.

As things stand, the biggest single hold up in St Lucian justice is not the police, the prisons or any of the other usual suspects. It is the judges themselves, who are still living in early 20th century and refuse to apply the power of technology that sits in their pockets right now, in a positive way.

P.S. Justice Suzy d'Auvergne did not like thei dirty little boys club. She had to keep her head down to make progress. She might have been a little rough on Negmarron sometimes when we were bad. But let us never mistake our good lady for one of them. She was better than that.

"Why, thank you, Jason.
You always were my little favorite criminal...."

NO PENALTIES FOR CORRUPT POLITICIANS - A Lucian Bedtime Story

FAIRY TALE NUMBER NOTHING

A Negmarron Nightmare

One upon a time in a land exactly where you live, a group of smart-assed lawyers and PhDs got together and decided to be sausage makers.

Lol. Not weally. They really decided to hijack a country and make people like it.

The country's government was kuwwupt and the people were vewy, vewy unhappy. So the new bunch of vagabonds and piwates decided to sell the people a magic potion which they pwomised would make evewy politician honest, at least about their finances, holdings and assets.

The people dwank it. They dwank it aaaaallll dooowwn.

But the magic potion was just Kool Aid. When the new cannibal kings...I mean, lawyers and PhDs, wrote up some legislation that said that certain people in offices of power, whether elected or not, have to weeport themselves, their money, their assets, holdings, etc. they made sure it didn't have any sting. All they did was pweetend to be transpawent.

About evewything but their jabals.

THE NEXUS OF KOOL AID AND BULLSHIT

But hear dat:

The legislation was not just Kool Aid. It was actually bullshit, too. I told you that constitutional lawyer was a genius. He ripped the very fabric of the space-time continuum to produce legislation that was two kinds of poisonous substance AT THE SAME TIME. He gave it his boys. They dried it, rolled it, called it cannabis and made the people smoke it. As everyone knows, bullshit makes you high. So peoples gots high. But it was no ganja. 

Ganja is to plants as man is to animals. It's the last, bestest plant that God made. If God was a plant, he'd look like Ganja.

In the name of the Ganja, the Indica and the Sativa, Amen.

Bullshit is not one of God's creations, it is a result of God's creation. It makes you high with ammonia.

You might as well dry your pee down to crystals and smoke it in a crack pipe.

So it was with the Integrity Commission and the anti-corruption legislation. Dried pee in a crack pipe. Smoke that, stupid niggers. And shabines. And dirty whites. And expats.

Imagine this:

The Integrity Commission that was  established to police the finances of the potentially corrupt...had no punitive powers. Basically, if you did't comply and satisfy the Integrity Commission, they could publish your name in the Gazette. 

Oooooo. 

Watch all the scawed gwaft-mongerers wunning for shelter and weeporting themselves to get a lighter sentence. 

You all not running for shelter?
You know the fellaz so boldfaced,they're not running for shelter, they running for elections again?

And so when one government investigated itself for corruption, all the culprits, including Rufus Bousquet and Charles Fleming had nothing to fear. What was going to happen? Nothing.
When another party came in power in 1997, they could have changed all that. But then it would expose them and their friends to you know, integrity and shit. 

And so you get what you have here.

Essentially, the legislation and anti-corruption measures that one party put in place were so gay that when the other party's Forty Feeves took over in 2006, they basically had a license to steal.
You got that? That sunk in? Let's do it again.

One party's anti-corruption and pro-integrity measures were so weak that they basically gave the other party a license to steal.

LUCKY FOR US, WE HAVE KENNY

Lucky for us, we don't live in that nightmare fairytale country. We live in a reality where a genius constitutional lawyer named Kenny Anthony, who leads us so ably out of the abyss right now, wrote legislation that had severe penalties for corruption. Kenny Anthony changed everything forever when he brought the Integrity Commission into being with his cosmic constitutional omnipotence.

Let the angels sing.

That's why, ever since he first came into power, St Lucia has seen so many corrupt politicians and civil servants go to jail. We had to legalize drugs just to make room in the jails for corrupt politicians and professionals. Hallelujuah!!

Because of Kenny Anthony, we live in the best of all possible worlds where there are no poor people in jail, just real criminals. Church!!!!

Kenny Anthony's anti-corruption legislation and Integrity Commission are so strong that Lucian leaders can't make a dishonest dollar without some bad shit coming down on them. No one in any political party can step out of line with the St Lucian people, because Kenny Anthony is such a genius that no one can commit corruption without taking some jail. Praise the holy name of the Anthony....

Thank God for Kenny that we don't live a fairy tale where our leaders of government and business can do whatever they want and never have to face a single legal consequence.

Why thank you Jason....that's very grateful of you...

Oh shit.

We don't live in that country? We live in the one where everything is screwed up and the Integrity Commission is powerless?

Omg, I can't tell the difference between a horrible nightmare and the Lucian reality anymore. I'm freaking out.

Damn. Lucian weed must be getting better for true.

You see that? If the government was smart they would legalize weed and then everyone would be as delusional and oblivious to the facts as me.

In conclusion, this story is not about endemic corruption after all. It's about how legalizing ganja can help turn more ordinary St Lucians into harmless, misguided bloggers like Jason Sifflet. One wonders why Lucian politicians wouldn't want more of that...

WHO SHUT DOWN THE FLOGG BLOG?

A PRELIMINARY REPORT ON A CONTINUING INVESTIGATION

"This should never have happened," a Google insider told the FLOGG when after the controversial blog was reinstated last Wednesday.

"It was a mistake that should never have happened. There was nothing on the blog that could possibly be construed as Hate Speech or give us any other reason to delete this blog. It doesn't violate free speech in any way. In fact, we have flagged The FLOGG Blog so that if another community complaint comes in, it cannot be dealt with at the standard level, it has to go to a higher authority and that is because of this incident."


So there was record of complaints from local sources. Another more official source later confirmed that the shut down was not as a result of an automated scan for TOS Violations. It was triggered by a complaint.

The complaint had no good grounds.

But somehow, The FLOGG Blog was deleted anyway.

Someone who was too low on the ladder took a decision that they didn't have the authority for. If not for a strategy of targetted, multi-directional complaint, The FLOGG might still be down today. Thank God for friends with friends. With friends in Google.

Thank God for officials with conscience. Unfortunately, not quite enough to suit my present purpose. Google readily admitted that it made a mistake that should never have happened. It was much more difficult to make them rat out the fascist Nazi Lucian lawyers and executives who wrote the complaints that caused someone at Google to wrongly and maliciously delete The FLOGG.

"I'm not in a postion to say how many complaints or where they originated," said the more official source. "You understand that in the same way you have free speech guarantees, they do too. And one of their guarantees is anonymity."

But the anonymity shields those who shut down The FLOGG's free speech. There was an attack on free speech. We have to find the culprits, right?

The official couldn't help me any more.

I was going to need a lawyer.

Luckily there was a firm that was interested in kicking some ass in the name of free speech to find the egg fucking aliens who committed the dastardly act.

The Freedom of Information Act was already being loaded, like a clip, into a court order. Not that we don't know who did it. We know. We just want to tell you in Google's words. After all, one of theirs was complicit in this.

In the meantime, we learnt several valuable things:




1. The shutdown of The FLOGG Blog was NOT the result of an automated scan as suggested by St Lucia Labour Party operatives like Jadia Jn.Pierre, Jah Yute, Claudius Francis, Frank Charles and others who are active in the social media. Their eagerness to pwen douvan on this matter, arriving at conclusions and co-ordinated defensiveness on behalf of a cornered political elite, in fact, makes them rather suspect. Either they are idiots who being misled or they are hypocrites who are pretending to be on the side of freedom, when they are working for the opposite side. Their active attempts to smear the President of the Media Workers Association, Clinton Reynolds, as a political partisan, in the same period, do nothing but harm to their cause.

2. The morons who did this think they are very clever, but they do not understand how the 21st century works. They left a trail of cyber-breadcrumbs that will live in the metadata for all eternity. It as though a murderer left a trail of blood that will never wash off and led the cops directly to his red hands.

3. The one-man team of The FLOGG Blog and DIS Flogg has rather over-estimated the intelligence of those whose baseless complaint shut down the blog. These people are educated and dangerous, but like most people who don't apply their education, they are not actually very smart. They have exposed the fact their most real threat against 21st century Lucians lies not in intelligence or organization, but in the control of the violence of the state and of the street. That violence is the only thing left to fear from Lab-Flam. As long as we do not take a bullet in the head from them, we're home free and they are extinct.

4. St Lucians, in general, have outgrown the current crop of leaders so much that one FLOGGer with a small team of teenage computer enthusiasts could probably put an end to Labour and Flambeau. People who think the Lab-Flam still has the power over their lives are living in the past. They are tethered to feathers.

5. The FLOGG Blog's contacts in Google outrank Lab-Flam's contacts in Google.

6. The FLOGG Blog's relationship with international law enforcement and intelligence is based on much stronger trust than the relationship between those agencies and Lab-Flam. In fact, when it comes to international contacts, Lab-Flam conceded a lot in terms of networking and useful contacts when it cornered itself into isolating Richard Frederick. And he, the one with the most links, is an international pariah.

7. The community complaints originated in St Lucia.

8. The suspects were politically motivated. They were partisans and paid friends of partisans.

9. They did not go through perfectly normal channels to get the shutdown effected, which is why Jason Sifflet received no warning, no deletion of offending posts, just a very weird shut down. They cheated their way through the shut down by using a Google contact who was too low on the totem pole to legitimately effect the shut down.

10. Because of their actions, FLOGG Blog is now more protected by Google than ever. The FLOGG has been flagged so that anyone who tries to mess with us again is going to have to climb a lot higher on the corporate ladder to find someone powerful enough to corrupt to their cause.

They act all scary but our leaders are a just a bunch of wicked little children.
They don't need more respect. They need some licks and a time out.

As for the identities that everyone wants revealed, that game is not totally complete yet and must be dealt with in a later report. However, let us address the list of suspects who we know have complained about the FLOGG as well as those who were accused in inboxes, by the very people who did this.

THE SUSPECTS

Who shut down the FLOGG?

Was it Lorne Theophilus, Louis Lewis and their lawyer friends? The FLOGG Blog was digging into waste, corruption and total failure to get results at the high maintenance, big budget St Lucia Tourist Board. We're still digging. Tourist Board remains one of the most wasteful and potentially criminally corrupt of all island agencies. They don't waste money in millions. They waste it in the tens of millions.

Was it Peter Foster? The FLOGG had pointed out that he, as Speaker of the House, was breaking ethical firewalls like hackers break code, by accepting government clients AND clients who were suing the government. The FLOGG also pointed out that anyone whose personal bad reputation eclipsed their professional reputation was not a plus to the nation, but rather harmed us by maintaining their official postions.

Was it Allen Chastanet? The FLOGG called him an ass in a headline. And proceeded to prove the thesis. Rather effectively if I do say so myself.

Was it Richard Frederick? He was the first person who threatened The FLOGG with a lawsuit. The first politician who publicly complained about the new style of journalism and its deleterious effects on the protected species known as politicians. The FLOGG answered with a poem that gave him the finger and cursed his mother while quoting scripture.

Was it Thaddeus Antoine? He is one of the ruling party's favorite lawyers right now. Tourist Board loves him.

Was it Al Elliot? Who's Al Elliot?

Rick Wayne? Please. He might take secret pleasure, but he would not do it himself. Would never even think it.

Was it Sarge Bruno? Someone wants me to think that, but that's not what I'm seeing in the field research or in the, um, other research, if you know what I mean. For now, I'm writing that off as a rumor spread by the very people who did it.

Was it Kenny?

He wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. But he has this way of avertying his eyes from Peter Foster, Yasmine Walcott and Alva Baptiste proclivities. He has shown great capacity for allowing things that should never continue to persist interminably. I can't actually find Kenny's culpability in all this.

But I am finding his boloms everywhere. Either Papa Bois is in on it or the boloms are off the reservation and Papa Bois does not have command of the armies of the night anymore.

From the first moment that it was known that Google deleted The FLOGG for Hate Speech, everyone had the feeling that the poor politicians couldn't take the FLOGGings anymore. It was messing up everything. even when it was wrong, it was damned right. Worse yet, The FLOGG was not asking people to support something or buy something or vote something. It was just honestly asking them to admit that there was something in their butt that didn't belong there and it hurt. Oh, and it was telling them exactly who put the lubless dildos in.

In their desperation, the culprits made the one wrongest move they could possible make, apart from suing The FLOGG. They made moves to shut it down and they left a trail. And then, they got on social media, some with their real profiles and some under fake identities like "Bruce Tucker", pretending like there was no evidence that politics had anything to do with it and politicians were being unfairly attacked.

It was like the part of World War II where the Nazis pointed to the Jews in the ghettoes and said, "Nooo, they're the bad guys."

They cried and pleaded for the innocence of the protected species as 10,000 lurkers in SLAP looked on disbelief.

"Not all politicians are the same...." Claudius Francis, Jadia Jn.Pierre/Jah Yute and Frank Charles agreed.

Sure. Yeah. Right. Lucian history totally supports that.

The FLOGG reborn really has to try to remember that as it continues its mission to expose the most exalted members of St Lucian political and professional elite for the small-minded sell-outs they always were.

"We can't unfairly accuse politicians of..."

Of what?

What can't we unfairly accuse them of, given the current state of affairs? Murder? Rape? Money laundering? Drug dealing? Embezzlement? Waste? Nepotism? Neglect? Which of these shall we talk off the list of chronic crimes that Lucian politicians, as a group, are not guilty of?

Which of these shall we fool ourselves into pretending that it is possible to unfairly accuse a dirty political class of?

More importantly, now that they have exposed their stupidity and helplessness against one man's laptop, the question is:

How will they stop us now?

FIREMEN SAGA: JUST A SYMPTOM OF LABOUR'S CIVIL WAR

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