Dear Editor,
I must say that the people at Stabroek News have a special sense of timing. Coming out with an announcement of the paper’s departure on Friday the 13th, and taking its last bow by leaving the media vale on the Ides of March. Some may think that SN has an extraordinary appreciation for perverse dates. Many more may agree that I have a macabre sense of humor. There are a few things to be said for both.
Relative to SN’s bizarre and devilish selection of dates, I think that those are a product of circumstances beyond the control of the decision makers. Chalk that up to the slippery nature of the draw. The confluence of ad dollars drying up, or hanging in no man’s land, on the one hand; and the increasing pull and dominance of the digital age, on the other, essentially wrote the death warrant of many a newspaper in other locales. It was just a matter of time before SN’s fateful day arrived. And, there it was, not one, but two: Friday the 13th, and a day that has gone down in infamy: March 15th, the Ides of March. William Shakespeare wrote an ode to it; Julius Caesar succumbed under a flash of daggers on that day.
March 15th will be a hard day for Guyanese who still harbour some residual hopes for the even keel of balance, the restraint of temperateness, and the call to truth and fairness. But in situations like these, the American in me takes over. As Reader’s Digest insisted for decades: Humour is the Best Medicine. I recall that when the Challenger tragedy hit, with seven lives lost, the wags were up to their usual trade within a matter of hours. Having already paid my tribute, I venture into the realm of the funny, so as not to fall prey to maudlin sentimentality. There must be regrouping for rekindling of the spirit, and energizing visions for the ongoing struggle. It will get tougher, and the void left by SN will make the terrain a bit rockier, but the roadblocks will have to be navigated. Well, I ask the indulgence of tweaking the Fortunes of Jolly Olde England big hit from the 1960s: They’ve got their troubles, I’ve got mine…. Nothing can beat a little irreverence during the Lenten Season, that pushing of the envelope of patience (above and on earth) some more at this time.
My bone of disagreement is that the people at SN could have been more considerate. Why did it have to be right in the middle of my most solemn season -Lent? The mere mention of that question, I suppose, will call for some more repentance for all the sins heaped on my head; a small handful earned, most of them allocated with the bang of a drum, and amid maniacal fits of laugher from the truly crazed and depraved. Ah, Stabroek! Stabroek! Stabroek! Two billion for the market(s), one with the same name, and only a slow trickle of nickels and dimes for the newspaper with the same moniker. It takes the exceptionally callous, the depravedly indifferent, to inflict something of that nature in this country at this time, where the talk is always of jobs, more jobs, and jobs that no one can come near to, or actually see men and women hard at work.
The visionary people in the local environment have made going digital into a mass market extravaganza. I have some rough news to report to all of them: that will be regretted. Not the push, but that manner in which it took wing. Harking back to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the signs and portents are ripe with promise. One of my dreams is of being a soothsayer. So, I try my hand today. Some of the stalwarts at SN have too much of the battler in them. They despise injustice. They detest wrongdoers, particularly those who turn around and mock the law-abiding, those trying to walk the straight path. They will be back and in probably even more vibrant fashion. In that same marvelous technological space currently dominated by one segment of Guyana. Me, I know where I am being pointed, have to venture, with the luxury of choice no longer mine. The work that was being done, goes on. The struggle continues. It’s less of the law of randomness, and more of the foolishness of people too smart for their own good. Here I go again: the tide in the affairs of men, which when taken at the flood….