Friday Musings
Those trying to be guardians and watchdogs for society and masquerading as truth crusaders should realize how sacred is the calling and how weighty is the responsibility they should shoulder. It’s not about twisting and twirling stuff, like hairstyles, to look good. It’s much, much deeper than cosmetics and those who try to screw with the truth can end up getting seriously screwed.
IT was Sparrow, the Calypso King of the World who brought Twirly and Twisty to more popularity in his `Dan is the man in the van’ calypso.

An acknowledged West Indian social commentator through his enormous repertoire of songs, he used `Dan is the man in the van’ to mock the nursery rhymes taught in schools in his boyhood.

Twirly and Twisty was one about two screws. And there was the ass in the lion skin; the stupid woman who pushed the cow on top of her house to eat grass, the pig who danced a jig for a fig, and Mr. Mike who rode to school on a bike.

Sparrow made his point about nonsense being taught to kids, but as Trinidadian journalist Kim Johnson pointed out in an article in the Trinidad Express in 2000, nowadays, the ever-popular Sesame Street and educational TV shows use similar nonsense rhymes to teach the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

So nonsense can sometimes help make sense.

But in Guyana’s case, peddling nonsense is becoming endemic in some sections of the media and the Twirlies and Twisties are trying to screw the public.

They are fast becoming masters of twirling and twisting stuff to suit their own agendas and have become so adept at it that when confronted with the truth of the matter, they cannot recognize it.

The twirling and twisting skills have made them so dizzy that they are in danger of becoming strangers to the truth.

It’s all part of the con game – dazzle the people so much by bull-sh*t that they soon come to believe that the bull-sh*t is the truth. Like asses in lion skins.

Those nonsense nursery rhymes were designed to teach kids some basics in getting an education and it’s time for the Guyana Press Association and company to seriously try to get some of their ilk back to basics.

Perhaps it is providential that a series of Government of Canada/Guyana Press Association workshops aimed at improving the state of media governance in this country is on this month and it is to be fervently hoped that the organizers succeed in preaching the gospel to those invited to attend.

Lord knows some of us badly need a conversion and a baptism of sorts in the commandments of the world of journalism.

I see some serious old backsliders standing up trying to preach to others like they have seen the light and I gnash my teeth and tear my hair in amazement.

My Lord! Some of these cats were suckled on how to become Twirlies and Twisties with the truth and they now act as though they have been to the mountain top and come back with the golden rules.

And all they are good at is bending the rules.

Those trying to be guardians and watchdogs for society and masquerading as truth crusaders should realize how sacred is the calling and how weighty is the responsibility they should shoulder.

It’s not about twisting and twirling stuff, like hairstyles, to look good.

It’s much, much deeper than cosmetics and those who try to screw with the truth can end up getting seriously screwed.