Author: Janine Mendes-Franco

Bermudian bloggers weigh in on the island's “Love Festival”.

Signifyin' Guyana is inspired by “Guyanese filmmaker Clairmont Chung's W.A.R. Stories, a documentary on the life, activism, and death of Dr. Walter Rodney.”

“Yes carnival is here, the greatest show on earth. The music, the [mas], the freedom and…babies at fetes”: Media Callaloo is appalled at the irresponsibility of some of the parents in Trinidad and Tobago.

Sidney Sweeting at Weblog Bahamas shares his thoughts on birth control.

KnowTnT.com takes issue with a point in the recent amendment to the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act: “Nowhere does it state that someone accused of being drunk can volunteer to take a blood alcohol test. When you fail a blood test for alcohol, you're nailed. There's no way out of it. But a breathalyzer? It's an estimate.”

A Caribbean Garden posts an array of photos from 2010 Kiddies Carnival celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago.

The Liming House is incensed by a campaign from Virgin Atlantic designed to “help the Caribbean”: “Both Virgin and the Travel Foundation appear to think that the only opportunities for ‘disadvantaged youth’ in the Caribbean are in ‘craft making, beekeeping and fishing.’ Gosh, development has just passed those backward-but-smiling natives right by!”

Bagay Dwol Journal is convinced that “Heroes are everywhere in Haiti, including the USNS.”

Underground Trini Artiste thinks that Facebook is the new radio.

Just in time for Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, Pleasure interviews one of the festival's traditional characters, the Midnight Robber.

“I find it baffling that, decades later, we have not figured out this whole water issue as yet. Water is, after all, essential for life. And while not strictly speaking relevant, it is certainly ironic that we also live on an island”: Tattoo suggests that “they should make a film noir” about Trinidad and Tobago's Water and Sewerage Authority.

In response to a statement that the arrival of Haitian refugees in Jamaica could be seen as a threat to public health, Long Bench republishes a Letter to the Editor that he wrote: “Haitian refugees are not criminals, and should not be treated by citizens or represented in the media as such”; Barbados Free Press is also critical of its country's response to helping Haiti: “It didn’t take long to cut through the Bajan veneer of sincerity about Haiti, did it?”

Want to write in solidarity for Haiti? St. Lucia-based Caribbean Book Blog and Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp have details.

CARICOM member states make donations to the Haiti earthquake relief effort: Repeating Islands has the details.

Repeating Islands acknowledges the passing of Jamaican painter Albert Huie.

Barbados Free Press reports on a traffic death charge that took 11 years to reach to trial: “Meanwhile the accused…racked up almost two hundred traffic convictions and up until yesterday was still driving on our roads and endangering our friends and loved ones.”

YardFlex.com reports that Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell-Brown are “the only Jamaican and Caribbean athletes” who made the prestigious Track and Field News magazine's Athletes of the Decade list.

“I learned that children are naturally giving and spontaneous and if we are not willing to accept some of the ‘wild energy' of our children and if we continue to treat our schools as warehouses, then we should be prepared to accept the death of their imagination”: Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp sharesthe valuable lessons that children have taught him.

~/zaboka reports on conditions in the Haitian tent cities, which sprung up as a result of the homelessness caused by the devastating January 12 earthquake: “I was amazed by how clean it was and how they had separated the camp in different sectors and assigned people in charge to make sure that it’s always clean. I have never seen Haiti as peaceful and the people as hopeful.”

Cricket icon Brian Lara's house is burgled and tickets to the upcoming Beyoncé concert stolen, prompting Trinidad and Tobago girls, politics, sports, technology, carnival, and lifestyle to comment: “Brian Lara's company, Lay Management, was controversially awarded the contract to construct the massive stage for the concert, but the question on citizen's lips is what is he doing with 100 tickets in a safe?”