The night belonged to Dr. Richard Van West Charles.

There he stood boldly, without the kind of baggage that includes skeletons.  But quite aware of how his past collides with the present.  So he put his cards on the table.  Valiantly.  Unabashedly.  And spoke enduringly about the need for "inter-ethnic equity as values, the end of ethnic marginalization with the end result of being truly Guyanese." 

When presidents are tyrants, all of us lose. 

If there is a poem for this moment, it is surely W.B. Yeats' dark classic "The Second Coming."  Written in1919, it evokes the darkness and uncertainty of Europe in the aftermath of a horrific war.   "Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold," Yeats writes.  "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/...The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity." 

My two cents: President Bharrat Jagdeo should have you worried again. 

His so-called Appreciation Day last Friday assumed that somehow Guyana has been all hunky dory under his watch, and that is a classic trope of fascists. 

His raw enthusiasm is enough to tire an elephant and his messianic intensity can only be tolerated in short doses. He is very much like a high-power fluorescent light; in other words, he gives you an instant headache. 

He'll be a model prisoner. That's if things go right - or wrong. 

Edul "Ed" Ahmad already has the perfectly coiffed hair as if it was sculpted at a pricey Madison Avenue salon; but at his upcoming trial for mortgage fraud, the Guyanese business tycoon will also have a personal valet - courtesy of the US Bureau of Prisons. 

Now, how cool could that be?