Rates of aging

Dear Editor,

President Granger’s partial announcement on the dispatch of some members of the over-the-hill gang caught me napping; if it was boxing, I would have appealed immediately for late and low blows.  Yes, I was that startled by the abrupt purge of some of the ancients.  There are problems with the still developing situation as it stands currently.

First, there was the (almost) unseemly haste to be rid of the people identified.  At the same time, I detected a similarly unseemly hedging on the question of the employment longevity of that ageless, timeless wonder of the Guyanese Paleolithic Age, Mr Hamilton Green (national awards hitherto forgotten but duly recognized).  If anybody has to be taken down, or taken out, because of age then Mr Green, the pension king, must be at the head of the line, and the prime candidate.

It is why the President did not sound very persuasive on this one, although I did discern he is getting more practised and fluid in these media sparring sessions.

Sticking with the President, I venture that he himself, at age 70, could be considered in the deep winter of youth, and ready for the chopping block.  The same could be said for the Prime Minister, the Minister of Education, as well as few other long-faded luminaries (according to them), who should all be eased out to pastures (just as green and rich) using the same damning age criterion.

Having said this, I would be the first to acknowledge that there are different rates and different degrees of aging.  Some do so imperceptibly without the ravages of time, and gracefully at the same time.  Others age well on the surface, but leave much to be desired internally, as in mentally.  Therein lurks the danger.

I believe that this is the case with a considerable number of incumbents north of 65, and who collect sweet taxpayers’ nectar and ambrosia.  Unfortunately, all the nectar and ambrosia in the Guyanese garden cannot reverse the relentless cruel sweep of the clock, or slow the creeping squeezing fists of time.

Still, Guyana is internationally known as superior rum country. And rum does age better than some other spirits.  I think this is what the President laid out before the nation, especially for the dazzled and the gullible.  Except that some are not drinking.

Yours faithfully,

GHK Lall