Editorial: Let there be light!

And darkness fell throughout the land! It happened between the hours of 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. here in Antigua – the partial eclipse of the sun that we all witnessed on Monday. It was a historic event of ‘cosmic proportions,’ and years from now, most everyone will be able to tell you where they were when it all unfolded.
Here at OBSERVER media, most of the reporters vied for the honour of covering the celestial show. And why not? They wanted to get away from the Lovell and Gaston affair, the CIP, the DNA, the ABLP, the UPP, CARICOM, the OECS, and any number of the acronyms that are always good for a sweet-sounding aspirational quote and not much else. Apparently, even seasoned journalists tire of the steady diet of half-truths, the wishful thinking, the bad-mouthing, the happy-talk, the outright falsehoods that make the news every day. So when there is something truly newsworthy and uplifting, it is a breath of fresh air in the newsroom. After all, here at OBSERVER media, we are all about fresh air, transparency and light! Certainly not obfuscation, smoke and mirrors and darkness!
 Of course, even as we stood on the steps of our Coolidge office and gazed heavenwards at the celestial spheres, many of us forgot the cares of this terrestrial ball, albeit briefly, as we contemplated the omnipotence and awesomeness of God. Indeed, the words of the Carl Boberg hymn, HOW GREAT THOU ART, one of the most well-known in all hymnody, came to mind. After all, the one whom many of us believe created and keeps these heavenly bodies in their places (astronomers tell us that the orbits of these bodies are all infinitesimally precise, and that were they to deviate by even a hairsbreadth, our universe would self-destruct cataclysmically) cares for us deeply!
Truly, the words of the Psalmist capture quite nicely our experience on that day, “Oh Lord our God! How excellent is thy name in all the earth! … When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?” Food for thought!
But we will leave the sermonising on the significance of this transcendental event, and the contemplations on our place in the universe, to the men of the cloth on Sunday. After all, we do not wish to encroach on their turf. It is best that we stick to that which we know. And what we do know is that, notwithstanding the eclipse, and the darkness that was shed abroad in the land, there is still a need for folks like us – folks who will report the news without ‘malice aforethought’. As one of our founders, the immortal Winston Derrick, so eloquently put it, “This is the place where any and everybody can call in and say whatever is on their mind without fear or favour, or worrying who feel one way or another!”  As per our T-shirts we are all about ‘light,’ ‘truth to power,’ ‘a free press’ and ‘giving a voice to the voiceless.’
So in that spirit of transparency and light we are calling for no further eclipsing of the truth as it pertains to the seriousness and readiness of the DNA and the UPP and the ABLP and CIP and Odebrecht and so on and so forth. As much we were awestruck at the magnificence of Monday’s natural eclipse, we are equally dumfounded and disgusted at the eclipsing of truth and sunshine in the political realm.
Let there be no more partial or total eclipses of an honest assessment of where we are, and what the future portends for us as a people. Let us no longer have to look at ‘pies in the skies’ through ‘rosy-tinted’ or special eclipse eyewear. Never mind Monday’s memorable event in the natural cosmos, we will remain committed to our founding vision of shining a light into the nether regions of our social and political news cycle! We remain committed to clearing the dust and cobwebs from our political Milky Way. Much as the sun makes its daily journey across the heavens, bringing warmth and sunshine into our lives, so too we at The Daily OBSERVER will make the daily journey to “Let there be light!”       
We invite you to visit www.antiguaobserver.com and give us your feedback on our opinions.