SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

Remember the famous jazz festival incident featuring the newly installed prime minister Stephenson King? Hey, come on, who doesn’t remember? It was the event of 2006. Not even “the Lyin’ King” himself would dare pretend he does not recall his performance onstage with a visiting rock legend. Quicker than you can say, “oh yeah” the word with pictures had gone viral, with almost every blogger saying something about how King got jumped by Wyclef Jean.

Of course, the idea was to stay as far away from what actually happened as possible. Why say a cool King in his hot shirt had accepted Jean’s invitation to participate in an activity normally referred to as leap frog—with Jean doing the athletic leaps while our new PM played the frog—when it was easily possible to insinuate what happened onstage was degrading, demeaning and all those other nasty words Christian Saint Lucians associate with sex, whether with self, with the opposite gender or with inanimate objects?

So now, what do you suppose our oh so beautifully polarized nation might think if the current prime minister resisted the contrary pleas of his paranoid advisors and appeared on Sunday TALK—and I then proceeded to invite him to stretch out on the floor and engage in an impromptu situps contest?

Wow! Now force yourself to imagine my invitation was extended to the governor general. Terrible! Déclassé! Typical Rick Wayne! Right? So absolutely disgusting, so egregiously disrespectful so, well, you get the point. As much was said when Her Excellency agreed to trip the light fantastic with American singer Lou Rawls. Remember?

Now take a look at who is doing push-ups on-camera with TV star Ellen DeGeneres—a self-declared lesbian—America’s First Lady herself, currently on a booty-shaking tour to promote healthy eating, especially by young Americans. Then again, just because Michelle Obama agrees to stretch herself out on the floor before millions of lascivious TV viewers doesn’t mean our own beloved, demure Dame should follow suit, right?

Besides, everyone knows we Saint Lucians are famous in St Lucia for doing only what we think is decent and wonderful and Christian—save at carnival time of course. We don’t need anyone else telling us when we should stretch out on the floor how to to do whatever. Right?