Commentary

Whether it’s as mild as “Smoking can be hazardous to your health” or as piercing as “Smoking kills”, almost all cigarette packets today bear a label notifying potential buyers of the risks associated with smoking. Notwithstanding, smoking is still...

This week’s United Nations report on the expansion of gang violence to Haiti’s rural communities also draws attention to the failure at compromise by the country’s contending political elite, and of how their negligence could further exacerbate...

Yes. You read that headline right. I, Basil Jarrett, being of sound mind and body, just wrote a flattering headline to my alma mater’s greatest rival. It is no secret that since September 1, 1986, I have proudly worn my love for Jamaica College,...

“There is no Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is a brutal Israeli occupation Which must come to its end One way or the other.” - Gideon Levy, Member, Editorial Board, Haaretz, Israeli Newspaper Prime Minister Benjamin...

What do we do when we live in a constitutional democracy and those we have elected and employed to act on our behalf operate in a manner that opposes the very tenets of the constitution and the principles of our democracy? What do we do when our...

It’s time for another visit to favourite fantasyland, Apocrypha, where all politicians are friends and Oma D’unn solves political dilemmas by parable. Regular readers remember Oma, a former finance minister, who, like a moon, is bright only in the...

Mention was made in a previous writing about the low appreciation of the value of moral capital in Jamaica. In fact, many question the existence of such a thing. After all, “money talks, s--- walks”. For others, when you have political power, or...

Phillip Williams, in a letter to the editor dated October 27 titled, ‘Ban on recruitment will hurt students the most’, declares that, if schools were prevented from bringing in children based on their sports ability (in other words, if schools were...

John Godfrey Saxe wrote in 1872 a very telling poem based on a Indian fable about six blind men examining an elephant they could not see. “... It was six men of Indostan (another name given to India – a variant of Hindustan – land where River...

Hungry men cannot work in kitchens. Some 20-plus years ago, I began a body of work focussing on decent work. You see, the problem with ‘bright people’ with myriad degrees like thermometers is that we spend too much time theorising or trying to...

Westmoreland has been rocked to its core by the horrific taxi wreck in Bluefields last week which claimed five lives. This and other tragic events in the West reminded us that a total of 488 lives were lost last year in various accidents and up to...

An English professor wrote on the blackboard, “Woman without her man is nothing.” And told his students to punctuate it. The males in the class wrote, “Woman, without her man, is nothing.” The females wrote, “Woman! Without her, man is nothing.” I...