I witnessed an atrocity this morning that made me want to, at the very most, turn in my ‘man’ card or, at the very least, hang my head in shame as a man, as I contemplate what we have come to represent. A young man stood at the taxi stand as the...
It took a long time for Jamaica’s Government to come around to the obvious. Nonetheless, we welcome its intention to seek bilateral agreements to acquire COVID-19 vaccines from other developing countries that are developing drugs against the...
I am an avid and habitual listener to Nationwide News Network; ask my wife! But I must say that I am disappointed at how they are reporting the abortion issue. In the wake of Argentina’s senate voting to make abortion legal, Jamaican...
The Ministry of Foreign Relations condemns, in the strongest and most absolute terms, the fraudulent qualification of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, announced by the United States government in a cynical and hypocritical act. For months...
POPE FRANCIS’ decision on Monday to allow women to perform some altar duties during Roman Catholic Mass is a welcomed, but tentative, move away from anachronistic gender stereotypes. But not fast enough. What the pontiff must now do is to take the...
Professor Claudette Fay Durrant, former head of the Department of Library and Information Studies at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, died on January 8. Her passing is being mourned not only by her family, but by the library...
As we enter the year 2021, I am mindful that Jamaica has only nine years in which to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030, a blueprint to which we, and 194 other nations, signed on back in 2015, to achieve a better...
Judge Vanessa Baraitser of the Central District Court of England and Wales reached the right decision against extraditing Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, to the United States, but for the wrong reason. Which is bad for journalists and journalism...
Occasionally, whenever I watch cartoons, there is a genie somewhere in the show that pops out the bottle and tells its captor that they have three wishes. I’ve always wondered why the boy or girl doesn’t simply use one of the wishes to wish for...
“ Thou shalt not lie” from The Ten Commandments “… the truth will set you free” John 8:32 “Speak the truth and speak it ever, cost you what it will …” Memory Gem Like many people, last Wednesday, January 6, I watched on television the...
“ Too many voices on my head, like my ears are seeing red.” (Rob Giles) These lyrics aptly describe the variety of actions and mixed messages brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The collision between government policy, scientific research,...
During my childhood, I was in awe of America. I watched American films and television shows, read American comics and magazines, and listened to and enjoyed American music. I visited New York and Florida on several occasions and enjoyed visiting...
There were a few bits of good news to be salvaged from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica’s (STATIN) report on the economy for the 2020 third quarter, which – as everyone knew would be the case – was overwhelmingly bad. According to STATIN, the...
I note with obvious concern the new mandatory COVID test requirement that has been recently introduced by the governments of Canada and the UK. The new protocol requires that all persons, both citizens and visitors alike, entering into both...
The United States and its people have been very good to me. I was educated by American Jesuits who gave their lives to advancing Jamaican youth. Later, the taxpayers of that country paid in full for four years of superior undergraduate schooling,...
What if a medical doctor were to totally disregard experts in venerology, infectious diseases, microbiology and public health, and attempt to make public a personal opinion regarding the use of condoms? What if he/she were to seek the opportunity...
When members of parliament (MPs) move to the front benches – as Juliet Cuthbert Flynn has, to become a member of the executive – they are expected, personal views notwithstanding, to toe the line of the party or government. As of now, on this...
The storming of the US Capitol on January 6 is easily misunderstood. Shaken by the ordeal, members of Congress have issued statements explaining that America is a nation of laws, not mobs. The implication is that the disruption incited by President...
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, the word ‘man’ in English was gender-neutral. This is not a fairy tale. It’s more like a macho-man story. Right up until the beginning of the 11th century, Old English ‘man’ or ‘mann’ meant “human being,...
Well, it has been four seasons and the ending so far is way better than that of Game of Thrones. The President Trump Show has demolished all other features globally with ratings climbing into the stratosphere. Nobody in Hollywood could have dreamt...
Social facts always lead to other social facts. Thank God I didn’t place my tuition on a horse racing bet and spent it on a sociology degree, because the only thing that surprised me in last week’s attack on the US Capitol is the fact that,...
Ronald Thwaites is right about the long-term disenfranchisement it would be to Jamaican students if exams that test their knowledge and competencies at critical junctures of their education were dumbed down this year. He is correct, too, about the...
Two very important pieces of information made their way into the public sphere recently. The first, a November 29 The Gleaner article which suggested that the local tobacco industry may be moving towards adjusting its business model to incorporate...
Nostradamus, the famous French doctor and author of a book of prophecies published in 1555, supposedly predicted the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the subsequent World War II. Now, it is claimed that some of his predictions relate to this new...
It was truly an extraordinary sight – a photograph of 10 recently promoted judges – of which nine of them are women. Jamaica’s continued gender-awakening in hitherto male-dominated fields, is nothing short of remarkable for a country that is 58...
