Respected Attorney-at-Law and new chairman of the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) Wentworth Charles is an angry man. He is angry because of reports that there is a roach and rat infestation at some hospitals under his control....
This newspaper is not inclined to picking winners or the preservation of businesses out of sentiment or for the delivery of social welfare. It’s a presumption that the hand of the bureaucrat is better than that of the market and holds the danger of...
Autry, the Beast, and I spent ages unsuccessfully trying to raise a fourth. So we were lyming (N.B. ‘Callow and Wutliss’) on Gene’s verandah when we heard, wafting in on the breeze, “If a macca, mek it jook yu!” The Dunce! But he came with his...
With the PNP political song and dance in full flight, I can’t help but make an outsider observation. I care only because whoever wins these internal elections stands a chance to one day make critical decisions that affect me and my country. No...
Recently, a woman visited my office for the first time for an ultrasound examination. I picked up the request form from the front desk, and, as I approached the waiting area, called out her name. Two people immediately looked up at me: a young...
If Horace Chang is right, upwards of 2,400 illegal guns will enter Jamaica this year. And based on the trend of recent years of law-enforcement officials seizing around 700 guns annually, only around 29 per cent of the inflow will be taken off the...
I had the great displeasure of driving with my son recently and listening to the most disgusting, violence-provoking ‘music’ by one of the island’s top dancehall artistes, Popcaan. So disturbed was I that, having reached home, I had to look up...
One of her breasts is really enlarged and she says she feels lumps. The hospital has sent her to get tests that she can’t afford out of her little hustling or from what she can ‘tek, mi don’t teef” from the old married man who visits her most...
Dr Alfred Dawes, general, laparoscopic and weight-loss surgeon, published a well-researched and excellently written Gleaner column on Wednesday, July 31, 2019, dedicated to the topic of fat-shaming. He cited the surprising worldwide and local...
The 67th annual Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show was, from most reports, a success in terms of quality of the exhibitions and attendance. There was the usual colour and spectacle, and large family-related activities. The Jamaica...
Jamaica must be near 100 per cent teledensity right now, since phones are handed out with birth certificates. So every man, woman and child can produce content that might go viral and come to the attention of the whole nation. Nowadays a man is...
When Toni Morrison’s second novel, Sula, was about to be published in 1974, Sarah Blackburn wrote an out-of-order review that appeared in The New York Times. Blackburn brazenly asserted that “Toni Morrison is far too talented to remain only a...
Below is a response by various environmentalists and civil-society advocates to the article by Senator Robert Morgan, ‘Beyond the noise on Cockpit Country’, published in The Sunday Gleaner of August 4, 2019. We understand that the Cockpit...
There is a growing and dangerous cult of disciples who believe that states of emergency (SOEs) are to be normalised and formalised as a long-term security strategy. Those voices have found support among a mass of Jamaicans who view the surrender of...
Daily, we are reminded of the changing face of society and the great challenge of achieving some semblance of order in this 57-year-old experiment called Jamaica. Things may become even more difficult. We embrace our cultural heritage because it...
I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty. This is how far back my memory goes. In fact, until I went to an optician when I was 11, life was a blur. Today, I am 74 years old, and if my longer-term recall serves me right, and that is...
The way in which reports of an incident are recorded by the police is worryingly problematic and likely inhibitive to securing justice for some persons. I am aware that, as the police like to say, the statement must be recorded in a way that it is...
Advocating for special-needs persons in Jamaica is like a war zone with no ceasefire in sight. As parents and advocates, we come to the world armed with unbridled love for our children, trying hard to protect them from the ugliness of...
Given the potential for the ongoing controversy to impair his moral authority to pronounce on matters of public corruption, it would be welcome if, as he suggests could be the case, Prime Minister Holness releases, this week, a summary of his 2018...
I urge the Government and Jamaicans, generally, to read the Urban Development Corporation’s (UDC) 1970 report on the plans to develop the Hellshire Hills to prevent the invasion of the excellent agricultural lands of southeast St Catherine. These...
For hundreds of years in Jamaica and thousands of years in the est, the word ‘marriage’ has had only one meaning in custom and in law: the voluntary union of one man and one woman. In polyandrous and polygamous societies, the word includes unions...
If they haven’t done so as yet, we expect the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) will put a halt, at least temporarily, to quarrying in that area in the Hellshire hills where pre-Columbian artefacts were discovered two and half months ago and...
With just about 23 per cent of the Jamaican population aged 50 and over, it means that August 6, 1962, 57 years ago, would have some relevance, even of date, to that small cohort who were children on that date, or others would have been loosely...
The Sunday Gleaner ( ‘Lab rats’, June 16, 2019) addressed the risks in using the services of medical laboratories which were not accredited to practise. The article went on to highlight that customers, being aware of the potential risks, were...
Pastor Kenneth Blake, of the Harvest Temple Apostolic Church, after two years of denial and two DNA tests, has pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with a 12-year-old repeatedly, and eventually impregnating her. Blake was not from any ‘...
