It appears that some parliamentarians are of the view that rural development in Jamaica is being stymied by the vast number of us who leave our home in the country to resettle, live and work in Kingston and St Andrew.I can't quite fathom how I could...
We were in Antigua. We had not been there long, just about two months. We had left Belize, a country that we still love greatly and would return to if we could, and had landed, bag, baggage, and two children, in Antigua.It was a country I had...
At the turn of the 19th century, only a small portion of the Jamaican population was even nominal adherent to the Christian faith. The Anglican Church - the church of the colonial Establishment - maintained about 20 church buildings across the...
We have twice, in recent weeks, commented on the passing of two talented and stalwart public servants - Herbert Walker and Gordon Wells - whose deaths appeared to have been little noticed by officialdom.The response, or lack thereof, was unfortunate...
On Heroes Day of this week, an unprecedented number of 15 people were given national honours for their contribution to sports. None of the 15 people were recognised for what they did this year, in particular.In virtually every case, people were...
Christians at the Intimate Conviction International Conference in Kingston are at loggerheads in their stance on homosexuality and the buggery law. Anglican Archbishop John Holder doesn't believe the Bible should be used to condemn homosexuality and...
There is a saying that to assume is to make an ass of you and me. I assume that Jamaican politicos have the country's best interest at heart and that we people are their priority. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you just call 1-888-...
It is still very early to contemplate a verdict on the effectiveness of the Zones of Special Operations (ZOSO), the government's initiative for fighting crime by sending the security forces into communities to displace criminals, to be followed by a...
If we exercised our collective imagination to its fullest and most adventuresome, it's not too difficult a stretch to make the case that the entire length and breadth of Jamaica is one big special zone needing urgent intervention.That is hyperbole,...
Last week, I gave a lecture at the 47th annual gathering of the Caribbean Baptist Fellowship, held at the Breezes Hotel in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The topic was 'The Anabaptists-Radical Reformers: Relevance for Baptists in the 21st century...
"If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'me too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem," read the Facebook update. So said, so done. Within a couple of days, the #MeToo hashtag...
Everald Warmington's advice to voters in South East St Mary can be parsed to eternity to disprove accusation of clientelism or an intent to partisan patronage. We are not buying it. Nor are most Jamaicans.In the circumstance, Prime Minister Andrew...
Either the newspapers did the esteemed scholar and Anglican prelate, the Most Reverend Dr John Holder, a disservice in the reports on his presentation at the recently concluded Intimate Conviction conference at UWI or else my senior colleague could...
It is perhaps true that Jamaicans are not given to critical thinking, so they readily imbibe the populist spiels of politicians and others who hold power. On that matter, we defer to Clement Lambert, a lecturer at the School of Education at the...
Economists live in self-constructed bubbles that exclude reality and treat statistics, surveys and numbers as divine.It's sad, because they only ever experience mathematics gone mad. In that regard, they're a lot like some doctors. I've always...
"... One orb to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."Five months ago, during Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, he was invited to open the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. (I'm not making that up.) The huge, darkened room...
One of the most beautiful things about observing modern life in the tropics is the ease with which so many now share all the underlying parts for the world to see. By this I mean, lately, my gaze has been fixed on the abundance of our undergarments...
I walked into the surgeon’s changing room as I usually do on a Thursday morning, the day I schedule my patients for major surgery. The scrubs (operating room attire) that are available are customarily blue or green...
The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is a company of potential good but whose existence as a political football, and often a feeding trough, weakens its value to commuters and the national economy.The latest trading of accusations between the...
There is a motion on the Order Paper of the House of Representatives that calls for the gradual introduction of a system of zero budgeting, starting with the Budget for the next fiscal year, which is now being drafted.Zero budgeting would require...
A large number of people saw the viral video of an enraged mother, clad only in panties, mercilessly beating her pubescent daughter with the broad side of a machete while unleashing volleys of curse words and repeating, "Mi tyad ah unnu!" It was one...
It is to be noted that His Grace, the Most Rev Dr John Walder Holder, was invited to Jamaica on behalf of wider civil society. He did not come at the invitation of the Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. He was attending an international...
On National Heroes Day, when three of our national heroes were founders of the first three modern political parties, we have a house full of 'foreigners'. We fought for the right of universal adult suffrage, which we gained in 1944. Somehow in 1962...
The Peter Tosh Museum opened on October 19, 2016 to an invited audience. On November 1, at the public opening, I was moved by the first group to visit - schoolchildren from the Horace Clarke High School in St Mary, Jamaica. What a beautiful thing...
Last Monday, I got a call from FLOW. It was a nice lady offering reparation. She admitted that I had, in fact, requested a service package with long-distance calls! But somehow, my request didn't get into the system. That's how I ended up with an...
