There is a principle that I try to adhere to, and it is to not stereotype and generalise. Sometimes so many persons of a particular group may be observed to share certain characteristics that everyone in the group is painted with the same broad...
I was intrigued by a recent BBC piece on Tunisian women who want to be virgins again. Husbands expect their young brides to be virgins. This has led to an increasing number of hymenoplasty (hynaecological) surgical...
That is the only way the special zones legislation passed last week is going to contribute to sustained crime reduction and youth uplift.Avert the idleness and poverty of undereducated and poorly socialised youth by putting them to work, rebuilding...
Andrew Holness is right. The weight of government imposes pragmatism.That is why he finds no opposition from this newspaper for his administration's decision to tap the National Housing Trust (NHT), over three more fiscal years, for up to J$34.2...
It is very difficult to find a leader in the world who, in every public speech, consistently mentions the poor and most vulnerable.We are privileged in Parliament to have had one such person.Since her entrance in this august institution in 1976, in...
Last Sunday, Papine Square was transformed into a pulsating Rastafari camp. It was a grand occasion. Approximately 1,500 dreadlocks and bald-head activists answered the call of Ka'Bu Ma'at Kheru, the formidable host of IRIE FM's 'Running African'...
Editorial | Beyond spinning the OCG’s reportTo be inveigled into the political spin over the contractor general's report on the J$600m election-eve verge- and drain-cleaning project is like voluntarily accepting a very bad case of vertigo. But in...
Don't for a minute think I'm saying that there aren't smart and good people working at the NHT and running the outfit. Not so at all.However, The Gleaner carried a story titled 'NHT raid formalised! - Approved law gives Gov't power to take $46b from...
Jamaica is a participatory democracy. The people should be paramount. The interest of the people is not always readily accommodated by the structure of the society and the deep tribal divisions.We practise a liberal democracy, and the most admirable...
In a truly historic week in the Jamaican Parliament, they came together across party divide and did it for Jamaica. The debate was fierce and hot, and even rude...
How do you kill a blue elephant? Shoot it with a blue elephant gun. How do you kill a red elephant? Strangle it till it turns blue, then shoot it with a blue elephant gun.How do you kill a green elephant? Tell it a dirty joke until it blushes and...
This May and June have seen unprecedented levels of cyber attacks internationally that are now forcing security experts, and indeed all of us, to strengthen our preparatory and preventative efforts of our computer systems.Friday, May 12 saw what has...
Published:Friday | June 30, 2017 | 12:00 AMJaevion Nelson
Politicians have an uncanny tendency to forget things. What accounts for their frequent memory loss is to be questioned. They forget what they have and have not done. They forget their sworn oath to the people of Jamaica. They forget their...
The Child Development Agency (CDA) is finally getting around to intervening in the lives of children who are on Jamaica's streets where they beg, sell, steal and continue the cycle of poverty into which they were born. Urgent intervention in the...
The national senior track and field trials are now behind us, and I would like to look at the top 10 talking points, in no particular order.Omar McLeod's 12.90 run in the 110m hurdles was the performance of the meet. He removed Hansle Parchment's...
Students of the science of society know that social order is a fabric tightly woven with different strands of different colours and textures. If you don't like how one of the strands makes the fabric look, and you try to pull it out, you must...
After almost three months of daily anti-government demonstrations, what Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro needed most was an excuse to impose martial law, or at least to use major violence and mass arrests to close the protests down.On Tuesday,...
Delroy Chuck, the justice minister, reminds us, a little bit, of a kid at Christmas. Each new present is treated with ever greater excitement and astonishment.So, in March, Mr Chuck described the Government's proposed new national identification...
Portia Simpson Miller didn’t bring to her politics or leadership a deeply philosophical, intellectually transformative or moral authority that distinguishes a handful of those who are entrusted with power. She offered no large,...
It was very interesting reading the contribution of Senator Kerensia Morrison wherein she spoke so matter-of-factly to the issue of bringing the reins of justice to corrupt politicians, the power brokers of society. Accountability is best achieved...
I never met Lester Lloyd 'Jim Brown' Coke, the infamous enforcer based in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) garrison of Tivoli Gardens, but I suspect that I would have been repulsed by his company.While awaiting extradition to the USA in 1992, a...
Arthur Edgar, former principal of Calabar High School, recently published his autobiography, My Story, which reflects on his 80 years. Prominent among the highlights of his life was his eight years at Calabar. Edgar and I entered Calabar the same...
It's not often that a columnist has the gratification of knowing that she's hit her mark. The amount of space the Jamaica Observer dedicated in its Sunday edition to dismantling my reputation merely proves the point I was making: that the once-...
The call by Dr Carolyn Gomes regarding the unfinished business of constitutional reform is a most timely one!We are at a place in Jamaica's history where our social and economic development is inseparable from the protection of the rights and...
Yesterday, authorities in the German city of Wuppertal evacuated 80 residents from an 11-storey apartment building over concerns that it might be a fire hazard. The building's facade carries cladding similar to the one that is being widely blamed...
