I was struck recently by a news item that appeared in the Jamaica Observer of June 12, written by an 'Observer analyst' and titled 'Did former Contractor General Christie hurt more than help Jamaica?' It appeared to be written in response to an...
As columnists and commentators, we are under pressure every time we craft a piece for the newspaper or prepare an opinion to deliver on a radio or television talk show that we must have a solution to the problem we are commenting on. In principle,...
Bruce Golding offers a flaccid moral equivalence between South Africa's apartheid and Venezuela's political problem. Yet he is right to lament the failure of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to arrive at a consensus for dealing with the latter's...
Edmund Bartlett is not the first person in his seat with a jaundiced perspective of the press and to offer duplicitous advice on how to do its job, including voluntarily censoring itself, which frees the State of contemplating that nasty business.In...
A June 8, 2017 Gleaner report, 'Lawmakers urged to impose stiffer penalties for buggery', exasperated me.Calling for more stiffness in buggery laws was president of the Marcus Garvey Research Institute. I don't recall Garvey complaining about...
A series of tragic events over the past few weeks have shattered the facade of English gentility, briefly exposing the underbelly of institutional indifference that we in this former British colony have come to know all too well.As we watched in...
What's the real deal with Marijuana?June 1, last year, my article 'Marijuana details smoky' was about this same conundrum I foresaw us having to wade through - being unprepared for the development of a real marijuana industry. We just hadn't ironed...
A female friend of mine used to tell me, many years ago, that "people do the best they know how". She would often say this during discussions about people who exhibited offensive or antisocial behaviour, and I would challenge her by...
Poor Delroy Chuck. He has to be working up a big sweat distinguishing his obvious personal view that there are limits beyond which the criminal law forbidding homosexual conduct cannot go, from his political party's manic fear of offending Jamaica's...
On Thursday, June 8, my wife and I were going on a brief trip to St Ann. I was travelling north on the North-South Highway early in the afternoon. As I drove along at 80km/h, literally all the other vehicles overtook me at various speeds. I remarked...
In 2015, world leaders adopted global targets as part of a new, ambitious, and sustainable development agenda to meaningfully reduce poverty, protect the planet, and bring prosperity to more of the world's population.Today, the United Nations...
Even less than the broader movement itself, the observation of Diaspora Day in Jamaica is not an event that has captured the popular imagination. The authorities haven't as yet found a way, or tried hard enough, to give it any sex appeal.It is not...
We may, indeed, watch too much television, so have fanciful ideas.For, in her second lengthy statement of exculpation on her department's handling of the Cash Plus case, Paula Llewellyn rides an argument that, notwithstanding its narrowly legal...
At the recently concluded June 15 and 16 Multilateral Summit on Combating Crime, one common theme of outstanding keynote presentations by former New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly and former director general of the Colombian National...
Kei Miller, one a fi wi top-ranking writer, win big prize inna April fi im novel Augustown. Same so him spell it. One word, one 't', like how wi pronounce it. One Caribbean Media sponsor di prize: 10,000 US dollar! Di Bocas lit...
Jamaica is in the grip of fear and the unknown. It is hard for a small society to rationalise 136 murders in a single calendar month. It is even harder to put these murders in the context where there is no obvious civil strife.The politicians from...
As I sit to write, the country is convulsed with the story of an incredibly daring attack in Montego Bay. The word 'brazen' is being thrown around. It seems in this instance, the gangsters took their AK-47s to the vicinity of the courthouse with the...
It is time the Government act in the interest of Jamaicans who are among the poorest and most vulnerable, regardless of the opposition that might arise as a result of the disparagement we tend to have for the...
The corruption hotline has gone cold, according to reports from two of the country's agencies at the forefront of oversight.The Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) and the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) are both lamenting...
Today is my wife Indranie's birthday, and I wanted her to know how I felt on the last birthday that I wrote about, my 56th on August 10, 2001 - a spacious oddity desperately trying to lose weight. I am back there again, as I am heading for my 72nd...
The LGBT lobby has its allies in the pro-abortion, pro-prostitution, pro-euthanasia, pro-drug-use advocacy groups, and its members have joined together in common cause to assert their 'rights', and they call upon the government to decriminalise,...
Local experts affiliated with the construction industry will have an opportunity to contribute to the planning and development of the new Government Oval to be constructed at the National Heroes Circle.It is important that this is understood....
The NBA finals have come and gone, and the result is what most of us anticipated. Golden State Warriors were just too good. They were arguably the best team in the league, even before Kevin Durant joined them. With Durant in their ranks, they...
George Quallo's data may be in need of refinement. Nonetheless, what he has provided is sufficient to demand explanations from Chief Justice Zaila McCalla and Paula Llewellyn, the director of public prosecutions (DPP).For the generation that...
The prospect of the National Identification Systems (NIDS), as outlined in recently announced plans by the government, is exciting and long overdue. The cradle-to-grave concept of the envisioned system, with biometric features, will certainly prove...
