Published:Thursday | September 15, 2016 | 12:00 AM
During Barack Obama's visit to Jamaica 17 months ago, then prime minister Portia Simpson Miller raised with him the matter of exonerating Marcus Garvey for his 1923 conviction of mail fraud in America. The US president was either not impressed by...
Published:Wednesday | September 14, 2016 | 12:00 AM
Last week's flooding of Marcus Garvey Drive and some adjacent communities in lower St Andrew during a relatively moderate downpour was in part a reflection of the run-down state of much of Jamaica's public infrastructure and the poor job of their...
'Bad, Bylthe' was the Saturday Gleaner's headline. Karl Blythe, challenger for the presidency of the People's National Party (PNP) against serving president, Portia Simpson Miller, made disparaging remarks about Simpson Miller's health. He has since...
Published:Tuesday | September 13, 2016 | 12:00 AMJaevion Nelson
It's really a tragedy that 40 students have to suffer because of the negligence of their teachers who, for whatever inexcusable reason, failed to submit sample School Based Assessments (SBA) to the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) as per...
Throughout the heated discussions last week on 'untidy hair' at Hopefield Prep, I kept seeing Ras Daniel Heartman's iconic image Prince Emanuel, in which a young Rasta boy looks out of the frame at us, hair gloriously dreadlocked and untidy by...
Published:Tuesday | September 13, 2016 | 12:00 AMGeorge Davis
A reasonably curious American, or any other national for that matter, could've known even before Barack Obama ran for president that as a high-schooler, he smoked ganja and did a little cocaine. They could've known this because Obama himself said so...
I make reference to a Mark Ricketts article that was published in The Sunday Gleaner dated September 11, 2016 under the caption, 'Education misplaced'.It was the legendary Robert Nesta Marley who aptly stated, "None but ourselves can free our minds...
Discussion in Jamaica, so far, about the big oil find in Guyana has been on how, if managed properly, it could transform that country's economy. It is perhaps for fear of seeming indelicate that no one has as yet focused on the opportunities for...
The depth of the crisis facing the People's National Party (PNP) is, paradoxically, reflected in, and by, Peter Phillips. He now appears to be its past and its future.Dr Phillips is 66, an age at which, in a normal job, would formally be in...
Published:Monday | September 12, 2016 | 12:00 AMPaulton Frankson
Up to Sunday, there was no clear indication whether approximately 40 students who sat CSEC exams at Penwood High this May and June will get their grades in six subjects because of foul-ups involving the adults who just did not give a damn.That means...
For me, Tuesdays have become Patria-Kaye's Day.I never miss one of her excellent columns. Her writings exemplify what I've been trying to teach Booklist Boyne (unsuccessfully) for years, namely, a column is personal. Columns are all about personal...
Portland, in the minds of most, is the one unspoilt parish left in Jamaica. For many reasons. It is the one place that doesn't carry the taint of development. No skyscrapers, no smog - for the most part no loud traffic sounds. Portland is green -...
I am not a fan of tattoos. Of the hundreds or thousands that I have seen socially or during examinations throughout my medical career, the percentage that have impressed me is lower than that of persons in Gordon House who are honest. In other...
Published:Saturday | September 10, 2016 | 12:00 AM
The allegation that dedicated campaign contributions (for the 2016 general election) to a few senior People's National Party (PNP) members were not handed over to the party is horribly embarrassing, shameful and worrying.Media accounts are that PNP...
Published:Saturday | September 10, 2016 | 12:00 AM
We sensed the undertones of political blame game over last week's deportation from Britain of nearly 50 Jamaicans. Hopefully, it doesn't take hold so that the Government can pursue, in a calm, non-partisan environment, the interests of those of its...
Published:Saturday | September 10, 2016 | 12:00 AM
We agree with Delroy Chuck, the justice minister, on the need for greater transparency by political parties in the face of the campaign-finance scandal that currently envelops the Opposition People's National Party.But, as Mr Chuck knows, statements...
Published:Saturday | September 10, 2016 | 12:00 AM
Few people in authority want to talk about the possibly 150,000 Jamaicans under 35 who, in polite speech, we term 'unattached'.So let us commence a constructive discourse here.These are the graduates or the dropouts of our schools who have no...
Published:Saturday | September 10, 2016 | 12:00 AM
There is a chronic and systemic antagonism towards African identity that has persisted in Jamaica from inception into the present. It originates in the racist myth of African cultural inferiority that was first used to justify the capture and...
Even children - actually, especially children - know that the best time to kick someone is when they're down. I think this is important for Jamaican society to remember right now, for while the political class is shuddering that the probes into...
Last weekend, the Africa Utopia festival was staged at the Southbank Centre in London. It was a far cry from the 'Human Zoo' exhibit that was fiercely contested by protesters two years ago. Europe's largest multi-arts centre, The Barbican, had...
Smarting from having to ask Trinidad and Tobago for a loan during its oil boom of the 1970s, Michael Manley famously told a private meeting of the People's National Party (PNP) that the money was running through the twin-island Caribbean Community (...
Published:Friday | September 9, 2016 | 12:00 AMMark Ricketts
"We know what we are but know not what we may be."- William ShakespeareA society might be mired in poverty and austerity, but it does not have to be undermined by hopelessness. But hopelessness will persist in Jamaica unless we secure huge...
On Tuesday, August 30, The Gleaner published a column headlined 'Clean up the force, then the streets', written by Patria-Kaye Aarons. The column addressed recent comments made by Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams regarding the non-admittance...
My daughter Jasmine is leaving for university, not like me when I left for Canada, or her mother for distant Delhi, or even like Zubin off to his birthplace Barbados to complete his third year, but to the University of Trinidad and Tobago, a...
The recent three-year sentence of a praedial thief in Clarendon has become a huge talking point in Jamaica. The case has once more placed the crime of agricultural larceny and the consistency of sentencing in the courts at the forefront of the...
