Commentary

IN SO far as we are aware, the Broadcasting Commission doesn't bray. But given its public statement on the breach-of-licence notice served on CVM Television, you might have thought it did.

MANY PERSONS, when asked about Jamaica's achievements over the past 50 years since Independence, are of the view that we have achieved some positive milestones over the period.

Barring reversals at appeals, for which the administration is likely to lack great enthusiasm, Justice Bryan Sykes may have played a fortuitous hand in favour of Phillip Paulwell, the energy minister.For Justice Sykes, in his ruling on Monday...

T-shirts and other memorabilia were flying off the shelves when I visited a popular outlet in Kingston last weekend...

On the matter of energy, Gregory Mair has hit upon the right idea. Jamaica should be catholic in its approach. We should not rule anything out, including, Mr Mair told fellow legislators last week, nuclear energy....

I have seen Ian Boyne's programmes many times, and I have thought a few to be spiritually moving. I had no idea his spirituality extended to the graveside as well, to converse and cavort with duppy, Michael Manley or otherwise...

Several years ago, I was walking past a makeshift, illegal stall in New Kingston. The vendor intercepted me and obtrusively 'invited' me to support his quest for survival. My courteous decline only precipitated his anger...

Nations use Olympic Games like debutante balls: a way to declare their self-image to the world, and to ask for other countries' acceptance of it...

The Gleaner headline of Monday, July 23, was telling. 'Hibbert's house woes', it read. The house of Joseph Hibbert, former Jamaica Labour Party member of parliament (MP) for East Rural St Andrew, was placed on the auction block for mortgage arrears.

Once upon a time, the tag 'Made in China' was a dead giveaway. The China brand meant cheap goods of very poor quality. Over the years, many Chinese products have had to be recalled because of grave safety issues: killer toys, poisonous food, toxic toothpaste, shocking hair dryers, hazardous heaters, flammable baby clothes, deadly lead necklaces, frightfully collapsing stools and recliners, shattering glass, separating tyres, and the list goes on and on.

Claudie Massop, Bucky Marshall, Jim Brown, 'Bulbie' Bennett and 'Dudus' Coke represent but a few of the names and faces of the Jamaican political landscape over the decades. Their reputed allegiance to either of the two major political parties symbolised the somewhat symbiotic relationship between politics and power on the one hand, and crime and corruption on the other.

My Uncle Jacob had a shop in Calcutta Settlement, deep in the heart of the Central Trinidad countryside. In those days, electricity had not yet reached the village, and we used a Coleman gas-lamp for illumination.