It’s likely that politics in general and general elections in particular will dominate early 2020 public discussion. I hope discussions are more visionary than tribal; more constructive than destructive; and oriented more towards solutions than...
With the murder rate having gone up last year, it is evident that the country’s desperate crime-fighting efforts have not borne much fruit. Over time, with the crime situation worsening, all and sundry have posited some idea or another as the...
“Religion is the greatest source of evil in the world. More wars have been fought and more blood has been shed in the name of God than for any other cause.” (Many sceptics, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, et al) If you are a Christian and...
Final excerpt from Conflict of Identity From the Slave Trade to Present Day – One Man’s Healing in Benin, Africa . I painstakingly explored two key areas – family-sex and religion – two of the institutions most disfigured by the past. I have...
We can call it the paradox that is Jamaica or the little island of extremes that capture and display the best of us with the worst of us. How can that be? The Gleaner’s Thursday, December 19, 2019, front page said it all in juxtaposing the beauty...
We’re approaching 2020 with Government’s New Year’s Resolution being to call general elections. I’m not expecting a first-quarter election. First, no responsible government should call an election shortly before Budget is due. This would be unfair...
In a few days, 2020 will come around and many Jamaicans will greet each other and give thanks that they made it to see another year. Overall, I do not think that we will change our priorities in any radical way. The elderly, and especially the...
In my last article, the food import bill for 2018 was examined and it was established that the largest chunk of imports represented food products of animal origin – some 30 per cent. It was further established that the case for replacing our beef...
The following is an edited version of a presentation made at the Association of Fraud Examiners (Jamaica Chapter) on November 15, 2019, at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel. T HE WORLD SITUATION: The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), in...
“I want you to know that I am a man Who fight for the right, not for the wrong… Helping the weak against the strong… And … If you trouble this man It will bring a bam bam … Bam bam, what a bam bam!” – Toots...
As we rapidly approach Jesus’ official birthday, Christians are filled with warm sentiments expressed by Herald Angels upon His birth “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14). Some insert the word ‘all’...
Were I a lawyer operating in Jamaica, at some stage, I would have to face up to the convenient similarities I could claim to myself and a small but busy wholesale establishment located on the edge of an inner-city pocket. Like the wholesale...
Jamaica is a country where our primary concern is to make “money jingle in our pockets” rather than create a foundation of real wealth to maintain a stable economic base. We have become lost in the euphoria of the booming stock market, which is...
We already have everyday fake news in Jamaican homes – “the dog ate my homework”, “I forgot it was our wedding anniversary again”, “no, you said you would pay the JPS bill” – and so on. Then there are the national fake news rumours like – “the...
As at December 10, 2019, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body has not been functioning as we know it because of the absence of a quorum of judges due to the United States’ blocking of appointments of appellate body members. The US’s...
As we close the second decade of the 21st century and move to plan for the third decade of this long century, we need to use the time not only to celebrate but to define some key priorities that will guide us over the coming decade. Jamaica...
The sore matter of the size of Jamaica’s food import bill, which, in 2018, stood at US$902.3 million, has been the subject of much public discourse in recent time, particularly within the context of planned diversion of A-class agricultural lands...
Excerpts from Conflict of Identity: From the Slave Trade to Present Day – One Man’s Healing in Benin, Africa The Plantation syndrome is not unlike Stockholm syndrome – a term that was used by psychiatrist Nils Bejerot after a bank robbery and...
Thanks to the reader who took the time to respond to my article in The Sunday Gleaner of December 1, 2019. In the article, I looked at possible reasons for the decline in voter turnout over the years as well as possible options to address the...
On Monday, December 9, 2019, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), which is the economic regulator for the National Water Commission (NWC), announced increases in the rates to be paid by NWC customers based on an application submitted to them...
School has just ended. A seven-year-old boy is standing on his school compound when an unmanned garbage truck runs into a nearby taxi then overturns and crushes him to death. In November, a university student is viciously murdered while making his...
Excerpts from ‘Conflict of Identity: From the Slave Trade - One Man’s Healing in Benin, Africa’ The black child forms his view of the world from his daily experiences. He reacts consciously and unconsciously to responses to his skin colour. The...
General elections were held in our sister Caribbean island of Dominica on December 6, 2019. At the end of polling, the governing Dominican Labour Party (DLP) had won 18 of the 21 seats being contested, increasing the number of seats held from 15 to...
I know I am a lone voice crying in the wilderness wondering if in the next 200 years we will still be attributing our problems and paradoxes to slavery and the plantation system. To maintain this indulgence allows us to excuse our politicians from...
