On January 31, I had a most interesting conversation on his Bridge 99 FM programme with one of my former students, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding. The subject was ‘Governance in Jamaica’. Towards the end of our conversation, we agreed that...
Municipal corporations are bound by the 2018 Building Act as the procedural framework to handle development projects. There has been a spate of recent actions and pronouncements by the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) and the...
He loved his AK-47 assault rifle. At a particularly murderous time in our political history, that is, in the 1970s and well into the early days of the 1990s. I was in the yard at the back and he was talking about his AK. Occasionally he would...
Cawn’t sey mi neva dida warn yu! I started on this particular hobby horse five years ago while attending a General Legal Council (GLC) mandated continuing legal education seminar on the canons of “ethics” where I was forced to listen to a tone-deaf...
The film 13th is adapted from the book by Michelle Alexander entitled “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colourblindness.” which provides a sharp critique of the prison industrial complex in the United States (US), the leader of...
Britain’s King George II was so humiliated by the Maroons, in revolutionary guerilla warfare, that in 1739, he was forced to authorise Governor Edward Trelawney Cornwall to sign a treaty with the Maroons, recognising black people’s rights and...
In this edition of Reparation Conversations, a collaborative initiative between the Gleaner and the Centre for Reparation Research at The University of the West Indies, the place of Eric Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery in the reparation...
Mark Golding is leader of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) and is one of those individuals called for greater service in honouring his country. But he knows that he plainly doesn’t have that personality to ‘move’ the mind and sway the...
Yet another report has shed light on the god-awful situation of the education system and we (myself included) are all behaving as if it hasn’t been plainly obvious. The recently launched report from Patterson-led commission on education revealed...
“Our greatest failure lies in the very success of placing the great majority of our children in schools, where, sadly, the hopes of over a half are dashed by the end of their primary education from which they emerge illiterate and innumerate” (...
PIONEERING BAHAMIAN-AMERICAN actor Sidney Poitier, who died this month at the age of 94, was Hollywood’s first black global megastar, appearing in over 40 films. His 2000 autobiography, The Measure of A Man, recalled how his success had been...
THE RECENT shuffling of an old deck of political cards ended up with yet another ‘new’ ministry. Cabinet now consists of the PM, 15 ministers with named portfolio titles, and seven ministers ‘without portfolio’. What a lot of ministers to run a...
A READER writes, “I read with interest your Gleaner column on January 9, 2022. I am not persuaded by PM Holness’ attempt at the dramatic. He has about a decade of leadership in the Jamaica Labour Party and had plenty of time to think about crime...
Skin colour, race, is a topic, like religion and politics, that evokes strong emotional feeling, passion. Many would prefer that it were not touched, discussed, or debated, treated as taboo, as if we suddenly became colour blind. However, we have...
In this edition of ‘Reparation Conversations’, a collaborative initiative between The Gleaner and the Centre for Reparation Research (CRR) at The University of the West Indies (UWI), we attempt to shed some light on the issue of the Maroons of...
In the best of times, a population under pressure finds its greatest strengths in its political leadership even if the trust deficit has always existed. Or if there is no strength to be found there, it will feed on the exposed weakness of the...
In these columns, I keep teaching that most worldly barriers to peace, love, and understanding are man-made illusions. One of the most insidious, soul-destroying enemies of humanity is individualism. Over centuries, we’ve cultivated the concept...
As you would know by now, I am not a big fan of prayer breakfasts, national days of prayer, and other such noble gatherings. And it is not because I believe that prayer has no use. I am aware that there are many people who lean on prayer as the...
Anybody as tired of COVID as I? Anybody as sick and tired of arguing with commentators who begin tirades against the vaccines with “I’m not an anti-vaxxer but …” then end up sounding very adjacent to an anti-vaxxer? Anybody as impatient with anti-...
After 30 years of public life, which started in 1991 with my appointment as the youngest trade administrator and CEO of the Trade Board Ltd. through to being the first CEO of the Fair Trading Commission, and also after 26 years in the Parliament (...
What is the basis upon which people are chosen to run government ministries? We would all prefer not to assume that it is the whims and fancies of prime ministers. So what exactly is it? Quite a few politicians have got a touch of two or more...
In this edition of Reparation Conversation, a collaborative initiative between The Gleaner and The University of the West Indies’ Centre for Reparation Research (CRR), we pay tribute to the late anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu...
In one litter, my daughter’s cat had kittens from three different tom cats. One was extraordinarily fluffy, coloured white with tabby patches; one was shiny, sleek and jet black; and the third one was white with a single gray spot, and short,...
This is the sad tale of an elderly couple trying to be boosted against Omicron. The Old Ball and Chain and I received second doses on June 15 so were scheduled for boosters as of December 15. But Old BC was ill (not with the plague), so on medical...
A grim statistic seen on the COVID-19 vax live website last Thursday morning stated that ‘vaccines administered for COVID-19 in Jamaica, currently at rate of about 0.01/second or 851 each day’. That is about 40.4 doses per 100 people (~2.97...
