Mr. Patterson,s Tenure

I found the article in the of Gleaner of 29th June 29, entitled “Patterson to receive region’s highest honour” quite enlightening and I wonder if the entire Jamaican population should not be thinking on these things, so to speak.

According to the article “Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson , an avid cricket fan, (my emphasis)leaves the island tomorrow for the opening ceremony of the 30th meeting of the region’s heads, where he will receive the Order of the Caribbean Community”. When one reads this article and recalls the comments made buy his former Minister of Industry Claude Clarke in the article published in the Gleaner of the 14th June 2009, entitled “Caricom: killing us softly” and recall the over $300 million which it was revealed last week that we now have to “hug up” from the cricket world cup fiasco, one cannot but wonder if Mr. Patterson’s term as prime minister of Jamaica was not overall more beneficial to Caricom than to Jamaica. No wonder the honour!

Michel Jackson

“…if his early youth had not been deprived of trust and tenderness, if he had grown up in a different environment, among more emancipated and charitable people instead of finding his natural impulsiveness confronted by so restricted a social horizon, with its crushing discipline and penny tyrannies…..”

From the first time I read those words written by Frank Elgar in the biography of the great but troubled Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh, I thought of Michael Jackson. On hearing of his death, I had to return to the book, for the strange fellow that this genius became as he got older, was a direct result of his terrible childhood he had, as he outlined on an Oprah Show.

For he was deprived of his childhood by his greedy father who only saw the dollar signs. So while a six year old Michael watched with envy as kids romped nearby, swinging and sliding on the playground, he was being beaten by his father who kept forcing him to spit out songs in the recording studio.

I was never convinced that he sexually molested kids, only that he enjoyed their company because he was seeking the childhood experiences he never had.

He was a brilliant artist but a troubled man but being a firm believer in reincarnation, I cannot but feel that he built up enough good karma in this life so his next one will be far happier. I personally feel a great loss.

I HAVE A DREAM

A government that truly represents these Jamaicans-that truly serves these Jamaicans, will require a different kind of politics. The politics will need to reflect our lives as they are actually lived. It won’t be prepackaged, ready to pull off the shelf. It will have to be constructed from the best of our traditions and will have to account for darker aspects of our past. We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we need to remind ourselves, despite our differences, just how much we share, common hopes, common dreams.etc.

I took these words from Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” and simply put in Jamaica where he had America. For our dreams are just the same as his. It least mine is but no useless and unnecessary bi-elections will do it for us..

I hope Obama achieves his dreams of change in American politics and I hope we will one day find an own homegrown Obama, a politician who is willing to put his country above his/her party.

DEMOCRACY BEING THREATENED?

One thing we can not say about Jamaican politics is that it is dull. Also, Jamaican politicians are exceptional hypocrites. 

The latest example of their penchant for dishonesty was displayed by PNP vice president Angella Brown-Burke (daughter of the PNP enforcer Tony Brown who in the 70.s was wanted for the murder of Ted Ogilvie but who was sneaked out of the island for Cuba by the party’s hierarchy?) who led the PNP’s campaign in the recent by-election in North Eastern St. Catherine. 

Ms. Brown -Burke sought to make a federal case on spurious grounds that the incumbent was being helped by government’s largesse in his constituency. 

 Did we hear right? Did such a charge come out of the mouth of the vice president of the same party of former Minister of Finance Omar Davies ?Readers will recall how after the 2007 elections, Davies publicly boasted how he “run with it’ in terms of excessive expenditure leading up the general election.

 Readers will also recall that this partisan waste of taxpayers money cost us some thirteen billion dollars in additional taxes the following year to “carrect it.”

Anyway the use of government funds to try and bribe electors to vote for the incumbent, does not necessarily work as demonstrated by Sheeny Robinson is in St. Ann, for Jamaican voters are extremely sharp and aware of the wiles of politicians and many have adopted the motto”nyam dem out and vote dem out.” 

 The dismal showing of the PNPO in the by-election did support their candidate’s boast that he would create history, since the margin of defeat was indeed historical! Not only has this embarrassing defeat (JLP 6329 to Valentine’s 3672, an increase in the JLP’s margin from 959 to 2657) a resounding continuation rejection of the quality of leadership being offered by party’s president Portia Simpson Miller and the incompetence of the general Secretary Peter Bunting, but also a rejection of the obvious arrogance of the candidate Granville Valentine. 

Very few of us had heard about Valentine before a few months ago when he started an aggressive and vocally intimidating campaign against the Jamaican people, constantly screaming threats on radio, to close down essential services like the National Water Commission and Air Jamaica.. 

One immediately got the impression that he was using his position at the National Worker’s Union to carry out Portia’s threatened nightmare for the country. It therefore came as little surprise when shortly after his strategy was uncovered when he was elected a chairman in one of the party’s regional organizations. Then despite the fact that the PNP’s commissioned polls showed the former candidate Phyllis Mitchell would have been a better candidate for the by-election, he was arbitrarily foisted on the constituency, because, it is said, he supported Portia Simpson Miller while Mitchell supported Peter Phillips in the party’s recent leadership struggle.

 Regardless of the second embarrassing loss in the what is being dubbed at the “dual citizenship affair’ because despite the fact that the PNP has members of parliament who are sitting in the House contrary to the requirements of the Constitution, they had the gall to take to court, those JLP members who are also delinquent, in the hope that the seats in the house would be automatically have been handed to them by the courts, contrary to the wishes of the electorate. 

 No country can have good government when there is no credible opposition to act as a watchdog for the people and double as an alternative government. The democratic system in Jamaica therefore faces a serious threat as the PNP’s present leadership does not offer a credible alternative and the stench of corruption which overtook that party while they formed the government, still reeks to high heaven.

THE BEAUTIFUL RAIN FOREST

“The best things in life are free”. The words of the ancient British proverb kept popping into my head as I rode through the gentle rainfall in the John Crow Mountains, where the silence was only occasionally broken by whistling toads( or probably the tree frog which is endemic to the area) frolicking I guess, somewhere out of sight.

The fauna too was absolutely beautiful as hosts of red and pink ginger lilies as well as other species of multi coloured lilies and a host of different varieties of ferns and a wide variety of fruit trees, flourished on the embankment and on plantations running adjoining the road. The view of the valleys below and the distant Blue Mountain range was absolutely to die for too.

The John Crow Mountains are divided by the Buff Bay and Rio Grande Valleys on the north side of the range and according to our guide and colleague Johnny, (John Allen)
Portland owes its constant rainfall to the fact that the warm moisture laden northeast trade winds which are blowing towards the southwest, are unable to rise above the Blue and John Crow Mountain range, thus constantly dumping the moisture in Portland while St. Thomas suffers from drought as all the moisture has evaporated by the time the winds get to that parish.

Well riding in the gentle drizzle in the heavily overcast rain forest was certainly a great pleasure as despite the amount of heat I generated struggling up the steep hills we encountered as we rode through Non Such, Fairy Hill and Sherwood Forest, the rain quickly cooled me down. After we descended the hill we made a right turn and rode into Boston where delicious jerk pork and turtle soup (with a teeny weeny bit of turtle) awaited us.

This last lap of the over 40 mile ride which we undertook (breaking my previous riding record of 37 miles which was the distance from Hope Pastures to Salt River in Clarendon.) from Agualta Vale in St. Mary to Boston Beach and Jerk centre on Sunday 14th June 2009.

Maybe I considered it the best part of the ride because I had finally gotten some food after leaving my home at about 6am in the hope of getting a great country breakfast of mackerel and bananas, yam and dumpling along the way. Unfortunately we had made no arrangements for food and discovered to our despair that not one restaurant in Annotto Bay, Long Bay, Orange Bay etc was open on the Sunday morning. It was only on returning to Kingston that my savvy church going friends reminded me that country people were not as secular as I am, so they go to church on Sunday mornings and only open their establishments in the afternoon. Thank God for the ungodly KFC for it was not until we got to Port Antonio and saw the fast food restaurant open that I got a reprieve.

This is not to say the first part of the ride was not interesting , enjoyable and scenic, for when I was unable to ignore the hunger, I certainly enjoyed the camaraderie of my fellow 10 and a half riders (Stefan rode with his 3 year old daughter “Zorie in a carrier on the back of his bicycle, hence the half!) though grumbling loudly every time I had to ride up a steep or not too steep hill.

We started to get wet from Long Bay but each time the rain stopped we dried quickly.. The most challenging section of the first lap was riding up Black hill to Rodney Hall. That was one hell of a hill but thank heavens we found a wily entrepreneur who had installed himself right on the crest, selling water coconuts. At the intersection of Rodney Hall there was a sign describing the district as an historic area. We were told that a mile in from the main road going west, there is an extinct /dormant volcano.

 According to the local people, the side of the mountain still bears the signs of the lava from the last eruption which one young man volunteered had happened about 50 years ago. When I advised him that at my age, had it happened fifty years ago, I would have heard about it, he agreed that it must have happened long before that. My subsequent research into volcanoes in Jamaica however show no eruptions for a couple billions of years, but what the hack, an historic area is an historic area, despite the length of time involved.

After Black Hill is was a great downhill ride until we got to the Agricultural College and the new highway is absolutely wonderful to ride on and scenic Port Antonio as breath taking as usual.

The plan for the day had been to swim at Boston beach after we had completed the ride to Boston beach, but the trip took longer than we had anticipated so I took advantage of Johnny’s sister’s hospitality and changed into some dry clothes a for the return trip, after buying my precious jerk pork and gobbling down the soup.

Charles had actually taken the easy way out once we reached Port Antonia and had headed to the beautiful San San beach, which is just about a mile out of Port Antonio, leaving us to struggle over the John Crow Mountain. When we left Boston, we met him there where some persons joined him in the sea. Howie’s group, in which I am a permanent resident, however headed back to Kingston after and absolutely wonderful day.

TO SEE MORE PHOTOS, GO TO;
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Local Government Irrelevance

While the KSAC is complicit with those who break the laws and set up businesses in residential areas, when the roads are destroyed because of the excess commercial activity which residential roads were never built to cope with, the KSAC then tells you they have no money to fix them!

Does anyone have a better example of how those who play by the rules get shafted by the KSAC?

Democracy in Switzerland

Since democracy is accepted as being as government by the people, I got quite a laugh reading a letter to the editor by the Honorary counsel to Switzerland, Peter Bangater, claiming that Switzerland had the oldest democracy in the world.

And heartily did I laugh since Swiss women only got the vote in 1971, 27 years after women in little Jamaica. But on the other hand, if you do not consider women to be people, then I guess you can boast about having a well established democracy!

Politics in Jamaica

As we in Jamaica prepare to waste another $40 million on another unnecessary by-election, the question remains, why on earth can't the PNP and JLP politicians stop the hemorrhaging of our resources by doing the right thing? What's the right thing you ask.

Simple.

 If someone wants to be a legislator in Jamaica, the main criteria has to be that the person owes all allegiance to Jamaica and no other country. So all Green Card holders should be out of the running as well as Commonwealth citizens. Argument done. Further the Electoral Office should be mandated to require that all would-be legislators sign a declaration to the effect that they owe allegiance only to Jamaica. If anyone is found to have lied on the declaration,the penalty should be an automatic five year prison sentence. 

 Ha ha. Yes, I live in Utopia for only there do liars come up with legislation that would put them in jail! 

 Who was it again who said that if criminals made the laws the jails would be empty?

Criminally Insane

According to a recent report, a psychiatric evaluation is to be done on Stephen Fray, the Jamaican man who attempted to highjack a Canadian plane at the Montego Bay airport recently.

You know, I have often wondered why more persons who are charged with serious crimes have not sought the ‘temporary insanity” plea that we so often see in the movies. In fact, I recall in the early 90’s when Mary Lynch murdered her husband, I condemned her for not having chosen that option. For after all, did not all the evidence in that case suggest that she had been physically and mentally abused for years? In fact, from the evidence I heard, no woman could have survived that relationship without suffering from permanent insanity.

This is a topic I raised recently with a friend who works in the correctional sector when the news of Fray’s pending assessment broke. I was shocked to learn from him that there is no such plea as insanity allowed by the Jamaican courts.

According to him, an attorney can put in an “Unfit to plead” plea for the defendant.. This in short means that you are mad but instead of such a person being sent to Bellevue which is our official insane asylum, since Bellevue is not gazette as a penitentiary he/she would be sent to the Tower Street penitentiary where they have a section for the criminally insane.

While inmates there are visited from time to time by a psychiatrist, he remains incarcerated “At the governor General’s Pleasure. “. In short, he can only be released when the governor general signs a document saying he is now sane and can go back into society, not when the courts or psychiatrists decide. Only problem is, I am told, most times the governor general does not even know of the existence of these persons, so an insane person who committed a minor offence e, e.g. breaking a glass window, could get lost in the system for decades. In fact just a few years ago, we heard of one such man who had spent some 28 years in the Tower Street penitentiary for just that reason….he was simply forgotten in the system.

That, I am told, is what usually happens to poor people. It will therefore be interesting to see how the case with Stephen Fray pans out; for he is by no means poor I am told and we know that in JA, there are two types of justice, one for the rich and one for the poor