Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010 was one of my most memorable and enjoyable Christmases in recent memory, or more to the point, since my entire immediate family left for foreign shores.

 Before this year, I spent most of my chrismases having dinner with my late best friend Hilma Walker, who being a flight attendant, never failed to put on a big do whenever she was in Jamaica. After that we would head up to the Lynches for an afternoon of boozing and camaradie.

When she wasn't around, I usually spent the entire day with my close friend, Miss Rites and family (Lynches).This Christmas was very different and far healthier.

You know, although I have lived in Jamaica for 61 of my 64 years and have heard of carol singing at Christmas, I have never experienced it before either as a participant or as a member of the audience. 

You see, since crime climbed out of control, most people would not dare to continue that wonderful Christmas tradition.

 This year though,  I spent Christmas with my friend Audley and Marcia Nain and their daughters at their home in Lauristan, Spanish Town. 

When people hear of Spanish Town, they often conjure up images of violence, but I am here to tell you that I discovered with some degree of awe that Marcia and Audley do not lock up their home until they go to bed at night.

I digress however. 

Audley is the dynamic president of Lauristan Citizens Associastion and being a great singer himself ( his daughter Kim is a rising star with lots of music videos on Utube. Look out for her).

Audley defied the norm in the society and started up carol singing last Christmas in his community. 

This year we got up at 5 am (since it has been ultra cold this Christmas, I had on two sweaters) and set out with Audley on the bull horn, singing carols on top of his voice and waking up the neighbourhood wishing them Merry Christmas. We were slowly joined by other shivering members of the community until we got to the community Centre around 7am.

There they had a Christmas tree and huge pots were boiling away as some citizens were preparing breakfast. Others who did not like to wake up early brought food . After a small concert and the exchange of gifts pixie style I had the most delicious turned corn meal and barbecue pork with a slice of roasted breadfruit and mackerel. Had I been greedy, there was also yam, banana , ackee and satfish, callaloo and sandwiches. But being a small eater, I finished off with a couple cups of real country hot chocolate and some Christmas cake.

At around noon about nine of us went over to Juniors house to travel together to Aunt Nessa in Mandeville for Christmas dinner. Aunt Nessa is Audley's aunt who is returning resident living in a huge house in Mandeville. Junior is Audley's young brother and he is otherwise known as Bishop Rohan Edwards who has made quite a name for himself organising the 10 thousand man march against violence and other national activities. His son Jermain Edwards is a famous gospel artist who tours quite a lot and has made quite a name for himself in the gospel music world.

After a long wait we eventually set out just before 2 pm and reached aunt Nessa around 3pm. They had been waiting so long for us that it was straight into dinner, excellent food, then dominoes. I must say I have never beaten up a ' man of the cloth ' before but Junior and his partner, a guy from Boston, got two six loves. We got none. After a wonderful afternoon, Jermain who drives a Benz, had to return home on a wrecker for the benz had mechanical problems. We left later and returned to Spanish Town safely around 9pm.

On Sunday morning, I came over to Kingston after breakfast and did pass the indomitable Fun and Thrills riders at Ferry, as they had ridden over to Hellishire for breakfast and were just coming home.

 I relished my air condition and after shouting out to them and seeing them sweating away in the hot sun!

On Sunday afternoon I headed back to Spanish Town for a dominoe party and spent the night there. On Monday which was also a holiday, we resumed playing around 1pm.

 

I tell you it was an absolutely wonderful weekend and either I am becoming very good at dominoes or everyone else is regressing, for although I dropped two six loves over the period, I got none. Just one technical.

I am quite proud of myself actually!

Link; https://youtu.be/L3sgIci5ffs

Yes to A Final Court of Appeal in Jamaica

Ever since "Dudusgate", I have been having a problem with Bruce Golding remaining as prime minister, but I must say I am with him in his most recent suggestion that Jamaica opts for its own final court of appeal to replace the Privy Council, rather than going ahead with the Caribbean Court of Appeal.

You see, as far as any form of Caribbean unity is concerned, I have long ago agreed with the results of the federation in 1961 when Jamaicans voted to go it alone rather than federating with the other islands of the former British West Indies. Therefore I have always resented the attempts by especially the PNP government to reverse that decision via the back door. You see, I am very aware that the people in the other islands just do not like us and each time our government does something with them, it usually proves to be nothing but a very costly "suck up" to the other islands.

An example of some costly suck ups are Caricom and the fiasco of the cricket world cup some years ago. As to the Caricom, every other nation in the group seems to have benefited from it except us. But that's understandable, for do you see the type of resistance they put up whenever we try to get our products into their territories? Check the "patty " issue the other day. Trinidad fought tooth and nail to try and keep out our patties even implying that they were being manufactured under insanitary conditions. But our supermarkets and stores are over flowing with Trinidadian goods. When the "patty" issue arose, I publicly called on Jamaicans to boycott Trinidadian goods, but I may as well have said so in my bathroom for Jamaicans ! Even when the Trinidadian prime minister dissed us all after hurricane Nicole, we resisted the loud calls to boycott their products.

Anyway back to this Caribbean Court of Justice, (which was just another case of former prime minister PJ Patterson putting the interest of the other island above ours, for although our courts are sadly lacking funds to keep them going, he refused to attend to those pressing problems while going ahead to to borrow funds to set up that white elephant.). We put up US$33 million of the US$100 million cost of the court, but guess what, they did not even appoint one Jamaican to the court while appointing two Guyanese. And if you think they have superior intellectuals to us, look who they rejected....... the former head of the law faculty based in Barbados, a Jamaican who has been key into the training lawyers in all the territories and also our former President of the Court of Appeal. I don't see how any Jamaican with an ounce of self respect could continue to support these regional bodies.

Yes by all means lets leave the Privy Council for after almost 50 years, we should be more than capable of handling our own affairs so lets get to it.

I hope we will be having a referendum on the matter soon . We need to be vigilant however that the judges to be appointed to the final court of appeal are protected from any form of political intereference or pressure and this should be entrenched in the Constitution.

A Bleak Furture Indeed

Hooray, Shahine Robinson is now the member of parliament for North East St. Ann! Big deal. What a farce.

For those who follow Jamaican politics, the constitution demands that persons seeking to become members of parliament, must have not sworn allegiance to any other country and I think that is how it should be. I also disagree with the privileges given under the Constitution to Commonwealth citizens, but that is an entirely different topic.

So back to the issue at hand. When the PNP which had been in power for 18 year and who considered it their right to be government and never opposition, lost the election in 2007, they grabbed at the dual citizenship straw citing the fact that several elected members of parliament on the Jamaica Labour Party side were US citizens. The hilarity of the matter is however that in their haste to grab power via the courts and through the back door, they forget to check if they too had persons similarly disqualified on their side. And they do. But that's also another matter and I have commented on it many times in previous blogs.

What is especially disgusting about the Shahine Robinson affair, is that instead of just being honest and allow a bi-election, she went to court claiming she was not an American citizen. Worse, when the courts ousted her she even had the nerve to appeal it and went back into Parliament and happily fought the suit brought by the PNP until they brought actual proof to show that she was indeed a citizen. Bill Clinton would have been proud to have her as an ally, for whereas most politicians are experienced and convincing liars, the barefaced ones are not that prevalent. Well we really don't have to go to the USA of A to find barefaced liars, for the late Michael Manley was the doyen of that genre. So he too would have been proud to have a Shahine on his side.

But Michael Manley died a long time ago and the JLP, seeing how disgusted Jamaicans had become with corruption and sleaze, did promise when they were campaigning, to bring back integrity and decently to politics.Well if decency and integrity in politics is running someone like Shahine Robinson after her barefaced and disgraceful actions which have led the country to waste a $20 million that we can ill afford on an bi-election, then the future for this poor country looks bleak indeed.

He defended a woman!!!!!

I couldn't believe the news. K. D. Knight, former Minister of Security and current Opposition senator in Jamaica , is reported to have actually defended a woman! Wow. How absolutely earth shattering!

My astonishment comes from the fact that over the years, Mr. Knight often made the news for verbally abusing women. The first and probably the most colourful report had to do with a confrontation with a fellow Minister, now Leader of the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller who he is reported to have told some very unflattering and colourful words in the precincts of parliament.

Another lady who is reported to have been often verbally abused by the goodly gentleman, is the leader of Government Business in the Senate, Senator Dorothy Lightbourne. So disgusting did these bouts of abuse become that he was actually suspended from the senate not so long ago.
Now, the director of Public Prosecution Ms. Paula Llwewelyn has been the latest recipient.

What is it that Mr. Knight has against powerful women or is that he just hates women? Do they make him feel inferior? One has to wonder about these things since I have never seen a report of him verbally abusing men.

Anyway, is December 2010 to be the period when Knight is about to make a turn for the better? For according to a news report, he was in court yesterday defending RM Pusey who is presiding at the Kern Spencer trail where Knight himself is a defence counsel!

The prosecution had asked for Pusey to be removed on the grounds that she is demonstrating bias and guess who jumped to her immediate defence although she is not his client? None other than K.D Knight in shining armour himself!

I guess he really does not have a deep hatred for women. But wait, could there be another reason?????

LOL.