Now that my granddaughter is almost four going on 40, her mom Michele has decided to resume her educational development, hence her decision to now pursue her Phd.
Way to go girl!
Way to go girl!
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Unconscionable Politicians
It is bad enough that in the midst of a debt crisis when the government has insisted that they have no money to help the poor and dispossessed to survive, the prime minister of Jamaica, Hon Portia Simpson Miller stubbornly maintains a cabinet of over 20 ministers to administer the affairs of a mere 2.7 million people.
When the economic crisis first threatened to totally devastate the nation, concerned people called on the government to take a symbolic pay decrease to demonstrate to the hurting nation that they too were prepared to make sacrifices, but even this symbolism was resisted by the prime minster and despite the cut backs in education, health, security and other areas critical to the welfare of the nation, the government has done nothing to curb the voracious appetite of the petty politicians who deem themselves the gods of our universe as the strut around in the high end vehicles supplied by taxpayers and flaunt all the expensive perks of power.
We should therefore not be overly surprised that members of a government like this has also been been abusing the public purse in how they use the taxpayer provided cell phones, as they no doubt, individually set out to impress god knows whom.
So here we have Arnaldo Brown, a juniour minister to boot, racking up a cell phone bill of $1.09 million for one year, according to the excellent investigative reporting done by Radio Jamaica (RJR).
And his is just the most obscene of the revelations so far as only half of the cabinet has supplied the information requested by RJR and that half alone has racked up total bill in excess of $5 million for chatting for one year.
We have yet to hear the figures relating to the other half.
What is enlightening too is the appearance that those who have been the most expensive in this exercise have been the least productive. For what has Arnaldo Brown been doing that is a real asset to the country? On the other hand we see where Justice Minister Golding who has been doing a reasonable job, has not cost the taxpayer one red cent for unnecessary chatting. That tells quite a story doesn't it?
Of course my advice to all who are expecting the Prime minister to do anything about this latest national disgrace is, please do not hold your breaths.
Excerpts of the RJR News Report on the Cost of Chatting by some members of the the Jamaican cabinet.
Foreign Affairs State Minister Arnaldo Brown's bill for the year was the highest.
The Junior Minister, who roams on his foreign trips, had a $1.09m cell phone bill for the twelve months.
For June this year alone, Mr. Brown's cell phone was 410-thousand dollars.
He recorded $150,000 in October last year and 170-thousand dollars in December.
His senior minister AJ Nicholson calls cost $230,000 for the year.... about a quarter of his junior's cell phone bill.
The next highest bill was that of Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell...at over 930-thousand dollars.
He has two cell phones.
For one month, Mr. Paulwell's Digicel phone bill was $116,000.
His junior minister Julian Robinson cell phone bill for the year was $76,000.
Health Minister Dr. Fenton Ferguson and Environment Minister Robert Pickersgill inched close to $800,000 in talk time.
Dr. Ferguson with this two cell phones totalled $749,000 for the year.
Mr. Pickersgill charge was $791,000...except his ministry submitted only 11 bills.
In June this year, Mr. Pickersgill's cell phone bill was $142,000.
The same ministry spent $110,000 on junior minister Ian Hayles account for the entire year.
But from January to May this year, that account was in credit to the tune of $48,000 dollars because the ministry had apparently overpaid the bill. The ministry says it had overpaid in January...though it is said by $18,000.
With two phones, Tourism Minister Wykeham McNeil's cell phone bill for the was almost half a million dollars... but again only 11 bills.
In one month talk charges were $153,000.
His junior minister Damion Crawford's cell phone will was $364,000.
In February, his bill was $180,000.
Local Government Minister Noel Arscott's bill was $289,000 and junior Colin Fagan's $200,000 for ten months.
Transport, Works and Housing and its two cabinet ministers and one state minister combined for over $400,000 bill.
Richard Azan's cell phone bill was $53,000 for entire year.
Youth Minister Lisa Hanna's bill was low relatively compared with the others...$45,000.
Mark Golding, the Justice Minister, does not have a government mobile phone assigned to him.
Of the records we received, National Security Minister Peter Bunting $32,000 bill was the lowest.
Of note too is that his monthly bill cell phone bill remained at also $2,700.
The ministries of Finance, Education and Labour and Social Security have not responded.
The Agriculture, Investment, Industry and Commerce ministries have promised to provided their bills shortly.
When the economic crisis first threatened to totally devastate the nation, concerned people called on the government to take a symbolic pay decrease to demonstrate to the hurting nation that they too were prepared to make sacrifices, but even this symbolism was resisted by the prime minster and despite the cut backs in education, health, security and other areas critical to the welfare of the nation, the government has done nothing to curb the voracious appetite of the petty politicians who deem themselves the gods of our universe as the strut around in the high end vehicles supplied by taxpayers and flaunt all the expensive perks of power.
We should therefore not be overly surprised that members of a government like this has also been been abusing the public purse in how they use the taxpayer provided cell phones, as they no doubt, individually set out to impress god knows whom.
So here we have Arnaldo Brown, a juniour minister to boot, racking up a cell phone bill of $1.09 million for one year, according to the excellent investigative reporting done by Radio Jamaica (RJR).
And his is just the most obscene of the revelations so far as only half of the cabinet has supplied the information requested by RJR and that half alone has racked up total bill in excess of $5 million for chatting for one year.
We have yet to hear the figures relating to the other half.
What is enlightening too is the appearance that those who have been the most expensive in this exercise have been the least productive. For what has Arnaldo Brown been doing that is a real asset to the country? On the other hand we see where Justice Minister Golding who has been doing a reasonable job, has not cost the taxpayer one red cent for unnecessary chatting. That tells quite a story doesn't it?
Of course my advice to all who are expecting the Prime minister to do anything about this latest national disgrace is, please do not hold your breaths.
Excerpts of the RJR News Report on the Cost of Chatting by some members of the the Jamaican cabinet.
Foreign Affairs State Minister Arnaldo Brown's bill for the year was the highest.
The Junior Minister, who roams on his foreign trips, had a $1.09m cell phone bill for the twelve months.
For June this year alone, Mr. Brown's cell phone was 410-thousand dollars.
He recorded $150,000 in October last year and 170-thousand dollars in December.
His senior minister AJ Nicholson calls cost $230,000 for the year.... about a quarter of his junior's cell phone bill.
The next highest bill was that of Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell...at over 930-thousand dollars.
He has two cell phones.
For one month, Mr. Paulwell's Digicel phone bill was $116,000.
His junior minister Julian Robinson cell phone bill for the year was $76,000.
Health Minister Dr. Fenton Ferguson and Environment Minister Robert Pickersgill inched close to $800,000 in talk time.
Dr. Ferguson with this two cell phones totalled $749,000 for the year.
Mr. Pickersgill charge was $791,000...except his ministry submitted only 11 bills.
In June this year, Mr. Pickersgill's cell phone bill was $142,000.
The same ministry spent $110,000 on junior minister Ian Hayles account for the entire year.
But from January to May this year, that account was in credit to the tune of $48,000 dollars because the ministry had apparently overpaid the bill. The ministry says it had overpaid in January...though it is said by $18,000.
With two phones, Tourism Minister Wykeham McNeil's cell phone bill for the was almost half a million dollars... but again only 11 bills.
In one month talk charges were $153,000.
His junior minister Damion Crawford's cell phone will was $364,000.
In February, his bill was $180,000.
Local Government Minister Noel Arscott's bill was $289,000 and junior Colin Fagan's $200,000 for ten months.
Transport, Works and Housing and its two cabinet ministers and one state minister combined for over $400,000 bill.
Richard Azan's cell phone bill was $53,000 for entire year.
Youth Minister Lisa Hanna's bill was low relatively compared with the others...$45,000.
Mark Golding, the Justice Minister, does not have a government mobile phone assigned to him.
Of the records we received, National Security Minister Peter Bunting $32,000 bill was the lowest.
Of note too is that his monthly bill cell phone bill remained at also $2,700.
The ministries of Finance, Education and Labour and Social Security have not responded.
The Agriculture, Investment, Industry and Commerce ministries have promised to provided their bills shortly.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Deportation or Cover UP?
When Jamaicans are denied entry to a foreign country, be it Barbados, Trinidad, England etc, they are simply sent home using their return ticket.
No matter how Minister Bunting tries to defend the waste of $4 million of taxpayers funds to send Abu Bakr home on a private Lear jet, it does not wash for he is not the first deportee to "gwaan bad" when denied entry into a country. And the more the Bunting spins the more suspicious/ ridiculous he sounds.
Some people have even started wondering if the real story isn't that the government owed the Lear jet operator $4 million for some of the secret, time/money wasting trips that minsters take as they traipse all over the place and they had hoped to quietly slip in the payment using this ridiculous cover Abu Bakr story. To tell you the truth , even this sounds more plausible!
And when you weigh this waste of $4 million of taxpayers money against the simultaneous salivating at the feet of Sagicor which had to underwrite the $4 million cost of purchasing fever scan machines to detect Ebola, you realise how pathetic what passes for governance in this country really is.
No matter how Minister Bunting tries to defend the waste of $4 million of taxpayers funds to send Abu Bakr home on a private Lear jet, it does not wash for he is not the first deportee to "gwaan bad" when denied entry into a country. And the more the Bunting spins the more suspicious/ ridiculous he sounds.
Some people have even started wondering if the real story isn't that the government owed the Lear jet operator $4 million for some of the secret, time/money wasting trips that minsters take as they traipse all over the place and they had hoped to quietly slip in the payment using this ridiculous cover Abu Bakr story. To tell you the truth , even this sounds more plausible!
And when you weigh this waste of $4 million of taxpayers money against the simultaneous salivating at the feet of Sagicor which had to underwrite the $4 million cost of purchasing fever scan machines to detect Ebola, you realise how pathetic what passes for governance in this country really is.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
No Minister Farrakhan
I have always been mesmerized by Minister Louis Farrakhan who I consider one of the greatest orators./ debaters of our time, although I could never endorse his religion which treats women as second class citizens, but that is another matter.
Last weekend at the million man march, Minister Farrakhan did not disappoint despite having reached the grand old age of 81.
For man of his depth however, I was disappointed how he allowed himself to be influenced by cheap local rhetoric regrading our maintaining the status quo as regards the queen of England.
While I support the removal of the British queen and her expensive representative in Jamaica, we need to go much further to make governance more relevant to our needs, now that we are supposedly independent.
For to get rid of the queen while holding for dear life to the remnants of colonialism such as the Army, the British devised local government system, Caricom ( the Federation of the former British colonies by the back door ) and the allowing of members of parliament from the commonwealth while banning those who American citizens, can help this country, is in no way progressive or independent.
Take the Local government system as bequeathed by our former colonial masters when it took days to travel from one parish to the next and land phones and other means of communication were in the dark ages, is ridiculous. And who does it benefit? In my book, only the JLP and PNP who get the benefit of having their grass root campaigners financed by taxpayers to the tune of some $4 billion per year.
Jamaica with its small population, certainly does not need 15 governments and 15 time wasting bureaucracies (14 Local government and one central government) thus using all our resources to pay politicians, consultants and bureaucrats, leaving no or very little resources to build communities. (Incidentally, the parishes were demarcated in a manner thought best to facilitate the Anglican parishes in the colonies, it had nothing to do with the the convenience or efficiency of serving the interests the people, as the Anglican church was the official church of the colonizers and the only thing more powerful than that church then was the monarch).
We should have moved long ago to the concept of three County councils as proposed decades ago after intensitive study, plus local government agencies for the two cities. How much more practical would 6 governments be for a population of 2.7 million as opposed to the 15 we now have?
Then take the army. The British needed a full fledged army to protect their empire in the Caribbean but where is our empire? (They successfully samfied some colonial minded politicians into accepting the concept of federation to keep the colonies together and we are still holding on to it for dear life via the body called CARICOM) !
We need to restructure the army to serve the interests of the Jamaican people, not to preserve an empire. So what we need is a good coast guard to protect our shores, an efficient engineering corp and an air wing and redirect the billions we are wasting on the infantry which will not even use a couple paint brushes and hammers to fix up the historical site at Newcastle that they occupy.
Instead the members of the infantry should be invited to join the police force so they can be trained to serve and protect the people of this nation, not treat us as enemies to be to be cut down, which is what soldiers taught to do.
Then there is his nonsense where members of the commonwealth including Pakistani Muslims can serve in our parliament and even become prime ministers after residing here for a year while Jamaican who migrate to the US and have gained experience and valuable education are deterred, is absolute madness.
Yes Minister Farrakhan, by all means lets get rid to the Queen of England, her heirs and successors and all she represents, but we need far more than mere superficial tinkering if we are interested in becoming really independent and determined to build this great country into a place where we can live as a proud people.
And by the way, if we are going to remove all vestiges of colonialism, we need to do away with the "cricket holidays" that bureaucrats still get to go watch that ever so colonial game, with its tea time breaks and all!.
--
Last weekend at the million man march, Minister Farrakhan did not disappoint despite having reached the grand old age of 81.
For man of his depth however, I was disappointed how he allowed himself to be influenced by cheap local rhetoric regrading our maintaining the status quo as regards the queen of England.
While I support the removal of the British queen and her expensive representative in Jamaica, we need to go much further to make governance more relevant to our needs, now that we are supposedly independent.
For to get rid of the queen while holding for dear life to the remnants of colonialism such as the Army, the British devised local government system, Caricom ( the Federation of the former British colonies by the back door ) and the allowing of members of parliament from the commonwealth while banning those who American citizens, can help this country, is in no way progressive or independent.
Take the Local government system as bequeathed by our former colonial masters when it took days to travel from one parish to the next and land phones and other means of communication were in the dark ages, is ridiculous. And who does it benefit? In my book, only the JLP and PNP who get the benefit of having their grass root campaigners financed by taxpayers to the tune of some $4 billion per year.
Jamaica with its small population, certainly does not need 15 governments and 15 time wasting bureaucracies (14 Local government and one central government) thus using all our resources to pay politicians, consultants and bureaucrats, leaving no or very little resources to build communities. (Incidentally, the parishes were demarcated in a manner thought best to facilitate the Anglican parishes in the colonies, it had nothing to do with the the convenience or efficiency of serving the interests the people, as the Anglican church was the official church of the colonizers and the only thing more powerful than that church then was the monarch).
We should have moved long ago to the concept of three County councils as proposed decades ago after intensitive study, plus local government agencies for the two cities. How much more practical would 6 governments be for a population of 2.7 million as opposed to the 15 we now have?
Then take the army. The British needed a full fledged army to protect their empire in the Caribbean but where is our empire? (They successfully samfied some colonial minded politicians into accepting the concept of federation to keep the colonies together and we are still holding on to it for dear life via the body called CARICOM) !
We need to restructure the army to serve the interests of the Jamaican people, not to preserve an empire. So what we need is a good coast guard to protect our shores, an efficient engineering corp and an air wing and redirect the billions we are wasting on the infantry which will not even use a couple paint brushes and hammers to fix up the historical site at Newcastle that they occupy.
Instead the members of the infantry should be invited to join the police force so they can be trained to serve and protect the people of this nation, not treat us as enemies to be to be cut down, which is what soldiers taught to do.
Then there is his nonsense where members of the commonwealth including Pakistani Muslims can serve in our parliament and even become prime ministers after residing here for a year while Jamaican who migrate to the US and have gained experience and valuable education are deterred, is absolute madness.
Yes Minister Farrakhan, by all means lets get rid to the Queen of England, her heirs and successors and all she represents, but we need far more than mere superficial tinkering if we are interested in becoming really independent and determined to build this great country into a place where we can live as a proud people.
And by the way, if we are going to remove all vestiges of colonialism, we need to do away with the "cricket holidays" that bureaucrats still get to go watch that ever so colonial game, with its tea time breaks and all!.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Black Hill , Portland, Jamaica...the extinct volcano
The first time I ever heard of the extinct volcano at Black hill in Portland, was on a ride to the parish and we stopped to rest at the top of the hill just beyond Orange Bay. A young man mistaking us for tourists came up and offered to take us for a tour to the volcano at Black hill where he said you could see evidence of the lava and the denuded hills. When I asked him when it erupted he said;
"About 50 years ago." That was my laugh for the day as I told him if it had erupted 50 years ago, I would have heard about it! Poor kid, to him 50 years was a lifetime away .
Anyway I decided to research volcanoes in Jamaica and when I could not find anything beside when the island was formed by underwater volcanoes erupting millions of years ago, forgot about it.
 |
| Basalt rocks are evidence of volcanic eruption |
Anyway I decided to research volcanoes in Jamaica and when I could not find anything beside when the island was formed by underwater volcanoes erupting millions of years ago, forgot about it.
Then in September 2014, I got an email from the Natural History Society advising of a field trip, declaring "Activities: The next NHSJ field trip is planned to the Orange Bay area in Portland.
We will climb an extinct volcano (Black Hill) and explore a tunnel close to the coast. It was part of the abandoned railway line from Kingston/Spanish Town to Port Antonio. Finally we will visit a private property east of Orange Bay (Rodney Hall Farm), where lunch is served (pork, curried goat, vegetables). The property has easy access to a beach (cliff). The coastline of the region offers numerous opportunities for photographers (see images below), and information on the geography of the site will be provided. Dr. Simon Mitchell, Professor of Sedimentary Geology and Head of the Dept. of Geology and Geography (UWI, Mona), will be our tour guide."
You know who had to go!
 |
| First stop Rodney hill |
Also travelling with her were other thrillers, Sharon, Richard and Shamira while David and his cousin Denise came by themselves. On this trek too I ran into Martin McLeavy, someone I grew up with decades ago but with whom I had lost contact although he lives right here.
We had a little difficulty at Long Lane as the police had blocked the road as a minibus travelling from St. Mary to downtown Kingston crashed into an oil tanker killing the driver Juniour Douglas. We had to drive on the old road up by the old Stony hills hotel and exit on to Gibson road but it was not a problem as we knew our way from having ridden to Hermitage dam on so many occasions.
After that it was an uneventful drive to Rodney hill where the convoy of around six or seven vehicles carrying 24 persons got out in anticipation of a most informative talk by Professor Simon Mitchell of the department of Geography and Sedimentary geology at UWI. He is a British man who has been in Jamaica for 18 years.
We then walked up to Grange hill where we saw a bunch of kids lyming at the front of an unfinished shop while others hung out on some tombs at the back. Again mistaking us for tourists, some of the fellows offered to be our tour guides to take us to the top of the hill called Honey hill, which they said was around 2 1/2 miles away and . When we went there by ourselves however it was nothing close to 2 1/2 miles but closer to 1/2 mile!
 |
| Kids lyming on the tombs |
It was a most informative trip with our introduction to
things like basalt rocks formed from the rapid cooling of
basaltic lava.
This is what has broken down over the years to give places like Orange Bay the black sands and Black hill actually got its name because of the color of the rocks there, black because of the high content of iron oxide.
This is what has broken down over the years to give places like Orange Bay the black sands and Black hill actually got its name because of the color of the rocks there, black because of the high content of iron oxide.
I personally learnt a lot about limestone too and the fact that Jamaica has the potential to earn billions from this product which is among the purest in the word. But you know us, we are full of unrealised potential!
Anyway these are things we see all the time but really do not understand the importance of.
This extinct volcano according to Prof Mitchell, was quite "young:" having erupted abound 12 millions years ago, young because Jamaica was first formed by eruptions some 40 - 50 million years ago. We also learnt that Black Hill was 'discovered" around 1860 when the colonial masters, having lost out their cheap labour after the abolition of slavery, decided to do geological surveys in the colonies to search for precious minerals.
Despite the wealth of information I gathered from the knowledgeable professor, my most interesting lecture on folk lore came from a young man, Adrian, who had just graduated from Annotto Bay high school and who plans to go to HEART to study electrical installation. His version of the extinct volcano is that it last erupted just as Columbus was approaching the island in 1492 and when he saw the smoke he did not stop in Portland but went to Discovery Bay instead. I rather like that version!
 |
| The property by the sea where T. P Lecky is said to have been born |
From the top of Honey hill, we had a
fabulous view of the Orange bay area and my informant Adrian pointed
to property below by the sea at Orange Bay where he said the
late, great T. P Lecky was born.
For the benefit of those who do not know, Wikipedia
tells us that Lecky was a great scientist who
through experiments in genetics, developed in the 1950's the Jamaica
Hope, a tropical dairy breed which catapulted him to international
acclaim. These cattle were a combination of the British Jersey cow (small,
and light feeding) with the Holstein (heavy milk producers)
and the Indian Sahiwal breed (disease resistant and adapted to
the tropics).
The Jamaica Hope could produce up to an average of 12 litres of milk a day, 3 times that produced by other cattle on the island. Lecky's work revolutionized the Jamaican dairy industry and scentists from many different countries flocked to Jamaica to see what he had done.
 |
| At the entrance of the old railway tunnel |
Not satisfied with stopping at the Jamaica Hope which
was mainly a producer of milk, Lecky turned his
attention to creating a Jamaican breed able to produce
meat. He worked with cattle farmers and looked carefully at Indian
cattle.
He selected from amongst a few breeds of Indian cattle that
had been brought into the island and created a new breed known as the Jamaica
Brahman, which has since become popular also in Latin America. Farmers
had noted that the imported English Red cattle, which had
not proved resistant to ticks and tropical disease, when bred with the Jamaica
Brahman, produced cattle of top quality beef.
This breed became known as the Jamaica Red
the main meat-producing cattle on the island.
So not only did I learn a bit of geology, geography and folk
lore on the trip but saw where the great man had allegedly
grown up.
After the field trip, we
drove down to the beach to look at an old railway tunnel which had been used up
to the early 90's when we had a rail system joining Kingston toPort Antonio and Kingston to
Montego Bay.
We did not go inside however as rain water had leaked into
the tunnel and it was full of (chick-v?) vectors!
So we just enjoyed a walk by the beach till it was
time to go to Rodney Hill farm for lunch.
 |
| View of Savanna point from David's front yard |
| When we got to the lovely house by the beach near Savanna Point with peacocks and all, I discovered it was owned by a long time friend David Vernon who years ago had been a sports reporter at Radio Jamaica. There we had the best lunch I have ever had on a field trip ; Among the tasties were, of ackee and pork, barbecue spare ribs, chicken salad , escoviched fish etc all for $500. ...the absolute best bargain I have had in Jamaica for years! |
After sampling the food and the ambiance, those of us who
ride, decided that a ride there has to be on the agenda soon, a ride to Rodney Hill Farm and I spoke to David about
providing some delicious food for us and he said any time.
Looking forward to it.
It was an absolutely wonderful day
spent with with the members of the Natural History
Society.
JOAN WILLIAMS, moderator of JOAN WILLIAMS ON LINE
broadcast on POWER 106, describes herself as an unapologetic addict to the
Jamaican outdoors. A foundation member of FUN AND THRILLS ADVENTURE CLUB, she
explores the island at any given opportunity cycling, hiking or
swimming with that group, family, Jah 3 and anyone else who will have
her. In 1995, she published the popular TOUR JAMAICA and the 4th edition
is now an ebook available at;
Contact; gratestj@gmail.com
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