Keith Stoddart, a musical icon

 

Music lovers of all ages in both Jamaica and Florida know and revere the name Keith Stoddart.

He contributed greatly to the growth and development of Jamaican music as a Treasurer of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians, for decades.

Stoddart left center at his last jam session

A versatile reggae/jazz/blues guitarist, he was a member of the most outstanding local bands in Jamaica including; Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, Kes Chin and the Souvenirs, Sir Horace and the Merry Knights, and Sonny Bradshaw Quartet. 

He spent the last 20 years in Florida as an invaluable member of the cultural group; Tallawah Mento Band in Florida.

Stoddart who was ailing for quite a while, could still be heard playing his guitar almost up to the last. He died on Thursday, 23rd June 2022.

                                                                                                                                            

A musical tribute/jam session has been arranged in his honor by Tallawah Mento Band leader Colin Smith for Friday 1^st July 2022.

Walk good Keith. Your music plays on.

Reflections on aging

As I believe in reincarnation, I have no great interest in too long a life this time around.

My fervent hope is that when I can no longer be independent, including driving myself around, I will quickly transition into the next life.

Not often, but occasionally, I do see some older people who are really doing well who make me rethink my messages sent to the universe. 

Many of them, very fit eighty-five and up, attend exercise classes at the Tamarac Senior Center which I frequent. I always try and seek out such persons to see if they will impart some little special secret on how to live a long, healthy life.

My latest role model did not come from via that route though.

A happy Violet Edwards trailed by her daughter Dr. Christine Edwards

Her name is Violet Edwards and like me, she is a Jamaican. But that is where the similarity ends, for this lady is 96 years old and has just graduated with her Associate Degree in Science and Liberal Arts and rumor has it that she plans to move towards getting the full Bachelors!

Only five women have ever been recorded anywhere in the world, as getting a college degree while in their nineties.

AND A JAMAICAN IS ONE!

Can you imagine still studying at age 96 and beyond? 

Thats's just so awesome!

According to my information, Ms. Edwards postponed her college studies when she was younger, to put her daughter through medical school.

That sacrifice has paid huge dividends, not only for her family also but for numerous families in Coral Springs and surrounding areas, where Dr. Edwards, a Perinatologist, has an invaluable practice.

Consul General Oliver Mair presents the plaque.

So, while the world languished and fretted over Covid and other distractions, Ms. Edwards had returned to her studies and at a ceremony in Parkland, Florida on Saturday 25^th June 2020, she was presented with a well deserved Proclamation by Oliver Mair, Jamaica’s Consul General to Miami.

Many kudos to Ms. Violet Edwards, who attended Happy Grove High School in Portland, Jamaica, the parish of her birth.

And now she is giving back to young people in her country with a scholarship.

You can tell that keeping her mind active has had an astounding effect on her body also, for what part of this lady looks 96?

If I can look as young as she does and have the brilliant mind that she must have, I won’t grumble at all if I actually live to be 100!

Abortion

I fervently believe that every human adult has a right to be in control of their own body, period.

So, I am of course consumed by the madness in the USA, where a bunch of mostly white men, (plus Clarence Thomas who is an Uncle Tom!) had the gall to overturn Roe v Wade.  Ie. Now a woman has no control over what happens to her body and if she does what these men say she shouldn’t, she could become a criminal.

I was also sick to the stomach watching Donald Trump gloat that it was his selection of conservative judges that brought this about. This from a man whose main claim to fame is that he has been accused by more than twenty women for rape/sexual harassment and admittedly grabbing women by their pussies!

He is clearly reinforcing the theme popular in the white evangelical movement and among most male conservatives that women were put on earth to give men pleasure and are in no way, shape or form equal to men!

Can you imagine these heartess anti-abortion people have no concern where the mother’s health is at risk, or if the pregnancy of a child was caused impregnated through rape or incest! In such a case, it is the mental health of the child versus the fetus.

Can you imagine the mental damage it must do to the child to have to carry around the constant reminder of the trauma for months on end?

In my book, whether one is Republican, Democrat or no party, no one can be dogmatic about when a fetus becomes a human being. Is it when a heart-beat can be detected or when the fetus is capable of surviving on its own?

I have no idea and personally have no problem with early abortion, that is, when it is a mere egg mixed with some sperm.

Beyond that though, personally, it makes me a bit queasy.

HOWEVER ONLY THE WOMAN, HER CONSCIENCE, MEDICAL ADVISOR AND WHERE RELEVANT, FAMILY, should make that decision, certainly not men or government.

For if government is to get involved in what is done to people’s body, shouldn’t they start giving vasectomies to men who have a maximum two children and do not support them? For we know, that many women are forced to have abortions as they know they cannot afford to support a child.

In the great USA, almost 15 million children are found to live in poverty!

According to recent statistics, in the USA, there are more women registered to vote than men, (74.1% v 71.2%), so it seems to me that women need to be mobilized to decide who should be in control of their bodies.

Problem is, the Republicans who are the ones who are convinced that they were put on earth to control women, are much better political strategists than the Democrats who say they are for personal liberties.

Quite frankly, I find the Democrats quite ineffective and reactionary.

They never seem to be capable of developing plans and strategies to advance their policies, but instead are always bawling about what the Republicans are doing!

That’s why Lindsay Graham could boast that Republicans decided fifty years ago to overturn Roe v Wade and worked towards controlling the Supreme Court. That is why The NRA through the Republicans can keep weapons of war on the streets while the majority of the people in the USA oppose this policy.

So, what next? Watch the Republicans get rid of Obamacare and everthing else to help the poor and dispossessed, while the Democrats only bawl.

 

 

Trump with or without brains?

Some Republicans seem confident that they can get their beloved Donald Trump to be the President of the United States in 2024, without having to put up with Trump himself and his unattractive baggage!

How is this going to be achieved?

Pick Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida to be their candidate.

They are so impressed with this politician that already he is being dubbed Trump with brains!

Further, a survey done by The University of New Hampshire, found that support for DeSantis has more than doubled since last October to 39% while 37% of likely voters said they would vote for Trump and only 9% said they would vote for former vice president Mike Pence.

Having a Trump with brains would be a dream for Republicans but it would be hazardous to the health of entire world. For if Trump was not so rash and unpleasant, he would have gotten a second term and can you imagine how catastrophic that would have been?

To begin with, there would be no Ukraine today as he would have fractured NATO and have helped Putin in any way he could.

Autocracy would become the order of the day in the USA too. For as the January 6^th enquiry is showing, Trump would have destroyed every institution set up to protect democracy.

Now what about DeSantis?

When he was running for governor, he demonstrated what a Trump cultist he was by even airing a series of tv ads showing him teaching his baby daughter to read, using Trump’s Art of the Deal!

He is also an autocrat who will whittle away at the liberties that Americans have become accustomed to.

Already, he has welcomed the return of young women to the dark ages, where they are no longer in control of their own bodies. He has even started to personally censor text books being used in the schools. (don’t say ‘gay ‘ bill which even censors the teaching of anything to do with slavery!)

Billboad protesting DeSantis' censorship

As to freedom of expression, Disney discovered to their chagrin, that if they wish to do business in Florida, they cannot disagree with anything DeSantis says!

The economy too will be in turmoil for what the republicans loved about Trump and hail as his economic prowess, is the policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

A win for Trump with brains or dumb Trump, will be the same misery for the majority of the American people.

Juneteenth

 I was recently at a Yoga class in Florida when out of the blue, the instructor who is a white lady who appears to be in her early 70’s, stopped mid-sentence in her regular instructions, to apologize.

It was for comments she had made in a class on the previous Monday (which I never attended), she said.

She went on to explain that she did not know what Juneteenth was, so when she had grumbled that the regular Monday holidays were upsetting her schedules, she was being ignorant, not disrespectful. She said it was only when she went home and told her daughter what she said and was berated for not knowing that Juneteenth was a “Black Lives Matter” holiday, that she recognized that her remarks had been insensitive.

Realizing that clearly neither she nor her daughter really understood what Juneteenth is, (it has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter, as that’s only the name of an activist group), I decided to have a word with her after the class. Not to quarrel with her, but to educate her.

For she is just one of the millions of people in the USA who know nothing about the history of slavery/oppression of black people in America.

It was Winston Churchill who said ‘history is written by the victors,’ and that is ever so true.

In America, most of the original historians were white, so carefully avoided reference to white oppression/savagery and the role black people played for almost 250 years, in building America without any compensation.

This impression was reinforced was recently as I watched a discussion on CNN, in which a college-educated young man from Tulsa Oklahoma, said he knew nothing about the Tulsa Massacre until recently seeing a documentary about it on television. He added that nothing about slavery or the struggles and oppression of black people was ever taught in high school when he attended less than a decade ago.

For the benefit of the unlearned, the Tulsa Massacre was the most infamous of the many direct assaults on progressive black people by envious whites, in recent history.

It took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked wealthy black residents, looting/destroying homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, then known as Black Wall Street.

About 10,000 black people were left homeless, and property damage amounted to more than $1.5 million in real estate and $750,000 in personal property (equivalent to $34.18 million in 2021).

It is not until recently that information about many other wealthy black areas in the USA that were similarly looted by envious whites, has started to emerge!

In fact, I dare say that it was not until black history month started in 1970, that most Americans, both black and white, heard any history about the role of Afro Americans in the country, apart from them having been brought from Africa as slaves!

It took many more decades too for the history text books to start to record and teach snippets of black history in schools. Even so, older white Americans have held on to the myths about blacks being lazy, hangers on who were saved by the white man, which was taught to them when they were at school.

Those white supremacists are mostly the people who see former president Donald Trump as their hero, as for blacks to remain marginalized, the truth about their history cannot become common knowledge.

Prominent among those determined to hide the truth is Trump’s chief disciple, Ron  DeSantis governor of Florida. He has even taken direct interest in censoring what is being reported in text books at the schools in the state.

His motivation, he said, is that nothing should be taught in schools to make one race feel bad about their history or remind others about past oppression.

People like DeSantis and Trump who wish to hide the truth about how America became great at the expense of black slaves and Native Americans, clearly do not understand the depth of  Jean Racine's prophetic words; “There are no secrets that time do not reveal.”

So yes, it is taking a long time, but the truth is finally being revealed and soon, the real meaning of holidays like Juneteenth and the achievements of black people in America, will have to be acknowledged and appreciated, by the ignorant and even the most racist whites.

In the meantime, each of us has a responsibility to enlighten everyone with whom we come into contact, as I and two other students in the yoga class had to do recently.

Magic Chef Stinks

In February 2018, I bought this small Magic Chef washing machine for my apartment from Amazon.

I understand this brand is owned by Whirlpool so had expected it to be good.

Well it was no damn good as even before the one-year warranty had expired, it went on the blink.

So, their representative fixed it.

Then shortly after the warranty expired, it went down again.

So, I had to pay to fix it.

Then yesterday, the switch that turns off the water failed, and it flooded my apartment.

To add insult to injury, I had to pay a repairman from United Appliance Repair in Ft. Lauderdale $99 to tell me that it could not be fixed as the manufacturer no longer made the parts for that model!

That made me feel even more violated for after that I could not even afford to get a second opinion!

In my book therefore, both Whirlpool and Magic Chef are nothing but crap and it is really a shame how us consumers are being ripped off by them.

Governor General Allen

Since independence in 1962, Jamaica has had eight Governors' Generals, seven locals and one British.

These are the people who represent the British Monarchy which we, inexplicably, unlike some other of the former colonies, kept after getting our independence.

This office of Governor Generals which costs the taxpayers of Jamaica over $400 million per year, really has no useful role. In fact, from my observation, their main function has been cutting ribbons and making boring official speeches. 

Of course, civics teachers will tell you that their primary function is to declare the opening of annual budget debates and outline the government’s policies for the new financial year.

That’s just pomp and ceremony though, for the speech the Governor General delivers is given to him by the Prime minister's office.

The only real beneficiary of this colonial post are those who value British tiles and traditions and of course the incumbent who gets to live free in a splendiferous 16,000 square feet Georgian style great house with hundreds of acres of idle land and a huge wine cellar to boot.

In my book, this post has been nothing but a colossal waste of money which I used to get quite upset over, considering how many needy people and projects we have which could more effectively give the country value for the $400 million.

But since the average taxpayer has never had a problem with their money going down the drain, I have learnt to hold my tongue over the years.

However, while on radio in 2017, I just couldn’t hold back when the holder of the office, caused the Shaggy and Friends concert, which raised desperately needed funds for the Bustamante Hospital for Children, to have to be cancelled.

For according to Shaggy, “One of the problems we were having is getting the East Lawn of King’s House. Without the East Lawn it's chaos ... but we had a little bit of an issue with the now sitting Governor-General who didn’t want us to use the East Lawn. We went back and forth for years upon years and I had everybody, straight up to the former prime minister, everybody that I would think of to talk to him. Last year, with a lot of back and forth, him finally kinna cave and gave us the parking lot so we figured that we good now, we can stage another one again. He sent me a letter pretty much saying ‘don't ask mi bout dah parking lot deh again period’. The letter is here and i’m willing to give it to you,” Shaggy said.

Can you believe that the needy hospital that treats the children of the poor, was deprived of the funds raised when Jamaican artists lend their talents to the cause, because of a parochial thinking office holder who does not respect the fact that the propetrty belongs to the taxpayers of the country?

To add insult to injury, this action was taken by an office holder who is of no benefit to the nation! And of course, the property belongs to the taxpayers of the country not the useless incumbant or his wife!

That one really took the case so I concluded from then, that of all the holders of the office, the incumbent Patrick Allen had to be the worse. 

Very little has been heard out of him since then, not even the usual proliferation  of ribbon cutting, for this Governor General is an Adventist. So you know doing anything on a Saturday of off ther calendar although that had always been our favorite day for ceremonies.

You will see from my blogs over the years, (eg; Joan, my views: The case for republicanism (joan-myviews.blogspot.com)that  I have never failed to write articles encouraging the Jamaican government to amend the constitution so we can become a republic, but most Jamaicans only paid attention to the issue when our little sister Barbados made the move in 2022.

The government has now said they are going to work on it, (been hearing that from other governments for about thirty years) so I still wont my breath.

So why this topic today? Its because the disgraceful picture below has gone viral. It shows the wife of the Governor General sleeping at Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee Pagent!

If she was a busy person, I could easily forgive her as she could be tired. But since she and her husband have so little to do and are handsomely paid to do virtually nothing, couldn't she at least have organized herself so as not embarass us at such an auspicious world event?

 

Links; 

Nice Session

I have lived in Florida for quite a few years now, but know very little about Miami or Dade County in general.

You see I am simply not drawn to concrete, but much prefer natural attractions.

Anyway, since I live here, I do take the opportunity to learn about new places, even downtown, when the opportunity arises.

So, when I heard a favorite band of mine, Tallawah Mento Band would be performing at Griffin Park in North Miami, I had no problem deciding to attend. 

But a city named North Miami? How creative is that?

Anyway as we say in Jamaica, ‘cockroach nuh bisniss inna fowl bisiness’ so let’s move on.

Well at least I never had to drive this time, as I went with friends and it was great company.

Such a relief, for I am very dependent on my GPS when driving in Florida as I know very little about anywhere else outside of Broward County. So, when driving I have to keep so totally alert that I never get to see anything.

This session was literally under the electric tree, as a landmark at Griffin Park is this huge, old (?) very attractive lighted tree.

Griffin Park was established in 2008 as the Veteran's Park it appears.  It has a clock tower with a huge bell underneath a few small plaques recognizing the sacrifices of  the soldiers who were from the community and like most parks, it also has a fountain,

To tell the truth, I was a bit concerned that the event would have to be cancelled because of the huge thunder and rain storm in my city in the afternoon. 

Fortunately,  by the time were ready  to depart, no one could even tell it had rained.

We arrived just about when the band was ready to strike up. 

However, it was not as well attended as one would have expected. Because of the inclement weather, I suppose.

It started a bit slow, as the event was advertised as ‘Caribbean,’ so they had to play music from places like the Bahamas. But shortly after, they transitioned to Mento and Ska, two genres of music designed to get you on your feet.                                                                                                                                

Would you believe though that before we worked up a good sweat, the band stopped playing!

I thought it was intermission, only to learn that the session had ended, as the management of the park had reduced the entertainment package by an hour.

Anyway, we have to be thankful for small mercies as it was really a nice session.

Good entertainment, good food, wine and great camaraderie.

Reparations

It is common for us to assume that all the descendants of the African slave trade have the same history.  However, I have only recently started to learn that as bad as the British were, the Americans were far more savage slavers and for a much longer period.

Slavery was abolished In the USA in 1865 but ours in Jamaica was abolished in 1834 but that’s only a tiny part of the story.

Because the descendants of slave masters have always been in the majority in the USA, they have continued to use legislative power to maintain near-slavish conditions up to, in some cases, recently.

The Gleaner should be highly commended for publishing on May 20, 2022, information re the 500-page document produced in California which outlines the tremendous harm suffered by descendants of enslaved people long after slavery was abolished. These were mainly manifested through discriminatory laws and actions in all facets of life, from housing and education to employment and the legal system.

This report resulted from measures developed at the behest of the slavery Reparations movement in the USA, which lobbied Governor Newsome of California. So, in 2020, he created a two-year task force to investigate and detail California's role in perpetuating discrimination against African Americans. 

California is home to approximately 2.8 million blacks and it has the fifth-largest Black population in the US after Texas, Florida, Georgia and New York, the report said. And while African Americans make up less than six per cent of their population, 28 percent of them are in jails, youth detention centers and prisons.

The report concluded that; “Four hundred years of discrimination has resulted in an enormous and persistent wealth gap between Black and white Americans. These effects of slavery continue to be embedded in American society today and have never been sufficiently remedied. The governments of the United States and the State of California have never apologized to or compensated African Americans for these harms.”

Newsom issued a statement praising California for leading the USA in the long overdue discussion of racial justice and equity. The state's Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose office is assisting the task force, said, “California was not a passive actor in perpetuating these harms.”

While the demand for reparations is increasing in the USA and indeed in many former slave societies, California the only place to move ahead with a study and plan. Without an in-depth study however, one city and a few universities in the USA had taken up the issue of their illegal enrichment from slavery. So far, the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to make reparations available to Black residents last year and Georgetown University in Washington is the first to have put measures in place to compensate descendants of the slaves they used.

However, the giant step taken by the state of California is a watershed.

The fledgling reparations movement in Jamaica will no doubt be inspired by this bold move in California, although I doubt that our government will be willing to fund any move to study in-depth how slavery has affected our society.

For calls for such action have been made locally and ignored over many years.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the full report out of California which will play a great role in educating the public in general.

It is interesting though that this report has come out in the USA, at a time when several states under Republican control are trying to further hide America’s history of slavery and oppression from the people, with the Governor of Florida even signing legislation to remove information on the topic from text books. If a giant step is not therefore taken by the current US administration to deal speedily and effectively with the issue of reparations, despite the best efforts of people like Governor Newsome, the movement will surely be set back for another few decades if a new Republican administration takes over in 2024.

 

 

Manpower to the rescue

The off-road safari vehicle with all tires intact😊

Many of us drive around happily, but never know what to do in a crisis. For example, could you change a tire?

Even if one can, some vehicles are so heavy that no one person, even with the greatest skills, can get a really heavy vehicle up.

On a safari in Kenya in 2021, we found the main roads to be excellent. But to see the wild animals, one must get off the main and travel into the bushes. In our case in Maasai Country in Kenya, there was no road to our camp, so our off-road vehicle had to actually cut the road as we went along.

 Then bang, we blew a tire.

Our driver struggled to jack up the vehicle but alas he couldn't doit by himself. So, our super-strong host Denis, joined him in jacking it up.

They did, then after taking off the punctured tire, it turned out that the heavy vehicle had to go up even higher, as the fully inflated tire required more space.

We all learned something that day then went off we went into the camp to view the most wonderful animals in their natural environment and enjoy the peace, fun and excitement of an African safari.