Sumfest 2025

 I thought Sumfest 2024 was a bit better  (can't forget Freddie McGregor and Babyface' s outstanding performances,) but this year still selloff!

The band change before Toni Braxton's performance was a bit long and I fell asleep😡. However what I caught of her, including her massive hit "unbreak my heart" was so dynamic, it made up for everything I missed.

We arrived there early and got our usual spot at the fence and that's why the pics are not so clear. But what the heck, it's a cell phone camera!

I especially enjoyed Fantan Mojah who I haven't heard for some time, but he said he had been in hospital.

Bugle was good as usual and Protegee has improved 100% since I last saw him.

 Love how Fantan Mojah and IWayne preached against child abuse, sexual predators and incest. Very appropriate as we have been reading about some horrific cases in the local papers.

Annea

Bugle

Rasta empress in audience waved her flag all night😊

Protegee at work

Toni Braxton is really beautiful 

Comfortable by the fence

Good night of solid entertainment all around and we were home by 4.30am.

 That meant leaving before Taurus Riley came on, but have seen him dozens of times.

I was a bit sorry for the vendors though. There were twice or three times more vendors than normal on the outside and when we were leaving, they had so much stuff left over which I guess they have to pay to transport everything back.

They seem to have forgotten that there were stalls selling everything on the inside.

So sad, they were just trying to make some money from the festival but it didn't seem to work out too well for most.

Whats with Montego Bay?

It’s a pretty well-known fact that Jamaica has more Christian churches than most places in the world. In fact, it has long been reported that the Guinness Book of World Records has Jamaica recorded as the country with the most churches per square mile in the world.

And  now google too has confirmed this.

Even a  hotel in Portland has a private chapel!

I have always wondered how a ‘churchified’ nation such as ours could also consistently be among the top five most violent and murderous countries in the world!

While it is only my opinion, I feel this violent and murderous nature of ours has a lot to do with of our unquestioning belief and support of  the viciousness promoted in the Old Testament. 

But I am no sociologist. 

However I have never been able to get a better explanation anywhere!

There also seems to be a special problem with churches in Montego Bay, one of the most violent crime spots in Jamaica.

 I only  brought up this topic of churches and crime once again on reading the article in the Gleaner on Sunday July 2nd headlined “Authorities raid MoBay church compound.”

For wasn't it less than two years ago that we saw similar headlines coming out of Mobay?

 Then it was concerning the Kingdom Restoration Ministries.

In case you have short memories, that was the church in Mobay led by the late Dr. Kevin Smith.

Granted Smith was more extreme as he was actually performing human sacrifices at his church, whereas the charges against the church referred to in the Gleaner report, though extremely concerning, have not been reported to involve bloodshed.

This latest controversial church in Mobay is ; Bayith Yahweh, Paradise, Montego Bay, St James.

According to the report, the raid by the military, officers from the Area One headquarters, the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse and the Jamaica Fire Department was based on reports that massive child abuse was taking place there.

The report states that several adults were arrested and children rescued from the church’s compound.

While all are innocent till proven guilty and we must await the actual charges  based on solid evidence, aren’t we just getting too many weird reports out of Mobay re religion?

Something stinks to high heavens in that area which seems to have unusual church controversies and an alarmingly high murder rate.

Do we need to do a special study into the relationship between religion and crime in Jamaica in general and especially in St. James?

A Woman's Right

According to a recent poll done in Jamaica, when respondents were asked to state the extent of their agreement with the statement 'Abortion is morally wrong', 73 per cent said they strongly agreed, 12 per cent said they agreed somewhat, while nine per cent strongly disagreed and six per cent said they disagreed somewhat.

"The general consensus was that abortion was morally wrong," said the pollster. "Eighty-five per cent of all persons interviewed expressed this view.

"This suggests that this view was consistently held across all the various demographic groups, virtually to the same extent," he added.

I have no qualms about categorically stating that I fall in that nine percent group which strongly disagreed for it is my opinion, that what a woman does with her body is her business and hers alone. No church, politician, judge or parson should have any say with what a woman does with her body, just the owner of the body. So who needs a poll ?

Anyway, I think what the poll reflects is the negative influence that the church in Jamaica is having on people, for it has been a long established that Jamaica has more churches per square mile than any other country in the world. I have even heard some of those religious fanatics (ie. parsons) arguing on public media that even when a child is gang raped, if she gets pregnant, she should be required to keep reliving that terrible experience for the full term, then give the child up for adoption. Such callous views do nothing but make my blood curdle for the very thought of a child having to endure such torture is really unspeakable.. Neither do I support the theory that a fertilised egg is a person. In my book, that is a totally stupid premise........ like saying that when I eat a fertilised egg I am eating a chicken.

This is not to say that I support the concept that abortion should be used as a means of birth control. Absolutely not.

However, when a woman finds herself pregnant, if she is not ready psychologically or financially to deal with that lifetime responsibility, by all means have an abortion.

Let me say however, while I am strongly in favour of removing eggs, I have a personal problem with removing a fetus, once it has visibly developed a human form.....just my quirk.

In the main however, I remain firmly of the view that only a woman has the right to determine what comes out of her own body and when and there is nothing immoral about that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJu_qutzS3Y