Mark Wignall | Life gone in a flash

There once was a time when you and your loved ones could drive out on a lazy Sunday afternoon - Cane River out by Nine Miles or further east to a beach stop or a jerk pork joint somewhere in Portland.

But then the spin of the dice could send you and those whose happiness you share down to the otherworldly South St Elizabeth, Flaggamon, Southfield, Pedro. Or make an unplanned turn and end up at that cool outside bar at the top of Colegate and then on to Fern Gully and Ocho Rios.

Many of us still make those trips, but the peace of mind and security of family are not all that guaranteed. There is always tension even if we hold it inside.

Small-business people need their customers, but an uneasy state of healthy mistrust exists. What if I stop off at a three-stool watering hole somewhere in Hanover and I am suspected of stealing goats. One certain way to avoid that was to leave the sporadic visit to Hanover for another time.

Last Thursday morning I was reminded of a fact stated by criminologist Dr Anthony Harriott in 2016. Crime prevention is a long-term goal whereas crime reduction is an immediate need.

A friend called me about midday. “Mark, do you believe that crime has been reduced?”

I answered, “If it has, significantly, it’s a secret to me.” In other words in a high-crime environment single-digit swings are just so much marching in place.

On that same Thursday, I was driven to horror by a video clip of a brutal shooting of a Chinese merchant in Hanover. It is not so much that the young killers cared little about life as they swatted away his. What was fully demonstrated was a rejection of life because they have never felt it and could not recognise it.

I can recall another situation like that horror in the early 2000s in North East St. Andrew. A Chinese national operating a small but bustling wholesale was deeply troubled by numerous demands for ‘tax’’ Extortion under the gun. A month before the don had been killed by police bullets. Upon his death, those who once worked for him appointed themselves as dons until the bullet lottery worked for and against them.

The Chinese businessman was totally confused until the lottery reduced the number pressuring him to one. At that stage, the businessman miscalculated in believing that the police and the bullet lottery would win out and told the criminal ‘no tax’. He was shot dead, robbed, and the business shuttered thereafter.

EMBARRASSING LAPSES

While I was reading the Integrity Commission Report into nepotism involving North West St Elizabeth MP JC Hutchinson (and a VIP in the JLP), I held out a hope that somewhere in the report Mr Hutchinson would come out and say, it is as you say. It makes no sense I keep up the charade of holding to the highest ethical standards.

Some government works was done in 2018. The monies involved were relatively small at just over $713,000. According to the report, the company that got the contract is owned by his son. Add to that a lady friend of long standing has been lodged on many school boards. No guesses as to who steered her there as per the report.

On another matter involving Minister Karl Samuda, the Director of Investigations (DI) at the Integrity Commission, Kevon Stephenson, said in a report tabled in the House of Representatives on Wednesday that the establishment of the plot of Mombasa grass by the JDDB on Samuda’s property “clearly constituted a personal benefit to him”.

The report continues: “Notwithstanding the finding of no criminal conduct herein, the DI finds the Hon Minister Karl Samuda’s conduct in accepting the referenced benefit ethically reprehensible. Given his current position in Cabinet and as a member of Parliament, the DI recommends that the Most Hon Prime Minister and the Speaker of the House of Representatives take such action as may be necessary and sufficient to acknowledge this and assure the public that such conduct is unacceptable.”

Not a moment without one of those.

SPICY NIGHTTIME VISITATIONS

Dancehall artiste Spice stands at the top of her game, and every now and then she likes to play with our heads and challenge us to think outside of the box. She did originally with Romping Shop, which I didn’t particularly like because of the raw crudity of the lyrics. But to hell with what I like and dislike about her musical productions.

She messed with our heads some months ago in the skin-bleaching controversy.

Now, she has made a declaration on a sexual matter. An area about which many of us as men would like women to just shut up. According to Spice, she will no longer be indulging in giving herself sexual pleasure. As if we cared one way or the other. Kudos for bravery.

But she immediately goes off the rails in repeating something I first read of in the early 1970s. That while men sleep, a sexual duppy known as Incubus indulges in sex with them. For the women, it is Succubus.

According to the Vanguard, an online publication, Spice said, “In medieval Europe, union with an incubus was supposed by some to result in the birth of witches, demons, and deformed human offspring.”

I will take a bet that the rush away from naughty things done at nights will not happen even if Spice declares those ‘visitations’ dangerous.

But all trivial things considered, I would much prefer to comment on quiet things at night that hurt no one instead of what is noisy and filled with horror. Guns and death by night and day.

Many years ago men and women told duppy stories to their children. They kept the naughty bits to themselves.

Maybe by this time next year Spice will greet us with a sexual visitation from the red planet: Mars. Let us hear from you then, Spicy lady.

- Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.