Kudos on scam commentary

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I congratulate Dr Orville Taylor for his article 'Lotto scam: slow government' (Sunday Gleaner, March 24, 2013) because he has a perspective on affairs that is all his own, and he can defend it adequately. This is all too rare among so-called commentators in the newspapers of our country.

I am glad also that Dr Taylor does not seem, as yet, to be straight-jacketed by the committed political types who, like Greek actors, don whatever mask that will suit the characteristics of the role they have decided to portray.

Here I rushed to my dictionary to define 'hypocrisy': the assumption or postulation of moral standards to which one's own behaviour does not conform; dissimulation, pretence.

Question 1: Who is the actor of the month? (hypocritos = actor)

Question 2: Who had the opportunity to ship out a Jamaican (illegally?) for whatever reason and grabbed it with both hands?

Question 3: Who relished the opportunity to shame a fellow politician who thought he was smart enough to try to dot every 'i' and cross every 't', before surrendering and abjectly asking for forgiveness from Our Lords and Masters?

Question 4: Which lawyer believes that blaming the victim is the correct defence for a crime?

Question 5: Hannah Arendt, writing of the United States, said, "Only crime and the criminal ... confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." Is this true?

DENNIS STEPHENS

saturn1@cwjamaica.com