Some people, especially we in the Caribbean, call the late evening of December 31, 'Old Year's Night' and others 'New Year's Eve'. I always liked Old Year's Night as in my youth it was the one night we were allowed to play outside until it was time to hear the church bells ring in the new year...
Unfortunately for Jamaica, bold ideas, courage, respect and integrity were in short supply in 2010.Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his Cabinet colleagues have emerged from the past year battered by the weight of...
If Prime Minister Bruce Golding is given to New Year's resolutions, our suggestion is that his for 2011 - and the rest of his time in Government - be a rigid focus on job creation and policies to enhance the competitiveness of the Jamaican economy.
Below are edited excerpts from comments posted online by readers at www.jamaica-gleaner.com reacting to yesterday's lead story, 'Commish shakes 'em up - Senior cops face wide-scale transfers for 2011'.Something is fundamentally...
Today, we remember the Sam Sharpe-led Baptist War which occurred late December some 169 years ago (1831).And it is important to have an accurate biography of Sharpe and what he did and what was his motivation.
There are a number of unresolved matters in 2010 that require the Golding administration's urgent attention if the prime minister is serious about rebuilding public confidence in the country's political process and the institutions of the state.Among...
'Ars Longa, vita Brevis' (art is long, life is short).'Ars Longa, vita Brevis' (art is long, life is short). A medieval poet, speaking of the craft of writing poetry, translated it, "Life is so short, the craft (takes) so long to learn."
Onstage during the 1955 Tercentenary Celebrations in Jamaica, I dropped the ball.I had been given the mammoth task of reciting a poem, 'Augustus Was a Chubby Lad'. It was a soppy tale of a little boy who refused to eat his soup...
Published:Wednesday | December 29, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The latter years of the life of Carlos Andrés Pérez were, at least inside Venezuela, controversial and chequered. During his last presidency, Pérez faced popular street protests against economic austerity; survived two coups...
Published:Wednesday | December 29, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Below are edited excerpts from comments posted by readers online at www.jamaica-gleaner.com reacting to yesterday's lead story, 'Feeding the down and out'.God bless the Downers May Father God's blessings be bestowed upon the Downer...
Published:Wednesday | December 29, 2010 | 12:00 AM
WE DO not know the order of the agenda for the January 5-7 meeting in Kingston of officials from Haiti and other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to advance Haiti's post-earthquake recovery .But our desire is that concentration should be...
Published:Wednesday | December 29, 2010 | 12:00 AM
IT HAS become part of everyone's vocabulary and, predictably, the world will be talking about WikiLeaks - the secret-spilling website run by the Sunshine Press - for many months to come...
Published:Wednesday | December 29, 2010 | 12:00 AM
I DON'T make New Year's resolutions. I don't understand why anyone does. They say a promise is a comfort to a fool. A New Year's resolution is simply a promise to one's self.
The great and urgent challenge facing the Golding administration, or anyone who forms the Government, is finding an economic game-changer - something that delivers the country from its long imprisonment by low growth and constricting...
"The face of new corruption" is one in a long line of such columns. Nary a day passes without us witnessing some enraged voice bemoaning the corruption in our society, or some writer thrashing our corrupt leaders. Despite all our protestations, the insidious rot of corruption spreads.
While no individual or institution can claim exclusive custody of the legacy of our national hero, Marcus Garvey there should be some who experience disappointment when the great man's name is used in support of a cause without...
I used to believe that 'eternity' represented the passage of more time than our mortal minds could ever begin to comprehend. But, one day it occurred to me that time is strictly a physical entity...
Jamaica a first-Class Nation?!WE DISCUSSED in a previous column (December 1) that the first step toward national transformation of this Jamaica land we love, must simply be: "Every citizen a first-class citizen, maximum respect for everyone!"...
The decision by the attorney general of the Cayman Islands, Sam Bulgin, against prosecuting the Cayman Compass newspaper and its journalist, Brent Fuller, is welcome and sensible.Mr Bulgin's decision, however, does not resolve the more fundamental...
Commercialised Christmas is a term that became familiar to me as an adult.Growing up in Chapelton, Clarendon, I had no such consciousness. My memories of Christmas bring back feelings of warmth...
Christmas means different things to different people but the fact is, whether our experience of the event is positive or negative, nobody ignores it or is neutral about it.
The Caribbean's standing in the world, moreso that of the English-speaking countries, is slipping fast as our political influence wanes and the cracks in the region's economies are exposed.
