I am not a joiner. Although there is no shortage of invitations, coming mostly from my presence in media. I have to say no to virtually all of them. Had I said yes to even half of them, I would now be a member of dozens of things - or a dead man.
BRUCE GOLDING, right now, must feel like a man who fell off a high building, and after plummeting downwards to seemingly certain doom, somehow finds he has landed on his feet unhurt.
IN THIS society which finds it so difficult to coalesce around anything other than sports (when we are winning!), the consensus on the need for social intervention as a key strategy for building post-garrison communities is both heart-warming and a...
PERHAPS THE majority of citizens, certainly of the 'poor', who dominate voting in Jamaica, and all parliamentarians are in favour of the Constituency Development Fund.
AN EDITORIAL in Barbados' New Nation News on June 8 reported that a Coalition of Civil Society Organisations in Jamaica had proposed a set of suggestions that arise from and relate to a number of current and critical issues we face as a nation.
THE GLEANER, in its service to education, published on April 27, the Bill Johnson rankings of the secondary schools - high, upgraded and technical - in the school system.
BECAUSE OF the public interest aroused recently concerning the community-development model in Tivoli Gardens, I am referencing here the appropriate section of my autobiography, Edward Seaga: My Life and Leadership (Chapter 9, pp 152-156).
CAN WE trust our security forces to apply appropriate rules of engagement and respect human rights while they challenge the cold and heartless gunmen who unfortunately are sometimes not even...
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY is central to Jamaica's escape from chronic economic stagnation and economic instability (high and variable inflation and unemployed economic resources). Indeed, the Jamaica Debt Exchange would not have been necessary had there been greater fiscal responsibility.
THE BRIEF flirtation with consensus is unravelling. A society as distinguished for its contentiousness as it is for its music and sports basked in a rare moment of unison in late May as it demanded that the Government 'tear down that wall' in Tivoli to get the fugitive Christopher 'Dudus' Coke - and the United States (US) off our backs.
PUSHED BY the big events of the last several weeks which have overwhelmingly dominated the news, our country has entered a delicate phase of transition.
RECENT EVENTS on the national scene have caused the public to reflect upon the Judeo-Christian tradition that has a considerable history but does not always find itself into the everyday conversation.
BETWEEN 1962 and 2009 Jamaica's murder rate went from 3.9 to 62.2 per 100,000 - perhaps the greatest violent death rate increase experienced by any country not at war.
SIX CRIME bills were debated in Parliament on June 8. Coincidentally, by the end of May, Jamaica's murder rate had passed 750. Last year was a record year for murders. This year could be another. The end-of-May number was 99 more than that of the same period last year.
1. There is before the Parliament of Jamaica proposed legislation which is not in the best interest of the people whom the 60 members of Parliament have sworn to represent.
THE CURRENT socio-political crises in Jamaica have been starkly brought home to all citizens of the nation state by the tragic events that have defined the life chances of the women in Tivoli Gardens.
MOST OF US heard on the news reports on Monday, May 25, the anguished cry of a resident of the Tivoli Gardens community: "All dis fi one man? Dat nuh right!" In the moment, I thought to myself that truer words were never spoken, but on reflection changed my view. This isn't all for one man. This is a battle for Jamaica.
This is the final of a two-part series on education. The writer argued in the end of the first instalment that the policy of free education introduced by the Michael Manley administration in 1973 was costly and, thus, adversely impacted the financial viability of other social programmes.
PORTIA SIMPSON Miller likes to speak of the power of community. The power of community can be good or bad, depending on who controls power in the community. Of the 780 communities across the island, a small minority is terrorised by gangs and an even smaller amount is actually controlled by them.
AS TIME passes and the history of our parliamentary democracy comes to be examined, Tuesday, June 1, 2010, will come to be remembered as the day when two members of the House of Representatives, Mrs Shahine Robinson and Mr Clive Mullings, came to represent the face of Jamaica's Government.
TRUTH IS the first casualty of war. So let's start with some undeniable truths. It is true that some of the most dangerous criminals in Jamaica have been chased out of their enclave in Tivoli Gardens. It is true that gunmen who used to openly and brazenly walk the streets of Tivoli with their big guns can no longer do so today; that criminal 'soldiers' have had to abandon their fortresses.
EXTRADITION, hiring United States lobbyists, resignation calls and apology, and the Tivoli Gardens operation have blown the start of the hurricane season out of the public mind. And yesterday was World Environment Day, marked on June 5, every year.
The shattering and deadly assault on terrorist elements in Tivoli Gardens, which has dislodged one of Jamaica's most nefarious criminal networks, are years overdue.
