LIJ TAFARI - ON (MOBAY)

Are we really independent? - Letters - Jamaica Gleaner - Thursday | February 2, 2012

Are we really independent? - Letters - Jamaica Gleaner - Thursday | February 2, 2012

Yannick Pessoa: A multifaceted personality - Lead Stories - Jamaica Gleaner - Saturday | November 26, 2011

Yannick Pessoa: A multifaceted personality - Lead Stories - Jamaica Gleaner - Saturday | November 26, 2011

vizualize.me - Yannick Pessoa's profile

vizualize.me - Yannick Pessoa's profile

Obama's Awful '70s Show Echoes Jimmy Carter

Obama's Awful '70s Show Echoes Jimmy Carter

A Better Way to Find & Install Windows & Linux Apps

A Better Way to Find & Install Windows & Linux Apps

Top 5 Tips for Creating Impressive Video Resumes

Top 5 Tips for Creating Impressive Video Resumes

Jamaica Editorial Cartoons

Jamaica Editorial Cartoons

A Comment On BBC’s WEBSITE that they edited!!!

As it goes the BBC on the Caribbean had a question of readers, it was something to the effect of… what are your disappointments with the Caribbean / Caricom or your country in 2009 etc? My reply was editted to cut out OBAMA’s part and I think it is a deliberate effort to subvert opinions against Obama…

 

The regions institutions have opened up travel & work for grauates of tertiary institutions but much more needs to be done in terms of regional cooperation. We need a common media, a Uber national/ regional, newspaper, radio, television and unified and system access to Internet, a common portal, and uniform standards. The reality and necessity of a functional and economic union and market and strong fairer trade.

Tourism has proven how fickle it can be and is subject now to realities such as gas prices, travel security, economic recession, crime, and markets that wax and wane. Also the tourism industry itself has failed to endorse newer markets, niche markets, the European and Asian markets, failed to employ strategies like Eco-tourism,civic tourism, heritage tourism, medical and health/therapy tourism. The industry itself failed to diversify and re-invent itself into a more far reaching and sustainable model of business. We also relied so much on tourism while neglecting possible advance in the field and industry of technology and computers. We neglected to harness our intellectual capacity.

In terms of sports, as much as individuals excelled, governments and governing bodies failed to hone, foster and harness it. Regionally I personally wanted to see sports integrate and crossover and merge a little more! I would like to see even football reach to a level where there are inter-regional cups for categories like, D1 and D2 leagues etc.

I definitely believe the media has been used to dumb down the nations and given an undue fascination to celebrities lives and delved to far into the voyeuristic fetish of reality tv. Has no one heard of the Hawthorne's effect or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The fact of observation itself affects the thing observed... Sure art reflects life, yet it also impacts it... I do believe the musicians can do more to pass on information to the public and help to paint a different picture of the world and lend vision to the people, not that they should stop showing us the gritty reality but they should try to show us an alternate future than the one we are heading to... The society and the heads of it especially need to be honest about their shortcomings and the inequity in the social order. So maybe the artistes and icons have a different reality to muse on.

The most moving moment is waking up to the reality that a black president doesn't translate into a global black agenda, and has thus far not panned out well for the Caribbean, we have been neglected and slighted by the Obama administration, they have also seemingly perpetuated the illegal stance on Cuba, used the G20 to muscle us into some horrible tax contracts and continue to perpetuate the inequity in global trade, they take our preferential treatment whilst subsidizing their farmers and using GM and chemicals... OH the inequity and injustice... some revolutionary leader... he might have "seemingly" changed the color of the presidency, but his relations with the Caribbean seem colored by the history and biases of the US international relational stance  policies and edicts handed out by the CFR.

As Obama “Tax-ifies” the Caribbean and We Grovel to the IMF

 

By the end of last year, 195 countries had signed tax-information exchange agreements, prompted by increased scrutiny from the G-20, the head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop-ment's Tax Center announced Jan. 19. Among the countries to have 'substantially implemented' the anti-tax haven standards were Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina and Mexico.
Read more: http://www.poder360.com/article_detail.php?id_article=3541#ixzz0h9KpjdHb

 

Real income in the Caricom area is less today than it was 10 years ago; unemployment is higher in 2009 than it was in 1999; poverty has expanded in many countries; and many Caricom countries now experience debt levels of over 100 per cent of their GDP
~Ronald Sanders

The picture for international financial services is just as bleak. Having fought off the so-called 'Harmful Tax Competition Initiative' (HTCI) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) -- the club of the rich countries -- in 2002, Caribbean governments allowed themselves to be threatened by the newly formed G20 countries in 2009 into signing up to 12 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) with OECD countries. New members of the G20 -- Brazil, China, India and South Africa -- who Caribbean countries might have expected to fight in their corner, simply endorsed the OECD agenda.

The cost of compliance with these agreements will place an unreasonable burden of cost on regulatory bodies and financial institutions in the Caribbean.

I hope Mr. Bruce Golding and Mr. Audley Shaw read that last sentence…

Rasta Church

TAKEN FROM: http://www.bbc.co.uk/caribbean/news/story/2010/03/100301_rastachurch.shtml

Rastafarian church has been seeking recognition for 14 years

A Rastafarian church in Jamaica is continuing its 14-year fight for legal recognition by the country's lawmakers.

The Church of Haile Selassie I the first submitted its petition for incorporation in October 1996.

But despite pleas by the church and its legal representatives, the organisation is yet to receive parliamentary approval.

At issue is the Church of Haile Selassie I's use of certain herbs in its religious sacraments, which it says has been misinterpreted by some as promoting the use of marijuana during worship.

Misconceptions

The Church's spokesman Abuna Foxe told BBC Caribbean that misconceptions about the use of herbs during workship have contributed to the delay in being granted legal status.

"For the average Jamaican a chalice is a ganja pipe, that's wrong. A chalice is a sensor that's used to burn frankincense and myrrh," Mr Foxe said.

He also said that at no time will his organisation ask parliament to legalise the use of 'herbs'.

The Church of Halie Selassie met with lawmakers last December where it stressed the use of the herb cassias, but not marijuana, in it's rituals.

Review

Their request has been reviewed by the parliament's joint select committee.

The Committee Chairman Senator Hyacinth Bennett told members there was a need to clarify the concept of the word 'herb'.

But Opposition Senator Mark Golding told BBC Caribbean the church had made it clear it did not use marijuana and too much emphasis was being put on the legislation that aimed to define the organisation's sacrament.

"The concern of some of the members of the committee is that they don't want, by passing the bill, to appear to be condoning the use of ganja," Mr Golding said.

"Every time the committee sits, the issue of whether they use herb or not, and what herb means in their liturgy has come up.

"But I think that after (the) sitting the members present were minded to accept that there's really no basis for the committee to use that as a basis for denying the church the desired recommendation that their petition be allowed."

If approved the Church of Haile Selassie I would have the legal rights to property ownership, open schools as well as tax benefits.

Independence, Self Reliance, Self Sustenance, Self Sufficiency!

I would advise my amigos in Kingston start adopting some principles… like using gray water… In this water crisis…

The New World Order is coming with pre-paid water for you in this coming age and dawning of Aquarius…

He who rules the pitcher rules the world…

“Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.”
Luke 22:10

RECOMMENDED DOCUMENTARIES:

• FLOW: For the Love Of Water
• Blue Gold

 

The Water Cycle…

 

 

Gray Water Cycle/System…

I plan reuse the rinse water from my laundry machine to water the native plants, many of them edible, in my yard.

 

 

 

Gray water, is all the wastewater from your home, excepting the toilet wastewater. The sink, shower, tub, dishwasher, and clothes washer are all gray-water sources. With a little filtering, this precious resource can be used on the landscape and returned to the water cycle without entering the public sewer first.

Gray-water "contaminants" vary and may range from food waste to soap residue to dead skin. These are mostly great nutrients for plants, especially when filtered through mulch, but persons will need to filter or eliminate the non-great ones. Soap and detergent ingredients one ought to avoid are; sodium, chlorine, and boron (which is, alas, a major ingredient in the handy cleanser Borax). These are either immediately harmful to plants or will become so over time, as they accumulate in the soil. Hence, one will need to avoid cleaning products that contain them, or install a diverter valve in the system so that when if you use any of these harmful products, the water will run into the sewer system, not into the yard.

 

Gray-water systems basically involve adjusting plumbing so that water travels through a filtration system and into your yard or a holding tank, instead of into the sewer pipe. The more drain contaminants, the more filtering that will be necessary, in the form of screens, plants, rocks, sand, mulch, and the like. A few sources recommend starting a gray-water project with the easiest drains: the bathroom sink and tub, with their skin, hair, and soap flotsam… then moving on to the more contaminated drain of the clothes washer (…think lint!), and finally to the kitchen-sink water, which will be filled with grease (…remember high-bacteria yield).

 

World Bank and those guys don’t about Jamaica

President Obama's chief economic heavyweight, Lawrence Summers, who, 18 years ago was vice-president of the World Bank.

In a memo to staff of the bank, Summers wrote: "'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons: "...the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that; ...under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City; ... The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high-income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate [sic] cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under five mortality is 200 per thousand."

Some politicians in Europe are bending over backwards to put dirty industry profits before public interest.

The World Bank's Human Development Report for that year said global inequalities had increased in the 20th century to the point where they count as violations of human rights. The inequalities have increased "by orders of magnitude out of proportion to anything experienced before". The gap between the incomes of the richest and poorest countries was about three to one in 1820, 35 to one in 1950, 44 to one in 1973, and 72 to one in 1992. Today it is more like 150 to one.

Ten years ago, in 2000, Mr Bill Gates' wealth was estimated at over $100 billion, just slightly less than the wealth of 600 million people in the least developed countries.

CASH FOR GOLD!

 

 

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.”

Alan Greenspan

 

Gold is money. It is the ultimate money. It is the underlying foundation of all the worlds financial systems. Some would have you believe it is nothing more than a mere commodity, a bygone relic, having no modern purpose or benefit.

If this were true, then why do Central Banks keep it?

“Gold is always accepted and is the ultimate means of payment and is perceived to be an element of stability in the currency and in the ultimate value of the currency and that historically has always been the reason why governments hold gold.”

Alan Greenspan testifying before Congress, May 20, 1999

 

In 1971, as the gold standard was about to be dropped, the leading economists made a prediction that shows how stupid economists are. They predicted that the price of gold would tank when gold was demonetized. When governments no longer accepted gold as valid for paying debts and taxes, the price of gold would crash. Before 1971, the US dollar was a promise to pay gold. The US was defaulting on its promise to pay gold because there was a shortage of gold. There were plenty of dollars; the government was printing them with abandon.

The gold standard was dropped. The US government defaulted on its promise to redeem dollars in gold. People were granted the right to own gold again. Contrary to everyone's prediction, the price of gold skyrocketed. The stupid economists were predicting that, after a default on a promise, the value of receipts for that broken promise would rise!

 

 

Gold-Silver

Gold and Silver bullion are perhaps the best investment a person could make this decade.

There are a few basic reasons why people have chosen gold as the bedrock of their financial foundation for thousands of years.

1. Gold retains buying power – unlike fiat currency, gold retains its ability to purchase goods over time.

2. Gold has intrinsic value – again, unlike fiat money or other “paper” investments that rely on a government or financial institution to give the paper its value, gold has intrinsic value.

3. Finally, gold has no counter-party risk. Regardless of what happens as financial institutions, and financial systems fail, gold retains its value internationally.

In a word, gold in todays economy represents security.

If you first understand the fundamentals of money, as in currency, you will understand why gold and silver are the safest place to be right now.

You see, gold and silver have been money for over 5000 years of human history, and we have become so smart (or is that stupid?) that we have figured out how to ‘make paper behave like gold’. How foolish we have become.

Gold is money.

Gold has been the standard used to measure a currency unit of value for thousands of years because:

• Gold is liquid and easily traded, with a narrow spread between the prices to buy and sell (about 1%).
• Gold is easily transportable, because it has a high value for its weight.
• Gold is money because it is divisible, you can divide it into coins, or re-melt it into bars, without destroying it.
• Also, gold is interchangeable. It can be substituted for another piece of gold with no hassle.
• Gold is also nearly impossible to counterfeit, as genuine gold is easily recognizable.
• When measured by weight, gold is easily countable, and verifiable.
• Gold is money because it is a great store of value. It is not subject to decay, rot, or rust.
• Gold has an intrinsic value, because it is rare, highly desired by the world over.
• Gold is no one’s liability.
• Gold depends on no one’s promise to pay.
• Gold carries no credit risk.
• Gold cannot be inflated (you can’t print more of it).
• Gold’s value cannot be altered by government decree.

 

OBAMA the New Woodrow Wilson: the Fed Act and the Health Care Bill in Comparison

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of the Roman decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggles and failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, and consuming wars.

–The Story of Civilization III (1944)

 

The Federal Reserve Act (ch. 6, 38 Stat. 251, enacted December 23, 1913, 12 U.S.C. ch.3) is the act of Congress that created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States of America, which was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.

The Rothschilds

"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favors, that there will be no opposition from that class." -- Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" -- Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

This quote is mostly words Wilson actually wrote, with the first two sentences of it apparently being incorrect and the rest taken from Wilson's The New Freedom. Below is what one can actually derive from connecting together two passages from The New Freedom:

"A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men ... [W]e have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”

All of the above is from Woodrow Wilson's The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People (New York and Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913).[1] In this same work, Wilson also wrote the below:

"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

206.148.136.60 18:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

AMERICAN CONFUSED ABOUT HEALTH CARE BILL REFORM/ACT JUST LIKE WITH THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT!

 

As expected, the U.S. Senate passedthe 2009 health care reform bill Thursday along party lines, 60-39. All 58 Democrats and two Independents voted for it; 39 Republicans voted against it. U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Kentucky, did not vote.
The health care overhaul bill is the most important social policy change in the United States since the establishment of Medicare in 1965, and it ranks third behind that act, and the creation of Social Security in 1935 in social welfare state importance. Without question, the health care reform action -- aimed at eventually creating a health care system where everyone is insured and receives regular medical care -- is a civilization advance.

Most Americans still don't have a clue about health care reform.

Months of debate in Congress, endless chest-thumping by pundits and scores of dramatic 30-second ads have done shockingly little to educate Americans about the sweeping legislation that promises to affect all of them for decades to come.

Quoting a Pew Research Center analysis of its Dec. 9-13 nationwide poll, McClatchy Newspapers reports that "a large majority of Americans -- 69% -- say they find the issue hard to understand." That's even higher than the response Pew got in late July of 63%. For anyone involved in the debate, that statistic has to be depressing. Then again, this issue is a nightmare to explain to anybody, regardless of their political persuasion.

The bill, with the Orwellian(GEORGE ORWELL 1984) name of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, that passed the U.S. Senate today in a rare Christmas Eve session weighs in at a whopping 2,000-plus pages. It revamps one-sixth of the U.S. economy, costs a staggering $871 billion over 10 years, and raises just as many questions as it answers.

 

“It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

—Henry Ford inventor and founder of the Ford Motor Company.

 

NOW LOOK AT QUOTES ABOUT THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT:

Senators & Congressmen:

"Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States"
-- Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AZ)

"This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President [Wilson} signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized.... the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill." -- Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. , 1913

"From now on, depressions will be scientifically created." -- Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. , 1913

"The financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That Board asministers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group. The system is Private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money" -- Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1923

"The Federal Reserve bank buys government bonds without one penny..." -- Congressman Wright Patman, Congressional Record, Sept 30, 1941

"We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it". -- Congressman Louis T. McFadden in 1932 (Rep. Pa)

"The Federal Reserve banks are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by the International bankers -- Congressman Louis T. McFadden (Rep. Pa)

"Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are the United States government's institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign swindlers" -- Congressional Record 12595-12603 -- Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency (12 years) June 10, 1932

"I have never seen more Senators express discontent with their jobs....I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices in doing something terrible and unforgiveable to our wonderful country. Deep down in our heart, we know that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected." -- John Danforth (R-Mo)

"These 12 corporations together cover the whole country and monopolize and use for private gain every dollar of the public currency..." -- Mr. Crozier of Cincinnati, before Senate Banking and Currency Committee - 1913

"The [Federal Reserve Act] as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency... I do not like to think that any law can be passed that will make it possible to submerge the gold standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency." -- Henry Cabot Lodge Sr., 1913

From the Federal Reserves Own Admissions: "When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in out account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money." -- Putting it simply, Boston Federal Reserve Bank

"Neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities, intrinsically, a 'dollar' bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries." -- Modern Money Mechanics Workbook, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 1975

THE HEALTH REFORM BILL IS SET UP TO FUNNEL FUNDS INTO INSURANCE COMPANY’S HANDS…

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which represents big drug companies, sounded a more conciliatory note, saying the bill "offers the kind of change that will benefit patients today without putting medical progress at risk in the future."

Eric Wahlgren pointed out yesterday, the legislation would still leave about 23 million people without health insurance and that most of the 30 million uninsured who will be helped by the bill won't get their assistance until 2013. Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told the Associated Press that "People are going to see their premiums and out-of-pocket costs go up before the tangible benefits kick in." That's a tough pill to swallow for folks who expect immediate relief.

 

Warren Buffett recommends that investors look for companies that deliver outstanding return on capital and produce substantial cash profits. He also suggests that you look for companies with a huge economic moat to protect them from competitors. You can identify companies with moats by looking for strong brands, alongside consistent or improving profit margins and returns on capital.

 

very elaborate shell game...if he gets his bailout from the government he'll be the highest paid welfare recipient in the history of mankind...

If you carefully read his latest financial statements (don't forget he controls Berkshire Hathaway) you'll see he can bail out his insurance company from his cash reserves and still handle the hit.

 

Insurance has been Berkshire's core operating business since it purchased National Indemnity, a commercial auto and general liability insurer, in 1967. Insurance has supplied the "fountain of funds" Buffett uses to buy other businesses and securities. Among Berkshire's other insurance holdings today are GEICO, a direct provider of auto insurance, and General Reinsurance.

The source of our insurance funds is "float," which is money that doesn't belong to us but that we temporarily hold. Most of our float arises because (1) premiums are paid upfront though the service we provide - insurance protection - is delivered over a period that usually covers a year and; (2) loss events that occur today do not always result in our immediately paying claims, because it sometimes takes many years for losses to be reported (asbestos losses would be an example), negotiated and settled. The $20 million of float that came with our 1967 purchase (National Indemnity- NICO) has now increased - both by way of internal growth and acquisitions - to $46.1 billion.

Float is wonderful - if it doesn't come at a high price. Its cost is determined by underwriting results, meaning how the expenses and losses we will ultimately pay compare with the premiums we have received. When an underwriting profit is achieved - as has been the case at Berkshire in about half of the 38 years we have been in the insurance business - float is better than free. In such years, we are actually paid for holding other people's money.

Warren Buffet, considered the nation’s greatest and richest investor, and an Obama adviser, now says Mr. Obama’s economic message is muddled and is undermining public confidence. Mr. Obama told CNBC, “And I think we'e had, and it’s the nature of the political process somewhat, but we’ve had muddled messages and the American public does not know. They feel they don’t know what’s going on, and their reaction then is to absolutely pull back.”

 

“… You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, I will rout you out.”

—President Andrew Jackson, upon evicting a delegation of International Bankers from the Oval Office

“The real truth of the matter is, and you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president.”

—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, November 23, 1933 in a letter to Colonel Edward Mandell House

 

I WANT TO DO USEFUL WORK AND GET PAID, WITHOUT HAVING TO REPORT IT FOR TAXATION, CONFISCATION, AND REGULATION…

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The Glider’s Gem

The Glider’s Gem

I walk with a pen and a knife,
A loaded gun and loaded dice,
Take your chances but think twice,
You die only once…
This is a gamble… and this is life!

 

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The truth behind the Tiger in the Woods

The truth behind Tiger Woods story, is the media in America is owned by the elites who don't want to draw attention to Barack Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan, the controversy of the Nobel Peace prize and the radical agendas they are proposing in Copenhagen which won't benefit developing nations...

a the truth a so it go...

To quote John Maxwell in the Observer...


"I cannot forget, nearly 20 years ago, Bryant Gumbel blurting out on Good Morning America that the Oklahoma City bombing, then 'just in', must have been the work of Middle Eastern terrorists. Or last week, when Tiger Woods was reportedly 'seriously injured' after gate-crashing a fire hydrant and a tree. The US Press has printed more about that story in a week than it has about Honduras since July or about Haiti in five years." I hope you read this the people need to know!



The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There are really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy.
Ted Turner

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
Noam Chomsky

There's less critical thinking going on in this country on a Main Street level - forget about the media - than ever before. We've never needed people to think more critically than now, and they've taken a big nap.
Alec Baldwin

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Open Letter to the Western Media (UNPUBLISHED)

The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There are really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy.
Ted Turner

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
Noam Chomsky

There's less critical thinking going on in this country on a Main Street level - forget about the media - than ever before. We've never needed people to think more critically than now, and they've taken a big nap.
Alec Baldwin

I am the voice of a generation
Bob Dylan

Greeting once again Montego Bay, after some introspection, rummaging through the remains of the day, I have realized I wrote a slew and rash of Open Letters tackling many of the National Institutions and Government Ministries, and realized that there is one entity or body I failed to tackle and that is the MEDIA. The media in western Jamaica particularly, and the Western Mirror is not exempted from this. For I believe the media in western Jamaica has been lackluster and underdeveloped for too long now. Once people could have escaped under the notion that we are a small demographic without a very intellectual or reading population. Not so anymore. This is the Mobay and western Jamaica of big names, characters and events like Brown Sugar, Usain Bolt, Colin Channer, Jah Cure, Queen Ifrica, Mackie Conscious, Sumfest, ATI Weekend, Jazz & Bluesfest and such. We are now witnessing a growing intellectual community with UWI now officially here and a whole host of other cultural and artistic facets growing fast behind it. Hence it seems odd we have the same floundering fledgling television stations, and only two surviving newspapers of note, and two radio stations.

I believe the western media has been slow in growing fostering and honing great talent. I sincerely believe in the second city lies the next set of big television personalities. I believe Mirror has been long overdue in becoming a western paper, with a western edge and vantage point with NATIONWIDE distribution. I believe western media has also been slow in harnessing new technology and grabbing the new generation’s attention. They have also been slow in reaching deeply and widely into the western Jamaican diaspora abroad. The media out west now needs to be a platform and voice, giving legitimacy and credibility to its talents, writers, columnists, TV personalities, to its audience.

Self-examination by western news and media organizations is always useful and crucial at this junction in Western Jamaica’s growth. In this great future, the Western Mirror needs to mean more to the minds of the people than SUSS and Death notice and Murder updates it is time we seriously go about "Preserving Our Readers' Trust." Because, politics, a republic, a democracy cannot operate without an independent, critical, and responsible press, it is now MOST incumbent on western news and media organizations to continually assess their own performance to see if they are fulfilling their obligations to the PUBLIC.

Because of its importance to the functioning of our political and social life, the press and media will always be subject to criticism and critique. It is then our obligation to take such critiques seriously; doing so requires not only responding to legitimate criticism, but having the fortitude and integrity to reject baseless attacks and the more basal natures in our society.

Today the western media is polluted and clouded with a mountain heap of archaic and ancient media pundits and demagogues it is time to whole heartedly embrace a real and legitimate generation that is of age and time and deserving of having their opinions heard. It is time to “diversifying our vantage point", but not out of fear of sales, but out of a genuine desire to report on the full scope of Montego Bay and Western Jamaica’s social and political life. We the media need to stop perpetuating some of the crudest stereotypes of the nation holds of those outside the main metropolis, like the idea we are small, backward or unentertaining and lacking in vibes or opportunity.

The Wesern Mirror in particular must understand that this paper occupies a unique place in Montegonian and western journalism, with an ability to set the news agenda and the larger political agenda that is unparalleled among news organizations, even those with vastly larger audiences. This power confers upon you a particular obligation to act responsibly and uphold the highest standards of our profession.

Reality for Old Media representatives and executives is self-fulfilling. That is, the reality broadcast through the airwaves and printed on dead wood has for so long influenced the way that the general public perceives reality, it has become inconceivable that a time would come when our pictures and words would no longer drive public opinion.

I am writing this to you as a final warning. That time has already arrived. With the advent of the Internet, people from all over the world, able to tell their own stories and reflect their own perceptions to willing eyes and ears have provided an awakening and shake at the very foundations of what you currently perceive to be reality. A whole generation will be influencing opinion through their peer groups and relying on YOUTUBE and blogs to influence and inform their understanding of our city and how it is perceived. The radio or the paper may not affect this generation if you don’t begin to reflect a modern reality and not the dream of sleeping giants the western media and news organizations have become.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa
http://yahnyk.blogspot.com
yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

The Media and Press in Jamaica

“I cannot forget, nearly 20 years ago, Bryant Gumbel blurting out on Good Morning America that the Oklahoma City bombing, then 'just in', must have been the work of Middle Eastern terrorists. Or last week, when Tiger Woods was reportedly 'seriously injured' after gate-crashing a fire hydrant and a tree. The US Press has printed more about that story in a week than it has about Honduras since July or about Haiti in five years.

The Press does not understand that real democracy depends on information and that without guaranteed sources of real information no democracy is possible. Without the truth Jones Town and Denham Town disappear without a trace. Ask Mr Seaga.

The people need to be guaranteed information as pure and wholesome as the water they drink.”

Is the new Superman meant to be Jesus?

By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine

Is the Superman Returns movie meant to remind us of the Bible? And if so, is it blasphemy?

Well here's the story.

An all-powerful father sends his son to Earth to save mankind by showing them the "light". The son is able to perform miracles. He "dies" and is born again.

Sound familiar? It might do, it's the plot of the new movie Superman Returns. And in the blogs and internet forums there has been a maelstrom of debate on the parallels between Superman and Jesus Christ.

Superman has a long history of Judaeo-Christian symbols, but this time the film's makers have taken it to a new level.

CHRISTIAN ECHOES?

1. Stabbed in side with Kryptonite - like Jesus stabbed with spear
2. Empty hospital room - empty tomb of Jesus
3. Falls to Earth, arms outstretched - Crucifixion-like
4. Cradled in mother's arms - like Michelangelo's Pieta
5. Superman says world needs saviour
6. Superman's five years in space echoes the Ascension
7. Shown with weight of world/sin on shoulders

• • At one point Superman falls towards the Earth in a pose that vaguely echoes the Crucifixion.
• • He is stabbed in his side with Kryptonite in an echo of the stabbing of Jesus by a Roman soldier.
• • A female nurse rushes into the hospital room to find it empty just as Jesus tomb was found to be empty by female followers.

And there are Christians in the US who believe that the symbolism is now sufficiently obvious that the film can be incorporated into religious teaching.

Stephen Skelton is the author of the Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero and has prepared guidance for pastors wanting to use Superman Returns in their sermons.

Sex and violence

"You would have to be blind to miss what they are doing in terms of the Christ imagery," says Mr Skelton, a Christian with a background in showbusiness, "there is a big foot in the door."

American churches have not generally been well-disposed towards Hollywood, with its laissez-faire attitude towards sex and violence. But the West Coast Babylon has recently offered two films which have been manna to churches, The Passion of the Christ, and the Chronicles of Narnia.

One or two voices have said how can we see Superman as a Christ figure when he is fooling around with Lois Lane when she is committed to another person - that simply comes from pushing the parallel too far

Stephen Skelton
Christian author

Some more traditional churchgoers may be under-whelmed by the use of movies to sell the Gospels, but Mr Skelton is unrepentant.

"That is a modern idea that we are somehow dumbing down the Gospels. This has a huge biblical precedent. In Acts 17:28 Paul quotes from a hymn to Zeus. He is using a pagan deity... the least we can do is take a second glance at Superman.

As well as the imagery, there is plenty in the dialogue. Superman refers to himself as a saviour, while baddie Lex Luthor talks about the man with his pants on the outside as a God.

Average cinemagoer

The film borrows Superman's father's speech from the first movie and gives it a prominent place, with Marlon Brando intoning: "They [mankind] only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son."

But as far as the imagery goes, what is "blatant" for those with a background in Christianity, comics, art or criticism, may be a little more opaque for the average cinemagoer.

You wrote that the world doesn't need a saviour, but every day I hear people crying for one

Superman to Lois Lane

Mr Skelton says director Bryan Singer told him the scene where Superman's adoptive mother cradles him in her arms at the start of the film is a deliberate echo of images from the Renaissance of the Virgin Mary and the dying Christ such as Michelangelo's Pieta.

But it is easy to find oneself wondering whether there isn't a note of blasphemy in the film. If Superman is so clearly meant to be Jesus, why is he making goo-goo eyes at Lois Lane, who has found a long-term partner in the hero's five-year absence from the planet.

"One or two voices have said something - how can we see Superman as a Christ figure when he is fooling around with Lois Lane when she is committed to another person. That simply comes from pushing the parallel too far," Mr Skelton explains.

And Mervyn Roberts, a broadcaster and Anglican vicar, says although he has not seen the movie it is unlikely to be blasphemous or be difficult for a Church that has largely shrugged off the Da Vinci Code.

"The truth of the Gospel will come through. Superman is very much a kind of iconic image of the saviour figure that is seen throughout history.

"So the Superman movie, unless it specifically makes references to Jesus Christ in a negative sense, a direct insult to the person of Christ, identified an insult against God, it is just putting through that image."

'Gritty' gospels

But there are going to be plenty of Christians who do not find their hearts warmed by the use of religious imagery in a blockbuster. Superman hardly comes to Earth with an amazing message, and Jesus's purpose was not preventing man-made earthquakes.

Giles Fraser, parish vicar at Putney in London, says it was one thing to use the film to draw children into the Church by glossing over the "incredibly gritty" nature of the Gospels, but quite another to do it with adults.

"Using it as evangelism for adults is completely ridiculous. It is making Christianity into this rather wholesome nicely, nicely affirmation of American values, the morphing of Jesus into the American hero."

JEWISH LINKS

• Both creators were Jewish
• Superman and father's name sound Hebrew
• Parable of Moses evoked
• Condemned by Nazis
• Story of immigration/assimilation

The black and white image of good and evil was not compatible with orthodox Christianity, Mr Fraser says.

And for all the Christian symbolism, it might be the case that there is no one religion that lay claim to the Man of Steel. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein has written a work, Up, Up and Oy Vey about the massive Jewish influence on the comic book industry particularly in its early years.

Many have noted that as well as being created by two Jewish authors, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman and his father's Kryptonian names both end in the Hebrew name for God, Kal-El and Jor-El, and that Superman's departure from Krypton can be taken as an echo of the story of Moses' childhood.

The Nazis went out of their way to condemn Superman, with Goebbels writing a polemic in April 1940 in Das Schwarze Korps, an SS newspaper.

Viewer's discretion

And even the Buddhists are getting in on the act. An article on the Buddhist Channel compares Superman to a Bodhisattva, "a great being who aspires to unconditionally help all beings be free from any suffering".

Danny Fingeroth, author of Clark Kent in Disguise: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero, says there is a certain inevitability to the reading of religious references into superheroes.

BUDDHIST PARALLELS

1. Meditates above Earth
2. Draws on Guanyin Bodhisattva
3. Has gone on soul-search
4. Distracted by worldly love

"While they have loaded the Superman movie with Christian imagery and dialogue it is still at the discretion of the viewer to see it that way.

"There is religious imagery because of the very nature of the superhero mythology - somebody with great powers who uses them to do the right thing.

"One of the appealing things is that while they may remind us of certain religious figures or ideas the fact that they are not of any one religion is what has allowed them to be embraced around the world.

"And if you like Superman rather than Batman it is unlikely you will get into an argument with someone and end up dead."