Religion’s Impact on a young Jamaican Psyche

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

― Issac Asimov

This week I think it reasonable to open my article with a quote from a Sci-Fi writer as we are living in some really sci-fi times, with bizarre cults and a fracturing society. I want to examine how religion affects the minds of Jamaican youth and how it impacted mine. Here is my story…

 At age 10, I became an atheist. Today as it pertains to God I am agnostic leaning to atheist, as a Rastafari, my faith is hinged on pan africanism, afrofuturism and a spirituality more akin to archaeology and anthropology of everything African... From ancient gods to ancestors. However, how did I become this person, how did a 10 year old in Norwood, Montego Bay become an atheist or an agnostic?

Well I attended many churches. First one I mainly remember well is Holy Trinity out by Westgate, where my beloved Grand Ma was a devout member. I remember my terrifying christening there... a ritual that I resisted since it wasn't my own volition. I remember the Father well, a well mannered enough man but that church bored me to tears and was steeped in Montego Bay's social politics. Or so it seemed to me as a young one. Then when I began attending Mt. Alvernia Prep Catholicism was introduced to me but my domestic set up was anti Catholic to a degree and very wary of homosexuality and catomite altered altar boys, and from my young perspective seeing their church attire and sometimes smoking priests gave even the young me the impression this place was at once too liberal in some regard and yet wound up in chants and ritual, and was just as boring in sound and song as Anglican.

My mother dabbled in the world of Pentecostal church with one Pastor Nigel who was killed in a house robbery at Bogue. She would eventually settle at Hillview Baptist church where many a community youth I were familiar with went and so I felt comfortable there and the service wasn't that boring... and by the time I was in grade 3, I had watched The Robe and Jesus of Nazareth so many times that I one day became so stupefied by Jesus' sacrifice and peaceful way that I to my chagrin then said to my mother that I wanted to be " A fighter for Jesus". An incident my cousin Camara Brown and brother Dax Pessoa never fail to remind me about or gimmicks me about and oh how I cringe hearing the tale repeated. My family was elated, especially my mother. And like a well brainwashed soldier, high on Jesus hopped up an reinforced by Peter Parker Spider-man and his motto of great power brings great responsibility, Star Trek and Data's and Spock's brands of stoicism and utilitarian logic "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few".

Imagine the melee of ideas like these in the mind of a black child that believed his mother sang young gifted and black to him, whose grandma was in the UNIA... Imagine the mind molded in a Christian yet pan African household... I was charged up... a young black superhero... young gifted and black... I was the X-Men, Malcolm X-Men School for gifted... “Mi start get up early go church walk by mi self, go Sunday school, stay for big church, trying to get more moral more good a try understand God’s will... What did he want me to do etc? Granted hormones had become a problem, I went to church religiously and imbibed the message though as an early puberty child, I was lusting after the young girls in tight dresses, plus maybe some of my mother’s friends in all their church dress plumpness and pulchritude.

 

Beyond that I was good and ready to be a saint… I really did consider being a pastor… eeek! Oh I prayed to have wisdom like Solomon after al my mother wanted my middle name to be Nestor god of wisdom and my father wanted it to be the wise nesta Marley, I prayed like Samuel to be chosen, to ask for wisdom and granted health and length of days… “yep be a wise 'gallis' like Solomon and not to be gal clown like Samson.” Oh how silly I was. But I took spiritual matters and science very seriously from the day I was born. These meant everything to me, them and Africa… so they had to collide.

As in the back of my mind was marinating a debate that had happened one Sunday on the verandah, my father and uncles were debating God. My uncle Hugh Thompson a devout atheist was at it against my uncle David Brown a very religious man, they had asked my father to weigh in and I remembered his words well, "If Zeus and such are Greek and Norse and Roman mythology, then our religion might just be Jewish mythology" and forever that moment it dawned on my that I simply assumed Christians were right. But that didn't cause my divorce psychologically from church.

It came one Sunday when my Sunday school teacher were giving a Sunday school lesson on revelations, it was my common entrance year, but what in the sermon caused the great divorce and moment of cognitive dissonance is when she informed be Jews get a second chance on Judgement day but gentile which we all were would be judged and if not found worthy would be tossed in hell fire... how could even God be sort of racist and biased and if he didn't rather me or black people it can't work and I wanted no more part in it and maybe it was Jewish mythology and not my story or mythos. I would years later find out Pessoa is a Jewish last name but little comfort anyway. And so I wrestled with it inside. And when I mentioned it to friends they all looked scared or told me not to think so much. When I told my mother it became a family crisis for all of high school. I was recommended to speak with this person or that parson... only for all my questions to come up unanswered but everyone wanted me to just accept without irrefutable proof or sound logic and science that God is real... I was no longer the good son but now spaced out, a possible high school weed head even though I never knew what a spliff was, I was wayward etc.. I was a victim of fads, they said I was easily swayed.

The tribulations of not walking in religious norm followed me to the UWI, where in my first semester a big argument with Ms. Kitty after she attacked me as the devil worshiper (I wonder if she remembers that!), whilst I was reasoning with someone else on Atheism. She and that debate led a portion of people to dub me as devil boy... ironic that at home in my community I was called Jesus… but I was persecuted over my opinion and belief. So when I say I understand the rigors of being ostracized by Christians and Christianity to be ridiculed and persecuted despite all my logic and scientific methodology, my critical thinking.... I understand how a religion can put enmity in family, the familiar and the familial.

So let us not heap scorn and condemnation in the Pathway congregation... Who controls your mind... is it Mark Zuckerberg, Rachel Maddow, Jewish myth writers who goads yours mind and prompts your ideas who coaxed you and cajoled your brain? Did the influence of external thought and ideas from outside u ever make u take stance and divides from friends and family?

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social Advocate, Community Activist and Philosopher. Follow on Twitter & Instagram @yahnyk. Follow on Youtube @ and Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

A Concise History of MoBay

Montego Bay is the most urban setting in St. James. An early map of Jamaica has Montego Bay listed as “Bahia de Manteca” or “Lard Bay,” so called because of the lard making industry made possible by the hunting of wild boars which populated the surrounding hills. Montego Bay was a sugar and banana town but the sugar factories were closed and bananas are now shipped out from Kingston and Port Antonio.

Montego Bay is Jamaica’s second largest city. According to the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Montego Bay is also among the top five fastest growing urban centres in the country. The growth is spurred by tourism, which is the major foreign exchange earner for the parish of St. James. The high number of tourist attractions and resorts in Montego Bay provide employment for hundreds of Jamaicans. Over 80 per cent of the entire parish is dependent on tourism.

Pot Holes: Filling in the Gaps

Infrastructure investments lead to jobs. And quality of life starts with a good job.
John Hickenlooper 

When I am driving my car down the street, I try not to go down the potholes.
Philip Green

The potholes in the roads are a problem, the political ones, the metaphorical ones, but I'm talking about the literal ones now… they are one of if not the biggest headache we have right now on the road. It seems like every year we complain that potholes seem worse than they have ever been. But this year, they really do seem worse than they ever have been. I haven't seen any part of the city, or peripheral town or village that is immune to pothole pox, and the rains of the last few months has really made for brutal rides on many many roads. It seems that the busier they are, the worse they are, particularly because the city has been cheap with their paving budgets. Even though Jamaicans depend on this infrastructure to go about their daily lives in safety, our mayor has been relatively quiet on the need to revitalize the city’s roads, bridges, sewers, dams, and water treatment plants.

I am not saying we need an ambitious and expensive plan to modernize their city’s infrastructure, however, a competitive city simply cannot have sewers backing-up into basements and streets flooding every time it rains. The savvy voters and taxpayers in Jamaica today are looking to get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to the cost of government. That includes the cost of building and repairing streets. For that reason alone, our municipality should require bids for both asphalt and concrete pavements. And those bids should include a life cycle cost analysis for road construction or repair projects. Doing so helps them determine whether using asphalt or concrete materials is the more cost-effective, sustainable investment.

Alternatives 

A possible solution could be, using old vehicle tires as a long term solution for patching the number of potholes on roads across the city and possibly the country could easily be piloted in Montego Bay. The process of using rubberized asphalt to pave roads has been working well in the US and Canada. This process can fix both the stress and damages caused by the poor quality of the roads and cut down on the large quantities of old tires. Rubberized asphalt is made from asphalt concrete and mixed with crumb rubber from recycled tires. The city can look into at taking our old tires, which is another headache to us, and turn them into rubber the steel and the fluff from the tire itself it can pave the roads. The roads become softer and you wouldn’t skid or slide on the roads. Maintenance solution waste removal solution, safety solution, financial solution… all rolled into one. It can work. We can take our tires and turn them into crumb rubber and pave the roads with them. There is so much more use for old tires. It is for our municipality, our city to decide the way forward, not follow the tides of time as usual and get left behind.

Experts claim the road requires less maintenance and still allows for drainage, while tyre recyclers claim the technique will also save money because the new material is thinner than standard roads. Rubber roads were first built in the 1960s in the US, where today there are 20,000 miles of road made of recycled tyres. Rubber roads are also popular in China, Brazil, Spain and Germany.
Another solution that came to me is tied to social enterprise. Wikipedia defines social enterprise as an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being—this may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for external shareholders. So what do potholes have to do with social enterprise? Well I have been thinking… why doesn’t the municipality hire the men who already go around patching the roads informally as a side hustle to officially operate as road maintenance personnel. I think it ought to be fairly easy for the municipality to employ them give them a minimum wage stipend, negotiate with the chamber of commerce or the hardware businesses directly to provide them with propatch asphalt and cement to help alleviate a road crisis, at the same time encouraging motorists to donate to the cause by tipping the road patchers. The social benefit is the road patchers receive official pay and employ, the road is not as bad for motorists and commuters, improved safety, a good public relations look for the municipality. Maybe the plan could be tweaked in some places but you get the picture we need to be more innovative about the road that lies ahead, it is filled with ruts and potholes, to fix them and navigate them require a new outlook.

Future Change 

Our city needs an intensified island-wide road works programme. You would think that with all of the technological advancements we have seen in our lifetime, someone would have figured out a better way to fix damaged roads. There is a ton of money to be made, and I'm sure the insurance companies and municipalities that pay out claims for damaged vehicles would be happy to see it. Of course, the municipal corporation could spend more money on routine maintenance and paving that would prevent a lot of these problems, but that ship has obviously sailed. I can only hope that one day someone in public office might begin to take responsibility for genuinely solving this problem, as they say nowadays “own it”. If not and we continue to dither, delay and propose inadequate measures , we will leave a bigger problem for Montego Bay’s children.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social/Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow on Twitter at @yahnyk. Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

Sunset

Going on a 1038 mph evening run,
Like Wally West chasing the sun,
I nuh want sunset done...
A the only time I feel at one.

poem by Yannick Pessoa

MY THEORY ON PNP'S MUST WIN!

A Fairly Bio-Historical Thesis and Simple Treatise!

Watch yah... JLP nah no chance... if dem show we suppm we deh yah fi MATCH it... imagine.. halfwaytree look so an mi an fi mi entourage nuh di deh... wah u a seh...

I will never pretend seh PNP perfect but a dem mi go ever vote fah and a dem mi go try guide and cuss till dem get it write... mi wi write a million letter to the editor and advice suggest and cuss, but watch yah mi nuh inna nutten wid JLP... who dis rasta... yow a wah u a seh. Busta weh seh iron fist... man... mi Granny born 1919... mi sleep in a bed with her, say mi times table and lissen story as she walk me down the streets of history. I've read a million books, divining the pages of history... all mi si dat mek sense to mi in the long march forward... mi granny get build and educated by UNIA and Garvey, Garvey = self reliance PPP etc...

Manley co-opt that political energy, but still under pnp self reliance and such concepts persist... hence... mi Granny when garvey get shub back press fwd wid PNP and mi see michael manley meet him, mi end up sight Rasta, Rasta and JLP a nuh fren, by the time mi did reach sociology at A level... all when mi teach a laaf an bun mi out mi pick SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM, concepts native to Africa by the way!

All when teacher a SHUB globalization inna the 90's push NEO LIBERALISM, I man resist and bun dat. My Mother was a social worker inna the 70's under Manley era and my Mother went to university UWI when Manley brought forward free education...

Hence mi a di result of sensible PNP policy and courtesies, mi direct result of the scope and reach and testimony of Garvey... so mi live this and mi read through the pages of history and see where books bear witness to this truth an concur wah mi DNA a seh from 1919 through to the 70's...

Till mi manifest in flesh and grow in a house weh Marcia Griffiths and Bob Andy "Young Gifted and Black" play every day, weh mi a listen Bob Marley to Bob Dylan... mi get fi know of Nyerere... mi Mother a Christian mi nuh know of no bigger socialist than Jesus.... charity, equality....

Dem SHUB globalization and neo-liberalism pon mi all the way into UWI mona... an even then man resist, till mi live fi see 2007, GLOBALIZATION collapse, neo liberalism was too liberal and liberated economic monsters to wreak havoc.. mi get fi meet sensible thinkers weh a put up resistance too know seh neo liberalism is neo colonialism.... hence and therefore I KNOW THIS... JLP nuh mek it... try kill RASTA a Coral Gardens a conflict mi have DNA linked inas mi have a cousin that was the philosophical under pinning of nuff a di ideology in the Mobay rasta movements and conflict at the time and then let us not forget "Back To"...

With every fiber of my being I know the way forward for this country MUST be through anything, any vehicle or vector that can carry the ideas of Rasta/GARVEY to Jamaica, right now PNP a the major vehicle to do that, I also hope all independents thinkers rise too and do dem ting fi shake up the status quo... Astor Black and Haile Mikael... it is in those veins of ideas of Garvey and Rasta that any hope or sensible ideas for indigenous and the mass of Jamaican people ever come from... simple!

JLP has an image that seems to represents... NEO-liberalism, CIA(go watch youtube), the 80's Drugs and Cocaine, ONE DON, Tivoli which can never be a model to replicate across Jamaica, Daryl Vaz and him poko poko face screaming at me as minister of info and a bad mi up thru television... rumours that Jim Brown shot Bob Marley for you know who... the image that JLP is an elite of ruling brown people and descendants of the plantocracy cannot be easily shaken out of the Jamaican consciousness.. the only positive image mi can think of for JLP is Chris Tufton... and they seem to forever pigeon hole him... I wish Portia would give him a call.

So I just a chant for REPUBLIC, REPARATION, REFORM (Land, Political & Electoral), CCJ, OPEN SOURCE!!! That Jamaica need now fi mek some major leaps forward!

Lessons Learnt from the Princess who wanted a Princess Yo-yo!

This is a post dedicated to my daughter and some of the things she has taught me as well as allowed me to remember and rediscover. For a few years before her birth I was in a state of some kind of depression and doldrums, a funk as it were, overwhelmed with failures. The failure of having not produced any literary master piece as yet, not getting any where with poetry, no where with art, no comic book produced, no documentary, no cartoon, no animation, no car, no major tech infusion, hobbling on a pitch patch income, fumbling from PC to PC and laptop to laptop. Yeah there may have been some successes... as small as they seemed in my eye, and probably in the grand picture of Jamaican super start success hypes. Yeah I was the first Jamaican Blogger, and probably the first or longest running Jamaican blogger, but what is the value and who cares?

Sure The Montegonian did a lovely stint in the Western Mirror which I believe changed the dynamic of Column writing in Western Jamaica and imbued western Journalism with more confidence and vigor. Sure I would hear my ideas in articles popping up in Mobay's Chamber of Commerce on the mouths of other people with no credit to me, which is not a problem to me, as long as it makes this city better. Yeah but in the age of so many hot writers erupting everyday from Jamaica on the world stage, what is it worth when the world stage and so many platform seem closed to me and the less financially endowed. Sure I have been championing and been an early pioneer using Linux and Open Source in Montego Bay and Western Jamaica on PC's, Laptops and Desktops, but what is that worth in a country that worships at the alter of Microsoft and Windows, yet not knowing Linux holds up their tech world on Android phones and slavishly carrying the tech world on servers everywhere. What is it worth when you champion your community and any social cause worth the activism, only to be neglected by NGO's because we aren't PR material or the poster child for the worst community or we just don't have enough dead bodies on our streets, to have media focus on Kingston and the colourful personalities that catch their eye and fancy, and this happens no matter how conscious the media agency seems or pretends to be. What is it worth to be another unsung hero... to fight the black struggles in the best ways you know how and to have so little verbal reward or any kind of accolade and close to no meal ticket. What was it worth to be vanguard and forerunner, when every forerunner only holds the lead to be in a lonely place and relegated to pariah.

What was I to do... worn thin and wounded in spirit?

Enter my Daughter... life in abundance, come to reinvigorate me and teach me new lessons on life and to remember the lessons and ideas I forgot long ago.

Lesson 1. Simple things can keep us happy: The Princess Yo-Yo 101

~Now this lesson I learned last December. I am not a Christmas believer nor do I believe a Christ was born on Dec 25. However Nativity, Christmas Carols, Trade Winds those tings make me redolent, and is a season I cherished as a child for the bells, the x-mas plays, cool chilly breezes, the yards smelling of paint, fresh cut lawns, pretty silver moons, astronomy with my father under clear skies, being filled with the sense that the world was slowing down for reasons such as love, family and in-gatherings of family and extensions of family. A season that as child wished would never end. So it is that spirit I try to hang onto and recapture for my daughter. A feeling and emotion about the season, not necessarily connected to trees, or lights, or presents, but connected with the presence of special people. So when she became swept up with the season last year and she requested a present, Super Daddy has to answer the call. Now, for a few days I twisted my brain to find a nice present and thought it maybe it'd be something costly. Would it be a tablet, a Nabi, a electronic gadget of some sort, surely not clothes... After not thinking of anything, I asked her what she wanted. "A Princess Yo-Yo!" 

WHAT! A princess yo-yo... hmmm it seemed a unique and odd request and one that maybe would stump me. For this was a request at the crux of roads... Yo-yoes are for boys, I hadn't imagined that the 21st century girl could be a Tom Boy Princess... another strange anomaly. HMMMMM HMMMM HMMMM... so specialized, it sounds like that may stretch my imagination, where in Mobay was I gonna find a princess yo-yo... if one even existed. And how much would this cost now... please let it not be over $2000, as mi just nuh have it, fi maths more than that. HMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I was confounded. Being the presumption ass, I assumed that such wonders as a possibly expensive and specialized toy like a princess yo-yo had to be located at Fontana or MegaMart or some such location... of I went... wasting gas to traverse from Paradise to Mobay's likkle farrin... out by Fairview! Only to not find the prized princess yo-yo there. After giving the issue some more brain power... I came up with Sangster's Book Store... so off to Harbour Street to park again and foot it to Sangster's. After scouring Sangster's seeing an varied assortment of $1000 odd Yo-yoes, I was heartened somewhat, but I hadn't found the Princess Yo-yo yet. Fine fine... lemme walk the town in one last hope to see what's up, only to realize hmmmm Henderson's in renovating... lemme check it out... as I enter it immediately greets me, a $435.00 pink Princess Yo-yo! My word... that's it $435.00 bet she just uses it once and discards it... I've seen kids do it a thousand times right.

3 Months later in March I was still de-tangling yo-yo chords and explaining an assortment of tricks. Hence I had learned that she really did ask for what she wanted, was happy when she got it, and really tried to learn to use it and understand it. Hmmm much more than I had given her credit for. So my daughter reminds me of the Sizzla song now... "Simplicity we use to survive, many find it difficult cause them ignorant and dumb." The hold incident too reminded me of a time when I was young, it was a Sunday, and as my mother and grand mother sat reading the papers, I didn't realize my granny had stopped reading the newspaper and was watching me swing on the grill at the door, and when I realized she was, she looked at me and said, "A see seh yuh come fi mek yuh owna sun shine." It was a while before i understood what she meant, but Kyrha's made me re-learn that idea.

Lesson 2. Everyone has their own mind: On White Folk and Other Philosophy- death, afterlife god mother nature

Now when it comes to life and learning as it pertains to youth, my belief is that, I ought not hold much back, and if I do, it is only in the interest of keeping things simple. I won't lie or make up fairy tales. Lies, myth and fairy tales I believe hinder a child's development, and denies them the chance to intuit deeper levels of knowledge and understanding. Fairy tales hinder humanity's collective gainful comprehension of the universe.

However explaining gravity, why we fall, robots, machines, sleep, imagination, digestion, the eye, even sex and how she came here, seems so so so much simpler when one contends with explaining GOD, JESUS, HEAVEN, MOTHER NATURE, AFTER LIFE, SLAVERY AND RACISM among other metaphysical and social mysteries.

Most amazing of all though is that this little  year old processes my thoughts and what I tell her and she doesn't just imbibe it and says it is so because Daddy's says so... she challenges ideas in her mind. I'll soon explain.

My doctrines on life are a scientific approach to questions, in social spiritual matters in my Ras Tafari I employ Marcus Garveys's fiery Afrocentrism and pan-africanism tempered by Haile Selassie's cerebral modus operandi and diplomacy. So when I have to touch on touchy issues of Race and slavery I as advised by listening to Martin Luther King Jr's treatise on his little daughter and fun town, which I listen to often via Youtube.

So when Africa comes up and how or why we are Africans and how we came to be in Jamaica, I didn't shy away from explaining the horror of slavery and the evils wrought on us by white Europeans. As MLK Jr suggested I tried not to be bitter. I think I may have been a little. Anyway... it so happens one day white Christian folk visit her school, when I pick her up, she immediately comes to me and says guess what Daddy... You know I think you are wrong about white people... not all white people are bad... I met some good ones at school today... I couldn't contain the laughter... this child retained the race conversations and had borne it in mind and challenged my information with her experiences... I was truly impressed. There is no brain washing this one. Anyway... after she repeats her point and says "is true enuh Daddy, is true!" I say to her don't worry we'll discuss this again when you are older, and hopefully then you'll see my point more clearly.

Lesson 3. What Father is and means: Pickney Proverbs & Prov 15 vs 5

So on becoming a father I have had to examine my experiences being fathered, what I liked, what I want to improve upon from my father. But I have also had to examine the role I have played to people I have semi- or part-time fathered. If mentoring is important, the power of the role... what power has been invested in father.

More difficult to examine has been how Jamaica deals with father and how harshly we are critiqued and derided by society, even as our stats improve and some stats are coming in to indicate women have to some extent aided in undermining Jamaican Masculinity... the Jacket phenomenon, the bleaching, the long hair and expenses, the gimmi mentality, relentless challenge to male authority, the belief in the better-ness of white notions and displays and examples of masculinity.

I've also had to open up to my daughters notions of father, dada, papa... the fixer of things, the knower of things, her companion encyclopedia and philosopher, the backdrop against which she bounces ideas and deciphers reality. The daughter who believes father is there for super/supra natural protections. To examine what this young femininity means to man, what really is the role of man, what do I teacher her of masculinity, what do I do with her Tom Boyism... her Princessism... how do I prepare for the future with a truly helpful vision that equips her for all that may come, how do I also prepare her for launch as my first emissary and arrow shot and cast into the future, my messenger and ambassador to the future? How? How do I combine organic ideology, african spirituality, technology, post modern philosophy, ecological livity, humanism and not this transhuman future of black widows, Iron men and people with electric hearts and dreams of electric sheep, visions and ultrons??? How do I sow Marcus Garvey into everyday existence and merge the ethics of Haile Selassie?

Most of all I have had to examine everyone who has played some sort of mentor or fatherly role... my Father, grand Father, older friends, elders, sages and all... I have had to even consider if I am comfortable with God being a father... should it maybe not be better that it be ISIS and not some nondescript holy ghost, and what social ethos would only give us a God father, and no mother or reduce her to a ghost... and find some way to sire sons (the sons of god came down and took of themselves wives of the daughters of men) without women, to make man give birth to the first woman!

In many ways my daughter more than anyone has taught me about Father, through the gift of fatherhood.

Lesson 4. Live!

I don't know another soul that gives meaning to the words Verve and Vivacious and Effervescent!

From the moment I met this girl in a tummy kicking, I couldn't have met her before that, I am not privy to the woman's early knowing that her body is inhabited and her womb is occupied. Yep! I met her with a kick and the information that she constantly moved to the noise of children and voices on the outside world! And as I sat by the womb waiting night by night... I had a sense of knowing that this was someone full of spunk...

It would come as no surprise then that some of her favourite songs are "This Girl is on Fire" and  Katy Perry's "Roar"... She ravages through cartoons and her favourites change often... there was the Avatar "Ang" phase, then Korra... the Doc McStuffins, Cat in the Hat, Peppa Pig, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, now much to my chagrin it's Monster High and Sabrina the Teenage Witch!

But that I think is a crucial lesson she has taught me... sometimes I spend too much time being cerebral and thinking about things and there consequences rather than just doing... and that is her thing... impulsive impetus... just do it.. live, with a sense of absolute fearlessness at that. So if she can do it... why can't I! She also brought home this Garvey quote..

Fear is a state of nervousness fit for children and not men. When man fears a creature like himself he offends God, in whose image and likeness he is created. Man being created equal fears not man but God. To fear is to lose control of one's nerves; one's will, to flutter, like a dying fowl, losing consciousness, yet alive.
(Marcus Garvey)

Imagine a 5 year old teaching I N I bout fearlessness!

Lesson 5. Serendipity Sanguinity and Telepathic Connection

When I was a little boy, sitting int back of cars in the rain, I'd look at the wipers and imagine they were two children chasing each other or fighting, throwing water at each other. It's just one of those little thoughts your child mind produces and you forget as you get older. I was blown away one evening whilst driving home in the rain, she says "Mommy and Daddy! Yuh know those two wipers look like two children fighting and throwing water at each other, two rude children... dem rude enuh! Don't dem look like dat Mommy?"

I had to give the car a 1 minute stop and let the years come back... then let the strange feeling of synchronism and time-loop or -warp sink in and settle and explain it to her and her Mommy why I had paused.

I think this is a lesson on the metaphysics of things, the unknown and unexplained, a sense that their are greater psycho-spiritual things going on, we are more than we know... paranormal, in search of... STRANGE BUT TRUE...

Open Source and the City!

  
What is Open Source? 

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software with its source code made available with a license in which the copyright holder supplies the rights to study, change and distribute the software to anyone and for any reason or function. Open-source software is very oftentimes developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most striking example of open-source development and often compared to (technically defined) user-generated content or (legally defined) open-content movements.

A report by the Standish Group (from 2008) states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.

In production and development, open source as a development model promotes a universal access via a free license to a product's design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone. Researchers view open source as a specific case of the greater pattern of Open Collaboration, "any system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants, who interact to create a product (or service) of economic value, which they make available to contributors and non-contributors alike".

The open-source model is based on a more decentralized model of production, in contrast with more centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial software companies.

A main principle of open-source software development is peer production by collaboration, with the end-product, source code, "blueprints", and documentation available at no cost to the public. The open source movement in software began as a response to the limitations of closed proprietary code, and it is now spreading across different fields. This model is also used for the development of open-source-appropriate technologies, solar photovoltaic technology and open-source drug discovery.

There is an accelerating interest in and use of Open-Source Software worldwide. Local governments are changing. Forward-thinking municipalities are embracing technology to make our cities better for everyone. Innovative government staff are sharing resources, best practices, and collaborating on common problems. Jamaica an its municipalities need to provide a broad range of resources, programs and services to support and advance civic innovation. Open Source Software becomes the leading information technology day by day and there are open source alternatives to most of the commercial softwares...

I use Linux Mint 17! So why can't the government do it?

So why is Government in general, and the St. James municipality in particular not looking into Open Source? It's time that Jamaican government IT policy goes as far as expressing a formal preference to use open source!

How can you apply the concepts of open source to a living, breathing city?

An open source city is a blend of open culture, open government policies, and economic development.

Five characteristics of an open source city

1. Fostering a culture of citizen participation
2. Having an effective open government policy
3. Having an effective open data initiative
4. Promoting open source user groups and conferences
5. Being a hub for innovation and open source businesses

Citizen participation: Probably one of the most difficult components of an open source city is to foster a culture of citizen participation. Having citizen champions around certain causes can really help boost citizen participation and engagement.

Open government policy and open data: Policy is another key component of an open source city. 

User groups and conferences: Participation comes in another form with user groups and conferences—like-minded people gathering around their passions. Hosting these conferences and supporting user groups will boost your open source city credibility.

Economic development: Finally, having an economic development strategy that includes open source companies can help foster innovation and create jobs. More and more cities are also seeing the advantages of having an open data policy tied to their startup community. Cities that can combine their open data policy with their economic development strategy can give a real boost to startups and other businesses. Being a hub for open source companies and a catalyst for open source startups can have a positive impact on the city's bottom line. More importantly, this feeds back in to culture and participation.
 
Municipalities and Open Source

As a Linux User I keep myself abreast by reading Linux Format! I found this interesting article in the April 2014

 edition.

Munich’s switch to open-source software has been successfully completed, with the vast majority of the public administration’s users now running its own version of Linux, city officials said Thursday.
In one of the premier open-source software deployments in Europe, the city migrated from Windows NT to LiMux, its own Linux distribution. LiMux incorporates a fully open-source desktop infrastructure. The city also decided to use the Open Document Format (ODF) as a standard, instead of proprietary options.
Ten years after the decision to switch, the LiMux project will now go into regular operation, the Munich City council said in a document published on its website.
As of November last year, the city saved more than €11.7 million (US$16.1 million) because of the switch. 

READ MORE AT: PCworld article "Switch to open source successfully completed in the city of Munich

Why should other cities do this?

Other cities should do this for many reasons such as:

• Proving to its citizen-bosses that it is doing its job and working hard in response to their needs.
• Opening up data and processes because, you never know, those citizen-bosses may be able to do something cool with it or make great suggestions.
• Opening up gives citizens a sense of ownership and welcome.  They are more likely to be engaged and satisfied if they feel ownership and pride in that ownership.

Benefits of Open Source to Montego Bay

Community Participation – Taking it to the streets

• Citizen-led communities
• Connection between youth-development programs and open government community
• Connection entrepreneurial community and open government community
• Importance of broadband access for any of this to be useful

I believe in the critical role of open-source software to create the applications and infrastructure necessary to support electronic medical records and other government-funded technology projects. Open-source software has already resulted in dramatic cost reductions in many technology areas.

Open-source software brings transparency to software development. There are no “black boxes” in open-source software and therefore no need to guess what is going on “behind the scenes.” Ultimately, this means a better product for everyone, because there is visibility at every level of the application, from the user interface to the data implementation. Furthermore, open-source software provides for platform independence, which makes quick deployments that benefit our citizens much easier and realistic.

The open-source industry is changing the world of software development in many of the ways many politicians have promised to change Jamaican politics. The values of open source are hope, change, and openness. I sincerely hope that Montego Bay and the St. James Parish Council if not the entire Jamaican government, will make the use of open-source software a key component of every new technology initiative it is apart of.

The open source characteristics of collaboration, transparency, and participation are shaping municipalities world wide as we brand our city as a city for the creative classes we must also give it the open source city brand. 

It's time that Jamaican government's IT policy goes as far as expressing a formal preference to use open source!

WATCH THESE VIDEOS TO GET UPTO SPEED ON LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE!!!

Proposals on Revolutionizing and Fixing Education in Jamaica!

Document | Article: Proposals for Education Ministry and System in Jamaica

For a long time the media and most thinks have purported the idea that we live in the information age. We live an age where cell phones and gadgetry pervade all walks of life. Computers and the internet are constantly creeping into our lives. Sociologists will contend that the family is the primary agent of socialization. But most of know and will very well contend that it is the TV. Especially in an age where the family is in crisis and in the third world where the core notion of family lives in a state of flux, the television and cable have taken prominence.

Folklore, Anansy and the oral tradition have been usurped by Sponge Bob, Dora and Hannah Montana. With absentee or limited supervision parenting rampant and the television controlling brain space and time at all times and any given hour, whilst the education system will only have them for 6 to 7 out of 24 hours much of which will be ruled by televisions and corner time no wonder we are unable to transmit and pass on the education, knowledge and morals we need to.

Mister Minister on the heels of your party’s message of change and changing the course, the courses and course of the education system has changed little. At this crucial moment in history the education system with all its short comings are in need of radical overhaul and requires new approaches and revolutionary thought. We need to design a curriculum to stimulate the development of analytical skills. The thing I care most about is that we focus not on the specific set of tools, but on the ability to “learn and apply a current tool set”.

The truth is that we constantly acquire and discard sets of tools. So we should not be fixated on one specific set of tools for all of life. Society, technology and the times change so fast that any fact, process or algorithm we learn at school is by definition not going to be useful for any length of time. The real skills that serve us are the ability to adapt, learn, apply the products of that learning, and participate in the discussions and challenges of the day. That doesn’t mean that facts are useless, or that specific tools don’t matter. Unless you can demonstrate an ability to absorb and apply both, fast, you haven’t actually gained the knack of becoming effective in a given environment.

How can we better communicate with them?

The traditional talk and chalk won’t work with this generation. Our communication style is structured, yet they want freedom. The old order stresses learning, they like experiencing. We react, they relate. We focus on the individual, while they are socially driven. Here are four essentials to consider when engaging with youth today:

Real:

Not only must our communication style be credible, but we must be also. They don’t expect us to know all about their lifestyle, nor do they want us to embrace their culture. They are simply seeking understanding, and respect. If our communication has a hidden agenda, or we are less than transparent, it will be seen. This generation can sniff a phoney from a long distance.

Raw:

Today’s youth have access to the most advanced technology, movie special effects, and video games with which we can never compete. But the good news is that they are not impacted by slick presentations. They don’t want a rehearsed talk, or a manufactured spiel. The more spontaneous and interactive we are in the classroom, the less intimidated, and more open they will be.

Relevant:

Obviously what we are communicating has to fall within their area of interest. But the style, as well as the content of our message must be relevant to a generation who are visually educated and entertained. There is no point in giving music to a friend on a cassette tape if they only have a CD player, or on CD if they only use MP3. Similarly we must research in the most appropriate format for those we are reaching. So in understanding the communication styles of our target cohort we will be better equipped to reach them.

Relational:

There is an old and true saying in education circles: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!” Communicating to this generation requires openness, vulnerability, and genuine interest in those we are trying to teach, and above all else, understanding. The more relaxed the environment, and the more socially conducive to discussions; the better will be the quality of the learning.

The Issue of Text Books and Learning Materials

Today, many children and individuals have MP3 Players, I-Pods, Smart-phones, computers, DVDs and DVD players, Radios and Televisions. Lots of in Jamaica are in some way linked and have some access to the various media. Today, I believe it is a tragedy that books, audio-books, tutorials and classes and the entire Jamaican and Caribbean syllabus are not posted online in PDF on accessible sites, material and content for our youths’ education should already be on their cell phones, in their DVD players, on YouTube.

It is an even more horrendous thought that every entrepreneur with a two-bit dream of becoming a media mogul can implement far reaching cable stations, whilst JIS is relegated to a time slot on TVJ, instead of being a Caribbean BBC, the U.S. has PBS and as a matter of fact the BBC has managed to pervade the island. We have an A.M. Band going to waste and yet I have seen people in small communities with their small means and incomes set up small radio stations and internet radio stations, why is JIS being broadcast, why aren’t we making full use of all the channels and vectors we have that can be used to bombard people with sensible, useful, practical, culturally relevant information.

I have lived to see middle-aged women become interior decorators watching HGTV and seen nearly illiterate dog lovers in the garrison swear they are dog trainers after a few episodes of dog whisperer on Discovery channel. In this vein I do believe if we have relevant content people will be willing to watch it. If you build it they will come. I do believe we have a wealth of content that can be drawn from, old documentaries from JBC and such. More can be commissioned, after all this is the era of YouTube movie directors, Open Source content and citizen journalism.

I am convinced the government has been lacklustre in pursuing technologies such as Linux, Open Source and notions such as FOSS. Brazil, Mexico and India are already using these to bring technology more cheaply to their nation. There are also revolutionary methods of implementing technology in the class room all throughout the Americas.

Also Mr. Holness I am sure you will probably have played dominoes with illiterate people as I have and been beaten by people who have never learnt primary school mathematics, which is proof that the education is disconnected from the everyday realities we face. Someone must have the potential to learn math if he can grasp the process of deduction and numerical elimination it takes to play domino well. We live in the Caribbean and still don’t learn enough about where we live. Why isn’t there our national geographic?

The other day I had to watch on foreign news that lizards that do morning exercises had been discovered in Jamaica. Lots of municipalities and small nation states have set up their own, local intranet that can provide the general populace with basic informational resources, like wikis and encyclopaedias and educational material. Today it is the nation’s own fault we are falling behind in education.

The government must become the primary agent of socialization, as parents and the family are lagging. If we are to grow a nation we need to grow people. We need our human resource to grow and develop. Technology, TV, internet, cell phones and the Radio are the way to reach them.

A Final Word:

The quality outcome of our education system is dependent on our understanding of the youth. Once we have a foundational grasp of their characteristics, communication styles, and social attitudes, we will be well equipped to effectively impact this enormous and emerging generation.

We want to create a curriculum that can:

Be self taught, peer mentored, and effectively evaluated without expert supervision.

Provide tools for analysis that will be general useful across the range of disciplines being taught at any given age.

Be an exercise machine for analysis, process and synthesis.

The idea is not that children learn tools they use for the rest of their lives. That’s not realistic. I don’t use any specific theorems or other mathematics constructs from school today. They should learn tools which they use at school to develop a general ability to learn tools. That general ability – to break a complex problem into pieces, identify familiar patterns in the pieces, solve them using existing tools, and synthesise the results into a view or answer… that’s the skill of analysis, and that’s what we need to ensure the youth graduate with.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

#education #youth #jamaica #revolution #change #governement #governance 

Madiba: Aluta Continua

African leaders whose vision could be toppled by the secret hand of capitalism!

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.” ― Nelson Mandela

The chronicle of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, and the variety of ways in which his story crossed paths with Jamaica is important to the island's history and that of our diaspora. It must become part of the story of the emerging self-belief of people of African descent. It is also an account of a human being allowing his best and noblest self to prevail.

It is easy and very plausible to tell Mandela's story without also speaking to Jamaica's story. But as a Jamaican it would be remiss of me not to mention, how this little nation, smaller than the population of Soweto and separated by thousands of nautical miles from the shorings of South Africa, prognosticated for the isolation of South Africa in response to apartheid from as early as 1961, three years before Mandela was condemned to Robben Island.

One of Jamaica's prime ministers, Michael Manley, was in numerous ways the designer of the sporting and cultural boycott of South Africa, which, incidentally, was more cogent than economic sanctions to that degree that the psychology of being a white South African was concerned. It is little wonder that Jamaica was one of the first two countries visited by Madiba after his incarceration. He visited Jamaica and Cuba in July 1991, with our beloved Winnie Madikize Mandela at his side, and they received honour from the Jamaican people.

He was a visionary, he had a grand project. He was political. He had an avid sense of strategic timing. Yet he wasn't Machiavellian. He was loved because he was neither Mugabe nor Blair. His vision ran through his life. He was noble. And, like a virtuous father, to be kind, he sometimes could be cruel.

He was distinguished and most especially he had an vast love for his people and for the project of establishing a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

Mandela vigorously defended of his loyalties to Iran, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, all of whom supported him in his battles against South Africa's apartheid regime.

Mandela was on the U.S. terrorism watch list until 2008, when then-President George W. Bush signed a bill removing Mandela from it. (Obama is yet to oblige Marcus Mosiah Garvey similar courtesies.)

South Africa’s apartheid regime designated Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) as a terrorist organization for its battle against the nation’s legalized system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994. (Marxist legal theory at work here: Karl Marx argued that the law is the mechanism by which one social class, usually referred to as the "ruling class", keeps all the other classes in a disadvantaged position).

Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also described Mandela’s ANC as a “typical terrorist organization” in 1987, refusing to impose sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. President Ronald Reagan did as well.

But Madiba was more than that, he was an African man of moral sense. He was a man of virtue. Moral excellence and moral sense that made him so acclaimed globally since he led a nation at a time when virtue and morality were universally absent amongst global leaders. He slammed Bush and Blair for the war on Iraq: 'What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight and who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.' For Blair he had these words: 'He is the foreign minister of the United States. He is no longer prime minister of Britain.'

He rose above acrimony and bitterness. He was unselfish and could reach out to his enemies and cross many divides. He was eminent because he was the great unifier. In many ways he was the designer of the New South Africa.

Mandela was neither magnate nor angel. Mandela wasn't unaccompanied in the grand journey of African redemption in South Africa. One only has to read Bertolt Brecht’s great poem, Questions From a Worker Who Reads, to know: 'Who built Thebes of the 7 gates? / In the books you will read the names of kings. / Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?...'

The fight to emancipate South Africa was a collectivized crusade. Furthermore it was the force of the most oppressed, the workers in the factories, the destitute in the community, blue-collar women and youth that ultimately carried the apartheid government, if not totally to its knees, at the least to talk terms and discuss the conditions of the end of their racial scheme.

All struggle requires a vehicle, a social movement with leaders that can present political focus, tackle the arduous strategic and tactical routes. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's ANC came to prevail. Even so, Mandela was the first to recognise the parts played by a broad array of social movements that formed the fight for national liberation and the mass democratic movement.

And while Mandela was the one to start dialogue with the apartheid government, he tied himself to the collective leadership of the ANC. He took the first steps, he led but he did so as part of a collective. He was an organisational man. He took pains to explain he was a product of the ANC. He was a man of the black, green and gold – but he could reach beyond organisational limits.

He had this quality of being able to keep people together. Even his critics – and he had them – submitted to him at the end of the day as a moral leader. Without him I can't envision how the transition would have gone.

Aye, zillions of words will be spoken and written on Madiba’s legacy, now, in the months to come, next year and thenceforth. And we will scramble to do this legacy justice. The hardest part will be to catch the essential Mandela, going beyond myth-making whilst precisely evaluating the inconsistent nature of that legacy.

Since the present can't be interpreted without understanding the past, and not everything that is haywire with current day South Africa can be put at the doorway of Zuma or Mbeki. The negotiated resolution that effected a democratic South Africa on the cornerstone of one person one vote will be reckoned as Mandela’s greatest accomplishment. It avoided the scorched earth route of bloodletting which we at present see in Syria. And even so it's those compromises that are nowadays falling apart at the seams. The unharmonious social inequality (very Marxist in nature) that has given rise to South Africa as a country of two nations: one white and relatively prosperous, the second black and poor (I believe arx would have termed these the: bourgeoisie and proletariat respectively).

Social divide the hallmark of society today!

Mandela’s legacy will likewise have to be weighed by the reality that South Africa is more disunited than ever as a result of inequality and social exclusion. The rich are richer and the poor poorer. The great unifier could undertake great emblematic acts of reconciliation to pacify the white nation but because, by definition, this involved sacrificing the redistribution of wealth, reconciliation with the whites was performed at the expense of the large majority of black people.

Mandela was great, but not so great that he could bridge the social divide built into the 21st century capitalist economy that has given us the era of the 1 percenters. It is the ill-fated timing of South Africa's transition, coming about as it did in the period in which global power got inextricably tied into the global corporation, empowered through the conventions of neoliberal globalisation. Reconciliation necessitated the forsaking of ANC policy as vocalised by Mandela on his discharge from jail, 'nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industry is the policy of the ANC and the change or modification of our views in this regard is unimaginable.'

Nevertheless it's this forsaking of nationalisation, nationalisation representing the redistribution of wealth which was determined by the needs of reconciliation not just with the white establishment but with the international capitalist economy. His encounters with the international elite at Davos, the home of the World Economic Forum, convinced him that compromises needed to be made with the financiers. In the words of Ronnie Kasrils: 'That was the time from 1991–1996 that the battle for the soul of the ANC got underway and was lost to corporate power and influence. I will call it our Faustian moment when we became entrapped.'

It's exactly this capitalistic road that's verified such a calamity and which could ultimately demolish Mandela’s life’s work. To do justice to Mandela’s lifetime of commitment and sacrifice for equality betwixt black and white, the fight must continue.

It today has got to stress on subduing inequality and attaining social justice. In this fight the entire African Diaspora will require the greatness and sapience of umpteen Mandelas. Our brethren and sistren in South Africa require an organisation committed to marshalling all South African black and white for the freeing of the wealth of that state from the hands of a bantam elite. It will necessitate a movement akin to Mandela’s ANC, a social movement based on a collective leadership with the blended qualities of Steve Biko, Neville Alexander, Walter Sisulu, Albertina Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Fatima Meer, Chris Hani, Ruth First, Joe Slovo, Robert Sobukwe, IB Tabata and the many greats that led the battle for African liberation. But most importantly the African Diaspora and South Africa will need the multitude who take their fate into their own hands and become their own liberators.

Are these the things that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela struggled to achieve?

Mitchell and Jamaica People Stress: The Trauma of Police Encounters

Sooooo..... BAAAAMMMM! 2:30pm Saturday afternoon. Paradise becomes abuzz with activity, residents scampering to cell phones, "weh dem deh, weh dem deh?" "Tek dung di line!" At the same time here comes one flock of residents taking a variety of unpopular routes, escaping and avoiding the JPS disconnection teams, who have in tow the long arms of the law. It is also alleged "one white lady weh look like di ooman who own JPS pon di TV did dih deh."

After the moments of flurry and outbursts of fluster and frustration and utter confusion, "nuff" ole me, decided maybe I should take a look in Bread Lane, site of what seems to be the police action and scene of quite a few arrests. Mothers and Grandmothers in police custody, young women and a "baby father." And here is where my head ache starts. The police are man-handling the baby father, who is in possession of his child at the moment.

Now I happen the particular child and new here mother was not in the vicinity at the moment, I also knew the baby father was not a resident of the community but was babysitting and staying in what is his woman's family yard. So technically he is being arrested for a crime he hasn't committed. And att the same time the police while jostling the youth is insisting on trying to palm of the baby off to any arbitrary community member so that he can carry through his arrest by any means necessary. Even if it means he has not left the child in proper or legal custody of an official guardian or family member.

Here is where I made the unfortunate mistake of pointing out to the Police man who I gleaned goes by the name Mitchell, that he is a bit to eager to carry out the arrest without following proper or due procedure and that he can't just give the baby to a passerby. This is when the ass loses his cool. and screams at me "Yuh a fool, aye  Rasta bwoy leff di place before mi tek a rock and mash in yuh head side, yuh know nutten bought rights? a stir u come fi stir up supm, cause a problem... a soon kick yuh and nuh stop kick yuh till bend up."

This is where I pause look at him, gaze intently, for I have met rude police men, but this man tops the list as the worst offender and most moronic. In holding his gaze, I see when his certainty breaks, for I am not moving , nor am I intimidated. So eventually I reply, "Lick who?"

To which he retorts with another expletive filled tirade. Then I say to him "Yeah I know my rights, but is like you nuh know them!" he then trys to make an explanation for dealing with the baby father and the issue of the child in the way he is, at the same time still eating up himself and badding up an explanation. At which time I turn to leave...

As I turn to leave, I can see his friend with either the oozy or mini-k/or 16 swinging round his neck like one of Flavour Flave's oversize pendants, is incensed that I haven't cowered, become a coward and completely capitualted with fear. While I a walking away, the Po-Po whom I shall call Gun-pendent is walking me down. When I turn round to meet him, he is already grabbing my left arming and turning me. Now thank Selassie that I have a PRESS ID, which is the first thing that greets him when he spins me, it stalls him. He is now taken aback, and I start chuck more ID's at him.

To which he responds, "Stop! Yuh seem like a educated yute, yuh couldn't have so much paper and nuh have eucation, so hear wah, we a do we ting, and we nuh need no trouble so jut gallang weh yuh a go, go dung deh so and nuh come up yah again, caah u seem like a trouble yuh waan start."

Mitchell then asks him as I am going away... " A who him?" T which Gun-pendent replies "NOBODY!"


So there it is like slaves, we have limited access to resources, police come and arrest on premises without warrants, squatters, landless, dispossessed, and baddup brutalized and pushed around. 21st century slavery I say.

Reflections on Summer, Youth and Community

I-sah, summer draws to a close and there is much to reflect upon for the summer that is 2013! It's been hectic and I am certainly a different man. U-nah-mean so much in my meditations now. Firstly, I spent an immense and intense amount of time with Keekee in Paradise... our relationship is on another level right now... I feel a tighter bond. She all make me proud since this past week, when friends come to link mi fi mek a small check on a (problematic CQ61 HP Compaq) laptop headed to the pawn shop at City Centre, anyway... out comes Keekee out the house into the garage... "I'M YOUNGGG, GIFTED AAAND BLACK!" Mi breddrin dem look in amazement then pop up and seh "Coulda only fi yuh pickney Rasta!" But sitting a 3 year old while you have signs to paint, brochures to design, t-shirt fi design, your own newspaper to try and start, your blogs to write, articles, drawings to finish, paintings to be finish, Artistes biography, PR for Artistes/Breddrin, moeny to try make, bills to pay, Cashpot fi study and try ketch... It can be heavy and cumbersome sometimes, when every 15 minutes, Daddy I'm hungry, Daddy I want juice, Daddy tie this for me please, Daddy I want to go to the bathroom (All when she a do this by herself now), Daddy can I get a paper, Daddy can help me draw this, Daddy I want to go to the shop, Daddy I want to go by Jayla. YOW! More time mi feel mi brain go sprain... but a so it go. Daddy love you.

My Grrrl Boss: Ms. Young Gifted & Black!

Then there is the added task of trying to be a good son, assist Mommy with her burdens, as they are many, do the little I can, drop the goods to the hospital etc. That wobbled some here in the summer owing to all the constant things, things, things happening.

For one their is the Youth Club as well. AH BWOY! A real story and saga, and partially the inspiration for this article... for other than the intense Keekee hours, alot of the other hours were spent throwing mental and physical powers to the Youth Club and general community matters. And can you imagine after all that effort, in the Youth Club, it went up in flames I-YAH! Jah know! You can read the Observers small take on the matter at this link: Paradise Fire! Youth Club went in the Blaze!

Just to attend is a great effort on my part to, sit, stay, pay attention. But I did... eventually now I operate as PRO. But to imagine... the Kid's Treat today and stuff gone up in flames, free food, free slippers, second hand text books etc etc etc. And granted the media says fire of unknown origin, I suspect arson.

Anyway how all this ties with summer and youth, is because between having to be constantly around my 3 yr old daughter, and her 5 and 10 year old cousins, who host tea parties and stage shows ("Paradise Sumfest" with a painted sign included) outside my un-closed door and interacting with the communities tweens and teenie boppers and teenager cockroaches more than normal, with back-to-school here and ll this youth energy, it gave me a chance to remember a lot of my youth and mildly relive and remember what those youthful days of girls boys and summer adventure and the hassle and havoc and turmoil that, that social period and various stages and cycles of development are like... Do you remember what they were like?

We live in an age today, where President Obama Nobel Peace Prize winner will trumpet his second officil war, Libya being the first, now we see the trumped up charges with no UN proof for a Syrian War. Yes come September Obama and World War 3 will be in the backdrop of the children and the youths lives and TVs. Occupy this and that and 99%ers will probably be protesting. And just like when I came into to Earth, a war was in full swing on JBC... I would grow up in the ending years of the cold war and would hear Mikhail Gorbachov and Yitzak Rabin and Yessar Arafat, Gaddafi etc... constantly in the back drop of my life.

But what about the foreground... do you remember those Calvin and Hobbes-esque summers of immortality, infinite energy and endless hours. The more well endowed among us will remember there first cars, some the first job, or even the first summer job, most will remember that first kiss! Don't! Nuff a unnu must remember when it seemed like the whole world was exploding with new ideas and you were searching and reaching out for new experiences, wanting to see and know this world. Seeing through new eyes. Youth, Puberty, Adolescence, Growth, Change. It's a bitter sweet journey and beautiful sight.

But this article has to be continued as Keekee's pressing need to watch TEAM UMIZUMI (did I spell that right) oh well... youth.... gwaan listen this Avicii till when next I write

P.S. Youth(Dax) Happy B-day! To days of summer and youth, cricket and basketball!

Bulla Tun Bully: The Bad-man-ification of Homosexuality and The Dawn of Heterophobia

Is it just me... but I have thought for along time now that there is an agenda apparently to evangelize homosexuality, the movement towards morbid asexuality or heterophobia... and the new bullyism by gays where they make it seem like one has no right to decent or dissent and no right to say or express his or her belief that homosexuality is not right or that you don't approve of it... I am not saying anyone should light anybody at the stake or go about making hate crimes or speech... But I have to ask "Is freedom of speech being impeached?" Can anyone disagree with homosexuality without it being politically incorrect? Why are homosexuals so sensitive to any form of criticism? Is homosexuality above and beyond criticism?

Huffingtonpost and Global Voices for all their citizen journalism, all the moral high ground, all the insightful commentary, they never examined once the tyranny of terror that was Bebe and Jasper and how they were the origins of scamming in Montego Bay... a pair of maniacal cross dressing gun wielding homosexual scammers, parading with "straps" and thongs from Fairview's Texaco to KFC downtown to Baywest to Pier 1. How they rooted themselves in Granville is fairly common knowledge in the city. But the darker sides of scamming money and murders, poverty and gay pedophilia in Jamaica are swept under the rug for this untruthful campaign against Jamaica and what is perceived as its attitude to homosexuality. NO ONE investigated the serious link with homosexuality and scamming.

I would also like people to stop comparing BLACK and civil rights to gay rights, I think it is also a poor analogy (anal-ogy) and beyond that analogy  is the weakest form of argument as no two situations are parallel or exactly alike ... as a black man, I simply find it an offense and it simply is not the same thing... and why is every gay poster guy black or some house cleaning O.C.D. Chinese/Ethnic minority guy??? And what is this movement to shut up dialogue about sex, sexuality especially if it isn't profoundly and "enlightening-ly" pro-gay...

Why is that so many are unwilling to accept the truth or speak to the darker realities of homosexuality? The promiscuity poverty and exploitation that was possibly apart of his life... he was living in a house filled with homosexuals partying and dancing... go view his YouTube channel... let us examine sexual health hygiene... how homosexuals are not GAY for gay denotes HAPPY... and gayness carries with it the implied niceness that gays are rich happy wealthy wine sipping cheese biting limp wrist-ed glamorous folks. But most homosexuals live with some level of alienation and isolation, for they probably the product of SAD realities growing up in garrison... without a solid father figure... poor, feeling insecure different and awkward absorbing all the female dance-hall energy around him and the open sexuality and sex energy that is easily and readily available in peep hole filled zinc fence close quarters communities, which shanty town and garrison "livity" and lifestyles carry with it, they probably grew up in the malnourished spiritually and mentally, if not just physically, and mutated by ill informed messages and wrong signals, by secret perverts hiding in garrisons... rich men passing in Benz(es) and Beamers, by old men, the screwy quirky cousin... and many of the monsters that come with urban life and urban poverty in the human metropolitan condition...

The community member who creeps into the yard and puts his penis into a little boys mouth at age 12... and after sometime he acquires a liking for the attention it gets him from this male of the adult world... he forms ill informed notions of psycho-sexual relations.

No one wants to look that deep at all these ills the sad places, both internally and externally, the mal formed social relations that births homosexuals... the sad realities that mutate them..

To oppose the homosexual lobby is to be unpopular and court the life of a pariah.

I am pro-tolerance and never promote harm to humanity, but I disapprove of homosexuality and feel a sincere attempt to shut up, lock off, label, libel and slander any intelligent opinion that does not agree with homosexuality as antiquated, draconian, non-progressive or not with the progressive liberal agenda... dunce... outdated and overly or unnecessarily militant. Is there a polite way to just say no to homosexuality! Once you show any dissent on homosexuality you are branded ’homophobic.’ While these accusation do not fill me with indignation, I know they are an inaccurate description of what I do, who I am, or how I think. This sudden groundswell of Anti-heterosexuality, Anti-hetero-pathy, Heterophobia, Anti-hetero-philia... would seem as if they are in the process of being consecrated into an ideology. If your straight shut up. Our have no right to free speech straight people... shut up... u can have no legitimate grouse against homosexuals! The terms “homophobic” and "homophobia" are usually used by the Gay Activists and Lobby Group to discredit and inaccurately define its critics. Once someone is branded homophobic, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they are heard, and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised gay pride and ego.>>> But what do the terms “homophobic” and "homophobia" mean? Do they mean you are anti-music or Elton John or Luther Vandross? Or that you’re opposed to freedom of choice? That you don’t delight in listening to Diana King (whom I love dearly, I listen to her version of "Say a Little Prayer" ritually) or Freddie Mercury (everyone in Jamaica sings "Another one bites the dust)? That you have a quarrel with Shebada? Does it mean that you don’t admire the positive work of hundreds of thousands of possibly and notably gay persons who have contributed positively to the advance of humanity? Does it mean that you hate gay people? Truth be told it does not. One can disapprove of smoking and not hate the smoker, one can disapprove of homosexuality and not hate a homosexual and not be homophobic.

It is without adoubt a conflation to try and say that every time someone disapproves of homosexuality or every act or event that went unfavorably for the homosexual community was or is based in homophobia. It is not just a conflation but borders on intellectual dishonesty. It is also most crucially a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those the group mind, the institutionalized Gay Lobby, international establishment has set out. If you’re not homosexual you’re a homophobic. If you don’t love us, you hate us. If you’re not Good, you’re Evil. If you’re not with us, you’re against us.

I say right now, bun GAY BULLYISM and GAY badness that acts as if, straight people must not say anything! BUN a Bully in General... funny though that "Bulla tun Bully: The Badmanification of Homosexuality and Dawn of Heterophobia"