This unique blog is Jamaica's very first blog. It documents the work and thoughts of Jamaican Philpsopher, Yannick Nesta Pessoa. I am an Artist, Graphic Designer, Copywriter, Poet, Social Advocate, Community Activist, Western Mirror Columnist and Legal Student. Follow on Twitter & Instagram @yahnyk. Follow on Youtube @ and Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com
Monday, June 24, 2013
THE MINISTER OF FREAKONOMICS: LISA HANNA
How Can a Youth Minister Support Abortion?
May, Child's month not even fully a month behind us, and our Minister of Youth is endorsing eliminating youth... it seems somewhat absurd, if not paradoxical.
This reality reveals much of what is wrong with public policy discourse in modern Jamaia. Our politicians lack character, insight and vision, that is why they will endlessly regurgitate white America's intellectual drivel. A 10 minute Google would have shown our dear Minister of Freakonomics that the abortion-cut-crime theory has not even come close to meeting the burden of proof, but, instead, she like a lot of our nation's intelligentsia fell inlove with the theories perpetuated in the book Freakonomics by Donohue and Levitt. Being innumerate, most politicians, presstitutes and the punditariat are willing to dupe the proletariat, the masses. It is easier to simply engage in intellectual yes-man-ship and take a guru figure like Levitt on faith, than even ask a local statistician or economist. A few book reviewers, like James Q. Wilson (America's leading expert on crime for several decades), expressed deep skepticism about the books propositions.
It amazes me that in todays day and age, an influential person such as our Minister publicly endorsed the theory, when a bit of diligence with Google would have shown her it was dubious, if not racist and prejudice.
It is an attention-grabbing theory, to be sure, possibly even more noteworthy than recent research indicating that liberalizing abortion increased pre-marital sex, increased out-of-wedlock births, reduced adoptions and ended so-called shotgun marriages.
But a thorough analysis of abortion and crime statistics leads to the opposite
conclusion: that abortion increases crime.
There are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and carried to term.
A theory such as the one by Ms. Hanna has far reaching social, political and moral implications and, as such, needs to be rigorously debated and researched. The intent of this letter is to illustrate that, although the abortion-crime theory gained much attention and popularity in the United States, Donohue and Levitt’s findings are not apparent and obvious, nor are they indisputable, hence ought not to be taken as fact.
The criticism of the book's conclusions need to be given as much attention and consideration as the findings and arguments originally put forward in the book. Indeed, much of the research done after Donohue and Levitt’s study was published disproves the abortion-crime theory and casts serious doubt on whether such a link exists at all. Since then several times in articles, Donohue and Levitt acknowledge that a number of factors may have contributed to the falling rates crime rates during the 1990s. So why do we follow blindly American schools of thought?
Indeed many in the academic community contend that Donahue and Levitt’s research suffered from methodological flaws. As The Economist noted, “Donohue and Levitt did not run the test that they thought they had.” Work by two economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz, found that, when the test was run correctly, it indicated that abortion actually increases violent crime. John Whitley and I had written an earlier study that found a similar connection between abortion and murder — namely, that legalizing abortion raised the murder rate, on average, by about 7 percent.
We need to be doing our own research and not slavishly following North American trends of thought.
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Friday, April 08, 2011
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
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.
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