There are reasonable arguments both for and against replacing the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as Jamaica’s final appellate court with a Caribbean Court of Justice. But even many who favour such a move in principle think the process is being handled in a very unsatisfactory manner. The entire matter seems not to have been properly thought out. Have estimates been made of how much it would cost to establish and maintain such a court? How will it be funded? What will happen if one of the signatory countries to such a court withdraws? Will it be a case like the West Indies Federation of “Ten minus one equals zero”? If the CCJ thus falls apart, will the Jamaican Supreme Court be our final court of appeal?

Back in the colonial days our British masters considered Jamaicans’ reluctance to marry a main source of our problems. It seemed obvious to them that if Jamaica became more like Britain, where nearly all children were born to married parents, it would be a more disciplined and productive place. One governor’s wife reportedly went so far as to arrange a mass marriage ceremony where about 40 people tied the knot at one time.

Manchester is widely regarded as the most orderly parish in the nation and its people are considered the most disciplined in Jamaica. As journalist Barbara Ellington, who grew up there, says “You can drive north, south, and west and you will see no slums or depressed areas or zinc fence type living. “

Travelling from Jamaica to the USA is as much a mental journey as a physical one. Whatever else it may be, America is a smoothly functioning society that minimizes life’s daily frictions. In Jamaica on the other hand,  matters rarely go as they are supposed to. It may be too harsh to say people here try to be difficult. But too often Jamaicans’ careless attitudes towards those they are supposed to help creates unneeded irritations.

Many claim the Privy Council right of appeal is an archaic colonial relic. But the 1997 World Development Bank Report - “The State In A Changing World” - argues otherwise

That the first modern democracy should still choose its head of state on grounds of birth defies common sense. But though man is a logical being in theory, he is seldom completely so in practice. Tradition is often a better master of passion than reason, and history judges not by what should work but by what has. For over 300 years constitutional British monarchs have reigned serenely in mankind’s most durable democracy. Every other political system known has been interrupted by coup, civil war and assassination. An institution which lasts so long and bears such fruit provides its own justification.

The Walker pay report leaves no doubt that something is rotten in the state boardrooms of Jamaica. It catalogues a pattern of abuse of government guidelines at the Bank of Jamaica, National Investment Bank of Jamaica, the National Development Bank, Jamaica Promotions Limited, HEART/NTA and Port Authority. It blames the problems on a failure to communicate adequately, ignorance of proper procedure, and silence on the part of government ministers from the various portfolios.

The originating impulse of the Rastafari millenarian vision is often said to be Marcus Garvey's directive 'Look to Africa where a divine black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near' - a prophecy supposedly fulfilled by Haile Selassie's coronation as emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. Yet Garvey never uttered such words.

Rastafarianism was strongly influenced by Kumina-Revivalism. But Revivalists’ main concerns remained personal salvation and ritual observance. In contrast Rastafarians protested loudly about economic hardships and racial discrimination. Rastafarianism was not a movement isolated from place, time and history. Rather it was an integral aspect of a continuous matrix of black nationalism, folk religion and peasant resistance to the Jamaican plantation economy.

During the April gas riot last year a group of mostly white and light brown uptowners carrying ‘no gas tax’ placards went to the gas station at the foot of Jacks Hill and began demonstrating. Across the road on the sidewalk was a group of mostly black middle and lower class people also demonstrating with signs. Both groups were espousing the same cause. But according to Dr. Carolyn Gomes.