“Guilty mom did it for kids ”  - The Star, May 8 2002

“Cassandra Morrison, 31, … [was] yesterday charged with possession of dealing in and taking steps to export cocaine… Morrison told the court she had eight children for six different men, ages two months, two years, five years, eight years, 10 years, 11 years, 13 years and 15 years old… she would have received 3000 pounds on her arrival in London… she was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.”

What is Jamaica’s national sport? Many would say cricket. Some football. Others dominoes. But none of these are as fascinating to Jamaicans as ‘bunning’. No matter what the time or place, news that a man ‘a get bun’ will immediately render all other topics irrelevant and produce gales of laughter. For nothing is so amusing to Jamaicans as a man being cheated on by his woman - the central plot of virtually every ‘roots’ play.

Do most Jamaicans seem happy? Our professional naysayers here would scoff at the thought - how ridiculous to even ask such a question when the country is sinking in a mire of violence, corruption and poverty! But visitors and foreigners who live here usually say yes.

“World music is defined as all contemporary popular music that comes from anywhere outside Europe or North America except Jamaica.” Electronic Mail & Guardian, October 2, 1997

In 1807 Britain became the first major power to abolish the slave trade. (In 1802 Denmark abolished slavery in tiny St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John).[1] Eric Williams and others argue that slaving was abolished primarily because it was no longer contributing positively to Britain’s economy. But British West Indian imports and exports were greater during the period of abolition than they were 50 years earlier. And West Indian planters valued their plantations at 50-60 million pounds in 1775 as against 85-100 million in 1807. Indeed the major attack on the British slave trade came during its most profitable period.[2]

Slavery is an extremely complex and emotional subject strewn with myths and misconceptions. There could be no more appropriate time than black history month to examine the objective realities behind this terrible institution and to look at the controversial issue of reparations.

Last week I came across an article entitled “Growth May Be Good for the Poor - But are IMF and World Bank Policies Good for Growth?”. The answer as usual is, it depends who you ask. However the following chart surprised me.

“It would be a fine thing indeed if the world was run by those who judge men from books and the world from maps!”. Napoleon’s jibe against ivory tower intellectuals came to mind when I read Marcia Sutherland’s December 5^th letter about my article “Thinking in patois”, which accused me of “linguistic bigotry”, advised me to “examine the scientific linguistic evidence”, and chided me for lacking “scholarly expertise”.

The other day an irate customer confronted me about an out of order credit card machine in my store. She said in these unsafe times she didn’t carry much cash. And on three occasions in the past week she had to leave her goods at the cashier because her keycard could not be processed. I apologetically told her that every time we called the bank promised to fix it  ‘tomorrow’. “Mr. Chang” the lady said sternly “how long you living in this country? Don’t you know that to get anything done here you have to go on bad? Get ignorant with the bank and you’ll see how fast they fix it!”

An Australian expatriate recently told me that the biggest problem at his plant was workers “thinking in patois.” In his experience those who could not speak understandable English usually could not think logically. While those who spoke English well were generally efficient employees.