In March I phoned Food For The Poor to ask founder Ferdinand Mahfood about their plan to build 2,000 houses in Jamaica. His well spoken assistant told me Mr. Mahfood was out of the country. He sounded young so out of curiosity I asked him about himself. His name was Romeo Effs and he was 29. I found the idea of a young guy doing charity work unusual. How had he ended up there? It’s a long story he laughed. Sounds interesting I said, tell me more. Sure he answered. But he was busy, so check back next day.

According to Professor Anthony Harriott one of the main causes of the nation’s high murder rate is the inability of many Jamaicans to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. He says the sharp drop in homicides in some inner city communities over the past two years was partly due to conflict resolution programs established there. He reckons that if such programs were put in place island-wide, our murder rate could drop by 40%.

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.

The world once regarded Robert Mugabe as a hero. Blacks in Rhodesia had to fight a bitter guerilla war against an oppressive white minority regime to gain equal rights, and many predicted revenge and racial massacre after independence. But when Mugabe took the helm of the renamed Zimbabwe in 1980, he talked only of democracy, peace, and reconciliation.

World book day is April 23, the birthday of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. And yet we bibliophiles find the need for a day encouraging people to read almost incomprehensible. For what greater conceivable pleasure is known to man? To read is to soar through time and space, and to survey at will a limitless expanse of peoples and ideas. Books always respect the reader's own pace. Affordable and accessible to all, they offer an almost infinite variety of proven riches.

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. “

Cricket in the West Indies is more than a game. It is the region’s only unifying force, its only common touchstone. And in recent years the question of whether cricket can survive the onslaught of cable television has provided as much drama as the matches themselves. Last year at Sabina Park the very future of the sport seemed to depend on Brian Lara. And had he not been dropped on 44, the West Indies would probably have been comprehensively beaten. Coming after the massacre in South Africa and the 51 all out at Queen’s Park Oval, the entire region may well have given up on the team and the game. Instead Lara went on to make 213 and the Windies won the match and almost the series amidst the fervent support of a grateful region. No wonder the London Times called Lara’s innings “arguably the most important in the history of the game”. It literally saved West Indies cricket.

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