Where Do 'Baby Daddies' come from?
The OED lists baby-daddy and baby-mama as 'colloquial, chiefly African-American' variants of the Jamaican terms baby-father and baby-mother; its first citation for baby-mother hails from the Kingston Daily Gleaner in 1966. Reggae songs using the terms made their way to the U.S. By the late '90s, baby-daddy and baby-mama were appearing regularly in American hip-hop. These days Baby-daddy is the new bling. Baby-mama has even made inroads in Japan. Salon recently called Tom Cruise 'Katie Holmes' baby-daddy' even though the couple is engaged.

"Glorianna's homecoming sparks near riot ­ Patrons who went to see the Montego Bay premier of 'Glory to Glorianna', threatened a stampede on Thursday."

­The Observer, May 8, 2006

"Exciting premiere of 'Glory to Gloriana' ... Despite their exuberance, the delighted patrons were quite disciplined as they lined up along the red carpet."

­

THE RECENT Budget Debate proved again that a week is a long time in politics. Before it started the PNP was a strong favourite to win the next general elections. But after Bruce Golding's tour de force and Portia Simpson Miller's rather hesitant performance, it now appears a real horse race.

But though the intelligentsia avidly followed the debates, most voters ignored them.

Dear Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller,

THE FAMED anthropologist Bronislaw Malin-owski considered the principle of legitimacy a universal sociological law. The crucial determinant of legitimacy in his view was the male's public commitment to his child's mother, not the widely varying concept of legality. So let's dispose of the 'out of wedlock' red herring immediately. What matters is not a piece of paper, but the father's willingness to give emotional and material support to his offspring.

MOST PEOPLE remember two things about the 1966 Commonwealth Games. It remains the biggest international event this country has hosted, and we failed to win a gold medal.

So Jamaica's sweep of the sprints last week in Melbourne brought to mind the phrase "You've come a long way, baby!".

COLUMNISTS KEEP banging on about this Government's corruption and economic mismanagement and its miserable inability to control crime. But the 'Woe is us!' brigade is obviously wasting its time.

So what if Jamaica's murder count went from 414 in 1989 to 1670 in 2005? According to the March 14 Gleaner Bill Johnson poll, '83 per cent of Jamaicans feel safe living in their communities'.

JAMAICA NOW stands on the brink of a third political revolution. If Busta led the 'mental' revolution and Joshua the 'socialist' revolution, Sister P now heads the 'woman' revolution. Since Jamaican women are usually smarter, harder working, and more disciplined than Jamaican men, this is potentially a very good thing. But only if Portia uses her immense political capital wisely.

What would you say

To the coming of a brand new day

When the shadows are falling away

Even from the eyes of yore.

IF THE four most expensive words in the English language are 'This time it's different', the five most dangerous must be 'Anything is better than this'.

I mean, whoever thought that one day people in Iraq would look back on the cruel, murderous regime of Saddam Hussein with anything but horror and disdain?

SELDOM HAS a country been blessed with such contrasting, yet complementary, founding fathers as Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley.

Although distant cousins - itself a blessing as their disagreements seldom rose above the level of a good-natured family squabble - they were polar opposites in nature and outlook. They agreed on rigid adherence to British parliamentary tradition, but diverged on almost everything else.