Witness slain at home - “… before day break yesterday, gunmen kicked down her door and pumped several bullets in the body of 50 year old Icylin Vaughn and her common-law husband, 48 year-old Milton Grey… several weeks ago a group of men destroyed sections of Miss Vaughn’s house with stones… She reported the matter to the police and has subsequently been branded “informer”… Yesterday the matter was supposed to be mentioned in the Half-Way-Tree Court.” The Gleaner, September 1, 2001

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!”

In 1999 BBC website readers voted for the millennium’s greatest figures. They picked Gutenberg as inventor, Shakespeare as writer, Leonardo Da Vinci as artist, Paul McCartney as Composer, Mahatma Gandhi as world leader and Karl Marx as thinker. The ten greatest men were Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Nelson Mandela, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ, Winston Churchill, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx.

For those of us who grew up on the game, it is painful to even contemplate the thought. But any honest observer of the West Indies’ abysmal capitulation to New Zealand must ask the question. Is cricket in Jamaica and the West Indies dying?

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.

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%.

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.

The last national hero was chosen over 20 years ago. A new addition is long overdue, and what better time to debate the question than black history month? Many say former Prime Minister Michael Manley should be the next official hero, while others argue for reggae legend Bob Marley. Both made great contributions to their country and neither would be a bad choice. But there is someone with far greater claims than either - the person who almost single-handedly gave Jamaicans pride in their cultural heritage and is at the same time the most universally loved personality this nation has produced – Louise “Miss Lou” Bennett.

It is only a game and, in the larger scheme of things, not very important. But mankind needs its diversions. And no other outdoor sport, and few endeavours of any kind, provides such lasting pleasures as cricket. Here the onlooker measures his satisfaction not merely in terms of results, but in the beauty of the spectacle.

'I want to know and you tell me true, What the hell the police can do'
So charged a big dancehall hit of yesteryear. And a lot of people agree. They argue that our soaring crime rate is the direct result of a deeply flawed society - endemic poverty, poor education, massive income disparity, a vicious cycle of ghetto violence from parent to child, an 85% illegitimate birth rate and consequent lack of male role models. Until these are remedied, they say, nothing we do can improve matters.