Sports, like beauty and music, is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. Who is the prettiest, Carla Campbell, Aishwarya Rai or Angelina Jolie? Whose music sounds the best, Mozart, Marley or Miles? Who is the top athlete, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer or Michael Schumacher? You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Well, there may be more enjoyable excursions than a leisurely drive through the Jamaican countryside on a Sunday afternoon, but short of entering paradise it is hard to imagine one. Especially if you start out from Negril. Every time I go for a swim on that glorious seven-mile beach and bask in the mild crystal-blue water, I marvel at my luck in living a country where this kind of magical experience is available every day of the year. Sure, not everyone can afford an all-inclusive. But anyone with gas money or bus fare has access to the powder-white sand.

While other economies expand at six and eight per cent a year, we rejoice at reaching two per cent. Jamaica has not grown at anything close to the world average since 1989 and maybe even before that. We are falling farther and farther behind in the global economic race.

Politics is a messy, convoluted business because human beings are messy, convoluted creatures. The average public office seeker is probably no less honest or truthful than the average voter. But, while we quickly adjust our own opinions to life's unpredictability, politicians are pilloried for changing their minds when the facts change. Very often, we condemn them most vigorously for the sins we feel most guilty of. How many private lives would pass muster if put under press scrutiny?

Is Jamaica the world's most exuberant democracy? Only a political globetrotter could say for sure. But our party conferences and meetings must be as electric as any on the planet. And it's not as if we're just discoveringthe joys of choosing our own destiny. Forty-five years of largely free and fair multi-party elections, adhering to the rule of law, and remaining coup- and assassination-free is no mean achievement.

'Meditate upon history,' said Napoleon, 'for it is the only true philosophy'!. But then he also called history 'a set of agreed upon lies'. Still, there's no doubt that history tells us how mankind has acted, as opposed to how we are supposed to act.

"THE BEST laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley" ­ go oft awry. In politics, where personalities loom so large and the media glare magnifies every mishap and mistake, Robbie Burns' old saw goes double. Take the situation in Israel and Palestine.  

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?

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.

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.