THE OTHER day a girl named June told me an interesting story. She and her friend Carl were in Burger King when a schoolgirl caught his eye. He introduced himself, told her June was his sister, asked her name ­ Nikki ­ and got her number.

WHEN HIV was first discovered in the mid 1980s Caribbean countries reacted in different ways. Haiti lacked the resources to take any preventative measures.

IN 1980, the homicide rate in the United States reached an all time high of 10.7 per 100,000, having doubled in 15 years. There was much 'woe is us' hand wringing. Could nothing be done to stem this seemingly inexorable rise?

I once heard some young men and women arguing about whether men and women can be ‘just friends’. The women all said yes, but the men disagreed. As one put it ‘Anytime a man pays attention to a woman, no matter how brotherly he acts, in the back of his mind he wants more than just friendship. Sooner or later the male beast will break loose’.

THE PNP came to power in early 1989, only a few months after Hurricane Gilbert hit the island. With the PNP conference being held in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, let's try and evaluate our situation then and now.

America is the richest country on earth, but its democracy is an ugly mess. To quote the September 24th Economist - “If democracy means multi-party competition at the grass roots, America is not a full democracy in elections to the House of Representatives”.

When Richard ‘Shrimpy’ Clarke fought for the World Flyweight Boxing title in 1990 you could almost feel the nationalistic fervour in the jampacked National Arena. “Lick ‘im down Shrimpy!” the ecstatic crowd screamed deliriously as he skillfully outboxed champion Sot Chitalada for the first 8 rounds - “He’s giving him a boxing lesson!” a man behind me kept shouting. Alas a jolting uppercut knocked out Shrimpy in the 11th round. “Him teach him too good!” a wag commented wryly as we filed out in gloomy disappointment.

"Jamaicans are so ignorant and uneducated they will vote for anyone who gives them a handout. So our leaders and the entire political system are completely corrupt. Democracy can never work in a country like this."

A few years ago I had a contentious discussion with some NDMers about constitutional reform. I argued that political formats similar to Jamaica’s had worked very well in countries like Australia, Barbados and Canada, so it didn’t make sense to blame all our problems on a faulty governmental system. They however maintained that Westminster was an outdated colonial relic and only with a modern separation of powers model could Jamaica make the adjustments necessary to compete in the modern globalized economy. The future, they claimed, lay in places like Argentina.

Our next general election might be the closest since independence. And given the quirks of Westminster and our “garrison” constituency phenomenon, all sorts of scenarios are possible. Here for instance the most recent Stone and Anderson polls are extrapolated over the 1997 constituency results.