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.

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.

"You are what you eat," proclaimed Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825, and he was probably right. But, a week in Beijing cheering on Jamaican athletes at the World Junior Games convinced me again that you are also what you speak. Since both my grandfathers were born there, visiting China should be a bit of an ancestral pilgrimage. But, not knowing a word of Mandarin made it difficult to feel any spiritual bond with the place.

George W. Bush's party ran, but couldn't hide from Iraq and Katrina. Karl Rove couldn't fool all the people all the time. And the supposedly terminal ills besetting American democracy - such as seat gerrymandering, unmatchable incumbency spending and an imperial president - have apparently been cured by, well, more democracy.

Augusto Pinochet and Fidel Castro both ruled with iron fists. They suppressed all opposition and did not allow freedom of speech or multi-party elections. Pinochet is now dead and the likely terminally-ill Castro's political career is probably over. The obvious question is whether they did more harm than good to their countries.

"JAMAICA IS a failed state". I used to suck my teeth when I heard anyone say that and dismiss the speaker as an ignorant fool. Only a dunce could talk like that about a country with one of the planet's most stable democracies, a combatively free press, and the world's 63rd highest healthy life expectancy.

Suppose Bruce Golding had been shot and killed? This was the first thought that hit me when I read Wednesday's 'Women shot near Golding' headlines. Would Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) extremists have reacted by gunning down a senior People's National Party (PNP) figure in retaliation and initiated a vicious no-holds-barred, tit-for-tat vendetta? Would angry Labourites have torched Gordon House and New Kingston and Sam Sharpe Square? Would JLP mobs have attacked PNP strongholds and sparked off a hundred mini civil wars?

AN OLDER friend once advised the young Samuel Johnson to read as much as he could since he would lose the inclination with age. But Robert Louis Stevenson laughed at this, asserting that youth is for living and leave the books till later. RLS was surely right that books are a mighty bloodless substitute for life. But Dr. Johnson's mentor knew whereof he spoke. Older eyes tire more easily and older minds resist new ideas. If you don't tackle the serious books when young you probably never will.

POLITICAL partisanship is a democratic fact of life. Virtually every country that votes its leaders into office is plagued by party tribalism. Perhaps because it has been holding elections longer than anywhere else, Great Britain seems to be reasonably free of this dreaded virus. But even the United States, which likes to boast of being a democratic model to the world, is practically split in two between the Democratic coastal blue states and the Republican interior red states.