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.

First, some clarification is in order. In his December 11 Gleaner column, 'Duppy polls, obfuscation, ignorance and simpletons', Bill Johnson wrote, in reference to my December 4 Gleaner article titled 'Political polls and PM promises': "Let me make it perfectly clear: the 2002 poll prominently cited by Chang in his column as mine was not conducted by me, if, in fact, it was conducted by anybody at all."

The global financial recession is battering incumbents everywhere. In the last two months, the governments of Slovenia, Croatia, St Lucia and Spain have been booted, those in Guyana and Russia lost their 50 per cent majorities, and those in Greece and Italy resigned to avoid electoral humiliation. Only strong commodity-export economies like New Zealand have bucked the trend. Every English-speaking Caribbean election since 2010 has seen a big anti-incumbent swing.

"The most successful politician … says what the people are thinking the most often and in the loudest voice." -Theodore Roosevelt

I’ve never liked the Olympic motto. For man’s glory is his mind, not his body. We will never run faster than cheetahs, jump higher than kangaroos, or lift heavier weights than elephants. Which is why the athletes who impress me are not those who dominate by sheer physical superiority but those who triumph through mental strength.

May 12, 2007 – Greenfield Park, Jamaica. “The West Indies posted a record 400 and then dismissed India for 199 to win the 2007 Cricket World Cup by 201 runs. Chris Gayle and Devon Smith set the tone with a century opening partnership in 15 overs, with Gayle making 88 off 60 balls and Smith 89 off 62. Ram Sarwan made a run ball 70, Dwayne Smith blasted 74 off 48 balls, while Captain Brian Lara’s contributed a comparatively snail-like 56 off 60 balls in his West Indian swansong.

Back in the early 1990s a friend and I had a discussion about kidnapping, which was even then rife in South America though not yet a problem in Trinidad. How was it, we wondered, that murder was so prevalent in Jamaica and yet abduction for ransom was so rare?

WHO WAS Ja's greatest prime minister? This is an unanswerable question, for politics has many facets. Who did more for their country, Gandhi or Lee Kwan Yew? So here is a simpler topic. Which PM did the best job of improving Jamaicans' quantifiable economic and social lot?

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

Why, I wondered to a friend last week, do some people place such importance on sports? Isn’t it ridiculous for grown ups to waste so much time and energy worrying about essentially childish pastimes over which they have no control? But he disagreed. Sports, he said, provide emotional training. Thrilling to victories and agonizing over defeats is an excellent preparation for the inevitable ups and downs of life.