Best headline of the year so far:
MAN RUN OVER WITH MOTOR CAR, SHOT, ESCAPES
(source: Jamaica Observer)
It’s a fairly typical report of street crime in Jamaica, relying on unsupported interviews with the nearest person at hand, vague and incomplete police statements and victims that disappear, never to reappear.
I’d been scanning the local press since last Friday for
Continue reading Gun Street Girl
I was away for a few days, so I didn’t realize my letter to the newspaper had been published until I saw a slew of e-mails in reaction to my letter. All but one were very positive, with various degrees of cynicism, humour and despair. The lone critical response tried to catch me off guard:
Well, the
Continue reading Red rag
I noticed one of my recent posts had been picked up by a Chinese blogger.
I wonder what the girls will make
Continue reading Ghetto girls go global
I wrote a letter to the Jamaican Gleaner newspaper about an article in yesterday’s edition by Dr Phillip Phinn, prophet and confidant of Jamaica’s Prime Minister.
Why does the Gleaner (10 January) continue to allow “Prophet” Phinn space in its paper for his absurd and pointless ramblings? First he claims divine Christian inspiration in the number seven,
Continue reading Indignant from Arcadia
Sunday morning found us itching to get out of town and away from the smoke and smell of the still burning landfill (see previously).
So we headed for the hills.
We looked down across the Liguanea (say: Li-ga-nee) Plain; a blueblack cloud covered the city and sealed in the noxious smoke.
At over 4,500 feet above the smog,
we hiked
Continue reading Up where the air is clean
Whats happened to Jamaica?
My wife worked for two years in Grants Pen as a peace corps volunteer. that is a community torn asunder by guns, drugs, and violence. Things seem a lot better now then a few years ago, but still worse then in the seventies. In her time there it was not too unusual to see knife fights on the streets, young men running through the community with guns, and hear gun shots. Yet, this was better.
Working with the kids from that community it was devastating to see the affects of this on them. Children would see gunman as a legitimate career choice the way youth I grew up with saw teacher as one. Violence in their communities had become some sort of strange television show you would watch and laugh at like your neighbors bludgeoning each other was Curb Your Enthusiasm.
It is too bad that grants pen seems incapable of escaping the violence. Leaving behind a community of ruined lives ruled over by fear, gunman, and foolishness.
It really is too bad, I was thinking about Jamaica as a vacation destination but after reading all of this I think Key West Florida will receive me business. And another example of gun laws that DO NOT WORK, It shocks me to see how people act in a place thought by others to be paradise, I am envious of the land they live on yet they live far worse then animals, again how sad it is to see, I can’t help but think that if some wealthy developer came in and bought the slum beach area like rocky point in Clarendon that this would be followed up by others and have a positive change for this beautiful island but until then it looks like life goes on, better for some then others.
James D
[...] Another place, another great headline. Whereas my previous favourite headline from Jamaica was a classic in understatement, the front page headline in our local paper in The Netherlands this week was a gem of a different sort: Man falls off bike A 57-year-old man from E— was injured on Tuesday morning when he fell off his bike in his neighbourhood. At about 10:45, the man was cycling along Kolkakkerweg when he wanted to turn a corner. Because there were fallen leaves on the road, the man did not see that he had already passed the corner and cycled into the kerb. That is why he fell. The victim was transported to hospital. [...]