Update your links and update your bookmarks. And get over there to join the conversation.

Since then we have had a $1000 bill released and a now there is news that a $5000 bill is slated to be released.

How great it would be if people took to calling the new $5000 bill a “wutless” as in “Mi barely a draw 6 wutless a month inna salary and them want cut it sey economy depressed, but see yah”

If only?!? I would love to see the name reflect the debasement of Jamaican dollars. 

Anyway, mi soon come. Just gwaan wait.

Is it just me or did this RJR reporter have no news whatsoever to share? Top it off with the bad arithmetic in the beginning — 167 out of 169 people on board are released. So that leaves 7 people? WTF?

See if you can spot the multiple bad reporting and inconsistencies in this video. Answers up by midnight.

I hope all ends well for the remaining two seven hostages.

UPDATE:

So this is the difference between the news culture in Jamaica and North America that can inform some of my criticisms of Jamaican media. First of all if 167 of 169 passengers have been released, then there can’t be seven left. At about 1:08 in the video you can hear the North American anchor pause for an extended period in seeming shock at this arithmetic misstep. But alright, we all make mistakes. But the reporter made news with the next pronouncement stating that while a shot had been fired no one was hit. EXCELLENT — show is getting on the road here.

But soon disappointment was to follow. Then she had no information about normal security procedures in the airport, then she repeats that someone had been shot and had to back-track to clear that up. And finally, at the anchor’s prodding she has no idea where the people off the plane are. Really? Why is she on the air? What does she know about anything?

It may be me being oversensitive, but I can see the anchor’s exasperation with the Jamaican reporter because as a viewer I was exasperated. There was very little news in her appearance. I expect reporters to be fluid and fluent with their facts on they’re on the air, especially after a multi-hour stand-off. And at 8am when I am storming out of the house — technically late by that time as I needed to leave slightly sooner — I am extraordinarily annoyed with this kind of slow, trickling, bundling performance by a journalist.

Thankfully, the Observer and (much to my surprise) the Gleaner both updated their websites throughout the day with greater details. When I started this blog the only story these people feel merited an intra-day update was the National Elections in 2007 for which the Gleaner built a seperate site (to dilute their brand?) The performance of each newspaper’s website exceeded my expectations as a consumer today, I was pleasantly surprised.

I’m ambivalent about the video. For example the narrator says that in the ’80s politicians greedy for votes gave out guns. No mention of the Cold War, Manley seeming to embrace Communism, and American foreign policy interests in the violence. Also, sadly, Mark Shields is there as an expert; can anyone tell me what Shileds has accomplished in Jamaica — seriously, is there one noteworthy achievement?

So it a full video from a channel that can be credited with providing me with an incredible education on a number of issues. Normally they post “sampler” videos like this one about Trench Town.

Let me know what you think.

Notable comment from Youtube.

“There needs to be job creation in Jamaica. The wealthy people need to share. Look at Haiti. Look at how the wealthy of Haiti oppressed the masses, now their wealth is worthless. Who wants to buy a mansion in Haiti. You can buy a palace in Haiti for 200K USD but no one wants it. The wealthy of Jamaica need to understand that they will lose their wealth if they hold on to it at the expense of the masses. Pay people livable wages”

James’s new novel, The Book of  Night Women, is an intriguing story out of our island’s past slavery, and touches on many topics that have currency in contemporary Jamaican.

But more than anything it was good to hear the frank discussion of race and pigment in Jamaica today —  and to learn more about the antecedents of certain modern Jamaican dilemmas.

• The interview is available here.
• Simply click the button that says Listen to This Show at the top.

I give it to you as a place-holder till I can get to tell you a story — one piece a story myself which is stranger than fiction. And emblematic of the dangers of blogging, and of designing this space for truth.

Photo Credit: Stunner of Stunner's Afflictions (Afflictions which I may have added to by stealing this pic)

Regrettably though, my normal sunny optimism crashes head-on into a grim and depressing Jamaican reality. And try as I might there are no plethora of happy and joyful topics to comment on as I observe JamDown from Up So. I understand that the sky is not falling in Jamaica … right now. In a future post I will explain why I find this argument often made by Jamaicans unconvincing, the sky wasn’t falling a year ago in America either. Yet now the Dow Jones Industrial Average is touching on 11-year-lows, and people who should know are starting to say that this crisis may be WORSE than the Great Depression. Alan Greenspan, the Messiah of Capitalism himself, is conceding that the nationalization of American banks may be the “least bad” solution to the 90% plus declines of the market valuation for Citigroup and Bank of America. Increasingly I feel that a time of pain is in the cards for Jamaica too, even more so than now — and I don’t have to be Prophet Phinn to declare that.

So I’d love to blog about sunshine and happiness, and how beautiful Jamaican beaches are; but this ain’t that sorta blog. I wish it was sometimes — but it is decidedly not. And there are things I find myself pointing out, or more importantly striving  NOT to point out — and I wonder why I have to be the one doing it.

So that being said,  I similar Longbench have labored heavily to not blog on the in this space on the Daggering Ban imposed by the Broadcasting Commission. I have made comments about it on DuttyBwoy’s and Annie Paul’s blogs — and also left it to Stunner and Longbench to blog about while deftly trying to avoid the issue myself in this space. But it has come to this.

I must confess that I do not and can not support the current ban! I support a ban; but I cannot support this one because like most things even then they are headed in the right direction, the government and governmental agencies of Jamaica does so by putting the car in reverse.

I support a ban because I believe that the music played in Jamaica, whether it is hip-hop, dancehall, or soca, has an aggravating effect on the violence plaguing the island. And I think that lawlessness has set up shop in our music in a way that boggles the mind. Jamaican DJ’s often threaten each other, and family members, via rhythmic rivalries that have resulted in actual bloodshed in real people’s lives. So I have supported a ban on certain kinds of music from the days way back when it was reported that certain communities were in conflict with other communities; not because of political garrisonization, but because of musical garrisonization. Whether the factions are divided between Beenie Man and Bounty Killer; or more recently between Mavado and Kartel; it has been evident to me from the time I lived in Jamaica (when I was a child) till now that some sort of forceful action would HAVE TO be taken to deal with the real violence arising out of the music.

I support a ban on the broadcast of certain kinds of lyrical content in Jamaica; and going beyond what I have heard anyone call for I support prosecution of people whose music should properly be classified as criminal. (More on that in the very next post.)

Yet despite having had decades to consider the disturbing trends of violence, misogyny, homophobia, and sexual license taking place in Jamaican music –  the Broadcast Commission of Jamaica seems to be incapable of acting either deliberatively. They seem somehow to muck their way into things reflexively and reactively only after public outrage forces them to do something. This failure to be reflective and proactive is precisely the reason why I can’t support their recent ban on “daggering.”

This is not the first time the Broadcast Commission has run up and kicked down a door which they should have approached courteously and knocked on. Most people still remember the debacle that they allowed the “Ragashanti” issue to turn into as that situation unfolded. It typifies what they did wrong here.

Dr. Kingsley "Ragashanti" Stewart from ragashanti.com

In my fantasy world,which will show you how detached from Jamaican reality I must be, the Broadcasting Commission would have been professional and deliberative regarding the Ragashanti issue. they would have had a pre-determined and clearly-objective process for dealing with an on-air personality who they felt was infringing on broadcast standards. If Ragashanti’s commentary was deemed to be racially biased and prejudicial (also through a pre-ordained process) then in my fantasy world the Commission would have sat down with the host (or the station manager) and advised him that they would be assigning a Commission monitor to his show. That Commission monitor; a paid, qualified, competent and trained individual (see all the fantasy elements;) would submit reports to an office or entity inside the Commission. That office/entity would then determine if an utterance, statement, or assertion made on-air by Ragashanti met the definition of certain violations of which the radio station would have been informed during the licensing or compliance process. From there the pre-ordained punishments would be dispassionately applied. Violà!

But the Broadcast Commission doesn’t seem to inform radio stations about standards of content and conduct during the licensing and compliance process; and then dispassionately enforce those predetermined rules in the face of violations — rather –  the Broadcast Commission seems to reflexively determine that this person or that station violated some rule which invariably seems to have not been properly promulgated. Then the Commission takes some harsh and arbitrary action which is the most stringent thing they can take, as opposed to tiered penalties and punishments. I heard some of Ragashanti’s shows prior to the proposed revocation of the NewsTalk’s license because (to their credit) NewsTalk has one of the better streams available from Jamaica.  I must admit I was dismayed to hear some of the ignorance that found currency on his show and some of the broad and indiscriminate stereotyping of Indo-Jamaicans and other non-black-and-non-white Jamaican minorities which Ragashanti and his callers engaged in. I am also aware there were some personal disputes with others that Ragshanti is alleged to have handled on-air in an unprofessional manner. And knowing all of that I still don’t see how you get from there to the proposal to revoke NewsTalk’s broadcast license. It is regulatory equivalent of locking your child in a chicken coop because they have wet the bed.

This however is the model that the Broadcast Commission seems to normally follow; they are permissive, lethargic, and inert most of the time — then under political pressure they occasionally spring into action arbitrarily and take knee-jerk draconian measures which invariably have abusive features. What does this remind you of? To me, it is the Annie Palmer Model of Regulation — this model of regulation is clearly a throwback to a colonial slave society where the power of the master over her slaves is unchecked and uncheckable. The Broadcast Commission seems to feel that outrage and emotionalism is impressive in the imposition of punishment, like an angry slavemaster whose emotional state must be taken into consideration by the slaves; and who needs to work herself into a rage to administer a whipping.

To return then to the imbroglio that the Commission has made of a straightforward proposition, let us look at the process they followed, what they failed to do, and what they could have done better.

The Broadcast Commission announced that:

There shall not be transmitted through radio or television, any recording, live song or music video which promotes the act of ‘daggering’ or which makes reference to, or is otherwise suggestive of ‘daggering.’

and

There shall not be transmitted through radio or television or cable services, any audio recording, song or music video which employs editing techniques or bleeping of its original lyrical content.

Source: Jamaica Gleaner, Feb 7, 2009

So the first evidence to me of how poorly thought out the ban is, can be found in that the actual word daggering is called out for special attention when it is the underlying sex and sex-simulation that needs to be regulated by the Broadcast Commission. If I were a Jamaican artiste I’d simply begin to use daggering to mean something else. For example if daggering comes to mean “malfesance and incompetence by a political leader;” then does the ban not become even more flagrantly censorious than it is currently in that it would seek to stifle political speech? Also, a question I see rising for others recently; who is the Broadcast Commission to tell cable subscribers what they are allowed to see via their paid subscriptions? And finally the ban on editing techniques seems particularly poorly thought out as there is audio and video of prominent people cursing  — like Daryl Vaz in the run-up to the local government elections of 2007. Is that tape to be censored from broadcast under the new regulation or is that beeping during a newscast allowable since it is not lyrical content? Does it become lyrical content if I make a song called No Minister Me Nutten {beep}{beep} to protest Vaz’s behavior or does it remain political speech?

I had all these misgivings about the ban when the news started breaking that some broadcasters didn’t even get letters of notification from the Commission, and therefore were not properly apprised of the rule change — meaning the rule wasn’t properly promulgated. And then I saw Cordel Green on TV; speaking much yet actually saying very little, using many pretty words to impede rather than aide communication. And unsolicited, my mind thought: Perhaps if you are in the business of regulating the communications industry, you should yourself be capable of communication. It would be a nice pre-requisitive.

LasMay depicts Green as Macbeth of the Broadcasting Commission?

I didn’t tweet this thought because it seemed uncharitable; and I didn’t take to the web it blog about my concerns because I support a ban — and I was arguing with myself about whether I was too caught up in process/means when I should have been applauding the end.

Then, as if they knew that people like me were conflicted about whether or not to support the ban and wanted to ensure we couldn’t support them, the Commission announced that they would be recruiting (notice the future tense) a group of volunteers to monitor the airwaves 24 hours a day and report potential violations. This announcement was revelatory — that the Commission gave no thought whatsoever to the enforcement mechanism of the new rules prior to the promulgation of the hastily enacted rules. If they had, the enforcement mechanism would have been 1) considered and 2) installed prior to the announcement of the rules. So from that the question arose for me: why the rush to enact these rules with such immediate effect; POLITICAL THEATRE?

Just as the recent meeting between industry stakeholders and cabinet ministers would have taken place prior to the announcement of the new rules if enforcement and not political theatre wasn’t the focus.

If you’re highly gullible and you assume the motivation wasn’t just political theatre, then a question arises about the appropriateness of this enforcement mechanism. Are the people likely to volunteer to serve as monitors of Jamaica’s broadcast content also likely to fairly represent the sensitivity of the average Jamaican broadcast audience?

In other words, let us say each volunteer must fall into one of three categories :

1. They are less sensitive, and harder to offend than the average Jamaican audience
2. They are exactly as sensitive and become offended at the same rate as the average Jamaican audience
3. They are more sensitive and easier to offend than the average Jamaican audience

Which type of person from the three categories is most likely to volunteer as a media monitor? I submit to you that the 3rd type, the most sensitive people, those most easily offended, will be called upon by our government to sanitize our media for the rest of us. Hooray!

Is this daggering I see?

You have in Jamaica a group of people, mostly Christians, who are (in the words of a religious Christian friend of mine) so heavenly bound that they are no earthy-good. They range from what I call benignly-insistent believers to the tyranical theocrats — we have all met them. They are the fundamentalists who believe that it’s sinful for women to wear lipstick or stockings, or straighten their hair, or in some cases work outside the home. They are the ones who are omnipresently engaged in condemnation and damnation of this practice and that ‘ungodly’ person in the name of holiness. And they are likely the ones who will hold us all hostage by serving as media monitors in their attempt to build heaven on earth before Jesus gets a chance to do it himself.

But for all their strength to take on poor black people and the little levity of dancehall; and then sometimes challenge the soca of the upper strata of Jamaican society when the double standard becomes all too evident — none of these holiness freaks have summoned the courage to take on the most pernicious form of slackness taking place in Jamaica, measured by their own estimation. If we don’t want broadcasts originating in Jamaica which corrupt the morals of the young and promote lewdness, promiscuity and wanton sexuality– then we as right thinking holiness Jamaicans must ban MTV’s broadcast of, and in fact, the very staging of Spring Break in Negril.

How can we permit these wet-t-shirt contests and orgies of sexuality and flesh to take place? Is that consistent with our new found but amorphous moral standards? I think not — so I am challenging the Esther Tysons of the world to lead this protest march. I may even promise to join it and bear a placard.

Jamaica's Risky Business

For those who would argue that we cannot disrupt our tourist-dependent economy with these steps in a time like this, I wonder how you square that with the idea that we should disrupt the personal economies of various artistes in times like this.

For my part I support a ban, but not this one — we have acknowledged for a long time that our music was not teaching the youths them how to live. This ban is just too arbitrary and too absolute. It didn’t need to take effect immediately, and the energy spent on political calculation should have been spent answering the questions I raised above about exactly how this thing will work.

Equal rights and justice
Is our everlasting song.
Unity and progress
Will make our nation strong.

Stand up for your rights when you hear the bell,
Stand up for justice -
Hear the freedom bell. Remember Bustamante,
He served you well -
Stand up Jamaicans – when you hear the bell
Stand up Jamaicans – when you hear the bell.
First verse lyrics and chorus of JLP Anthem
Source: JLP Website

If you’re bored, you’re boring.

And increasingly I worry that I may just be pointing out things which are obvious to EVERYONE; which bores me, and in turn leads to a fear I may be boring you.

MP James Robertson

Take for example the recent imbroglio involving MP James Robertson, Minister of State without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister.

To recap really quickly, the MP was recently served with a summons for allegedly using abusive language after an episode which saw him driving from Kingston to the parish of St. Thomas to aide an injured constituent allegedly shot by police.

In his defense, the MP has stated that he only acted to thwart a partisanly motivated murder-attempt against this constituent perpetrated by the police. The MP is accusing the police of corruption and attempted murder arising from partisan political motives.

I applaud the Minister for this act of heroism. As a political observer what concerns me is how on earth the JLP will be able to proceed with the planned crime bills that give more power to the police in light of the fact that some police are alleged to have sought to victimize a person simply for being a JLP party member.

It is either one of two troublesome alternatives: Firstly that JLP parliamentarians don’t support and believe in Minister Robertson’s claim of police abuse of authority; in which case they should be calling for his expulsion from parliament and from the party. Or secondly that JLP parliamentarians believe their fellow parliamentarian but are unconcerned about the many more poor and poorly-connected people who will suffer and as a consequence of new police powers.

If Robertson is convicted of the charge that has now been laid against him by the police, is it really feasible to believe he will go serve that sentence and remain an MP? It would appear abundantly clear to me that this is not a feasible proposition. So then, can the JLP support and defend their colleague out of an arithmetic necessity while simultaneous seeking to give the Jamaica Constabulary Force more power to abuse citizens?

It is either that the police are trustworthy and deserve to be invested with new powers; or they are abusive liars and untrustworthy. That is the political calculus which the JLP is going to have to navigate. And frankly I don’t foresee them doing it successfully – but further I’m happy they cannot as I don’t support what they’re trying to achieve in this case . These new powers that are now being proposed are unconscionable — they are ill-conceived, and readily lend themselves to abuse and to state-sponsored murder.

It is amazing to me that the media in Jamaica haven’t asked that question about Robertson and the party’s current stance; I say this with the caveat that I don’t religiously follow Jamaican broadcast media.  Nor has the print-media/press in Jamaica discussed the fact that the JLP anthem is an exhortation to stand up for justice.

How logical is it to sing Stand Up for Justice and then call for persons who haven’t been convicted tof any crime to be held for months without bail?

I-and-I am not a lawyer and I don’t pretend to be one on the internet. But bail has a single central purpose, which is this  — ensure that a citizen who has been merely accused of a crime turns up to trial so that guilt/innocence can be properly assessed.

Bail is not there to punish people preemptively prior to a conviction. Thus the main criterion for denying bail to an innocent citizen (that is, a citizen who is not yet convicted of any crime) should be that the citizen is a danger to themselves and/or to others.

If the current JLP government is making the argument that some people charged with a crime must be held because they are a danger to others, including witnesses that may testify against them –  then that is a highly credible argument.

My question is one of execution: Is there a proposed standard of evidence that is a minimum standard to trigger the denial of bail and automatic detention for 60 days? Or is the word of a policeman enough to have someone held for 60 days without bail? Are Jamaicans going to do what the Bush Administration did in transferring people to Guantanamo Bay based on the word of competing tribes and discreditable accusers who were heavily motivated to lie?

I find it difficult to believe that the JLP would support Robertson and thereby implicitly accuse the cops making the charge against Robertson of dishonestly; but then count the word of a policeman as gospel when it applies to the poor and poorly-connected — and make no mistake, only the poor and poorly-connected will be the only ones to suffer as a result of these new restrictions. If the JLP makes this claim in the Robertson case then continues to push the denial of bail crime-bill, it will be a powerful reason for people to vote them out of office when given the opportunity.

Other important considerations, which I have been waiting to hear human rights groups in Jamaica call for, are these:

• If a man is held without bail and then is subsequently found not guilty by a jury — will the government compensate him for the two months pay he would have lost as a result of the denial of bail? Or do we throw multiple children and families into a period of instability (or greater instability) based on a policeman’s lie or sloppy police-work?
• What provisions will be made to ensure that those detained for 60 days do not suddenly and suspiciously undergo changes of conscience and confess to their crimes? In other words — what are we going to do to ensure that innocent men (that is men who have not been convicted of any crime) are not tortured into confessing to crimes by abusive jailers? Will they get regular visits from a properly incentivized state physician? Will they be allowed visits from an outside physician of their own choosing with a state subsidy to pay for it?
• How will we investigate the “suicides” that will come as a result of detaining people merely suspected of a crime. How many of those so detained will be murdered by their jailers but end up with their murders classified as a “suicide”?

I haven’t heard these issues discussed at all in the print media nor those few times I have streamed a radio station from Jamaica. It is as if these issues do not exist — and I know why they are not being discussed.

They are not being discussed because at day’s end we are not contemplating the preemptive jailing of all suspected criminals  — just those who are neither rich nor politically-connected. So if a gun-man/murderer is poor but is in service to the “right” party or the “right” rich-man living on the hills — then that gun-man will be safe. But if we can find a poor and ill-educated youth and beat him up a little then soon enough we will have a hundred percent clearance rate for murder; mostly based on confessions. How wonderful a future to contemplate, eh? And we’re almost there.

Another reason these issues are not being discussed is because the poor and poorly-connected who will be affected are not really human beings. They are political footballs that can be kicked around for convenience until an election, when violence and terrorism will be unleashed to shepherd them into doing the will of the self-righteous, self-appointed demigods of Jamaican politics.

This is the stand for justice that is being proposed; Bustamante would be proud! Soon we will be excelling in abuse and accomplishing atrocities of which the British colonialists could only dream.

In this conversation I was defending the American  media with the idea that firstly weed should be legal; and secondly that Bolt as a Jamaican may already be presumed to smoke weed by some people. Maybe even many people.

I am interested to hear your opinions on how the American media would treat Bolt if he were in Phelps’s position.

Update: CBS’s morning show did a segment called “No Outrage Over Phelps“

I bring this up as I was just watching the Behind the Scenes/Making of for Mavado’s I’m So Special. And while I must confess I’m secretly a Mavado fan, I am not biased by my fandom in not seeing anything obscene or egregious about the portrayal of women in the I’m So Special video. {{Posted below}}

In fact my view that it’s not an offensive video is further complicated by the fact that Mavado’s producer ion this video is a woman who specifies that they did rigorous casting and “went through a lot of girls” to whittle down to the actual video’s cast. The producer seems professional and intelligent, yet she obviously wasn’t offended by the video’s execution.

Behind the scenes mini-doc.

The Director’s Cut of I’m So Special.

In response to the controversy swirling around this video since it was rejected by BET due to “writhing women as careless set dressing” and “excessive depictions of alcohol consumption;”I can concede that the video is mediocre in many ways content-wise and stylistically. Yet my major concern is the “disparate standard” being applied to the Jamaican artiste’s video versus American produced videos.

For example see Britney Spears’ Womanizer and Snoop Dogg’s Sensual Seduction.

Update: A reader, JoJo, also points out stunning similarities between Chercez La Ghost and Mavado’s video.

DOUBLE CLICK ON ALL VIDEOS WITH “EMBEDDING DISABLED BY REQUEST”.

Womanizer Official Video

Sensual Seduction Official Video

There is nothing fundamentally different in Mavado’s video from their videos. Thematically Snoop uses the same harem motif and Britney cannot be said to be avoiding exploitation of sex and the female form.

Thus I find it ironic that Mavado’s lyrics for I’m So Special say:

“I’m on the go, I’m on the go; but,

Bad mind a try fi stop mi though”

In this case it is a highly prophetic pronouncement. The standard being applied here doesn’t seem to generally apply to rap videos on BET.

One of the best videos I have seen recently, thematically, was Kanye West’s Flashing Lights {{cannot be embedded}} in which a central part of the plot is the buxom actress in the video disrobing. BET plays that video — so I guess it’s not careless.

Mavado is a genuine cross-over artiste and is able to reach a constituency that is not normally associated with dancehall. When his song The Real McCoy was chosen to be the background music for the trailer Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City he was taking dancehall to a new platform and different level of royalty income. This video game cost $100 million USD to create and was hotly anticipated by many avid fans. Thus the trailer was greeted with great enthusiasm and did much to bolster Mavado’s reach as an artiste. I think then that for BET’s hugely influential 106 and Park show to invite him onto the show, publicize his appearance, and then pull the plug at the last minute is sabotage. They didn’t see the video before they booked him? It was supposed to premiere on their show — they should have seen it prior to booking him since it was the point of his appearance. So my highly skeptical mind tells me that they intended to embarrass him or someone really screwed up their job. So based on the fact I rarely see American artistes treated so shabbily I dislike the treatment meted out to Mavado. The disparate treatment is my main interest in posting on this, I am concerned I may dilute the focus of the blog if I start down the road to music criticism.

Secondly I am loathe to criticise a Jamaican music video with actual high production values given what dancehall stars usually call a music video. Sean Paul is the undoubted master of the American format of high production values music videos, most others simply don’t get it.

See Elephant Man for example. Working with American producers and professionals he is part of a video like Whine Up with Kat Deluna.

Left to his own devices he is back to amateur hour with this Nuh Linga video from VP Records. WTF?!?

For my money the best video out of JA recently with great production values and congruent plotline to the lyrics, good choreography and nice videography was Tanya Stephen’s It’s Such a Pity. (Which looks like it was made in Jamaica.)

As I say this I am aware of several friends who would strongly disagree — so it is highly subjective; there is no right answer. But central to my esteem of the It’s Such a Pity video is a political choice made in the kind of beauty to showcase — note that the stunningly gorgeous actress in Stephen’s video has afro-centric features; meaning she could never win a Jamaican beauty contest.

The major problem seems to be that artistes are often seeking to do the video on the cheap and on those few occasions they actually spend real money they simply throw money at the video as if a higher pricetag will confer greater creativity. See: Beenie Man paying Janet Jackson big bucks to appear in his video Feel It Boy so she could diss him afterwards.

But it’s not a money issue, it’s a matter of creativity and execution. Look at the impact Peter Dean Richards had with some pigs and an abbatoir.

Update:

I feel a fundamental part of the problem is culture — MTV has been a part of American music consumption for as long as Hip Hop has been popular. So Hip Hop artistes have been competing for a strong visual representation of their music for at least two decades. Whereas in Jamaica an artiste knew they had made it when their song was being used widely in dub-plates; a strictly aural accolade with no visual component.

It takes time for that audio/aural component to change. As long as Jamaican artistes stop making videos like the following Pan Yu we should be fine.

Sidewalk or SLidewalk? - Photo: Illustration Purposes Only

The transaction in the restaurant was pleasant, and went off without a hitch. And so I set out on my way home over a hillock, a hump, really. Yet, unbeknown to me it was covered in a thin layer of ice just over the crest; thin, but enough to cause a calamity. I didn’t see it in the dark.

The funny thing about falling when you’re an adult is you can feel the center of gravity shift out of your control with a certain sense of dread. When I was a child I could do cartwheels, and climb trees then precariously balance on the slimmest of branches — it was all exhilarating. Now when I fall, I wonder: “How much this is going to cost?”  First there is the skating, the feeling that a foot is starting to move in a way you can’t control. Normally when this happens you rely on the other more solidly placed leg to compensate — like all-wheel-drive, but in this case it is all-feet-walk. It is in that pivotal moment that the suddenness of this predicament is realized. The other foot has NO traction: I’m going down!

There are many ways to go down, the worst of which is probably to sprawl forward with your upper-body leading the way, this is the bad way to fall, the way of falling that almost guarantees that an ambulance will be required to help you up.

The best way to fall, and I hope this is not a rationalization, is to shoot your feet out ahead of you so you land on the only part of your body uniquely cushioned to absorb such a shock. This is the way I fell, with my messenger-style bag slung over my shoulder and luckily breaking my fall.

And then, the most humiliating part of any fall is what happens immediately afterward — the drift. This is the short distance that your entire body floats on the ice as if to remind you that you are nothing, and can be dropped and pushed around by a fucking  patch of ice only a quarter of an inch thick. It’s as if when you’ve fallen, and you land on the ground asking yourself “Did I really just fall?;” the drift is there to jeer you “Yeah man, ya did!”

The good news is nothing broke! No blood, and no permanent damage!

Many people mistakenly believe that in America we sue for every bad thing that happens, but this is not true. If I had fallen and couldn’t rise, or had the sense upon rising that something really serious was wrong, then I would have dialed 9-1-1 and sat there till it came; both so I could receive medical attention as soon as possible and to preserve the ability to take future legal action against the responsible party. (Side Note: If someone slips and falls on snow/ice on the sidewalk outside your house, they can sue you — the property owner!) The last thing on my mind was a lawsuit, the first and really only question was: Am I ok?

Luckily I was, mostly. The human body is a wonderful piece of equipment and within seconds of falling I could tell that the impact of it was absorbed by my right hand which had instinctively reached back to help break the fall. Within a minute of standing up I was testing its range of motion, which seemed fine. But it wasn’t, the elbow would later swell slightly.

These are the perils of what I call Jesus Weather in America, I derive that name from the fact that you open your front door, feel the cold and mutter “Jeeesus!” to yourself; then you lave the house walking on water, and ice, as it were. These of the perils of New York winter, where people walk around happy that it’s 45 degrees Farenheit.

The other good news is that like that the quintessentially Jamaican spirit of resilient shone through. It provided an opportunity to focus more on the direction for the blog and other activities in the upcoming year. And provided me with a reminder that I take too many things for granted.

It is not until I couldn’t fully use my right hand, which was sprained, that I realized how much the left hand relies on the right. How do you soap up your left hand in the shower; or lotion the left hand after?

Most importantly, how would you type a 2,000 word blog post with a right hand that isn’t 100%?

A legal question did arise for me though based off this injury. When a married person is injured, their spouse is sometimes able to sue on the basis of a legal claim called loss of services. In a liberal society like the U.S. why should an unmarried person be incapable of suing for the loss of their own services? And more importantly, they had lawsuits like that, wouldn’t it be great to sit in the courtroom and listen to the line-of-questioning and the testimony? Better yet, can you imagine the advocacy website devoted to the cause of securing the right to sue for unmarried people in this circumstance. Like I said, I wasn’t blogging, I had a lot of time to think on my hands — no pun intended.

I’m back!

I am beginning to believe that before 2009 is over the JLP will give back the majority to the PNP either as a result of a series of forced by-elections or even a general election.

Consider what is on the horizon:

• Daryl Vaz will likely need to have a new by-election against Dabdoub or worse-case-scenario Dabdoub will be declared the actual winner of the seat in parliament which is currently the subject of a lawsuit.
• Robertson is likely to be charged stemming from his interaction with police in his district after, he alleges, a constituent called him for help. Who can say that he will not be convicted?
• Hibbert is under multiple investigations stemming from a stint years ago as Chief Technical Officer in a government ministry. Who knows where this will go?
• And Hibbert’s lawyer, his fellow MP Ernest Smith, is busy issuing what can only be interpreted as death threats against the Contractor General, that the CG will “one day digest the venom of his own spleen!” So it wouldn’t surprise me if the Opposition or the OCG files a police report regarding those menacing comments.
  

  The Spleen

With friends like these the JLP needs no enemies! And the sad fact is that the examples above are not isolated incidents, but part of a pattern of self-destructive interactions with the media. Prior to the recent “death threat” from MP Smith, we saw Daryl Vaz ‘out-virago’ the Most Hon. Portia  Simpson-Miller with his performance after the police interrupted a rally in the run-up to local government elections in 2007 — screaming and roaring “No badda Minister me nutten” in unrestrained anger while his wife was sobbing in the car next to him. I had hoped I was watching a cameo appearance on the TV show Royal Palm Estate when I first saw the video of that fracas.

And we have also seen The Everald Warmington One Man Humor and Heckling Show from the benches of Gordon House, his generally boorish behavior in parliament made worse by his famous declaration that “he doesn’t talk to the press.”

And all of this grieves me personally, as I watch a party with promise implode and wilt under the glare of the spotlight, the words not-ready-for-prime-time comes to mind. I have stated where my loyalties lie repeatedly, but I carry water for no-one in this space. There are times when I watch the verbal incontinence coming out of the JLP and wonder if they knew they were interacting with the media at the time the comment was made.

The JLP has had a horrendous press relations arm both for the party and for the Government. The Prime Minister is there to personally defend every infraction:  from shady land deals that don’t seem to stand up to scrutiny at first glance; to being the one to address the Hibbert raid in parliament; which it is my opinion that some ‘deputy-so-and-so’ should have addressed. Where the PM needs to be is announcing the Ananda Alert and the recent Sex Offender Registry — didn’t see enough photos or soundbites from that. Nor have I seen enough photos and sound bites from a whole host of recent ‘good-news’ initiatives announced but not properly rolled out.

And it seems to me that the worst mistake the Prime Minister is making is to spend his political capital defending people who shouldn’t have been in such indefensible positions to begin with (see: Board of Directors, JUTC.) When the people no longer feel that Bruce Golding is a man of principle, he will be finished politically.

Structure of the Spleen

If this behavior can be such a turn-off for a supporter, how repulsive it must be to those who are neutral; further to the PNP-inclined it must function as a highly effective repellent. The JLP has members in the forefront of the party behaving like tactless, tasteless, classless, graceless, boorish, brutish buffoons. Every group can be expected to have “new orientation” moments during their honeymoon period; but there is a proverb that “whom the gods wish to destroy they first make drunk with power.” And the perception increasingly is that the JLP is heavily inebriated. I don’t know how else to describe it except in the words of Bob Marley “Ah wha mek dem a gwaan so? A wha! A wha! A wha frighten dem?“

The Prime Minister needs to act. I would hope that whatever else he does he takes the Information portfolio away from Babsy Grange, and gives it to someone else. Maybe Holness? Grange, who is by many accounts a wonderful woman, can keep the Youth and Culture portfolios, but Info has got to go!

I would also hope that the PM sends around a memo that media is the plural of medium, meaning:

Media: A means of mass communication, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, or television.

Source: Answer.com

To that end a politician never really speaks to the media as he speaks with the masses through the media.

If Warmington continues to insist on heckling and boorish behavior from the Government benches, someone should direct him to St. William Grant Park to perform his routine, it is only a short distance away and perhaps he will catch the attention the person(s) responsible for booking new acts at Ward Theatre. Otherwise, Warmington might actually concentrate on governing while on the government side. The PM needs to act, a close majority doesn’t mean you can’t risk insulting anyone at all — especially not when they are engaged in behavior which will doom that small majority anyway.

Meanwhile if you notice, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson-Miller is scarce while the JLP is busy ruining themselves. Every now and then Pickersgill peers down from the window of his glass house and throws a few stones — but Portia is scarce. So if the JLP fails to take responsibility and implement strong remedial steps to increase the confidence of the people, I can only advise that they begin to come up with a creative excuse for the loss that is sure to come from any impending general election. My suggestion: Blame obeah!

Above all, please don’t blame voters, or pretend it’s because the uneducated are not sophisticated enough to understand global finance. If the JLP refuses to blame party leaders, since bad luck is not sufficient to explain the fact that they have lost their damn minds: just blame obeah!