LAWLISMEDS

Increase in Mob Killings When the rule of law is tied up with the ideals of conscience, religion and morality it isn’t hard for everyone to believe that they can be the police. When the rule of law is at its worst, slow, profiling, disrespectful, filled with revenge and corrupt it isn’t hard for man to want to police himself. But, mob action where groups of individuals bare down justice makes the entire nation unsafe. Demonstration against Police Brutality The increase in the crime rate has been of great concern for a very long time in Jamaica. For years the retaliation ideology, that has been imposed by us, upon us (either because as a people  we are violent and desire the feeling of vindication when we are erred against as well as the fact that we are most times dissatisfied with the job done by the police force), has seen many murders committed, rapes inflicted against girls women and men and thus jungle justice increasing. We have nurtured on this island the mur...

My blogs rarely engage with patriotism or any variation of that, mainly because I don't know if I am a patriot; like Mel Gibson I will die for my country if it means saving the life of some-one I love. I am not sure though, if my country will consider that dying for my country or for my own notion or ideals. However, my ideals I think are not just for a country but also for a balanced earth; and as the pledge says  for "advancing the welfare of the whole human race".          Recently, I have been considering a famous quote by Malcolm X "A man who does not stand for anything falls for everything" as it relates to Jamaica and the phrase that this country is a majority Christian country. The phrase is repeated daily as it relates to issues surrounding sexuality, public worship, education and anything that invokes a question of morality except it turns out it does not apply to dancehall music and the crime rate.       Jamaica is filled...

       I remember that as a child I was fascinated with the image of the boy who struggled with his shadow and who led Wendy and her siblings into a new world where they would be young forever.        They flew with the aid of fairy dust he kept in a purse, dust he received from a beautiful yellow fairy like a speck of light called Tinker Bell. Later on much more detailed viewing of various versions of Peter Pan revealed that he was not just a boy but a man who had been stuck as a boy for decades.     As a man child he had fallen in love with Wendy while Tinker Bell was  so in love with him she was just giving him her wares and he was taking it. He was also into the art of kidnapping and stealing, but he made it look like free will. He had his motivations after all it was all in the name of fun and adventure and that he thought was what made everything right. But he was a much safer looking villain than the pirate wit...

I stopped reading a blog about Trayvon Martin to write this blog. ( I hope I got his name right.) Because a few days ago I lay in m bed and heard the sound of death break the dawn, dogs howl, bottles and stones thrown and men quarrelling because a woman was shot by local police men. In the morning when my curiosity swallowed bravery I walked up to the crime scene and I saw fresh evidence of death. Her marrow lying on the floor and the stream of blood remaining was being soaked up by the earth slowly. The zinc that acted only as visual block for her killers riddled with bullet holes, 32 to be precise. The bicycle that was parked in the yard still hold pieces of her essence and a bullet that may have landed in her or missed her completely. When I repeat the story of how she simply decided to take a drink of either Rum or Boom to the little girl’s Nine Night that was only a stone’s throw from her house and returned home because she had work in the morning but was unable to...

Whitney Houston the female black pop star of the 80’s and 90’s is dead. Already blog posts have gone up and statements of condolences sent and all the words of grief now hang in the Universe. And I had thought that my fingers would not type a word in memory of the iconic diva until I found out what killed her (because I like to be the person who walks away from a mess if I did not create it). But this morning the social media networks and the shops and the street boom boxes are blaring out the sound of the vocal queen. And I am moved too to grieve. I grew up in Jamaica where the songs of pop culture reign in dancehalls as loudly as the songs from our own industry. And I remember being a child in a bus singing on top of my voice Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All”. It still holds memories for me. I thought I could sing because of this song. As a young footballer and poet I sang “One Moment in Time” to myself at night, and still whisper it as I strive to my own level of greatness...