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Bullets, tennis balls and 'bangarang'
published: Sunday | October 21, 2007
Dawn Ritch, Columnist
At the risk of finding three more spent shells outside the door to my office, it is impossible not to note the obvious.
This present of three spent shells was left the day after the general election. I did not report the matter to the police, because I'm tired of reporting things to them, but my staff say they came from an M16.
This was mild compared to the two men who asked to see me, revolvers in their waistbands. That was a few months ago. They asked why I'd stopped writing a Sunday column. Indeed they insisted that I no longer wrote. I escaped to the bathroom, and left my nephew, Jason, to deal with them. From the time he took over my company six years ago, he's carried a baseball bat for cracking skulls. It's wonderful to have his protection.
There are people in this country who are very, very angry with me, and it's useless. I had nothing to do with the electoral outcome of September 3. Had I been in charge, Portia Simpson Miller would have won by a landslide. Instead, we have a Bruce Golding victory by a thin margin. I did not contribute to that either, so I don't know why his supporters are vexed with me. They should be cross with him.
Counter flour has gone up by 30 per cent, chicken meat by five per cent, rice gets a new price every day, cement has gone up by eight per cent and the Jamaican dollar is shooting for 75:1. Despite heavy intervention by the Bank of Jamaica, the Jamaican dollar continues to fall in value.
With exquisite insouciance, Dr. Christopher Tufton, Minister of Agriculture, informed us that food prices are going to rise. He is demonstrating all the insights of a moron.
no sorting by gov't
If I wanted a post box, I would have voted for one. The function of government in a small island cannot be to act as a post box, just delivering mail to residents here from overseas. Indeed, the Bruce Golding administration is not even as good a post box. At least the central post office sorts the mail. I see no sorting going on here, no impress of human intelligence upon the maelstrom of life.
International commercial interest in soy, corn and sugar for bio-fuels ought not to mean that the Jamaican poor should be made to starve. Indeed, the search fo fuels should bring prosperity to Jamaica.
Instead, external forces are being blamed by the current administration for the rapid deterioration in our standard of living since they took office. They seem to be able to analyse everything, and do nothing about anything. This is exactly what I said the country could expect from a Golding administration.
The hard facts remain that chicken is the most popular protein in Jamaican, usually chicken necks and backs. Flour is even more important than that, and a pound of rice is heaven itself for the vast majority of our people.
In just the space of a month, the Golding administration has again and again yanked the chains of the working poor. Bear in mind that no one of any social class has faced the cash register in a grocery with a clear mind for at least the last three years.
Surely innovations such as a new Parliament building, offices for the Opposition Leader, and the Prime Minister's Question Time ought not to take precedence over the protection of the Jamaican poor in a hostile international environment. They ought to be the prime consideration in any equation. But the Golding administration seems to lack that factor in their analyses.
'one-third' Finance Minister
I know we are said to have only a 'one-third' Finance Minister, but even one third is better than none at all. If the Prime Minister is not up to the task, the Finance Minister, Audley Shaw, must surely be familiar with the word 'subsidy'. His job is not to just pass on price increases like a post box, but immediately to think about how to lessen their impact on the most vulnerable in the society. Increasing counter flour by 30 per cent ought to be a criminal offence.
Certainly, if former Prime Minister Simpson Miller had ever done that, there would be a line-up of pundits and organisations waiting to whip her back with it. What a difference a tie makes.
The irony is that she would instantly have instructed her Minister of Finance to find the money from some other part of the budget in order to subsidise counter flour. She would have ensured that counter flour didn't go up by 30 per cent, because it's poor people food.
No such concerns have constrained her successors. No such capacity distinguishes them. They're like tennis balls being hit against the wall of real life. Nobody seems to mind that they bounce right off, because the sound is so hypnotic.
Simpson Miller didn't give press conferences and interviews, so media assumed that because they didn't hear a sound, she didn't have her hand on the steering wheel. Golding and his ministers do nothing but talk to the press, which dutifully reports the country's dramatic decline since he took office without comment. Yet he claimed he would be a better driver.
Nowhere in the world must it be thought that governing a country is about selling valuable properties and Crown lands to one's friends, and fattening the pockets of the rich. Above all, it is to care for those members of society who, through no fault of their own, have little resources to care for themselves. No press conference can ever take the place of that public responsibility.
short on practice
What has taken place thus far is governance long on the symbolism of inclusion, but short on the practice. All the new Government has said is that they'll be alert to price gouging. This was a cunning move. It places the blame for our worsening conditions squarely at the feet of the Jamaican private sector.
Instead of doubling people's pay, as this Government promised before the election, they're doubling our expenses. It seems unlikely that this will go unnoticed and unremarked, no matter how inconvenient. 'Bangarang' indeed.
The only thing I've seen this awful was in 1989 when the PNP won the general election. They promptly sent Dr. Headley Brown, the governor of the Bank of Jamaica, on long leave. They did not seek to replace him with any sense of urgency. That began the slide of the Jamaican dollar from which it has never recovered.
I never thought I'd see the day when any JLP government could compare with that for ineptness. Had such dramatic deterioration occurred on Simpson Miller's watch, she would have been hung in the square.
published: Sunday | October 21, 2007
Dawn Ritch, Columnist
At the risk of finding three more spent shells outside the door to my office, it is impossible not to note the obvious.
This present of three spent shells was left the day after the general election. I did not report the matter to the police, because I'm tired of reporting things to them, but my staff say they came from an M16.
This was mild compared to the two men who asked to see me, revolvers in their waistbands. That was a few months ago. They asked why I'd stopped writing a Sunday column. Indeed they insisted that I no longer wrote. I escaped to the bathroom, and left my nephew, Jason, to deal with them. From the time he took over my company six years ago, he's carried a baseball bat for cracking skulls. It's wonderful to have his protection.
There are people in this country who are very, very angry with me, and it's useless. I had nothing to do with the electoral outcome of September 3. Had I been in charge, Portia Simpson Miller would have won by a landslide. Instead, we have a Bruce Golding victory by a thin margin. I did not contribute to that either, so I don't know why his supporters are vexed with me. They should be cross with him.
Counter flour has gone up by 30 per cent, chicken meat by five per cent, rice gets a new price every day, cement has gone up by eight per cent and the Jamaican dollar is shooting for 75:1. Despite heavy intervention by the Bank of Jamaica, the Jamaican dollar continues to fall in value.
With exquisite insouciance, Dr. Christopher Tufton, Minister of Agriculture, informed us that food prices are going to rise. He is demonstrating all the insights of a moron.
no sorting by gov't
If I wanted a post box, I would have voted for one. The function of government in a small island cannot be to act as a post box, just delivering mail to residents here from overseas. Indeed, the Bruce Golding administration is not even as good a post box. At least the central post office sorts the mail. I see no sorting going on here, no impress of human intelligence upon the maelstrom of life.
International commercial interest in soy, corn and sugar for bio-fuels ought not to mean that the Jamaican poor should be made to starve. Indeed, the search fo fuels should bring prosperity to Jamaica.
Instead, external forces are being blamed by the current administration for the rapid deterioration in our standard of living since they took office. They seem to be able to analyse everything, and do nothing about anything. This is exactly what I said the country could expect from a Golding administration.
The hard facts remain that chicken is the most popular protein in Jamaican, usually chicken necks and backs. Flour is even more important than that, and a pound of rice is heaven itself for the vast majority of our people.
In just the space of a month, the Golding administration has again and again yanked the chains of the working poor. Bear in mind that no one of any social class has faced the cash register in a grocery with a clear mind for at least the last three years.
Surely innovations such as a new Parliament building, offices for the Opposition Leader, and the Prime Minister's Question Time ought not to take precedence over the protection of the Jamaican poor in a hostile international environment. They ought to be the prime consideration in any equation. But the Golding administration seems to lack that factor in their analyses.
'one-third' Finance Minister
I know we are said to have only a 'one-third' Finance Minister, but even one third is better than none at all. If the Prime Minister is not up to the task, the Finance Minister, Audley Shaw, must surely be familiar with the word 'subsidy'. His job is not to just pass on price increases like a post box, but immediately to think about how to lessen their impact on the most vulnerable in the society. Increasing counter flour by 30 per cent ought to be a criminal offence.
Certainly, if former Prime Minister Simpson Miller had ever done that, there would be a line-up of pundits and organisations waiting to whip her back with it. What a difference a tie makes.
The irony is that she would instantly have instructed her Minister of Finance to find the money from some other part of the budget in order to subsidise counter flour. She would have ensured that counter flour didn't go up by 30 per cent, because it's poor people food.
No such concerns have constrained her successors. No such capacity distinguishes them. They're like tennis balls being hit against the wall of real life. Nobody seems to mind that they bounce right off, because the sound is so hypnotic.
Simpson Miller didn't give press conferences and interviews, so media assumed that because they didn't hear a sound, she didn't have her hand on the steering wheel. Golding and his ministers do nothing but talk to the press, which dutifully reports the country's dramatic decline since he took office without comment. Yet he claimed he would be a better driver.
Nowhere in the world must it be thought that governing a country is about selling valuable properties and Crown lands to one's friends, and fattening the pockets of the rich. Above all, it is to care for those members of society who, through no fault of their own, have little resources to care for themselves. No press conference can ever take the place of that public responsibility.
short on practice
What has taken place thus far is governance long on the symbolism of inclusion, but short on the practice. All the new Government has said is that they'll be alert to price gouging. This was a cunning move. It places the blame for our worsening conditions squarely at the feet of the Jamaican private sector.
Instead of doubling people's pay, as this Government promised before the election, they're doubling our expenses. It seems unlikely that this will go unnoticed and unremarked, no matter how inconvenient. 'Bangarang' indeed.
The only thing I've seen this awful was in 1989 when the PNP won the general election. They promptly sent Dr. Headley Brown, the governor of the Bank of Jamaica, on long leave. They did not seek to replace him with any sense of urgency. That began the slide of the Jamaican dollar from which it has never recovered.
I never thought I'd see the day when any JLP government could compare with that for ineptness. Had such dramatic deterioration occurred on Simpson Miller's watch, she would have been hung in the square.
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