Dear Historian:

[HL]

The portion of your submission that stands out is when you ask the following question:

'How is it possible for a resource rich (incl. people) nation like jamaica get things so wrong..........'

I am keeping up with the British Open--and the tournament is played in horrible weather conditions. Today is the high gusty wind. Last i checked K.J. Choi and Norman were leading with +2!!!!!.

What's my point?

I look at Jamaican tropical weather as an extremely rich resource.

Why do developed countries with poor weather conditions excell ? When do they find the time to grow and develop their country? How come they have better football fields that us? And questions along that train of thought...

Years ago when I lived in Iamaica...if it rained too hard...lots of folks do not go to work. (I am sure this is not true today)...

I sat watching the game and the fans apper undeterred by the deluge; I wonder, what makes them different from the folks from my born-land?

Why do 'we' get it so wrong?

[Mosiah]

simplistic

[HL]

heheheheee

Just watch..."your tag-team pardner" will be here SHORTLY.

Watch!!!!

hehehee

[Historian]

Re: Dear Historian

HL, this is a very interesting post, and I am happy you made it as a new thread. Hopefully, your questions will encourage the serious, thoughtful discussion it deserves, and that such discussion will go beyond the excellent example/theme you have presented (“Succeeding despite adverse weather conditions/environment”).

Trust me when I say that you have only barely touched the surface of the issue of what’s wrong with decision-making in our beloved Jamaica, a country which, as you correctly pointed out, has been blessed with excellent weather (year round)!

The sad truth is that it’s as if, somehow, we can never seem to get our act together, and one direct result of this is our ridiculously low ranking in the region based on the UN Development list (a list which does NOT concern itself with peripheral factors like new highways, fancy cars and cell phones, but rather, with genuine societal development indices like literacy levels, health, and so on).

And even when we are given gifts from benevolent donors, we still cannot get it right! Thus, we see that the gift from the Cuban government of the GC Foster College came with an Olympic-size swimming pool. Yet, what do we find? Based on a newspaper report this week, we learn that for a quarter of a century (yes, 25 years!), that pool sat on the campus, abandoned and unused! And this pool was, like the National Stadium of which we boast, a free gift!! (At least we have been forced, because we had no choice, to use the gift the British government gave us, the National Stadium.)

But of course, facts such as these are not popular with many individuals, who will use as one of their popular catch phrases the rather emotive term, “Social class.” Of course, some of those who freely dispense the word “class” at every criticism leveled fail to realize that nobody talks about the “good school” they attended as much as they do!! If putting down a person because they did not attend a certain traditional high school isn’t “class” attitude in its truest and crudest sense, then I don’t know what is!!

But let me stop here and allow you to read today’s editorial from the Jamaica Observer newspaper. It fits in perfectly with our theme.

Good news for swimming
Saturday, July 19, 2008

A tell-tale characteristic of underdeveloped societies such as Jamaica is a tendency to allow valuable infrastructure to fall into disrepair and disuse because those in charge fail to put in place and/or implement development and maintenance plans.

So it is, for example, that a year and counting since the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean there is still uncertainty about the future of several of the spanking new stadiums that were built for that tournament.

Yet, if we are to draw meaning from the news reports this week about the Bournemouth Bath in East Kingston and the GC Foster College swimming pool in Spanish Town we would have to conclude that decades ago the slack and lackadaisical approach to such matters was even worse than it is today.

Built in 1929/30 when sections of central and east Kingston - now mired in urban squalor - were well-preserved upper income residential areas, Bournemouth Bath would, over time, fall into decay at a rate similar to that of its surroundings; to the point where the once first-class facility was all but forgotten after its support buildings were gutted by fire in 1969 and after suffering the consequences when the middle-class fled downtown violence.

Even more alarming was the demise of the swimming facility at the GC Foster College of Education and Sports. For those too young to remember, GC Foster College was one of the several meaningful gifts handed to Jamaica by the Government and people of Cuba in the 1970s. Yet, for reasons that have grown obscure over time, the Olympic-sized facility was not maintained over a period of many years and fell out of use.

The good news is that corrective measures have now been taken. True, there is considerable disquiet that the rehabilitation of the Bournemouth Bath was not completed in time for the Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships now underway at the National Stadium. But that's a minor disappointment when we consider that the facility, which has been out of use for an entire generation, is now on the verge of being available as an instrument for the popularisation of swimming as sport and recreation.

If the new Bournemouth Bath is properly managed, there will be an enormous contribution to be made to the further development of East Kingston. Credit is due to the Rotary Club of Kingston which provided the vision and the drive to get the project done. We are told that the National Health Fund (NHF) provided $12 million of the $18-million budget, complemented by $1.5 million from the Sports Development Foundation (SDF) and the Rotary Club's own fund-raising efforts.

As to GC Foster, we are now told that the swimming facility, which boasts a nine-lane 50-metre pool and an Olympic-sized diving pool, will be ready in September, though the rehabilitation work was scheduled for completion 16 months ago. The SDF, which has as its mandate the promotion, encouragement and development of sporting talent and the growth in facilities and activities concerning all aspects of sport, is apparently the lead financier of this project.

It's been a long time in coming, but for those with their hearts close to swimming, the rehabilitation of Bournemouth Bath and the GC Foster facility must be a little like manna from heaven. The challenge now will be to break the cycle of the past and ensure maintenance and sustainability.

We trust that the amateur Swimming Association of Jamaica and others at the helm of swimming in Jamaica will recognise that theirs must be the lead role.

[Muadib]

Which dastaradly characters are putting down people based on the High School they attended !!??

[Willi]

Jamaica has a problem promoting and valuing quality.

Hence the drawing of race and class card especially when inappropriate.

Sure w do have SOME problems, but the people who we Jamaicans rally around with these red herrings are largely undeserving, incompetent, unethical and lacking in personal integrity.

When we see evidence of people showing these desirable traits, as imperfect as they may be, we are quick to join in the denigartion and justification for their demise.

Take Douggie Chambers and the Herald rag....they print a bunch of half truth an unproven innuendo with a political agenda, so as to sow doubt and besmirch his reputation posthumously! I can bet that nothing ever come out of it, no follow up or anything...but mission accomplished, job well done...there is now a sub-conscious implantation that maybe, just maybe he was "not so clean" and that integrity is a fairytale.

Way to go Herald, you have done Jamaica a great disservice!

[Tilla]

Dem seh if you throw a stone innah hog pen, di hog whe get lik wi squeal.

[Mosiah]

Way to go Herald, you have done Jamaica a great disservice!

How do you know there is no truth to it? Can we say that at this point?

[Muadib]

I know.. it works everytime !

[Muadib]

A more cowardly act cannot be found...

[HL]

wow! And to know he was educated in America.

I need to tess the jinking water in jamaica...

[Mosiah]

The foundation was Jamaica. The American education was nothing more than a paper. Never learn a ting ova dehso. Dem dunce like! Thank God some Asians were in my department.

[Peter R]

"if it rained too hard" ?? heh... the other night I went to fill up with gas... it was drizzling...waited by the pump (along with a few other motorists) a few minutes til an employee came up to us and said the pump attendant called in to say "it raining" and can't come to work. The employee "didn't pump gas" so... I HAD NO CHOICE, so I went home. Is not Jamaica one have a phobia for rain.(I'm in T&T btw)

[Peter R]

An eff yuh tink Jamaica bad... guh a place name Tobago... lawd have mercy!!

[Willi]

do you agree or not that until some proof is forthcoming, that it is HARMFUL to Jakan psyche to make such allegations and tarnish integrity of people widely seen to be takling corruption?