Are jamaican whites excluding themselves from politics?

[Muadib]

I guarantee you it was not Russia and Cuba...

lol

[Gamma]

yuh nuh hear? ask bricktop...a brown man time!!

[Reggaedoc]

Yu right Maudib. I am sure it is not Russia or Cuba, I am equally sure it is not Oxford or Cambridge.

[Muadib]

but ah wheh di !?

Suh is wheh him did send dem ??

Is wheh yuh tink Lee Kuan guh school ?

What yuh think.. Chiney nuh good enough for Oxford and Cambridge ?

Ah bwoy...

[Reggaedoc]

No Maudib. To the contrary, they understand that if they are to progress in a modern world, they have to go to a Univ that has relevance. It is more like Oxford and Cambridge are not good enough for them. I think they were right. We in Ja need to take on the same attitude, and reject old paradigms and nonsense conventional wisdom. Then and only then will we have something to teach the Oxons and Cantabarians. Dont hole yuor breath though, because we have accepted our own pseudoapatheide systerm hook, line and sinker. Jamaica, what a ra??ss place man.

[Islandman]

Reggaedoc you talking nonsense.

Cambridge and Oxford are a first class universities on the cutting edge of developments in theoretical physics, genetics, etc.

I guess you never heard of Steven Hawkins, Richard Dawkins, Neil Turok just to name a few?

[Muadib]

Suh why wi did sen ours to Russia and Cuba ???

lol !

Suh UWI nuh relevant ?

[Muadib]

shhh.. ah White-Man place dat...

Oppressah teef wi knowledge and a try a ting.. dem a bug..

[Muadib]

Very nice.. but you have not explained why on earth you would think that Singapore would not send their people the best Centers of Learning the World has to offer ????

[Reggaedoc]

Yes Islandman. Your examples have only helped to strengthen my argument. You have chosen very bad examples to refute my point. Let me first remind you that science in general, and physics in particular are my first love. Lets look at each of your examples.

Stephen Hawking: Can you tell me a single practical application of the Berkenstein-Hawking Radiation Gravitational Singularity Theorem. Dont burst your brain. There has been none to date. this theorem has been around since 1974. Even then it was nothing new. Yukov Zeldovich and Alex Starobinsky in Moscow knew way before Hawking that black holes create and emit particles. Hawking simply tweeked it and published his theorem in the western, english scientific literature. No value to mankind in general so far.

C. Richard Dawkins: What has he said that was not already said by Charles Darwin many years ago. He only made it popular in the press. No practical use. Totally irrelivant to our efforts to conserve our dwindling turtle and other seafood species.

Neil Turok: Briliant son of Africa. Used mathematical formulation to explain the Big Bang theory of the universe's genesis. No practical benefit to joe blow in Westmoreland whose house is about to fall off a cliff because of coastal erosion.
For every Turok, Hawking, and Dawkin you might be able to find trhousands of Indians at one of the Indian Institues of Technology who could engage, just as good, in the impractical mental masturbations of Dawkins etc. My point is, they have dismissed useless scholarship and have engaged themselves in research and development which can lift their people out of poverty. In other words, they have mostly dismissed the notion of the superiority of abstract thought over thinking guided by practical needs of mankind. As long as we accept Oxford and Cambridge as the standard, we will not be able to find solutions to lethal yellowing disease killing our coconut trees etc. We have to dismiss British hypocrasy and stop trying to be cardboard Turok's, Hawking's, or Dawkins's.

[Muadib]

Oh dear..

Wheh yuh seh.. Oxford is an "Intellectual Ghetto" ?

[Islandman]

LOL. You nuh easy.

I wonder what you would have said about Darwins writings had you been there 150 years ago. Probably "useless mental masturbations" that nobody but the devil has any use for.

Or Newton for that matter: For every action there is a wha? Who the f&&k cares? Dat can buy food?

Ok boss. The liberal arts professor in Vermont run tings. You clearly have a problem with all things British so I won't argue with you on that.

[Reggaedoc]

Islandman you are missing the point. If you want to discuss Oxford and Cambridge as historical curiosities, as they pertain to us Jamaicans, then I can understand your argument. If you want to discuss then with respect to their relevance to the modern world, then you are going to have a difficult. Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin wouldn't be able to get you out of this rut of an argument. England is an has been, at least to most of the forward looking world. It appears that you are not ready to put Jamaica in that category, and neither are the Jamaican whites/wannabes/and self-hating blacks. Thats all I am saying. Others had expunged themselves of their colonial masters, and have leveled the playing field and so can we, but we have to unshackle the mind. This begins by unshackling ourselves from the institutions that created the system in the first place, and let then know who is boss, at least who is the boss for us, and that is we ourselves. Look man, name me one thing England has produced which the rest of the world needs right now, and cant get better quality at a cheaper price fron elsewhere. England is simply a bitch, and basically a whore. The true babylon.

[Islandman]

I don't think I am. Whatl I am saying that just because England as a nation is a has-been (we agree on that) does not mean that Cambridge for example is not an excellent university. Not saying it is the best, personally I have a preference for institutions like Stanford that have a culture of getting thier research out into the commerical world very quickly. But they are still a good university making meaningful contributions to science.

And I don't agree with you that Jamaicans today have an exalted view of England, I really do not see that even from the so-called brown Jamaicans. There were not a lot of things that happened in 1970s Jamaica that changed the country for the better, but that was certainly one of them. If anything they have an exalted view of the USA, and are not keeping up with the changing world.

My reason for bringing up Newton and Darwin was not because they were English, but to make the point, which i am sure you are well aware of anyway, that there is a legitimate place for theory. Darwin for example knew nothing about DNA and all the wonderful practical things that its discovery would lead to, but there is no doubt that his work was what sent scientists down that path.

[Peter R]

Exactly Reggaedoc....that's the jacka$$es doing analysis here in T&T focussing on England England England ....not ONE deggeh degeh wud bout Algeria up to now...steeupps!