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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Jamaica, land of <STRIKE>strange</STRIKE> contradictions</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Mark Wignall
Thursday, March 22, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>On Wednesday morning I am at a gas station somewhere in the Kingston 19 area conversing with my favourite set of taxi drivers when a young man walks up and interrupts the flow of conversation. He is dressed in a casual T-shirt, a pair of ugly, red shorts and his body language indicates urgency, rush, emergency.<P class=StoryText align=justify>I am halted in the middle of a sentence when he asks one of the men, "Boss, yu can lend mi a condom?"
The seated taxi-man seems to have his own set of problems and without looking up at him, replies, "Nah, mi nuh have none pan mi." He strides over to me and asks the same question. "My brother," I say, "if you cannot afford the cost of a condom, maybe you don't deserve whatever it is you believe you are gonna get."<P class=StoryText align=justify>He dismisses me with a shrug, walks off and approaches another male with the same request. No luck again. He then rushes off to wherever. So it is in paradise.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Prior to that we had been talking about a familiar body horribly infected with an incurable disease. Jamaica, paradise, sun, sea, reggae music and its bastardised cousin, dance hall, brash men, pretty girls, politics and the land we love constitute that body. Never content for too long with their lust for adult blood, our murdering beasts have satisfied their hunger by once again snuffing out the lives of our innocent children.<P class=StoryText align=justify>We all feel so helpless and therein lies the greater pain. The feeling that not only are we the people caught up and being carried along in this orgy of death but our leaders - many of whom need a hasty retirement plan drafted for them - are similarly out of the loop.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Why are they there? What purpose do they serve after so many years of torpor? To tickle each other's ears with "Honourable So-and-So" rubbish while being paid to hold sway over the ignorant diehards? After 18 years, it seems that most of what we have collected in return for paying them salaries and exposing them to other more lucrative returns is their need to increase the distance between them, the "haves" of money, influence and power to make and destroy us, the "have-nots" wallowing in fear, economic uncertainty, ignorance and hopelessness.<P class=StoryText align=justify>All is cricket now and the carnival, though wickedly expensive, is enjoyable beyond belief. To address anything but cricket is sacrilege to the PNP diehard. As I left my taxi-men friends and walked towards the nearby ATM, a man looking well-heeled came out and entered his "criss" SUV. He beckoned to me and I walked over to his passenger window.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Yu must leave her alone," he said. Further inquiry by me told me he was making reference to the prime minister and my criticisms of her performance. "She is doing a lot of things," he said. At my request, he named the LNG "deal" and Chavez's rescue of the aborted agreement between T&T and Jamaica as the great things she is doing. "Yu can't stop her from the fifth term," said the comrade as we parted amicably. "Leave her alone," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Meanwhile, at one hospital that I know, a young woman who had a C-section eventually died after this routine operation because of what early probes suggest was a problem with the shortage of appropriate suturing material. And yet, at the very time the tragedy occurred, the hospital was considering the construction of a heliport for anywhere between $4.2 million and $7.5 million.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As is "normal" in this country, priority on capital expenditure on projects is often determined by which contractor, or sets
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Mark Wignall
Thursday, March 22, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>On Wednesday morning I am at a gas station somewhere in the Kingston 19 area conversing with my favourite set of taxi drivers when a young man walks up and interrupts the flow of conversation. He is dressed in a casual T-shirt, a pair of ugly, red shorts and his body language indicates urgency, rush, emergency.<P class=StoryText align=justify>I am halted in the middle of a sentence when he asks one of the men, "Boss, yu can lend mi a condom?"
The seated taxi-man seems to have his own set of problems and without looking up at him, replies, "Nah, mi nuh have none pan mi." He strides over to me and asks the same question. "My brother," I say, "if you cannot afford the cost of a condom, maybe you don't deserve whatever it is you believe you are gonna get."<P class=StoryText align=justify>He dismisses me with a shrug, walks off and approaches another male with the same request. No luck again. He then rushes off to wherever. So it is in paradise.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Prior to that we had been talking about a familiar body horribly infected with an incurable disease. Jamaica, paradise, sun, sea, reggae music and its bastardised cousin, dance hall, brash men, pretty girls, politics and the land we love constitute that body. Never content for too long with their lust for adult blood, our murdering beasts have satisfied their hunger by once again snuffing out the lives of our innocent children.<P class=StoryText align=justify>We all feel so helpless and therein lies the greater pain. The feeling that not only are we the people caught up and being carried along in this orgy of death but our leaders - many of whom need a hasty retirement plan drafted for them - are similarly out of the loop.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Why are they there? What purpose do they serve after so many years of torpor? To tickle each other's ears with "Honourable So-and-So" rubbish while being paid to hold sway over the ignorant diehards? After 18 years, it seems that most of what we have collected in return for paying them salaries and exposing them to other more lucrative returns is their need to increase the distance between them, the "haves" of money, influence and power to make and destroy us, the "have-nots" wallowing in fear, economic uncertainty, ignorance and hopelessness.<P class=StoryText align=justify>All is cricket now and the carnival, though wickedly expensive, is enjoyable beyond belief. To address anything but cricket is sacrilege to the PNP diehard. As I left my taxi-men friends and walked towards the nearby ATM, a man looking well-heeled came out and entered his "criss" SUV. He beckoned to me and I walked over to his passenger window.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Yu must leave her alone," he said. Further inquiry by me told me he was making reference to the prime minister and my criticisms of her performance. "She is doing a lot of things," he said. At my request, he named the LNG "deal" and Chavez's rescue of the aborted agreement between T&T and Jamaica as the great things she is doing. "Yu can't stop her from the fifth term," said the comrade as we parted amicably. "Leave her alone," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Meanwhile, at one hospital that I know, a young woman who had a C-section eventually died after this routine operation because of what early probes suggest was a problem with the shortage of appropriate suturing material. And yet, at the very time the tragedy occurred, the hospital was considering the construction of a heliport for anywhere between $4.2 million and $7.5 million.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As is "normal" in this country, priority on capital expenditure on projects is often determined by which contractor, or sets
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