Jamaican Till I Die!

I hope y’all had the good fortune to enjoy the beautiful starry sky last night. Today finds me in a reflective mood. Yesterday morning my grandfather died. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2005 and spent the past 7 years living the kind of life that comes with that diagnosis; an operation, numerous doctors’ visits, prescription medications by the bucketful, tests upon tests, pain, and discomfort. Through it all he maintained lucidity, humour and an inner strength that was representative of his character. I hold him up as one of the most influential male figures in my life, my role model for kindness, compassion, integrity, masculinity and responsibility. The memory of his fine example will play on in my mind’s eye for the rest of my life. He will be missed. Now my view on death may seem a little different or it may not. However, my spiritual understanding sees death as another beginning, a birth, if you will, in another reality. Without getting too deeply into this, I

Mass Shootings are as American as Apple Pie! I have absolutely no faith in America to change its guns laws, every time something like this happens Americans run around saying the things people want to hear, however what they are doing is to wait for time to pass until they can go back to same old, same old, more guns and more money. They may put in place some retarded stop gap measures like the temporary band on assault weapons that expired in 2004 and now they are calling for the same ban again. Americans love their guns it is a part of their popular culture and will not let any one take it away from them. I will be shocked if anything substantial comes from this, I hope to be wrong, I see the pro-gun people just waiting for emotions to drop so they can renew their fight. The fire arm business generates $31 billion in 2011 and no amount of elementary school kid’s life will be allowed to affect the profit margin…. Misery loves company… Fox news have been interviewing the pro-g

I hate most holidays , as far as I am concern the only purpose they serve, are days from work while you still get paid to relax. I do love the leisure concept of a Holiday but as far as I am concern we should rename them all to something like Holiday-1 through Holiday-n. Something generic, instead of adding significance to them. It is the ceremonial aspect of most holidays that I do not like. Krampus The British came very close to this when they invented Bank Holidays. People just walk around saying they have a bank holiday with most not knowing why they have a bank holiday. No one really cared about the reason for the holiday, so long as they are getting paid not to work. One of the main problems I find with these named Holidays is that they are R epetitive, Mundane and Ritualistic . It is the grand performance that everyone goes through that annoys me and the expectation that I should also partake in this grand ritualistic performance and jump through hoops simply because i

Eloquence, Inc. is a regular reader of “Jamaican Till I Die” and makes some of the best comments on various issues. I especially love her comment on the blog "You Ungrateful Wretch! "   and think it should be a separate blog post for all to see and I would like to thank "Eloquence, Inc." for all the comments since I started this: In response to: "You Ungrateful Wretch!" EXCELLENT POST and PERFECT timing as we come to the end of Jamaica's 50th anniversary! Add the Issa's and the Simonitsch's (founder of Half Moon and the all inclusive resort concept) to that list of big names! No matter how long I have been away, I know if I could sort out a decent career opportunity down there, I would love to move back home. I am not one of the ones that ever thought anything as a child but that the sun rises and sets on Jamaica... Didn't even want to leave, parents made me. But I realize as I run into Jamaicans from other walks of life, that m

Some time ago I watched a program where various American millionaires and billionaires were being interviewed about how they came to be so rich and during the program I noticed a certain trend. They all at some point, made the point of asking God to Bless America. Declaring that only in America could they have achieved so much and if it was not for America, they would not be who they are today. I am sure loads of Americans watched the program and felt good about being from the Land of Opportunity… Real or Imaginary..... 6 of the Richest Men in America Things like this ripples through a society and contributes to the feel good factor. As young people can grow up with something to believe in. They may not achieve all their goals in life but their minds are imprinted with that "Only in America Concept", spouted from role models in business and industry who made it in life. One guy declared that anyone can make it in America if they just apply themselves. Highlighting t

I can understand a person being outrage out of principle but I dislike when people have selective outrage based purely on political bias. The outrage that manifest itself because one party did something wrong should be the same outrage expressed when the party you support is also guilty of the same crime. You cannot defend almshouse when it is being done by your party but is outrage over the same almshouse when the other party does it, which is just pure hypocrisy and almshouse. One thing I pride myself on is the fact that I am governed by a certain set of core principles that are guided by a well established ideology. I do not adjusted my principles or ideology to match the views of any political party, I am not blinded by some form of partisan  or “diehardism”... I have been on this earth long enough to know when the political class is trying to take me for a fool. This is a game played by the Political class, a game which I simply refuse to play. A couple weeks ago it was

For Old Time Sake One of the best things I have done on Facebook is to unlike the Jamaican news reporting page OG.NR or as I like to call it “On the Ground Bad News Report”, as a result my phone inbox and Facebook wall is now free from constant 100% bombardment of Bad disgusting negative news about Jamaica and Jamaicans, I now only get my news, when I want my news and on my terms. On examination of OG.NR’s Facebook history/timeline, I found the following: In May of 2010 OG.NR was founded  In that year there was 1428 murders but OG.NR did not report on any In 2011 there was 1124 murders but OG.NR still did not report on any In 2012 after the General Election OG.NR became a murder by murder reporting dynamo  On The Ground Partisan News Reporting shaping Hearts and Minds for the Next General Election, I really do hate when hypocrisy tries to pass itself off as something else. Honest and Open Journalism to me is about bringing the truth to light, informing the public,