http://disqus.com/by/longbench/enFri, 05 Feb 2010 11:58:07 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100205/news/news5.html#comment-32746311<p>EAR - Good for them for speaking up for thermselves! It's rather amazing that this lackluster government has still not figured out how to tap this population of it's skill and loads of free time. People in prison will do practically anything to feel useful and like they are contributing instead of wasting away. They are always asking for things to do and to develop themselves, but too often their pleas fall on deaf ears. </p>longbenchFri, 05 Feb 2010 11:58:07 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100205/cleisure/cleisure2.html#comment-32744503<p>While I don't agree with his argument, I certainly agree that the principal's response is an embarassment, and rested entirely on arrogance and status (she is Principal of Camperdown) and not at all on substance. This is how they behave all the time; this is why our students, no matter what school they come from, barely possess the kinds of reasoning skills that they need. Pathetic.</p>longbenchFri, 05 Feb 2010 11:44:19 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100205/lead/lead2.html#comment-32744018<p>Until one of them turn around and do the same thing, because of course, we so in love with them now that they can do no harm in our eyes. </p>longbenchFri, 05 Feb 2010 11:38:55 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100205/lead/lead2.html#comment-32743937<p>Mary81 - I can tell you that Ellington and dem (just like Golding etc.) love fi act before dem think. Want to gi commendation and honours to police who themselves may well be corrupt. Just because they act appropriately in one situation does not mean they always do. That's why they can't clean up the mess. There's no strategy, no plan, just lurching from situation to situation. </p>longbenchFri, 05 Feb 2010 11:37:53 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100205/lead/lead1.html#comment-32743449<p>The level of denial we engage is unfathomable. Ellington and Nelson need to face the grim reality and stop dodging. What are they commending and promoting these police for? They were sent to do a job and they did it. However, even these police who were involved in this raid should be placed under investigation, as a matter of course. We cannot know that they do not have multiple interests ie. keeping their jobs, maintaining the profile as "good cop" AND making money from trafficking guns. NOONE in the JCF should be allowed to believe that they are ever immune from suspicion or investigation. The corrupt police are not stupid; if they can bring the guns right in under the noses of the very Commissioner, then they can orchestrate their way into the good graces of said commissioner and the public. Why are they still acting like this is a joke or a mickey mouse scheme? Can we please get serious once and for all?</p>longbenchFri, 05 Feb 2010 11:32:29 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100125/cleisure/cleisure3.html#comment-32260005<p>Rupert: You may believe your religious beliefs are "mainstream", but your interpretation of Vodou as "the work of Satan", your linking Vodou with "necromancy and satanic activities" (which we are all supposed to recognise as bad, bad, bad right?) puts you squarely in the company of the Herro Blairs, Al Millers, Pat Robertsons, and the like. How you can say you don't know anything about Haiti and then go on to assert these claims definitely says you like to talk without thinking.</p>longbenchSun, 31 Jan 2010 23:51:06 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100127/news/news4.html#comment-31564138<p>So, it's "most disgusting" when a boy is raped, but "unfortunate" when a girl is assaulted. The anti-woman attitudes that pervade this society are most distressing and profoundly dangerous. Since many cannot fathom the notion that homosexual men have sex with each other, they feel the absolute need to punish these men for "acting like" women, and even more severely for assaulting boy-children, lest they also "turn" into sissies. What an enlightened bunch we are...</p>longbenchWed, 27 Jan 2010 16:14:58 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100125/flair/flair3.html#comment-31339673<p>And why aren't men being encouraged to adopt children? Sexist assumptions to begin with...!</p>longbenchMon, 25 Jan 2010 22:49:36 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100125/cleisure/cleisure3.html#comment-31339278<p>Rupert - It is obvious that 1) you don't know anything about Haiti, Obeah or Vodou: and 2) you are yet another fundamentalist Christian who believe that anybody who don't believe what you do is worshipping Satan.</p>longbenchMon, 25 Jan 2010 22:43:05 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100125/lead/lead5.html#comment-31339036<p>"Invasion"? This article is obnoxious and filled with prejudicial and speculative statements. If anybody else was to write about Jamaicans like this, you would hear all kinds of complaints about how dem discriminating against us. Nowhere does this article talk about how Haitians have actually been treated in this country, which would make people want to cut fence and run go look work and get paid less than nothing. This is just embarassing.</p>longbenchMon, 25 Jan 2010 22:40:02 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100111/lead/lead1.html#comment-29422187<p>A very telling problem: This article contains no information. Lots of words were quoted, but they say nothing.</p><p>What is the "new policy position" being taken by the PM et al.?</p><p>What are the "broad areas of agreement between the Government and the IMF"?</p><p>"Jamaica is seeking to borrow nearly US$1.3 billion from the multilateral agency for balance-of- payment support." What does that mean?</p><p>I really hope the IMF rejects this request for an emergency loan. This gov't, and all the others who plan to feed off the money should it come, need to be forced to pull up their pants and stop sh-tting all over the Jamaican people.</p>longbenchMon, 11 Jan 2010 16:42:55 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100106/lead/lead4.html#comment-28703403<p>I wouldn't be surprised if he got off on a technicality. The attorney makes a lot of money defending real criminals, so this should be cake.</p><p>The affidavit that was posed online does raise some questions: <br>Who was the “unknown black female” and why is she still unknown and not in custody too? <br>Couldn’t/shouldn’t she be charged for being an accessory to the deal?</p><p>At what point was Buju arrested? What was he doing when they decided to arrest him?<br>The affidavit doesn’t say anything about this; it doesn’t say he was at the warehouse or at Applebee’s during the key phases of the deal so he was not directly involved in the actual transfer of the goods. That is a very important loophole: makes the case more circumstantial than I first thought; probable cause is the best the DEA could do.</p><p>If Buju doesn’t plea and he has a good lawyer, he will likely get off. On the other hand, Mack and Thomas are toast; caught red- or really white-handed. In fact, Buju will probably throw them under the bus to take any suspicion and attention off him. All this could have been avoided if these men were not so blasted greedy.</p>longbenchWed, 06 Jan 2010 14:37:40 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091213/cleisure/cleisure3.html#comment-25661708<p>"In the old days, I might have suggested that the Government impose an environmental tax on every box of juice, chicken, pizza, etc, that would be used to help clean up the rubbish. But now that I've learned to appreciate the art in garbage, I say 'litter and let litter.'</p><p>This is classic cooperese. She simply cannot move beyond her self-involvedness to recognise what her responsibility is in the moment. Instead, she gladly supports the status quo: litter as much as you want wherever you want as long as you want. The problem of rubbish is not simply about civic pride but about how it affects infrastructure and health, and drains already limited and misallocated resources.</p><p>And I hope Annie Paul cuss her off for artlessly suggesting that Annie would elevate the "artistry" of garbage over the problems of hygiene and governmental irresponsibility &amp; neglect that the stinking rotting heaps represent. In the end, this column was rubbish, not even worthy of admiration. </p>longbenchSun, 13 Dec 2009 14:17:07 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091213/lead/lead5.html#comment-25660803<p>So when Mary Clarke took on this job, she didn't notice that there weren't sufficient staff at the time? How much does she really know about the nature of the job she was being asked to do and what it requires? And if SHE is serious about the resource issue, why wasn't creating partnerships with other agencies, schools, etc. part of her strategy from the get-go? Seems to me that she has spent far too much time sitting down and waiting, rather than agitated for change. What we have here is a bureaucrat not an advocate, and if we have one bureaucrat asking other bureaucrats to act, I don't see how our children will ever get any justice with this approach.</p>longbenchSun, 13 Dec 2009 13:51:51 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091213/lead/lead3.html#comment-25660463<p>Oh, I get it. The U.S. federal court system has done due diligence with EVERY OTHER case except Dudus'. That's why every other person is being extradited so fast. Right.</p>longbenchSun, 13 Dec 2009 13:43:10 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091213/lead/lead1.html#comment-25660382<p>Well, well, well. I bet, just like Tiger Woods, he thought he would never get caught. He slipped up this time. However, this reporter's intimation that local police SHOULD have been informed by US federal police about BB's arrest and weren't, just smacks of rumour-mongering. When other people are arrested and detained for whatever, no fax is sent back to JCF; families etc. find out the same way they do: by rumour &amp; cellphone. </p>longbenchSun, 13 Dec 2009 13:40:59 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091211/news/news3.html#comment-25517687<p>Oh! So is only poor children should be drinking "local" while everybody else pickney drink foreign goods? Haven't we seen this kind of messed up thinking before? Why aren''t there higher tariffs on imported drinks that have so much sugar in them and are ruining our children''s health?</p>longbenchFri, 11 Dec 2009 10:27:09 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091211/lead/lead1.html#comment-25517519<p>And the lady is STILL a principal, when a child has been harmed under her watch?? Why hasn't she been suspended and replaced with one of these super principals until the case is resolved? Those parents need to also file a civil suit against the principal AND the teacher for child abuse and attempts to cover up child abuse!</p>longbenchFri, 11 Dec 2009 10:24:17 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091210/lead/lead6.html#comment-25446902<p>"I created the post of the contractor general to do what is being done now," he said.</p><p>As always, Seaga trying to take credit for whatever good that emerges in this society. He doesn't have a thing to say about how the OCG performed under his leadership. I wonder why.</p><p>BTW, Greg Christie has demonstrated that he is not for sale or trade, so don't bother Seaga/JLP trying to claim him as a "product" of the thugocracy. That won't fly. Not now.</p><p>"[Seaga] contended that corrupt leadership also attracted corrupt followers."<br>Yes, that would certainly be true of your leadership and your party, wouldn't it? Talking in the 3rd person does not fool anybody.</p>longbenchThu, 10 Dec 2009 11:01:13 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091209/lead/lead6.html#comment-25364207<p>under-invoicing constitutes fraud and should be punished as such. Oh wait! Fraud is the engine that runs this country. Silly me.</p>longbenchWed, 09 Dec 2009 23:57:07 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091209/lead/lead3.html#comment-25364111<p>How are you going to label as "experts" some of the very people who are the focus of these questions? What kind of foolishness is that? Shouldn't the experts be the people who actually know, study and assess the workings of politics, rather than those who simply wallow in it? Ridiculous. </p>longbenchWed, 09 Dec 2009 23:54:22 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090928/news/news4.html#comment-24911255<p>Nicole:</p><p>Thanks for your response! I absolutely agree with you that there are many models of and approaches to homeschooling. I certainly practice my own variation on the theme. And while I also do agree that everyone has a story to tell, it became immediately evident to me that it is *not* Tricia/Julian who are telling their story; it is the reporter/writer. When their words are made visible, we hear what an excellent choice it has been for *these* parents and their children. The newsstory, however, is clearly not intending on speaking to various approaches to homeschooling, per se, as to homeschooling for people who can afford private school, and who don't even see public school as an option. That is a distinct and fairly small group of people already. But Emma doesn't even bother to gesture to context and that the issue of homeschooling will look somewhat different based on social circumstances and ideology. No, what we get is a notion that homeschooling is for the privileged, not the ordinary Jamaican child. You probably read the Ja. newspapers regularly, so you are probably aware of how easily new ideas are used to further promote/justify existing social divisions in this society. I wrote a response because this kind of coverage is fairly typical of the ways that news stories about "lifestyle issues" in Ja. are spun i.e. without properly contextualising the topic and treating otherwise useful information as a new fetish discovered by and belonging to the elite; in this case the writer appears to be suggesting that this is "the" way that homeschooling ought to proceed, rather than is simply one of the ways that homeschooling can be, and is done in Jamaica (and elsewhere). Indeed, while Emma takes social and economic privilege as a given, Blake-Hannah's (another woman who has been writing about homeschooling in the papers) approach to homeschooling is presented in an entirely differently way that is far more accessible to everybody, regardless of which side of the hill they live.</p><p>Too often, Jac'n people are denied basic knowledge because we are constantly being told in overt and covert ways that some types of knowledge do not belong and cannot be of use to us. While individual parents need to develop our capacity for imagination when it comes to raising our children, it is also true that the propagandizing needs to stop. I am so sick of it, I don't even read the news much anymore.</p><p>Long Bench</p>longbenchSat, 05 Dec 2009 15:06:44 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091124/letters/letters6.html#comment-23986934<p>To mobilize the Jamaican people around these issues, we don't need to know the truth; we just need to come to some kind of consensus that we are NOT being told the truth and that we have a right to DEMAND the truth; part of what will bring people together is that they share a view that they belong to the same country that is being destroyed because of the type and strategies of leadership. If we are going to sit down and wait to be told what to do, like good children, we will be sitting on our behinds for a long, long time.</p>longbenchTue, 24 Nov 2009 17:09:45 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091124/lead/lead6.html#comment-23986448<p>what does this have to do with being "a Jamaican"? She is an individual and she wanted to have this experience, so she did. That kind of thinking is what limits youth from dreaming and realizing that they can live a different life from what they see around them. And, true to form, the youth who do amazing things - invent new technologies for reading, farming, etc. - are the ones who have steadily ignored opinions like yours about what Jamaicans *should* be doing.</p>longbenchTue, 24 Nov 2009 17:01:37 -0000http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091118/cleisure/cleisure2.html#comment-23456247<p>excellent commentary! More people should be encouraged to take a stand, and butchers should be put on alert that they are going to lose money if they don't know where the meat is coming from/ If we don't buy stolen goods, the thieves and the butchers will think twice before they pass the stuff on to us.</p>longbenchWed, 18 Nov 2009 10:44:26 -0000