There is an “F” word being spoken across Jamaica. I shall not print it. A Christian pulpit should not need profanity to tell the truth, and a national argument should not require obscenity to make itself heard. But there is another reason for my restraint: the unprinted word is less important than the material breakdown that has produced it. The word is being generated by frustration. By fear. By favouritism. By failure... Read More Online

I learned to swim in Portland. Not in a hotel pool. Not behind a resort gate. Not after producing a credit card, booking a room, or asking permission. My grandfather, Lester Maylor, taught me to swim in Jamaica’s sea. I was Jamaican. The sea was there. I went to the beach. Six decades later, I find myself asking a question that my grandfather never needed to ask: WHO OWNS JAMAICA’S BEACHES? Tourism is vital. Investment is important. Visitors are welcome. But tourism can

The question is not whether the enslaved created wealth. They did. The question is whether the beneficiaries of that wealth ever fully compensated its unwilling producers. They did not. And if the debt was never repaid, then the moral and institutional question remains: Who still owes—and what would genuine repayment look like?

A democratic State requires institutions, experts, journalists, academics, civil servants, opposition politicians and citizens willing to identify danger before danger becomes disaster. Their responsibility is not simply to possess information. It is to interpret it honestly and communicate it intelligibly. A trumpet that makes an uncertain sound defeats its very purpose... Read More Online

“If the judges cannot get along, how can we trust them to settle our disputes?” That question may be unfair. But it is real. And public confidence is not built by telling citizens that they are foolish for asking difficult questions. It is built by answering those questions. I therefore write this not as an opponent of the CCJ but as a Caribbeanist who desperately wants it to succeed. I want the CCJ to become the trusted final court of the Caribbean. I want our child

I have known many rivers, and I remember the stellings of Guyana and Suriname: crowded ferries, diesel-scented air, brown currents, shared food, laughter, prayers—and strangers becoming family before the opposite shore appeared. I also remember the shiver beneath the laughter: those anxious moments when a vessel stalled upon a Corantijn River bar and we were reminded, quietly, of the awesome power of the water. Today, that memory becomes a dirge for those lost... Read More

Her immediate objective should be admission to the strongest affordable undergraduate institution she can realistically enter, preferably one possessing excellent science programmes, research opportunities, medical-school preparation, accessible professors, and sufficiently generous financial aid that her mother is not financially crippled by the undergraduate years. During university, Kerlene can discover whether she is primarily... Read Online

Consider the case of British historian Orlando Figes, who admitted using aliases to praise his own work as ‘fascinating’ while rubbishing that of his rivals. A senior editor at The New Republic used a sockpuppet to offer extravagant praise to himself on his own blog. These were not harmless deceptions; they were calculated attempts to distort professional judgement and public perception. ECONOMIC DIMENSION Now, consider the implications for financial markets. In an era where

There is a fundamental difference between systemic corruption and state capture. Corruption ordinarily involves an individual bending or breaking a rule for private advantage. State capture is far more consequential: it occurs when powerful private interests, commercial cartels, or political networks become sufficiently influential that they can shape the rules, institutions, appointments, and public narrative by which everyone else must live. Corruption distorts the game;

Tomorrow, however, is the busiest liar on Anansi’s Island. It is always approaching, never arriving. It promises high-value employment that degenerates into temporary subcontracts; national ownership that dissolves into long-term concessions; open market competition that hardens into private monopoly; and national development that somehow requires ordinary insects to remain permanently outside the great milker's gates. The pre-dawn milking invariably begins with public

The prevailing economic model in Jamaica is not development; it is a meticulously structured extraction. It is a system of “billioneering” off Jamaica by money-men, rather than investing in Jamaica. To understand the mechanics of this modern economic bypass, one must examine the structural pipelines of our two most critical national domains: tourism and energy.

'A photograph decorates a wall; knowledge equips a life. If this difficult episode encourages Jamaica to invest more deeply in literacy, numeracy, teacher development, early intervention and genuine educational equity, then something valuable will emerge from this disappointment. Educational equity does not mean pretending that every child has reached the same destination. It means ensuring that every child receives the support necessary to get there.'... Read More Online

Much of the enthusiasm surrounding SMRs is driven by future promises rather than present performance.

The future of Jamaica may depend upon recovering precisely this discipline. Not more information. Not more commentary. Not more amplification. Better discernment of signals. The question is whether we possess the wisdom, courage, and discipline to recognise them. And having recognised them, whether we possess the character to act.

Jamaica, meanwhile, continues to behave as though literacy is solely the responsibility of classroom teachers. The evidence suggests otherwise. The irony is that the country already possesses a potentially transformative workforce. It is called the Jamaica Library Service...Read More

In simple language, Titchfield repeatedly did more with less. Its success was not explained by elite intake. It was explained by educational effectiveness. The school transformed students. That kind of reality should have profoundly influenced educational policy discussions. Instead, another trend was quietly gathering momentum. Across Portland and beyond, a growing proportion of students began identifying themselves not as science students but as “business students.

Schools’ Challenge Quiz may continue to entertain, inspire and emotionally unite Jamaicans for many years to come. But unless the country develops the courage to distinguish educational spectacle from educational substance, SCQ will remain what it has quietly become: An elaborate national performance of academic prestige by pretence.

Why is it that whenever high office is implicated, the machinery of justice slows to a cautious, glacial crawl? Why does constitutional scrutiny lose its existential urgency precisely where public trust most desperately requires it? The pattern has become predictably formulaic....Read More

We continue tolerating what can only be described as rag-tag educational reporting cultures. In some schools, grades appear inflated without meaningful standardisation. In others, records remain partially paper-based and vulnerable to deterioration, disappearance, manipulation, or prolonged delay. Elsewhere, transcript preparation depends excessively upon the diligence or competence of a single administrator. That is unacceptable in 2026. Worse still, the absence of integra

In the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, the island has entered a period of accelerated reconstruction, heightened executive urgency, and concentrated state power. Many welcome decisive leadership during a crisis; societies battered by disaster naturally crave efficiency and visible authority. Yet, history warns that national emergencies are fertile ground for institutional distortion and the quiet normalisation of political centralisation. Within this context, uncomfortable s