what becomes of civic engagement when truth itself is strained in the nation’s highest forum? Espeut speaks to a troubling contempt for the Jamaican people. Gyles urges deeper, more meaningful civic participation beyond performative gestures and political patronage. Both are right. But there is a prior condition—one that must underpin both respect and engagement. It is accuracy. It is truth. For only the second time in my longish life, I feel compelled to state that a m

Orwell’s genius lay in depicting authoritarianism not as a thunderclap, but as a gradual erosion—commandments on the barn wall altered nightly, Squealer the pig gaslighting the animals with sophistries. NaRRA’s architecture bears uncanny parallels. Its procurement shortcuts, while necessary for speed, could prioritise velocity over rigour. Ministerial timelines for oversight might compress scrutiny into tokenism...

The Jamaican landscape is often described in the binary of “hardware” and “software”. We excel at the hardware, the construction of highways, the expansion of hotel room counts, hospital building, and the drafting of complex legislative frameworks. Yet, as we survey the current state of Jamaica’s Cabinet, it is increasingly evident that our national progress is being throttled by a glitch in the “software”: the moral and corrective reflexes that should govern public life....R

There are moments in the life of a small state when the earth itself seems to whisper temptation. Jamaica may now be approaching one. Somewhere beneath our marine estate, beyond the reach of casual sight but not of determined exploration, there may lie oil—commercially meaningful oil. Enough, perhaps, to alter our balance sheets, to excite investors, to animate Cabinet briefings, and to awaken that most dangerous of national instincts: the belief that salvation has finally

by Dennis A. Minott, PhD.

There are moments in the life of a people—and of a world—when language itself begins to falter. Words we once trusted feel lighter than they should. Titles we once respected begin to echo without substance. April 2026 is such a moment. As the “War of Whimsy, Lust, and Criminal Impulse” involving Israel and the United States against Iran unfolds, we are compelled—whether we welcome it or not—to examine not only the conduct of great powers, but the moral posture of smaller s

A salvaged control board from his late grandfather’s discarded prosthetic device. Basic sensors repurposed. A casing assembled from available materials. Hours of trial, error, and recalibration. The result, still rough but functional, is a portable defibrillator powered through a hybrid system—bioelectric input supplemented by stored charge. It responds to voice prompts. More importantly, it contains a simple but critical safeguard: it analyses cardiac rhythm and will only d

In the altered theatre of 2026 geopolitics, where Donald Trump’s second act is no longer conjecture but wars of impulse, an ancient question presses itself upon us with renewed urgency: can a leader, swollen with self-attributed glory, descend into a form of madness akin to that of King Nebuchadnezzar—until reason is restored not by counsel, but by consequence? The book of Daniel offers no ambiguity...

In every functioning state, certain responsibilities stand above partisan manoeuvre or diplomatic fashion. Among them, none is more fundamental than the protection of the population’s health. A government may disagree about taxation, infrastructure, or foreign alliances, but the continuity of medical care for its citizens is a sacred obligation. When that continuity is placed at risk by political calculation, the issue ceases to be administrative. It becomes a question

Why was there no trial run of direct deposits, a solution floated during negotiations in July, October, and December 2025? While Cuba reportedly left some of those overtures unanswered, one must ask: where was the legislative tweak or the updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to bridge the gap? Jamaica has the capacity to make such arrangements work for essential services. Instead, the government chose to wash its hands of the matter, leaving 277 specialists high and dry

Is it an exaggeration to call this an “epidemic”? I think not. If we look at the hallmarks of depression—anhedonia (loss of interest), fatigue, and a sense of hopelessness—and map them onto our national productivity figures, the correlation is staggering. We are a nation in a state of prolonged, untreated grief and systemic burnout. By pretending we are a “chilled” people, we ignore the high-cortisol reality of Jamaican life. We have one of the highest murder rates per capi

A leader who voluntarily discloses, who invites independent audit, who answers hard questions without defensiveness, strengthens legitimacy. Transparency builds resilience. When scrutiny is welcomed rather than resisted, trust deepens. Conversely, when scrutiny is framed as hostility, when legitimate questions are dismissed as partisan attacks, polarisation intensifies. The public discourse coarsens.

Hurricane Melissa has given us a rare national gift: the chance to choose differently while memory is still fresh—while silt lines still mark the walls, while culverts still gape, while shorelines still bear witness. If we squander that gift, the land will not argue with us. It will simply remember. And one day, without ceremony, a child will ask why a place bears an odd name. The answer will come as it always does with follies: because once, power spoke louder than wisdom—a

When a society decides that wealth is the ultimate evidence of wisdom, it stops doing the hard work of critical analysis. We stop asking if a policy is sustainable and start asking who is proposing it. If the proposer is a billioneerer with a fleet of yachts, the policy is given a "wisdom premium."The expensive transport, the houses, and the raiment are tools used to maintain a hierarchy that prioritises "the look" of leadership over the substance of it. It creates a psycholo

'Precisely three years and two days ago, my colleague, business partner, finest thought-clarifier, and most erudite friend, Dr Cynthia Elaine Lewis, passed over into Glory Land. She died suddenly on December 31, 2022. Toward the end of 2022, shortly before her passing, I coined the syllogism billioneering. Cynthia asked me—quietly but insistently—to define it rigorously. At the time, I did my best. It was not enough. What follows is a clarified Comparative Map: Billioneerin

Black River is one of our oldest towns of elegance, enterprise, science, and firsts: electrification, motor vehicles, cinema, trade, and progressive civic life. It carries a legacy of outward-looking innovation that must not be allowed to fade. Its river, coastline, mangroves, and wetlands form a priceless natural defence system and ecological treasure—one which Melissa has reminded us is fragile. To rebuild Black River in the same way it was before would be a national mis

The space for error has collapsed to near zero, while the space for potent, paralysing criticism has expanded outside of Gordon House to fill the vacuum. You are not so much a sun around which the political system orbits, but a star in a delicate binary system, acutely aware of the opposing pull and the immense empty spaces surrounding you.

Behind the neat rows of school timetables lies harmful buffoonery, where pools-timetabling locks children’s dreams into cages and wastes...

We are, in so many ways, an outwardly looking musical nation; for our media to pretend otherwise is an abdication of leadership and imagination.

A hypothetical government programme to install a minimum capacity of 150 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload speeds in every Jamaican household would not be a mere infrastructure upgrade; it would be the foundational act of a profound national transformation, catalysing economic growth, social equity, and democratic renewal. High-speed, reliable internet is the central nervous system of modern commerce. For Jamaica, this would unlock several tiers of economic potential...