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

Why, despite decades of policy recognition, legislation, licensing and official declarations, does the ordinary Jamaican still experience beach access as a contested privilege rather than an unquestioned component of citizenship? That question cannot be answered by blaming one hotel. Nor should it be reduced to a crude argument against tourism or private investment. Jamaica needs tourism. But JM does not need a tourism model in which the profitable natural asset is progre

Who supplied the energy and intelligence that made the extraordinary accumulation of wealth from chattel slavery possible?

Britain compensated slave-owners £20 million at emancipation. The formerly enslaved got nothing. That compensation became public debt—only finally repaid in 2015. This is not inherited guilt. It is unfinished justice.... Read Online

For Caribbean families planning medicine, the question is bigger than “How do we make our child a doctor?” It is: How do we prepare that future doctor to choose where — and how — she wishes to serve?

Guyana’s grief reverberates across every bay, gulf, and inlet of our shared world. It touches the shores of Suriname, reaches across the sea to Jamaica, whispers through the hills of Haiti, and rests gently on the quiet beaches of Nevis. Wherever people live by the mercy of the waters, wherever men and women step onto a deck with trust in their hearts, this pain belongs to us all. We grieve for the souls who never saw the wooden planks of the landing stelling again, nor felt

State capture rarely arrives with a grand proclamation. It advances through normalisation: one exceptional arrangement, one opaque contract, one bypassed safeguard, one exhausted watchdog, and one collective shrug at a time. The charge, therefore, is not that Jamaica is proven to be captured. It is something far more urgent: Jamaica is displaying enough classical warning signs that failing to investigate the hypothesis would itself be an act of civic negligence.

By Dennis A. Minott, PhD. August 6, 2026 This is not an entirely hypothetical Jamaican problem. Readers of the country’s online newspaper discussions will recognise recurring identities such as V/X Truth, Insight4Sight, Xamyca, Cldray or Clirey, Micchael, Really, Mark Chue and Peter Wright—who has been presented as an electrical engineer. Some appear repeatedly beneath articles concerning government, energy, political accountability and criticism of public policy. Insight4Sig

Six times I have wept for Jamaica: for the Federation we abandoned, practical solutions we overlooked, expertise we undervalued, scientific breakthroughs we failed to finance, and brilliant nation-builders such as Dr Cynthia E. Lewis, whose work showed what Jamaica could become. Yet my six times of tears carried hope. My daughter herself, understood that history’s broken Caribbean pieces may still remember the larger shape they were meant to form. The seventh time, God will

"During application season, there were late-night texts, early-morning messages, conversations during holidays, and countless rounds of feedback on essays and supplemental responses. Every draft became stronger because Dr Minott and Dr Thomas were willing to invest so much time and care in us. What stood out most was how personal the guidance felt. Dr Minott encouraged us to prepare a personal inventory—a detailed reflection on our achievements, experiences, interests and id

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

It is not necessarily caused by recklessness. The people experiencing it are often disciplined workers who rise early, travel far, perform necessary jobs and return home exhausted. They have calculated the supermarket bill, postponed the dentist, reduced the electricity usage, stretched the cooking gas and told the children that the requested school item will have to wait. Still, the money finishes first. The trouble is that too many Jamaicans are paid too little to partici

In Anansi’s Island, the road to riches is seldom straight. The old spider of folklore survived by wit because he was small & vulnerable. His modern descendants have improved the method. They use influence, opacity & public money, then call the outcome development. A way to become rich is to discover a nat'l crisis before everyone else does.

Jamaica should not become a tropical testing ground for an immature technology while immediate solutions—grid automation, rooftop solar, wind, biomass, microgrids, storage and energy efficiency—remain insufficiently pursued. Pause the spending. Publish the evidence. Answer the seven questions... Read More Online

I am writing to express my profound gratitude for... Read More Online

What began as a small mentoring tradition eventually became an international educational movement. More than 7K young people have now passed through A-Q and its related initiatives, and the number continues to grow, though more slowly today through online engagement. Its alumni include Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Belizeans, Americans, Bahamians, Antiguans, Brazilians, Haitians, Saint Lucians, Grenadians, Guyanese, Nigerians, Japanese, Koreans, Burmese, Caymanians, Pakistanis, I

The Prime Minister deserves credit for encouraging discussion about Jamaica's long-term energy future. Such conversations are necessary and welcome. However, ambition must remain tethered to sound, scientific, and engineering reality. The electrical grid does not respond to speeches, headlines, or technological fashion. It responds to engineering competence, disciplined maintenance, resilient institutions, and sound economics. Jamaica's path forward is neither mysterious n

There is a curious phenomenon that periodically appears in Jamaican public policy. A difficult national problem emerges. The hard work of institutional reform, technical competence, disciplined maintenance, and long-term planning remains unfinished. Yet instead of addressing those fundamentals, influential voices become captivated by a grand technological solution promising to leapfrog reality. The latest manifestation is the renewed enthusiasm for Small Modular Reactor

Fukushima taught the world an important lesson. Complex systems fail not merely because of a single event, but because multiple events can overwhelm assumptions embedded within a design. Even if a Jamaican SMR survived a major hurricane intact, the transmission and distribution infrastructure connecting it to consumers might not. A generating plant, however sophisticated, serves little purpose if the lines carrying its electricity are down. The Jun 5 blackout was a signal,

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.