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How Nations end up Officially Nick-naming their Mistakes
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

aquest
Jan 234 min read


The Golden Calf of Competence
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

aquest
Jan 195 min read


An Open Letter to the Registrar and Council of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)
For more than four decades, the Caribbean Examinations Council has been one of the region’s most consequential institutions. Beyond certifying students, CXC has shaped curricula, classroom priorities, parental expectations, and — quietly but decisively — the values our societies reward.
It is precisely because of this influence that I write to you now.

aquest
Jan 183 min read
Compassion, Emotional Literacy, and the Soul of the Caribbean
For as ancient wisdom quietly reminds us, without vision a people perish — and empathy, patiently taught, is among the clearest forms of vision a society can possess.

aquest
Jan 134 min read


When Wealth Pretends to Be Wise, the Academy Must Speak
Leadership worthy of the name emerges not from spreadsheets alone, but from disciplined moral imagination.
Repairing the world order does not mean restoring some imagined golden age. It means recalibrating our collective compass: re-centering truth over traction, responsibility over reach, and long-term consequence over short-term gain. The academy also performs another quiet but essential function: formation. It does not merely produce research; it shapes minds...Read More

aquest
Jan 133 min read


AN OPEN PROPOSAL: Solar Democracy for Jamaica’s Post-Melissa Renewal; Distributed Solar for National Recovery and Trust
Hurricane Melissa again revealed the cost of centralised fragility. But, distributed rooftop solar offers households resilience where transmission lines repeatedly fail. When households generate energy, they gain protection from outages, fuel price shocks, and rising living costs.

aquest
Jan 117 min read


Dr Gavin Jones, Jamaican IBM Senior Scientist Makes Public Presentations in Morant Bay and A-QuEST
Dr Jones is a Jamaican computational chemist and Senior Research Scientist at IBM Research, where he leads work in quantum applications spanning chemistry, materials science, catalysis, and polymer degradation.
A Morant Bay High alumnus, he earned his PhD from University of California, Los Angeles, after attending Bard College, and joined IBM in 2010. He is internationally recognised for pioneering BPA-free plastics recycling and was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leadi

aquest
Jan 41 min read


Dennis A. Minott | Memoriam: Cynthia Elaine Lewis PhD
'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

aquest
Jan 42 min read


A Christmas Message to the Doclings of Year 41 (Y41) & 'Truth, Trainability, and the Quiet Power of Authentic Work'
We are providing practical evaluation of your college application essays, with guidance on improvements where warranted, up to 15 February 2026.These services are open to all interested students; membership in A-QuEST is not required. However, A-QuEST Y41 Doclings will continue to receive all of these services free of cost, as part of our ongoing commitment to this cohort.
Conditions apply.

aquest
Dec 10, 20256 min read


Jamaica's M.P.s & Senators: Heeding a KC Athlete's "#9" Wisdom
He said, Minott, stop it. Leave the Number 9 shirt alone. Get out of the way of the real forwards.
And just like that, I desisted from my puerile vanity. I stepped back. It is a lesson Jamaica’s Cabinet Ministers—two of the women and nearly all the men—might consider before their next press conference or their next in-camera bright idea that becomes tomorrow’s national headache. The lesson is simple: do not wear the Number 9 shirt if you are not a striker...

aquest
Dec 6, 20255 min read


Melissa Is Not Some “Mali Gripe an’ Fluxxy Complaint”, Dr Holness.
Collapsed roads, failed culverts, unstable slopes, and flooded communities are not just the work of heavy rainfall. They are the consequences of political preference taking precedence over engineering judgement. This pattern recurs across administrations, but its effects become more lethal as climate risks rise...Read More

aquest
Nov 20, 20254 min read


PUBLISHED| Dennis Minott | From ruin to renewal: A call to national resolve, new vision for Black River (Part 1)
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

aquest
Nov 17, 20255 min read


Shouldn’t Climate Denialism Now Be Criminalised?
Some will argue that criminalising climate-denialism infringes on freedom of speech. But free speech has never implied the right to cause public harm.
One cannot shout “fire” in a crowded theatre. One cannot freely advertise cyanide as cough syrup. One cannot spread medical falsehoods that endanger children.
In the same way, one should not be permitted to knowingly spread scientifically disproven narratives that:
undermine disaster preparedness,
influence vulnerable commun

aquest
Nov 16, 20255 min read


A Hundred GRE PROBLEMS: Arithmetic; Algebra and Word Problems ; and Quantitative Comparisons A-QuEST Advanced Exercises
Here's a full GRE Quant problem set of 100 items(Arithmetic; Algebra & Word Problems; Quantitative Comparison).

aquest
Oct 4, 20258 min read


The Universe is expanding, Prime Minister Holness!
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.

aquest
Oct 4, 20254 min read


'Harmful Buffoonery: Pools-Timetabling in Jamaican Schools'
Behind the neat rows of school timetables lies harmful buffoonery, where pools-timetabling locks children’s dreams into cages and wastes...

aquest
Sep 25, 20254 min read


China-Trained, Jamaican-Born Doctors: Left in Limbo
For decades, our health system benefited from physicians trained in Burma, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Ghana, Hungary, India, Latin America, Nigeria, Russia, the UK, and the United States. Their children sat in our classrooms and their parents were among the most trusted doctors of our families. No one questioned their competence. Why then the sudden disdain for Jamaican youngsters graduating with Chinese diplomas? Is it because they did not enter medical school with enough

aquest
Sep 23, 20252 min read


E-Quipping Little Jamaica to Run Like Bolt
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...

aquest
Aug 29, 20254 min read


It’s Flipping Time for Greener Caribbean MBAs | Re-designing Curriculum for a Climate-resilient, Islanded Region
Our business schools must urgently recalibrate their mission, not as factories for conventional managers, but as midwives for a sustainable, resilient, and just economy tailor-made for both island and mountainous realities throughout the region.

aquest
Jul 21, 20256 min read


PUBLISHED| Breaking the monopoly: Unmasking the SMR mirage—Why Jamaica must reject billionaire nukes
Let us remember:
1. Puerto Rico’s Bonus Reactor shut down in disgrace.
2. Cuba’s reactor project collapsed amid geopolitical complications.
3. The Dominican Republic mothballed its nuclear ambitions.
4. Haiti in its heyday, wisely, never attempted one.
Instead of chasing nuclear mirages, Jamaica must double down on proven, scalable, and socially embedded renewables:..

aquest
Jul 17, 20253 min read
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