We need no hostility towards America to insist on self-respect. We need no romance about Havana to remember the humanity of Cubans. And we need no permission from either capital to think. Andrew, Kamla and every other custodian of Caribbean office should remember the distinction: you represent a people; you do not possess them. Keep the international friendships. Make the diplomatic journeys. Bring home an argument that can stand without the photograph. But leave our right

By Dennis A. Minott, PhD. October 23, 2026 Dr Dennis A. Minott Abstract Small Island Developing States (SIDS)—and the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) in particular—face an existential dual mandate: eliminating the macroeconomic drag of imported fossil fuels while maintaining grid stability against severe climate shocks. In response, vendors from the Global North heavily market Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), typically rated between 50 MWₑ and 300 MWₑ, as zero-carbon bas

Public sector compensation must remain firmly anchored in proportionality, transparency, and public trust. While securing capable leadership for national reconstruction is necessary, paying the CEO of NaRRA significantly more than the head of U.S. FEMA—in a country where average annual per capita income is a fraction of that in the United States—is indefensible. At a time when ordinary citizens are asked to endure hardship and fiscal constraint, executive compensation of this

The argument for SMRs as a “green economy” solution, when applied to a seismically active, debt-constrained, institutionally thin, tourism-dependent archipelago, becomes not merely optimistic but epistemically negligent. The book by Jorge Morales Pedraza and its successor paper are useful as catalogues of what SMR technology hopes to become. They are dangerous as blueprints for what Jamaica should do.

My old friend Everald “Warmy” Warmington deserves a patient answer. His reported contention that white people did not capture Africans, but merely bought people whom black people had captured, contains both a historically untenable generalisation and a conclusion that does not follow from its premise. Some African rulers, merchants and intermediaries participated knowingly in the slave trade. Their conduct deserves scrutiny and condemnation. But... Read More Online

By Dennis A. Minott, PhD September 28, 2026 For more than half a century, I have worked in and around renewable energy—hydroelectricity, biomass and solar—asking essentially the same Jamaican question: why should an island lavishly endowed with sunshine, wind, water, vegetation and human ingenuity remain chronically dependent on imported fuel? In Thunderclap 7, “Political Will Needed: The Arithmetic of Jamaica’s Energy Autonomy by 2031”, I argued that the answer is no longer

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;

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.

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

The Caribbean’s scattered geography need not condemn us to scattered power. Malaysia shows how culturally diverse territories, separated by sea, can operate within a serious federal structure. The Philippines demonstrates that thousands of islands can still function as one national market and one international force. Meanwhile, CARICOM remains rich in declarations but poor in enforceable unity. Jamaica struggles within the confines of a small economy; Haiti’s agony is treate

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

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 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