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.

On what basis are public institutions continuing to devote noisy attention, taxpayers’ good money, and institutional credibility to a technology --Small Modular Reactors-- whose commercial viability remains unproven and whose most prominent North American deployment effort failed despite years of promotion, regulatory support, and escalating investment?

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

'The Holness administration has delivered significant infrastructure projects, navigated the pandemic, and maintained macroeconomic stability under an IMF programme. These are not small things. But the question posed by the composite animal thesis is not whether the government has accomplished anything. It is whether the manner of governing—the centralization of discretion, the impatience with oversight, the erosion of institutional courage—is creating a political architectu

In the urgent public debate over educational accountability across Jamaica and the wider Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a vital public service has been performed by commentator Christopher McCurdy. By insisting that institutional responsibility cannot remain an optional luxury within our school system, his public interventions point directly at a gaping wound in our national development strategy. He is entirely correct. Yet, if we are to move beyond mere diagnosis and enginee

How Manufactured Consensus Masks Jamaica’s Energy Future In the lexicon of digital forensics, sockpuppetting is the act of creating multiple online identities to deceive. Unlike a pseudonym used for privacy, a sockpuppet is a tool of coordination. These artificial personas are designed to create the illusion of grassroots support, harass dissenters, and skew the perception of public consensus. When deployed as an "alias army,"....Read More

In the lexicon of digital forensics, sockpuppetting is the act of creating multiple online identities to deceive. Unlike a simple pseudonym used for privacy, a sockpuppet is a tool of manipulation. It is an artificial persona designed to create the illusion of grassroots support, to harass dissenters, or to skew the perception of public consensus. When these digital ghosts are deployed in tandem—an "alias army"...Read More

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

Cuba asks you for justice. Nothing more. Nothing less. I ask you to stop normalizing the suffering of my people. I ask you to call the blockade by its name: A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. I ask you not to be fooled by the tale of "dialogue" and "democracy" while they tighten the noose around our necks. We don't want charity. We want them to LET US LIVE. To the complicit governments that remain silent: History will hold you accountable...Read More

Yours has been a faithful, disciplined, and luminous ascent. Jamaica and the wider Caribbean await your integrity, vision, accountability, and fearless national service.

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

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...

Wayne joined the T&T Police Service, graduating at the very top of his class, and serving faithfully in some of the most dangerous zones of North Trinidad. Roughly 30 years ago, he heeded God’s call to full-time ministry and took up the pastorate of a Nazarene congregation in Laventille, one of the most crime-plagued, drug-ravaged, gang-controlled, and economically underprivileged districts in the country. There was no fanfare or applause.Yet for 30 years, Wayne gave his

In many congregations that proudly wear the labels “Bible-believing” or “Spirit-filled” we now see Jesus’ name being used to justify: • Nationalist agendas that criminalise foreigners and asylum-seekers; • Uncritical loyalty to leaders who embody greed, cruelty, or deceit; •Hostility to science, learning, or reform, all waved away as “worldly”; • Prosperity gospel peddling, now bordering on spiritual racketeering. Such distortions of faith are not rare. They are daily