The history of Montego Bay Music and Montego Bay in Music is a very long and storied one. A history too long for this post I have intended... At this moment I wanna peep at songs written for MY CITY, Montego Bay City! Why investigate the city by song you ask? Well...rumor has it that there is a song for every city in America. Many such songs never get further than the city limits others became international hits. Gerard Kenny’s 1978 ode to his hometown ‘New York, New York - So Good They Named It Twice’ spelled the re-birth of America’s largest metropolis after it almost went bankrupt in 1975 and one year after a city-wide blackout shut it down for 25 hours. So the ethos and the brand and the identity of a city we see can be inextricably linked to song and music. In Jamaica the focus is mostly on Kingston, granted Negril gets some good mileage in "Cottage in Negril," and "I want to go to Negril", Linstead is indelibly etched into Jamaican memory via the folk hit "Laad What a Night.. what a Satiday nite!"
Memphis, Tennessee is touted to be mentioned in more songs than any other city in the world, “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn is the one that readily springs to most people’s minds, and coincidentally is the song that inspired me to write a million unsung Mobay songs... but here are some songs titled and inspired by Montego Bay
Before Kartel ever did the Mobay Anthem there was Crazy Chris' anthem... "Welcome to the Second City". A song that marked the fact that western Jamaica was taking the dancehall by storm and never step back from the limelight. This lyrical story is a gritty tale of the guns in the community of Montego Bay, its edgy, rough and raw!
Hezron has this year join the list of artistes that are championing Mobay!
In this next grimy song, by Vybz Kartel though not from Montego Bay, takes us on his detailed and "informative" tour of crime ridden Mobay communities as well as listing all the dons much like a crime noir novella!
Popcaan, while in Kartel's tow, seems to have picked up some affection for the second city as well!
This Montego Bay song by Queen Ifrica is to The Montegonian, the definitive Montego Bay song. Folksy, yet reggae and pop-ish, it has strong lyrics, vivid site choices in the city, it is grassroot and has local authority!
My next favourite Mobay song is by none other than the lyrically profuse and verbose, Lij Tafari... This Montego Bay talent I think is easily on par with Damian Marley lyrically, and is as fresh as Kabaka Pyramid and Protoje.
Bobby Bloom as a North American came to Jamaica and found his inspiration in which city?
The rest of the songs that follow are covers of Bobby Bloom's song and give unique and various sonic signatures to the song that make it somewhat their own...
“Too many so-called leaders of the movement have been made into celebrities and their revolutionary fervour destroyed by mass media. The task is to transform society; only the people can do that – not heroes, not celebrities, not stars. A star’s place is in Hollywood; the revolutionary’s place is in the community with the people.” Huey P. Newton
“We don't need another hero” Tina Turner
“As it's been said already, now let it be done, I tell you who we are under the sun”
Bob Marley
These days it seems the popular literary and rhetorical devices for writers and columnists is a combo of epiphany and personal testimony through which the writers seem to take you on a personal journey of insight and realization, its triumphs and tribulations. I guess what readers have come to expect is vicarious insight, momentary wonder, a sliver of hope and small inner tingle and feeling that maybe it's all going to work out after all. Like the Bob Marley song "Every little thing is gonna be alright!" A semi social spiritual buzz or high of sorts!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I must regretfully inform you dear reader, my long time friend, that this gimmick, the DIY feel good high... it fails to meet the challenges that confront us today. These are complicated and difficult times and are not the days of tidy ready done solutions. The beasts that confront us now, the monkeys on our backs and the Elephant in our rooms don't care about anyone's experience of optimism or your personal gains. Given what is at stake, our great future... then letting our best and brightest waste their time – and the reader's time – cooking up more Chicken Soup for the Soul food crowd than Iyanla Vantz on a Sunday with a living room full of friend with heart break and spiritual influenza. It is repetitive regurgitation of pop psychology and expounding on FaceBook memes. I contend it doesn't fix a soul, the system doesn't change and in general that formula now just doesn't work.
Black authors, writers and leadership today have few or little successes and victories to boast of since the late seventies, the eighties, the nineties or the new century, apart from their own illustrious careers. What of social or activist achievement and outreach? How far has it reached? All this is taking place because black leaders, TV personalities, politicians, musicians, journalists and writers are now into placebo politics and placebo innovation. They recycle on stale ideas and peddle them for more than they are really worth.
What I am getting at is this... those who tell us to “think different,” or it's "time for change" in other words, almost never do so themselves. Year after year, new installments in this unchanging genre are produced and consumed, till re-runs become our history. Who doesn't watching 80's sitcom and cartoons on Youtube? I go to use new technology like the Internet and Project Gutenberg to read"old books." Who hasn't heard politicians recycle old policies and re-branded old documents? Everyone knows that guy in another community that reminds you of someone in your own community. Everyone knows the same jokes, we all hear those nowadays songs that you say but I know that song from somewhere before. We all chit chat on the ends and race each other to the puns and quips we see on TV and rehearsed.
I have an Uncle Bunny from England who is a lofty but inebriated philosopher... he calls it "the procession of the simulacrum" which is to say we are a species and generation of copycats. So it seems the system is suggesting and we are all conforming to the ideas that creativity, is too important to be left to the creative. Our prosperity depends on hustling and idea and inspiration and milking it for what it is worth. This is a system and generation hell bent on cracking the code of creativity and unleash its moneymaking power. Hence everybody peddles their new creative brand of whatever in their particular field. All the P's: JLP, PNP, politicians, pastors, performers, publishers. It' what I call a VistaPrint Paradox... people want to project the image of being unique and creative, but end up at a place that offers designs ready-made via a formula of templates.
We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our cars, but drive them home to rustic charmed homes copied from the 18th century. The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything stays the same. This timidity is our path to the future and it cannot work. In the words of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I "we must look into ourselves, into the depth of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community."
Today more than ever there is a need for bold imagining and designing, different systems of valuation, exchange, accounting of transaction externalities, financing of coordinated planning, etc. Because states plus markets, states versus markets, these are insufficient models, and our conversation is stuck in Cold War gear.
The most recent centuries have seen extraordinary accomplishments in technology and science have improved quality of life. The paradox is that the system we have now – is in the short term what makes the amazing new technologies possible, but in the long run it is also what suppresses their full flowering. The potential for these technologies are both wonderful and horrifying at the same time, FaceBook for all its connectivity and social good, is still an agency which the U.. Government uses to spy on us. A new socio-economic architecture is needed.
However black thinkers and the intelligentsia at home and abroad are utterly self-interested. It cannot begin to mobilize black communities to come up with creative solutions to our current problems. It seems our egotistical black intelligentsia can't begin to make these things happen because foisting itself and its own advancement off as “representing” the black oppressed masses is the beginning and the end of who they are and what they do. They are not truly about the black diaspora and its plight, they do not truly care to ease the existential condition of his brothers, neighbors and friends.
If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the tough issues like history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities, contradictions. Bracketing it off to the side to focus just on technology, or just on innovation, actually prevents transformation. Playing with new gadgets, trinkets and toys won't make life better and you know it. Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which has been embedded in us. This is not about "personal stories of inspiration and validation", it's about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and re-imagining our future, as well as change how we think.
When one thinks of poetry, dub, culture, history and the arts in Jamaica, most people think Kingston, Edna Manley, Red Bones Cafe, The Ranny Williams Centre, Reggae revival, Jah 9, Protege, Jesse Royal, Kabaka Pyramid, Chronixx, Damian Marley...
Stretch your brain now and see if you can think of any Western Jamaican musicians in that vain... I am willing to bet you couldn't think of any or know any. You do know they exist though right? It is time you know artistes like... new western Jamaican artistes Mentor, Lij Tafari, Lusion, Jovexx, Antwain, Marley Fire, I-Mara, Raydaar, Teacher Dee, Naphtali/Omar, Okonko, Kempo and The Young Jamaica Ensemble these are names represent a western Jamaican authentic arts and reggae musical experiences to be had, if one is going to say they are an adept aficionado of western Jamaican music. Other names like Kolumbo, Mycus Chip and Fury echo of the quasi-street conscious ethos of Jah Vinci's calibre, with shades of both dancehall and reggae in their game. This generation of artists is worthy successors to Montegonian reggae and culture legends like White Mice, Jah Cure and Queen Ifrica. With regard to dub poetry, names bubbling in the local market are Blabber, Kofi Kulcha, Skripcha, Marley Fire, Venise Samuels amongst many others.
This crop of artistes offers cultural enrichment and entertainment that isn't available elsewhere in Jamaica. The hub and foundation of much of the stunningly beautiful music being made in Montego Bay, with amazing insights and great beats, is created in The People's Arcade and Coomb's Lane. Upcoming studios like Skull Yard and foundation studios like Victory One, Vidal and Half-a-Dread are helping to propel both new artists while keeping grounded with foundation artistes. Out here, being produced in the west are songs to dance and vibe to as well as deep cerebral lyrics to creep inside of and crawl through your psyche. This music takes you outside your conventional conceptualization of Jamaican music as most popular Jamaican music is Kingston based, biased and centred. These western Jamaicans give you a different perspective. A true reggae aficionado can no longer ignore the energies being emitted from Western Jamaica.
Although the mainstream often associates contemporary Jamaican music with the harder dancehall of artists like Beenie Man and Vybz Kartel, the Jamaican listenership has an under-reported love for melodic pop and smooth flows. Downtown dances play Celine Dion, Kenny Rogers remains popular and local supergroup L.U.S.T. – Lukie D, Trilla U, Singing Melody and Tony Curtis – scored a hit with a cover of Air Supply's "Just As I Am." Today the airwaves being taken over by local music station Fyah 105, has re-proven that Jamaican ears hunger and are eager to hear global rhythms, and join the procession of new music and musical global consciousness that is flowering all over the planet.
I say to you now, go research these names, these artists... listen to my sampling of videos... witness the blossoming of Mobay Music... the western consciousness revival!
“Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.”
~ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
As we ride through the intense heat and crime wave washing the city in tsunami like fashion, the schemes, shanty towns, communities are erupting as the victims of poverty, global financial warfare, IMF debt, personal debt, urban and spiritual decay begin to break out violently and virulently. Sometimes I wonder if the public knows what is happening... do you know what is happening in Paradise, in Norwood, in Flankers, in Meggy Top, in Salt Spring, in Granville, in Cambridge, in Orange and Sign? Peoples lives are shattered, men are in splinters, women in despair, children losing fathers and mothers to guns and disease. Children living with the faint anguish of hunger in their little eyes. Then there are the unknown valiant heroes, the ones who with out pay, not given the respect due, the ones running youth clubs and residents associations, not in the name of politics, but simple activism, to simply take up the challenge of building a better community, trying to safeguard the future, some conservative, some vanguard, but all unknown heroes who are not worshipped on facebook or instagram, the ones the media and the press miss. And rising fast out of the shadows, brooding in these dire economic times, the evil, the misguided, the perverted... spreading its tentacles out into communities, spreading warfare, spreading rumors, spreading mental diseases, ruining young children.
Do you get the picture? Or is your mental image of Montego Bay still pretty girls at parties on twitter, youtube and instagram, is it Burger King and the HipStrip, is it romanticized garrisons through Samsung lenses and photo effects? Is it escapist worlds that Fairview and Ironshore and Coral Gardens can be? Is it Casinos and taboos? Is it playing politics on FB? Did you miss the bodies at KFC, at Whitter Village, in Paradise, in Cassava Walk, in Gulf, In Waltham, in Salt Spring, Sam Sharpe Square, Taboo parking lot, Pier One... or was your time spent on 50 Shades of Grey, Avengers 2, rum bottles, chasing skirts, stroking your own ego, taking selfies, posing, posturing... not really doing anything? I know I do the FB and IG thing but life is more than that. I know I seem filled with righteous indignation or some righteous anger, but it isn't that, I am writing from a place of utter despair and brokeness hoping someone hears, that more of you step out into the battle field and fight to change our future, that more of you commit your brains to good ideas and spend your computational and processing power in productive and positive fashion. Surely I am not prososing that we all become good little socialist working for the common good that everything will turn out to be sunshine and roses... but he have to commit ourselves to the hard challenges that confront us now.
The last two years was a year like no other for me in Paradise... I have watched Chik V decimate the community, as well as cancer, AIDS, gunshot, heart attack, strokes, diabetes and the list goes on. The passing of community members and staple in what seems to be an unending cycle of trauma. The trend continued into the new year as people whittle away... as violence continues to visit the community, as people come to realize Marcus Mosiah's prophecy, not knowing themselves till their back is against the wall, as they can't no food to eat and no money to spend. Now to have Zik V at our doorsteps!
Somethings like Youth Club and Residents Association prove to be a glimmer of hope, but the wider circumstance of Paradise, it's surrounding Norwood and even Montego Bay. The economy isn't exactly stagnant, the ratings from international agencies show that, so now how does government and the private sector pass the savings of lower light bills and oil prices to the consumers, as children are missing school more often, children are becoming parentless, the population is thinning, not through conscious effort but through owing to the economics of living, the simple costs of living. More people are applying for ways to leave the country. As the maddening crowd hurries on into elections and carries a season of irrational debates to communities, whilst the unsung heroes, suffer and wilt away.
As we see what seems to be an epic crime wave washing the city and western Jamaica with reports of shootings in the city almost daily. One can say without a doubt that this epidemic of cancerous crime is out of hand, radical approaches to joblessness and unemployment have to be put in place, the economy addressed, the culture fixed, religious institutions doing more social outreach, more entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, then better crime fighting techniques, 21st investigations and forensics!
As a people we need a serious and comprehensive and dynamic coming together, pooling of resources and ideas to secure the future of the community. Homework programs, safety nets and cheap solutions for children who are skipping schools, more culture and cultural events, we need to bolster the effort in youth club, in residents association in the senior citizens associations. Support entrepreneurs, buy local more, clean up our hearts and seek a more spiritual life... not religious but spiritual... inject more love into the youth into our families... we need now an in-gathering... build back, rebuild. We need a new and revitalized "Save-the-dollar" Initiative, one that is robust and encompasses, social media and online crowdfunding, pooling members of the diaspora, reaching out to grassroot, involving conventional banks and the private sector being patriotic... at least a few banks. This bolstered with novel ideas like local community or parish currencies like the "Bristol Pound" and Bitcoin.
Let us meditate on the successes of the Sunshine Girls, Reggae Boys, Merlene Ottey, Herb Mckenley, Shelly Ann Fraser, Cuthbert, Campbel-Brown, Asafa, Bolt, Swimmers, Special Olympians, Onandi Lowe, Walter Boyd, Tessanne, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Harry Bellafonte, Andre Mcdonald, Claude McKay, Shaggy, Sean Paul, Dustin Brown... So much so much... IF ONLY WE HAD POLITICIANS that performed to the same standard and calibre that ordinary citizens step out to achieve... JAH we woulda be capital of planet Earth!
Yes the politicians are inept, yes some police corrupt, yes lots of exploitive businesses are there and yes some business leaders join Chamber of Commerce to advance their personal missions and as personal platform. Yes this country and this city is a mess, a tangled web. Yes yes yes, but wasn't our god Anansi? Were'nt we the first storytellers... so it is time we imagined a new tale... one where we survive, where we are the victor and there is no armageddon. Isn't it time we committed truly in our hearts to be agitators for change, to begin to curb the potential disaster of the things we do and things we create.
I don't know about you, but I cannot close my eyes to these things... I will not! There are couples living in hovels, Rasta Elders and shut ins living in leaking houses and rotting board, children hungry and every fast food place throws away unsold food at 10-11pm. This city has broken heart, it is filled with a history of injustice, sons and daughters of slaves that ran up and down on the Barnet Estate, Jarrett Estate, scions of insurrectionists that participated in the Christmas Rebellion and the others, generations of uncompensated families, a cycle and trend that if you don't know history, you wont see it carry on into today. I don't want to ever become numb to these things, comfortable with human suffering and injustice, but some I worry that it may make me bitter and angry. I wonder if this is just the vestiges of idealism in me and the dying flickers of youth. But until the flicker of every last revolutionary fervor dies in me and no ember or spark is left, let it be known from Maroon Town, to the Hill on which Sam Sharpe teacher's College stands to the Clock, up Jarrett Street and on to Sam Sharpe Square...
Bugle ft Julian Marley "Move Dem" Official music video
Artist: Bugle ft Julian Marley Song: Move Dem Director: Jerome Hyde Editor: Unplugged Multimedia Production Company: Unplugged Multimedia Social Media: Twitter: @Jerome_Hyde, @buglemusic @julianmarley @unplugged_mm Facebook: Jerome Hyde, Buglemusic, julian marley, Unplugged Multimedia Instagram: @king_jaffy, @buglemusic, @dreadatthecontrol, @unpluggedmultimedia Booking: For video services booking contact at unplugged@gmail.com
via YouTube http://youtu.be/IegacIjjMrQ
The Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society's Office at The People's Arcade
A Concise History of the People's Arcade
Entrance of The People's Arcade
As you're driving the Howard Cooke Highway heading south, as you pass Ruby's on your left... do you wonder about the ornate but rusted arch with the words People's Arcade. As we ride through the intense heat and crime wave washing the city in tsunami like fashion, as centres all over the city erupt as the victims of poverty, those promised #prosperity, grapple with global financial warfare, IMF debt, personal debt, urban and spiritual decay. Sometimes I wonder if the public knows what is happening... do you know what is happening in Coombs Lane, in the Market, in the Shoes Arcade, on Hart Street, on Creek Street, Princess Street, in Barnett Lane, in Railway Lane, on the train tracks? Peoples lives are shattered, men are in splinters, women in despair, children losing fathers and mothers to guns and disease. Children living with the faint yet constant anguish of hunger in their little eyes...
Then there are the unsung, unknown valiant heroes, the ones whom, against all odds, much discrimination, victims of economic exclusion, with little access to capital are still boldly standing on the front-line of the Black economy and sometimes the Black Market, without angel investors or incubators, despite vain politics, they eek out a living, to simply take up the challenge of daily vending and juggling in the hustle and bustle of the sun and city. Fending off the vicious cycle that is poverty, trying to safeguard the future, some conservative, some vanguard, but all unknown heroes who are not worshiped on Facebook, the ones who are metaphorically horsewhipped for how their face looks, the ones the media and the press miss. They supply you with water on the highway, peddling fruits or banana chips in the Transportation Centre aka the Bus Park, the peanut porridge, the Jamaica day dresses you purchase each year of your child's school life, the local music, Mobay music... the informal and unofficial hub of Pan African thinking, the surviving pulse of Montego Bay's Black Wall Street... here is an issue of land reform... These are the businesses and people of The People's Arcade , this is their tale!
The People's Arcade was built by the vendors themselves in 1996, and it is strategically located in the Montego Bay Business District adjacent to the Montego Bay Transport Centre and has tremendous possibilities to be transformed into the first micro business incubator outside Kingston. As time and their story evolved, many of the original commercial traders who once occupied the facility abandoned it in response to increased competition in the retail trade and are now operating off St. James Street where they seek to intercept pedestrians and potential consumers pursuant to survival.
MoBay's Black Wall Street
Why is this a Black Wall Street? Well Greenwood a neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma was one of the most successful and wealthiest African American communities in the United States during the early 20th Century, it was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street" until the terroristic acts of white residents lead to the Tulsa race riot of 1921, in which white residents massacred black residents and razed the neighborhood to the ground. If you put the economics of The People's Arcade into perspective of a racial context, and a global context where Chinese supermarkets are everywhere, Indians control the duty free stores and so on, when one sees a resurfacing Railway Corporation and big business interests, an apparently uncaring local government, one is left to ask, what of Black Enterprise, where is Black Enterprise, who is for Black Enterprise,?
In Montego Bay the answer resides in The People's Arcade. Though much neglected, forgotten or avoided by many a Montegonian, it hasn't been dormant. Businesses still operate and thrive their in the face of poor security and infrastructure. But as many tales go, these businesses have much to contend with, and no good story is without an antagonist. The nemesis of the People presents itself in the form of The Railway Corporation of Jamaica, and a St. James Parish Council that seems to have capitulated to big business interest, rather than opt to eek out a feasible and sustainable system and future for the people of the Arcade.
However, these business now seek the legal impetus and imperative to do safeguard their future... How will this
issue play out, as a human rights matter? A matter of land right? Is it a real property issue
and a case of adverse possession? Does this issue fit in the ambit of land reform? How will this matter pan out as the
people vie for progress by moving themselves from poverty to prosperity! The people have submitted a caveat that has been accepted by the courts, which should impede any action by any agency to bulldoze or hamper the livelihood of the people in The People's Arcade!
With the advent of rising inequality, weak government institutions, failed states, terrorism, corruption, and a whole slew of other socio-economic problems—sown or exacerbated by three decades of neoliberal (IMF type) policies in the “developing world” (Third World)—it is high time we revisit the issue of land reform. We need to bring it back to the center of the discussion on sustainable economic development. What is land reform you might ask? It is the legal and statutory division of land and its reallocation to landless people. Land reform is not political extremism; rather, it is a critical policy mechanism for the city and parliament to address issues of poverty, hunger, urban slums, and good governance.
Kitchen of Axum Veggie Cafe
If we further contextualize the concept of land reform, the entire process of colonial settlement in the Americas and the Caribbean, in Australia and New Zealand was one big land reform, appropriating the lands of indigenous peoples and distributing it to the European settlers. So land reform can be understood as a much more common experience of the “developed” world than it is usually thought of in the economic literature.
The Arcade having a ready made physical space to accommodate some three hundred micro businesses, the facility now requires support for management training, help in preparing effective business plans, rendering administrative services, public relations and marketing aid, technical support, business networking, advice on intellectual property and copy rights and help in sourcing finances and funding.
As elections draw nigh it seems the JLP wants a debate, but no one wants to debate the hottest issue; Mr.
Holness' house. Is it because it could prove Mr. Holness to be a scammer of sorts!
I can understand the JLP's suspicion of bad-mind on the part of the PNP... but does bad-mind prevent the
question from being a really legitimate one? I think not! Why
shouldn't a public official tell us how he acquired such costly material
possessions? Should we live with the shades of doubt as to his funding
source and mode of land acquisition?
Andrew's lacks confidence and it
is clear and apparent. He makes attempts to seem larger than life and
charismatic dusting his Clarkes but he generally strikes me as sterile,
rigid, academic and lacking natural cultural affinity.
Now
this alleged fashion in which his land acquisition was carried out moves
the discussion into the domain of the disingenuous, insincerity and
intellectual dishonesty, framing his party negatively before the
election.
Should
the allegations in the barrage of articles that are flooding my
FaceBook be remotely true... then one must question the intention of the
formation of the St. Lucian company of which Mr. Holness is the
director!
1.
Why was a foreign company used to acquire property in Jamaica, his home
country, where consequently he is an elected official?
2. How could transaction be allegedly signed stating “while visiting Jamaica”?
3. Are the above questions indicative of his attempt to evade his financial obligations (the paying of taxes) to is homeland?
4.
Now if the above questions speak truth of his dishonesty and it may
very well be that he is in above his head, then how does he plan to
satiate his appetite for affluence and penchant for avarice?
5. Would it be via gaining control of the country’s fiduciary and financial systems? FINALLY could this grand fraud be a personality trait and character
flaw... could the man lacking in confidence be using big house to mask
his timid ego and insecurity, could lack of strong self esteem have lead
to a need to prove self and commit the fraud!
Swizz bankz Sin Badd Masicka Diss An Shampane Warm up di Winter Promo Video.mp4
http://ift.tt/1Th8yMK https://twitter.com/SwizzBankz1 https://twitter.com/SwizzBankz1
via YouTube http://youtu.be/BNk-LxvBsGY
Swizz Bankz ft Dwayne Smith Wok it mak she feel it
http://ift.tt/1PpWOtq http://ift.tt/1PpWOtq https://twitter.com/SwizzBankz1 https://twitter.com/SwizzBankz1
via YouTube http://youtu.be/D8hnpKJlwNI
The Jamaica Constabulary Force, I believe needs to employ modern strategy in the campaign against crime. I would like to propose as part of any future initiative addressing crime, that the JCF considers implementing Crime Applications(APPs) for Smart Phones as to best start empowering and engaging citizens.
As any Smartphone user will tell you, the Smartphone’s application store is the go to place for tools to make your Smartphone even smarter. Do you want the song playing in the department store on your playlist? Download Shazam. Want to find a telephone number? Get the YellowPages or RedBook app. Want to have the Cashpot Chart at fingertips? Get the Supreme Ventures app. But can an application provide women and students with the tools to empower themselves and help strengthen law enforcement?
The creation of a Jamaican Crime application manage by MOCA and INDECOM, regulated by the relevant government agencies and monitored by JFJ would go along way to enable citizens, activists and local actors to take action to improve their communities. By employing the latest in mobile technology to provide urban populations with fast, discrete, and intelligent safety assistance to conveniently help them report and prevent crimes for the 21st century.
Users of a Jamaican Crime App could potentially report an ongoing crime with the push of a button. A package of information including the location of the crime, photo, video, audio, and text description of the crime are sent to authorities immediately. The application also allows for users to report crime ANONYMOUSLY so that they may continue with their busy lives knowing that with a push of a button, police will know and have everything to pursue the criminal. Ordinary users become the eyes and ears of authorities. Submitted issues could be displayed on the city's map, so citizens are aware of crime hot-spots.
There are often tense situations when calling the police is not an option. There are other times when inconvenience or fear of reprisal prevents one from reporting an incident, featuring the ability to take a photo, record video and audio, and provide a description of the incident, citizens could be assured that their phone has the capability to alert family, friends, and the authorities at the push of a button, should a threat arise.
The application would be especially useful to high school and college students, who often find themselves walking back from class late at night, or the victim of sexual assault. What is key, is that the App would empower the average citizen and ordinary bystanders, to report crime instead of ignoring it.
Local law enforcement organizations are expected to tailor their services to suit the citizenry it intends to serve and protect. In today’s world, everything is going mobile… why not crime prevention? Jamaica's local authorities need a 21st century make-over when it comes to reporting and preventing crimes.
Now... while mobile apps are the most obvious example of how organizations are responding to the public's demands. With reduced budgets, there is no denying that making sure public services and information can be delivered via a mobile phone in an accessible way, whilst keeping up with changes in technology is a hard task... there are a variety of projects of this nature in action today all across the world in a variety of nationalities and municipalities, many of them using OPEN SOURCE options.
Once again... it is therefore incumbent on our relevant ministries and national constabulary to explore these options earnestly and zealously. For a truly user-centered digital application, adapted to the needs of local communities can quickly and affordably achieved, as well as possibly effecting much change and altering our social climate. We must now think local and act global!
Jamaica needs to urgently start examining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I am imploring that both the Ministry of Finance and Planning and the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce,
consider the future implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In
November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Washington’s
official pivot to Asia. Outlining a vision for an Asia-Pacific Century,
Secretary Clinton described a desired symbiotic and unfettered
relationship between the two regions that will provide “unprecedented
opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge
technology.” At the center of this pivot has been the TPP, an enigmatic
trade pact that has been hailed as a true “21st century agreement,”
a purported free trade deal between 11 countries, including the U.S.,
Canada and Japan, which has been in negotiations for some years.
As
a centerpiece of President Obama’s pivot to Asia, which includes Latin
America via the TPP, the trade pact sets a powerful, if not potentially
dangerous, precedent for future trade agreements in the emerging region.
But instead of encouraging sustainable economic trends and responsible
transnational relations, the TPP could enact the same policies that have
been proven detrimental in past smaller-scale agreements like NAFTA.
The TPP rhetoric misrepresents the potential of free trade as it
encourages, through greater international regulations, such as those
seen in the intellectual property and investment chapters, the creation
of domestic policies to manipulate the international market. Often,
these actions strengthen the economically powerful, particularly by
granting to the leadership the right to set its own nation’s course of
action and implement its own visions, while those at the margins suffer.
Thus, the TPP presents a troubling case of free trade being purchased
at too great a price.
Let
us remember that after the United States, Canada and Mexico agreed to
become a single market as part of the North American Free Trade
Agreement, their exports to each other boomed. But here in the
Caribbean, the economies of America's much smaller neighbours reeled
from the impact of that success and found it almost impossible to
compete. From the apparel plants of Jamaica to the sugar-cane fields of
Trinidad, Nafta resulted in the loss of jobs, markets and income for
the vulnerable island nations of the region.
Nafta's
devastating effect on the Caribbean was widely fore-casted before the
treaty's passage in 1993 and Washington had suggested it would cushion
the blow by extending similar trade preferences to the island nations.
However, the Clinton Administration's proposals to give the Caribbean
''Nafta parity'' was twice foundered in Congress in election years. It
is then easy to see the troubles of the TPP which seems would come into
effect vrey close to the U.S. election season.
When
Nafta went into effect, the creation of new jobs in Jamaica stopped
altogether and overall unemployment rose to 16 percent from 9.5 percent,
according to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica. In Mexico it failed
to provide equitable stipulations for labor conditions, environmental
protection, or investment regulations. Laborers on both sides of the
border saw their collective bargaining powers diminish after NAFTA.
Critics of Nafta then, contended that NAFTA
should have been transformed from a “free” trade agreement to a “fair”
trade agreement through revisions that create jobs instead of destroying
them, protect workers, and create an environment that allowed citizens
to stay in their home country and earn a fair living wage.
So
it is no surprise then that critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
agreement have noted that the deal has little to do with free trade.
Rather, the TPP is about limiting regulation, helping corporate
interests and imposes fiercer standards of intellectual property (to,
again, largely benefit corporate interests).
Noam Chomsky has decried
the TPP, he told HuffPost Live that the deal, which is not yet
finalized, is “designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to
maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the
world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase
insecurity.”
Chomsky
said it was “a joke” that the deal is designated a “free trade”
agreement. “It’s called free trade, but that’s just a joke,” Chomsky
said. “These are extreme, highly protectionist measures designed to
undermine freedom of trade. In fact, much of what’s leaked about the TPP
indicates that it’s not about trade at all, it’s about investor
rights.”
On
reviewing the leaked draft TPP chapter, intellectual property law
expert Dr. Matthew Rimmer called the deal, “a Christmas wish-list for
major corporations.”
This
so-called trade pact of the future covers far more than just trade,
with chapters addressing modern topics such as an extension of
investment past real property, intellectual property rights, and
environmental standards among others. There is no question that the
agreement would positively affect many signatory nations’ economies;
however, many of the proposed regulations pushed by the U.S. would
violate regional domestic laws while compromising national sovereignty.
As a Jamaican I am asking in
particular the Honourable Anthony Hylton, Jamaica's Minister of
Industry, Investment and Commerce, to be cognizant of the impact of the
TPP and its implications for International Law and our domestic laws. I
also ask that in any international bargaining that we be
put on a level playing field with other international players, and to
secure strong lobby and collective bargaining power to secure our owning
international commercial future! I ask that the Minister secure us
the opportunity not to be prevented from taking full advantage of the
International markets now and not when we begin reeling from the impact
of the TPP.
The results of a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology have some black women thinking about going “au natural” when it comes to their hair. A published paper from researchers at Boston ... from http://ift.tt/1LtRSAk in The Montegonian Montego Bay Jamaica - NEWS News and such out of…
Opening today are The Black That I Am (Fairfield Theatre, Montego Bay) and ... The vision the latter has for a new Jamaica is an important theme. from http://dlvr.it/CSQKS8 in The Montegonian Montego Bay Jamaica - NEWS News and such out of Montego Bay, Jamaica... from http://dlvr.it/CSQWck…… from……
Then there are Derrick Kellier, the member of parliament for St James South, and Dr Omar Davies, who has represented South St Andrew for the past ... from http://dlvr.it/CSRRhC in The Montegonian Montego Bay Jamaica - NEWS News and such out of Montego Bay, Jamaica... from… from…
