The recent ‘World No Tobacco Day’ left me a tad puzzled. If the multiple warnings from the WHO and similar organisations about the health dangers of tobacco smoking are scientifically sound why are governments cat walking around the issue by simply increasing taxation on cigarettes and demanding better warning labels? How about progressive legislation toward…
Rethinking Lady Saw’s ‘Sycomore Tree’
I still recall the initial shock on the faces of my ‘Music in Society’ class at the Jamaica Theological Seminary, years ago when, after teaching them how to do a critical analysis of various genres of popular music, I played for them Lady Saw’s ‘Sycomore Tree’. I proceeded to tell them that the negative hype concerning…
Pregnancy out of wedlock
I wish to congratulate my friend Michael Abrahams on his well-argued Gleaner column on Monday, May 30 about the treatment of unmarried pregnant women in the workplace. I offer a few thoughts in support of his general argument. First, Christians and other religious folk need to cleanse their minds of the obsession with treating sexual…
Questions for Economics Experts
“…the denial of access to product markets is often among the deprivations from which many small cultivators and struggling producers suffer under traditional arrangements and restrictions. The freedom to participate in economic interchange has a basic role in social living.” (Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in Economics) Let it be clear, since I have…
Guilty Silence, Indictable Ignorance or What?
Even non-lawyers know that though an accused person need not utter a word in her defence—since the burden of proof is almost always on the prosecution— that right to silence could be read as ‘guilty silence’. Before I expose the burden of this piece let me say that I have no degree in law or…
Christianity’s Impact on Western Civilization for Dummies
A little reading like a little learning can be a dangerous thing and the assorted utterances of village atheists and other non-theists provide proof of this. Despite its faults, the Church of Jesus Christ has been responsible for some of the best traditions of the western world. I list just a few below. As…