I first met Garth White (known as G White) in the 1960s in the days preceding the black power movement in the US and its spillover in Jamaica, up to and including the Walter Rodney riots towards the end of that tumultuous decade.

G White, Jerry Small and others were revolutionaries long before some of our present set of politicians had decided that there were social causes to fight for, on behalf of the people. Both men - Jerry, a professional photographer (saw him in action at the Air Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival) and political historian, and G White, an encyclopedia on Jamaican music, were around in the seminal days of the music from its indigenous mento form movement to ska to rock-steady to reggae.

Both saw the underbelly of the politics of the times, and while the two men have mellowed, neither of them has lost the revolutionary approach nor the fire which once burned in their souls as they saw the politics derail the socio-economic dreams of a nation and give a destructive sub-culture a new face and new meaning as it set us back by 50 years.

G White, however, will tell you that it was the sub-cultural soup in the music which gave it its renaissance and its flavour as a uniquely Jamaican product. In the January 30 - February 12 issue of The News, Jamaica's leading community newspaper, G White has excelled even himself in a piece titled The Gong and the Beat - Bob and 'Sir D'.

I would heartily and readily recommend that readers interested in the socio-cultural fusion of the 1960s and the delightful turmoil of the times and the music, get a copy of that edition of The News. It is easily the best piece that I have seen or read on the role of Marley and 'Coxone' Dodd in the melding of Jamaican music.

Not only does G White spill out onto the pages the historical context in which the musical forms existed and evolved, he immerses us in a rollicking journey across international boundaries, then back home to sweet, sweet Jamaica. G White has bettered himself, if that is possible.
Please get a copy and read it. Excellent piece, G White. Congrats to editor Ben Brodie.

Dr Karl Blythe and the CCJ

Karl Blythe (right) talking with PNP delegates at the party's 66th annual conference held at the National Arena in Kingston earlier this month.

Emboldened by his 'victory' in the recent PNP vice-presidential race, Karl Blythe has struck out on his own, so to speak, by supporting the calling of a referendum to decide if we should retain the Privy Council or head into the arms of a new, fresh, virginal Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

That he has done this and the PNP has not self-imploded speaks volumes about how the PNP manages its internal fault lines. In adopting a position 180 degrees different from the official PNP position Karl has signalled that he has no intentions of aligning himself with party-imposed policies and 'persons', but is going with what he hopes his supporters will see as his conscience.

Blythe's stance indicates that he is not just peeping over his nose but way beyond that. Always convinced that he is in for the long haul and will get the presidency and the prime ministership, Blythe apparently knows that a significant body of opinion supports anti-PNP positions. He wants to log on to that from now so that his supporters in the broader electorate will have a firmer grip on where his policy positions are from early in the game.

But there are inherent dangers facing him. It could force him out on a limb at just about the time when he was hoping that the party leadership and the leader would once again start to embrace him. Blythe, however, may have thought to himself that he has long been out on a limb, so he has nothing to lose by introducing a ten-penny nail in the PNP machinery.

I would hate to think that Karl Blythe is into some friendly political 'hand forcing'. It is my belief that he should be given a ministry in any reshuffle which is planned. Did Karl look ahead to that time when he sniffed, no ministerial position was in sight and nothing appetizing was on his plate?

Is it possible that Blythe's stance could force the leadership aspirants into new alliances, or, because the voting for president is only one vote per ballot, could his move signal to Simpson Miller, Phillips and Davies that it has to be each person for himself?

The JLP is quite upbeat about itself. Most have decided to view the Seaga debacle as the deluded stirrings of a politician jousting with a windmill which no longer exists. They have forgiven Seaga because, they believe, he deserves to be forgiven, in his last outing.

Most JLP persons I have been speaking with have been saying that the PNP will be wiped out in the next election. On the other hand, the PNP is quiet. It seems to me that Karl Blythe is thinking 'cross border' and wants to tap into some of that energy quietly seething out there.
By the end of this year we will all get the chance to see if his gamble was a success, or if his hand was overplayed.

Leighton Levy and the Pope

It is not often that I find myself agreeing with the contributions made by the Star's Leighton Levy. One, I thought his style was too rough around the edges, and two, I formed the impression that he was trying too hard to strike some common denominator close to the bottom of the barrel.

To the extent that Levy has targeted his audience and is successful at doing so makes my criticisms meaningless. In fact, I am always suspicious of people who tell me they like what I write. I write to disturb people, not to soothe them. A chocolate bar, a slice of apple pie and a cold Red Stripe beer are soothers. Try one or all of them.

Levy's piece in the February 25 edition of the Star hits the nail on the head. Religionists and those who form themselves into sects, denominations and cults are those who recognise that humans are mostly weak and need someone else to believe in. To me, the papacy represents the very strongest arm of this international con act.

The man is old and very sick. In recent times, it seems, his followers have been worshipping his illness rather than his 'holiness'. Of course, religious freedom allows people to indulge their beliefs to their heart's content.

While I would not put too much stress on 'drool and spittle' as Levy has done in his column, I share the belief with him that the pope is carrying on to the end to regain whatever sympathy Catholicism has lost over the fascination of some of its frocked brethren with little boys.

The pope and the religion he leads and represents are free to provide their followers with whatever grand gala they demand. So they come out and kiss his hands and bow to the ground before him, and I watch, in utter fascination as the world turns and millions demand and desire that religion mystify and con them.

The pope is going to die on the job. It is what events are pointing to, and it is what Catholicism needs. Tell them, Leighton.

In Jamaica, it's who know (of) you

Last Thursday, I am driving along Clifton Boulevard, otherwise known as the Cassava Piece road. I am heading from Mannings Hill Road to Constant Spring. From a side road on the right, a bike rides out onto the road on which I am travelling.

Two men are on the bike.
The rider then does something strange but not surprising. He turns back. I am almost upon them and, because they had initially turned in the direction of Constant Spring, my intention was to pass the slowly-moving bike.

In them turning back, I have less than a second to act. I turn hard right, barely clipping the bike. One rider jumps off as my car leaps the sidewalk and stops two inches from a nest of light poles.
I exit the car and am overjoyed that no one is on the ground, flat out, dead. The rider is still on the bike.

"A wha type a driving dat?" he shouts.
I look him down. "Are you hit or injured, anything?"
He answers in the negative.
"Yu neva si di indicator?" he asks.

I laugh at him and tell him that it was his riding which was at fault and that I just saved his life by my quick action.
"Watch ya man, wi a gangsta round yah so. A we run round yah so. Leave five bills wid we!" he says threateningly.

"Here mi now. Mi nuh have nutten fi give yu. Me just save yu life," I tell him, as I re-enter the car to take it off the bank. After I park it on the side road, the rider eases the bike over to me. He stares at me carefully. I look back at him seeing something in me.
"Whey yu name?" he asks.

I tell him.
"Jesus Christ, Missa Wignall, yu a di real big man round yah so. Yu a fe wi writer." The whole picture has changed and he and his friend are knocking endless fists with me.

"Missa Wignall, watch ya, wi know we did wrong an a you save wi. Sorry Missa Wignall," he says. Then comes the real clincher.
"Missa Wignall, even if yu did lick we down, a nuh nutten."
I bid them goodbye, but before I leave I give them a brief lesson in using the road. As I drive off, I find myself laughing.

Scrap the JDF

There is something about an officer in the armed forces which makes ordinary folks envy him. By some unique agreement and behaviour code, an officer gets his underlings to salute him, to call him Sir and even to clean his boots. When I attended KC, I joined the cadet corps and lasted about two days in it. One day, an 'officer' shouted at me. I promptly shouted back at him and left.

Our JDF has less than 4,000 men, and for the life of me, I cannot see the sense in keeping these men fit, fed, housed and paid. In recent times, well-known personalities have been examining the role of the JDF and made the suggestion that some form of alignment with the police force is needed.

We are averaging 3.8 murders per day in Jamaica, a country not at war with anyone. Indeed, if ever we should be invaded by say, Lime Cay, I am certain that the US or Cuba would chip in to swat away the little upstarts.

The army serves the purpose of defending our national borders. The last time I checked, the only threat to our borders were drugs from South America and the illicit greenback from the USA and the pound from England, coming back here after we sell them the south American cocaine.

I suspect that those who would protest the loudest should the Government decide to untrain, retrain and disband the JDF would be the officer corps. Men who are housed free, fed well and get other less educated and exposed men to salute them and call them Sir.

I wish someone from the JDF could mount a good argument for keeping it in its present dispensation. I wait with bated breath.

In the interim, we need a massive jobs programme in selected inner-city areas to stem the murder rate in the short term. We also need localised states of emergency. Then we need to oil up the gallows at Spanish Town.

observemark@hotmail.com

Halle Berry and her picture-perfect family co-ordinate in grey

Cheating PS

'What was I thinking?' Chris Brown speaks out