Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,

Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,

That on the earth would breed a scarcity

And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,

Be prodigal.

— Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, Stanza 126

Now, it all depends on where you place the comma in a sentence. The above title could mean, don’t breed mosquitoes, which is a good thing, for those insects carry all sorts of diseases, including the most current one, ZIKV. That same sentence could read, don’t breed… mosquitoes, meaning, don’t have babies because mosquitoes pose a danger.

Of course, the term ‘breed’ is a colloquial slang, the street term that refers to females getting pregnant. It’s considered crude and not used in certain circles, but it’s a part of our lexicon of words and cannot be ignored. “Imagine, the gyal breed for the married man.”

“Missis, yu too young fi breed.”

“Is who she breed for?”

“Is not me breed you.”

It’s a reality that has been around for centuries, so don’t scoff at it or pretend that it doesn’t exist. And it transcends all classes too, as uptown girls breed for ghetto youth, and downtown girls breed for high-society men.

Look at the above quote and the words chastity, barren, fruitless and, of course, breed stand out. They all allude to infertility, procreation or the lack of it. As for self-loving nuns, they can’t break the habit.

So we’ll see who or what should breed or not, and why, right after these responses to ‘Mother, son, father’.

Hi Teerob,

It’s only yesterday I told my woman to read

Daddy Oh more often, especially pertaining to our argument on this mother/son debacle. If you didn’t change the age of 32 when describing that boy, I would swear that you were referring to her son, who is 35 and still living off her. He makes your article pale in comparison.

OK

Hi Tony,

I watched in awe a Jamaican mother breastfeeding her eight-year-old son while in a waiting room. Those mollycoddled boys will grow up not having the will to end these borderline incestuous relationships with their mothers.

I watched in awe a Jamaican mother breastfeeding her eight-year-old son while in a waiting room. Those mollycoddled boys will grow up not having the will to end these borderline incestuous relationships with their mothers.

They will never have normal relationships with other women as the mothers won’t allow it. Her love for her son goes beyond the normal love of a mother.

She derives emotional satisfaction from him, due perhaps to the absence of a husband and father to the boy. Many sons become substitute men/partners/companions/lovers.

Sigmund

Calgary, Canada

Here we go again, one more infestation that’s let loose on the land to add to mankind’s misery. From biblical days these plagues were said to be sent down by the Almighty to punish Pharaoh and his minions. There were locusts, toads, flies, and other creepy crawly creatures that brought great anguish to the masses. There was no mention of croaking lizards.

Fast-forward to the Middle ages, and there was the bubonic plague, spread by the fleas that lived on rats, smallpox, typhoid and other nasty stuff. Skip to the 20th century and Spanish Flu wiped out almost a quarter of Europe as millions fell to its onslaught. Then there was tuberculosis, diphtheria, ebola, malaria, dengue, CHIKV and now ZIKV.

The last four have one common factor: they are all spread by the mosquito, the Aedes aegypti to be specific. The solution is simple, don’t breed mosquitoes, or don’t let them breed.

Scientists have almost succeeded in some parts of the world, as they genetically altered the breeding construct of those critters, resulting in only male mosquitoes being born. As you should know by now, it’s the female mosquito that bites and sucks blood to aid the process of procreation. By so doing, she spreads these diseases, as blood is transferred from one person to the next.

The males do not bite. But for every action there is a reaction, and nature has a way of adapting to man’s interference. In so many cases where scientists attempt to alter the natural order of species, it turns out badly.

The African Killer Bees, introduced in Brazil, are a prime example of man’s interference gone awry. Some smart ‘expert’ decided to breed aggressive African bees with the domestic variety. The result, the bee version of Frankenstein’s monster. To ‘bee’ or not to ‘bee’, that was the transgenic destruction.

Nature is clever, and various species, animals, bacteria and viruses have found ways to mutate, change, do a song and dance in order to survive. Don’t be surprised if those genetically altered male mosquitoes don’t find a way to reproduce and start to bite people.

“How dem say is only female maskita bite people? I swear I just see a mankita pitch pon me.”

Unfortunately, the latest scourge, ZIKV, is suggested to affect pregnant women in a terrible way, making their babies be born with underdeveloped brains and heads. It’s terrible, and Brazil has been impacted severely as thousands of those babies were born with microcephaly. The disease is spreading at an alarming rate with cases now found in the USA and also parts of Europe. Air travel has made the world a global village.

Women of childbearing age are fearful. The answer for some scientists is not to stop the breeding of mosquitoes, but rather stop the women from breeding. Some countries, including Jamaica, have asked women to not get pregnant for six months to a year.

Unrealistic, impractical, improbable, impossible? Just picture it, for the next 12 months no babies born at all. But I guess the authorities have to be proactive for fear of not doing anything at all. My question is: How come in other areas of the world, where ZIKV is, there are no widespread cases of microcephaly, except Brazil? Tampering with nature?

The fact is some countries have eliminated the deadly Aedes aegypti mosquito and have no fear of getting this virus to cross their borders. How did they achieve that?

Breeding…er… birth control has been a problem for decades, and I remember we even had a campaign here years ago titled, ‘Two is better than too many’, urging women to have only two children instead of breeding…er…multiplying like flies.

Well, that didn’t have a lasting effect, wasn’t even a pregnant pause, and after a while the breeding went unabated. Now, women with five, six, seven and more children for multiple fathers are the order of the day.

The foil was, “Breed all you want, have out yuh lot.” “Birth control is a plan to kill off black people.” The graffiti screamed from the walls. By the way, even China has relaxed its one child per family policy as the low birth rate was resulting in an ageing population. Now, women are allowed to have two babies. Two is better than too few in China.

Many young girls who don’t breed…er…have belly…er, get pregnant by age 17, are considered barren and called mules. “Say what, 21 and yuh nuh breed yet? Yuh is mule?” I know women of age 21 having five children.

So the master plan is not to stop the breeding…er…procreation of mosquitoes, but to stop the women from breeding…ah…making babies. Don’t breed…mosquitoes.

No more baby mothers, no more baby fathers, no more baby showers, no christening, birthday parties, greetings on the radio….for one year.

Then after the year, when the last mosquito has left our shores for more fertile breeding grounds, it’s on your mark, get set, breed. Make up for the lost year, have out your lot. “Baby, I waited one whole year for this….mosquito gone, you can breed now.”

Meanwhile, the mosquitoes have their master plan to eradicate mankind. The cold hard truth is mosquitoes kill more humans than any other animal does every year, numbering in the millions.

The Zika virus is grave cause for concern as the world health authorities are on the verge of giving it pandemic status.

Next it may be ‘ZikP’, where any man bitten by those genetically engineered male mosquitoes will have his penis reduced to the size of a peanut, then fall off. What would be the answer then? No sex for a year would be a given, a fait accompli, a done deal. It would be more like no sex forever. I’m sure that the scientists would come up with a much quicker plan than telling women (and not men) not to breed.

Those mosquitoes are smarter than we think. It’s not them who will stop breeding, but us.

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: We are a people who like to bury our heads in the sand and constantly live in denial. When the reverend spoke about $5,000 hairstyles on $5 heads, so many people berated him.

And yet we all know of women, of all classes, who spend small fortunes on weaves, fancy hairstyles, and other hirsute pursuits and neglect important areas of their lives. When the late Rex Nettleford coined the phrase ‘Buttoo in Benz’, he was alluding to the same thing. It’s all about misplaced priorities, expensive sneakers, costly phones and cars and neglected households.

We see it every day. Women spending big on weaves and always borrowing money, yet can’t pay their bills. Stop the hypocrisy.

BTW, Happy Valentine’s Day.

BTW, Happy Valentine’s Day.