Sister P is the New PNP Leader

Well, the votes have been cast and counted. The results have been announced. The Hon. Portia Simpson-Miller was today elected as the next leader of the PNP. She is therefore put forward as the next Prime Minister of Jamaica, an office which she will assume in about 5 weeks when the current party president resigns both as leader of the party and as Prime Minister of Jamaica. I will not go into too much dissection of the results. I will state that the race was actually between Dr. Peter Phillips and Mrs. Simpson-Miller. Dr. Davies and Dr. Blythe only received 283 and 204 of the approximately 3800 respectively. Mrs. Simpson-Miller earned 1775 votes & Dr. Phillips' received 1538 votes. I will say that it is my opinion that Dr. Davies' own arrogance was his downfall as most persons expected a better showing of him. Congrats Sister P.

25 February 2006

Yes I know I'm a little early and that today is the 24th but bear with me for just a few lines. Tomorrow will be a "fun" time on the roads of Kingston. Gibson Relays will be held at the National Stadium. These relays set the tone for the remainder of the track and field season in the island. It will be followed by Boys and Girls Champs and then select athletes will travel to the Penn Relays with a few smaller meets thrown in for good measure. I do hope that they have a succesful meet.

Tomorrow will also mark a very important day in the history of Jamaica. Tomorrow PNP delegates will go to the polls to elect a new leader of the PNP. Some 4000 persons are expected to cast their votes and decide the fate of the rest of us 2-6 million people or so. The election, as small as it will be, has disrupted so many activities that it's not funny. The elections will be held on the campus of Jamaica College however each delegate has a headquarter somewhere nearby. Now anybody who is aware of our political system knows that you don't want to be in any area nearby when those party supporters are around. They are usually a law unto themselves. So whereas I would normally have gone up to campus on a Saturday...I will opt to work from home this weekend since one of the delegates has been given permission to use a part of the school for their headquarters. From past experience, I going to stay far.

Later in the evening at the announcement ceremony the roads will again be blocked in the vicinity of the Party headquarters to allow for that meeting. It's a good thing that I don't think they have a lot of traffic going that way at 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon.

Well, tomorrow at 6:00 or thereabouts the nation will know who the delegates have chosen to be the new leader of the PNP and ultimately the Prime Minister of our island. I am not sure of how the entire process works whether it has to be ratified by Parliament or approved by some other body or..... Whatever the process, we await the outcome...............

Have a great weekend all.

Leaving some lite humour with you today since I can't post. Mid-semesters have started so you all know the routine by now...... Grandma's birth control pills A doctor that had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring alist of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her. As the young doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized she had a prescription for birth control pills. "Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are BIRTH CONTROL pills?" "Yes, they help me sleep at night." "Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could possibly help you sleep!" She reached out and patted the young Doctor's knee. "Yes, dear, I know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16 year old granddaughter drinks..................................And believe me, it helps me sleep at night." and........................ A lady goes on vacation to Jamaica. Upon arriving, she meets a black man, and after a night of passionate love making she asks him, "What is your name?" "I can't tell you" the black man says. Every night they meet and every night she asks him again what his name is and he always responds the same, he can't tell her. On her last night there she asks again, "Can you please tell me your name?" I can't tell you my name because you will laugh at me." says the black man. "There is no reason for me to laugh at you," the lady says. "Fine, my name is Snow!" the black man replies. And the lady bursts into laughter. The black man gets mad and says, "I knew you would make fun of it". The lady replied, "I'm not making fun of your name. I'm thinking of my husband who won't believe me when I tell him that I had 10 inches of snow everyday in Jamaica!" Have a great week all.

Thursday Swings by Again

I can't believe that a whole week has passed and I haven't so much as uttered a word about anything. School is again taking up more and more of my time. As I mentioned beforem, this year begins my research courses so most of my internet time is spent going through articles and topic related data. Last week we were treated to a library visit to familiarize us with the research resources available to us. up to now it has been mainly a google and internet thing. Now the journals and other like material are upon us. I can say without hesitation that I am happy that I actually made the investment in the laptop. Here is what I finally settled on. I was looking for something inexpensive, reliable and I guess basic but functional so the Dell Inspiron 1300 was my final answer. I put a little more into it than just the basics and with the shipping to my end of the globe I ended up spending about US$750.00 so I can't complain too much. I read the review by this gentleman that I linked and I can really say that he has in fact given a fair assessment of the machine since these were the things that I have seen with my machine. All things considered I'm happy with it. I'm not into the computer gaming so that part of it really doesn't affect me. Some of you discouraged me from going with some of my other options and I'm glad you did and I'm happy I followed your advice. The computer has in fact helped tremendously in completing some of our assignments and it has certainly saved us a lot of time in not having to meet, write out our discussions, type it out and then email it for further corrections. We meet and have everything done right there and the only thing left to do is print and submit. Anyways, I get too carried away sometimes. This was just to be a "Hi" and "I'm still alive" kinda post. So Hi and I'm still alive. We'll chat more later. Take care until........

Thursday already

Well I can't really believe that it is already so close to the end of the week. Nothing too much going on here at home. Well not exactly true...they killed one of the area dons in Spanish Town yesterday and is pandamonium again after a relatively quiet period from the latter part of last year. Roads are blocked and the finger pointing going on as to who do it and whether or not police involved. Reality is we will probably never know. My first reaction is "who really cares anyway". These guys live by violence and will inevitably die by it. I reiterate that we need some strong action against these criminals because no matter how we nice it up and call them area dons or area leaders or community leaders the under tone is a lawless existence a.k.a. criminal. Well the PNP will have their conference at the end of this month. Venue was changed because they had tried to book the arena on the same weekend when a major sporting event was scheduled to take place. No can do!!! So they relocated and the event will go ahead so in about 2 weks or so we will know who our new Prime Minister will be. I was sitting the other day and wondering why the campaign for the party leadeship is so public. Why am I a citizen subject to the assault of adverts and meetings and general political noise when for this event I as an ordinary citizen cannot vote? Why can't I vote...well it's like this....only delegates within party circles participate in the voting for party leadership. So out of the 2.7 million or so Jamaican citizens only 4000 or there abouts will be able to participate in the voting process. Maybe I'm being a little picky but why subject me to the party hype when in actual fact it is of no real significance to me. Vote and then tell me who is the new leader when yuh finish. I will admit that I enjoy the back and forth discussion and who can't do what and who can't talk which way but after a while it gets a bit tiresome. Proposals have been made for debates and motorcades and so far I think the motorcade idea was scrapped by the party leadership (thank God) since those idiots become untouchable lawless morons when they get on the road together. They drive anyhow and anywhere they feel like and couldn't care less who gets knocked over in the process. I think some of the other candidates have been resisting the call for debates saying that it's not a national participatory event so why have a national debate. I agree with the point but I add that since it's not a national participatory event then why have national campaigns and advertising? I'm just being cynical, don't pay me too much mind. Anyway guys just my way of saying hail up and all the best until I chat again.

Cartoons

Well I was home ill for a couple of days last week. Tis the season for every virus that pass my window for me to grab it. Actually I've been not too bad this past Christmas since every December April and October I have rounds of the flu or cold or some other ache and pain. So I actually made it through December without any problems. Maybe this is just to fulfill my quota. I have been watching in interest the Muslim community's outcry to the Danish cartoonist depiction of their founder. Not saying that some things are not sacred but burning and rioting and violence is taking it just a little too far. UI can honestly say that I cannot understand how a nation built on the principles of peace can be so irritable to the ponit where many persons even here in Jamaica see Muslims as fanatics and are seen as crazy through the eyes of many. Granted that this recent behaviour isn't helping any. It is kinda only strengthening the views. I won't post any links to the cartoons for fear of drawing the wrath of many on the blog of one. Seems that cartoonist in contraversial situationwas the order of the week because another cartoon appearing in a US newspaper Washington Post drew the wrath of citizens when it showed a veteran with no arms and legs and in bandages being told that his condition would be listed as battle hardened or something along those lines. I linked it from a website here. I guess they were insinuating that the real effects of the so-called war on terrorism was being understated. Just my interpretation. Other than that nothing too much going on. I rewired my car stereo system yesterday. Took me almost the whole afternoon. An amplifier that had served me for 10 years finally burned out. I replaced it but the new one required more power and different speakers so I just decided to do a wholesale rewire and use fresh stuff. It sounds good but now my wife is cussing because my son is trying to deafen her. Suffered a few cuts and bruises in the prcess but I'l live. Gone do some reading, so till later.........

Idle Chatter

Well nothing much on the home front to chat about. Apparently the cowitch thing got a little out of hand on Monday because quite a few schools reported serious infiltration from the menance. At my wife's high school the nurse's station was beyond capacity before school started. At a co-worker's son's school they had an overwhelming number of cases and almost the "entire" school going to the nurse. The story actually made the news on Tuesday. Well for the past few weeks I have been toying with the idea of giving up the blogging. It's easy to say but I guess hard to do. Right now I am so caught up in the whole school thing that I really am finding it hard to keep up the posting and the reading. The time that I had initially ear-marked for blog activity is rapidly disappearing as assignments get more difficult and closer together. I am determined, though, to keep going as long as I can and to exhaust every other alternative before calling it quits. May even have to go to late night/early morning activities if the need arises. I have already exceeded my opening targets. When I started this blog I gave myself a year. That has gone and I'm still at it. Sometimes there isn't the vibes to post or the drive to go find something of note but some how or the other something gets said. Maybe what I need to do is to go back to what the real reasons were for this blog: 1) a bit of fun and mystique.......ok still there 2) a voice....still there 3) meeting a few good people.......still happens 4) keep in touch with the world.......still happening 5) run off my mouth......still happens 6) represent for the Caribbean.......ok sometimes 7) something to pass time.........this is the changed part...there isn't much time to pass anymore. 8) to explore other cultures especially those nearby......still awed by how similar we are and by how different we are as well. 9) fass in people business.......ok, not so, more like interest in the lives of those we meet online. All in all things really haven't changed much. Maybe I should just ask you to bear with me as I try to deal with these final 5 semesters at school with the understanding that I won't have as much free time to give to this (or anything else for that matter). I've already given up my badminton and going out and my motorsport vice has become even more limited because of school so I don't think I want to give up much more so we'll see how it goes. Anywayz, I was just writing some off the brain stuff. BTW, did you notice that I finally organized my links panel and I added some daily reads that I've kinda been meaning to add for some time. Maybe I'll play with some other stuff on the weekend. Have a great week all.