This week’s “Believe It or Not…..”
President Bush surprised everyone yesterday by creating a huge national monument/wildlife preserve (140,000 sq.miles) out of a string of uninhabited Pacific islands which are legally part of the U.S. state of Hawaii.
Not only does the marine reserve come into existence right away (because he’s made it a National Monument) but it will be a true natural refuge i.e. no humans, and therefore no hotels, boats, scuba divers, fishing boats, etc….
So what does Greenpeace (the world’s best known environmental lobby group) have to say about this ?
“President Bush has been a disaster for the environment ever since his inauguration. While this is a great first step, he has a long way to go before he will be known as a friend of the environment.”
So there.
What I really like about this story is that President Bush apparently decided to create the new marine reserve/monument after a watching a movie about it made by Jean-Michel Cousteau (son of Jacques). Now if that’s not the real all-American way to do things, I don’t know what is.
Clearly the next step is to get the President to watch movies on other urgent matters…..(e.g. Iraq, immigration, hurricane preparedness)
“Jean Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Adventures” (Jean Michel Cousteaus Ocean Adventures)
“Jacques Cousteau – Pacific Explorations” (Joe Thompson (III), Philippe Cousteau, Jack Kaufman)
Karl Blythe decides to stop going, and go
Having obviously received the divine guidance he has been publicly seeking since losing the Presidential election last February, former Water and Housing Minister Karl Blythe has said he will leave representational politics.
United States visas
This week everyone had an opinion on the withdrawal of U.S. and Canadian visas from SSP not-convicted-for-Crawle-killings Reneto Adams and his not-convicted-for-Crawle-killings colleagues.
The only person with anything mildly intelligent to say was Dr. Carolyn Gomes :
the American government reserves the right to grant or deny visas that facilitate entry into its country. “They turn down decent human beings all the time … it is not a (human) rights issue,”
Dr. Gomes apart, it became rather tedious listening to the self-righteous rants of some who have “discovered” that the U.S. is now the sole superpower in the world.
Whenever I hear this argument, I wonder which other of the likely candidates would be preferable to the U.S. as “sole superpower”. China ? Russia ? The European Union ?
It’s possible that the EU might not be all that bad, except if you consider their stunning indifference to the genocidal and expansionist tendencies of Milosevic in their own backyard in the 90’s. And if you consider whether, if it was up to the EU, Milosevic’s massacres wouldn’t still be going on… (Bill Clinton’s problems with Monica led to the bombing of Belgrade and the eventual collapse of the Milosevic regime)…….
“Citizenship (Do It Yourself Immigration Series)” (American Immigration Center)
A Good Man is Hard to Find
Some of the parents of boys at St. George’s College are upset at the prospect that the next Principal of this Jesuit founded, Catholic run, once all-boys school will be female.
They think that a woman cannot be a good role model for boys…… perhaps because in 1994, Pope John Paul II, definitively closed the door on the ordination of women . However, despite keeping women out, the Catholic Church has had no success in keeping men in.
Parents with boys attending St. George’s should appreciate the Church’s dilemma. They should forget all about that other Catholic boys school up the road that has always been run by women (you know, the one with Sister Ignatius and the famous band….. )
They should continue to demand a male Principal, and they should rest assured that the Church of the late Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Benedict XVI would never, ever, ever consider appointing a woman as Principal of a Catholic boy’s school unless there was really NO alternative…….
“Adam Where Are You?: Why Most Black Men Don’t Go to Church” (Jawanza Kunjufu)
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories” (Flannery O’Connor)
Living-in-foreign
The Jamaican Diaspora Conference is underway here in Kingston. Many nice things are being said by, and about, the hard-working Jamaicans whose remittances (exceeding tourism revenues at last count) are keeping the country afloat.
One of the things that is not being said (but will certainly be a problem) is that black and brown Jamaicans living in white-majority countries are nationalistic in a way that few Jamaicans “on island” are.
It no longer stirs the souls of those “on island” and under-40, to hear rants about racism, discrimination, imperialism, colonialism in the U.S., Britain, Canada etc. Especially when most Jamaicans here want to be able to become part of the diaspora as soon as possible……
Both Jamaicans in the diaspora, and Jamaicans who “choose” to live here, want a thriving local economy, and crime and corruption dealt with now (or preferably yesterday).
But, unlike their exiled brethren, Jamaica-based-Jamaicans tend to think that if controlling crime takes white British policemen in our local police force, and boosting the economy takes white Americans and Europeans swarming on our beaches and Trinis, Chinese and Indians investing in our businesses, well, that’s what it takes……..
“One Love – The Bob Marley All-Star Tribute” (Palm Pictures / Umvd)
[posted with ecto]
Technorati Tags: crime, human rights, Jamaica, Jamaicans for Justice
Jamaica and the world 