Perception

Ok, Bruce did his job. Good.

As the minister of defense he would have committed political suicide if he wasn’t as up front in the hijacking as he was, what with the budget due to be read in parliament.

So for leading from the front, good job.

Vaz on the other hand, in his capacity as information minister was very disappointing, sounding very much like the english-challenged lout i believe him to be. When asked questions about the matter his difficulty in getting the information across was embarrassing.

However, I am sure that many thought he did a good job, and that is up to them.

BUT!

Neither of these two men were anywhere in the ‘field of fire’, and at no time was in any danger. So to call them ‘Heroes’ is quite a stretch.

The Observer will do anything to prop up the guvament’s image especially when they delivering more and more hardship on people.

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Bruce spoke to the nation ahead of Audley budget speech, to calm nerves and reason with the people about the further hardships they face.

Good.

Some credit his talk to the nation as a reason why there were no riots, others in the media credits a Jamaican populace with being more politically mature.

Maybe.

The ever-increasing courseness of Jamaicans seemed to have let this opportunity slide.

Good for them.

However, the last time that a Jamaican guvament tried to impose a gas tax and the people rioted, afterwards there was whispers everywhere that the riots were instigated by the then opposition, to disrupt the guvament’s plans for the country.

How true that is depends on which side of the fence you fall. If you are a PNP supporter then it is absolutely true. If you are a JLP supporter then it’s all lies. If you are sensible smaddy, you wouldn’t put any underhanded dutty scheming past either of the two parties.

Of course another take would be that PNP supporters are less violent than JLP supporters.

But what I beleive the real reason  for the calm reaction to the budget is that we as a people have taken too many hits lately that we have been cowed into a near submissive mass.

We dread losing the little work we have because time hard so we wait on others to say something.

The high murder rate, has us keeping our heads down so as not to get it shot off. Besides we don’t want anybody to see we a protest , that may cost us our jobs or our lives or both.

We realize where acting up  may lead to no job, no money to pay bills or to eat food.

The guvaments of Jamaica are nearly successful in eroding our free will.

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As of this writing the guvament has yet to give the full details on the newly taxable items, maybe they using the weekend to give themselves and us some breathing room.

Or they still making it up.

Maybe they feel that spreading it out would ease the shock. It probably has, but one could start to get the feeling that they don’t know what they are doing  and are merely stretching things out to make it seem substantial.

The PSOJ is in love with Audley’s budget, how it’s fair and is necessary and good for this country. Maybe, but none of them has asked about the real impact it will have on the ever-growing ranks of the poor. Questions like:

What effect will the tax on gasolene have on the cost of food, which will also welcome new members into the group of products affected by GCT?

How will this affect the Jamaican worker whose pay has been frozen and therefore means that their spending power is significantly reduced.

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There are actually some who believe that teachers, in demanding their back-pay, are unreasonable in these hard economic times.

Let me tell you what is unreasonable, doing your work for an agreed amount, only to be shorted for a very long period of time, to now see taxation and cost of living flying up, to have been promised what is due to you, and now be told yuh can’t get it.

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Nex’ Time.

Hijack

I am sure people are going to lose their jobs for letting the gunman get on the plane, even after he was detected while still inside the terminal.

Armed security personnel were not usually in the terminal. This is an internationally accepted practice.

If this is indeed not the result of security personnel failing to carry out their duties then no one should lose their job.

But measures will clearly now have to be tightened up, maybe have armed security in the terminals. That is fine, because one would say why this wasn’t the case already, but you know that in order to save face or to make it seem as if they were doing something about it people are going to be fired.

Either Bruce  going to demand resignations or the operators of the airport will go about ‘punishing’ the ‘incompetent’ people for being ‘lackadaisical’ in their duty.

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Great to see the situation resolved with no one dying, can’t be said for the other people murdered over the weekend, in the same parish.

But, Jamaica’s rep gets another knife wound to its belly, sigh.

I can imagine now how the American news media will start producing reports on what is wrong with Jamaica, regurgitating the drug dealers from the eighties, that mad man from the train, and all the violence and murders happening now, twisting the above mentioned knife some more.

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Please could someone tell Bruce to give the Information portfolio back to Babsy? On CNN this morning, Daryl Vaz displayed his basic school level of competency with the English language. No, there are youngsters more capable of conveying information than that man was capable of.

Embarrassing.

Babsy has proven to be much more capable of imparting information than this heavy-tongued oafish-sounding man.

 

“Ol’ Pirates, Yes They Rob I…More…”

ENOUGH!

What is wrong with Bruce and Audley? Why the hell are they wanting to add further taxation on the people of this country?

When they have their way, (no if bout it), gasoline, electricity and water will suck more out of the people in the form of a sick mentality that allows the guvament to further tax us so.

Transportation costs are already near a breaking point, so imagine more taxes on it, not only will getting from place to place be more expensive, but everything that depends on the transportation of goods will go up in price too. Food that we can barely afford now is going up again, which sets every other thing going up in costs too.

Electricity is already a sinful burden on the backs of Jamaicans, further taxing it is also going to contribute to a further increase in the cost of food and every aspect of modern life in this country.

And adding a further tax on water is the insult to injury.

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These sneaky bitches have just jim-screechy their GCT increase on people.

The cost of living will get so out of hand that there will be many starving, probably homeless people, (they just evict a bag a people offa land what dem did capture).

Dem a go mek me start bawl like Portia.

Our pay is going nowhere, each dollar we earn is able to buy less and less, we can barely afford to light the house and run a fan on hot days, we  are now thinking that we going to work one day less a week to avoid the transportation costs, and what does Bruce and Audley do?

They want to tax the last bit of dignity out of us.

Sure you may say I am just being hysterical. Maybe I am, but you can barely afford KFC now, so what a go happen when the tax from light, gas and water add on pon it, AND then Bruce go tax it again because it’s ‘junk food’?

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It’s amazing that no one sees that people who can’t afford much won’t be able to pay the extra. So food and clothes and all the other little things that made us comfy in life, we will just stop buying. When we start going to the stores less and less, buying less and less, the stores, upon seeing their income fall, will start laying off workers.

More laid off workers means less income tax being paid into the system, less taxes going into the system means the guvament will be less able to afford their programs, which means….

MORE RASS TAX INCREASES!

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I hope I am safely in mi yard when the shit hit the fan and the frustrations of the people boil over into the streets, I hope you are too.

Hallelujah!

Will someone PLEASE tell Portia fi stop wid the religiosity?

This woman is incapable of making a reasoned argument without calling on the name of Jesus or his daddy, perhaps in some idiotic belief that it will lend authenticity to what she has to say.

But she isn’t the only one, Vaz, before and after the buy-election, various other ministers and MPs and even Bruce himself.

This is the business of the country, not religion. This is Parliament, not church.

Though I must admit, the zeal party supporters display approaches religious fervor. Hell, like all religious conflict in the world, they will even kill for it.

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Fine!

It’s a religion.

Sorry for wasting your time.

Praise be to God!

Back Pay Is Not An Increase

Guvament has been hinting, for months now, that they can’t afford to pay an increase in the wage bill, and in these hard economic times, we understand that.

We do.

But their stance on these matters seems to always involve threatening the parties requesting the increase.

tek what we give you or you lose your work!

Why must that sentiment be the first thing out of their mouths at all times?

And though people ought to be paid better, that isn’t what upsets me today.

What upsets me is the treatment to teachers, not that they aren’t getting an increase, but that they aren’t getting their back pay.

Money due them.

Money promised to them by the guvament.

Another promise broken.

But I want to go further! And I hope I don’t get myself into too deep a trouble today. I want to say that Mrs. Allwood-Anderson has publicly stated that the take-home pay of nurses ought to be doubled, and I want to publicly support that position. ~Pearnel Charles (before election)

To reiterate: This is not a request for an increase, this is money due them, that was promised to them, that in all fairness they should get!

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Police are underpaid, and for the pittance they get I can understand why so many of them are corrupt.

Doctors are being asked to treat an explosion in the number of patients since “Free Healthcare”, their workload has shot thru the roof, and yet they are expected to make do with the pittance given to them.

When teachers leave the country to go teach elsewhere there is a hue and cry among the people lamenting the “brain drain”, (in addition to the many university trained graduates who seek greener pastures). Teeth are gnashed, gritted and ground over the shortage of teachers in some areas, and the size of the classes in others. Teachers sometimes work in some very deplorable conditions, but they do their work none the less.

Many math teachers, have not passed the subject themselves

Sure their are teachers who are either under qualified or incompetent,in the subjects they teach, but the idea of annual evaluations needs to become policy. And many a time on the news in the evenings, teachers and principals speak in the most cringe inducing attempt at English possible.

Those should go.

But for the qualified, the hard working, the dedicated among them, the ones that leaves an impression on their students long after being taught by them, it is time they are suitably awarded that which is due them.

Only a batty-hole would say otherwise.

Like a Steppin’ Razor

Mullings gone. The light bulb thing never seem to work out.

Smith gone. Was only a matter of time, figured his health would have been a factor.

McMillan gone. But…was he ever there? What him did in deh a do?

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So yeah, they trimmed the cabinet, taking a pay cut, and going to freeze public sector salaries, ok fine.

Now we just waiting to hear how many people a go lose dem work. It’s coming. No way they can be harping on the ‘wage bill’ every other day, and not itching to cut the ‘inefficient’ workforce. All that talk was aimed at impressing on the people how bad it was that we had to be paying these people, so that when they swing the axe, most Jamaicans won’t feel to bad about it.

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Now giving the traitor-to-the-trade-union movement the National Security portfolio, is a very clear indication that this guvament has no idea, not a one, of how to deal with crime in this country. Right now it seems that Bruce is giving him bredrin dem a run at ‘playing’ minister, in this grand event of musical chairs.

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Vaz get promoted, fi wah!?!

Honestly, dat man does not strike me as having the competence or ability to deal with any serious work. I figure there will be lots of hand holding by the PM or other more sensible cabinet members for him to get anything done.

If at all.

The way how him always accompanying Bruce nearly everywhere, mi did start wonder if a Bruce girlfriend.

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The John-Crow gets Mining & Energy.

That’s it!

The man is a john-crow, as evidenced by his public display of john-crow-ism, but as to his ability to do the work as needed, we will wait and see.

Might be the smartest of these latest shuffling.

We’ll see.