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CONTENTS
UNDILUTED pays tribute to John Maxwell by featuring two previous columns by him from the Hot Calaloo UNDILUTED archives:
Not just a book but an invitation to join the Goodwill
Revolution against an unfair, unjust and deceptive system that
keeps the world poor and without hope. Find out how you can join,
quit the rat race, and achieve a happier more meaningful life for
yourself and others through goodwill to all
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For
the Life of Laetitia
by Trinidad -born Merle Hodge
Price: $10.54a wonderful book about a young girl in the Carribean, the first of her family to go to secondary school.
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August 2013If you are black you are Trayvon MartinAdvice to black sons living in America I was staying at an inn in this very quaint picturesque rural town on the eastern shore of Maryland. The TV had just announced George Zimmerman-not-guilty-verdict. It was searing my soul so I decided to take my two dogs for a walk. I had seen no other black persons in the area. I knew the area had a reputation as a conservative Republican stronghold. Nevertheless, earlier I was surprised to drive by a prominent sign on a beautiful upscale house less than a mile from my inn. But, the sign was not beautiful. It was a crude large home-made sign flanked by about 6 or 8 small American flags displayed conspicuously on the verdant front lawn. The sign had just three words on it, one word per line. IT said, "OMALLEY, OBAMA, OH SHIT". (Omalley is the Democratic governor of Maryland.) My dogs were frisky and tugged at their leashes so I had to hold tight as we all explored the narrow streets of the neighborhood which seemed deserted. Suddenly I came upon a house with a huge flagpole with old glory proudly flapping in the breeze. But, that was not the only flag on that flagpole. There was also a huge confederate flag. With George Zimmerman verdict resting on my mind, I became uneasy at the sight of the flag. Thoughts raced through my head. Suppose one of my dogs pooped in front of the house. Suppose that incensed the owner. Suppose the owner became angry enough to shoot me, black me, even though I had no hoodie. There were no witnesses. I would be dead and no one would care. There would not even be an arrest even after 44 days. I made an abrupt turn tugging my dogs along and headed back to the inn and to safety. If you are black in America, you are Trayvon Martin so be very afraid and you had better err on the side of caution. If you are black in America, don’t be deluded by thoughts of justice, fairness, equality and such platitudes, for you too could lose your life.
CARICOM calls for reparationsHeads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have agreed to pursue reparations for native genocide and slavery. At the recent 34th Heads of Government Conference held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, the Caribbean leaders agreed on follow-up action in regard to the matter. They agreed to the establishment of a National Reparations Committee in each member state, with the chair of each committee sitting on a CARICOM Reparations Commission. Barbados will act as chair, while St Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago will provide political oversight. St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves insisted that the Caribbean must remain part of the leadership on the debate of reparation for slavery and was the driving force behind the CARICOM decision.
Trinidad senate VP resigns, quits ruling partyThe Vice President of the Trinidad Senate, Lyndira Oudit, Tuesday confirmed she had resigned her post as well as quitting the United National Congress (UNC), the biggest partner in the four-party coalition People’s Partnership government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar. Oudit , said her resignation stemmed from a number of disappointments and held out the possibility of joining the Independent Liberal Party (ILP) whose interim leader, Austin "Jack" Warner was victorious in a by-election earlier this month. Her resignation is the second high profile one from the UNC, led by Prime Minister Persad Bissessar, and follows former justice minister Herbert Volney, who announced his resignation last Monday. The resignation comes amidst media reports that Prime Minister will announce a Cabinet re-shuffle on Thursday and that National Security Minister Emmanuel George and Communication Minister Jamal Mohammed will lose their Cabinet portfolios. It will be the third re-alignment of the Persad-Bissessar administration in its three years of government and comes on the heels of the crushing defeat for the coalition in the July 29 by-election for the Chaguanas West constituency, considered a heartland of the ruling UNC.
Withdraw from CARICOM – Jamaica oppositionHere we go again. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), who torpedoed the West Indies Federation are now fixing their guns on CARICOM. Last month, Opposition Leader Andrew Holness said Jamaica should consider suspending its relationship with CARICOM in an effort to iron out trade-related issues with the regional body. Holness, who noted that he did not believe that Jamaica's interests were being fully served by CARICOM, was reinforcing a point made by Tufton, who had indicated that a temporary withdrawal from CARICOM was allowed under the regional body's rules. Nicholson, the leader of government business in the Senate, countered by saying that such a move would compromise the benefits which regional integration offers, "such as functional cooperation, foreign-policy coordination, and participation in the five pillars of the CSME regime: movement of labour, capital, services, goods and right of establishment".
Food For The Poor makes $5m donation to Jamaican HospitalFood For The Poor (FFP) continues to do impressive work in Jamaica. Recently, it has boosted the limited dialysis/kidney-care treatment resources of the Haemodialysis Unit of the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) with a donation of equipment and medical supplies valued at more than $5 million. Among the items handed over were resuscitators, laryngoscope blades, infant and adult digital scales, pulse oximeters, defibrillators, coagulation timers, patient chairs and computers. The charity came to the aid of the UHWI Haemodialysis Unit after a request from the Jamaica Kidney Kids Foundation Ltd (JKKFL), a support group for children with chronic kidney problems. This followed a series of reports from a Gleaner Editors' Forum in February, which focused on the plight of children in Jamaica with kidney disease. The Haemodialysis Unit is the only health facility in Jamaica which provides dialysis for children younger than 12 years old. The donation will help in significantly improving the availability of key equipment used in treating children suffering from chronic kidney disease. Data from the JKKFL showed that each year, at least 40 children in Jamaica under the age of 16 years are diagnosed with chronic kidney/renal disease. Of that number, three to six children will be diagnosed with chronic kidney failure. Between 1985 and 2006, 30 of the 48 children diagnosed with chronic kidney failure died. FFP is helping to ensure that the already overburdened dialysis treatment facilities are increased to the benefit of the children. FFP also made a donation to the Paediatric Nephrology Service of the UHWI to assist with specific blood tests needed by children on dialysis. Receiving the donation of $50,000, MicroLabs Ltd committed to reducing the cost of blood tests for children on dialysis by more than 50 per cent. Food For The Poor, Inc. (FFP) is an ecumenical Christian nonprofit organization based in Coconut Creek, Florida, USA that provides food, medicine, and shelter, among other services, to poor people in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Detroit files for bankruptcy protectionThe Caribbean countries must battle poverty constantly. Desperate Jamaica is being jacked-up by the International Monetary Fund. But, in rich, prosperous, powerful America. the city of Detroit has filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court. This lays the groundwork for a historic effort to bail out a city that is sinking under billions of dollars in debt and decades of mismanagement, population flight and loss of tax revenue. The bankruptcy filing makes Detroit the largest city in U.S. history to do so. The filing begins a 30- to 90-day period that will determine whether the city is eligible for Chapter 9 protection and define how many claimants might compete for the limited settlement resources that Detroit has to offer. The bankruptcy petition would seek protection from creditors and unions who are renegotiating $18.5 billion in debt and other liabilities. The city has lost more than half of its population over the last 60 years. In 1950, the city was the fifth-largest city in the country with a population of around 1.8 million. Today its population is estimated at just under 700,000.
Cuba-trained nurses cry foul in JamaicaTwenty-four Jamaicans who graduated from the nursing program in Cuba in 2012 are crying foul and pointing fingers at the Nursing Council of Jamaica, the local accreditation agency. According to the nurses, while Cuban nurses who arrive in Jamaica are immediately placed in local hospitals, the council has refused to accredit them and instead instructed that they do a six-month internship in a local health facility. The nurses say the council has ruled that on completion of the internship, they sit and pass the regional exams which are administered to all final-year nursing students trained in Jamaica. However, the first group of six nurses who returned from Cuba in 2010 did not have to do the internship. Members of the present group completed six years of training in Cuba - which has also trained scores of doctors who are currently in active practice - but coming back to Jamaica has been a nightmare. "They want us to do the regional exams. It's the final exams that students who are trained here do. But Jamaica is recruiting nurses from all over the world, including Cuba, Burma and Nigeria, and they are not expected to sit that exam.. It's not fair," lamented one of the nurses. Representatives of the Cuban Embassy in Jamaica, the ministries of health, education, foreign affairs, and officials from Jamaica Trade and Invest met with them before they departed. The Jamaican Government provided a stipend of US$1,000 per year to students who provided three guarantors with a promise to return home after being trained.
New reggae and calypso Methodist hymnal replaces oldMethodists in Jamaica, the Caribbean and the Americas have a new hymnal - Voices In Praise - to be used in their daily worship. It includes hymns done to contemporary beats such as reggae and calypso. Voices In Praise has been described as "a modern, ecumenical hymnal" which has been prepared in response to the voice of the people. It was prepared by an international team of musicians, theologians, hymn writers and consultants led by Shirley Carby, manager at Carlong Publishers, Jamaica. The team included Jamaican musicians Godfrey Taylor and Roger Williams; Methodist ministers Dr Lesley Anderson, Paul Douglas-Walfall and Dr George Mulrain. Voices In Praise replaces the British Methodist Hymn Book that has been in use since 1933. The Connexional Conference of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas (MCCA), with headquarters in Antigua, authorised the change of hymnal after concluding several years of research into the expressed needs of its congregations across eight geographical districts. The new hymnal is a "words and music" edition offering a healthy selection of the classics of the old hymnal, hymns for children and youth and indigenous compositions that reflect the multilingual context of the region.
World’s third most endangered coral reefAccording to the World Resources Institute Caribbean coral reefs are the third most endangered coral reefs in the world. Nearly two-thirds of coral reefs in the Caribbean are threatened by human activities, such as coastal development, sediment and pollution, marine based threats and overfishing. As a popular tourist destination, the Caribbean reefs are also greatly threatened by waste from cruise ships, tankers and yachts that is discharged directly into the water. "In addition, coral bleaching episodes-the most direct evidence of stress from global climate change on Caribbean marine biodiversity-are on the rise,"
Jamaican athletes fail drug testJamaica's athletics was thrown into a deeply emotional crisis on the eve of the World Athletic Championships with the revelation that five athletes, including elite runners Asafa Powell and Sharon Simpson, had tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilfrine. Two of the others, who were throwers Travis Michael and Allison were found with a diuretic in their systems. Diuretics are banned in athletics because they can be used to mask performance enhancing drugs. Powell is a former world-record holder in the 100m, and has won two bronze medals in the event at the IAAF World Championships. He also helped Jamaica to 4x100m gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2009 IAAF World Championships. Simpson won silver in the 100m at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and has also been a member of medal winning 4x100m relay teams at the Olympic Games and the IAAF World Championships. Powell and Simpson have blamed Canadian trainer Christopher Xuereb recently engaged by Powell to cure recurring injuries for giving them the supplements, but claimed that they did not know these contained banned substances These charges were made by the Jamaica Anti-doping Association based on tests conducted during the Jamaican trials in Kingston. Asafa’s drug certainly was not performance enhancing as he finished 7th out of 8 competitors in the 100m there. This doping scandal comes only a month after it was disclosed that acclaimed sprinter Veronica Campbell-Brown had also failed a drug test and another female runner Dominique Blake was banned for six years for a second infraction. IAAF official point out that Veronica has committed a minor offense and will probably get only a 6-month ban. Nevertheless, her fans all over the world are in shock. America’s best sprinter Tyson Gay and Trinidad’s women’s 100m hope Kelly-Ann Baptiste have withdrawn from competition because of failed drug tests.
Jamaican ran at Olympics with breast cancerJamaica’s top 400-meter runner, Novlene Williams-Mills revealed publicly that she was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago. She won the Jamaican trials six days later and then finished fifth in the Olympic 400-meter final and bagged her third straight bronze medal in the 4×400-meter relay. Three days after the Games surgeons removed a small lump in her breast. She then had a double mastectomy, a further operation to cut out the remaining cancerous cells and reconstructive surgery. Her final operation was on January 18, 2013. Williams-Mills returned to competition four months after that final operation. She won her seventh Jamaican 400-meter title on June 23, booking her place at August’s world championships in Moscow. The 2007 world bronze medalist is still a medal threat. Her season’s best of 50.01 makes her the fifth-fastest woman this year.
Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz get new coachAfter more than a month without a senior national football coach, Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) has appointed German Winfried 'Winnie' Schafer as head coach of the Reggae Boyz. Schafer replaces Theordore Whitmore, who was asked to step down after the Reggae Boyz disappointing loss to Honduras in their World Cup game in June. The 63-year-old Schafer brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the Reggae Boyz set-up, having led Cameroon to the World Cup finals as well as the African Cup of Nations title in 2002. Schafer also led Cameroon to the runners-up spot in the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2003. As a player, Schafer represented Borussia Msnchengladbach and Karlsruher SC in the German Bundesliga. Editor: I say bring back Whitmore. Let us know what you think. Email us at hotcalaloo@yahoo.com
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