Jamaica – 31 Oct 2005 - Bulbie is Dead

This article demonstrates some of the problems facing Jamaican society. Certain criminals become so powerful that they run the neighbourhood. In fact, many are treated like heroes by the locals, as they provide things that the government does not.

You can see the depth of the problem in this quote from the article:

Bennett's name, or more so his nickname, 'Bulbie', as well as his goings-on, came to national prominence when Robinson, then a ruling People's National Party (PNP) Parliamentarian for South St Catherine, used him as a metaphor for the emerging politically-aligned "dons", about whose dangers she warned and from whom she told her parliamentary colleagues to stay away.
Robinson, in the sectoral debate, related how Bennett had sought her patronage and sponsorship to become the "leading don in Jamaica", but told the House she was incapable of giving birth to a 'don"….

Robinson resigned from the legislature the following year over a rift between herself and PNP councillors in her constituency over the kinds of persons with whom they were willing to be associated. (bold mine)

When the garrison communities were set up, it was political strongmen who ran the communities to ensure the people voted for them. This would be done using the carrot and the stick. Lately, criminals are getting so rich through drug smuggling, that they are trying (and seeming to be successful) at buying politicians, as is implied in the above bold portion.

Nothing is in the papers yet, but on the TV news this morning the first 15 minutes spoke about rioting in the area, with the general sentiment being from the local people being “Yes, he was a criminal, but he protected us and gave us stuff. There was no reason for the police to shoot him”. Rioting in Jamaica usually means people blocking traffic and burning tires/garbage. Perhaps some gunfire.

Tomorrow I will see what is up and post details about the riots.

Jamaica – 31 Oct 2005 - Happy Hedowe’en

Hallowee’en is supposed to be quite the party at Hedo. I cannot say for sure, as we left yesterday and the party started last night and is supposed to go all day. Hurricane season is just about over and the high season is Jamaica is starting. Hedo was the busiest I have seen it, and the people there were certainly there to party. The quad pool, which is clothing optional, was much more optional than clothing. There were also 2 large groups there this weekend. One seemed to be a couples or swingers matching service, with a large web presence. The other seemed to be just a group of people who regularly go to Hedo every year.

Anyway, my weekend was fairly relaxing. However, I am getting a bit tired of the whole thing. Five more weeks to go and I have gotten just about everything I am going to get out of this place, professionally speaking. Now I am just counting down the days. I should really have learned that lesson by now. One of the reasons I got out of the Army was because I was bored. Even the exciting things had too much boredom before and after them to keep me interested. Yet I am still taking various military “opportunities”, thinking each one will be different from the last. It is like thinking that, maybe this time, my spouse is telling the truth and will never hit me again. Once this is over, no more fooling around for me.

Time to get the nose to the grindstone and get myself on some sort of path.

Jamaica - As We Approach 2000 Dead

As the casualty count of American soldiers killed in Iraq during the war and insurgency approaches 2000, a number of left-wing groups have talked about using the 2000th soldier killed to push their political agenda.

Lets examine the "cost" in lives for this war.

The war has been ongoing since March 2003, say 30 months. Over that time 2000 American soldier have been killed, which is about 67 solders per month.

How does this compare to the murder rate in someplace like Jamaica?

This links to the murder rates on nationmaster.com. Jamaica is listed as number 3 per capita with 887 murders in 2000 and a per capita rate of 37. This info is sorely out of date.

This article quotes the Jamaican murder rate at 60 per 100,000. The population of Jamaica is about 2.3 million people.

This article puts the total number of murders in Jamaica at over 1100 over 2001 and this more recent article has the total number of murders for 2004 at 1030 on October 3rd, 2004, three quarters of the way through the year. Extrapolating to the end of 2004 would put the murder rate at 1373 for 2004

The Jamaica murder rate has been growing over the past few years, and I would bet the homestead that the number of murders in Jamaica will exceed 1100 for 2005.

This puts the murder rate of US soliders in Iraq at about 800 per year for the entire period of the war, significantly less than the 1100 Jamaicans killed every year. As more Iraqi forces are training and they take over more of their security, I am sure that the US killed rate has been dropping.

2000 America soldiers killed so that 24 million Iraqis could be free.

What do Jamaicans have to show for the approximately 2750 people dead over the past 30 months?

Jamaica – 25 Oct 2005 - We did it!

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining and there are minimal clouds in the sky. We have not had weather like this for over a week. Perhaps I can continue my daily trips up the peak again. It sounds a bit wimpy, but if it is too wet, I don’t go up. I have almost slipped a number of times, and a wet road greatly increases that chance.

I think I was a bit annoying to the rest of the staff the first week back from our break. During the break I spent some time with my parents, brother and sister. My siblings have two kids each, ages 3, 2, 10 months and 2 weeks. With 4 children that age in one house during holidays, you can’t avoid childrens’ programming. In two days I watched countless hours of Dora the Explorer. The show is quite funny, actually. Sneaky Swiper the fox tries to steal stuff and this is the first time I met Hero Star, the strongest star (He is the only Star with big biceps, and is obviously their leader). But my favourite is the little purple dinosaur/lizard guy who only speaks Spanish. Every time the group makes a decision to do something, the little guy repeats “yay”, “good” or “ok” in Spanish. Or something like that. My Spanish isn’t very good, but by the look on his face and what he says, I am sure he is repeating what Dora says. At the end of the show when they find complete the map or whatever, they always sing this song that goes “We did it! We did it! We did it! We did it!” etc. Anyway, I could not get the song out of my mind. Imagine being in a car for 7 hours with a guy who started singing “We did it! We did it! We did it!” after every successfully negotiated puddle.

I even pissed myself off after a while.

Update: Checking out the website, they even have songsheets you can print out of your favourite songs (I quote). No songsheet for the "We did it" song. Who needs a songsheet for three words.

Jamaica – 23 Oct 2005 - Minimal Posting and Hurricane Wilma

What a week. Hurricane Wilma has been causing havoc in Jamaica and with our plans. The weekend at Hedo sucked. It rained most of the weekend. Time at a resort is no fun unless there is some sun. The sky was very dark and gray the entire time. Let’s face it, no one goes to Hedo for the wet weather program of bingo and you can only sit in the hot tub for so long while getting rained on. At least we get one day free.

Although Jamaica was not hit by Wilma, we got the edges of her. This means constant rain and flooding all across the island. The trip to Hedo was a nightmare. It normally takes us 4 hours to travel the approximately 80 km. This time it was 7+ hours. We had numerous detours as flat bridge was impassable. To add to that, everyone and their dog was trying to get to the north coast at the same time. It doesn’t take much water to flood the roads. Whoever built them didn’t take into account drainage. In addition, the roads are about a half inch of asphalt over crushed rock. This means they can’t take much traffic and there are potholes everywhere. Add rain to this and the potholes quickly become swimming pools.

On Monday, the roads were so bad we decided to stay another night at Hedo. This would normally been great, but by this time the rain was so steady I did not even want to go outside. Luckily I brought a bunch of books to read, else I would have gone crazy.

By Tuesday, the road to Newcastle had been cleared by all the landslides and it was thought we could make it up. We drove back to Kingston and Up Park to meet up with the rest of the course for the trip up the hill. At about the ¾ mark, we hit another landslide. This is about 9 pm and it is already dark. The call is made to wait a bit and to try and get the JDF Engineers up here with their front end loader (FEL) to clear the slide. Not really a good idea in the middle of the night, in my opinion. After about 4 hours packed in a bus in the dark on the side of a mountain, we find out the FEL cannot make it up to the slide. We head back down the mountain and spend the night in a hotel. I get to my room about 3 am. Quite a long day.

On Wednesday it is decided not to further risk the trip up and we will carry on starting Thursday at the base in Kingston. This means a trip up by helicopter for a small number of us to get clothes for the students. I need to get a bunch of training aids for classes the next day. In Jamaica, nothing does smoothly and on time. To make a long story short, we had planned to fly up at 1pm, give ourselves a good 3 hours to pack up all we need, and fly back down at 4pm. Due to a bunch of things, including a casualty evacuation, I get back at 9pm. To top it all off, at about 6pm we find out the road is now open. How do I find this out? I am sitting there waiting for the chopper and this van packed full of people drives up and they get our cheering. Great passage of information.

We had planned to have classes in an old building on the base. This room had no AV equipment, so my Sgt and I went up to bring this stuff down. This is a big pain in the ass, as we have to pack up and weather proof a bunch of laptops, a projector, 2 printers, speakers and all the cables, powerbars, etc that goes along with this stuff. Thursday morning the decision is made to move the class to the JDF Air Wing. We rush over there in the morning to recce the place. It is completely wired for A/V stuff. All the stuff we brought was not needed.

What’s that you say? Stop complaining, the new location was much better. You would think so. Have you ever tried to teach/learn about 100 meters from a flight line? Since rescue operations were still going on, helicopters were taking off and landing all day. To top it off, and this is just great, the Air Wing was hosting the JDF inter unit volleyball tournament. The classroom exits right to the hanger floor, where the games were being played. I kid you not, the game was going on 10 feet from our room. You had to be careful exiting the class, as you could get a spike in the head. And Jamaicans love volleyball. People were yelling, screaming, and cheering. I did get to see some good volleyball. Overall, it was a comedy of errors.

After two days of that, I was tired of the place and just wanted to go home, so we came up to Newcastle on Saturday. The ride was quite easy, and we actually made it up in record time. It’s funny that I am starting to think of this place as home.

Hopefully we will be back on track on Monday. The course hasn’t been up here for over a week and it is starting to have an effect on everyone. The two days in Kingston were almost a waste of time. I think the students didn’t really absorb what they were taught, what with the noise, the distraction of girls playing volleyball, and the wild dance bars of Kingston calling them.

We shall see. I bet the instructors will have to crack the whip tomorrow.

On a more personal note, I thought the wife might still be mad at me for what happened on our vacation. I had no emails from her when I checked on Wednesday. I finally got her on the phone on Friday night. She is not one to hold a grudge and we had a nice conversation, so I think things are back to normal.

I guess I have staved off divorce for another week.

Jamaica – 14 Oct 2005 – Vacation Aftermath

My 4-day long weekend in Toronto was enjoyable. I met the wife at the hotel but we did not do much on Friday night as I arrived at about 10:30 pm. On Saturday we went to Second City, the comedy club where such people as John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Eugene Levy got their start. I had never heard of any of the comedians, however, their show was pretty good. If you see it look for the lizard skit and the lesbian skit. My two favourites.

Sunday we went to visit my parents and have Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house. We took the GO train, but missed the first train and had to wait an hour for the next one. It was quite maddening, as the whole scene was like a movie. The train started to pull away just as we got there. The reason we missed our train was the huge line ups to get tickets. Actually, it was quite funny. We missed our train by about 20 seconds. As we were waiting, this lady begged someone ahead of us to let her in, saying she needed to get on the next train. Join the club. We probably would have made our train if she had not been let in. Whoever runs the trains knows little about gauging how many customers to expect on a holiday Monday.

Of course, I screwed up with the wife. We have this ongoing disagreement about something. I tried to get my way by putting her on the spot in front of my parents. I knew she did not want to talk about it at the time and that I was putting her on the spot, yet I still did it. I was wrong. I apologized after but I don’t think she has forgiven me yet. She after I apologized, she said to me “You are just engaging in damage control”. I don’t like that way of putting it. “Damage control is something that politicians do when they are not really sorry but want to contain the “damage” of what they have said or done. I don’t want my wife to be upset. Not because I am afraid of what someone might think, but because she is my wife and I love her. To have her be upset make me upset. So, you say, why did you do it? What can I say, I am a man and therefore, I don’t think before I speak. I am working on it. If I was perfect, she would have nothing to “fix up” and would never have married me.

The wife and I should formally set up a system where she can signal me to shut up. Perhaps that fake coughing thing where she coughs and, under her breath, says something like “Asshole” or “Insensitive Jerk”. Or we could have a safety word like those S&M people have. Saying the word means stop everything. Come to think of it, we already have that sort of thing. Whenever she does want to talk about something she says, “We will talk about it later”. She was saying it during our discussion. I just ignored it.

Honey, if you are reading this, I am sorry. I still don’t think you are right, but I won’t put you on the spot in front of my family again.

This weekend we spend at Hedo. Since Monday is Hero’s Day, the course is getting the day off so we will be staying at Hedo until Monday.

It will be nice to have an extra day.

Those Mentally Ill Albertans

Maybe this is because we are working so hard to keep the rest of Canada economically afloat.

I Hate to Say I Told You So...

Who am I kidding.

This article says that, despite the massive increase in health care spending over the last year, wait times have decreased only marginally.

Is anyone surprised? How long will the politicians continue to ignore the experts? We need to change the system, not sink more money down a bottomless pit.

In other news, sorry for the infrequent posting. I spent the long weekend at Hedo, which was extended a day due to Wilma. We then got caught in Kingston, trying to get back to Newcastle. Right now I am stuck in Newcastle, having gotten here by helicopter. We wait for our ride back, but it had to carry out a search and rescue or casuality evacuation, both higher priority than us. We are spending a few days in Kingston, as the roads to Newcastle are not safe due to landslides. Once we get settled in Kingston, I will propertly update the blog.

Wifey, I will try to call tonight.

In that a Commenter asks…

When am I going to join the war in Iraq?

This comment is the usual leftist crap about the war in Iraq and uses the usual “if you like it so much, why don’t you join”. I purposefully ignored this portion of the statement, as I felt it was a bit childish. However, now I feel like addressing it, so I am going to. It’s my blog and I will do whatever the hell I want.

So, when am I going to join the war in Iraq? Nothing is for certain, but probably never.

Firstly, my country is not involved. I am not a mercenary. I joined the military to protect and defend my country. I definitely believe we should have got involved and have said so to anyone in discussions about the subject and on this blog. If Canada was involved, would I have gone? Certainly. Most young people who join the military have visions of adventure in their eyes. I had that, but I was also fully aware of the risk I was taking. I knew could be sent to any conflict my country got involved in. There were no wars going on when I joined but the job is never safe. Over 100 soldiers have lost their lives in the past 20 plus years on peacekeeping missions. This does not include the guys in Afghanistan. I feel the posters insinuation that I am not willing to risk my life for something is false.

So, when am I going to join the war in Iraq?

Why should I? Should I go and risk my life for a bunch of ungrateful people like the poster? Part of the contract between members of the military and civilians is that soldiers risk their lives and civilians give them respect (monuments, etc) when they pay that price. Does anyone else sense that that contract has gone by the wayside? Why would I want to risk my life for these people when they just slag me for risking my life, what I consider to be the ultimate sacrifice. You don’t have to agree with the war or reasons for it to respect the risk that the person is taking for their beliefs.

Besides, in my old age I am becoming more Canadian. We have been riding the coattails of other countries since confederation, why change now? Does anyone remember the Cold War where we shaded ourselves under the safety of the American nuclear umbrella? I had a professor of Canadian Defence history who used to describe in detail how cheap Canadians are when it comes to Defence. My favorite story is how, just after confederation, the Canadian government hired a bunch of retired British generals to come up with a plan for the defence of Canada. As good military officers, they came up with 3 options. The first option was what they recommended; it provided a good plan at a reasonable cost. Option 2 was a bit on the cheap, but if you did not want to spend that much, it provided some defence which would likely serve us well. Option 3 was not recommended, but it was the absolute minimum that had to be spent. Guess what the politicians chose?

Wrong. They chose option 4, which was to take option 3 and spend about half that. We can't defend ourselves, but no one hates us.

With even Ontario now saying that it is not getting enough back for what it puts in, soon Alberta will be the only one putting in more than it gets back. Welfare, free child care, cushy government jobs. It seems the Canadian way to freeload. It can’t last forever, so we might as well enjoy the ride. In a pyramid scheme, it doesn’t pay to be the last guy to jump aboard.

If this is the way we are with money, why not the same with defence?

Perhaps the only way to save the country is to let everything go to hell in a hadbasket. Maybe then everyone will realize how sick the system is and agree it needs to be changed.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Who is Rachael Ray?

Who cares?

All I can say is I know what I am getting the wife for Christmas and it isn't a cookbook.

Via Nealenews

I Am Just Happy To Be Nominated

Small Dead Animals is hosting a Best Blog Awards and this blog has been nominated in the Best Canadian Blog category. I am not sure why but I think they needed to fill out the field a bit. Anyway, it is nice to be nominated. The primary reason I started this blog was to get a bit of writing experience. The secondary reason was to let other guys know that they are not the only ones who have trouble dealing with women, especially when that woman belongs to the community of moonbats. (Another benefit of this blog is that I can (perhaps) win an argument, if not with her, then in the court of public opinion. We take our victories where we can get them.)

I suppose I could ask you all to vote for me, but in truth, I don’t think this is the best Canadian blog. There are a lot of good blogs on the list. Over half are already on my daily reading list, and I am sure to check out the others. I did not start this blog to win an award and I would much rather be offered a writing job with high pay and little work. So, if anyone out there works (I use that term loosely) for the CBC, think of me.

The daily traffic for this site has quadrupled since the nominations were announced, so I want to welcome the new readers and I hope that you enjoy some part of what you find here.

Vote early and vote often.

Update: Check out this post for updates on the results.

Damned if We Do, Damned if We Don't

Here is a great post by VDH on why we must fight this war versus Islamic Fundamentalism.

Jamaica – 6 Oct 2005 – Homeward bound

It has been raining a lot here lately. Normally we get 30-90 minutes of rain each day, but lately it has been a few hours at a time, several times a day. This has been due to the Hurricane that recently hit Central America, as we are catching more rain from the edge of the storm.

We had our usual BBQ last night and watched a local Jamaican made film called Third World Cop. Actually, it was pretty good. The production values would be considered low for Hollywood, but overall they were fairly professional. The movie gave a good look at Jamaican society and the police. I would recommend it for anyone interested in how Jamaica sees itself and the relationship between the police and citizens. Some of the tricks used by the bad guys in the movie to smuggle guns are actually used (or were used) by criminal elements.

36 more hours until I meet the wife in Toronto.

News Round Up

Here are a few recent news articles with I find quite interesting:

US aiming at Syrian regime change - I quite enjoyed meeting Syrians when I was in the Golan. I found them to be friendly, hard-working people who I think would benefit from and enjoy some freedom. I hope regime change comes and not too many civilians are killed.

Liberals rig Parliamentary calendar to avoid early election - Well, the Liberals have pushed the opposition days back to avoid the chance of a fall election. These guys cling to power like a man gripping a ledge by his fingernails.

Alberta earns more from private liquor sales than Ontario and Quebec - Private enterprise triumphs again. Why is the government selling liquor?

Does anyone out there think that the only reason Dingwall gets a plumb severance package after quitting is to keep him quiet?

Update

Here is a great little example of how the media can present a certain spin to a story but using one image over another. Thanks to Zombietime.

Jamaica – 3 Oct 2005 – Hedo III Wild Weekend

This weekend was the wildest I have seen it at Hedo III. This weekend they had the Miss Black Nude Something Something Something Contest. I didn’t pay much attention after the Nude part. Anyway, it was quite wild. They always have the big shows on Saturday night, so the main stage was turned into a strip show, as each of the seven contestants strutted their stuff.

Later, at the disco, things got even wilder. Saturday night the theme is “bare as you dare”. You can imagine what that means with a bunch of strippers in the bar. If you can’t, I can tell you. It means get naked and have simulated sex with anyone who is willing. For some of the strippers, this seemed to be their area of expertise. Again, if Hedo is the kind of place you want to go, be sure to go when something good is going on, or during high season. The type of people who are there can greatly affect the type of time you have.

Hedo III recently hired a new head chief, Joseph, who is from Niagara Falls, Canada. He seems to be working hard to improve the food. Let’s face it, the majority of people who go to Hedo are not going for the food, but for the “extracurricular” activities. This is why I am impressed with his effort. We have noticed an improvement in the food over the last 6 weeks. I was saying that the food at Breezes is better in quality and quantity. If he keeps this up, it will only be quantity.

The vacancy rate at the resorts has been high this season. Hedo III is still averaging about a 30% occupancy rate. The Italian restaurant, Pastafari, has been closed the last few weekends. This is unfortunate for us, as they serve the best food. I particularly like their antipasto bar and the Caesar salad.

Three more work days until I go to visit the wife. When this task started, I had decided that I would not see her at the mid course break. However, since we are still technically newlyweds and this is the longest we have been apart since we were married, I decided that it is important for our relationship to see each other. $600 for me to fly to Toronto for 4 days is a bit much.

But it is worth the money to keep our marriage healthy.

Jamaica – 28 Sept 2005 – If It Bleeds, It Leads

Every Wednesday we have a little BBQ, just to get a break from the monotony of chicken and rice. Today we broke the BBQ monotony by ordering some pizza and patties. As we are eating (about 7pm) we watch the local Jamaican news. There were 4 murders in the last two days in an area of east Kingston called Mountain View. Two women and a 3 month old baby were killed yesterday. Today, as many people were moving out of the area, packing clothes and stuff into cars, shopping carts, anything with wheels, another woman was shot and killed. She had packed some stuff, went back into the house to get a few more things, and was killed. She was 22 years old and the mother of five children, ages 9 years to 5 months. Now, usually the people who are targeted are involved in some sort of criminal activity and the word in the community is that these acts are a “reprisal”. Jamaica is somewhat of a macho society, so I do not think these women committed any crimes, but were likely related to other criminals. I am told that it is not unusual for revenge to be taken against a person by killing their entire family. The newspaper mentioned that the grandmother of the dead woman, 65 years old, has left the community because she has received death threats.

I do not condone any type of criminal murders, but even Tony Soprano leaves the women and children. What did the 3 month baby do? Or a 65 year old grandmother? Some of this stuff makes me sick. I am not a big fan of death squads, but it makes you want to just sweep through the city with a few good men and kill the type of people that would kill a 3 month old baby. The pictures from Mountain View show the area under a curfew and crawling with cops and soldiers.

After that happy story, they go to an item about a 10 year old boy who was hit and killed by an SUV. His grandmother is on the news, talking about what a nice boy he was, how he called her on the phone to tell her he was coming home, how she went to meet him at their usual spot and how she called him on his mobile phone when he did not show up on time. She then went looking for him, noticed a commotion down a street and, when asked, was told that a boy had been hit and killed. She immediately knew it was her grandson. Depressing.

I cannot comment on this particular accident, but I have to say, we were driving a few weeks ago, and three boys, about 10 years old suddenly darted in front of our van. The driver, a JDF soldier, slammed on the brakes and managed to miss them by a few inches. He actually had been slowing down, seeing the kids at the side of the road and anticipating that they might try to cross. That said, we have had drivers who are not so cautious, and I have personally seen many examples of people who drive recklessly. The only surprise is that more people do not get killed. A bit of advice passed to me: If you ever get into an accident where you have hit someone, don’t stop, and drive directly to the police station. Jamaicans tend towards the mob mentality, and there have been instances of people getting hit or killed, the driver stopping to help and a mob literally tearing the driver apart. No trial, no appeal.

One of the Jamaican officers watching the news with us mentioned that for many years he did not watch the news as it was too depressing. I can see how that would be. The last story was about a woman who had her baby stolen. This sounded like the usual mentally unstable women who asks to hold you newborn and then takes off. After this piece, the anchor gave an update to the story saying the baby had been found. One good story after all.

My faith is restored until tomorrow.

Jamaica – 26 Sept 2005 – That’s more like it

I had a nice, relaxed weekend at Hedo. The entertainment this weekend was more to my liking. Instead of the Red Hot Male contest, this weekend the Extreme Babe Swimsuit Calendar girls were doing a photoshoot. These girls were hot, with a capital H. Tight bodies like you would not believe, all of them very cute and young. They significantly raised the cuteness factor. As always, the blondes dominated the top 3 spots at the “contest” they had on Friday night. The redhead had my vote.

I think the key to Hedo is getting there on a weekend where something is going on and there are lots of people. The attitude of the guests really effects the type of weekend. If the people are wild and fun, the place will be hopping and you will meet a lot of interesting people. If the crowd is not as friendly, you might not have as good a time. If you were going to a couples resort and just planning to spend time with each other, everyone else doesn’t matter. Half the interest for Hedo is the other people. I would definitely recommend going to Hedo during high season, so as to experience the wild side of it.

The wife and I have finally come to a compromise. Instead of one of us travelling 24 hours for a 4 day weekend, we are both going to fly to Toronto and meet there for a romantic getaway. Not sure what we are going to do, but I will ask her to bring a bunch of stuff for me and will send back some stuff I do not need.

It’s only 4 days (she might get only 3), but I think we need to spend the time together.