The Flethers, Morgans and Manakers On The Rearing Of Future

Fathers In Urban Societies

By Basil Fletcher,
7 East,
Greater Portmore,
St. Catherine,
Jamaica W.I.

Table Of Content
The Flethers, Morgans and Manakers On The Rearing Of Future Fathers In Urban
Societies.................................................................................................................. 1
In Lieu Of An Introduction........................................................................................ 5
The Sale Of Three Goats Covered The Costs Of Insuring His Car.............................7
The Strict Shouting Father & The Insecure Daughter..............................................8
The Father, The Son And The Cow- A Story From My Grandmother.......................10
Queen Ifrica Lyrics "Daddy Don't Touch Me There"...................................................11
Brain-Powered Toys............................................................................................... 13
An Essay on Slavery's Hidden Legacy: Social Hysteria and Structural Condonation
of Incest................................................................................................................ 16
The Morgan Of Northern Manchester and The Fletchers Of St. Elizabeth and
Trelawny................................................................................................................... 18
Examine The Hand Before Dissing- The Struggle For Fatherhood..........................20
Fathers And The Industries Of Fear and Death......................................................21
Fathers You Can Help To Pay To Cover The Costs of Your Childrens Education With
Solar Dried Fruits................................................................................................... 25
Solar drying of fruit and vegetables............................................................................ 29
Save for tomorrow what you do not need today!....................................................29

This publication is about.....29

Advantages of solar drying......................................................................................... 30

Methods of drying................................................................................................... 30
Sun drying.......................................................................................................... 30
Disadvantages..................................................................................................... 31
Solar drying........................................................................................................ 31
Advantages of solar dryers..................................................................................31
The drying process................................................................................................. 31
Precautions......................................................................................................... 31
Predrying treatments.............................................................................................. 31
Washing.............................................................................................................. 32
Blanching............................................................................................................ 32
Procedure........................................................................................................... 32
Peeling................................................................................................................ 33
Cutting and slicing............................................................................................... 33
Dryers................................................................................................................. 34
Dryer loading....................................................................................................... 35

It is important to keep flies and other insects from entering the cabinet and off the
fruit because of the risk of contamination.............................................................35
Unloading the dryer............................................................................................. 35
Packaging and storing............................................................................................ 36
Specific products....................................................................................................... 36
Fruit....................................................................................................................... 36
Mangoes............................................................................................................. 36
Pineapples.......................................................................................................... 37
Bananas.............................................................................................................. 37
............................................37

Apples................................................................................................................ 37
Pumpkin leaves................................................................................................... 39
............................................39

Amaranthus sp.................................................................................................... 40
Sweet potatoes.................................................................................................... 40
Beetroot.............................................................................................................. 41
............................................41

Pumpkin.............................................................................................................. 41
Green beans........................................................................................................ 41
...................................................42

Herbs.................................................................................................................. 42
Cooking of dried vegetables................................................................................. 42
Amaranthus or cabbage relish.............................................................................. 43

...................................................44

Pumpkin fritters................................................................................................... 44
...................................................44

Banana walnut loaf.............................................................................................. 45

...................................................45

Pineapple and chicken wings............................................................................... 45

Sundried mango ice cream................................................................................... 46
Pumpkin cookies................................................................................................. 46
...................................................47

Dried-fruit patties................................................................................................. 47
Dried apple fruit cake........................................................................................... 47
Acknowledgements............................................................................................. 48
From Dung!........................................................................................................ 48
House Of The Rising Son Lyrics................................................................................ 48
Fuck Ar And Breed Ar......................................................................................... 49
How Much Yuh A Bet Seh Mi Fuck It! Pregnancy By Gamble..............................52
J Wray And Nephew Ltd......................................................................................... 54
Let Off First- When Scandal And War Come To The Work Place..........................55
Life is good in the T-shirt business........................................................................57
How a little moxie and a lot of optimism took the Jacobs brothers to a $100
million company................................................................................................. 58
Thriving in an Amazon world.................................................................................... 63
Sharon Anderson Wrights half price books is defying the trends shaking her
industry.............................................................................................................. 64

Mom Where Is My Father?..................................................................................... 69

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry..............................................................................72
My Mother And A Plate Of Food.............................................................................72
Beyond My Broken Dreams....................................................................................... 74
Sams Body Man- An Autobiographical Story Of A Trying Father...........................75
Some Additional Comments.................................................................................. 76
The Lost Boy - Greg Holden ( Opie's Funeral Sons of Anarchy ).........................77
Some Comments................................................................................................... 79
The Problem With Incest........................................................................................ 80
The Promise Of A Car- When A Fathers Words Mean Nothing...............................83
Gimme Shelter Lyric.............................................................................................. 85
Seven Women For One Man?...................................................................................... 86
Give Us More Husbands............................................................................................... 91
BURDEN................................................................................................................. 92
'Polygamy, Solution To Jamaica's Family Crisis'.......................................................................94
'Bag A Gyal' Culture.................................................................................................. 95
The Struggles And Hardships Faced By Persons Of Mixed Races...........................97
There Is A Road................................................................................................... 101
Congos - Row fisherman row lyrics.........................................................................102
There Must Be Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers and Criminals.................................103
Think Carefully About What You Take On!............................................................105
Wearing A Pirates Style Pants-Making It My Own............................................106
When Three Acres Of Land Is Not Enough To Divide Between Ones Children.....107
Woman facing prison for son's sexual abuse of daughter............................109
Peter Tosh Oh Bumbo Klaat Lyrics.....................................................................119

In Lieu Of An Introduction

A significant challenge facing urban family members with sons is the question not of only training them
to be excellent professionals and law respecting citizens, but also the training of them to become good
fathers.
This challenge is becoming more and more acute for many households, as the links between the
households and nature becomes more distant and as computer based activities replace human interaction.
In earlier societies and even in segments of existing urban societies, girls were and are socialized to be
mothers, from an early age, through the playing with dolls, the assisting of their mothers in the
households and by assisting in the taking care of younger siblings. For boys in traditional and or societies,
were socialized to become fathers by taking care of animals, be they sheep, goats and or other domestic
animals. For those with a more religious bent, the story of Davids boyhood or Jesus story about the lost
sheep could be used as points of references.
The taking care of animals, in those earlier or rural societies, trains the boy not only to be protective, but
also to take care of the young and to strive to keep a healthy well tended flock or herd; thus giving the
boy a rounded education in the area of providing and taking care of those who depend on him. Urban
society has in the main created a wedge between young boys, their training environment and the means or
tools for the provision of such training. What one has a replacement for such traing is training in the areas
of competition and team work; hence in the main the training of man the father has been replaced by
man the warrior.
The concequences of this type of training has real implications for the young man himself and for those
around him. The consequences of the training of man the warrior, produces an individual who not only
is less caring, but also one who is less tolerant to differences, less able to deal with opposition to his
views and less patient in general. This process of warriorifcation also poses real problems for the traing
of future mothers, as single child households become more popular, has hired help replaces the mother in
the taking care of children, as computer based activities replaces the playing with dolls and social
interaction.
While the challenges of rearing good future fathers and even good future mothers in an urban
environment are daunting, it is not my view that there is a need to dispair. Possible what is needed is a reassessment of the role played by pets in the development of children. What is known, is that boys who

takes care of dogs as pets generally do better in an educational environment that those who do not, are
less likely to suffer from attention deficit disorder, less prone to the carrying out of acts of cruelity to
others, less likely to suffer from depression than their petless cohorts. Maybe, the dog, cat, or hanster
could replace the herd or flock in the rearing of future fathers and perhaps even future mothers is a
question which as a family we need to examine a bit more closely.
Here, I would like to take if even a moment to bring to the fore one real life situation which is known to
me, and it is being brought forward not to provoke the religious among us but rather to assist us all in the
examination of the wider issues related to the rearing of good fathers.
I have had to long standing friends who attended both Chetolah Park Primary School and Kingston High
School (Kingston Senior) with me. One, who lived in the Inner City and from a single parent (mother)
household, did very well in both live in general and in the area of education, he earned, three degrees,
which a significant achievement is given the obstacles he faced and in my view is deserving of respect.
My other school mate, who while coming from a more traditional middle class family, living in a middle
class community, did not do as well; however rather than seeking to congratulate our fellow school mate
on his achievements, was blinded by the fact that our brilliant school mate wa/ is a homosexual. Anyone
who attended Kingston High, is fully aware of the fact that very few of the graduates of that institution
were in earlier days expected to become anything else than plumbers, carpenters, masons, gardeners etc,
thus when a graduate has gone out in life and done beyond all expectations, we all as fellow graduates
owe it to the person and the school to give recognition and congratualations.
A boy who grows up rearing animals, learn to respect the differences between the animals in the flock, to
accept the fact that not all rams will gather weight as they should, learns to accept the fact that there will
be animals born with various types of deformities from time to time, to accept the fact that some
regardless of his best will become injured and or lame, to accept the fact that not all will be equally as
beautifull, but in the end they are all his animals which he has to take care of. As a boy I had chicken from
time to time which were hatched with one leg longer than the other, they were my chicken, I took care of
them all.
Basil Fletcher

The Sale Of Three Goats Covered The Costs Of Insuring His Car
When I was a boy, a large section of the community which is now Arnett Gardens
was divided between a large cemetery and a squatter community. If my memory is
good, the areas now called Havana, Jungle and other areas on the left leaving from
the tank were parts where cemeteries once stood while areas such as Texas, Mexico
and others on the left were squatter communities. The truth be told, squatter
communities also sprang up in the then old derelict cemeteries. It was the late
1960s and it was then a common sight to see pigs roaming the streets of Jones
Town in search of food, the owners of these pigs lived in the squatter communities
mentioned above. Among these squatters was a family known to my mother. This
family bought its first proper bed by selling off some pigs. Some time later, most if

not all pigs disappeared from the community, this was during the outbreak of the
Hong Kong Flu.
Most recently, I was in the vicinity of the Mile Gully Branch Library, in Manchester,
where I overheard a man telling another that he had just paid to insure his car by
selling of three goats, which is practically the same as getting the car insured nearly
free of costs. In that region of Jamaica, people might tie out their goats to feed, at
other times, the goats are left to roam freely, unlike with cows, no body carries
water to give goats and equally nobody cuts grass or buys feed for goats. The price
paid for the goat kid, is the only input cost.
In the same way that a person can boast in a public place of insuring his car by the
sale of three goats, should not a student from a rural background be able to boast
that his or her father meets the costs of keeping him or her in school by keeping a
few heads of goats? Should not a rural father keep a few goats for his son or
daughter who is at College or in University, or in 6 th. form at the near by high
school? For those men with several baby mothers and perhaps two or more homes
to take care of, not also think of keeping some goats to off set some of the costs he
has to face in living up to his responsibilities?
It is important for a Fletcher or Morgan male to realize, that while things are very
difficult economically, the situation is in part as hard as they think that it is or as
promising as they think that it is. It is important to utilize the opportunities which
exist and also to learn from others who have found ways to over come the
challenges they face. While it is highly unlikely that the man in Mile Gully who
insured his car by selling three goats knew of the family which bought its first
proper bed by selling off pigs they kept on the streets, the approach taken is the
same:-the utilization of the opportunities presented.
Basil Fletcher

The Strict Shouting Father & The Insecure Daughter

Spare Not The Whip And Spoil The Child, Proverbs 13, 24

Most recently in the community of 7 East, Aintree, in Greater Portmore, a young

father who appeared to be a very serious Christian both in appearance and in
attitude, was walking through with his daughter, a toddler no older than about five
years of age. This little girl was going through an ordeal walking with her father. If
she did not keep in step with him, she was shouted at; if she looked at the large

almond tree across the road she was shouted at; if she looked at the dog at the
corner of the street she was shouted at.

Normally when men are walking with their children, they engage them in
conversations and at times speak to them of the things around them in the
environment, pointing to his, that or the bird over there; this father was over the
type that does not play with children and felt that it is constantly necessary to show
authority.

While it is my deeply held view, that Christians and other religious fathers have the
right to bring up their children in keeping with their religious beliefs; I would deeply
hope that the men of the Fletchers, Manakers and Morgans families realize the
following:-

1. That equally as a child needs to be reared to respect rules and authority, the
child needs to feel wanted, to feel a sense of security in the presence of its
parents, in particular in the presence of its father, a child needs the love and
affection of both parents.
2. If a child grows up in an environment in which it is led to believe that it is an
unwanted nuisance, then this child grows up will grow up with a very
negative self image.
3. If a child grows up in an environment in which it feels unloved and insecure,
then that child will have little or no confidence in itself and suffers from a
need for reassurance.
4. Emotional needs which are not met at home, will cause the child to seek to
satisfy those needs outside the household. Thus at times when one speaks of
teenage pregnancies, one has to critically examine the relationship between
father and daughter. Expensive toys, oversea travels and money do not
compensate for negative relationships, nor does tons of Bible reading. And
5. Some children are forced into deviancy in order to get any attention from
their parents, their parents take note of them and pay them attention only
when they are in trouble. Here negative attention is deemed to be better than
no attention; this is perhaps one of the reasons why the children of hard
working parents, including well to do parents, end up in problems and keep
ending up in problems. Without their giving trouble they have no parents.
Let all our young men , learn what is required in order to have a good start along
the road of fatherhood.

Basil Fletcher

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'WEIR'S TWEET HURT ME'

Female Twitter user says athlete's comments were harsh
Rosheika Grant, STAR Writer
"I was beyond hurt" is how the female Twitter user says she felt after tweets geared
towards her from Olympic bronze medallist, Warren Weir, went viral on Sunday.
The incident began last Friday when the female user posted a tweet which said, "Warren
Weir still run track?"
A seemingly offended Weir responded to the tweet on Sunday with his own that stated; "Lol,
at you looking like you wasn't my lil doggie who I told to jump and fetch. Don't act new when
you a THOT."
Weir then followed with another post, "Tell your fat friend come link me for track shoes and
come work out."
The female user, who declined to state the nature of her relationship with Weir, confirmed
that she was the "fat friend" Weir referred to in his tweets.
She further said she had asked the question out of innocence, adding, "There was no
malicious intent behind it."
Weir faced fire for his tweets from followers who bashed him for not acting like a national
representative. Some followers even called him the "third-place runner", questioning his
recent achievements in athletics.
The Jamaican athlete who deactivated his Twitter account for several hours later deleted the
tweets and posted an apology.
In his apology, Weir said, "My comments were unacceptable, and I make no excuses for my
behaviour." The 200m runner added that his focus is on representing his country.
Weir, who placed second in the National Senior Trials last month, will run his first European

11

race for this season in Switzerland today.

Weir came to prominence when he won a bronze medal in the 200m at the 2012 London

The Father, The Son And The Cow- A Story From My Grandmother
In the days of my grandmothers youth as it remains in many places in Jamaica
today, corporal punishment was the norm. My mother was the type of person who
did not scold us children frequently and would allow our misdeeds to slop until
that day when her cup ran over and she exploded in anger. At such times, the
only wise choices the object of her anger had, was to flee or run and hold on to our
grandmother for protection.
It was to my mother, my grandmother told the story about a father who lived in the
village of Bethany in Manchester, who had a prized cow which he would tie out to
graze in the hills. The cow had to be removed to a new area at least twice per week
and its container had to be filled with water, practically every day.
When his son became fourteen years of age, he was given the responsibility of
taking care of the cow, to ensure that it had water and was removed to fresh grass.
This every morning the father sent his son to do. One day about three months after
delegating this task to his son, the father went to look at the cow, but instead of
finding the cow, he found what could be called the skeletal remains of a cow near to
an empty water container. The cow was not moved to fresh grounds to feed nor was
it given water, it died of starvation and dehydration.
On returning home, without a single word, the father used a branch which was cut
to be used as fire wood and clubbed his fourteen years old son to death. The father
lost his prized cow, killed his fourteen years old son with a beaten of his life, lost
his family and went to prison where he was hanged. Relatives of this man still live in
the Bethany-Devon region of Manchester today.
The death of the cow cannot be blamed for the death of the son, but rather the
uncontrolled anger of the father was the cause. In the words of my grandmother, a
child should not be flogged by an angry parent. I would hasten to add that the

12

father failed to carry out regular supervision of his sons work, possibly if he had
checked up on the cow at least once per week, the cow would not have died.
Secondly, considering the value of the cow to the family and to the father, the
responsibility of taking care of such an asset should not have been given to a
fourteen years old boy. Finally it is my view, that the father failed to take into
consideration the fact that individuals do not mature at the same rate, the fact that
the father might have been working his own money or working his own field when
he was fourteen years old , does not mean that his son was at the same level of
maturity or had the same sense of responsibility as he did at that age.
The very serious misdeeds, lying and gross irresponsibility as were demonstrated by
the son were compounded by the anger of the father. When one thinks seriously
about it, one finds that the family and the father himself bore some responsibility
for the failure of the son. A boy is a boy and should be seen and treated as a boy.
Parents, in the family, please heed the words of my grandmother: Do not flog a child
when you are angry.
Basil Fletcher

Queen Ifrica Lyrics

"Daddy Don't Touch Me There"
Intro:
Stop it daddy
Daddy stop it nuh
A going to tell on you enuh
Chorus:
Daddy don't touch mi there
I'm gonna tell on you one day I swear
Can't you see I'm scared
You suppose to be ma father x2
Verse 1:
Everyday a wonder why ma daddy had to be di one
to take away my innocence
Oh sometimes a wanna die feels
like no one cares for me and it's evident
That something must be wrong with me

13

I'm not as happy as I seem to be

The long showers I take don't wash away the memories
Why do I have to face these tragedies

We go thru struggles in life I'm aware

But to have ma daddy touching me that's just not fair
Stop him from destroying ma future
Believe me he's behaving like a creature
Chorus:
Daddy don't touch mi there
I'm gonna tell on you one day I swear
Can't you see I'm scared
You suppose to be ma father x2
Verse 2:
all you mothers out there
Give a listening ear
Pay attention even if di man a pastor
Yuh affi mek sure before yuh trust him wid yuh daughta
Plus him will even try fi tek yuh son as brawta
Watch it mek mi duck him wid some dutty watah
Yuh cyaah hide nuh more now yuh affi meet yuh karma
If yuh know seh it a gwaan and turn a blind eye
Den yuh judgment ago pile up bout a mile high
Get suicidal if yuh tink it ago save yuh
Because mi sure seh yuh naah guh get fi si di saviour
Mi just cyaah find a name fi yuh behaviour
Is a lucky ting wi got a nosey neighbour
Chorus:
Daddy don't touch mi there
I'm gonna tell on you one day I swear

14

Can't you see I'm scared

You suppose to be ma father x2
Verse 3:
When yuh feel like giving up
Just shake it off and live it up
Di most high will deliver you
Cyaah jump di rope if yuh nuh try
Suh wipe da tears deh from yuh eye
Get di wings of confidence fi mek yuh fly
Tribulations a just fi mek yuh stronga
Love yuh self and it will help yuh fi get ova
Any flesh weh hurt a likkle yute will neva prospa
A passing on di message from di masta

Brain-Powered Toys
Two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs find success making playthings that inspire young
women to learn more about science and engineering

15

Roominate co-founders Bettina Chen (left) and Alice Brooks

Alice Brooks, at only 27 years old, is the CEO of Roominate, which makes
engineering kits for young girls. As a child, she asked her father for a
Barbie for Christmas. He told me no, Brooks says from her 3-year-old
companys Sunnyvale, California, headquarters. He said, Santa Claus
doesnt bring Barbies. Instead, he gave me a saw so I could make my own
toys.
Ask Brooks father, Rodney Brooks, one of the founders of iRobot (maker of the
Roomba), if he recalls refusing to buy his then-kindergarten-age daughter a Barbie,
and hell hem and haw and laugh. Well, he says from the Boston offices of his
current company, Rethink Robotics, it is true that I gave her a saw. Ill say that. And
she did have to make her own doll with that saw. But well, she has used that
story to great effect.
In fact, Alice Brooks has made the story about the saw into part of the corporate
lore for Roominate, which has already sold hundreds of thousands of its pastelcolored, snap-together building kits that can take any number of forms and can be
powered in a variety of ways by tiny circuits. She even talked about the saw last
year on Shark Tank, shortly before Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner gave Brooks and
her 26-year-old Roominate co-founder, Bettina Chen, $500,000 for 5 percent of their
company.

16

Without that saw, which Brooks used to build her own dollhouses, dolls and even a
dinosaur with moving limbs, she might not be in Sunnyvale right now making and
marketing toys she hopes will inspire a new generation of girls to pursue the kind of
education in science, technology, math and engineering or, as educators call it,
STEM that she did. Playing with things, making things and trying to figure out
how things work from a young age was really important in my development, says
Brooks, who has degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT and Stanford.
Roominate is based on the idea that playtime that involves building is especially
important for girls. Brooks and Chen want to make a profit, of course, but they also
want to change the way girls perceive their potential in STEM fields. Wed seen the
number of women in our engineering classes decline as we got further into our
studies, Chen says.
Their solution: a company that designs, builds and sells toys for girls that improve
their spatial skills and, by extension, has the potential to boost girls interest in
STEM fields. After graduating with engineering degrees from Stanford in 2012,
Brooks and Chen launched Roominate with $86,000 in funding from Kickstarter and
an additional round of investment from venture capitalists. Before the company
turned a year old, its kits were being sold on Amazon, then at Toys R Us.
Roominate offers several kits, and all of the plastic parts are modular, which means
girls can snap them together to form a dollhouse, er, a chteau. Or they can come
up with their own creations. The kits come with small electrical circuits that can be
used to power whatever girls can come up with. A fan. An elevator. A merry-goround. And all of those electronics can be controlled by a new Bluetooth-enabled,
programmable device. Its so cool to see what girls come up with, Brooks says.
This is basically storytelling through electrical circuits.
Whether that kind of play will change the current dramatic imbalance between the
genders in STEM fields is hard to say. Research has shown that girls and boys
perform about equally as well in math and science in grade school and high school,
but more men than women take STEM-related classes in college, and the disparity
grows as the level of education advances and as college grads with STEM degrees
enter the workforce. A 2013 report from the National Science Foundation shows that
women hold just 24 percent of all the available jobs in STEM fields. Some
researchers believe that the disparity that develops between men and women in
science has its roots in childhood, where boys tend to build more stuff than most
girls. An analysis of research released last year by the American Association of
University Women found that if girls grow up in an environment with spatial-skills
training, they are more likely to develop their skills as well as their confidence
in considering a future STEM career.
Playing with toys created by Roominate or a handful of other toymakers, including
LEGO and GoldieBlox, who have recently started making engineering-style kits for

17

girls, is certainly not as formal as spatial-skills training, but Brooks and Chen still
think their products can be formative. This kind of play lets girls really open up and
not feel limited just because theyre girls.
SHARE
JOSEPH GUINTO
is a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer who writes often about business for
American Way.
American Way July 2015

An Essay on Slavery's Hidden Legacy: Social Hysteria and Structural

Condonation of Incest

Parent Category: Slavery

Category: Articles related to Slavery
Written by Zanita E. Fenton
Hits: 3563

Zanita E. Fenton
excerpted from: Zanita E. Fenton, An Essay on Slavery's Hidden Legacy: Social Hysteria and
Structural Condonation of Incest , 55 Howard Law Journal 319 (Winter 2012)

In 1830, the Governor of Virginia granted clemency to Peggy, the slave and biological daughter
of John Francis, for murdering her slave owner. Peggy killed John Francis to end his abuse of her
and his threats of rape. Remarkably, the request for clemency was made by one-hundred (white)
men of the county outraged by the repeated attempts of John Francis to have sexual relations
with Peggy.
Most revealing was that, even though at least two social/sexual taboos were in serious danger of
transgression, no one made an effort to rebuke the conduct of John Francis or to protect Peggy
prior to his death. One may wonder whether these men perceived the greater offense as against
the established taboos or against what those taboos protected: the white patriarchal order (and
those symbolizing it). Indeed, the sequence of events demonstrates the strength of those
social/sexual taboos, yet reveals an unstated imperative to protect the actual heir to power. Both
the taboos and the apparent refusal to enforce them against those intended to hold power were
central to maintaining the social structure.

18

The history of slavery and its effects within the United States, especially the impact on the black
family and individuals who are African American, have been studied and postulated since before
slavery formally ended. What is less often discussed is the impact of slavery on white families
and the individuals who comprise those families, or generally the American family within society
at large. For both the commission of incest or miscegenation, the event(s) were publicly
condemned while simultaneously ignored and hidden, and thereby condoned. Despite the
imperative for racial purity, white men enjoyed a presumption of free access to slaves, as well as
to freed women. Indeed, because acts of miscegenation were so common, as was their denial,
they occurred in transparent obscurity. Further, this white, patriarchal, sexual prerogative was
unfettered and all but unchallenged, even when such access resulted in an actual biological,
incestuous coupling. Thus, the convergence of the taboos, miscegenated incest/incestuous
miscegeny, prompted the hidden exhibition of incest, first for relations between family members
of opposite races, but also for any correlate relations within a same race family. Indeed,
acknowledgment or exposure of incest between relatives of so-called opposite race challenged
both the social construction of race and therefore the basis for social stratifications. In the least, it
calls into question any alleged biological distinction and rationales for this stratification.
Unfortunately, it may also be that the social construct of difference may have made these kinds
of relations psychologically palatable because the relation could not be considered familial.
Nonetheless, once there was silent condonation for the liaisons between a white father and his
reflection in brown, it must have become more psychologically plausible that such liasons could
also occur, with impunity, with his reflection in white. The commonsense progression within this
power dynamic includes the unchallenged access of these same fathers to their white children.
Incest taboos have the purpose of permitting the development of children in safe environments,
free of sexual exploitation. These taboos also make the interdependence of families within
society necessary. The strength of the incest taboo may, alone, be enough to prompt the intensity
of the silence surrounding the subject, even in the face of strong indicators of its prevalence and
the associated problems with its occurrence. However, in the United States, the silence
surrounding incest ought to be understood in tandem with the silence pertaining to interracial
relations from the era of anti-miscegenation.
The core issues underlying a discussion of the connection between incest and miscegenation are
misogyny and racism. In Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, Ashley Montagu
discusses the parallel between antifeminism and race prejudice:
In connection with the modern form of race prejudice it is of interest to recall that almost every
one of the arguments used by the racists to prove the inferiority of one or another so-called race
was not so long ago used by the antifeminists to prove the inferiority of the female as compared
with the male.
Other prominent authors, such as Simone Beauvoir in The Second Sex and Gunnar Myrdal in An
American Dilemma, have noted the similarities between the problems of race and gender.
Myrdal observed that the myths perpetuating the inferior status of race and gender were almost
identical; the similarity was not accidental, but originated in the paternalistic order of society.
Correspondingly, the parallels between the taboos of incest and of miscegenation were at one
time so close, that during the antebellum period they were, on occasion, understood as identical.

19

This Essay is a thought piece, relying on historical texts concerning society, politics, and the
development of psychoanalytic conventions. The analysis offered in this Essay relies often on the
absence of text and direct evidence as a means to elucidate the apparent, yet veiled problem of
modern-day incest. Part I discusses the political considerations and legal thought regarding the
connections between incest and miscegenation, primarily from the Ante-bellum South, which
sustained the social order of the time. Part II discusses the prevailing family and its role in
maintaining both patriarch and the racial social order. Part III identifies the parallels between the
mythologies associated with incest and with miscegenation. It further discusses psychology as it
affects an individual victim and situation. Part III closes by addressing the possibility of
community-based psychology and mass hysterics contributing to the denial of existing social
transgressions. The Essay concludes by suggesting how the various constructs identified have
modern relevance.

. Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law.

Prev

The Morgan Of Northern Manchester and The Fletchers Of St.

Elizabeth and Trelawny
Morgans and Fletchers In North Manchester, St. Elizabeth and Trelawny who are
fathers and uncles who cannot afford to buy bicycles, scooters or skates for their
sons, nephews and cousins can build them ordinary skates.

20

21

Some times there is little or no money but things still can work

Examine The Hand Before Dissing- The Struggle For Fatherhood

We live in a society which is very quick to negatively label and frame individuals without even trying
to look at the hands the individual holds. It is perhaps an unique Jamaican trait not only to be
judgmental but also to seek glory and find joy in the belittling of others. My brother John in his walk
along the road of fatherhood has suffered a lot from this type of victimization.
John, as with myself, did not grow up with a father and with even less supervision than myself. The
types of punishment he had to endure as a child were varied in their cruelty, for example in trying to
punish him for leaving the yard without permission he was at times tied to the bed, at other times
he was made to wear his mothers long dresses and at least once had his knees grated with a graternone of these punishments or the numerous severe floggings he received worked in keeping him off
the streets.
John from birth had it bad, he was born with a single strand of hair on his head, he was not the
prettiest of babies, he was sickly-a very costly situation for a single parent with mouths to feed and
bills to pay, and he was not liked because some how he reminded my mother of his father-who for
her own reasons did not like. The last domestic helper who was employed to take care of us, when
she was not doing her own thing was abusing him.
John was very a very talented person, naturally gifted, but did very badly in school, had a very bad
attendance recording as a result of his skipping school to go on the road with friends, did not have
the traits required to join any organized group, a Walter Boyd type of personality, and gave all who
had the responsibility to supervise him hell. Our grandmother and Patrick Roberts mother-Aunt Sita

22

were the only persons who could deal with him. If the male teachers at school thought of themselves
as figures of authority, they kept their sense of authority to themselves, because John would stone
them.
Before one rushes to put the blame for his fatherlessness at the feet of our mother, it should be
pointed out that, Johns father, then a member of the Jamaica Defense Force made what could have
been to him a fatal error, by telling my mother about physical blows; after that slip of the tongue, he
was not seen or heard of again, his child John was born several months after on Asquith Street, in
Jones Town, Kingston. Johns father made no attempt to see or hear of his child, nor did he as far as
I can remember made any attempt to see our mother during her pregnancy or after the birth of his
child; yet he was man enough to threaten her with blows.Here perhaps I should note that Johns
relationship with women is also characterized by abuse, perhaps because he blamed our mother for
his father not been around and as a result of his experiences growing up. The fact that the man who
he grew up calling his father, made it known in a pleasant but clear way that he was not his father,
did not help matters.
To say that John grew up a very angry young man who felt rejected and unwanted by many would be
to be playing with words. Perhaps it would make more sense to say that my brother John is familiar
with the internal operations of the penal system, he knew what it is to wound and to be wounded.
While John had several opportunities for stable long term employment, he was not able to make use
of them, he did not have what is required for close long term relationships with institutions and or
persons and has a strong preference to be by himself.
Yet John, given all the above was and is a remarkable father in his own way, in that he recognized
his own limitations and short comings and was man enough to seek the help of our mother, Aunt Sita
and Aunt Elsie in the taking care of his children. He did not allow his pride to prevent him from
seeking help when help was required. There are many who looked down on the fact that sometimes
his child would be at this house for a week or two and them at another house for a period of time,
and could be lead to believe that they had no sense of stability in their lives; he John, was their
source of stability, he was there for them at all times, and those who he asked to look over them
were older women, my mother, Aunt Sita and Aunt Elsie who could provide the love and care of a
grandmother and or grand aunts.
Before we heap dissings, perhaps it would be good to look at the cards the person has in his or her
hands and how the person played these cards.

Basil Fletcher

23

Fathers And The Industries Of Fear and Death

The fathers of the Fletchers, Manakers and Morgans families need to realize that if
they rear their children to be without inhibitions and moral constraints then those
children as individuals will be capable of committing any crime regardless of how
gruesome that act of crime maybe.

We have heard, seen on the television, read in the newspapers about young people
carrying out some of the most brutal and depraved types of actions and ask of
ourselves how is it possible, and what could have led a person to commit such acts
of barbarity. If a person feels that he or she is free to do anything he or she wishes
to do, if a person has no form of internal moral or value constraint, then that person
is capable of doing anything.

Fathers, need to remember the saying that:-Birds of a feather, flocks together and
in remembering this saying that no young man or woman wants to be seen by his or
her peers as being an outsider, a nerd or a pussy hole. Here it is important that
fathers point out to their children that one cannot be a saint among criminals
without being an outsider or nerd and thus it is but a matter of time before either
through peer pressure or through the desire to fit in, that the most decently raised
young man or woman will begin to act as members of the group with which he or
she moves and hangs out with. Equally in school one cannot have a desire to do
good and to get good grades and hang out with loafers and with those for whom
school is but a place to hang out. Equally so it is in the wider world.

Here we note, that there are some societies, which have a need for criminal
deviants and terror plotting individuals, in order to justify their attempts and or
actions to increase over all and to effectively reduce individual rights and freedoms.
To this process we as fathers should not seek to contribute and help or sons and
daughters of the dangers they face of being recruited in this army of deviants and
potential terrorists tasked with reducing the rights and freedoms of all.

24

If a community is free of crime and from the threat of terror, then there is no need
to monitor the communications and movements of the individual, there is no need
for police presence and there is no need for privately owned fire arms. Fathers have
to be aware of what through paternal negligence their actions and non-actions
support.

2
If a group of individuals should seek to rob my parents and grandparents by means
of the Lotto Scam of their life savings and even their pensions and this individual
should turn to me to purchase guns for the killing of themselves, would I as an
individual whose parents and grandparents have been robbed by Lotto Scammers,
hesitate to sell them all the guns that they want?

If a group of individuals who are bent on trying to make my nephews and nieces into
drug addicts, drug pushers and drug whores came to me as an individual whose
family members they have targeted and asked me to sell them guns to kill
themselves, would I hesitate to sell them all the guns they need and even give them
a few extra ones?

In Jamaica, as in some other countries of the English speaking Caribbean, there has
been very high numbers of murders as a result of wars between gangs involved in
both drug trafficking and in Lotto Scamming; the guns used in the aim to commit
these murders are in the main from the United States. There are many who ask
what is the United States doing to stem the flow of fire arms to Jamaica and
elsewhere. What effective measure or measures have the United States taken to
stop this flow? Here one in my view has to take the position of father whose parents
have been fleeced by Lotto Scammers and whose sons and daughters, nieces and
nephews are being made into drug addicts, drug pushers and drug whose by those
very same people who are killing themselves. If as a father I cannot stop them or
arrest them why not help them to get rid of themselves.? The less of them, the safer
are my family members.

The politicians on both sides of the political divide, in Jamaica, are shedding buckets
of tears about the wave of murders and violent crime taking place in Jamaica
between individual connected in one form or the other with Lotto Scamming
activities. What is hoped that the average Fletcher or Morgan who is a father will
forget, is that while one political party regardless of how unofficial or distant it
maybe from the center, maintained good relationship with drug traffickers, and a
25

particular Oliver North of the United States and Ronald Reagan were pointed out as
the chief architects of the Caribbean drug problem as rational for that support; the
other party equally if even very indirectly maintained very good relationships with
the Lotto Scammers, it became possible to see drug trafficking as a Green
problem and Lotto Scamming as an Orange problem. Hence one is but forced to
ask if the tears which are been shed in the ranks of the political establishment are in
any way different from those shed by crocodiles.

Jamaica was nearly brought to its knees, many suffered and some persons died as a
result of the spread of the chikungunya virus. This virus as with the malaria virus, did not start out
in those areas and communities associated with frequent but official travel to countries in the region,
communities such as Mona, Havendale, Iron Shore, Brown Town, etc, but rather in those communities
and locations frequented by individuals involved in the drug trade. One could have used the locations of
the outbreak of the malaria virus to track the presence of those involved in the drug trade. The
chikungunya virus in Jamaica has its origin in Eastern St. Thomas in and around those communities
involved with the fishing industry in one way or the other. It is equally known, that Jamaican fisher folk do
not normally conduct fishing activities in the coastal waters of our sister Eastern Caribbean islands,
mosquitoes do not live on the high seas. As with those involved with the introduction of Malaria those
involved with the introduction of chikungunya virus into Jamaica can be painted either Green or Orange.

Both the drug trade and now the Lotto Scam have resulted in Jamaicans now being extradited to the
United States for trail and sentencing, the drug trade has resulted in Jamaica ceding some of its rights
over it seas to the United States, the Lotto Scam has resulted in the virtual linking of court rooms with the
United States, and both activities have resulted in Jamaica becoming more dependent on the united
States for aid and assistance in fighting crime. When a politician claims to love Jamaica we take that with
a tea cup of salt, equally as when they claim to have an interest in fighting crime; the police is struggling
under the political authorized burdens they are forced to carry.

It is of great importance that the Jamaican Fletcher and Morgan who are fathers, know the society in
which they live and are able to guide their children, in particular their sons. There is no qualms here when
it comes to the killing and burying of young people.

Basil Fletcher

The struggle of living is not one of finding the meaning of life but rather to preserve the meaning
of life. The burden of life is the acceptance of a purpose to life.
There are times when an individual is presented with a particular course of action which appears
to be good on the surface. A good father, knowing that the road to hell begins in many instances
with good intentions, tests the course of action against the Law. At times it is better to regret not
taking a course of action than to regret having taken them.

26

A good father must learn to flush all nagging pestering thoughts, they are most frequently
invitations to problems.

Fathers You Can Help To Pay To Cover The Costs of Your Childrens
Education With Solar Dried Fruits

Solar dried diced ripe bananas

27

28

Solar Dried Ripe Mango Chips

29

Sun Dried Bananas

30

Solar drying of fruit and vegetables

For thousands of years people have sundried fruit and vegetables to preserve for leaner times. New
technologies brought changed techniques, but at present the increasing demand for healthy, low-cost
natural foods and the need for sustainable income, are bringing solar drying to the fore as a useful
alternative for surplus products.
Save for tomorrow what you do not need today!

This publication is about

Preparation and pretreatment of different fruit and vegetable types for drying

How to dry these using simple solar dryers

Proper storage of dried fruit and vegetables

Recipes for dried fruit and vegetables.

31

Advantages of solar drying

Food in the cupboard for later use increases
household food security.
It creates employment opportunities and a sustainable
income.

Dried products improve family nutrition

because fruit and vegetables contain high
quantities of vitamins, minerals and fibre.

For diabetics dried fruit prepared without

adding sugar is a healthy choice instead of
desserts.

Dried fruit can be used in stews, soups and

casseroles or enjoyed as snacks. It can also
be added to cereals for breakfast or used in
making ice cream and baked products.

It improves the bargaining position of farmers.

Sometimes farmers sell at very low prices
during the harvest season because they
cannot store or preserve their surplus
products.

People are encouraged to establish their own

32

gardens.

Methods of drying
Sun drying
Drying in the sun is very economical. You only have to spread the produce on a suitable surface
and let it dry in the sun.

Disadvantages
Somebody has to stay at home
throughout the drying period to chase off
domestic animals, to remove the produce
when the weather becomes too windy
and dusty, or when it rains.
The dried product is often of poor quality
as a result of grit and dirt.
The product is often unhygienic as a
result of microorganisms and insects
such as flies.

Solar drying
The technology and capital required to dry fruit and vegetables by solar dryers is basic and the
entire operation can be completed in most kitchens. The structure can be very basic, e.g. a box
frame covered with plastic sheeting.

Advantages of solar dryers

Drying is faster because inside the dryer it is warmer than outside.

Less risk of spoilage because of the speed of drying. (if the drying process is slow the fruit
start to ferment and the product is spoilt).

The product is protected against flies, pests, rain and dust.

33

It is labour saving. The product can be left in the dryer overnight or during rain.

The quality of the product is better in terms of nutrients, hygiene and colour.

The drying process

Precautions

Cleanliness and hygiene are very important in the

processing of dried fruit and vegetables.

To minimise the possibility of contamination, any

person who is unwell or has infected wounds or
sores, is ill with a gastric disorder or suffering from
diarrhoea MUST BE EXCLUDED from the
processing operations.

All cuts have to be covered with waterproof

dressing.

Raw materials contaminated by moulds must not be

used in processing.

Predrying treatments
Selection

Use only ripe, good-quality fruit and vegetables.

Select fruit and vegetables individually.

Discard rotted, damaged or diseased fruit and vegetables.

Remember, processing cannot improve poor-quality fruit or vegetables.

Washing

Clean all working surfaces before handling fruit or vegetables.

Water for cleaning must be treated with a household bleach solution.

Prepare the cleaning solution as follows:

34

- Pour 50 parts of clean water in a clean bucket (e.g. 20 litre).

- Add one part of any household bleach (e.g. 400 ml) containing chlorine
- For safety reasons plastic gloves should be worn when mixing the solution.

One bucketful of the treated water (20 litre) is enough for cleaning 20 kg of fruit.

Use a fresh cleaning solution every day.

Selected fruit and vegetables should be washed and scrubbed individually in the treated
water, while plastic gloves should be worn.

Care must be taken to avoid breaking the skin of the fruit during cleaning and thereby
contaminating the flesh.

Washed fruit and vegetables should be placed into a clean basket or bucket and taken to the
peeling or blanching area.

Blanching
Before drying, all vegetables should be blanched in steam to halt the action of enzymes. However,
blanching of fruit is optional. Steam blanching is recommended because it prevents the loss of some
nutrients and the products being dried from adhering to each other. Do not underblanch, because the
enzymes will not be inactivated totally and the dried vegetables will deteriorate during storage.
Procedure
Pour several centimetres of water into a large cooking pot that has a close-fitting lid. Heat the water to
boiling and place over it, high enough to keep clear of the water, a wire rack or basket holding a layer
of the vegetables (not more than 5 cm deep). Cover and let the vegetables steam for half the required
time, then test to make sure all pieces are reached by the steam.

35

A sample from the centre of the layer should be wilted and feel soft and heated through when it has
been properly blanched.

Remove the vegetables and spread them on paper towelling or clean cloth to remove excess
moisture while you steam the next load. Cover with towelling while waiting for further
treatment or before taking them to the drying trays.

Peeling

Hygiene is of

utmost importance when peeling.

Peeling
raw materials

should not take place in the area where the

are washed.

The area
before

should be swept thoroughly and washed

handling the fruit.

Peeling
cleaned in

knives and working surfaces should be

fresh bleach solution before use.

The operator
thoroughly

should wash his/her hands and arms

with clean water and unperfumed soap.

Clean, sharp stainless steel knives must always be used.

Careful peeling with minimum removal of the flesh is important.

Peelings and seeds should be disposed of as soon as possible because they attract flies and
other insects.

Peelings can be
buried if there is

used as animal feed or as mulch, or be

no alternate use.

Cutting and slicing

36

Thickness of fruit pieces depends upon the kind of fruit being dried.

Thicker slices will dry at a slower rate than thinner pieces.

Very thin pieces tend to stick to the drying trays and will be difficult to remove.

Thicker pieces may not dry fully and may subsequently deteriorate after packing.

Packages of dried pieces of varying thickness appear relatively unattractive.

Cutting knives and working surface have to be cleaned with a bleach solution before use.

Slices should be placed in clean bowls which have been rinsed with clean water ready for
loading onto the drying trays.

Before loading the trays, these have to be brushed clean and washed.

Dryers
A basic box-type low-cost solar dryer can be constructed at
home or by village artisans. It is made of wire-mesh trays in
a wooden framework surrounded by a clear plastic sheet.
The solar cabinet dryer type has a surface of 10 m2 and is
capable of drying 20 to 35 kg of fresh produce (depending
on commodity) over a period of 3 to 4 days. Smaller
portable models of the dryer can be constructed depending
on available funds for the dryer, construction and the
purpose of drying (home consumption or marketing).

For further
information
available on solar
drying
contact
Mr MD Brutsch at the
University of Fort
Hare
Tel: (040) 602 2131
Fax: (040) 653 1730
E-mail: mbrutsch@ufh.ac.za

37

Tray loading

Trays should be washed and cleaned to remove any fragments of dried fruit or contamination.

Start to load during slicing rather than waiting until all the fruit has been sliced or cut. (This
reduces the problem of sticking together in the bowls and will allow drying to start as soon as
possible.)

Lay the pieces of fruit on trays carefully and close to each other without overlapping to ensure
the trays are loaded fully.

Keep flies away and load trays quickly and continuously.

Dryer loading

The dryer
by trees or
throughout

should be positioned in a level area unobscured

buildings so that it is fully exposed to the sun
the day.

If the wind
periods the
will reduce
the drying
reduce the

blows predominantly in one direction for long

dryer should be placed end-on to the wind. This
the cooling effect of the wind blowing direct into
cabinet, lengthening drying times. It will also
possibility of dust entering the cabinet.

Before
be swept
cloth.

loading, the inside of the drying cabinet should

clean and then wiped out with a clean, damp

The plastic covers outside should be brushed or washed clean of dust because dirty plastic
will reduce dryer performance and increase drying times.

The doors should be closed immediately after each tray has been loaded and not left open
until the next tray is fetched.

38

It is important to keep flies and other insects from

entering the cabinet and off the fruit because of the risk of contamination.
Drying

During the first few hours of drying, particularly during very hot and sunny weather, fruit may
dry at such a rate that moisture condenses on the inside of the plastic covers.

This can be avoided by

loading doors slightly (20
circulation. The gap
be covered with mosquito

opening the
mm) to improve air
should, however,
mesh.

Doors should be kept open

period of time and closed
the weather becomes

for a minimum
again as soon as
cloudy.

In poor weather drying will

stop. Rain will
rapidly cool the dryer and
this will result in a
moisture film on the cover
because of
condensation. It will be
some time before
the dryer functions again after the sun breaks through. Therefore, protect the dryer from rain.

Under fine and sunny conditions the fruit slices should be dry after 2 full days in the dryer.
However, it is essential to test slices. If the slices are not sufficiently dry, they will become
mouldly in a short time. A test for dryness is conducted for specific products.

If the slices are not sufficiently dry, the process should be allowed to continue for 1 or 2 hours
before checking again.

The final moisture content of dried fruit should be approximately 10 % (on a wet basis).

Unloading the dryer

When the fruit is

be unloaded as
carried out in the
humidity
moisture onto the
afternoon on a

Trays should be removed from the dryer and taken to a clean and covered area for removal of
the dried product.

The operator must wash his/her hands and ideally wear clean gloves when handling the fruit.

considered to be dry, the dryer should

soon as possible. This must not be
early morning because dew and high
overnight may cause condensation of
fruit. The best time to unload is in the
sunny day.

39

The dried fruit should be stored temporarily in clean dry baskets before packaging so that the
product can cool down.

Packaging and storing

Packaging should be carried out immediately after unloading and cooling because the dried slices will
reabsorb moisture and be susceptible to attack by insects and other pests.
Proper storage should take place in
absence of moisture, light and air.

the

The use of brown paper bags

tightly and then placed inside
is recommended.

folded
plastic bags

Store in small quantities to

scale contamination.

avoid large-

Pack carefully to avoid

the vegetables.

crushing

Glass containers are excellent, but these should be kept in a dark area.

Each bag or glass container should be marked clearly with labels containing the date of
packaging.

The dried products must be stored in a cool, dry and clean area which is secure and protected
against rodents and other pests.

Specific products
Fruit

Mangoes
Select firm, ripe mangoes
Wash with clean water
Peel
Cut into slices (2 - 3 mm thick)
Arrange on trays for loading into
Test for dryness: slices should be

the dryer
pliable, without

40

sticking together

Pineapples
Select
Wash
Cut off
Peel
Cut into
Arrange
Test for

firm, ripe fruit

the top and base
slices (2 - 3 mm thick)
on trays ready for loading into dryers
dryness: slices should be pliable, without sticking together

Bananas
Select good-quality fruit
Wash
Peel and remove the 2 tips
Slice into pieces (5 mm thick)
Arrange on trays for loading into dryer
Test for dryness: slices should be pliable, without sticking
together

Apples

41

Select good-quality fruit

Wash
Peel
Split
Core
Cut into regular slices (2 - 3 mm thick).
As you cut, dip the slices into lemon juice to retain the colour temporarily
Steam blanch for 5 minutes and remove excess moisture
Arrange slices on trays ready for drying
Test for dryness: leathery, no moisture when cut and squeezed

Cactus pears
Select large
Using a
the glochids,
Wash and
Peel as
Remove the soft peel and keep
(It is easier to remove if the fruit

(prickly pears)
ripe fruit
clean cloth remove
dust and dirt
cut away both ends
thinly as possible
to one side
is cut in half)

Juice the flesh and sieve

(This can be done by using a blender or a mixer)
Boil the juice
Add the soft peel into the juice together with sugar, lemon juice and salt. Cook for about 1 hour

42

For 1 kg peel, you need 750 g sugar, 65 ml lemon juice and a pinch of salt
Pour onto a sieve and allow to drain
Allow to cool
Arrange the pieces on trays and load into the dryer
Test for dryness: slightly sticky

Vegetables

Pumpkin leaves
Select fresh, tender
Peel off the hairy
Wash in clean water
Steam blanch for 3 to
Place on trays ready
Test for dryness:

leaves
outer skin
5 minutes
for drying
crumble easily

Tomatoes

43

Select fresh ripe fruit

Wash in clean water
Slice into regular pieces (vertically)
Arrange the pieces on the tray for drying
Test for dryness: a handful will spring apart after squeezing

Cabbage

Cut
Chop into
Steam
Arrange on
deep.
Test for

Peel off the outer leaves

Wash in clean water
the cabbage in two
Core
thin strands
blanch for 5 to 8 minutes
trays for drying. Spread evenly, not more than 1,5 cm
dryness: extremely tough ribs, the thin edges crumble.

Amaranthus sp.
Select
Wash
Place
minutes
Spread
minimum
Test for

young, tender and crisp leaves

loosely in a steaming basket and steam for 3 to 5
or until well "wilted"
sparsely on drying trays, keeping overlaps to a
dryness: crumble easily

Sweet potatoes

44

Select firm, smooth potatoes

Wash
Steam in small quantity of water until the potatoes are just tender (30-40 minutes)
Peel
Slice into pieces (3-5 mm) or shred
Arrange the pieces on trays for drying
Test for dryness: slices extremely leathery, not pliable, shreds are brittle

Carrots
Choose crisp, tender carrots
woodiness
(Not necessary to peel good,
Steam until cooked through but not
15-20 minutes depending on size)
Remove whiskers, tails and crowns
Cut into rings (2-3 mm) or shred
Arrange on trays for drying
Test for dryness: slices very tough, but can be bent. Shreds are brittle

without
young carrots)
mushy (about

Beetroot
Choose small ones without
Leave 1 cm of the tops (they will
during precooking if the crown is
Steam until cooked through (20-30
Cool, trim roots and crowns and
Shred with a coarse blade of a
shredder (slices are not recommended because they take a long time to dry)
Spread thinly on trays for drying
Test for dryness: shreds are brittle

woodiness
bleed
cut)
minutes)
then peel
vegetable

45

Pumpkin
Deep
orange varieties with thick solid flesh make the best product
Cut in
half (manageable pieces for peeling) and remove seeds and all
pith
Shred
with the coarse blade of a vegetable grater
Place in shallow layers in the basket, steam for 6 minutes
Arrange shreds on drying trays ready for drying
Test for dryness: shreds are brittle

Green beans
Select young and
tender stringless beans
Wash thoroughly
Steam for 2 to 3
minutes
Cut into short
pieces or lengthwise
Arrange on trays for drying
Test for dryness: extremely tough ribs, the thin edge crumbles

46

Herbs
This category includes celery leaves as well as other aromatic herbs such as
parsley, basil, sage, tarragon, etc. All these should be dried at temperatures not
exceeding 40 C. (If it exceeds this temperature oils valued for flavour will be
lost)
For best products
Water the herbs well the night before harvest.
Harvest on a sunny morning soon after the dew has dried and choose plants that are reaching
flowering stage.
Harvest with sufficient stem, then strip off tougher leaves growing lower than
10
cm on the stalk.
Hold in small bunches by the stem and swish the leaves through cold water
to
remove any dust or soil.
Shake off the water and lay on absorbent towelling to allow all surface moisture to evaporate.
Cut
off the handle stems and spread the leafed stalks one layer deep on the
drying trays.
Put
the dryer under a shade and cover the unventilated sides with a cloth to
reduce the light on the herbs.
Turn the herbs several times to ensure even drying.
Test
for dryness: crumble readily.

Recipes for dried fruit and vegetables

47

Cooking of dried vegetables

should
cover)
than th
in.

Water removed during drying must be replaced either by soaking,

cooking or a combination of both. Root, stem and seed vegetables
be soaked for half an hour to 2 hours in sufficient cold water (only
until nearly restored to their original texture. Never supply more water
ey can take up and always cook in the water they have been soaked
Greens, cabbage and tomatoes do not need to be soaked. Add only
sufficient water to keep covered, then simmer until tender.

Amaranthus (morog) croquettes

100 g amaranthus
4 tablespoons gram flour or bread
1 tablespoon masala
2 eggs, beaten
salt
pepper

flour

Mix the amaranthus with gram flour or bread flour, masala, egg and seasoning
Leave in a cool place to firm up a little (preferably a refrigerator)
Form the firm mixture into cakes or croquettes, roll in the flour and fry briefly both sides until
uniformly golden

48

Amaranthus or cabbage relish

100 g dried amaranthus or cabbage
1 large onion (chopped)
1 large tomato (chopped) or 1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 green pepper (seeded and chopped)
1 carrot (grated)
2 tablespoons cooking oil
cup coconut milk or skim milk
salt
pepper

Heat the cooker plate or coil until hot

Add onions and fry until glazed

Add the carrots and green pepper and stir for 2 to 3 minutes

Add the tomatoes or paste and keep stirring for another 2 to 3 minutes

Add the amaranthus or cabbage and coconut milk or skim milk. Allow to simmer at low
heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally

Add salt and pepper to taste

Allow to simmer for 2 to 3 minutes while stirring occasionally and then remove from heat

Serve with stiff porridge or rice

49

Pumpkin fritters
1 cup dried pumpkin
125 ml ( cup brown bread flour or
wholewheat flour
10 ml (2 tablespoons) baking powder
60 ml ( cup) brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
pinch of salt

Soak pumpkin in enough water to cover and let stand for 1 hour

Mash the pumpkin well

Mix pumpkin, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper together

Stir in beaten eggs and drop spoonfuls onto a light-oiled pan, over medium
heat

When bubbles appear, turn and cook on the other side

Serve with a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar

Banana walnut loaf

200 g chewy banana chips
pinch of salt
1 level teaspoonful bicarbonate of
50 g soft margarine
1 egg, beaten
50 g walnut, chopped
250 g selfraising flour
teaspoon vanilla essence

soda

50

Put banana chips, salt, bicarbonate of soda and soft margarine into a bowl

Pour over 2 cups of boiling water to melt the margarine and allow to cool, then blend
roughly

Mix the egg, walnut, flour and vanilla essence and add the banana mixture and mix to a
smooth malleable consistency

Bake the dough in a greased 1 kg-loaf tin in the centre of the oven at gas mark 4
(180 C) for approximately 50 minutes

Once out of the oven allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning over

Serve slices buttered or toasted

Pineapple and chicken wings

150 g sundried
1
/3 cup butter or
cup tomato sauce
1 small clove of garlic
1,5 kg chicken wings
1 cup fine, dry
1
/3 cup syrup
1 tablespoonful of lemon juice
teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce

pineapple
margarine
(crushed)
separated
breadcrumbs

Soak the pineapples in 1 cup water for 1 hour and cut them into small chunks

Heat oven to 200 C

Put butter or margarine in a large shallow baking pan and set in an oven to melt

Combine tomato sauce and garlic. Brush the mixture on separate wings, then roll in
breadcrumbs to coat all sides

Place in the baking pan turning them over in the butter

51

Bake for 30 minutes

Remove pan from oven and turn the chicken wings

Drain pineapples, measuring the juice (about a 1/3 cup liquid is required)

Combine the liquid with syrup, lemon juice, ginger and Worcestershire sauce and pour
over wings

Bake for about 30 minutes or until chicken is very tender, adding pineapple chunks in the
last 5 minutes

Remove from oven and serve with rice

Sundried

mango ice cream

100 g sundried
White wine or
3 eggs,
140 g castor
l double cream, lightly whipped

mango
tropical juice
separated
sugar

Soak mango in white wine or, for non-alcoholic alternative, in a tropical juice

Use enough liquid to cover the fruit. After hour of soaking, puree fruit with
soaking liquid

Whisk egg whites until stiff, then whisk in half of the castor sugar

Whisk the cream

Using a bowl, whisk the egg yolk and remaining castor sugar until thick

Add the pure of mangoes

Fold in the whipped cream and finally the egg whites

52

Freeze

Pumpkin cookies
1

/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoonful vanilla essence
1 teaspoonful lemon extract
1 cup dried pumpkin
2 cups flour
4 teaspoonfuls baking powder
teaspoonful salt
teaspoonful ginger
teaspoonful nutmeg
1 cup seeded raisins
cup chopped nuts

Soak pumpkin in enough water to cover for about hour

Mash the pumpkin well

Cream shortening and sugar, beat eggs in well

Stir in the vanilla and lemon extract

Put pumpkin through a sieve and add into the mixture above, mixing well

Sift dry ingredients and add to the mixture

Add the raisins and nuts. Mix thoroughly

Drop teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie pan and bake for about 15 minutes
in a 190 C oven (makes 4 dozen)

53

Dried-fruit patties

Select equal parts of dried fruit (e.g. cactus pear, peaches, pineapples, raisins, prunes,
etc)

Run them through a food chopper using a coarse blade

Add chopped walnut or pecans

Mix well and form into small balls the size of walnut

Press lightly between the palms of the hands to flatten

Roll in powdered sugar and place in the refrigerator to chill

These patties can be used as substitutes for sweets or cookies for picnics, deserts,
snacks, etc

Dried apple fruit cake

3 cups dried apples
3 cups light syrup
1 cup raisins
3 cups flour
1 cup softened shortening
3 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoonful baking soda
1 teaspoonful cinnamon
teaspoonful nutmeg
teaspoonful cloves

54

Soak apples overnight in enough water to cover

In the morning, cut apples quite fine, add syrup and cook until apples are very tender

Add raisins and cook for another 5 minutes

Remove from heat and cool

Add shortening and eggs

Sift dry ingredients together and add to the mixture above

Blend well, then pour into 2 standard size bread tins lined with waxed paper

Bake in a 180 C oven for 1 hour or until a knife poked in the centre comes out clean

Cool on a rack

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa for providing the
senior author with financial support in the form of Post Doctoral Fellowship and the Fort
Hare/Norwegian Linkage Project for financial support in the research of which this booklet is one
of the outcomes. We are grateful to the National Department of Agriculture for facilitating the
production of the booklet.

REFERENCE
BRETT, A, COX, D.R.S., SIMMONS, R. & ANSTEE, G. 1996. Producing Solar Dried Fuit and
Vegetables for micro and small-scale Rural Enterprise Development: Handbook 3: Practical
Aspects of Processing. Chatham, UK: Natural Resources Institute.

55

From Dung!
With proper tools, from dung electricity is generated and fertilizer produced. The
Land of Israel is as fertile or as barren as one thinks that it is. The duty of a father is
to encourage a child to think, develop his or her creativity and to cultivate
knowledge; with these and with reasonable opportunities the child later in life will
be able to stand on his or her feet.

House Of The Rising Son Lyrics

There is a house in Charming Town
They call the Rising Sun
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl
And me, Oh God, I'm one
If I listened to my mama
Lord I'd be home today
But I was young and foolish
Handsome rider led me astray
Go tell my baby sister
never do what I've done
To shun the house in Charming Town
They call the Rising Sun
My Mother, she's a tailor
She sowed my new blue jeans
My sweetheart he's a rambler
Lord he rides an old machine
Now the only thing a rambler needs
is a suitcase and a gun
the only time he's satisfied
is when he's on the run
He fills his chamber up with lead
and takes his pain to town
the only pleasure he gets out of life
is bringing another man down
He's got one hand on the throttle
the other on the brakes
he's riding back to Redwood
to own his father's stake

56

And me I wait in Charming Town

To gain my love as one
I'm staying here to end my life
Down in the Rising Sun
I'm staying here to end my life
Down in the Rising Sun
Read more: The White Buffalo - House Of The Rising Son Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Fuck Ar And Breed Ar

Unlike the pubs of Central Europe or the Irish Pubs of London, which can be and are
very frequently gender neutral and at time even age neutral, the Jamaican Bar
tends to be strictly male dominated with the role of women being restricted to bar
tending. Thanks to this particular characteristic of the Jamaican bar, an environment
ideal for the observation and study of the attitudes of the ruling gender of the
society and the environment also allows an individual to get an insight into gender
relations, i.e. the attitudes of some males towards women and the roles they assign
or would like to assign to women in society.

Like Prague and London, there are two basic types of bars in the Half Way Tree area
of St. Andrew, in Kingston, Jamaica. One finds in Zizkov, in Prague, Stand Up Bars
which serves the needs of the working poor, one finds similar bars in London,
equally so, in Jamaica one finds stand up bars in which the basic peaces of
furniture are bar stools, the bar counter, the liquor display stand and a refrigerator.
Then there are bars with tables around which an individual can sit and drink with
friends if one so wishes or one might sit around the counter, a privilege extended in
the main to long time close customers in the Czech Republic or in Hamburg,
Germany, but reversed in Jamaica, long time customers are those most likely to be
seated around the tables with their friends. Another major difference, is the fact,
that the Jamaican bar does not serve meals, there is no menu with ackee and salt
fish with dumplings and cooked bananas, the Jamaican equivalent to pork cooked
with dumplings and served with dumplings or potatoes. There is no cooked food.

57

Another very important difference between the bars in Half Way Tree, is the
presence or absence of glass doors. The bars with glass doors, through which
passers by cannot see, tend to be frequented by males of the management or
supervisory class, while those bars with their doors open to the world, tend to be
just that open to the world come in if you wish.

Rum tends to be the dominant drink in all the bars, followed by beer, rum also tend
to be the drink of choice of the more mature or older drinker. In my experience,
limited as it might be in respect to the Jamaican bar, rum drinkers tend to have a lot
on their minds and a lot to say after three or four drink of rum. I might be a bit slow
in the head, thus I did not know that there was a relationship between sexual
intercourse with women and positions within an organization.

It was as a result of one of my visits to a glass door bar, that brought from the
darkness into the light about such a relationship. Here one has to understand that
the glass door bar is a place where confessions are made, where sins are
absolved and where guidance is given.

A case of a man (managerial type) who was in line for a promotion was being
discussed with the would be promoted leading the conversation and seeking
approval from his fellow rum drinkers. This man was in line for a promotion, thus he
it came to his mind, that he needed to get a new woman, who represented the new
position which he was trying to get. Some how, the getting of this new woman, even
before the promotion came was supposed to facilitate the process. The second
part of his duty as far as he thought, was to get her pregnant, with her pregnancy
and the birth of the child (his child) representing the new responsibilities which
would come with his promotion.

Sadly however, in particular for the woman and child, the promotion did not come.
In other words if a person is a manager of a department and was called upon to
act as the head of an entire section or division, only not to be appointed as head
of section or division and person so appointed, the individual acting would be called
up to leave the acting position and to give up the responsibilities which come along
with the position. In this case, the woman represented the desired position and the
child represented along with its mother the responsibilities to be shouldered. Since
the promotion did not come through, both mother and child were put aside. If the
mother wanted anything for the child, she has to fight or argue with him to get it,
this possible reflects an attitude of a type to direction and supervision.

58

As a father, I would like to think, that I have spoken to my daughter, perhaps not
enough, about her later in life building relationships with men who seem to be up
and going or rich. I would like to think, that I have spoken with her about my
preference for her to be a participant in the building of her own home, be the
creator of her own wealth and to deal with someone who is walking along her road
and not a person long established in the field. In the same way, I would be glad if
the fathers and uncles of the Fletchers, Manakers and Morgans families guide
their daughters and nieces. If any should want one of our girls to represent his
social, organizational or material desires, we should not be afraid to send him to
find a whore house where he may obtain the keys to all positions known to
mankind.

Evil things have happened to our women and girls in society, the Jamaican society,
great cruelty and pain caused to many of our women in society, the Jamaican
society, because of what they are taken to represent, and the role they are
supposed to play in the upward mobility and or organization consolidation of
positions of men within organizations.

A Fletcher, Manaker and Morgans father, teaches and encourages his son to
become the best he can based on his talents, trained abilities, education,
experience and hard work. None of our male children, nephews or cousins should
find themselves, so doubtful of their own abilities, so lacking in confidence in the
quality of work that they produce, so unsure about their own abilities to contribute
to the organizations with they work, that they should resort to primitiveness and
utter backwardness to try to reach where they want to reach, to attain the positions
to which they aspire. At all times it is our duty before God and man, to remember
who we are and what we represent.

Basil Fletcher

59

 How Much Yuh A Bet Seh Mi Fuck It! Pregnancy By Gamble

A problem with drinking too much rum at any one time, is that it makes grown men
cry, it strips them of their worldly garments and leads to confess of their sins. This is
of course very different from what is experienced from the consumption of large
quantities of beer at any one sitting, where the individual moves from light
heartedness and agreeableness to anger and possible superman type of attitudes
couple with a strong desire to sin.

The men around the table in the bar (pub) were all rum drinkers, grown men of ages
ranging from forty five to sixty years of age, managers and senior administrators.
The bar I am speaking about is relatively small in size, with glassed doors which
blocked out the eyes of prying passer bys and air conditioned. As a young teacher
at the time, that bar (pub) which is in the Half Way Tree area, in Kingston, my salary
allowed me to visit at most once or twice per month. At the time I was living off the
Molynes Road, just before Ellen came to Jamaica. My seat was usually around the
counter, considering that I could at best afford three or four bottle of beer and a few
cigarettes.

One evening, during the working week, while I was there, I saw two respectable
looking management type of persons seated around a table not far from the right
hand side of the bar counter. One was crying out his soul, he had visited the Garden
of Eden and had plucked the Forbidden Fruit.

The essence of his woe and grief was to be found in the fact that the organization
with which he worked had employed a young lady right out of high school, she was
good looking, bright and dressed respectable. What would have caused grown men
in senior positions, to look with lust and urge for conquest at a young lady who was
the age as their own children if not younger, baffles me even until this day. These
grown men, managers, in an office environment (not in a strip club) placed bets
between themselves to see who could get into this young ladys panties.

The weeping man had won the bet, plucked the fruit and planted a seed. The
cursed girl became pregnant, some how his wife got to hear about it and as it
turned out both the little bitch father and grandfather were Lodge Brothers . He
did not know what to do, he cannot try to get rid of the girl from the work place, and
he was having hell at home.
60

Here was a properly brought up young lady, from a good middle class background,
who was trying to fight her way forward in life without leaning on her parents (at
least that was what she thought) on her own merit and in her own name, who
became pregnant by gamble.

What would have happened to this girl had she being from Denham Town, Fletchers
Land, White Hall Avenue or some other such not well to do community? Would she
be fired from her job? Would she be forced into an abortion?

If this respectable middle age to be father, sees his young baby mother as thee
of trouble in his life, the cause of conflict with his wife and the cause of crude jokes
from his friends and the cause of whispers in the office, what will be his relationship
with the child?

It is true, that the average healthy man or woman, walking down the road or sitting
in an office is not looking at his or her own face and most of times do not feel his or
her own age; however, this should not be a reason to cause a person to forget who
he or she is, to forget ones responsibility to self and to others, nor to act in a
manner unbecoming to ones position in the community and or organization or to
forget ones age.
Among us Fletchers, Manakers and Morgans, there are individuals who can no
longer be classified as boys or as youths, individuals with responsibilities at home,
in the community and in their places of work, who need to remember at all times
who they are, what they represent and the family they are from.

I as a father of a daughter would be very angry, if it came to my knowledge, that my

daughter or any of my nieces became pregnant by gamble, even if the gamble was
between males of their own ages and positions in life. How would any father feel if
his daughter became pregnant by an individual who could be her own father as a
result of a bet made between he and his friends? In our dealings with others, we
should ask ourselves, how would we feel had we been in the shoes of the other
father.

Basil Fletcher
61

J Wray And Nephew Ltd

J Wray and Nephew ltd is the largest producer of rum in Jamaica, with its products
exported throughout the world. The name J Wray and Nephew is very interesting
to me, from the perspective that it has led me to ask myself why is it that it is not J.
Wray and Son or J. Wray and Daughter. This wondering about the name and
conversations with my own daughter, has led be to two views, which are as follows:-

1
The dreams and hopes an individual father may seek to plant in his household and
the vision he has for his children, do not necessarily have to come to fruition within
the household itself but possibly within the wider family, hence giving rise to
companies such as J. Wray and Nephew. Here it is important that fathers realizing
this possibility create by their doing and efforts space for all their children, even if
they do not end up in the top leadership of those ventures which the father might
have worked for. It is important here to realize that each person is an individual,
with his or her own dreams and aspirations and not a clone of the father.

A father needs to understand that each individual plays a distinctly different role in
the building of an organization. Here one calls to mind the different organizational
roles played by Moses and Aaron in the leading of the Children of Israel through the
wilderness, the role played by Joshua also comes to mind. The role played by Jesus,
Judas, Peter, Thomas and Paul also comes to mind, when one thinks of the building
of the Christian world order. Peter was not known to be a great thinker, explorer or
debater, but he was a very stable person, Judas was in his own right an ideolog and
debater, with an unshakeable faith in the abilities of Jesus, Thomas was a disciple
but is best remembered as a doubter and questioner, Paul on the other hand was all
that Peter was not and could be trusted to carry the teachings of Jesus even in the
wildest of places. Without these individuals playing each his own role and with his
own personality, likes and dislikes, Christianity as we know it would not exist.

62

My daughter, is not a clone of me, nor is she a clone of her mother and she has her
own strengths and weaknesses. As a father, of course I would have loved to have a
daughter who would sit on the fence with me, to lift up rocks with me to see what
lives under them; yes I would be very glad to have a daughter who would run two
experiments with me and or to test a new recipe. My daughter is however is not
that type of person, she prefers the tested and the tried, her administrative skills
are beyond what mine will ever be and she is highly dedicated and focused,
somehow a female type of Peter. Thus as a father in working with my daughter, to
use a Christian example, is that of asking myself how did Paul deal with Peter? Did
Paul try to make Peter into a Paul? Could Moses had made Aaron into a Moses?
Could a Joshua become an Aaron or Moses? The grade sand used in the mixing of
mortar for the laying of a foundation or for the casting of columns is not the same
as used for rendering or for the laying of tiles. Each thing has a role to play in the
building of a structure, equally so does each individual has a role to play in the
building of an organization.

Perhaps Lisa Hanna, the Minister of Culture here in Jamaica will perhaps never
become a Ronald Thwaites, the Minister of Education, nor will she ever perhaps be a
Peter Phillips the Minister of Finance, and as a person who likes her a lot, I too have
to understand that Cousin Thwaites is Cousin Thwaites, Peter Phillips is Peter Phillips
and Lisa Hanna is Lisa Hanna.

Basil Fletcher

A Comment

I have seen individuals whose nominal incomes are very small, yet these are
the same persons by the end of each year would have discarded at least two
weeks salary with their own hands on the side walks, in the streets, in the
plazas and at the cashier. These sufferers have no use for cents and one
dollar coins. On the other hand I am yet to see a single storeowner, wholesale
operator, bank or utility company which does not collect down to the last cent
on sales, for services or for loans. I am yet to see a rich man or woman not
collecting his or her twenty cents coin. The value of a currency depends a lot

63

on how strong the citizenry or a country wants it to be and the value they
place on the smallest copper cent.

Let Off First- When Scandal And War Come To The Work Place

There are many mothers of children, right here in Jamaica, who are forced to endure
embarrassment and humiliation when they try to get monies from the fathers of
their children for their maintenance and care. These fathers are in the main men
whose interest in the treasure which is between the legs of the mothers of their
children stands over and above the welfare of their children. Men of these men in
these cases are the fathers of children outside their established relationships or
marriages.

There are at least three cases which I know of, in which the mothers were forced to
go to the work places of the fathers of their children, for maintenance monies for
the simple reason that, should the requests be made elsewhere its granting
becomes dependent on the women involved letting off some sex first.

This kind of approach not only reflects the low value and lack of importance
attached by these fathers to their children but also the lack of regard for and
respect for the mothers of the children involved. In fact the approach taken is
identical to the approach taken by a man in dealing with a prostitute. An approach
which belittles and demeans both the mothers and children, especially in those
cases where these men are married or are in established relationships with other
women and have children at their homes.

In these cases, the mothers of the outside children are placed under immense
pressure to prove that they are equal or better than the wives or the other women
at home.. I have seen instances in which demands and or expectations were placed
on outside mothers and children to sit at the back of the Church during the funeral
of their deceased fathers and not to travel or mourn with the family. This sort of
situation comes about as a direct result of the disrespect first shown by the fathers
involved, who during their lives tried to make whores out of the outside mothers of
their children; situations which have a devastating impact on both the mothers and
children involved-they are not good enough- they are nothing-the mothers are
whores-bitches etc.

64

A second unspoken aspect of this issue, is the fact that by matching child support
with the letting off of sex, the fathers of the children involved, set out to
undermine any other relationship the mothers of their children might be involved in
and by doing so try to prevent them from moving on with their lives. Many of these
men also take the view, that should the mothers of their outside children and in
some cases former wives, get married, then their paternal responsibilities to provide
for their children cease.

Society and the educational system in particular are forced to deal with the children
of these relationships who are filled with class and or racial anger, children suffering
from a lack of confidence in themselves in one dimension and who are super boys
and girls in another dimension, children for whom fitting in pose serious
challenges.

It is my deepest desire and hope, and that of the vast majority of the members of
the Fletchers, Manakers and Morgans families, that our men are not counted
among this group, and were there are such members of the families, that an
immediate stop be placed on this destructive and disgraceful behavior.

Basil Fletcher

Life is good in the T-shirt business

by
Dinah Eng
MAY 1, 2014, 11:49 AM EDT

65

How a little moxie and a lot of optimism took the Jacobs brothers to a $100 million
company.
If youre a new college grad who is crazy about art and want to avoid working nine to five, what
do you do? For brothers Bert Jacobs, now 49, and John Jacobs, now 46, the answer was to drive
a used van up and down the East Coast, selling T-shirts printed with their artwork. After five
years of barely staying afloat and with just $78 in the bank, they decided to add optimistic
messages to the T-shirts. That one seemingly minor modification launched a $100 million
apparel business. Today, Life Is Good T-shirts, hats, and other items are sold by 4,500 retail
stores nationwide, and the company offers co-branded greeting cards and stationery with

66

Hallmark, a line of gourmet coffee with J.M. Smucker, and dog accessories with Planet Dog, all
promoting positive thoughts.
John Jacobs: We grew up in Needham, Mass. My brother Bert and I are the youngest of six. Dad
worked in a machine shop, and Mom stayed home.
Bert Jacobs: Both parents influenced us to be open-minded and to welcome ideas and thoughts
from all walks of life. When I was 8, I had a seed-selling business, and during college I had a
house-painting business called Positive Painting, which may have been a precursor to Life Is
Good. I always wanted to go into business, and I graduated in 1987 with a BA in
communications from Villanova University.
John: I graduated in 1990 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a BA in English
and a minor in art.
Bert: After graduating, I drove out to Colorado and went to work in a ski town. I delivered pizza
at night and was a ski instructor during the day for a year. John was in school in Northern
California on an exchange program, and we decided to do a cross-country road trip back to
Boston. Along the way, we talked about developing a business together.
MORE: LinkAmerica the 18th time was the charm
John: Both Bert and I liked to draw and were looking for a way to combine art and business to
avoid getting a job. We realized T-shirts could be a vehicle for art. So in 1989 we started selling
them on the street in Boston and in places like Harvard Square and Faneuil Hall. As we started
the business, we both supplemented our income for a year with substitute teaching.
Bert: Selling 12 to 15 T-shirts in an afternoon was good. On a bad day, wed sell nothing.
John: A year or two into it, we bought a used van and took the show on the road. Wed chart out
six- to seven-week road trips to area colleges.

67

Bert: We started selling in college dormitories, and the success rate was better than selling on the
street. There was a clear demographic target there.
We learned that if you found the girl everybody admired, and she liked your shirt, shed sell the
shirt for you. It was the queen bee factor. We got male friends to do the same in mens dorms for
us. We were selling enough to keep the dream alive and not have to get a job. After 5 years of
selling T-shirts, we had $78 in the bank.
MORE: Stein Mart from $43 to $1.3 billion in three generations
John: Then, in 1994, we talked about how people seemed worn down by the medias constant
focus on the negative side of information. That led to a keg party at our apartment where we put
drawings up on a wall. We had done a lot of music-inspired, cool, funky designs. But when we
asked friends to write notes next to the drawings, we got a lot of comments about one drawing [a
stick figure that smiled]. We decided to pair the figure with the words LIFE IS GOOD and
printed up 48 T-shirts with it. We went to a street fair and sold all of them in the first hour. It
confirmed that people were craving something positive that focused on the good, instead of
whats wrong with the world. The T-shirts sold for $15, or three for $40, and we started taking
them to stores.
Bert: Suddenly retailers started asking, Does the smiley guy eat ice cream? Does he rollerskate? What else do you have? We reacted to what people wanted and started drawing things
that depicted the things that make life good.
John: We gave the character our nickname, Jake. My friends called me Jake, and Berts friends
called him Jake, but when we were together, theyd call us John and Bert. Our design was just
different from the edgy, boastful, in-your-face slogans that were on T-shirts at the time.
Bert: Our concept was that optimism is powerful.
MORE: Planting the seeds for 1-800-Flowers.com

68

John: We ended up hiring a sales rep to take the product up and down the coast. There was a
stretch where we opened an account every day for 70 days. During that time, we operated out of
our apartment. Wed drive to the screenprinter, print the T-shirts, box them up ourselves, and
mail them.
In the late 90s we rented the back of an 18-wheeler, which became our warehouse, and got
permission to park it next to the screenprinter. Back then our lifestyle meant eating cereal, PB&J,
and pasta every night. We started with mom-and-pop stores, then broke into chains like REI and
Dicks Sporting Goods DKS -0.04% . By 1996 we were making $260,000 a year.
Bert: Kerrie Gross, the girl who lived above us, helped us process the orders. In 1998 we hired
her to take care of the office and sales reps.
John: Kerrie is now a partner in the business. In the late 90s we got our first office in Needham.
It was exciting to have an actual warehouse. In 1998, when we crossed the million-dollar mark in
revenue, investors came to us, wanting a piece of the equity. But we liked being able to call the
shots, so we chose not to go the VC route, and sought a bank loan instead.
Bert: That was the first time we had to draw up a business plan. We got a half million dollars in
credit to manufacture our own label of T-shirts. At the time, we were getting T-shirts from local
screenprinters and were printing our artwork on Hanes shirts. To trademark LIFE IS GOOD, we
had to put hangtags on the clothing, have our own label, and some other things.
MORE: The sweet smell of Jo Malones success
John: We didnt have a marketing strategy, and when people suggested we do advertising, it
didnt feel right. At the same time, we were getting notes and emails from people facing
adversity like chemotherapy or the loss of a loved one telling us how Life Is Good T-shirts
had helped them.

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We got inspired by those people and decided to start a foundation. Now, instead of advertising,
we put on festivals that benefit kids who are overcoming violence, poverty, and illness, and
promote the Life Is Good brand that way.
Bert: We originally called ourselves Jacobs Gallery but decided to change it to Life Is Good
because we loved what the message is all about.
John: At this point, we have teammates much smarter than us in so many areas of the business.
They enable Bert and me to focus on what we do best.
In 2012 we began a partnership with Hallmark to create greeting cards and stationery, using our
sayings and artwork. We also have partnerships with Smuckers SJM -0.15% and Planet Dog.
Were eager to get into other things, like publishing and filmmaking.
Bert: Were going to become more of a media and communications company. Apparel is just
where it started. We can become a billion-dollar company driving positive social change,
teaching, and reinforcing the values we think are most important in the world.
MORE: The rise of the Tweezerman
John: Customers are looking for businesses that exist for a reason, and with social media today,
transparency and authenticity are a must. People will build your business up if they believe in
you, and theyll tear you down in a heartbeat if they dont.
Bert: My brother and I disagree morning, noon, and night about the right approaches for the
company short-term. But we agree 100% on long-term strategies and the values of the brand. We
push each others buttons and go at it, but 10 minutes later, well be having a beer. Life Is Good
isnt about us. Its about how people face the shadows of life.

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John: Most of us want to smile, laugh, help other people, and be grateful for what we have.
People who face great adversity gain clarity about whats important in life. Optimism helps us
persevere. Life isnt easy. But life is good.
Our advice
Blur the line between work and play. We spend a lot of waking hours at work, so inject fun,
laughter, and energy into the workday. At company meetings our employees play live music, or
we might go snow tubing on a mountain. Theres real information shared at the meetings, then
afterward we cut loose.
Failures are how you learn, adjust, and stay nimble. At the first trade show we ever went to, we
were telling people it was our first grand opening, until a kind retailer told us to stop tooting that
we were brand new because no one wanted to buy unproven products.
Be transparent. You dont have to be right or have all the answers. Youve got to be able to tell
people whats happening good, bad, or ugly. Then others can help solve the problem. People
dont like us because were geniuses. People like us because they know were trying, and they
trust us.
This story is from the May 19, 2014 issue of Fortune.

Thriving in an Amazon world

by

Dinah Eng

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SEPTEMBER 18, 2014, 7:20 AM EDT

E-mail

Sharon Anderson Wrights half price books is defying the trends shaking her industry.
Dont tell Sharon Anderson Wright that bookstores are a dying industry. The 56-year-old CEO of
Half Price Books took a disorganized collection of stores co-founded by her momthey started
by selling used paperbacks and hardcovers out of a dingy former laundromatand transformed

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the operation into a chain that is defying a seemingly inexorable tide. While bookstores are
shuttered around the country and industry revenue has decreased an average of 3.2% a year over
the past five years, Half Price Books is growing. It opens about five stores a year, with revenues
rising from $50 million in 1995 to $240 million in 2013. The company is able to resist the
Amazon.com tsunami by diversifying its offerings and preserving an in-store experience, while
keeping its real estate costs low and remaining debt-free as it expands beyond its 120 retail
locations in 16 states. And today the stores still honor their founding promise: Theyll buy
virtually anything that is printed (or recorded), excepting newspapers. Thats a proposition that
keeps customers returningin any era.
I was born in Tulsa, the youngest of three girls. When I was 5, we moved to Texas, and my dad
became a cuckoo-clock salesman. In 1968 my mom [Pat Anderson] decided to get her
psychology degree. Ken Gjemere [pronounced jim-ree] was a buyer for Zales, which my dad
sold to, and our families hung out together.
Ken was a World War II vet who was awarded the Silver Star for valor. He became an
environmentalist and a staunch peace activist during the Vietnam War years. I always called him
our fearless leader. My mom was a protesting hippie type, and they both loved books and
recycling. After Ken and Pat separated from their spouses, they moved toward being a couple,
and in 1972 they decided to go into business together and start a bookstore. They never married,
but every Tuesday they decided to stay together for another week.
They found a 2,000-square-foot location on Lovers Lane in Dallas. It was a ratty old laundromat.
The monthly rent was $174. We cleaned it up, built our own shelves, and painted it. Wed load
the trucks, unstop the toilet, everything.
As a teenager, I read Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinleinanything science fiction and strange. I
was 13, and my job was to sort out the books and shelve them. I became kind of an
anthropologist, watching what people read, what they sold and bought.

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There werent many bookstores at all back then. Ours was an original concept. Pat and Ken
wanted to make sure there were affordable reading options for everyone in a comfortable,
inviting place to shop. By buying all the items people brought in, they werent censoring anyone.
Wed pay cash for anything printed or recorded except yesterdays newspaper, which meant we
had current offerings to sell. It was different from other used bookstores, where you traded for
books, or high-end antiquarian stores, which intimidated people. We did so well, we opened our
second location eight months later in a former meat-storage place.
My mom had kept all the books by hand. She had written stuff on envelopesIt was a
huge challenge to figure out the bookkeeping.
Sharon Anderson Wright
It was always a challenge to have cash on hand to pay people. You couldnt say, We dont have
the money to pay you. I dont know how Pat and Ken managed. But we never were fancy
people, so I dont think we would have noticed any hardships. We ate ravioli out of a can and
hamburger casseroles.
In 1976, after I graduated from high school, I became the manager of our store in Richardson,
Texas. My dog Dylan and I were the only ones there most of the time. Id hide the money in a
coffee can behind a section somewhere when I needed to go out to get something to eat. In our
music section, we bought 45s, eight-track-tape cassettes, Beatles records. Now we have iPads as
well as high-end vinyl. Its come full circle.
Ellen, my oldest sister, is chairperson of the board now. Both of her children are in the business
too.

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Wright with

her mother, Pat Anderson (left), outside their St. Paul store in the late 1980sPhoto: Courteys of
Half Price Books
From 1979 to 1981, I worked four days a week as a bookseller in the flagship store and took
classes at Richland Junior College. I never got a better offer, and eventually it was obvious I was
the one who would stick around. I became Dallas district manager, then general manager in
1990, and started shadowing my mom.
We spent almost every day together. She was a smoker and had chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease. She lost patience in her last couple of years. We knew she wasnt long for this world.
The day she died, Ken was partially retired, and I became president and CEO. I was scared to
death. It was 1995, and I was 37. My mom was 40 when she opened the first store in 1972.
My mom had kept all the books by hand. She had written stuff on envelopes and little notes. It
was a huge challenge to figure out the bookkeeping. In 1995 we had 55 stores, with $50 million
in sales. I had had no formal education, and everyone was very patient, teaching me. I had

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incredibly supportive people who had been there a long time. The head of operations [and] the
CFO were all around from the time I was a kid and wanted me to succeed.
There are still a lot of people who like to browse bookstores and be surprised by what they
find. People like to handle paper. Its the permanency of it.
Ive always operated with consensus. People did what they needed to do, and I learned what I
needed to learn. We only did what we could afford to pay for, so we always operated on a cash
basis. I had my first kid at 40, then the second one at 43. Theyre my priority, so Im often
answering emails at 1 to 2 a.m.
Today we have our own publishing arm, and we produce our own stationery, calendars, and CD
wallets to sell. Our wholesale division sells to museums, independent bookstores, and Barnes &
Noble. We have five to six buyers traveling the country, buying remainders that we can sell at
half price. If we buy too much, we sell the extras to Barnes & Noble or others. All of us in the
book world feed off each other. Theres competition, but its all with great people.
The book industry has changed dramatically because of Amazon, e-readers, and tablets. Stores
cant ignore the fact that you can get just about any book you want while youre in your pajamas,
and it has had an effect on everyone. But there are still a lot of people who like to browse
bookstores and be surprised by what they find. People like to handle paper. Its the permanency
of it. We did a survey, and our customers buy 37 books a year. With the recession, we closed
three stores, but were still profitable.

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THIS

STORY IS A DOWNER Sales at bookstores (as opposed to at e-tailers such as Amazon.com)

have steadily dropped over the past decade.Graphic Source: IbisWorld
The challenges come with huge increases in insurance costs and real estate. We raised our
minimum wage to $10 across the board and want to offer good benefits as we grow new
locations. So we only take on 8,000 to 10,000 square feet for the majority of our locations. That
gives us a much smaller footprint than the big chains, making our real estate costs much lower.
Because we are private and dont have to answer to shareholders, we can expand at our own
pace. Plus, our inventory is different than most traditional book retailers and is lower in cost, so
that gives us a different customer base. Were trying to be a bookstore, record store, antiquarian
store, and comic-book store.
Weve had people offer us venture capital and ask to franchise or partner with us, but Ive never
seen any gain for us. Borders was in too high-priced real estate and was stuck with new books
you get little money for. Barnes & Noble is facing that too, and spent a lot of money on the
Nook. Were the tortoise thats slow and steady. We just opened in St. Louis, and are looking at
Atlanta, Denver, and Nashville. If we can afford it, well do it.
I used to feel insecure about my visions, but now I feel comfortable about them. Fourteen years
ago, people thought I was crazy when I wanted to buy 12 acres of land in the heart of Dallas for
our flagship store and corporate offices. It was big and expensive, but I was adamant about
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having the offices connect to the store so that the people running the company would see what
others are doing. Our employees are hauling, bending, and lifting, and its important for
corporate people to see that every day. You get to talk to customers and learn about them too.
We also house our distribution center and the Woodshoppe, where we build our own
bookshelves and fixtures here. Having the Woodshoppe gives us more flexibility and saves us
money, since our locations are all second-generation real estate. We never know what kind of a
layout each store will have.
The main location is the only retail location where we own the building and land itself. So this is
the only place where we truly have control over our neighbors. We wanted to make the
neighborhood better, so we purchased the land across the street. We have Half Price Books and
Whole Foods here, and I wanted REI, a like-minded company, to be across the street. So I went
to REI in Seattle and convinced them to come. Now Im trying to handpick other stores that will
appeal to our customers, rather than take the first tenant who comes along.
I could have been filthy rich many times over if Id sold the company. But I didnt because I
would have left the people who did all the work to suffer. Here I do whatever I want, and Im
pigheaded about it. I trust people who tell me when Im wrong. Its wonderful to be able to
provide 3,000 people with a nice place to work and to be able to donate millions of books to
people who cant afford them. It all makes me pretty happy.

Mom Where Is My Father?

As a young child, I did not really feel an absence of a father and I always had
an image of him as a man who when he came to visit our house, on Upper
Rose Lane, nearly across the road from the St. Johns Anglican Church and
roughly about a chain away from the then prestigious Chetolah Park Primary
School, he would always come in the late evenings when it was time for me
to go to bed or when I was already in bed, would look into my room at me
without saying a word, somehow we both knew each other without ever
speaking to each other; in the morning when I woke up , I would find on the

78

dining table grapes, apples or an exercise book, which he had left for me. He
never stayed until I was awake.
I was then shipped off to stay with my grandmother in the little village of
Bethany in Northern Manchester, my mom had to give up her job as a
teacher because she had a child (me) out of wedlock and secondly because
it was believed that I needed time to loose my White Man-Saliors Child
features-light long red hair, dimpled chin, light complexion etc.
In the village of Bethany, I had more than a few adopted fathers and at least
two adopted grandmothers, in addition to two slighly older cousins who
behaved as if they were my elder brothers-when they left I had my late
uncle. I did not miss my father and he did not cross my mind-I had several
village fathers and in the company of the late Ralph Granville who was a
Jamaica White man, I was not seen as being in anyway strange or abnormal
and the fact that I am from a straight or curly hair, straight nose breed of
people by my mothers side, meant that I was perfectly at home in the
village-a little cow boy, the little teachers pet, the baby wine maker and
chicken rancher. All good things however must come to an end-I returned to
Kingston, to attend primary school.
I was around nine years old when as a result of a teacher asking us to speak
about our parents and went so far as to invite them to school, that I
discovered that something was very wrong. My mother could not attend
school because she was then working as a supervisor and cashier at a Dairy
Farmers Restaurant on Spanish Town Road in Kingston and I had no father
who could attend.Who was my father? Who was that man who would look in
at me without ever uttering a word when he came to visit my mother at night
when I was small? That teacher of my grade three class, caused a war to be
started between my mother and myself. I even continued the war to include
my grandmother, who had come to live with us, by that time I had two
younger brothers, and hence it was a war of three against two.
I learnt that my father was a police man, he was tall, but he was a worthless
man who did not take care of any of his children (at that time I did not know
that he had several other children); hence I had a father but I did not have a
father. It was possible that my mom, had told my father that I was
misbehaving, because when he came in full uniform with a truck to help to
remove us from Water Street, in East Kingston, from a yard in which the land
ladys daughter was of unsound mind and her mother perhaps of
accumulated stress and hopelessness was also losing her mind; the first and

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only words for many years after, which my father said to me, was to promise
to beat me with his police belt should he see me swinging or playing at the
Tarzan Swish Tree in the Sir William Grant Park, in Kingston.
For many years after, while being very proud of the fact that my father was a
police man, I was also angry at the fact that the only words he had ever
uttered or spoken to me, was to promise to give me a beating with his police
belt. I stopped catching bees in the park, I stopped playing in the park and
stopped swinging from the Tarzan Swish Tree and somehow, some way
started having problems and wars with my male teachers, even if they were
Sunday School Teachers- Mr. Farkingson of Cetholah Park Primary School as
part punishment for constant arguments with him, divided his grade five and
six classes and gave me half of the class to teach.
My mother was a very independent minded woman, who while wanting to
have children did not wish to be subordinated to any man; the result of which
she had three children with three different fathers, all separated by three
years intervals, Iam three years elder than my bother who followed me
immediately and six years older than my youngest sibling, thus our births
revealed considerable planning. My grandmother was very firmly against
any patch work in the giving of names, because in her view patch work
naming makes the woman appears to be loose, wild and without proper
upbringing, hence I and my two younger siblings all bear the name
Fletcher.
My mother whose father had died when she was but a very small girl, wished
to grow up her children herself and my grandmother was a very firm militant
believer in tradition and status, she was already at war with her eldest
daughter for marrying a man of a darker hue and bad hair, at war with her
only surviving son for looking at and for being attracted to loose women,
read Black women and was now on a war path with my mother, peace had
to be found, all three of my mothers children are Fletchers-No Patch Work!
When I was between nine and ten years of age, living on Pouyatt Street in
Jones Town, in Kingston, my grandmother, summonsed my father and
presented us boys as his children, my mother could not utter a word, and
told him that he need to take care of his children. My father, did not make
any noise, but simply pointed out that he was the father of only one of the
children. This type of playing around my grandmother was not into, my
mother on the other hand tried to make peace peace by trying to calm down
my grandmother. My father did not visit our home ever again. Years later, my

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two younger siblings who were by then young adults were informed by my
father that they were not his children. They do not and will never know their
real fathers, the cost of maintaining peace within the household and to
prevent any appearance of looseness or carelessness on the part of my
mother.
My grandmother became physically unable to provide effective supervision
when I was no older than twelve years of age and my mother as a result of
her long working hours could not provide the type of supervision which
growing boys needed, thus as the eldest of the three I had the responsibility
of taking care of my two siblings and the entire household when my uncle
came to live with us my responsibilities also increased but with I could count
on his help when he was able to.
Basil Fletcher

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" was written by Williams, Sr., Hank.
Read more: Marty Robbins - I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill

He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry
I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide it's face and cry
Did you ever see a robin weep?
When leaves begin to die
That means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry
The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry
Songwriters
WILLIAMS, SR., HANK

81

Published by
Lyrics Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

My Mother And A Plate Of Food

When I was still a boy living in Jones Town, there was a former school mate of mine who by the
age of fourteen years old had lost his mind and was living on the streets. Each Sunday he would
come on our road and at times sit at our gate.
My mother at all times, regardless of what was cooked, be it beef or chicken back, would share a
plate for him, which she either carried to him herself or asked me to carry it to him. This she did,
not because she was sorry for him or because she had pity on him; but rather because she knew
that he needed to eat, secondly because she as a mother was doing it for herself, because she
knew not what the road of life had in store for any of her children and thirdly because she had a
brother who was living in Manchester at the time who was also mentally ill. Thus for her, in
helping the fallen she was helping herself as a person, a mother and as a sister.
To the extent that it is possible, as a father, I try to teach those who are close to me to take note of
those individuals who have fallen along the roadside and if possible, extend to them a helping
hand.
In a country in which there are mangoes and other fruits falling fro trees and left to rot, it might
appear strange to pick up a bag of mangoes for the homeless and or the insane. This situation is
in no way different than that which exist in the cities of Central Europe, where a homeless person
in Prague or in Berlin is but minutes away from homes in which apples and or pears fall from
trees and left to rot or are heaped up and disposed of along with the garbage.
What is forgotten is that the homeless and the mentally ill have no access to these fruits, only a
few persons want to have a homeless person on his or her road and even less would want them
picking up fruits from the trees in their yard. Thus while there are fruits left on the ground to rot
only a few minutes away there are individuals who would be very happy to be able to get but a
few of these very same fruits.
I from personal experience, remember walking pass a home in Mile Gully in Manchester,
Jamaica, in which there are a few orange trees in the front garden. I did not have much for
breakfast that morning, and I was glad to see the owner sweeping the drive way. I asked him in a
most polite manner and in standard English, if I could get one of his oranges.

82

My request was flatly refused in no uncertain manner, he would prefer to see the fruits fall from
the trees and rot before giving away any of them. If that was my experience, the yard has a white
fence and it is on the opposite side of the road from the Branch Library and nearly directly across
the road from the houses on the hill, the orange trees are still there; then I shudder to think of the
experiences of those who are visibly insane and or homeless. Abundance does not mean
availability or access.
My mother did not have a religious bone in her, but she taught me to look out for the needs of
those who have fallen along the wayside and as a father, as an uncle and as a brother, I would
like to teach my daughter and my many nieces and nephews to do the same. How can I ask the
society to look out for my relatives in far away lands and those here but who are not close to me
if I refuse to help the children of others, the sons and daughters of others, the brothers and sisters
of others, who have fallen along the wayside of the road of life?
Basil Fletcher

Beyond My Broken Dreams

from Ain't Got No Troubles
"Beyond My Broken Dreams" is track #9 on the album Ain't Got No Troubles.

There was a time, I wore my heart on my sleeve,

I was a little bit green, about everything.
Had my back against the ropes,
Had my share of shattered hopes,
Believe me I know, what losing means.
Hard times put me to the test.
But I aint been beat down yet.
I won't give in, I will not rest.
Cause I see a new day dawning on the far horizon
I see white doves flying over fields of green.
Like a Phoenix from the oceans rising,
I can see beyond my broken dreams.

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Deep down inside I feel a new kind of strength,

Somehow empowering me.
Ever since I found you,
The whole world spun around you.
Now I know what true love means.
I'm coming out of this hard luck haze,
To better nights and brighter days.
Ever since I saw your face.
I see a new day dawning on the far horizon
I see white doves flying over fields of green.
Like a Phoenix from the oceans rising,
I can see beyond my broken dreams.
Cause I see a new day dawning on the far horizon
I see white doves flying over fields of green.
Like a Phoenix from the oceans rising,
I can see beyond my broken dreams.
Read more: Eden Brent - Beyond My Broken Dreams Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Sams Body Man- An Autobiographical Story Of A Trying Father

At the Cantral Garage which is located on Central Avenue, relatively close to the
National Bakery Plant in the Half Way Tree area, works Samuel Fletchers body man,
who is roughly about the age of fifty years old, the father of four children mothered
by (if my memory serves correctly) by three women, one of whom he lives with,
while maintaining a visiting relationship with the other two. It is important to note
here, that the three women know of each other and know the children, thus
removing a lot of the complications which characterizes secret relationships and
heard about outside children.
The body man is the owner of three houses, one of which he bought at a public
auction. He and one of his childrens mothers live in one, another is occupied by
another of his children mother and the third is rented in order to earn additional
income to fund his children education.
The body man, equal as with Samuel Fletcher and others at the garage, works
seven days per week from about 6.00 a.m. to 5.00 pm. This long working week is
required in order to ensure that the coaster bus drivers have their buses ready for
their daily operations; these coaster buses play a critical role in the public
transportation system. Perhaps most important for the body man is to ensure that
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he puts in the work needed to provide the funding needed to meet his obligations as
the head of three households. The fact that all three of his childrens mothers are
gainfully employed makes the burden a bit lighter than it could have been.
Here I wish to point out that it is my view, that given the fact that the body man
works in a garage owned and operated by the owners of coaster buses and whose
services are employed in the main my coaster bus owners, it is highly likely that he
is an undeclared part owner or by now an owner of one of the these buses.
The body man used the money collected as rent from the rented property to fund
the studies of his eldest daughter who was studying law at the University of The
West Indies; now that she has graduated, the money collected as rent is being used
to support his son by another of his three baby mothers, who is currently studying
to become an engineer at the Univerversity of Technology, Jamaica. The plan of the
body man is to continue using this Funding Method to see all his children through
university.
On paper the life of the bodyman seems to be very easy and when one hears that
he is the owner of three homes and in my view also a coaster bus, one could be led
to believe that he has things ok and he is alright. The truth is that this man has to
put in very long hours of work, working on weekends when many other men are at
home. While he has three women who are not at war with each other and appear to
be working together to ensure that things work out for the best, he does not have
much time to be with any of them, there are many days when he does not have
time even for break fast. He is however viewed by all as a trying father who does his
very best to meet his responsibilities and one can only but hope that his women and
his children will also stand by him.
The fact that we are now living in a period when the number and frequency of
divorces are on the rise equally as the number of second and or third marriages, it
is important that the Fletchers, Manakers or Morgans man who seeks to set up a
new family after a divorce understand that he continues to bear the responsibility
for the children of his first marriage and his second marriage should not reduce the
standard of living or the opportunities of the children of his first marriage. The fact
that a simple body man without a university degree can make things work, should
mean that all capable Fletchers, Manakers and Morgans males have the same
capabilities and can make things work if they so desire. The life of Samuel Fletchers
body man provides also critical lessons for those of our male relatives who wish to
enjoy the benefits of having several women-they must be able to meet their
responsibilities!

Basil Fletcher

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Some Additional Comments

The child one rears takes true form when he or she walks into the shoe of a
parent and or professional. Thus from that perspective, parents train their
own replacements to be of the quality, they desire and work for.
In the life of man, there comes a moment when for but a moment, the sum
total of ones previous efforts create an opportunity to break with the
conditions of the past, the individuals level of preparation, experience,
outlook and mental state, determines if and how that brief moment in time
will be used.
A family with a lower income can enjoy a standard of living equivalent to a
family with a higher income, if it can find ways to lower the percentage of its
wage income to meet its three lower level Maslowian needs than the family
with a higher income, thus retaining a larger percentage of its salary to meet
its upper level needs. Worker-farmers, worker business operators have
shown this fact over and over.
One has to learn to see and respect the progress made by individuals,
understanding their challenges and limitations, even as we learn to
distinguish real individual progress from progress limited to form, e.g. an
individual purchasing a newer model car is an indication of progress in form
and not necessarily in essence/substances on the other hand the movement
of an unemployed, semi-illiterate individual from a squatter community to a
rent paying community along with the earning of a school leaving certificate
and gaining a job; is real individual progress in form and essence. The class
lens we wear and our views of society at times rob us of the ability to see
where real progress is being made and leave us following behind empty
shells.
Do not take on to yourself the guilt of others nor accept blame for them,- the
words of Ms. Moses of JSIF around the year 2000. A very valuable lesson from
a wise woman. Too often in our dealing with our children we heap on their
heads, blame for things done by others. If I should go walking Down Town,
Kingston at 3.00 a.m. and got robbed, does not mean that I wanted to be
robbed, to take the approach of taking on to myself the guilt of others, would
mean that I would have taken on the guilt of the robbers and searching for
excuses for them. A young lady wearing a pussy printer showing off all her
buffiness is not saying to the world or to any given individual that she
wants to be or have desire to be raped by anyone. We as fathers must be
careful that we do not force our children to carry the guilt and burdens of
anyone. Punishment, scolding and criticism must be directly related to what
they have done and not what others have done.

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The Lost Boy - Greg Holden ( Opie's Funeral Sons of Anarchy )

Lyrics to The Lost Boy I left my home still as a child

I walked a thousand soary miles
To wait for my father, to gather up his truth
He said my boy you've got to run
Don't wait for me, don't wait for mum
We'll come get you, when it's safe for us to move
So I waited many years,
held back the pain behind my tears
For my father, to come find me like he said
And in that time I was alone,
so many years without my home
I made brothers of a different kind instead
[Instrumental break]
And in the time I didn't know,
just how hard the wind could blow
Towards disaster, and the things that I would see
I never found my father,

87

I never found my mother

Even would I know in my lifetime I will be
A hero into the masses,
to those born without chances
There's a freedom that everyone deserves
I know there's greed and there's corruption
I've seen death and mass destruction
But I'm telling you, and I hope that I'm heard
And I will not be commanded,
And I will not be controlled
And I will not let my future go on,
without the help of my soul
And I will not be commanded,
And I will not be controlled
And I will not let my future go on,
without the help of my soul
And I will not be commanded,
And I will not be controlled
And I will not let my future go on,
without the help of my soul
I will not be commanded,
I will not be controlled
And I will not let my future go on,
without the help of my soul
[ These are The Lost Boy Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

Some Comments

Each child for his or healthy development must have a sense of

person, a sense of worth and a sense of purpose. It is of great
importance that a father helps his son or daughter to develop that
sense of self identification and self worth; these are critical in helping
the child to foster healthy relationships with him or herself and with

88

other. It is also this basis that dreams and ambitions are formed and
created:- I would like to be a .. I am.I will be..
Each family has its way, equally so do we have our way. Our task is not
and should never be to condemn the beliefs and values of others, nor
to convert others to our views, attitudes and values but rather to
navigate our way through this world as it is.
The father who raids his daughters play pen and or takes away his
sons girlfriends, belong not among the kingdom of man, but rather is a
wild animal walking in human form.

Some Words From ServiceMaster, of Downer Grove. Ill. USA

1. The Objectives of ServiceMaster is to :- 1) To honour God in all we

do, 2) To help people develop, 3) To pursue excellence and 4) To
grow profitably.
2. These objectives are described by Mr Pollard of ServiceMaster as a
living set of principles that allow us to confront the difficulties and
failures that are a part of life with the assurance that the starting
points never changes (source:- Michael K McCuddy, Valparaiso
University)
3. The simple truth is that recognizing the potential, dignity and
worth of the individual is one of the most critical tasks of leadership
and one of the most important factors in the growth of any
organization. (Pollard)
4. ServiceMasters senior managers believe the objective to honour
God in all we do affirms the worth and dignity of every person,
regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age, spiritual practices, or life
style. Everyone is accepted, provided they are willing to serve and
work honestly.
5. Pollards adds, People may play different instruments and different
parts, but when they perform together from the same musical
score, they produce beautiful music and great value.

The Problem With Incest

Evolution, morality, and the politics of abortion.

89

Post published by Hal Herzog Ph.D. on Oct 11, 2012 in Animals and Us

Mr. James Russell of Cashiers, N.C. recently justified meat-eating in the pages of Asheville
Citizen-Times by arguing that humans are biologically classified as carnivores. His reasoning
was simple. The consumption of animal flesh is morally right because it is natural.
Unfortunately, Mr. Russell got his facts wrong. Zoologists place humans in the
order Primate (family Hominidea), not in the order Carnivora. Furthermore, like rats, humans
are omnivores, not carnivores. But more troubling is Mr. Russells belief that humans should
look to nature for moral guidance. He justifies meat-eating in humans on the grounds that other
animals eat one another. I suspect, however, that he does not approve of gang rape, adultery,
cannibalism, and the consumption of feces, all of which are practiced in nature by our fourlegged brethren. While moral codes exist in other species (see here(link is external)), humans
have the capacity and, indeed, the responsibility to operate on a higher ethical plane.
The (Nearly) Universal Taboo
So on matters of morality, I generally agree with Katherine Hepburn who quiped to Humphrey
Bogart in The African Queen, "Nature is what we are put in this world to rise above." There is,
however, an exception to my contention that humans should not turn to nature for moral
guidance. It is the rule that says Dont have sex with first degree relatives. First degree
relatives are the individuals you share 50 percent of your genes with your parents, children,
and siblings. Indeed, non-human animals have a evolved a host of strategies to prevent incest
(here(link is external)). Even plants possess anti-incest mechanisms (here(link is external)).
As University of Miami psychologists Debra Lieberman and Adam Smith pointed out in arecent
article(link is external) in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, humans have
social and psychological mechanisms to deter incest. With very few exceptions, marriages
between brothers and sisters and between parents and their children are verboten in every human

90

culture. The primary psychological anti-incest mechanism is the yuck response. Even the idea of
sex with their mom or dad, bro or sis is upsetting to most people. The psychologist Jonathan
Haidt has found that nearly everyone is repelled by the prospect of brother-sister sex, even in
hypothetical situations in which there is no chance of pregnancy(here(link is external)).
The Biological Cost of Incest
This raises an interesting question: just whats so bad about incest? Sure, having sex with your
dad or your sister seems gross but why? Some anthropologists have argued that incest taboos
are learned social conventions. This explanation, however, doesnt make sense to me as it does
not explain the widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms in creatures ranging
from cockroaches(link is external) to chimpanzees (here(link is external)). Second, the incest
taboo is about as close to a universal law as human moral rules get.
Why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human
societies? The answer is simple. The problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is
an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect. Take the
results

Percent of children with severe birth defects.

of a study of Czechoslovakian children whose fathers were first degree relatives. Fewer than half
of the children who were the product of incestuous unions were completely healthy. Forty-two
percent of them were born with severe birth defects or suffered early death and another 11
percent were mildly mentally impaired. This study is particularly instructive as it included a
unique control group the offspring of the same mothers but whose fathers were not the
mothers relatives. When the same women were impregnated by a non-relative, only 7 percent of
their children were born with a birth defect (Figure 1).

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A group of genetic counselors reviewed the research on the biological consequences of sex
between relatives (consanguineous relationships) (here(link is external)). They found a
surprisingly small increase (about 4 percent) in birth defects among the children of married
cousins. Incest between first degree relatives, however, was a different story. The researchers
examined four studies (including the Czech research) on the effects of first degree incest on
the health of the offspring. Forty percent of the children were born with either autosomal
recessive disorders, congenital physical malformations, or severe intellectual deficits. And
another 14 percent of them had mild mental disabilities. In short, the odds that a newborn child
who is the product of brother-sister or father-daughter incest will suffer an early death, a severe
birth defect or some mental deficiently approaches 50 percent.
Foolish Consistencies and Little Minds
The profound negative effects of incest on unborn children raise the issues of moral consistency
and of abortion politics. I understand the pro-life argument. If you believe that human life begins
at the moment sperm meets egg, it is perfectly logical to oppose abortion. But at what point do
reasonable people temper logical consistency with compassion and common sense?
During the 2012 Republican Party convention in Tampa, the Platform Committee struggled with
an aspect of the argument against legal abortion(link is external). Just about everyone on the
committee agreed that abortion should be banned. But committee members were split over
whether official party doctrine should include exceptions to the abortion ban if a fetus was the
result of rape or incest. In the end, ideological purity prevailed. The official Republican platform
states, We assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn
child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. No exceptions
period. Even in cases of first-degree relative incest.
I grudgingly admit that the lack of ANY exception in the official Republican position on abortion
is logically consistent with the the party's statement on sanctity of all human life. But shouldn't

92

logic sometimes be tempered with compassion? Emerson famously wrote, A foolish consistency
is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Forcing a woman burdened with the psychological scars of incest to bear a child which has a
roughly 50:50 chance of having mental disabilities or a severe birth defect is perhaps the ultimate
example of a foolish consistency that appeals to little statesmen.
*

Hal Herzog is the author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why Its So Hard To
Think Straight About Animals(link is external).

The Promise Of A Car- When A Fathers Words Mean Nothing

A few years ago, when I was still one my feet economically and was driving my own
car which I had bought using a car loan from the Jamaica Teachers Association
Credit Union, with about two years left to pay off on the loan; I promised my
daughter as a form of encouragement, that when she entered medical school, I
would have given her the car, which was in good condition and never suffering from
a shut down, break down etc. Sadly, I could not complete the repayment of the car
loan in spite of my best efforts, the car was repossessed on a Sunday to embarrass
me, in spite of the fact that I had carried the keys to the office of the credit union.

My daughter entered the university and is now studying medicine, while she has
said nothing to me about my promise of the car, I am relatively sure that she could
not feel good when she see her friends and or school mates driving and she has not
even learnt to drive. Perhaps she would have preferred if I her father, did not
promise to give her the car, then she would have had no expectations or dream of
having her own car while at university. What is a good is that she knows, that if all
things were equally, she would have had her own car.

There many times when fathers, whether to reassure their children or to encourage
their children, fathers make promises which they know that they might not be able
93

to keep or that they will not keep. Fathers promising their children toys for
Christmas, things for their birthdays, promising to carry them to places and to do
things for them which they do not do. If a father should break his promise once, a
child is able and has the capacity to forgive, however when that father keeps on
promising things to his child or children which he has no intention of giving or which
he knows that he cannot give; the result is no longer just the child being
disappointed but now angry and would prefer if the father said nothing to him or
her. In the eyes of the child, the father has lost respect, is undependable and his
words mean nothing.

As a child, I tried to behave myself very good for a good period of time in order to
get my Christmas present, then came Christmas and neither Santa Klaus nor my
mother. I remembered that I was very mad, my mother said that she had to work
and Santa Klaus had some type of problem. Let us say that by the end of that day, I
got my Christmas presents. Am I to believe that my daughter feels any way
different about her not getting her car, which I her father had promised her? She did
what was required of her, she put in her best and passed her examinations and at
the end of the day, she did not get the car, I her father had promised her. How does
the child whose father keeps on making promises and fail to fulfill them feels? Is
that child happy? Can that father feel proud about his or her father? Can that child
trust his or her fathers words? No!

The young men in the Fletchers, Manakers and Morgans families, need to
understand, that one should not seek to maintain good relationships with their
children by making promises which they are unable or unwilling to keep. As fathers
or future fathers, they need to understand that they should not make idle promises
to their children in order to encourage them to do anything. If your child or children
are deserving in your eyes of being rewarded for good behaviour, good performance
in their work and has or have lived up to the best standards, reward them the best
you can. If a promise is broken, the child or children need to have a clear
understanding of the reasons why the promise was broken and that should not
become a pattern of conduct on the part of the father. A fathers word must have
value and must mean something.

I was unable to give my daughter the car and I have not gone into hiding from her.
Too many times fathers go into hiding from their own children, because they broke
their promises. If one is forced to break a promise, make up for it in some other way.
Do not go into hiding!

94

Basil Fletcher

Gimme Shelter Lyric

Paul Brady and The Forest Rangers Lyrics
Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
The floods is threat'ning
My very life today
95

Gimme, gimme shelter

Or I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away

Seven Women For One Man?

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Published:Sunday | May 22, 2011
PreviousNext

Bishop Herro Blair

1

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2
3
4

Anastasia Cunningham, Senior Gleaner Writer

According to the biblical prophet, Isaiah, during a time of great judgement there will be a severe
shortage of men leaving little option but for one man to take on multiple wives.
"In that day, seven women will take hold of one man and say, 'We will eat our own food and
provide our own clothes; only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!'" - Isaiah
4:1. Isaiah 13:12 reinforces the divine prophecy: "I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more
rare than the gold of Ophir."
Many people contend that that time is already here as women, especially those in the church,
claim it is increasingly difficult to find a suitable partner. Several churches are reporting their
congregation's women to men ratio to be as much as 10 to one. Even in the secular world there
are complaints from women that trying to find an acceptable partner is like searching for a needle
in a haystack.
So should today's church give serious consideration to an ancient practice by endorsing
polygamy as a viable option to address the problem? One Bible teacher believes that that should
have been the practice all along. He says the practice of monogamy is cultural, not biblical.
Maurice Jensen, who has been studying the Bible and teaching from it for over 20 years, noted
that polygamy remains acceptable in several cultures, adding that there is no account in either the
Old or New Testament that specifically puts an end to it.

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"The Old Testament was the age of polygamy. Great men of God had several wives. Jesus'
ministry in the New Testament was in the midst of a culture that practised it and he never once
denounced it. In fact, in none of God's word to any of His prophets that He had direct
conversation with did He ever outlaw or condemn the practice," he said.
Jensen noted that in the Bible there are 15 examples of polygamy, 13 of those cases involving
powerful men of God. Among them were Moses and Abraham. Jacob had two wives, while
Gideon had many. David, a man God said was "after His own heart", had eight wives and several
concubines. The most famous polygamist was Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Solomon's son, Rehoboam, had 18 wives and 60 concubines, while Abijah had 14 wives.
Not chastised
Jensen insisted that at no point did God chastise them for it, adding that polygamy was primarily
for producing a greater number of offsprings, and was also based on one's economic status being able to maintain a large family.
"In Exodus 21:10 God allows it. In Deuteronomy 21:15-17 God gives instructions on how a man
ought to treat his wives. And I could quote numerous other scriptures," said Jensen.
Jensen said he found it strange that God had a personal relationship with those great men who
had many wives, and He did great things through them but failed to speak to and have a direct
personal relationship with today's men who have one wife.
"The reality is that it's a matter of culture whether to practise polygamy or not. No one can find
any scripture to definitely go against it," he said.
He said changing God's laws and going against nature and the natural order of things has led to a
lot of the perversions taking place today.
Of course, not everyone supports that view.

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Rev Hugh Elliston, general superintendent of the Open Bible Standard Churches of Jamaica, said
polygamy was against God's perfect plan for marriage. He cites the Genesis account of Adam
and Eve, which was later emphasised in the New Testament, as God's plan.
"The type of family God designed was a nuclear family. However, many of God's plans were
corrupted after the fall of man in Genesis, which led to the breakdown and some of the practices
that unfolded in the Old Testament," said Elliston.
Elliston, who said that his church had a higher percentage of women than men, with a 70 to 30
ratio, advised women who were having difficulty finding a partner to learn to live with their
singleness while continuing to live a wholesome life.
"I know it's not easy, but they have to learn how," he said.
Prophesy not principle
Pastor Charles Francis from the Faith United Church of God International said although
polygamy was practised under Judaism, it was not a principle that was transferred to the church
age.
"The return of polygamy may have been prophesied about, but so were other terrible things for
the end time, such as wars, earthquakes, false prophets and so on. The Isaiah account was a
prophesy, not a principle God was commanding men to do," said Francis.
Francis, who said the female-male ratio in his church was five to one, said single women need to
put their trust in God and wait.
Roman Catholic deacon Rev Peter Espeut said "The Old Testament is not relevant to Christians.
Jesus established a new covenant, laws and ethics to govern Christianity. Whoever does not
recognise the difference with the Old and New Testament is only creating problems."

99

He added, "Even if one man was on a desert island with 20 women, polygamy would still be
wrong, it would be unethical. There would be no justification for it."
He also insists that it is a false belief that there is a shortage of men, given that in Jamaica, the
ratio is 103 women to 100 men. "The shortage is in men whom women consider to be qualified,"
he said.
He does not support the view that a Christian woman should only marry in the church - she
should be free to find a partner wherever she desires.
He said the solution to the problem was to elevate men in the education system. "We should
never have a situation where 80 per cent of the population at the university are women," said
Espeut.
For his part, Bishop Herro Blair from the Faith Cathedral Deliverance Centre said polygamy was
anti-God and anti-scripture. He also supports the view that there was not a shortage of men.
"If truth be told, there are places where men outnumber women. We need to address the issue of
segregation in churches and allow marriage between churches, especially where there is a
shortage in one and a higher number in another. Cross-Christian culturalisation is important,"
said Blair, whose church reportedly has a three to one female-male ratio.

Name changed.
Give Us More Husbands
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Published:Monday | June 8, 2015

100

Jennifer Mamby Alexander

In contradiction to the Islamic Council's suggestion that polygamy can solve the family crisis in
Jamaica (published in The Gleaner, June 4, 2015), and with monogamy failing so miserably, my
question then is, Why shouldn't a good woman have more than one good husband?
In Jamaica, where illegal and unofficial polygamy is practised in separate households and one
man can father 25 or more children whom he cannot and does not support, polygyny, or having
multiple female partners, is not the best choice if it is only based on sexual freedom. However, if
polygamy is practised because men have traditionally had the resources to support several wives
and many children, it should work equally well for women who have resources capable of
supporting many husbands and their children.
So why not polyandry, a form of polygamy where a woman can afford to take on to herself two
or more good husbands at a time? Polyandry works well in societies where there is extreme
gender or educational imbalances between women and men. The Jamaican society today is
sustained by women who have equalled and at times surpassed their male counterparts socially

101

and academically, and many are already successfully supporting their own households with good
results.

BURDEN

I put forward that if a successful woman is married to five husbands, she is capable, over a twoyear period, of producing only two children who stay within their means and limit national
population growth. These children are likely to be well educated and nurtured and not become a
burden on the system.
She may also limit the number of children she has, still function sexually and otherwise, while
being pampered by five husbands, each with a schedule to maintain the household and be good
fathers to the children.
Conversely, a man-dominated polygamous relationship with five wives is capable of producing
10 children over the same two-year period in a crowded household where children, especially
boys, struggle to be nurtured and get ahead. Jamaica's poor economy is already burdened with an
overpopulation of street children who are poorly educated and who are raised in overcrowded
homes starved for the nurturing of a father figure.
In Tibet, the Mustang population located in the northwest of Nepal, polyandry is practised. One
aspect of polyandry in that country occurs when brothers marry one woman and by doing so they
establish family and financial security, retaining the entirety of family land holding through
generations. Why shouldn't it work here?
In addition, polyandry offers a shared nurture of a child by multiple fathers and a calm, rested,
happy mother who is 100% pampered by the men who adore her and whom she loves. Let's face
it: There are repeated complaints from women in monogamous relationships that they are
fatigued by heavy housework for which they get little support, so here is a solution. She does not
have to cook, wash, iron, clean or do the shopping and now has the strength and capacity to cater
to more than one man within a 24- or 48-hour period without any fatigue or 'the headache
102

excuse'; whereas in polygyny, a man who does not cook, clean, wash or do the shopping cannot
perform the same quality husbandry services daily, even with performance-enhancement drugs
and a whip.
So with the failure of monogamy, the Islamic Council is an advocate for polygamy, and many
men are dreaming about it becoming official. Based on the success and dominance of women in
our society, as good mothers, supportive and capable partners, we should now be considering
laws to promote heterosexual, one-wife, many-husband marriages above any other types of
marriage or sexual relationship.
As it stands now, isn't it true that if women did not go home one night, the world would come to
a standstill?
Do I hear an amen, ladies, for polyandry?
- Jennifer Mamby Alexander is a medical doctor. Email feedback tocolumns@gleanerjm.com
and jensy_ja@yahoo.com.

'Polygamy, Solution To
Jamaica's Family Crisis'
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Published:Thursday | June 4, 2015Corey Robinson
PreviousNext

103

Ian Allen
Rashidah Khan-Haqq, member of the Islamic Council of Jamaica.
1

Many of Jamaica's social problems, especially those concerning the family and paternity, can be
alleviated if the country practised polygamy, a female member of the Islamic Council of Jamaica
has said.
"I don't understand why it is a situation where it is being looked upon as such a disadvantage,
when to me, it has practical use. I think it can solve a lot of our problems," emphasised Rashidah
Khan-Haqq while speaking at yesterday's Editors' Forum held at the Gleaner's headquarters on
North Street in Kingston.

104

According to Khan-Haqq, if Jamaican men were allowed to have more than one wife, the
country would be less burdened with issues of delinquency, infidelity, single parenthood, among
others.
"Everywhere I go, it is the first question they ask me, especially the men. They say 'I want to
come into your religion because I can have four wives," said Khan-Haqq. "But they don't
understand that there are rules and there are conditions. You can have a man being married to up
to four wives, [but] of course treating them equally, both financially and emotionally."
'Bag A Gyal' Culture
Against this background, said the mother and wife, both men and women will be forced to be
more responsible for their actions and for their partners well-being.
This is in stark contrast to the realities of the Jamaican situation today, argued Khan-Haqq,
noting that the culture of a man having a 'bag a gyal' is more a cause for concern than a man
having as many as four women calling him husband, and for whom he is responsible.
"I will have people looking down on me and saying I'm at a disadvantage because my husband
can have four wives. But at the same time, these same housewives, when the man is out there
cheating with God knows who, you are there sitting down thinking that your husband is faithful
but he is not. People don't look at that as a serious problem, and that to me is (a) worse
disadvantage," she reasoned.
"I know that if I see a child on the road and it looks like my husband, I know it is his other wife's
child. And I don't have to find out 10 years down the line that it is his child, and say 'oh, I was
wondering why it looked like him'," she said.
Khan-Haqq has been married for seven years and has a two-year-old daughter. She said that prior
to her marriage, she agreed with her husband that had local laws allowed, and in a situation
where she was unable to have children, she could accept him marrying another woman. Her
husband, however, declined the offer.

105

In the meantime, acting president of the Islamic Council of Jamaica, Mekaeel Maknoon,
explained that there are at least three Islamic males living on the island with more than one wife.
Those persons, he said, were married overseas and came to the island as wedded couples.
He explained, however, that there are specific circumstances in which a man can have more than
one wife in a religious context, without encroaching on Jamaican civil laws against polygamy.
"When an Islamic man marries based on civil law, he would be granted a civil certificate, and he
would also be performing the religious ceremony that goes with it as well. So he will also get a
certificate that states that he is married in accordance with Islamic laws, as well as in accordance
with the law of the land," Maknoon explained.
"If he decides to marry a second wife, he would only be able to marry her in accordance with
religious laws and he would get a religious certificate; not a certificate that states that that
woman is his wife in accordance with civil laws. So he would have one certificate based on civil
laws, but he would have as many religious certificates for whatever number of wives he can.
Because they (wives), too, need to know that they are married in accordance with religious
laws," he explained.
corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com

The Struggles And Hardships Faced By Persons Of Mixed Races

A good friend of mine who studied in Russia, from time to time express anger at the
fact that his White Russia girl friend aborted the child she was carrying for him. In
Jamaica, in the minds of many if not most people, individuals of mixed races
epitomizes beauty, this however does not mean by any measure that this is true in
all parts of the world, nor for that matter among all Jamaicans.

106

As a student studying in the Czech Republic, I met from time to time a half Nigerian
half Czech young man who was more or less around my age. His father, a Nigerian,
had deep feelings for his mother and at the end of his studies in the Czech Republic,
got married to his mother and brought her back with him along with their two
children, a boy and a girl to Nigeria. Sadly however, the acceptance and love for a
White Czech wife was not shared with the family of the Nigerian man, nor by his
community, if fact things became so bad for her in at her husbands home and
among his family members that it became better for her to return home to the
Czech Republic with her two children, which she did.

In the Czech Republic, while the girl was accepted to some extent, the boy was not.
The result of his feeling of social isolation and a lack of a family, in particular the
absence his father around him, led this young man to socialize with those groups of
individuals who were also suffering from a sense of social isolation, the Gypsies
(Roma) and other individuals on the fringes f Czech society. By the age of thirty this
young man was a full blown alcoholic and known to the police. A young man who
among us as foreign students sought to find friends, a sense of family and a
community, a young man, who had difficulty understanding, how it was possible for
us foreign students from Latin America and the Caribbean, students from different
racial backgrounds and with varying degrees of racial mixtures to exist as a closed
and close knitted community, while in the Czech society as well as the Nigerian
society it was not possible. He was equally amazed at the unity to be found among
Arab students.

In past years for most Jamaicans, the idea of a Jamaican woman marrying or having
a child for a Chinese man, was seen as a good thing, if not for the simple reason
that the Chinese were known to take care of their children and placed significant
emphasis on the building of strong families. However, there are some Chinese who
in their race to Jamaicanize and to fit in the wider society especially among
Jamaican men, have been led to believe that they need to throw out, throw away,
this hallmark of Chinese communities and people, a characteristic which had
allowed them to survive for centuries outside of China, in the New World and in
Jamaica.

As a former lecturer, I had among the students with whom I interacted two half
Chinese girls whose life stories differ essentially only in the occupations of their
fathers and how these fathers had to be approached. The life experiences of these
two girls were similar, firstly in the fact that their fathers could not disown them,
their Chinese features stood out, and similar secondly in that both these girls were
born to the wrong mothers.
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The father who was a shopkeeper, wanted a Chinese woman to be called the
mother of his children and not a Black woman, the other father was a Civil Servant,
he wanted a wife at his level and who was going up For the Civil Servant, race
was not important, important was his level and going up. For none of these two
girls was provision made for their education or upkeep. For their fathers, they were
outsiders of a special type and a source of embarrassment, they made the fathers
appear to be less perfect, less upstanding etc.

The daughter of the shopkeeper was treated as a type of poor niece who would visit
the home from time to time to get hands out, because of this she visited the shop
on Saturdays, which he did not like, because it made family business a public affair
open for all to see and he was also forced to treat her properly in the eyes of his
customers. In the case of the Civil Servant things was much worse, he often had
nothing to give, was not at home and or not in office, when he did have something
to give it was always small and was expected to last for a life time. I was told that
he, the Civil Servant in the end, felt that he was progressing too slow here in
Jamaica and left for the United States.

One however, should not fool him or herself into believing that this race-class
attitude is not to be found among Black people and in particular among Black
women. There is a Half Indian male who is close to me, whose birth to a poor,
squatter dwelling Indian male, was seen by female members of my family as being
most unfortunate. At the time of his birth in the 1960s, Indians or Coolies as they
were then called in Jamaica, were seen as being dirty, as having little or no regard
for hygiene, as being born liars, as been heathens and idol worshipers. The
women in my family were not immune to the influence of those then existing views.

As a result, the child, a boy, was never allowed to have contact with his father or his
fathers family, was never encourage to develop pride in being a person with
parents from two different racial back grounds, not encouraged to learn much about
Indian except that which was taught by the public. In the end given the resources
he had available, the educational opportunities which he could have made use of
this young man who would be seen by most as a chronic under achiever, hence
making a true self fulfilling prophecies and labels.

The lessons for the Fletchers, Morgans and Manakers males are clear. If one for
any given reason holds the view, that an individual from a given racial or social
background, is less than equal to them, then the Fletcher, Manaker or Morgan owes

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it to him or herself not to have sexual relations with that person. The consequences
for children, born into relationships where such views exist are negative and have
real adverse impact in the developing of self worth and self love in the child or
children born to such unions. Finally, the father or family, which looks down on one
of its own because of his or her racial or social back ground, has little respect for
self, no respect for his family members or traditions. We should never be agents in
the undermining of our own.

Basil Fletcher

The Good Step Father-My Daughters Mother Step Father

Perhaps because of the attitude and approach taken by many Jamaican step fathers,
the word step father is generally associated with child abuse, neglect and in many
instances sexual predatorial behaviour; yet this negative labeling of an entire
group of men, ignores the fact that there are many good and hard working step
fathers who put out all effort in caring for their spouses as their own and at times
even better than their own children.

Before dealing with my daughters mother step father-Mr. Barry, I would like to bring
to the fore as a type of point of reference the case of Joseph and Pharaoh and the
Children of Israel in Egypt and the case of Joseph and Jesus.

On his release from prison, Joseph work and his attitude to work, his skills and
talents were of such quality that Pharaoh took him as his own son, a fact symbolized
by his given to Joseph his ring and charge over Egypt. One sees a very similar
attitude in Pharaohs dealing with Josephs brothers and kins men. Joseph brothers
and kins men entered Egypt as herders, when the Children of Israel left Egypt
under the leadership of Moses they were no longer just herders, but were also
skilled work men, jewelers, weavers, metal workers, carpenters, men of war, etc. In
fact the rulers of Egypt changed their attitudes towards the Children of Israel when
they the Children of Israel in terms of their numbers and their skills posed an
existential threat to the rulers and ruling classes of Egypt.

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While Pharaoh was more of an adopted father to Joseph and to the Children of
Israel, there is no real difference in quality between being the adopted father of a
child and being the step father of a child as far as the relationship with the child and
parental expectations and responsibilities as concerned. Here one also notes, that
Moses was grown as and seen by all as a Prince of Egypt, not as a bastard or orphan
child, but as Pharaohs child.

Perhaps the most famous step father in the world is Joseph, Jesus stepfather. In the
Bible we see where Joseph as a step father, took onto himself great risks to his own
life to protect Marys son Jesus from Herod the King. Here what also stands out is
the fact that Jesus was not a child born to Mary before her marriage to Joseph, nor
was he a child born as a result of wildness on the side of Mary during the
marriage, but a child conceived during her period of engagement to Joseph-thus
making the situation of adoption and step fatherhood more remarkable, given that
under normal circumstances a man so engaged would have put aside the woman
and child. We see in the Bible, Joseph the step father, who carried Jesus along with
him, Joseph a man who cared for his step sons welfare, conduct and safety, not for
the sake of Mary but for the sake of his step son Jesus and high possible his own.

Mr Barry is a man who I met during the first half of the 1980s. Miss Pearline, my
daughters grandmother, had gone to live for a while in the Bahamas, thus her then
spouce Mr. Barry had the responsibility of supervising three teenage daughters. For
Mr. Barry to have been given this responsibility, it indicates that in the eyes of Miss
Pearline, Mr. Barry was a man of sound character, a high sense of responsibility,
maturity and trust worthy.

In the eyes of the community and in my eyes, Mr. Barry, a bar operator and a step
father living in the inner city was a very good step father and had to be extremely
mature, patient and understanding, to guide three teenage girls during what was
perhaps the most challenging period of their lives. His conduct and approach, made
him a role model to many and made a lie of the view that there are no good step
fathers.

It can only be hoped that the men of our families, who bear the trust, obligations
and responsibilities of step fatherhood, will do so in such a manner which brings
honour not only to themselves but to us all. Mr. Barry was not a Christian or
religious, he knew the roads, yet he was a shining stars for all around him an person
deeply respected and highly regarded by many-let his way be an example for us all.

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Basil Fletcher

There Is A Road
Sometimes as fathers, as uncles and as cousins, when the burdens of life bear down
on our shoulders, when even those who stand to benefit most from our efforts stand
in militant opposition to our best efforts and our lives are made miserable and
almost unbearable; at those times the question:- Why should I care when no one
cares? comes to the mind. Why should I go through this? Which should I care?

The road which leads from the Hibernia Property to the Mile Gully Parish Library
holds a special place in my heart, not because I spent my formative years in that
region rather because the role it played in building my character as a man. During
my two most recent stays in that region, all was done to make my life a living hell
and at times making it difficult if not nearly impossible to do any constructive work.
There were times when the computers at the library were made practically
unavailable to do much work, there were times when the bed on which I slept was
show how invaded by biting insects, there were times when I had to walk in the
pouring rain to get from the library, a walk of some three to four miles up hill, then
there were days when I had to raid fruit trees growing near to the roadside in order
to cope with hunger.

Yet I did experience some moments of kindness, the village shop keeper and the
librarians kept my phone charged, John Tom Morgan helped me to buy something to
some on Sundays, the principal of the Bethany Primary and all Age School helped
me out of her own purse to buy a bottle of Pepsi from time to time.

Why did I make significant personal sacrifices, putting pen to paper to assist
relatives and others, who in return sought to make a mockery of me, even searching
for and laughing at a pair of slippers which I walked to the ground on their behalf?

The road holds the answer to this question. That road which runs through the
community was built over two hundred years ago by individuals, many of whom had
fought for its construction and many who had worked on it but did not live to see it

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completed. That road was built by individuals who were thinking not only of their
needs, but also of the needs of generations yet to be born. The age of the average
rain water catchment tank which one passes at the homes along the road at this
time in 2015 is seventy six years old, the Bethany Moravian Church is over one
hundred years old.

In short, my generation and those yet to come are using and will be living in an
environment whose social infrastructure was built by their great grand relatives who
could not have known them and did not care if their great grandchildren, we, think
good or bad about them. Perhaps the state of the walls of the Bethany Moravian
church and that of the Church cemetery is a reflection of how we feel about what we
think of their sacrifices and shows our sense of gratitude or rather a lack there of.

I did not participate in the construction of that road, I did not lay a single stone in
the building of the Church nor did I help to build a single one of the rain water
catchment tanks, but as a father, I have a daughter who one day may wish to visit,
to live or to work in that area, then the Darlings have a little grandson and John Tom
Morgan has a little grand daughter both of whom will grow up into the community,
the two village shop keepers have teenagers at home who dream of a much better
tomorrow for their community. Just maybe one day in the not too distant future,
there will be lawyers, doctors, marketers and engineers living and working with the
potato farmers in the Bethany to Mile Gully region of Northern Manchester.

Thus in spite of the hardships faced, despite the fact that my life and my nights
were made into hell, not for myself but for my daughter, for John Toms grand
daughter, for the Darlings grandson, for the Patriarchs grand daughter and others,
I endured the sun, the rain, the lack of money, moments of hunger, insect bites at
night, so that I too like my fathers before me, would have laid my block, in a bid to
ensure that the lives of those who follow me, will be a bit better and their roads a bit
easier.

A father is asked not to make sacrifices and endure hardships not only so that his
life might be better but perhaps more importantly that the lives of those growing up
and those yet to come into the world will be better.

Basil Fletcher

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Congos - Row fisherman row lyrics

Row fisherman row
keep on rowing your bouat
lots of hungry belly pickney they a shore, millions of them
living in a bumbo hut
in a little hole sea-port town
three kids on the floor
and another one to come make four
day by day i man step it
along the sea shore
hail brother John, have you got any wenchman
yes brother Peter, wenchman, sprat and mackaba
row fisherman row keep on rowing your boat
brotherman brotherman
row fisherman row
we've got to reach on higher grounds
Simon, Peter, James and John come a shore
to feed the hungry belly ones
so, row fisherman row
keep on rowing your boat
lots of hungry belly pickney they a-shore, millions of them
Quaju Peg the collie-man
sell the best collie in sea port town
Quaju Peg the collie man
ha the best collie weed in town
row fisherman row
keep on rowing your boat
we've got to reach on higher grounds
rain is falling
we've got to reach on hgher grounds
Download for free lyrics for song Congos - Row fisherman row

Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsforsong.net/

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There Must Be Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers and Criminals

In the demand driven society in which we live and work, where the primary driver of economic
development and technical innovation is profit, it is important that fathers understand that
without their active role in helping their children to understand that there must be some other
reason apart from the simple biological for their coming into the world and on that basis facilitate
the development of their sense of purpose and mission.
What do I mean by this? If lawyers are to be paid, prison warders, security guards and police
men and women employed, if waders, police and prisoners uniforms are to be made, if car
alarms, safety vaults, surveillance systems are to be manufactured, if taizers, bullet proof vests,
handcuffs, and burglar barsare to be made then there must be criminals and individuals with
criminal intent. Did your son or daughter come into the world to contribute to the supply of
criminals of various ages, different levels of technical skills and competences? Did he or she
come into the world to meet the demand for lawyers fighting to ensure that justice not only
seems to be done but is actually done? Yes, here we understand that injustice is created as a
determinant of demand.
If biomedical researchers are to be employed, if biochemists, biophysicist, medical researchers,
nurses, doctors, hospital staff and their uniforms, lab coats, gloves and equipment are to be made,
if research labs, pharmaceutical companies, drug stores are to be equipped and staffed then there
must be sick people. Is the reason for your child coming into the world, that of contributing to
the demand of individuals with various types of illnesses? Is his or her role that of becoming a
guinea pig for the testing of new pathogens and or becoming a vector for new diseases? Is his or
her role that of become a doctor or a medical researcher fighting to develop new cures?
Human society progresses by creating the demand for various types of goods and bads and
creating the supply to meet that demand. It is on that basis a modern economy is built,
employment and wealth created.
It is the duty of a Fletcher, Manaker or Morgan who is father, not only to understand that should
he fail to help his children to develop positive reasons for their being in the world, society,
through the media, through games, through books, songs and through religion will give your
children minutely, hourly and daily, various reasons for their being into the world. In some parts
of the world, reasons and roles are assigned by race, in others by religion and in others by
gender, age and sexuality.
It is not enough to say that an individual reason to be in the world is that of praising or serving
God. God is the author of both good and bad, the creator of all fruits including the forbidden
fruit, the Father of both Israel and Babylon., thus even the worse of murderers, rapists and Hitlers
in their own way serve God.

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For the Christians among us, this is perhaps best seen from the Last Supper, Jesus ensured that
all of his disciples without exception did eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, thus making
them equally guilty as Judas. Jesus himself as the owner of the flesh did eat and drink of the food
of the feast. While the role of Judas was to betray him, Jesus made by consuming of his own
flesh ensured that he stood equally guilty for his own death as was Judas. Peter the rock on
who the Church was to be built was made double even as guilty as Judas. Therefore from here it
can be seen, that while it is good to believe in God, that in and by itself does not necessarily give
a person a reason for being in the world.
The question therefore, is not who will I serve but rather what will I do with my life? Why am I
here? The demand for what will I contribute my life to filling? If fathers are able to guide their
children through these questions, it is then possible to help them to develop a positive sense of
purpose and mission for their lives. It is important to recognize here, that the society and the state
can take away all that a person has, including his or her life; however a sense of reason for being,
once firmly established cannot be easily taken away.
Basil Fletcher

Think Carefully About What You Take On!

About a year and a half ago, while staying at my aunts home, I saw that the
channel which leads the water from the washing machine was a bit clogged, In my
mind, the solution to the problem was to lengthen the channel, hence extending it
further into the garden and to make the channel deeper thus better able to handle
water when large loads are washed. The running of the water from the washing
machine to be back garden ensures that the banana plants, the bread fruit and
mango tree, in addition to the cassava and beans which grow near to the fence are
watered regularly without incurring additional costs. It was my view, that the
deepening and extending of the channel, a very simple thing to do. At the time
there was also a long metal instrument pointed at one end and flat head screw
driver like at the other end.

I used this instrument to dig areas of the channel not knowing that a half inch PVC
pipe carrying water to the house, ran under the channel which was dug into the
earth. In trying to deepen the channel I accidentally ruptured the pipe, hence
causing a significant leak and stopping water supply to the house. Now rather that
just deepening and extending a channel, I now also had to repair a ruptured pipe.

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A few days ago, while I was at my aunts home, I thought that it would be a good
idea to rake up the leaves from the trees which were on the ground to the side of
the house. Thus I went to the front garden for the rake. In taking up the rake, it
came to my mind, that it would not appear good to remove the rake leaving the
area directly by my aunts bed room filled with leaves on the ground, that I started
and ending up raking the entire front yard, in addition to the side which I had
intended to rake up. I went into the house where I saw my nephew hard at work in
the kitchen. It was then I noticed that some one had spilled some drink leaving a
small spot on the floor of the back dining room, which I decided to remove using a
wet mop. I then realized that it made no sense in removing the spot and not
cleaning the entire area which thanks to the wind had become a bit dusty.

As fathers, sometime our children will come to us with new ideas which they want to
take on, especially voluntary work type of projects. While it is our duty to encourage
them to take on these challenges as they help in the development and growth of
the child as a person, we also owe it to the child to ask him or her to examine the
implications of the tasks he or she is taking on to him or herself, its implications for
school work and other chores at home, to examine what the carrying out of the task
entails and the costs involved.

It is our own experiences in living and getting around in the world which provides us
with the insights and knowledge we need to enable us to guide our own children,
What are the mistakes we made and what lessons are there to be learnt from them.
In the carrying out of a given task, what lessons were learnt and how can the
lessons learnt help us to better guide our own children. At another level, the same
approach can be applied to our dealing with the wider society and help us to
determine what we will do or not do, what we can give and what we cannot give.

Basil Fletcher

Wearing A Pirates Style Pants-Making It My Own

Not everything one gets will be exactly that which one wants nor will all
opportunities be ideal. At times one has to fight to make the opportunities, the
articles and or positions one receives his or her own. A father has a duty to teach
his child or children to make the best use of that which is available, a process which

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starts with the claiming of that which life has given to him or her, and by doing
the best that one can with that which one has.

I was given three pairs of pants most recently by my sister, a gift for which I am
very greatful to have received. The pants are however just a bit short and the style
of one reminds me of the style the pirates of old wore. However as an individual
without any source of income to purchase clothing for myself, I had to and still have
to ask myself, which Tee shirt or shirt, should I wear along with my pirates pants to
make them mine and less pirate like.

This reminds me of an incident which occurred when I was a boy. My mother had
cooked somehow far too much rice than the family could eat at any one time. My
mother did not panic nor despair, nor did she give the extra to the dogs. She got
together all the vegetables that were in the house, along with some butter and flour
and made that which could be called-rice, vegetable patties (enpanadas de aros y
verduras). Rice by itself is an inferior food article, however my mother used it to
make what is still to this day in Jamaica, a luxury food article which would only be
found on the tables of the educated, cultured and affluent.

I as a father, have not been able to dedicate the quantity and quality time needed
to encourage and facilitate my daughter in the development of her sense of
creativity. It is my sincere wish that the fathers of the Fletchers, Manakers and
Morgans families do the best they can in encouraging and facilitating their children
their children in developing their sense of creativity and maximizing their use of the
opportunities, articles and positions life gives to them.

Basil Fletcher

When Three Acres Of Land Is Not Enough To Divide Between Ones

Children
My good friend Anthony Bailey, is a teacher and a father of two sons and a daughter
and now a grandson. Mr. Bailey in growing his children, recognized the critical
importance of ensuring that all his children got a good college education, and in
order to ensure that happened made great sacrifices and going without things

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which he wanted or would have liked. Having walked through this world, studying in
Russia, living in Germany for a while and returning to live in Jamaica, he recognized
that while a college education is of great importance, it is necessary for his children
to have other skills from they maybe able to earn an income should they fail to
obtain jobs in the areas of their training. In Russia, he saw individuals with doctorial
degrees driving taxis and in Germany he saw men with doctorial degrees working as
bar tenders and would have seen Rumanian medical doctors working as
housekeepers and gardeners in the West; thus he had and has no illusions. His tasks
was and is to train his children to live.

Mr. Bailey ensured that his two sons have the ability to teach, his eldest son is a
specialist in the area of agriculture and is a teacher of biology in his spare time, his
second son is an engineering student and is capable of teaching mathematics and
his daughter who is a student of the arts, will not only be an artists, she is already
capable of teaching high school arts and craft even as she from time to time
practice as a hairdresser. Thus regardless of winds blow they are able to stand up.

There is a Rasta man, who I see from time to time walking through the city with his
son, begging. His son attends school. At first I was disturbed by the fact that he
carried his son along with him on his begging trips, however, I came to the
realization that this son not only understands what his father has to do to put bread
on the table but perhaps more important, the boy gets to see beyond the walls of
the inner city and is thus able to recognize that there are things and positions in the
world which he can have if he works hard. This boy, the fact that he is always with
his father is always under supervision and his name will not be called when there is
mischief in the community and or among his age mates, equally this boy has no
illusions about the society in which he lives, he has man as he is, crude, at times
kind, at other times brutal, cruel etc. This father has ensured that his son is very
well prepared for the society in which he lives.

In that region between Bethany and Devon in North Manchester and in Ginger Hill in
St. Elizabeth, there are many farmers with three acres of land which is in itself
already too small to sustain a family of four or five persons. While many have
access to addition land, there should be no assumption that the current access
which they enjoy is transferable to their children. The question therefore is how
does a father living in these regions prepare their children for the future. How can
one make three acres of land sufficient for two or three children?

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It is critical if the children of these farmers are to be able to sustain themselves later
in life as adults and as parents without fratricidal conflicts occurring, that the
fathers of today see farming as a business first and foremost. If one thinks of
farming as a business, them the question which comes to mind, is:-What orther
branch of agricultural production can I start to give my first child? What else can I
start to give to my second child? Etc. If I began to purchase ten goats per year, will I
be able to give to my first child at least forty goats by the time he reaches twenty
years of age? Where will he pasture these goats? Could he pasture them on postharvest lands? Could he tie some of them out in the Church yard? Could I get for my
second child ten cows for his or her twentieth birthday? How much land will my last
child need to put up fifty bees boxes? Could he put them up in the hills where there
is no- one farming? What do I need to do to start putting things together for them?
How do I divide the land that I have now that they all will be able to build houses for
their families? In short one has to look at the Issacs and the Matholons and ask
themselves what would grandfather Issac or Mathelon do to ensure that all their
children can live and have where to live as a family. Both the Issacs and the
Matholons would take a business approach to what they have and what they are
doing.

Even if one children should become lawyers and or doctors, they will need a lot of
money to start up their business and to rent office, not to mention that money
would have to be found to pay for their education at law school or medical school.
Should one looks at Mr. Chin, one will see that even if young son or daughter Chin
should become the general manager of the biggest bank, they do not sell their
parents shop, store, wholesale or supermarket. What is theirs is theirs, one works
with others not to close down or get rid of what one has, but rather to build on what
one has.

The tasks facing, the fathers in the Mile Gully-Bethany region and in Ginger Hill are
daunting, however I am sure that the Fletchers of Ginger Hill and the Morgans of
Northern Manchester have what it takes to cut a good road for their children.

Basil Fletcher

Woman facing prison for son's sexual

abuse of daughter
Thursday, July 16, 2015

16 Comments

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A brief look at Jamaica's political history provides an interesting background to the

concept and creation of the 1962 Constitution and the format of the Senate.
A 50-year-old woman who was said to be aware that her son was sexually assaulting her teenage
daughter, but failed to report the incident, is to be sentenced in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's
Court on July 21.
The woman, Marlene Brown, will also be sentenced for abusing the 16-year-old teenage girl.
The Kingston higgler appeared Tuesday before Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey for sentencing on charges
of cruelty to a child and failure to report a crime to the Office of the Children's Registry, but the sentencing
was postponed for the magistrate to check the legislation, which outlines the penalty for failing to report.
The court heard that the teenager told her mother that her brother had molested her. and the mother told
her to keep it within the family.
The mother, the court heard, was also aware of other incidents but failed to do anything about it or report
it to the police.

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On Tuesday when Brown appeared in court, attorney, Hugh Faulknor, told the court that Brown was very
remorseful and finally acknowledged that she acted wrongly as a mother.
He told the magistrate to bear in mind that her actions have since resulted in her son being taken into
custody and charged.
Brown was also accused of using a lighter to burn her daughter under her eye after the teenager told her
that the smoke from her cigarette was affecting her.
The court had also heard that Brown had beaten the teen, causing scars all over her body.
-- Tanesha Mundle

Owensboro, Kentucky's most prolific dead beat dad!

I'm not such a bad guy am I?

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Can we say karma and learn its definition??? Karma - Destiny or fate, following as
effect from cause. Or how about the good ole Kentucky defintion of karma - you
reap what you sow

Now during Ms. Medleys investigation not only did she find no proof of any abuse
being committed by the ex-wife and step-dad she found much proof of abuse being
committed by deadbeat dad michael waddell. Ms. Medley went on to tell the ex-wife
and the new step-dad that they need to call in a complaint on deadbeat dad. Now
calling in this complaint is not as easy as it sounds and took some months. Social
services are like any governmental agency and have red tape that does not make
things easy. So the ex-wife and the step-dad called social services to make
complaints but at this point it seemed like this was being done in retaliation to
deadbeat dad michael waddell calling in his made up complaints. But lucky for the
ex-wife and step-dad one of the social workers that took the complaint told them if
that the boys were seeing mental health professionals and that mental health
professional would call in the complaint it would carry much more clout. Well it is
sad to say but the oldest son has been seeing Angela Bell from Counseling
Associates for years and deadbeat dad michael waddell was getting so abusive that
even young Luke had started see Ms. Bell as well. Something is seriously wrong
when children of 5 years old have to see mental health professionals. So Ms. Bell
called social services and an investigation into deadbeat dad michael waddell's
physical, emaotional, and mental abuse of his two young children would ensue. One
quick note on counseling, deadbeat dad knew nothing good for him would come of
it so he told his oldest son at 10 years old "that he was to old to go see a
counselor".

So Jennifer Shelton is dispatched from social services and does a thorough

investigation and low and behold we have some serious problems. So serious that
the Ms. Shelton has deadbeat dad michael waddells ex-wife file an EPO (emergency
protection order). Unfortunately the system failed and the DVO was not granted. Ms.
Shelton was very upset and could not believe that Judge Wethington did not grant
the DVO after giving such a large amount evidence showing physical, mental, and
emotional abuse being committed by deadbeat dad michael waddell. Judge
Wethington you failed these two young boys and their mother, you can live with
that the for as long as you live.

The Findings

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So what exactly is deadbeat dad michael waddell doing that socail services told his
ex-wife to file an EPO. WOW where to begin? Deadbeat dad michael waddell was
found to have inflicted physical, mental, and emotional harm upon his children. This
is of course in addition to exposing his two young boys to things such as drugs,
domestic violence, porn, M rated games, R rated movies, guns, and more. And for
those who are saying guns what do you mean? Well one time the youngest son got
hold of a loaded hand gun and pointed it and his older brother.
Their job

Now there is an incredible amount of information on this web site. You would think
more then enough information that social services could snatch deadbeat dad
michael waddells children straight from him but it is not that easy. Social services
do not care about 6 year old children playing mature video games or R rated
movies. To social services this is just poor parenting. And the same goes for drugs,
as long as the children are not using the drugs and the children are fed, have
clothes, and a safe place to sleep, drugs are allowed in the home. And in the grand
scheme of things when there are children being molested and do not have food to
eat these problems seem trivial and sometime ignored. No one knows this about
social services better then teachers. If you know a teacher just ask them what they
have seen social services allow to go on in the home, you would be appauled. That
is why these things to need to be brought to the attention of law enforcement and
the judicial system. But when you hire Owensboros worst attorney candy englebert
you just get screwed.

Domestic Violence Hurts Children Even When They Are Not Direct Victims
November 1, 2010
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Domestic violence is not just a family matter.

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Domestic violence takes place behind closed doors, but its effects reverberate
throughout society. We see some of its results in homeless shelters, emergency
rooms, and unemployment lines. Others are more subtle: family instability, longterm health problems, and reduced productivity, to name just a few.

Even more overlooked are the effects of domestic violence on children. Although
children are less likely than women to be direct victims of domestic violence, they
are often present when violence occurs. One in ten children in the U.S. are exposed
to domestic violence, and the majority of them are under six years old.1 Witnessing
family violence is a traumatic experience: seeing or hearing a family member being
threatened or beaten can shatter a young childs sense of safety and security, with
long-term consequences for brain development and emotional well-being.

With the current economic crisis, domestic violence has become even more salient.
When unemployment goes up, so does domestic violence. Furthermore, the rate of
violence in couples experiencing financial strain is over three times higher than the
rate among other couples.2 More family violence, in turn, means more costs to the
criminal justice and health care systems. In short, domestic violence is a public
health problem of epidemic proportions.3
How is domestic violence defined?

Most states include domestic violence as a category in their civil and criminal codes,
but definitions vary according to the types of relationships included and the types of
acts considered violent. In Tennessee, domestic violence laws apply to adults and
minors related by blood, adoption, or marriage, as well as those currently or
formerly in an intimate relationship. Violent acts include inflicting bodily harm,
causing reasonable fear of bodily harm, and making extremely offensive or
provocative physical contact.4

One in four women has been a victim of domestic violence. Families affected by
domestic violence are more likely than other families to be non-white, low-income,
and headed by a single mother.3 Children from homes like these are already at risk
for impaired brain development due to their greater chances of poor health,
negative parenting, and other risks. Seeing or hearing violence in their family adds
yet another threat to their development.

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Domestic violence rates for Memphis and Tennessee are high.

Rates of domestic violence are higher in Tennessee than in many other states. For
example, Georgia reports a rate of 602 incidents per 100,000 people. Tennessees
rate 1,323 per 100,000 is 120% greater. Similarly, in Memphis, the domestic
violence rate is higher than that of many other Tennessee cities. For example, the
Memphis rate is 2,949 per 100,000 compared to 2,015 for Nashville.5

Compared to statewide trends, Memphians involved in domestic violence tend to be

younger. Across Tennessee, victims as well as offenders tend to be between 25 and
44; in Memphis, both are more likely to be between 18 and 34 years of age.5
Domestic violence hurts children even when they are not direct victims.

National research shows that in about half of reported incidents, children are
present.

In about 80 percent of these cases, children directly see or hear the violence.3
Every year, between 10 and 15 million children witness domestic violence.6,7

Witnessing high levels of domestic violence can have lifelong effects on a childs
cognitive, emotional, and social development. For example, adults who witnessed
domestic violence as children are more likely than others to have relationship
difficulties and emotional problems.6,7

Children younger than six are at higher risk than older children for directly
witnessing domestic violence.3 There is a general belief that infants and young
children are less affected than older children by seeing or hearing violent conflict.8
However, research shows that exposure to domestic violence affects even very
young children:
Some effects can be seen as early as infancy: one-year-olds who have been exposed
to domestic violence are more disturbed than other babies when they hear adults
arguing.9
Children under three who witness violence toward a family member are at increased
risk for psychological problems.10
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Cognitive development can also be affected: Children exposed to high levels of

domestic violence in early childhood have IQs at age 5 that are up to 8 points lower
than those of other children.11
Domestic violence affects childrens brain development.

Although there is little specific research on how witnessing domestic violence

affects the developing brain,8 many studies show that stress and trauma in general
can impair childrens brain development. Some studies have found that adults who
experienced significant early life stress have differences in brain structure
compared to people who experienced low levels of early stress.12

Early stressful experiences, including exposure to violence, can influence an infants

stress reactivity the ability of her brains stress response system to turn on or off
appropriately. This can have lifelong effects on psychological and physical health.8
Moreover, domestic violence can affect a child even before she is born. Domestic
violence often begins or grows more intense during pregnancy,8 and the resulting
maternal stress can interfere with fetal brain development.13,14
Domestic violence is a threat to our communitys children.

Children are less likely than women to be direct victims of domestic violence. Of
over 19,000 domestic violence reports in Memphis, only 387 victims were less than
10 years old. Of these, 56 were less than a year old.5

On the positive side, the percentage of Memphis victims younger than 10 is lower
than the statewide percentage (2% vs. 2.9%).5 On the negative side, the citys
higher prevalence of domestic violence means that Memphis children are at higher
risk for witnessing domestic violence than are other Tennessee children.

Local survey data15 suggest that about half (48%) of Shelby County women who
have been victims of domestic violence have children under 18 living with them.
Among these women, more than half (64.4%) say that their children witnessed the
violence. This figure is lower than the national estimate of 80 percent,3 but the
discrepancy may be due to how witness is defined. For researchers, witnessing
the violent act can mean seeing or hearing it. In the Shelby County poll, however,
respondents may have only reported cases in which their children saw the violence.

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The Exchange Club of Memphis is helping families break the cycle of domestic
violence.

The Exchange Club is a Memphis nonprofit organization that provides services to

families affected by violence and abuse. The Exchange Club recognizes that
because children who witness domestic violence are more likely to be involved in
violent relationships as adults, helping children deal with the consequences of
witnessing violence in the home is a crucial element in breaking the cycle of family
violence.

The Childrens Domestic Violence Program is one of the organizations key services.
The program is a 9-session group intervention designed to help families improve
problem-solving skills, create individual safety plans, and address psychological and
behavioral symptoms. While children meet together in age-appropriate groups,
parents receive group training in positive parenting, anger management, and family
safety. Children younger than age four receive one-on-one play therapy.

The program is based on evidence-based practices,16 and a recent evaluation

verifies that the program makes a meaningful difference in the lives of children and
their caregivers. For example, children who completed the program experienced
significant reductions in behavioral problems. Parents who participated made
significant improvements in the use of appropriate and consistent discipline
strategies.17 The success of the Childrens Domestic Violence Program (just one of
the Exchange Clubs numerous services) shows that the Exchange Club is a leader
among community efforts to end the cycle of violence.

All families are not the same, nor is all domestic violence the same. To protect all
children in our community from the effects of domestic violence, we need a variety
of high-quality accessible programs. There are several opportunities for improving
the existing network of services in Memphis and Shelby County. Home visiting
programs and pediatric care providers, for instance, are settings where screening
and treatment could be improved by expanding staff education and training.18,19
Investment in these and other initiatives can strengthen the safety net for children
and families at risk.
References:

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Hibel LC, Granger DA, Blair C. Intimate partner violence moderates the association
between motherinfant adrenocortical activity across an emotional challenge.
Journal of Family Psychology. 2009; 23(5): 615625.

National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Causes and Consequences of

Intimate Partner Violence. 2007. Available at:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/crime/ intimate-partner-violence/welcome.htm
Accessed October 12, 2010.

Fantuzzo J, Fusco R. Childrens direct exposure to types of domestic violence crime:

a population-based investigation. Journal of Family Violence. 2007; 22(7): 543-552.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Definitions of domestic violence:

summary of state laws. Available at: http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/
laws_policies/statutes/defdomvioall.pdf Accessed October 11, 2010.

Connor PD, Nouer SS, Mackey SN, Banet MS, Tipton NG. Documenting domestic
violence crimes in Shelby County, Tennessee. 2010. Unpublished report for the
Academic Consortium of Applied Research, University of Tennessee Health Science
Center.

Levendosky AA, Bogat GA, von Eye A. New Directions for Research on Intimate
Partner Violence and Children. European Psychologist. 2007; 12(1): 15.

McDonald R, Jouriles EN, Ramisetty-Mikler S, et al. Estimating the number of

American children living in partner-violent families. Journal of Family Psychology.
2006; 20(1): 137 142.

Carpenter GL, Stacks AM. Developmental effects of exposure to intimate partner

violence in early childhood: A review of the literature. Children and Youth Services
Review. 2009; 31: 831839

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DeJonghe ES, Bogat GA, Levendosky AA, et al. Infant exposure to domestic violence
predicts heightened sensitivity to adult verbal conflict. Infant Mental Health Journal.
2005; 26(3): 268281.

McDonald R, Jouriles EN, Briggs-Gowan MJ. Violence toward a family member, angry
adult conflict, and child adjustment difficulties: relations in families with 1- to 3year-old children. Journal of Family Psychology. 2007; 21(2): 176-184.

Koenen KC, Moffitt TE, Caspi A, et al. Domestic violence is associated with
environmental suppression of IQ in young children. Development and
Psychopathology. 2003; 15: 297311.

Cohen RA, Grieve S, Hoth KF, et al. Early life stress and morphometry of the adult
anterior cingulate cortex and caudate nuclei. Biological Psychiatry. 2006; 59: 975
982.

Buss C, Davis EP, Muftuler LT, et al. High pregnancy anxiety during mid-gestation is
associated with decreased gray matter density in 6-9-year-old children.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2010; 35: 141-153.

Talge NM, Neal C, Glover V. Antenatal maternal stress and long-term effects on child
neurodevelopment: how and why? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2007;
48 (3/4): 245261.

University of Tennessee Health Science Center. 2010. Domestic Violence Telephone

Survey of Memphis and Shelby County 2003-2008.

Gewirtz AH, Edleson JL. Young childrens exposure to intimate partner violence:
towards a developmental risk and resilience framework for research and
intervention. Journal of Family Violence. 2007; 22: 151163.

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Data provided by the Exchange Club of Memphis.

Sharps PW, Campbell J, Baty ML, et al. Current evidence on perinatal home visiting
and intimate partner violence. Journal of Obstetrics Gynecology and Neonatal
Nursing. 2008; 37(4): 480491.

Thackeray JD, Hibbard R, Dowd MD, et al. Intimate partner violence: the role of the
pediatrician. Pediatrics. 2010; 125: 1094-1100.
2010-10-15_Domestic_Violence_Brief.pdf

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I said I came upon this land
To guide and teach my fellow man
But one thing I can't overstand
Is why them don't love his brother man
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Sometimes I sit and look around
And listen to the daily sound
But when I check, there's so much lies
And that's the reason why the children cry
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It's been so long
We need a change
So the shitstem we got to rearrange
And if there's obstacles in the road, we got to throw them overboard
130

Oh bumbo klaat, oh ras klaat

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One night, an evil spirit held me down
I could not make one single sound
Jah told me, 'Son, use the word'
And now I'm as free as a bird
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Family-Based Interventions Can Reduce Conflict, Improve Coparenting, And Promote

Child Well-Being
November 2, 2010
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The transition to parenthood is a critical moment in a relationship. Some research

indicates that couples become less satisfied with their marriage after they have
children. Parenthood often means more conflicts and disagreements and less leisure
time, communication and intimacy. These changes can be long-lasting. 1,2,3

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Programs that help couples cope successfully with the arrival of a child have the
potential to improve marital quality and child outcomes.

A number of recent family-based interventions have shown mixed success in

improving parental and child outcomes. Parenting Together, an 8-session grouporiented program, improved fathers caregiving skills and increased their
involvement. 4Welcome Baby, a home visitation program designed to improve
marital quality, failed to produce measurable effects on couples relationships. It
did, however, increase fathers involvement with their newborns. 5

The Family Foundations program is a series of 8 classes covering communication,

problem-solving, and conflict management skills. The program led to more positive
parenting, more supportive coparenting, and less maternal depression and anxiety.
As a result, children showed positive changes in temperament and behavior
throughout their first three years. 6

Interventions geared specifically toward decreasing marital conflict have also shown
positive results. One three-hour classroom-based program educated new parents
about the harmful effects of frequent conflict on children and taught them how to
reduce hostility and improve problem-solving in their relationships. The program
succeeded in reducing conflict and improving parenting skills. 7 A similar 4-session
program demonstrated long-term positive effects on childrens emotional
adjustment and parents marital satisfaction. 8
Smart Policies Also Benefit Unmarried Parents and Their Children

The birth of a child is also a window of opportunity for improving parenting in

unmarried, low-income couples. Unmarried fathers and mothers are likely to be
romantically involved at the time of their childs birth, although fathers tend to have
less contact as the child grows older. 9 Mutually supportive parenting in unmarried
couples promotes continued father involvement and improves father-child
relationships. 10 The months before and after a childs birth may provide an entry
point for policies that engage both parents in programs to improve coparenting,
father involvement, and childrens well-being.

The Building Strong Families program serves romantically involved but unmarried
parents. Around the time of their childs birth, couples participate in a 30-40-hour

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program that teaches relationship skills and provides individual support and
appropriate referrals. The effects of the program varied widely among program sites
due in part to differences in implementation and client demographics. However, the
preliminary results indicate that the program can have positive effects on
relationship quality, parenting skills, and conflict management. 11

Programs like those outlined above show that many aspects of family functioning
appear to be improved by well-designed interventions. What remains unclear is the
cost of expanding such programs to serve more families. Typically no information on
costs is included in such studies, but most programs involved highly-trained staff,
numerous services, and long time frames. It is reasonable, then, to expect that the
costs of expanding them in their current form may be prohibitive. Further research
is needed to determine how such programs can be modified to serve more families
at a manageable cost. 12
Coparenting_and_Child_Well-Being_3-11_0.pdf

End
A Fletcher Manaker Production , For the Fletchers, Manaker and
Morgans Families

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