Crying for the Beloved Country

As I write, a concentrated form of Nature's malevolence is bearing down on Jamaica promising to sow death and destruction across the island. Hurricane Dean has already wrought havoc across the Eastern Caribbean and has only gained in strength since. Expectations are that it will hit Jamaica early on Monday morning. I invite you all to join me in directing your best wishes and prayers to the long-suffering people of Jamaica who stand again on the brink of catastrophe. Dean is currently stronger than were Gilbert and Ivan, who were both enormously destructive, so one can only contemplate, with dread, its likely effects. Until being overtaken by events, it had been my intention to write about the impending Jamaican election, the latest installment in the country's periodic Hobsonian choice between, as Jamaican wags would have it, black dog and monkey, or, more properly, between the Jamaica Labour Party and the incumbent People's National Party. It seems improper to engage with this matter at this juncture. Indeed, the impact of Dean might necessitate the postponement of the ballot. I will conclude this post by indicting both parties for the abject failures of their respective administrations. Far too many Jamaicans live in conditions of such appalling poverty that they will be unable to make the basic preparations to face the disaster, and they will tenaciously refuse to evacuate their premises, however parlously situated, for fear of losing their modest possessions in the aftermath when the inevitable looters emerge. As a consequence, many will lose their lives. For this, and many other reasons beside, our beautiful island is a cause of many tears.