MAKE GREAT BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN

tHE wELCH GUY WAS SPEAKING (i THINK) OF A uk WITH CLOSED BORDERS BUT STILL CENTRALIZED. (sorry, caplock error) But what if we somehow decentralize the UK itself while keeping it united? In fact, despite there not being the same linguistic variegation in the UK as in the UE, why not make the UK a mini UE? You wouldn’t have to concoct relationships out of thin air. These are already there historically. Couldn’t the UK pretty much borrow the governance formula that the UE has now? All in miniature and based on British civilization? Make Great Britain great again…but in a low-energy way? Somebody should go speak to Charles.:-)

BREXIT AND BACK TO THE FUTURE

I got the basic idea from a Welch guy on another blog. Then kept it on the back burner till Brexit came along and declared as how it was offering itself as the nail for those thoughts to hammer. Or like a well placed lob in volley ball to hit over the net. He also suggested that the aristocracy/monarchy had a huge roll to play through using their immense land holdings to settle and feed people. I don’t like that. Those lands are too special to be messed up by the rabble. So I say that the thread holding the union together after decentralization should be the monarchy. Its land should not be despiled or split up, but used for the highest aesthetic quality settlement that complements the land’s beauty. Buildings would be built from scrap, and set the model for a new stage of civilization, an exceedingly decentralized and low energy one. The military must enforce that royal hegemony. Serfdom, yes. But not a mindless, unimaginative or uncivilized sort. Back to the future.

MIES

https://www.facebook.com/groups/jchsociety/?multi_permalinks=10156393319622893&notif_id=1553793720828580&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic

JAMAICA AN NEW ARCHITECTURE

Trevor Burrowes The problem with celebrating the new is coming up with a sensible notion for what IS new. Building (supposedly) in the international style is not new. It is in every ambitious country in the world. It was one thing when Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created the international style in architecture. I was taught in a program created by Josef Albers, a colleague of "Mies" at the Bauhaus who also emigrated to the US. These masters were indeed original, highly educated, idealistic, visionary, thinking for the first time about an architecture for the industrial age that they hoped would bring in a better way of life for humankind. 

It didn't do that, unfortunately, and instead degenerated into a banal formula that every builder can generate. It was very common in communist countries, but just about everywhere else too. It is by now nothing new or creative. It has become ANTI creative, forestalling new thinking. Now, people are waking up to the fact that the ubiquitous concrete box is not what they want, is a mistaken direction, and must be replaced by a renewed examination of past heritage. Paradoxically, to look to the past IS new. It is not what we've been doing since the war, and the influx of super abundant cheap oil to make those bad designs work, to power the air conditioners, to manufacture the cement, is now coming to a close. These buildings show no sign that they understand that. They are behind the times, clinging to a reality that is slipping away. 

All the choices for the parliament building show the same sickly lack of new thinking. All are formulaic and banal. All say nothing distinctive or aspirational about Jamaica, or about the new direction it must take.. None of this is new.

ADDRESSES FOR LETTERS

As promised yesterday:
E Mail addresses:
letters@gleanerjm.com
editorial@jamaicaobserver.com
davidsonv@jamaicaobserver.com
Peter Knight, NEPA Peter.Knight@nepa.gov.jm
primeminister@opm.gov.jm
Ministry of Tourism; you have to use their form at https://www.mot.gov.jm/…/Contact%20the%20Ministry%20of%20To…
Daryl.Vaz@opm.gov.jm
Public Opinion opinionpublic10@gmail.com
caribbeannewsservice@gmail.com
Petchary’s Blog petchary@gmail.com

CONSIDERATIONS ON BUILDING

I agree that a shed used as residence should not be visible to the public. If it can't be secluded away from public view, it probably should be prohibited. As to apartments, it's more helpful to consider them when they can be visualized. Where would they go? What would they displace? What architectural style would they encompass? Beyond that, what would they cost?, who could afford them?, who would build them?, what was the builder's purpose, etc.

NAMIBIA LETTER

They are now catering to people who are willing to pay over a hundred dollars US to have encounters with dolphins. The dolphins surely don't like swimming there in enclosures and begging for their food by performing tricks. The town of Discovery Bay doesn't want the fish sanctuary turned into a dolphin toilet. The world is now frowning on the deplorable enterprise of holding dolphins in captivity for forced interaction with humans. And the people of Jamaica are being hemmed in with an invisible wall of high-priced entry fees from enjoying their birthright which is the beautiful sea all around this island.

Dear Andy,,

Grateful of your support for SDB in general, and my efforts in particular, I am running this by you before sending it off to destinations yet unknown within the sphere of Namibia.

I haven't checked for typos or edited it yet. Just want to get your general sense of it. I see that both Namibia and Jamaica have mutual consuls in our nations, and I wonder about resulting collusion with our distressing PM. There are direct Namibian coast and tourism contacts, but I'll get to that.

So here goes:



NAMIBIA



Jamaica Needs Your Help



"Jamaica, in the 1970s, like it was in the case of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress in South Africa, FRELIMO in Mozambique, the MPLA in Angola, and ZANU-PF in Mozambique, was a loud and moral voice in support of SWAPO's quest for the overthrow of apartheid and the creation of a non-racial, independent and democratic country. Many Namibians were invited to train in Jamaica." (saw this online. can get reference)


Namibia and Jamaica have close ties. A major street in Namibia's capital has been named Marcus Garvey Way, after Jamaica's most visionary beeckon of African dignity and independence. But in the meantime, Jamaica has been sliding ever deeper into moral decline, as Chinese imperial interests destroy its heritage and international corporatocracy wipes away ever more of its natural and cultural patrimony.


I am the founding administrator of a Facebook group called "Restoring St. Ann's Bay." St. Ann's Bay is the birthplace of Marcus Garvey. Mr. Garvey learned the trade of printing in my grandfather's printing office. My grandfather was also his godfather and lifelong mentor and friend. Born in St. Ann's Bay myself, I feel a great responsibility to maintain the legacies of Mr. Garvey and my own grandfather.


It is with pride that I note Namibia's achievement as being the only country in the world to have its entire coast protected, for I think this also ties into Garvey vision for a great emergent Africa.


St. Ann's Bay, the capital of Jamaica's largest parish, the site of the Spanish first landing, and settlement of Seville in 1506, and Jamaica's oldest capital, has been sidelined by neighboring Ocho Rios, one of Jamaica's leading tourist meccas. It epitomises a sun and beach, all-inclusive-hotel,  and cruise ship style tourism at the expense of history, environment and proper coastal management. A by-product of this tourism model is the despoliation of coastal ecology, loss of the people's access to beach, harm to fisheries, and destructive types of entertainment based on the cruise ship culture.

I am writing you to emphasize one particular development. It is Dolphin Cove dolphinarium, which is being strongly opposed by local fisheries, the marine sanctuary in which it is located, and local homeowners, who's part-time rental to tourists (and quality of life) will be hurt by the trend to degrade sea grasses, clean water, and coral that dolphinaria are known to cause. To say nothing of the inappropriate confinement  and trivializing of one of natures most intelligent wild creatures. .


It is my mission, following in the footsteps of your nation, to turn the entire north coast of St. Ann Parish into a protected coastal district in the spirit of prideful, rigorous Garveyite governance.


We need your help. We hope you can tell us how to circulate our petition against Dolphin Cove--in the St. Ann village of Discovery Bay--widely among coastal advocates and others in your country. Beyond that, we hope for ways to form alliances, as appropriate, with the Namibian government and other relevant institution and communities within it.


PETITION

NAMIBIA

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  Trevor Burrowes Tiny steps. I'm posting this here intending to look into how to proceed--and what content has the most likely chance of being even read. http://www.met.gov.na/contact-us/6/

  

  MET.GOV.NA

  Ministry of Environment and Tourism Namibia - Our Contacts

  Ministry of Environment and Tourism Namibia - Our Contacts

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  Trevor Burrowes Management Plan for the Namibian Hake Fishery http://acpfish2-eu.org/.../Namibian%20Hake%20Management...

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HARROGATE AGENDA

http://harrogateagenda.org.uk/

NAMIBIA COAST

"Namibia became the only country in the world to have a completely protected coastline. "

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-highest-percentage-of-protected-reserve-lands.html

SEAWEED CRISIS

https://www.facebook.com/Bonairephoto/videos/408247299964943/UzpfSTcyNjY5MjExOTpWSzo4Mjk5MDYzMTczNjYwMzE/?multi_permalinks=829906317366031&notif_id=1553043445259449&notif_t=group_highlights

GENTRIFICATION

I scrolled through the menu till I got to the Wilks notice. The work to get and maintain sympathetic legislation through the decades is awesome and entirely beyond my scope of accomplishments. I will however say again what I've sid repeatedly: A community at risk of gentrification must pay close attention to the scope and character of land development. If you build something that's out of context spatially/visually, it will be out of context economically and socially. One characteristic of this is how it inevitably raises taxes, and how jarringly it does so. If, au contraire, it is gentle and modulated spatially/visually--it's small, tucked away, under the size where permits are required, sensitively designed, built by local labor, etc.--there a much improved chance that it will slow or entirely avoid gentrification. Also, if financial pressures are such that local home owner must sell to pay their bills, there should be tiny or otherwise very affordable residential alternatives to actually leaving the the community. Also, the spectrum extending between strategic root causes and symptoms is rather extensive. It's important not to come down so heavily on the symptom side of the spectrum as to neglect the strategis/root cause end.

THAT"S HOW YOU LEARN...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXU69P6neJI

BABSY GRANGE

Andy Christophi Trevor Burrowes 
Babsy Grange
The People of Central St. Catherine
Add FriendMore Options
Member of parliament at The People of Central St. Catherine
Lives in Kingston, https://www.facebook.com/babsy.grange

THE MEXICAN ANGLE

I wrote to the Mexican Embassy over a week ago asking them to support Save DB. Mexico now supposedly has a more progressive government, although I saw no evidence that the ambassador, who was assigned in 2015 wasn't the current one. Given the past government's reputation for corruption, when the web site said that their investment program would not be inhibited by Jamaica's crime--and we must remember that if any country has or had a worse reputation for crime than Jamaica, it would be Mexico--it could mean that cut throat projects like dolphinaria would be par for the course? So it could be that Mexico is actively supporting Dolphin Cove as an example of "investment?" And if so, might it be an idea to appeal directly to the new national government?

RESTORING JAMAICA

Trevor Burrowes This is why I say, "overly ambitious" as it might seem, it might actually be easier to a) demand a moratorium on building demolitions; b) have a quick and dirty island-wide photo documentation project to photograph all colonial-era structures; c) demand that colonial-structure-repair (however minor) be part of the island's curriculum framework; d) contact IOJ for whatever synergy their programs can give; e) FOCUS ON RAPID STABILIZATION OF EVERYTHING while "restoring" one or two things, respectively, from each of the 14 parishes.