David Cupples

Forty years ago, on Dec. 3, 1976, Bob Marley was shot in a gangland assassination attempt in the heat of a contentious Jamaican election campaign pitting the United States’ favorite (Edward Seaga) against the incumbent prime minister (Michael Manley).

Given the radical decrease in belief in the reality of global warming among the population of the United States and various Western nations in recent years, it may seem premature and a bit hysterical to cry wolf about the dangers of remedial measures that may never be implemented.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s incipient plan to “smash Cuba” in response to Fidel Castro sending soldiers in 1975 to support Angola’s liberation struggle has recently been documented (‘Back Channel to Cuba’, a book by Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande) and drawn comment on indepe

Symbolism of the hero is dominant in Western, in particular American, culture. The rugged individual who overcomes all trials and tribulations to defeat a seemingly invincible foe is virtually the embodiment of an underlying sense of who Americans are.

With Jamaica having recently celebrated its Big 5-0 — fifty years of independence from Mother England — it’s natural to think of those things for which the tiny Caribbean island is famous. Fast sprinters and Olympic bobsledders. Patch-eyed pirates raiding the Spanish Main.

This past 6 August, Jamaica celebrated its 50th birthday — 50 years since independence from Mother England came in 1962.