You know, for all the praying that is supposed to be going on in Jamaica, it certainly seems like the connection between us and the Father must be bad, or the prayers are getting 'dropped' because nothing has been changing. I lie, it's been getting worse.

For the past few years now, the satellite communities surrounding the nation's so-called tourism capital, Montego Bay, have been progressively getting worse, filling up daily with the virtual scum of the earth, and yet Government remains impotent when it comes to effectively dealing with this situation.

I guess Peter Phillips and his crew have been praying via that bad connection that they seem to be having with the Big Man upstairs. They keep saying "hello?" and He keeps repeating "are you still there?"

That must be what they're telling that family of the policeman who got shot dead along St. James Street in Montego Bay this week. St. James Street, that is in the heart of MoBay! Can the criminals get any more blatant than that? But what is there to fear? Everybody's busy praying, praying and doing nothing else.

Again, I have to correct myself here, because they did do something. Every year there is this major production called the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast where all the leaders of the country, religious and political, with their hypocritical selves gather for some free food and entertainment. In the weeks prior to this grand production, all the major players practise their best sombre voices and research the most soul-stirring verses from the Bible and the most famous quotes from some of mankind's greatest minds, all of which they spout with much relish, all in a grand show of national unity. But if you ask me, they need to stop because God clearly doesn't watch that show. Neither do the gunmen who are way too busy planning who they're going to kill next.

Then now, these days we have the Prime Minister of Prayer running the show who nobody can hear anything from on any issue because I suppose she is so busy re-establishing that bad connection with the Great Beyond even as more and more Jamaicans get sent there every day. If I were her I would turn to Errald for some help because he obviously knows a thing or two about how to repair bad connections.

Meanwhile, the Minister of National Security has announced that there is a new crime initiative coming. Who is taking bets that this one involves another crack squad of blood-thirsty policemen and some recycled rhetoric? Guess he didn't get the message that this way does not work and that the first sign of insanity is when you keep doing the same thing over and over again but keep expecting a different result. Another bad connection there it seems. Somehow, the message from the public has not been getting through.

Just like the message that Hugo Chavez was sending when he set conditions for money saved in the PetroCaribe deal to be used on social programmes which - and this is just me - might just help save a few more hundred kids from becoming criminals. Those same programmes, Anthony Hylton suggests, may not be getting any of that money because there are more 'important' things to do with the money. Yeah. Like burying policemen and trying to win an election that has virtually already been lost? No wonder our prayers are not getting through, the connection only gets cleared up when we really start doing something.

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