Trump, Jerseys and the Golden Shower of Karma

The Lion's Roar 

A joint by Lion Coore - IF YOU LIKE IT, PASS IT ON

Trump, Jerseys and the Golden Shower of Karma.

Remember that time when God told Abraham to murder his son Isaac? Then, Abraham, being the obedient servant took out his knife and tied the boy to the altar.  As he was about to thrust the blade into his Isaac’s heart, the Lord called unto him “Oye! Stop right dere” the voice said from heaven, “The I and I was just testing yu. Everything is Irie, blessings onto you…” (Yes, in my mind God has a thick Jamaican accent).

The Bible story made me wonder if a deed is either good or evil on its own merit, or does it depend on who gave the order.  If Abraham had killed his son, would that be an evil act?  Or does the fact that it was ordered by our Lord, makes the deed a good one?  

I’m asking this question because, in recent days, my fellow Americans have been outraged that a foreign power has had a major influence on who will lead the USA.  I cannot understand why this is such a big deal when the removal and replacement of other countries’ leadership is, kinda like our thing.   

For example, in 1953, the US orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Iran.  Then there was the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and the many subsequent attempts to assassinate Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro in the ensuing years.  In 1983, the US military invaded the tiny island of Grenada and removed their government, then a few years later in 1989, the American armed forces invaded Panama and deposed their leader. In 2004 instead of sending in troops to Haiti, according to the then President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the US sent a plane and kidnapped him from his country.  In recent years, the US have orchestrated regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria – to name a few. 

So what’s the big deal if Russia has followed our lead and decided who the next American leader should be?  First, let’s assume that it’s in Russia’s best interest to install a friendly government in the US, then logically, given the US’s track record, it would be foolish for Putin to have the capabilities to influence the US elections and not use it.  It is then hypocritical for America to cry foul when we’ve been doing the same thing in different countries all around the world.   

So I ask you this question, is it an inherently evil act for the US to decide who the leader of a foreign country should be? Or is it only evil if America is NOT the country doing the deciding?

Which jersey are you wearing?

It seems like we live in a world now where everybody cheats, but people are only irate when their team loses.  In the Democratic Primaries, Hillary’s team was caught red-handed colluding with the DNC to ensure that Bernie Sanders would not win; she even got debate questions before the actual debate.  There wasn’t much outrage on the part of the Democrats about cheating and Sanders lost as planned.  Now that Trump is on the hot seat for colluding with Russia, the Democrats do not have the moral authority, in my opinion, to reprimand Trump for cheating, when they gave their candidate a pass for her transgressions.

From where I sit, it looks like the United States of America has lost her way.  It is as if the period of enlightenment took humans out of the dark ages and into an era of reason, then the dichotomy of America's two-party political system has lifted us out of the age of reason and firmly placed us all in a field of ignorance.  We’ve become a population on a giant football field supporting one of two angry opposing teams.  Half the population is wearing Trump’s jersey, and the other half is wearing Hillary’s, and no matter what the infraction of their team, regardless of how ugly a foul or how despicable the team’s behavior, the supporter is bound to defend the jersey on their backs. 

So it means that if Trump decides to walk out to the podium at a Press Conference without trousers or underwear, his mouth pouting and his orange dingaling swinging in the wind, his supporters must still find a way to defend this position.

“Well, all the doctors say it’s good to let it hang freely – it’s a medical thing.”

“Listen, he told you that there was absolutely no problem down there, but yawl didn’t believe.  So he had to prove it.”

“Hey, you can say what you will, but my President’s got balls baby!!”

Unfortunately, this is just how things are, and I’ve come to accept it.  The country is hopelessly divided; Obama couldn’t bring us together, and the odds are that Trump won’t even try.  Will we ever remove those jerseys and become the principled, rational, ethical beings that the Founding Father’s hoped we’d be by now, or is this race to the bottom a blood sport to the death?  Only time will tell. 

In the meantime, try as we may, we’ll never find out what allegedly happened between Trump and the ladies in that hotel room.  The only thing that we know for certain is that, like a golden shower of karma from the Gods, those Russian prostitutes have pulled their panties to the side and pissed all over the entire American public.  It has left the country with the unpleasant taste of our own bitter medicine.  There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it…And so it should be.

The 'N' word and the Banana Boat.

The Lion's Roar

A weekly column by Lion Coore

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My journey with the 'N' word on the banana boat.

Lately, I find myself chronically observing people when I’m in social settings. I’ve become fascinated with the Jamaican class conflict and how it guides our behavior and ultimately our destinies. Oscar Wilde once wrote, “When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know that it is” and I tend to agree with him.



I was recently at a high society bar among an army of young uptowners and I observed as they came in gracefully like a flock of sparrows, each joining their respective small groups. The prim and proper chatter buzzed over the clinking of wine glasses as they greeted their peers with smiles and smooches on the cheeks.

These beautiful people were mostly white or natural browning (i.e. light skinned not caused by cake soap usage) and they only wore the finest name brand clothing – none of which is made in Jamaica. I watched as they spoke and laughed with an air of confidence, sometimes even superiority and I reasoned that among this small crowd were many future business leaders and future politicians; still I got the distinct feeling that these people were as shallow as piss on concrete.


Omar Francis, a young Jamaican philosopher in his own right, said it best while I interviewed him for a documentary on how Jamaican young people viewed politics and social struggles. He said, “What I love about the generation below us (late teens to early twenties) is that they don’t care, but they don’t pretend to care.” He surmised that people our age are a bunch of hypocrites who only pretend to care.

On the flip side however, the rituals at a ghetto dance are a bit different but quite similar. For example, no one hugged or kissed when they greeted each other; instead they locked fingers in a weird handshake and did a clicking motion with their thumbs. The scene was less cosmopolitan and the people spoke patios, our native language. Weed and not cigarette smoke stained the air and the drink of choice was Guinness or Magnum tonic wine - the ghetto man's potion to reamain a ‘long distant Stulla’.

I noticed that a large number of the ghetto folks ran away from their blackness by bleaching their skin in what seemed like a desperate effort to look like the high society group. Also, like the uptowners, the clothes of the ghetto partygoers were name brands, or more precisely, knock off name brands - Armani was Armori, Guess was Guest and Dolce & Gabbana was Dolce & Bananna. 


It was clear to me that the only difference between the rich and the poor was that rich people had money. In a world where the wealthiest 10% of adults controls 85% of global assets, I got the distinct feeling that the poor man was not disgusted by the oppressive system; instead he was disgusted at his position in that system. I felt that if given the opportunity to climb the social ladder, he too would lose little sleep over the unequal distribution of wealth between the haves and the have nots.

Though internally classism and poverty seem to be one of our biggest social problems, outside of Jamaica racism becomes an even bigger monster lurking in the shadows.

I remember while studying in Wales, I sold telephone contracts at a store named ‘Phones 4 U’. When business was slow, the manager made us go outside the store to persuade passersby to come in. One day I tried to stop a scrawny white woman who was walking by the crowded plaza.


I said, “Excuse me mam, may I ask which service provider are you with?” I reeled off the memorized script with a thick Jamaican dialect – My manager in training urged me not to disguise my accent because he believed the ladies would find it intriguing.


Well apparently this one didn’t; she gave me the evil eye then walked off and when she was a few meters away, she shouted,

“Don’t ever talk to me you Nigger!

The word pierced through my heart like a sharp knife through my chest and the way she dragged and lengthened the word Niggeeeeer was like she was trying to transform the knife into a spear. “Why don’t you leave our country and go back on the banana boat that you sailed in on” she continued.

I just stood there speechless; nothing like this had ever happen to me before and I was unaware of protocol. Do I give chase then ‘trace’ her (i.e. argue with) like a Mama Lashy or do I try to reason with her intellectually.

I’d never advocate for a man to hit a female, but was this the one instance where a man was allowed to run after a woman and drop kick her in the ass? I knew I wasn’t capable of such a thing, but the thought did cross my mind; guess I’m not into equality as much as I’d hope, because admittedly the choices would’ve been much simpler if she was a scrawny white man.


The ‘N’ word was surprisingly hurtful and I was saddened by the thought that this was the last word many of my ancestors heard before they were sent screaming into the afterlife. For this very reason alone, in honor of dead slaves, I think the ‘N’ word deserves to be banished forever from both black and white lips.


Even my colleague who was standing next to me witnessed the incident and began turning red with embarrassment. He later told me that it was the first time he was ever ashamed to be white. Anyway, I was angry and hurt by the situation, but one good thing about the ordeal was that it happened in the midst of one of those long English winters when my skin color was getting pale due to the lack of sunlight, so I kinda appreciated that the racist woman had still recognized my blackness.


Another silver lining was that the white supremacist woman reminded me that there was a place that I truly belonged and that place was not the United Kingdom. So when the going gets rough in a foreign land, it comforts me to know that I can jump on the banana boat that the racist woman referred to and set sail back to Jam Rock, back to Yard, with the sun in my face and a smile in my heart.

You see, I’ve been to many places across the globe, but Jamaica is the only place that I feel a sense of belonging, a place where no one can tell me to pack up my things and leave. And though we’re known for silly stereotypes and social classification like uptown vs. downtown, Gully vs. Gaza, blacky vs. browning, Olint vs. Cashplus, PNP vs. JLP, Wifey vs. Matey, Bu-duf Baf vs. Ku-Kum Kum (i.e. fat women vs. the skinny ones) etc.; in the end, when in Jamaica, racism doesn’t exist, we truly live by our motto, which is – “Out of many, One people”.


So in times like these when the UN says food prices are at all time highs and food reserves at all time lows. When oil is at record levels, and economies are failing left right and center. When wars, unrest and revolutions seem to touch every point across of the globe. When there are frequent earthquakes flood and other natural disasters at every turn - when tsunami kills over 200 thousand people and volcanoes erupting that has been dormant for over 200 years.

When strange incidents like birds falling from the skies in droves, fishes dying off by the millions, whales committing suicide by throwing themselves onto the shore, bees disappearing and nobody can figure out where they’ve gone. When most First world countries around the world begin the trend of increasing their defense budgets while cutting social service programs – what are they preparing for, World War 3? .


I don’t know, but what I do know is, if the world gets crazy tomorrow, If World war 3 ensues, then most of us, even the ones that have green cards and citizenship will leave everything behind in our adopted land and feel a sense of solace that they can come back to the one place that they feel at home, the one place that we truly belong.

This is why I continually urge you my fellow Jamaicans to do your part to sort out 'di ting'. We have to try to fix our little paradise because when the world gets tired of us and start calling us names or when like Cassius Clay, we find our name listed on a draft for a war that we don’t believe in. At such time we can set sail or take flight to a place where we can always call home...  Welcome to Jamrock.

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Does the Media Manufacture our Consent?

The Lion's Roar

A weekly column by Lion Coore

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Many years ago, while I was working as the Marketing Manager for a newspaper company in Jamaica, I had an eye opening revelation. I was having a discussion with the editor who was telling me about one of the many inappropriate exploits of the company’s chairman. We had printed many unflattering stories about notable persons in society, so I asked her why she had never printed any stories about his lifestyle. She wondered if I was crazy, “You want the whole a we get fired?” she asked rhetorically.

It was then that I realized the media will always reflect a bias of its owners and that the muzzling of truth doesn’t even have to be requisitioned or sequestered it is often implied. Essentially the chairman could be caught sodomizing a goat in a bathroom stall and it would never make the news. So why is it that we have such an unwavering trust in the media?

In Jamaica, the writer’s at the Jamaica Observer Newspaper loves Sandals Chairman, Gordon Butch Stewart like Jesus loves the little children. Is this because Butch is a Saint or is it because he is the owner of the newspaper?


In America a small number of super-powerful corporations have bought up and controlled the global commercial media system. So don’t allow the fact that you see hundreds of TV channels, lead you to conclude that there’s true diversity and variety in today’s television …. A handful of large companies control what you see, hear, and read every day.

The media is an extremely powerful entity, especially in a society like ours, where it tells us who’s hot and who's not'; what to think and who to believe; they tell us who the good guys are and they point the finger at whomever they decide is the bad guy.  The media doesn't allow you to think, it thinks for you.


It is now a matter of record that under the Reagan Administration in the 80’s, the CIA planted false stories in the media about Jamaica’s Prime Minister Michael Manley’s and the state of the Jamaican economy. This was done in order to destabilize the country because our government was becoming too friendly with Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba.

It makes me wonder if a person like Hugo Chavez, a democratically elected leader, is justified in closing down so called “independent” television station in his country in an attempt to curtail the foreign corporate influence in Venezuela.

It was a logical response for the corporations to set their media hound dogs on Chavez to get to a pound of flesh, after he nationalized oil in his Venezuela.  According to Chavez, it was a decision made to get more of the oil profits going to the citizens of the country instead of greedy international corporations.

The truth is, we are all being controlled whether you live in a free or closed society, some of us just haven't figure it out yet. Under communism there are no charades, governments don’t care much about what its citizens think; they use force to keep them in line. While in a democratic society, what the majority think is very essential. Getting the citizen’s permission is paramount and I believe that the media is the machinery used to manufacture this consent.

Noam Chompsky, according to New York Times, is considered the most important intellectuals alive.

He believes that any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. corporate media. He said, “I think there is a good reason why the propaganda system works that way. It recognizes that the public will not support the actual policies. Therefore it is important to prevent any knowledge or understanding of them.”


I was once a news junkie until I realized that the current affairs shows had a sinister motive. The programs were not only keeping me informed, they were also using smart, likable TV personalities to tell me 'what' to think. I found myself in conversations, regurgitating the talking points from the many different corporate and political interests who came on TV parading as experts on the issues. I realized that I was sounding smarter while becoming dumber.

It seems I had outsourced my thinking to these TV personalities like the US outsourced its jobs to China. So I stopped watching shows like Glen Beck on the right and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on the left and began practicing independent thought. 


There are some who believe that there is an organized dumbing down of the US population. Whether this rhetoric is true or not, the statistics don’t lie. It seems that the US is falling while China is not only rising in influence and economic power but in their children’s test scores as well. According to Bloomberg “Fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. ranked 25th among peers from 34 countries on a math test and scored in the middle in science and reading, while China’s Shanghai topped the charts, raising concern that the U.S. isn’t prepared to succeed in the global economy.” …..Poor Obama; I bet they’ll blame him for this one as well.

Also, by giving some stories heavy rotation and others none, the mainstream media tells us what is important and what is trivial. Therefore you’ll find Snookie and the Situation from the Jersey Shore getting more airtime than the two unprovoked wars in the Middle East. The media will find out what is Victoria’s Secret long before they’ll ever find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.


So in the final analysis; who do we trust?


Hmm, that’s a tough one. What I do know is that we cannot trust all that we read in the newspapers and we shouldn’t believe everything we see on TV. Until that day when the main stream media is owned and operated by the people instead of corporations we’ll be fed half truths and lies. So question everything and believe nothing….Well, except for the Lion's Roar of course... :-)


Walk Good.
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Find the Wife and Build a Life

The Lion's Roar

A weekly column by Lion Coore

FIND THE WIFE and BUILD A LIFE 

My plane landed two hours late into Montego Bay, I was happy to be in Jamaica but upset that my brother would have been waiting impatiently for hours. As a matter of principle, I always used my Jamaican passport in Jamrock but the local lines were long and the interrogation of the natives was moving extremely slowly – Jamaican’s can’t even get a break in dem own yard.  So anyway, I grabbed my US passport, put on my finest American accent and rushed through customs with the other tourists to get to my brother who was waiting on the outside.

“I’m sorry bro, the flight was delayed. You must have been waiting for a while eh”?

“No man, I just get here.” he responded.  Like the airline, he too apparently was operating on Jamaica time.

I wanted to find a bathroom to take a leak before we began the hour and a half journey to Ocho Rios, but he said, “No mon we’ll do it on the highway”.  I hadn’t been to Jamaica in a while, so I assumed there were newly built bathrooms on the highway...silly me.

My brother pulled over to the side of the road and we both began peeing in the grass.  The stars above twinkled in approval and the moon smiled down at our long dark silhouette.  In a way, I felt like an environmentalist.  After all, nature was designed to handle and recycle urine, it was the plastic bottles and Styrofoam plates at my feet that were the real problem.

A police car drove by while I was in mid-stream and my heart didn’t go into cardiac arrest like it would in America.  Here in Jamaica, the police would more likely join us, than make an arrest, because we had clearly not been in breach of the Man Code.

Man Code: Chapter 12 paragraph 4

"Whenever two or more heterosexual men are urinating outdoors, each man must find his own bush or section of a wall.  If there are no bushes or walls within 1 mile of the vicinity, then both men must pee standing at an acute angle with space no less than 15 feet between penises.  Eyes must always be affixed at the heavens or dead forward – no exceptions."

In my last column, “Can Lambs become Lions?”, I spoke about a transformational revolution in Jamaica led by the young.  Some of the responses to the column were encouraging but most were critical and cynical.  They said things like:

“These young people don’t know how to change a light bulb, much less a country” Or “You really think a young yute going leave a party to go rebel against corruption…. Dream on!” Or “Your solution to vote out the two corrupt political parties is common sense, but common sense is a rare thing in Jamaica, so dat nah go work”.

Nah lie, those comments burst my bubble and I began to believe that the mission was an impossible one.  Then while having dinner at a local restaurant, I noticed that the table was lined with place-mats documenting the lives of our national heroes.  At the bottom of the mat it said, “Study the past, and learn from it.  Reach for the future, help to shape it”.  Those words were all that was necessary to refocus my energies.  I started to think about people like Nanny of the Maroons and her quest for freedom during slavery, Gandhi’s powerful but passive resistance movement and Dr. King’s dream - all these struggles were once considered noble but unachievable goals.

I learned along the way that if the plan doesn’t work, then you change the plan, not the goal.  I did some introspection and I also checked the statistic on the last blog, there I discovered that although my writings received many hits, unfortunately, it was read seven times more in different places around the world than it was in Jamaica.  This was my shortcoming and I needed to find a better way to appeal to the local readers.  So, I decided to talk with the man in the street in an effort to reconnect with the local people.  I needed to find out what made Jamaicans tick.

Karate experts

I jogged into the town center of Ocho Rios and the place was buzzing with activity. People approached me trying to sell everything known to man, from Viagra pills to building supplies.  I stopped under a bus stop shed to be amongst the common folk.  I listened to a mother talking with her five-year-old son. He was constantly pulling on the side of her dress saying, “Mummy, mummy you can get this for me. Mummy, mummy you can get that for me.”

She spun around and gave him a look that a son understands regardless of age, then responded, “Listen to mi; if yuh don’t stop chat, mi going rile up and kick off yuh face!”

To a tourist this may seem a bit excessive, even tantamount to child abuse, but to Jamaican’s this was simply a mother giving her son a basic lesson in karate.

No Pope, No problem. God speaks to Jamaicans directly.

I went to the Juicy Beef restaurant to have a few of the greatest tasting invention on earth – the Jamaican patty.

A fat woman with a round, friendly face was sitting at a table next to mine.  An old man came up to her begging for spare change.  The woman’s face became oblong and aggressive, “Me don’t have no change; move from ‘round here and go look work”! she said.

The old man hung his head in shame and walked away.  Then in a twist of fate, the fat woman called him back, pulled out a tiny purse from her bosom and gave him all the change she had.  After the beggar left, I asked the woman why she changed her mind so abruptly.  Her response was that, “God spoke to me and we all have to obey when God speaks.”

Quest for the wife

On the way back home, I stopped and reasoned with an old man sitting outside a bar.  He told me his stories and I told him mine.  I then asked him for advice; I wasn’t expecting much insight from the drunken old man.  I knew that wisdom doesn’t always come with old age, sometimes age just shows up all by itself. However, his advice to me was simple yet profound.  He said, “Find the wife and build a life.”

Days later, I left Ocho Rios and headed to Kingston with the added mission to find the wife and build a life.  I ended up at the Quad night club dancing under a sexy temptress with a Coca-Cola bottle shape and a pretty smile.  She was slim built with cleavage like Mount Everest and wearing a skirt that could’ve easily passed for a small tube top.

I was awkwardly leaning into a crevice on the wall, with a Guinness in one hand for courage and the other hand gripping to a table for balance. The music got sweeter and she positioned one of her legs in the air, as she bent over in a move that seemed to break a few laws of physics, her tube-top looking mini skirt began to ride up and exposed her round, chiseled, left butt cheek.  

The cheek was now out in the open and smiling at me.  It was then that I visualized telling my future kids the story of how I met their mother, “Well kids, daddy was cocking up mummy pon the dumper truck (A Vybz Kartel song), when her left butt cheek made an entrance and daddy fell in love”.  It didn’t seem like a particular wholesome story, so I said my goodbyes then my friends and I left the club.

We stopped at the Tiger Mart for a quick bite when a young policeman wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying an M16 rifle came in.  I asked policeman his perspective on how to quell the crime problem in Jamaica.  My friends and I were astonished as to how frankly he spoke.

“If Jamaica serious 'bout fixing crime, then we have to start at the top.  It is the corrupt politicians who are the real drug lords. Whenever we, the police, get a tip about the whereabouts of a druggist or a Don, we call it in over the police radio but by time we get there the politician tell the fugitive to leave.  So ultimately, I feel seh if you get rid of the corrupt politicians then we'll begin to put a dent in crime.”


That thoughts of the young policeman mirrored my views.  The country has a big problem, with a simple solution, but no one will make the gallant moves necessary to change it.  Jamaica, we must act, because unfortunately we cannot complain crime and corruption into a timely death.


Thanks for reading….Walk good and as usual, nuff respect!

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Tap the Wisdom of the Unlearned. Published letter of the day Jan 2009 (Jamaica Gleaner)

The Lion's Roar

Jan 2009 Letter of the Day Published in Jamaica Gleaner.

Tap the Wisdom of the Unlearned

The time has come for us to unlearn all that we think we know about finance and economics. When 60 cents out of every tax dollar in Jamaica goes into paying for debt instead of social services, then I would say that our system has failed us terribly. I am not an economist, so, admittedly, I know nothing about high finance, but maybe that's exactly what the system needs right now, persons uncorrupted by what is taught or perpetuated in schools and universities.

Economists all over the world are predicting a global economic tsunami. It seems inevitable and it makes us afraid. But fear clouds our judgement; it makes us become cowards when bravery is what we need in the times ahead. Older folks said 'every dark cloud has its silver lining' - no exceptions.

If the West is in a mess, then it would not be a priority for them to force Third World countries like ourselves to repay debt. This would give Jamaica a window of opportunity to reboot and do things differently. Therefore, the solution is in not being afraid, but being prepared.

Debt Forgiveness or Default on the damn debt

If an American family were paying 60 cents out of every dollar for debt, they would file bankruptcy or just refuse to pay some of these debts. It is inhumane to have our nation suffer because of the enormous debt burden. It is foolish for Jamaicans to think we can make progress and improve our situation on the 40 cents - but maybe we are just too smart to see it.


Flooding the market with education

Also, our universities cannot continue to flood the markets with more accountants, people with MBAs and other types of 'educated fools'. This strategy simply increases the supply of employees in society without increasing the number of jobs and it doesn't take rocket science to figure out where that road leads.

What the country really needs are entrepreneurs, scientists, farmers,  and improved technology. We can control our destiny if we surrender our intellect and follow common sense and ancient wisdom, ie. We cannot borrow ourselves out of debt.


I am, etc.,
LION COORE MBA.

Jesus and the Marijuana Cookies

The Lion's Roar

A weekly column by Lion Coore

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JESUS AND THE MARIJUANA COOKIES

A few months ago I attended a reggae party in Colorado, it felt like I had stepped into a time machine and was teleported to a festival in the 1960's.  The venue was a quaint, two storied abandoned warehouse. The top floor was transformed into a makeshift art gallery displaying paintings of the black race’s struggles and triumphs, while the bottom floor was the dimly lit, smoke filled dance-hall.

The crowd consisted of nearly all white hippies. They were spreading peace and love while singing along to vintage reggae and skanking happily - though desperately out of rhythm to the slow, mellow bass line. The organizers were giving away natural juice, food, and weed cookies. I was more than willing to pay for these offerings, but unlike our culture, in the hippy’s world, money isn’t everything and the act of giving seemed to be equally important.

It made me wonder what the world would be like if the hippies were in charge. The US represents only about 5% of the world’s population but consumes close to 30% of the world’s resources. If hippies were at the helm, I believe this mindless materialism might be a thing of the past - a small price to pay for bringing back bell foot pants and tie-die shirts.

Anyway, my cousin who I was staying by that night, gave me a cookie and passed on the warning that the smiling hippy lady gave to him, “These are incredibly strong, only have one then be patient, they’ll take some time to kick in.” This was my first time trying a marijuana cookie, but those who know me best, will know that patience isn’t one of my strongest virtues, and neither is sticking to the stricture of someone’s advice. I live my life similar to the way I cook – I do it with reckless abandonment, experimenting whenever possible, choosing to go with my instinct rather than a prescribed recipe. What I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is, after having that first cookie and feeling nothing, I had two more...Huuuge mistake.

We left the party and later that night while my cousin and I were watching TV, it became abundantly clear that I was in for a strange night when Bruce Willis somehow came out of the movie and sat next to me. Too proud to verbalize to my cousin how f*#ked up I was, I tried to act normal as I kindly excused myself from the living room, leaving him and Bruce to get acquainted.

Unfortunately, the hallucinations didn’t stop there. I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and instead of seeing my reflection, I saw another me, trapped in a small room with white walls. My consciousness was somehow connected to the two images and I became unable to discern which ‘ME’ was actually rooted in reality. Understand that I don’t scare easily. I grew up in August Town, a tough neighborhood, and it wasn’t unusual for me to fearlessly walk down vicious streets without knowing if I’d make it to the end of the road.  That said, I was never more afraid in my entire life than I was on this night. There apparently is a thin line between sanity and insanity and I had to summon every bit of my will power not to step across it.

Normally in situations like these, I would call unto God for help, vowing that I’d never again do whatever the bad thing of the moment was. If any of you have been foolish enough to find yourself tucked over a toilet with the room spinning out of control, you may already know what I mean. However, this time I depended solely on logic. I relied on my rational mind to explain to ‘self,' that what was happening was simply the effects of a drug. I then began to coax myself into accepting the conclusion that everything would be better with a good night’s rest.

After the pep talk, I did everything that I could to fall asleep.  Nothing worked. I tried pacing around the apartment like a soldier. The reasoned that doing so would get me tired, but all I got was laughed at by my cousin.  Later, as a last resort, I tried choking the snake, but even that didn’t help. My enhanced imagination brought the woman I was fantasizing about closer to my fingertips, but it couldn’t bring sleep into my grasp.

Then, as if the night wasn’t strange enough, it got worse. To this day I’m still not sure if I was awake or asleep when I heard a regal voice speaking to me. I remember laughing to myself, thinking that there was no way I was going to be able to explain this night to anyone. Anyway, the regal voice asked me a very simple, yet profound question; it said, “Do you believe in God?”

I took my time to respond. I was thinking deeply about the question and also trying to rationalize how silly it was to entertain a conversation with a strange voice in my own head. I began to think back to some years ago when a friend asked me ‘why’ I believed in God. From the outset, it had seemed like a simple question, but once I took it through the rigors of the mind, through the scrutiny of logic, even I was surprised at my answer.

Firstly, no matter how much research I put in, science and atheism still leave a gaping hole that only the mysterious ‘God’ can fill.  The atheists’ claim that our brilliantly organized existence is nothing more than a random ‘Big Bang’ accident is absurd.  It is like saying Hurricane Gilbert passed by a piece of land with only raw materials and tools scattered across it, then when it left, we discovered that the wind had accidentally put all the materials together to make a big beautiful house with cable TV and a car in the garage. My mind rejects these so called scientific explanations as irrational. Our world has too much order for it to be an accident. There simply must be an architect.

The Bible too isn't without its shortcomings. If the historians are right, then the Bible was created over 500 years after the death of Christ by the council of Nicaea.  This group was headed by Constantine - a Roman emperor who represented a lifestyle that Jesus spent his ministry preaching against. Oh, the irony!

There was also the fact that many gospels written, but only four of them (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) made the cut. Jesus’s life between his birth and age 30 was also completely omitted.  This made me wonder why, and what else could’ve been omitted or changed. It only took a quick minute for my ex-girlfriend to revise the true history of our relationship from irreconcilable differences to everything being my fault, so I suppose rewriting the history of incidents that had happened 500 years prior would’ve been child’s play.

There is also an unavoidable correlation between culture and religion. If I was born in China the probability is highest for me to follow Buddhism, if I were born in Pakistan, I’d likely to be a Muslim. Lucky for me, I was born in Jamaica, a place though flamboyantly violent, it surprisingly holds the title in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most churches per square mile.  As a reasonable man, it is logical to accept that Christianity may just be a part of my socialized programming.

History has also shown us that religion was used as a form of control.  For example, the white colonial masters used it to enslave my ancestors and more recently, it was used by President Bush as a tool to get his fundamental Christian base’s support for the ongoing war with Islam over oil. This religion thing could be a set of lies; however, I have never read anything that Jesus preached that I was against, so I have accepted the faith.

Furthermore, it comforts me to pray and ask God for guidance whenever I’m at my lowest, so as a principled man I refused to denounce God when things are hunky dory. So in the final analysis, even though I accept that Christianity might be nothing more than a bag of cow dung. The reason why I believe in the Christian faith is simply because I refuse to be a hypocrite. In any event, what do I have to lose? The philosopher Pascal argued that even though faith cannot be proven, it is a wise wager because if you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.

With that said, what I detest most about the faith is its takeover by the egos of the know-it-alls. The religious leaders who have become so uncomfortable with their ignorance that they have decided to wipe out the phrase “I don’t know” out of their vocabulary. Everybody is now an expert on how God thinks.  And that's funny to me, because even when Jesus was nailed to the cross, he asked, “Lord why have you forsaken me?” Proving that he too wasn't sure about what was going on upstairs.  Suh basically, if Jesus, the son of God, nuh really understand how God operate, then how can mere mortals like your preacher or the Pope claim to comprehend the mind of God?

Anyway, back to question from the regal voice, “Yes, I do believe in God” I said in response to the voice. He then said “Come with me,” after which he took me on a journey. A tour of HELL!

…..to be continued.

Change the image of the Informer (Letter Published 2008)

The Lion's Roar

A Weekly column by Lion Coore

Published Letter of the Day Jamaica Gleaner 2008

The Editor, Sir:

How can politicians tackle crime when they are so far out of touch with the lifestyle and psyche of the youngsters who perpetrate crime? Barack Obama's campaign proved that if you want to communicate with the younger generation, it has to be a grass roots movement using the media they use, which, in the case of the United States, is text messaging, email, YouTube, etc.

I am a ghetto man, and I did not grow up listening to Budget presentations and prime ministers' speeches. Instead, I listened to Bounty Killer, Buju and Beenie. Why not use them as a medium for change? There is an age-old debate about whether songs with violent lyrics lead to violence. I am suggesting that we use a social experiment to solve this enigma once and for all.

Think outside the box

Mr Prime Minister, many before you have tried different conventional strategies with the same disastrous results. I believe the time has come to think outside of the box. I suggest that you invite to a meeting, the top deejays, party sponsors, radio station jockeys, media, etc, and ask them for a show of solidarity to ban all gun lyrics for one year (from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009).

If violent lyrics do cause violence, there should be a visible drop in crime next year. If there isn't a drop in crime, politicians and society at large can never use this line of argument again.


Over the years it seems to be true that 'informers must dead', whether figuratively when they are demonised in songs, or literally, when they are not properly protected by the law. We must do our best to protect these people, using all appropriate means.

Powerful messages

Also, the DJs/artistes must do their part to change the image of the informer. Imagine a television ad campaign with a Buju Banton saying, 'If I see my neighbour kidnap a little girl, I am going to inform. I am an informer!'

Imagine Vybz Kartel saying, 'If I see my neighbour murder an innocent woman, I am going to inform. I am an informer!'

This would be a powerful and radical

way of changing the face of the informer - and we should know by now that it is informers who solve crimes and not overpaid foreign detectives.

Mr Prime Minister, Jamaicans need you to ask them to do something about crime and violence, but unfortunately, politicians have tricked them so many times that they have muted your voice. I urge you to find another medium - use the voices they trust and understand, i.e. music and the musical prophets.

I am, etc.,

Lion Coore