WELL friends, if you are reading this there are a number of reasons to celebrate today, and I will indicate a few.

Firstly, if this newspaper came from your usual source of delivery, road sales, or in-store sales then it is quite possible that the world did not end yesterday.

Secondly, it could also mean that everyone that you know has been really good and that Heaven is merely a transfer location and the afterlife goes on.

Thirdly, it could also mean that everyone you know has been very wicked and printing presses and journalists have been sent to the eternal flames.

Fourthly, it could mean that Bishop Herro Blair is right and the Earth is full of false prophets.

For all those who sent their earthly possessions in order to buy a ticket to heaven there are no refunds, even if the Financial Services Commission had not verified the schemes. Those cheap persons who suddenly desired an urgent but free baptism, congratulations to you and maintain the good principles. I hope that many of you were gang members and will forsake the paths of violence for the path of righteousness. Hallelujah, for rumours are mighty!

Well, the first and second reasons are very reasonable possibilities, as whether you believe that God will end the world, or that nature will end the world, or that our actions will hasten its end, it is fairly predictable that there will be an end. Our solar system depends on the Sun, which is a cloud of gas that is on fire and will burn out.

Of course, that will be long after our lifespan, but it will happen. Or we could deplete the ozone layer and let in harmful rays that will either burn up our planet or cause us to mutate (not migrate).

Whenever some Jamaican decides to speak up for something, many of us are quick to use our feeble minds to try to pull out some kind of race card (not Caymanas but the racist one). So all of a sudden a few fools try to “brand” Diana McCauley as a “white woman” and few of them can even remember her parents and ancestors, and even fewer have ever ridden on a country bus with the market goods on the roof rack. My advice to those persons is that racism is a double-edged sword (or Spanish machete) so be careful. If the world is ending you may already be in the wrong line, so repent!

The ongoing disasters in China as a result of the building of the Three Gorges Dam are very real, even after a construction period of over 15 years. The flooding disasters and loss of life and whole cities and towns that have been caused by the ecological alteration vastly outweighing the benefits of making the Yangtze River more navigable and producing hydroelectricity. The ecologists can hardly be happy for being proven right after 20 years. So it is with nature interrupted, and the consequences are slow to unfold.

So maybe our ecological concerns are not unfounded after all. Fifty years have passed since I became the youngest person to swim across Kingston harbour in the Pepsi Cross the Harbour Annual Race. Today we all prevent our children and grandchildren from entering that filthy pond. Kingston has no beaches anymore and our citizens swelter and become violent. Perhaps the environmentalists are not false prophets.

Well, talking about some unusual things, even the people who say Caricom is dead (Bob Marley sang it and the Psalms said it “fools say in their hearts”) were scurrying to pay $5,000 to hear the new president of the Caribbean Court of Justice who visited us last week.

The rulings of the Court in the original jurisdiction with regard to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas are final, and the possibility of having a final Appellate Court seems to intrigue us, even as trade languishes and the Dominican Republic cement issue confronts us. Well, as I always heard, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”! We are either in or out, so please make up your minds, as bad choices or no choices have dire consequences.

Our supposed “nemesis”, Trinidad and Tobago, removed a minister from office two weeks ago. Last week, they suspended the previous prime minister from Parliament. That is what I call action, because whether it is justifiable or not, their outcome is looking more exciting than our soap opera Manatt will. No heads will roll nor will action be taken and everyone here in Jamaica will move on, hand-in-hand lovingly, and even God will laugh.

But readers, you make up your own list of persons who you would like to exclude from Parliament (do not exceed 59 as one person has to turn out the lights). “What a bangarang that would be.”

Internationally, scandals occupy the media, especially those that bring out sex from the past to the current. The head of the IMF visited the real jail while he was denied bail, and if convicted he could face a long-term incarceration and may find out what rape really is.

Back at the ranch, “The Governor had a ball” as Lord Kitchener sang decades ago. The resulting 13-year-old has left him “Terminated” by the wife, and I guess he “won’t be back”, at least not any time soon. “Hasta la vista, Baybee!”

The members of the Jamaican Diaspora seem to be upset, and this was inevitable, as the further you go or the longer you stay away from Jamaica, the greater your resistance to petty politics at home. The relatives overseas are not there to be funding offices for our two political parties.

These are independent thinkers who have outgrown the narrow-minded slavish mentality that we accord to our “Honourable” politicians at home, and our Diaspora has experienced the benefits to be found through opportunity. I hope that Senator Malahoo-Forte will convince them to come, but for the right reasons, not the political agendas.

I close by hoping that we are really not in the afterlife, and may still have some time to improve our records — both personal and national. The Bible suggested destruction by fire, not a 5.2 earthquake, so follow the building codes and move away from river banks, especially in the Southern USA, and gully banks here in Jamaica.

In case the natural end is near, buy a raincoat, an umbrella, and a life jacket, and take swimming lessons, but that will not be God’s signal. However, just in case God is moving the agenda, be careful with matches, Molotov Cocktails, and don’t drink Bay Rum!

Remember to register to vote.

NEW YORK, USA — Former International Monetary Fund (IMF) boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn listens to proceedings in his case in New York state Supreme Court on Thursday. The 62-year-old French politician is accused of sexually assaulting a Manhattan hotel maid. (Photo: AP)