Despite evidence which clearly demonstrates that to continue with Paul Hall as national football coach will amount to a disaster, the Jamaica Football Federation continues to destroy Jamaica’s most popular sport by keeping the former national player in charge.

Hall’s latest flop, in addition to the countless that he has had since Theodore Whitmore was fired last year, came against Catalonia last Wednesday. The perhaps insignificant score to some being a mild 6-0 drubbing by the Spanish hosts.

Interestingly, I heard a local commentator say on television the day after that it’s ‘no big thing’, because Hall had fielded a young team, and this is about building a strong team for the future. Now, you see how some Jamaicans have this mediocre way of thinking? Every national football team is young. You have to search hard to find a player who is past age 35, although there are some exceptions, like Portugal with Cristiano Ronaldo at 37. So this thing about a team having young players is foolishness. Football is about young people.

What the match against Catalonia has done, apart from proving once again that Hall is no coach, is that Jamaica is on a mission of demoralising its players by exposing them to this kind of disgraceful beating.

If, as some say, Jamaica is rebuilding, and therefore fielding inexperienced players, why choose a side like Catalonia? Why not wear yu size and gradually build a case against teams like Antigua, Barbados, St Lucia, Grenada, or even Trinidad & Tobago, who will give you a good fight, and build players’ confidence, if they win, draw, or even lose narrowly to those Caribbean islands?

So now, Jamaica will go into the CONCACAF Nations Cup with Hall remaining as coach; and based upon JFF President Michael Ricketts’ utterance, Hall is his first choice to become head coach for the long haul. Now, don’t you think that Ricketts should offer himself for mental assessment?

The JFF, as usual, takes a mighty long time to learn. It’s leaders are not thinkers, they are not bright, and they lack vision. So how will they ever be able to take Jamaica where the vast majority of the people of this country would want the football programme to reach? It just will not work with these false leaders in place.

Execution for certain crimes is necessary

How long will it take Jamaica’s legislators to realise that a more drastic system of punishment for those who commit serious crimes is the only way out of the dilemma that the island faces.

Many die violently each day, each week, each month, each year. Some are even closer to home, and so, handling another slaughter gets ridiculously hard to stomach.

You look all over Jamaica, every day you have to wonder who will be numbered among the next set of victims whose lives will be curtailed. The Jamaica Labour Party’s potential St Catherine Municipal Corporation candidate Lennox Hinds, who was shot dead Thursday afternoon in the Corporate Area; that youth who was slaughtered in Grange Hill Square across his motorbike; the two slain in Montego Bay earlier in the week, and a couple more at other locations had no idea that they would have been interviewed by Saint Peter so soon.

By the start of this week, many will be wondering if their number will be called out loud as the days move on.

Again, it is too easy for people to get killed in this country, and many murders either are left unsolved, or go to trial and the prosecution messes up the case. It therefore provides a fillip for others to continue their mayhem.

As a society, we have been forced by the United Kingdom Privy Council on the one hand, and the European Union on the other, to abandon the death penalty, which is only providing fertiliser for the killing fields of those heartless criminals that Jamaica continues toultivate.

It is time for Jamaica’s citizens to scrap the Privy Council, and tell the EU which part of the ocean to jump into, even if it means that aid is reduced or cut off. Murders in Jamaica must be eliminated or drastically reduced. If a would-be criminal knows that if he is found guilty of murder, or rape, he would be thrown into the electric chair, I am sure that the mentality would change.

But do those in charge of making us all safe have the energy and drive to implement measures to protect us all?

If you put you hand ina lion mouth…

Why should anybody be sorry for someone who put his hand into a lion’s mouth? The chance of you removing that hand from those massive jaws with a mere scratch is far less than playing Russian roulette and not having your brain blown out.

The image of that foolish man, said to be a contractor at Jamaica Zoo in Lacovia, St Elizabeth, poking his hand into the mouth of that humongous lion, trying to impress onlookers that he had that action ‘pat’, was a disgusting display of brainless action. The recipient of the lion’s response got what he deserved, and no tears should be shed for such an individual who does such a silly thing.

Animals do not like to be teased. They oftentime get quite irritated when they are placed in such a position, and develop enough fury to ‘strike back’, if ever they get the opportunity.

Of course, the St Elizabeth amateur lion tamer is not the only one who plays around with his life. Many do daily. At the top of the list are those daredevil bikers who go all over the place without helmets, putting their lives in major danger, and the only time they crawl into their shells is if they survive a terrible crash and have the energy to tell the tale.

The term ‘if mi did know’ is always a convenient one to use, but, for some, at times it does not become applicable at all.