Pedocidal Tendencies

And what do they do? They reshuffle the Cabinet and give us a new Minister.
Oh, I doubt that the change in Cabinet is the direct result or sole fault of problems on the North Coast Highway, but it certainly seems a little too convenient to reshuffle the top cards at this particular time.

Politics as usual.

One of the friendly parting gifts that the Brits bestowed upon this fair land in 1962 is their system of government. As were many of their colonies immediately after independence, Jamaica became a Constitutional God Saveth the Queen Parliamentarianismisticallicious form of government. As such, national policy is generally no further sighted than the next election and revolves more around the granting of political favors than it does the uplifting of the People. [So it really don’t matter what we calls it, does it?]

Jamaica has a parliament, with a couple of houses, both of reportedly ill repute. A representing Jamaican who finds him or herself in either location, and as a Member of Parliament, or MP, and happens to be the President of the party in power, will find him or herself as the Prime Minister, or PM. Other Jamaicans who find themselves in such similar positions, as a Member of Parliament and a member of the party in power, may find him or herself appointed to the Cabinet.

Unlike the States, and to the best of my knowledge, Cabinet appointments are not subject to the whims of any Senate approval process. As such, the PM can get any MP he (or she, although that has yet to happen) wants to fill the positions. These specially selected MP’s are now given additional duties and responsibilities as the Ministers of Finance, Tourism, Transportation, Mining, Justice, Defense, Education, Agriculture or, among others, one of my favorites, “Without Portfolio”.

This use of the term “portfolio” to describe government departments reminds me of grade school, where a portfolio was the three ringed binder which held my schoolwork. At the end of the term, these portfolios would be in a shambles, covers mangled and missing, and pages scrawled with neigh unto illegible references towards whatever we were supposed to have been learning over the past nine months. It was a pleasure to toss them out at the end of the year, knowing full well that there would be brand, shiny, and spanking new portfolios when we came back in the fall. In fact, a good reason to mistreat them was so that there would be no excuse to keep them. It was an anticipated ritual of autumn - new school supplies and a trip to Main Street in Ames for a fresh pair of sneakers and a foot x-ray.

In the local government, the ministerial portfolios are never new, just handed over to different people who make up a new cover for the thing out of an old grocery sack. At the end of the term, the contents are still the same, blurred a bit by attempts at keeping notes, but passed on, like a used college textbook, highlighted by the moron who took the course before you, underlining all of the wrong passages and then selling the thing for beer money before midterms.... or something like that.

Every once in a while, usually in response to shifts in the winds of political fortune (or is it intestinal fortitude), the PM will reshuffle the cabinet. This rarely involves bringing new people into the mix. Usually, the same cabinet flunkies are given different portfolios, these same folks who have cabinet level positions to begin with mostly because they are skilled political hacks and sing well the Party songs.

So a few weeks back, among a few other changes, the Deputy PM became the Jamaican Ambassador to the United States, the Evil Minister of Corrupt Police and Justice became the Evil Minister of Imports and Justice, the Minister of Transport and Works became the Minister of Corrupt Police, and the Minister of Mining became the Minister of Transport and Works, a position he ineffectively held two or three shuffles ago.

The former Minister of Transport and Works, ultimately responsible for the condition of the road today, will be safely away before the project collapses in flames, secure in the laurels of his intentionally and highly publicized successes with the Kingston bus system, expanding the port, and bringing in the Indians to fix the railroad. The new Minister can rightly claim that our problems all happened before he took office, which it did, although nobody will dare name who had the office beforehand.

Scooby sez: “It wasn’t me.”

In Running Away, Marley relates an old proverb, singing, “Every man t’ink dat ‘is burden is de heaviest.”

Perhaps I place too much importance to my own work, to think that the difficulties in constructing my one little highway have forced a change upon the national political structure. But still, it seems that a heap of our project burdens could be relieved if only one would t’ink a little more.

“Who feels it, knows it, lawd.”

As it is, the Client’s project management team have turned off the thought process altogether, in favor of either absolutely no action or frantic and unplanned immediate action. It looks like a deranged foot shooting exercise. They do not really promote self mutilation, but they do have a gun and a foot, and they are under such pressure to perform that they feel they must pull the trigger or nothing at all will happen.

It is nice that they have a plan,… of sorts.

Except, they keep missing the mark. Even their poorly laid plans go astray.

Oft,... Quite oft.

But really, how can you miss your own foot? It be right at the end of your leg. Just point and shoot,... unless your eyes are closed, and your hand is shaking, and you feel compelled to pull the trigger, pull the trigger, pull the trigger.
The result is that, by the time you finally blow off your toes, you have put a lot of holes in the walls and the floor, you blasted to bits your one table lamp that you never really liked to begin with, you woke the neighbors, and you have that stupid “oops” look on your face when the cops bust down the door.

“It wasn’t me.”

So who do you turn to when the project is in flames, fueled and fanned by the owner? The coworkers, of course, and each Friday night, at promptly 19:00, we grab the spouses and head out for chow and as many beers as we can manage and still have someone standing who can drive us home. We have few rules for this gathering. The main one is for the wives’ benefit - no shop talk. The compliance with this rule lasts a couple of minutes, generally. But if we catch ourselves, we do better for the next few minutes.

The work is all encompassing and all consuming, though, and generally one heck of as good time, despite what I may infer to the contrary. So we talk about what we have in common. Engineers talk engineering, and we talk it so much that the wives could now do a better job than the government, and would if they could, just to shut us up for a while.

Recently, we have been meeting prior to our Friday dinner at the yacht club for their happy hour (three for two beverages and stamp and go and smoked marlin for appetizers). What oftentimes results is that the yacht club beers are well cold and free flowing, and the food is usually tasty, so we stay there for supper instead of finding a vehicle and going into town. This saves us from actually driving anywhere as the yacht club shares a fence and gate with our complex. To our spouse’s detriment is that the other club members know why we are on the island, and they tend to quiz us about our work and we quickly lose sight of “the rule”.

Ah well, the bitching is half the fun, and it is usually over well before breakfast. In addition, having it out with the locals is our way of affecting public opinion with regards to the real reasons the road is in the shape it is.

“It wasn’t me.”