Friday morning coffee break

Today's Advocate has a story about the new PM finding the "horrendous scenario" and "disturbing trend" of govermenent "consultants" having been paid out of public money without producing anything (see report). PM Thompson said there would be a manpower audit and full investigation. Horray for governance! Interestingly, in Jamaica, the new government's Minister of Finance and the Public Service (Audley Shaw) just tabled in Parliament a list of consultants for every ministry (see report from Gleaner); of the list of 90, the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service has contracted some 46 consultants, while the Office of the Prime Minister has recruited 15 consultants--some date back to 2006 and so predate the current administration.

But what else does the report show us? A need for some education at the local papers, I suggest. In the same article the paper talks about there not being any "KNIGHT" of long knives, meaning no recriminations. Now, I'm sorry, there is no excuse for misuse of phrases. The correct phrase should be "NIGHT of the long knives", and refers to a purge that took place in Nazi Germany during June 30-July 2, 1934 when Adolf Hitler's regime executed at least 85 people for political reasons (see Wikipedia). This is a schoolchild type of mistake (like "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear") . If it were a deliberate malapropism or some other play on words ("Sir David, knight of the long knives", he who weilds the sword?) then I would say "how witty", but I suspect that it's just sloppy journalism. Tsk! If the editorial staff do not know what is right there is a problem. If they do know what is right and don't catch these errors then their system needs to be reviewed. 

I have noticed some tendency toward what I see as sloppiness in the local papers, and having been nurtured by the standards of the UK The Times, these types of slips are not excusable. You cannot pontificate about falling standards of education, the decline in use of standard English and other related things, and then goof on the printed pages. Also, I am tired of the image that the world gets that we in the Caribbean don't know anything, when in fact we had a much respected education system that produced brilliant people. That has been broken by bad government policies on top of some problems in our social structures. I don't want that heritage further sabotaged by institutions that are meant to be flagships.