MY POODLE Peanuts, otherwise a very well behaved dog, has a thing about paper. He is apt to go into the bathroom and pull down yards of toilet paper from the roll, and then chew it up all over the house.

The other morning I was counting up the pictures of those in the MBA graduation class of 1999 published in The Gleaner of November 24th. I made a quick preliminary check, went off to do something and returned to find that Peanuts had made off with the paper.

In consequence my preliminary count may not be 100 per cent accurate, but of the 70 people graduating about 40 were women and 30 were men. More significant however was that 17 of the women had graduated with distinction while only two of the men had done so; another example of the superior performance of our women.

It is sad to think, however, that in no time the out-performed men will be earning larger salaries than the women. More than that, I am saddened to think that quite a few of those excellent women will in due course get beaten up by their husbands or lovers. I wonder how long it will be before our formidable women get equal treatment. Perhaps in time their superior performance will bring the equality they deserve.

I suppose, however, the number of women in politics will never equal that of men, unless a way can be devised of reducing the violence in politics and in the country at large. Crime and the profession of murder are male-dominated, and so long as that remains true our security forces will have to be male-dominated too. Not many of our women are pistol-packing mamas, thank heavens.

Domestic debt

At present we are just about drowning in domestic debt. According to The Financial Gleaner domestic debt has gone up 13 per cent in six months, and has jumped from $139 billion to $159 billion. As things stand, I have no doubt that it will continue to escalate.

What amazes me is that nearly every week the Prime Minister is reported as announcing some new huge scheme costing millions or even billions of dollars. We are told that "Lift up Jamaica" is going to spend millions over the Christmas, and we are further told that Jamaica is going to be cleaned up for a mere matter of $2 billion. As it is quite obvious that the government is broke, I can only imagine that these expenditures are some kind of fantasy in the mind of the Prime Minister. I suspect just coping with "Lift up Jamaica" will give the Government a double hernia.

A softer Davies

According to The Observer newspaper, Dr. Davies is busy extending an olive branch to the private sector and "was almost apologetic for the blistering attacks he launched on bosses and watchdog professionals of the financial sector at the height of its melt-down two years ago".

Well, it is a good idea for the Minister of Finance to be on good terms with the private sector, for sooner or later the Government is going to need a lot of help from it. On the other hand, Dr. Davies owes no apologies to the financial sector. That sector was on the whole a prime bunch of greedy and largely incompetent rascals aided and abated by a bunch of opportunistic lawyers who advised them how to form a forest of companies in which to conceal their nefarious activities.

One could also add that palace building by many financiers was also one of the causes of their downfall. But I must be careful of this for the Ministry of Finance is not above a bit of palace building itself. The Government defends the spending of millions on the new building for the Ministry of Finance on the grounds that it would have been more expensive to have rented office space. It can tell that to the Marines.

Hope Gardens

At one time many years ago when Jamaica was groaning under the exploitation of wicked colonialism, Hope Gardens was one of the great show-places, not only of Jamaica, but of the West Indies.

It was a place of beauty and tranquillity for everyone. From the moment when we so heroically achieved Independence, Hope Gardens, like so much else in Jamaica began to run down, and no serious attempt was ever made to restore it. A short while ago there was some talk about doing so, but now I understand some kind of housing estate is to be built in the area.

Every civilised city in the world such as Paris, Berlin, London, or New York, takes pride in its parks and open spaces. It takes the Jamaican culture of ramshackle to decide that wide areas of asphalt or some areas of untidy bush are good enough for us, although in fairness I must add that some rather timid efforts have been made in the direction of what used to be known as the Kingston Race Course, encompassed by what is grandiloquently called Heroes Circle. And we still have Devon House and its grounds, thanks to Eddie Seaga, but this is not large enough to be called a park.

Still, I suppose we need land at Hope Gardens to build splendid town houses and apartments to house the multi-millionaires of the public sector; and of course, don't forget, the $50 million house for the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica. Thus it is that we, the long-suffering taxpayers, are made to subsidise ignorance and folly.

Band and Anthem

There is another thing. When we bore the heavy yoke of colonial exploitation, the Jamaica Military Band was considered everywhere to be one of the finest military bands in the world.

Here again, with the coming of glorious Independence, that began to run down too, and the last time I heard it, it sounded like the brass band of an amateurish Boys Brigade. That's bad enough, but as far as I know, the only recording we have of our National Anthem is one made by the remains of the Jamaica Military Band and can only be described as most unfortunate.

Some years ago, when a Russian dance company came to Jamaica, they brought their own small orchestra with them, and they played their own arrangement of our National Anthem at the Carib Theatre. That was the first and the last time that I ever heard our National Anthem beautifully arranged and played.

We ought to have a good recording of our National Anthem. If we can't afford to get a good recording of it played by a good orchestra abroad, we could I'm sure get Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, who are good musicians, to arrange it and record it for us. We are constantly being told we should respect our national emblems. We should begin showing musical respect for it. As far as National Anthems go, ours is really quite a pleasant one. It is certainly far superior to that monstrously mis-rhymed and pompous "God Save The King" that we once had.