Willow Walk

vineyard

unmentioned here the long count of pages

letters unnumbered like fruit on a vine

symbols growing through their proper stages

 

one knows or guesses or else just gauges

the costs of being humble or supine

unmentioned here the long count of pages

 

listing completely the rate of wages

for farm and factory and shop and mine

symbols growing through their proper stages

 

not hidden nor kept secret by old mages

but open and inviting as inn-sign

unmentioned here the long count of pages

 

the record now as then of the sad ages

the means by which we know how to divine

symbols growing through their proper stages

 

just so we can confound the older sages

and give the learned reason to repine

unmentioned here the long count of pages

symbols growing through their proper stages

marking papers

not given much to metaphor as fact

the student struggles to relate her tale

each sentence on its own will sag or fail

the effort turns out bloated not compact

her model is the sermon and the tract

and writing comes to her like time in gaol

the style is cold the images are stale

and the whole enterprise with pain is packed

the reader wants so much to go outside

and take his whirling thoughts for a long walk

but finishing the job is all his pride

so from the horrid task he dare not balk

no leave nor yet excuse he has to plead

so the next essay he picks up to read

Classic John Maxwell: Black Holes in the Global Reich

 

 

by John Maxwell

In my one excursion out of the ranks of the working press, half a century ago I was the first Information Officer for the Industrial Development Corporation, preaching the benefits of industrialisation by invitation.

At that time, Norman Manley was Premier and the government was a great admirer of the Puerto Rican model of development. The western world was also convinced that underdeveloped countries would find in this model a sovereign remedy for underdevelopment. If we could attract capital we would create jobs and find our way onto the runway for 'Take-off' into the realm of First World Development.

Fifty years later we are no further forward than we were then and in some ways we are behind where we were.

Oddly enough, the same is true of our model, Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico seemed to have all the advantages. Their people were citizens of the US and at that time, nearly half of all Puerto Ricans lived in the US. Today there are more Puerto Ricans in the US than in Puerto Rico.

A few months ago the New York Times published an editorial "Puerto Rico, an Island in Distress" in which that other blessed isle was described in terms normally reserved for places like Jamaica. In January, the Miami Herald published a news story entitled "Puerto Rican killings may bring out National Guard" in which it was revealed that in the first 15 days of this year there were 46 homicides in Puerto Rico, just about the same level as in Jamaica.

The NYT editorial was a commentary on "The most exhaustive study of the Puerto Rican economy done in the past 75 years " This study, done jointly by the Brookings Institution and a Puerto Rican think tank, said that Puerto Rico's "hoped-for renaissance will require that the private sector and government join together to create thousands of jobs and that tax and other policies have to be developed to make this happen." Just what was needed fifty years ago.

The situation is indeed dire. According to the study "About 48 percent of Puerto Rico's 3.8 million people live below the federal poverty line, according to the 2000 Census. Despite the advances the island has made through the years, it has a per capita income of $8,185 -- about half that of Mississippi. Unemployment hovers at 13 percent.

This is odd, since Puerto Rico with only fifty percent more people than Jamaica, gets in one year assistance from the United States equivalent to Jamaica's entire National Public debt. "The island receives about $11 billion from Washington, $6 billion of which is through Social Security and federal worker pensions and salaries." That s, PR receives nearly one billion dollars in aid every month.