ME AND MR JONES, we got a thing going on … Actually, Jonesy is about the safest MP around. As one lady caller told me: “Whatever y’all do in the next election, leave Jones alone. He’s solid entertainment value”.
This is true. No other MP can send families scurrying to their sets at the mere shout: “Peoples, come! Jones on TV!” The Ann Johnson auditorium goes wild whenever his Laff-it-Off double does the windmilling hands thing. And his picture in Tuesday’s Nation, a cross between
Frosty the Snowman and babe in swaddling clothes was a classic.
Minister Jones recently joined the modern-day chorus against corporal punishment in schools.
(For “modern-day”, read “the same white foreign would-be colonials who are already successfully ramming homosexuality, no hanging and genetically-modified foods down our throats”. Mark my word, God is next. Don’t be surprised if future aid depends on us removing “The Lord has been the people’s guide…” from our National Anthem.
Jonesy and the Dys-licks-ics (good name for a rock band) have two problems. First, they can’t offer any shred of evidence that flogging in school leads to the “anger and resentment” they talk about. Indeed, just last week my under-thing Veoma wrote: “All of those recipients of the rod now look back and laugh at those times – all happen to be well-adjusted citizens; professionals at the top of their game”.
And Jones’ claim that he has “not seen any change in behaviour by beating up on anybody” again cannot hold water. Recently a young lady attributed the discipline and excellence of her school to a headmistress who walked around with a tamarind rod. Several of my brothers and cousins went to the Barbados Academy, the famous Rudder’s School. William Dexter took the worst of our youths and moulded them into fine citizens and businessmen, ably assisted by a strap named Jack or John, I forget which.
Secondly, the dyslicksics can’t come up with any worthwhile alternative to flogging as a last resort in instilling discipline. One headmaster at my daughters’ school instead favoured “suspension”. As a punishment???? The best week of my entire school career was when school was “suspended” because of a rampant Asian flu epidemic.
Gimme a break! Many parents have no one at home to monitor a suspended child. In one such case, the suspendee used his free time to leave one of my daughters a highly X-rated message on our answering machine. I played it back for the no-licking headmaster. He probably handed the boy a double suspension. I don’t know.
On another occasion, I gave a Lester Vaughan student and his mother a lift. He got out, pulled out his shirt and told her: “I goin’ in here now and get a week’s suspension”.
Their other remedy is deprivation, the psycho approach. Now you’re talking resentment and mental violence. You see, a flogging is a one-time payment in full for your transgression. “Six of the juiciest on the old spot with a cane that bit like an adder”, as Wodehouse would say, and you’re done with that. Deprivation makes you seethe.
My only suggestion in lieu of flogging would be to have Minister Jones as outfitted in Tuesday’s Nation come and peep into recalcitrant children’s bedrooms just as they’re going to sleep. That would straighten them out, but good!
There’s no doubt that flogging has often been overused especially in primary schools. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath-water.
Especially, in these days when UN Declaration of Human Right 23B states clearly: “Any child has the right to continually disrupt and corrupt a class of 30 and he or she shall not be expelled, as hitherto, for so doing”.
By the way, could Minister Jones be really against licks after the body blows his Prime Minister put in Sir Hilary and the “noisy” union lady? And
Last thing, today is the wife’s birthday! It hasn’t been an easy ride, but then, who doesn’t enjoy good bucking? She gave me the best years of her life – 1978 and 1979, as I recall. Tennille was urging the Captain: “Do that to me one more time, once is never enough with a man like you.”
And licking was, as always, a key component in our relationship.
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator. Email porkhoad@gmail.com
