The Gleaner discovers the sand issue!

The Gleaner has discovered that hundreds of truckloads of sand were stolen from a north coast beach, oh back in June sometime! Stop the presses! (I guess you can't stop the presses after they have run...oh well...you know what I mean...)

For non Jamaicans, all millions of you reading this, the stealing of sand to "nourish" hotel beaches has been going on for decades. It has escalated recently, due to the building of massive hotels on the north coast in places without beaches. Duh... Anyway, there was this major sand theft from the property of "prominent young entrepreneurs" - read, rich people - and one of our newspapers, the Jamaica Observer, has kept the stolen sand issue on the front page. The Gleaner, our older paper, aka the venerable old lady of North Street, pretty much maintained an aloof silence. Sand, even missing sand, was not news. Until today.

The Gleaner reports that not only the young entrepreneurs lost sand, but other, less lofty Jamaicans, that the theft was carried out in full view of at least one police car, and that the environmental authorities, our beloved and impotent NEPA - the National Environment and Planning Agency - have declared themselves helpless. It is a police matter, they say. The police are still investigating and arrests are imminent and, the police say, their investigation will not be hurried or compromised! Meanwhile rumours fly - a police convoy (convoy!) escorted the sand to the premises of large, foreign hotels (wink, wink, what-can-you-do-it's-the-Rock shrug...), involvement of senior politicians of both political parties, interference at diplomatic level, down to the cancellation of a royal visit, for God's sake! Good stuff. Even the BBC has covered it.

So here's what I want to say to the GOJ in all its wondrous, varied and utterly fossilized forms - oonu tap (you guys stop - I speak Jamaican when agitated...) buildin hotel-dem in place whey dey is no beach, lessn you tell di hotel-dem dat dem cyaan get no beach! Argument done.