EDITORIAL - Commendable youth initiative
The initiative, formally launched by Prime Minister Golding last week, to train young people to help their communities prepare for and respond to emergencies, is a good idea. It is of the kind of which this newspaper hopes to see more. The project resonates with us on two important grounds.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS - Change the Constitution (Part I)
Although I, along with Edward Seaga, constitute the only two surviving members of the committee that drafted the present Constitution, I do entirely agree with The Gleaner's editorial to the effect that the section which equates Commonwealth citizenship plus one year's residence in Jamaica as constituting eligibility to become a member of parliament is long overdue for reconsideration and altering.

Education and manpower
In a scheme that led to other sectors being robbed of badly needed resources, the last administration struck a deal with the then Opposition to hand over 15 per cent of the Budget to education. The impracticality of the deal is evidenced in its non-realisation.

Agriculture starved of capital
Jamaican farmers need not be reminded that with the start of the hurricane season tomorrow, danger could be lurking around the corner. Farmers in the island's northeastern and southern parishes, in particular, would no doubt be approaching the 2009 season with trepidation. For memories of the severe damage they suffered as hurricanes Dean and Gustave struck in 2007 and 2008 must still be fresh.

Hubris and humility in leadership
One of the earliest lines I learnt as a boy, drilled into me by my late mother, was "Pride goes before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). A companion saying drawn from Greek mythology, but with a slightly different edge, is "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad."