· January, 2006

Stories about Cayman Islands from January, 2006

The Caribbean Single Market

  31 January 2006

It's rare to find Caribbean bloggers across different islands talking about the same issue at the same time, but one would have thought that yesterday's historic signing in Jamaica of the document ratifying the Caribbean Single Market (CSM), might have created a little buzz. That, however, is exactly what it...

Caribbean: The Taíno & Catholicism

  31 January 2006

Indigenous issues blog Voice of the Taino people links to an article entitled “Christianity, Capitalism, Corporations, and the Myth of Dominion”, noting that the “Roman” Catholic Church still has not properly addressed the call by the Taíno and other Indigenous Peoples world wide for the revocation of the 1493 Inter-Ceatera...

Jamaica: We're not the only homophobes

  30 January 2006

MadBull takes issue with the notion that Jamaicans are more homophobic than the citizens of other Caribbean islands, noting the uproar in Grand Cayman over the government's decision to allow passengers from an all-gay cruise ship to land in the island.

Caribbean: McWatt wins literary prizes

  30 January 2006

The Caribbean Beat Blog announces that Guyanese writer Mark McWatt has taken both the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book in the Canada/Caribbean region, and the prestigious Casa de las Americas prize for Caribbean literature in English or Creole.

Caribbean: A blogger's book awards

  16 January 2006

For the fourth year in a row, Trinidadian Nicholas Laughlin publishes the “Nicholas Laughlin Book Awards” for Caribbean books — “i.e. books written by Caribbean authors, set in the Caribbean, or otherwise of particular Caribbean interest”. As interesting as the selections is Laughlin's analysis of his own reading patterns over...

Caribbean: Caribbeing

  13 January 2006

“In this CSME time. In this time of dancehall self-righteousness versus soca wutlessness. In this time when Trinis don't want to hear about “small islanders” reaching to the Billboard charts with soca music. In this time when Haitians still call out for our help and we still studiously ignore them....

11 key moments in [Anglo-]Caribbean blog history

  13 January 2006

THE INTERNET ARCHIVE IS preserving copies of many early blog pages, but most bloggers are too busy posting to think about otherwise documenting what they're doing. The history of the blogosphere goes back barely a decade, but evolution has been rapid, and bloggers who were around just three or four...

Caribbean: Plays, pantomimes, identity

  13 January 2006

The Caribbean Beat Blog solicits opinions on a newspaper review of this year's Jamaica pantomime, encourages Caribbean bloggers to engage in a “round of collective soul-searching” and publishes “outtakes” from an article in the current issue of the magazine.

Caribbean: Art, film & the Seven Caribbean Wonders

  12 January 2006

The Caribbean Beat Blog links to to a conversation between the director of Jamaica's National Gallery and the guest curator of a current exhibition; an article about a Hollywood film made on location in Grand Cayman by a young Caymanian director; and solicits input for a list of the “Seven...

Caribbean: Best to quote Best

  12 January 2006

Nicholas Laughlin finds he could have saved himself the work of writing his long post about “Caribbeanness” simply by quoting renowned Caribbean thinker Lloyd Best.

Caribbean: Wayback when

  11 January 2006

The Caribbean Beat Blog has some fun with the Wayback Machine, linking to early – and in a few cases embarrassing – incarnations of a few Caribbean web sites.

Caribbean: What does the word before the colon mean?

  10 January 2006

“What does “Caribbean” mean? What a vast weight of confusion & possibility & debate those four little syllables have to bear,” says Nicholas Laughlin in a thoughtful post inspired by a long-gone writing deadline, by the debates around the restructuring of the Global Voices “Americas” region, and by Taran Rampersad's...

Caribbean: CARICOM and ICT

  5 January 2006

Jacqueline Morris links to a Jamaica Observer article about moves being made by the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) toward greater implementation of ICT in the region. She's especially pleased that CARICOM's plan seems to acknowledge “the efforts of the civil society in the region and expresse[s] support for...