The Betty Black Blog

Long a staple of Jamaican bush medicine, aloe vera, aloe barbadensin, aloe vulgaris or sinkle bible, one of three hundred aloe members of the lily family, is touted by some to be a miracle cure-all. While it might not be the universal remedy of bush medicine repute, the entire world is now familiar with this [...]

Recent events have only served to underline the insidious manner in which crime has worked its way through the length and breadth of our beautiful Island. We have sat still for so long ignoring the obvious or saying “It’s just the criminals killing each other, nothing to do with us.” When it gets unbearable we [...]

Just a short five years ago on August 29th 2005, Hurricane Katrina almost destroyed the United States Gulf Coast. In fact parts of New Orleans and other cities in the region remain ghost towns to this day. Now something worse than Katrina is heading for that very same area, but this time it’s not a [...]

Today, April 22nd, is the Fortieth Anniversary of Earth Day. This very important event was started in the United States in 1970 but by 2000 had gone International.
We as Jamaicans have a very bad habit regarding many things. We talk a lot about our problems: crime, garbage, drought, the breakdown of our values. But how [...]

I’m pretty sure that there are very few Jamaicans, at home or in the wider diaspora, still unaware of the amazing Newton Marshall’s running of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race.

Jamaica has been for centuries one of the wealthiest countries in the region. Correction: make that “had been” as, over the last forty years or so, we have been losing that distinction. The world recession has made the situation even more obvious. Now I’m no economist, nor would I want to be, but it seems [...]

There is likely no Jamaican, at home or in the wider diaspora, who is not familiar with the name of J. Wray and Nephew, distillers of Appleton Rum. But have you ever stopped to wonder who the Nephew was? Well for those who don’t know, Mr. Wray’s nephew was Col. Charles James Ward CMG, one [...]

In 1988, the World scratched it’s head in wonder. A Jamaican bobsled team in the Winter Olympics? But it doesn’t snow in Jamaica! The original team of four became the stuff of legend; there was even a Disney movie, Cool Runnings, about them. We’ve seen successive bobsled teams over the years. Since 2007 we’ve also [...]

In the hills of St. Ann, high above Ocho Rios on Jamaica’s north coast, lies Lydford. The earth is the bright red that signifies the presence of bauxite and it was here that major bauxite mining was done and here that a community of those that worked in the industry grew. Lydford is also great [...]

Jamaicans have opened up our hearts and our wallets to help Haiti. Our minds have turned from our own woes with the realisation that, just a stone’s throw away, is a neighbour who makes our problems look insignificant. We text, we write cheques and we drop supplies at ODPEM. But then we watch CNN, etc. [...]