the great escape

I look around and eye the **exit** my great escape, the red flashing sign, the word EXIT, written up, loud and clear, I eye it. And I make a run for it. The two hosts grab me before I even take a step, each with one arm locked into mine, they **crack a joke** about me, the audience laughs. They hand me a metal statuette, I hold it --the heaviest thing I’ve ever held on to-- it falls through the stage, through the wooden floor, with me holding tightly onto it, through and through. “Ladies and gentlemen we just witnessed **a great escape** for the first time in the history of this event, has the winner escaped in such a dramatic fashion, and without giving a speech either.”

Tuesday, January 25

The Emergence of the Jamaican Taliban !!!

A new episode of Talibanization has begun to sweep the Caribbean taking root in the Jamaican Island. The Jamiacan Taliban have begun imposing a strict morality regime across the countryside.

The new Taliban inspired movement in Jamaica is driven by rebellious Rastafari dissidents who want to take over the Island.

In the latest spate of Talibanization, it has been learnt that the Caribbean has given way to its own indigenous spin-off movement known as the Jamaican Rasta-Khowaraian Taliban. This most recent Taliban movement is said to have no significant organizational or strategic linkages with the deeper entrenched Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or the original Taliban of Afghanistan. Rather, these inspired counter-movement within Rastafarianism is believed to be more thematically inspired from the other Taliban variants, baring certain core similarities with certain significant divergences.

The group that calls itself the Jamaican Rasta-Khowari Taliban is a sort of revisionist orthodox insurgent backlash within the Rastafari movement. The main premise of their still unwritten mainfesto is that the integrity of the original Rasta culture has been corrupted by "evil" (read: commercial) influences from "Babylon" (read: The West). In this they echo the hatered of the West always underscored by their Taliban counterparts in the east. Shunning the loose and disorganized structure of the existing Rastafarian tradition, this inspired band of armed hoodlums has theologically reinvented itself in the form of a strictly organized and well regulated militarized operation. In vigor and recklessness this newly bred "homegrown" brand of Taliban is no less than the ferocious militants of Afghanistan and Pakistan that inspired them.

Some thematic linkages also exist, not only do they want to wipe present-day Israel off the face of the earth in order to declare Ethiopia as the "True Zion", the recent surge of Jamaican Taliban and linked militant Rasta outfits has imposed a strict morality campaign on parts of the island.

The Kh in the Rasta-Khwari has special significance as a lingual reinvention that immediately differentiates the group from other Rasta variants. Some claim that its a recognition of their Arab cultural heritage, by enounciating the KH they pay homage to the Arab traders who introduced them to their holy sacrement the herb they called Ganja. Some adherents of the Jamiacan Taliban also go as far as to claim that the fact that the herb was originally brought from parts of northern India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan, where the Taliban are at large, signifies that it was probably hashish smoking Taliban who were the first ones to introduce Jamicans to the herb. Like the word "Ganja" the word "Khowari" is also incorporated from north Indian language, where the word implies an aggravating boredom, restlessness, and lack of sexual possibilities.

The murderous gang of unruly Jamaican Taliban roaming the Jamaican badlands, has taken the Island nation by storm, over-running a few small towns, also claim that the second half of the Bible that was stolen from them by the "White Man" (read: colonizers) were actually the scriptures upheld by the other major Taliban movements. Consequently they have imposed a strict morality regiem in the territories they have so far occupied. A few local homosexuals were hung as an exemplary punishment for moral deviance and their bodies left dangling in the main square of Lucea, a town in Jamaica.

The Jamaican Taliban are as strict on recreational uses of Ganja as they are on sexual deviance. The terrorist organization claims that the sacrament has been corrupted by commercial interests, and only their orthodox clergy has the divine right to administer ganja for spiritual purposes only where necesary. However, reports of Jamican Taliban roaming the streets with blood-shot eyes and vacant gazes contradict their own strict doctrine. "We will smoke all da herb on da island", bragged one Jamaican Taliban patrolling the streets, "we da Jamaican Talibaan maan .. we are da ONLY chosaan pepaal of Jah". The movement continues to maintain that only they as the chosen people have the exclusive right to spiritual enlightenment from cannabis.

So far the Jamaican Taliban have taken over vast reserves of marijuana in certain parts of the island. With local residents complaining of the drop in supplies, these resurging Taliban seem to give no signs of respite. Rumors floating in the marketplace suggests that the movement bares its origins in a group of ganja fiends who decided to capitalize on the political situation. Unnamed sources within the organization hinted at prospects of international recognition by strictly following the model of the major Taliban movements, some sects of the organization consider the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan to be a more authentic model of Talibanization to follow than the more organically driven Afghan variant. When questioned about whether they're afraid of fizzling out as a media phenomenon like the Indian Taliban, the source remained silent. Neither Pakistani nor Afghan Taliban officials could be reached for comment.