Maroons and the loony Lumi
AFEW days ago, Patria-Kaye Aarons, Nationwide journalist and Gleaner columnist, held a masterclass on interviewing where she calmly and skilfully dissected the complex subject matter so that listeners were equally entertained and informed.
She spoke to Timothy McPherson, a self-styled ‘Chief’ and Maroon ‘Minister of Finance’ who claims expertise in economics and wants us to believe that he has led the Maroon community in Accompong into ditching standard Jamaican currency and adopting a note called the Lumi.
According to McPherson, the Lumi is backed by the sun. Pressed by Aarons as to how a currency could be backed by something one cannot hold or touch, McPherson explained that each Lumi is worth 100 KWhr and is one of the most dynamic financial instruments globally.
As Patria-Kaye Aarons dissected even the tiny bits that had been cut away, McPherson, a man not short on words, explained that the Maroons in the Cockpit Country, somehow, had ownership of all the water supplies naturally produced and stored in the underground formations. That gave them enormous clout.
With apologies to Aarons, I am going to give my best comedic reaction to where I believe Mr McPherson’s ideas reside. In this, let me assume that Lumi is a shortened form of the word Luminescence, meaning brightness.
We know that the sun produces its own light and energy. But at nights our lunar neighbour, the moon, reflects sunlight and produces this second-hand brightness. Mr McPherson told Patria-Kaye that the Lumi is worth J$1,200. So how about a note pegged to the moon and worth half a Lumi, called the Luni but more properly expressed as the Loony?
Based on solid information that I have, McPherson and his Lumi and lunar-dwelling business partners have erected the largest solar array in the Western Hemisphere, skilfully hidden in the Cockpit Country. It composes huge curved mirrors which focuses the light of the sun on the vast underground water supplies under the rainforest.
SCALING HOT WATERS
As that water reaches into our rivers, it will still be scalding hot and from that day on, many Jamaicans who care to, will have hot showers, but most important they will never have to use any petroleum-based products in cooking. Just put yu pork under di water and in a few minutes you will have the juiciest jerk. A Sunday chicken dinner in half an hour. Courtesy of Mr McPherson’s finance ministry.
Mr McPherson speaks more Canadian than Jamaican. He loves words, the more complex and meaningless, the better. And, he has an accent so that must mean that he is an expert in these matters void of luminescence and overloaded on loony ideas.
I would suggest that if Maroon ‘Finance Minister’ McPherson really wants to launch a sturdy lasso towards the sun and peg his Lumi to its boundless energy, he should first consider secession.
He ought to know that it is illegal to use a note of monetary exchange that is not endorsed by the Bank of Jamaica. So, get your standing army, Mr McPherson, and lock away the Cockpit Country from governmental officials, prospective miners and even those who live there who are not Maroons.
Declare your own state of emergency before this is done and advertise it on the Cartoon Network. With thousands of onion bags filled with many millions of Lumis, man the ramparts, redirect the overheated rays of the sun and make a stout declaration of war.
As the Government unleashes the might of the JDF on the borders, aim the sun’s rays at soldiers, spend your Lumis and call on Steven Spielberg to direct.