“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.” – George Bernard Shaw

Moses Samuels is the perfect example of what it means to be persistent. Not even the neglect of his parents, which led to him being raised by the State, could stop him from charting his own success.He is always searching for that golden idea to reinvent his image, but it is his latest venture that is so far proving to be the biggest hit with the people of May Pen. Known to most as ‘Rogers’, Samuels first took on a singing career in the early 1990s, performing under the name ‘Reggae Rogers’ but, from time to time, would branch off into a new profession whenever life threw him the unexpected curve ball. “It was the late (broadcaster) Basil ‘Bagga’ Brown who actually gave me the name ‘Reggae Rogers’ when he came to May Pen in 1993 with Reggae Trail,” Samuels recalled.”At the time, I was singing and sounded like (country and western singer) Kenny Rogers, so people used to call me Peter Rogers, but when ‘Bagga’ heard me singing country music on the reggae rhythm he said he is going to change the name.
“I voiced a couple of singles, which did well overseas. Locally, I got a lot of airplay and recognition and even went to Canada and Cuba because of it. But, you know, life has stages so I eventually moved on from that because I am the kind of person who always wants to keep earning,” he said. Soon after, ‘MC Rogers’ was born. “The MC Service also came about because the same Bagga gave me an opportunity,” Samuels said. “He was supposed to host another leg of the Reggae Trail in Brown’s Town, but wasn’t feeling well so he asked me to do it for him. “From that night, he said to me: ‘Rogers, yuh nuh only can sing, yuh can also host shows because you have the voice of a real MC’, so from there I started to host weddings, birthday parties and stage shows.”
After music, Samuels segued into business. “I started to work with Epic Hardware in May Pen, until I eventually decided to start my own little town crier business, which is still going strong today,” he said. However, it was the decision to open a low-budget sports bar and restaurant on Manchester Avenue, May Pen, that added a whole new chapter to the success story of this grass roots Jamaican, who simply does not know how to fail. Selling food for $100 might not be unique to this mid-island town, but offering free delivery service is certainly adding a new dimension. “We deliver everywhere in May Pen,” Samuels said. “We supply homes because a lot of people don’t come anymore, but the higglers are my main customers. They are the ones who asked me to start the delivery service,” he explained. The business has now grown to the point where Samuels employs eight individuals. “With everything you will always have some amount of negative feedback, but for me the response has been really great,” he said.
But life wasn’t always this good for him. Born in Clarendon, the 43-year-old was brought up in a foster home in neighbouring Manchester, but would return to his home parish with a burning desire for success. “When I came back to May Pen in 1984, it wasn’t pretty for me. I only had two pants and one shirt, but I was determined to make something of myself,” Samuels revealed. “Not because I was brought up in foster care or didn’t have the love of a mother and a father, that doesn’t mean I should be a negative person towards society,” he said. “With or without love from a mother or father, I decided that I was going to show love to everybody who I come in contact with, so there is no excuse for you to become a negative person,” he continued.
Reflecting on his journey, Samuels, who now has a daughter, said he’s blessed. “One of the main reasons why I am where I am today is because I choose my friends carefully because it hasn’t been an easy road. Trust me. “But when I look at what I have achieved since I came to May Pen I have to be thankful because if I was supposed to go back to country, the knapsack couldn’t carry what I have.”

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Resourceful-Clarendon-man-defies-life-s-curve-ball_13368773#ixzz2I0D1Obyp

Police have issued an Amber Alert for a missing girl who was last seen being taken out of school reportedly by someone pretending to be the child’s mother.

The girl is identified as 5-year-old Nailla Robinson.

Nailla is described as a black 5-year-old girl, 4 feet tall, weighing 35 pounds, with curly hair. She was last seen wearing glasses, a light blue shirt, navy blue pants, and black and hot pink sneakers.

The incident took place at Bryant Elementary School located at 60th Street and Cedar Avenue (6001 Cedar Avenue) Monday morning.

“We’re looking for my child. Somebody came to her school early this morning,” Nailla’s mother Latifah Abdul-Rashid told Action News outside the school Monday evening.

Latifah says she dropped her daughter off at the school at around 8:45 a.m. along with her son.

“She went into school. It shows on the school camera that she came in, she went to her classroom,” Latifah said.

Police and her family say someone wearing Muslim garb entered the school shortly after classes got under way.

“A woman dressed in all black, all black gloves, niqab (a Muslim veil which only shows her eyes), and everything came in the school and went into my child’s classroom and told her teacher that she was me, her mother, and that she was taking her out to breakfast and Nailla was already signed out at the office and she took my child and left,” Latifah said.

Police say the woman knew Nailla Robinson by name and there was a substitute teacher in the classroom.

The person was captured on surveillance video around 8:50 a.m. with Nailla leaving the school.

“I don’t know where she is and if anybody has seen her, please call,” Latifah said.

The family says they were notified of the incident at around 2:00 p.m.

Latifah had a message for the woman who took her child.

“Please bring my child home. I don’t know if it was an accident or whatever it is. Please bring my baby home,” Latifah said.

Nailla remains missing at this hour and family members are at the school with police trying to determine who may have taken the child and where they may be.

27-year-man facing jail term for RAPING CHICKEN to DEATH

A 27-year-old man is facing 15 years in jail after being convicted of sexually abusing a chicken which later died.

The magistrate court found Goliath Nyirenda (27) guilty of the offence and committed him to the High Court for sentencing. He was caught abusing the chicken on November 18 last year.

Mr Tiwilili said the offence was a serious one which carried a maximum sentence of 15 years and fell under the jurisdiction of the High Court.

Nyirenda was convicted of one count of unnatural offence contrary to Section 155b of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), a charge he denied.

Nyirenda said during trial that on the fateful night around 22:00 hours, he returned from a drinking spree and was later woken up by the owner of the chicken Gift Michelo.

He said Mr Michelo locked him in his house and went to call his neighbours before he was handed over to the police for no reason.

But in his testimony, Mr Michelo testified that on the night of the event around 23:00 hours he was woken up by a chicken which was making noise. He traced the noise to Nyirenda’s house.

When he entered the house, he saw Nyirenda throw the chicken through the window in panic. Mr Michelo picked the chicken and realised that it was his and when he checked it, he noticed that it was soiled behind by Nyirenda. He then called the police who arrested him.

Drama (Emotional) Triangle
Ecclesiastes 4:12b
A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

This verse is often quoted in the context of marriage, acknowledging the need that married couples have for stabilizing their relationship by creating a “triangle” with God as the third leg. One, two, or four legged seats are unstable, but a three legged stool is stable. So it is with one’s physical and emotional life. We were intended by our Creator to be raised in a loving “triangle” with our mother and father, but oftentimes the tendency to form triangles is distorted and becomes unhealthy.

One of the main insights gleaned from research into family systems theory is the role of “triangulation” or “interlocking emotional triangles.” One theorist saw triangles as the basic “molecule” of an emotional system, or the smallest stable relational system. Examples of these emotional triangles abound. An unhappy wife forms a triangle with one or more of her children. An unhappy husband emotionally triangulates with his work, or by having an affair. Much gossip and backbiting is “triangulation” instead of “confrontation.”

Creating triangles does not seem to be optional, but fulfills something stemming from a deep drive for emotional connection in human beings. What is more profitable is to triangulate deliberately and acknowledge God as the third leg whenever possible. Counselors, therapists, and pastoral caregivers learn to help people by teaching them to “detriangulate” and directly confront the individual with whom they have conflict.

A particularly interesting and universal emotional triangle was identified by Stephen Karpman, M.D. in an article he wrote in 1968. He identified a toxic social triangle called the “Drama Triangle,” or what another person called a “blame machine,” involving three interdependent roles: Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer (each capitalized to distinguish them from real victims, villains, and rescuers). The emphasis in this study is the way the three roles work together in a dramatic dynamic. The study did not diminish the idea that people are truly victimized (victim), act heroically (rescuer), and sometimes hurt each other (persecutor). The Victim role is different from a true victim, as in a rape case, and refers to an attitude of heart, or habitual way of relating to the world.

In this triangle, the three roles form a dynamic system that generates considerable energy in maintaining itself and trapping the participants, and this energy is not usually harnessed to any constructive end. All that is generated by the triangle is “drama,” or emotional intensity. Sometimes this is exactly what people are looking for in their lives, more so than accomplishment or mutually fulfilling relationships.

The Drama Triangle is very common in dramatic arts and literature. Dramatic tension is created by establishing the villain’s character, and causing the reader or viewer to identify with the victim or victims. To resolve this mounting tension, a Rescuer must be introduced. Snidely Whiplash is the archetypal villain, ousting fair Nelle from her rental home because she couldn’t pay the rent, and tying her to the railroad tracks. Enter Dudley Doright to save the day. And some variation of the theme is involved in virtually all narrative dramatic art. Role reversals also create dramatic interest, when the Victim turns out to be the Rescuer (Gladiator), the Persecutor becomes the Rescuer (Terminator 2), or the Rescuer becomes the Persecutor (any police corruption story).

The Drama Triangle is centered on the role of the Victim, which Karpman depicted by placing that role as the bottom point of the triangle.

Because the triangle is anchored by the Victim, blame and guilt emitted by the person in that role fuel the engine and keep the process moving around and around. Karpman viewed interrupting the Victim role as the key to defusing the system, but he also identified the Persecutor role as the exit point. If one is trapped in a system like the Drama Triangle, only when he or she is willing to be perceived as the Bad Guy can one remove himself or herself. Learning to be comfortable and non-anxious even when labeled a Persecutor or a Bad Guy is necessary to break the power of the Triangle.

The Victim position is the one the others revolve around. To liken Victims to a weather system, they are like a low-pressure area that drives a lot of bad weather. Extreme low-pressure areas drive hurricanes and tornados by sucking the surrounding air into their void. Victims take insufficient responsibility for their actions or feelings, and blame everyone but themselves for the way their lives have turned out. The Victim is one who sees himself as life’s fall guys. Catastrophic language (“everyone,” “you,” “my mother,” “the government”) is used to describe their reality that they perceive that others are “doing things to them.”

Victims can be angry or pathetic. The Pathetic Victim seeks pity and sympathy, whereas the Angry Victim postures himself as powerful by using phrases such as “You are not going to do it to me again” or “You’re bad.” Both Victim versions are looking for someone to blame for the emotions they are having and why things are not as they wish. The Victim emits signals, like unhealthy pheromones sent out in search of a mate, to find a Rescuer, who, it is hoped, will take care of them and save the day. A woman with many failed relationships may have come to blame all men and seek that perfect man who will singlehandedly correct her view of the male of the species and make her whole. An addict who self-medicates because of the pain he has experienced sends out a signal that is answered by a woman who thinks she can be the one who can love him enough to break his addiction. And so it goes.

The essence of the Victim position is manipulating others into doing what they want with blame and guilt instead of openly and directly sharing their feelings of vulnerability and weakness and asking for help without blaming anyone, even themselves. The Victim is on a fishing expedition looking for people to validate their need for being rescued, and the hook is in their view of the Persecutor(s) who is to blame for their plight. When the Persecutor accepts the blame directed at them by the Victim, he or she will often feel guilty and try to remedy the situation, thus becoming the Rescuer. When they fail in that role, they become the Victim of the Victim, who now acts as Persecutor.

True persecutors and villains almost always see themselves as Victims. Hitler saw himself and his country as victims of European Jewry. The Victim role or posture is dangerous because it can so easily lead to the Persecutor role. The Victim becomes the zealous Rescuer of others, and in so doing actually becomes a Persecutor. As these interdependent roles change and interlock, they trap the participants in a kind of “squirrel cage” of frenetic and wasted energy that does not produce real personal growth. True freedom of choice and ownership of one’s feelings, thoughts, and actions is not possible within this Triangle because of the anxiety and reactivity that it generates.

The role of the change agent must be to model non-reactivity and a less anxious presence, particularly with respect to being blamed. One cannot relate to a Victim without being drawn into the vortex of blame that is generated by their Victimhood. The pastoral caregiver must model a way of being that does not respond to being blamed by feeling guilty and or be manipulated into a rescue attempt.

The Rescuer position, or Good Guy, tries to alleviate feelings of guilt and “being bad” by doing “good.” The payoff for the Rescuer is the good feeling that comes from the belief that he is the unselfish one in the situation. Complicating this role is that it is often encouraged and endorsed by one’s church, organization, or family. A danger of this position is that the good feelings associated with being the Rescuer can become addictive, and one can base a sense of self on being “unselfish” or “good,” instead of valuing authentic selfhood and one’s own goals. The Rescuer is highly motivated by avoiding the discomfort of feeling selfish or appearing to be a “bad” or an “uncaring” person. The price of being a Rescuer is ignoring one’s own feelings and thoughts in favor of maintaining an image of “goodness” for self and others.

To replay the weather system analogy, the Rescuer is like a high pressure system that gravitates to the low pressure areas. The Rescuer needs the Victim to play his favored role, and will therefore find people to relate to who are sending out Victim signals. When the Rescuer fails in one project, instead of learning the right lessons, he or she falls into repetitive cycles of disappointing relationships. The “high” of rescuing supersedes the “low” of relating to people who are stuck in Victimhood. Psychotherapist Foust, writing from the perspective of the Drama Triangle about his experience treating patients, says of Rescuers:

“Needing to be needed is substituted for personhood, individuality and love. Rescuers avoid dealing with emotions and the discomfort of facing life honestly. All addictive behavior, even rescuing, is employed to avoid feeling.”

Another element of the unhealthy dynamic between the Rescuer and the Victim is the fact that the Rescuer communicates by his actions that the Victim is incapable of caring for himself or herself. The Rescuer is setting himself up to become a victim of the Victim they sought to rescue, and will often recite the same script: “Look at all I’ve done for you; you owe me.” This illustrates the interdependency of the three roles of the Drama Triangle and how easily one position morphs into the others. Observers of the Triangle over time say that eventually one will be cast in each role if one stays in the system long enough. Though the system is a powerful social engine, each role is intrinsically powerless and without choices because every role is scripted. The only hope for those who are stuck in the Triangle is to be willing to be perceived as the Bad Guy and exit the system at that point. Though the system produces pain in every position, the pain is not redemptive and is not an environment conducive to personal growth, because of the scripting involved. It is preferable to choose the pain associated with being labeled while in pursuit of one’s true self than the pain and resentment that comes from being manipulated and coerced.

The Drama Triangle indicates the value of learning to be non-reactive and ungoverned by emotion. That is not to say that one must be dehumanized and not feel emotion, because emotions must be experienced and acknowledged so that they lose their power to subvert, govern, and control behavior. Furthermore, suppressing emotions has been found to be a primary cause of panic attacks, anxiety, compulsions, depression, and addictive behavior. Pastoral care in family systems must find a balance between creating space for authentic feelings to be shared openly and not allowing the emotionality or reactivity of a family system to exert a controlling influence. Identifying strong feelings and labeling them appropriately helps people own and experience them, and choose to not be controlled by them.

Understanding the Drama Triangle helps us be aware of our own tendencies to be hooked into emotional triangles, especially through the role of Rescuer. We must work to remove ourselves from any Drama Triangle in which we are presently involved. Then we will be in a position to help others see themselves as a squirrel in a cage and help them find the door out. We must recognize that the process will not be easy, because the dramatic plots can be complex and convoluted, and the process is not linear, but systemic and chaotic.