Leopard's fixed spots

July 17, 2009

Dear Sir,

I was shocked to read Michael Dunkley's welcomimg article in my Royal Gazette today for Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan to visit Bermuda. Rev. Farrakhan's record speaks for itself and leopards do not change their spots!

They try, we have a perfect example in our midst of spots on leopards today. They attempt their intentions, but when they do not work or sit well, whereby there is active dissent, out comes the olive branch to calm the masses, for now! Don't be fooled. History speaks. Learn from it, do we ever? The spots remain as clear, well yes, as mud!

DIANA WILLIAMS

Pembroke

Adopt solar power

July 5, 2009

Dear Sir,

We have an abundance of sunshine on the Island. For the life of me I cannot understand why every house does not have solar hot water heating. It would cut 20 percent off your Belco bill. OK, solar panels are expensive but they're now duty free so that's good news and it's a step in the right direction. I'm just waiting on Belco to offer "net metering" then I'm in. But wait a minute now, this new Energy Act says I have to get a license to generate power. We all know the word 'licence" is another word for "tax". And if I don't get a licence, I could be fined $50,000 or spend some time at Westgate. Well, at least at Westgate I won't get a Belco bill.

I understand that controls have to be put in place to make net metering safe for Belco workers. If we are "selling" power back to the grid it has to installed correctly and it has to be safe. Homes in the US have been doing this for years, so the technology and systems exist. Inspections yes, licenses no. If I decide to take my entire property off the grid ("thank you Belco but I'm not interested in buying your product") and get my wife to connect her treadmill to a generator, I have to apply for permission and a licence? Ridiculous!

If you want households to embrace renewable energy why on earth do you legislate more hoops to jump through? Turns me off, so I guess I'll keep Belco switched on. Can you imagine what Bermuda will look like when the price of oil is $200 a barrel and above? All of our goods and most of our (tourist related) services are connected to the price of oil. Can you imagine an Island with food shortages, bare shelves, massive unemployment and out of control crime. I'm starting to! Don't make it harder for us to reduce our dependence on oil.

We already have a Planning Department, we don't need any more application processes, fees and licenses to discourage homeowners to shift to renewable energy.

SUN CREAM

Sandys

Sage business advice

July 14, 2009

Dear Sir,

One of the most important things I have learned from years in business is that you cannot trust a person that does not always speak the truth. They won't change (no they won't), and the sooner you get rid of them, the better it is for everyone and your company. Waiting and hoping for change only delays the pain and invariably makes the situation much worse. Often the fallout of delay results in losing other loyal team players who do not understand why you haven't done what is necessary and can't understand why you cannot see through these deceivers. Seems like this is where we are with our Premier and the PLP should take note of this sage business advice.

SIMPLE WISDOM

Smith's

Call it what it is

July 14, 2009

Dear Sir,

Can we please stop using the term 'playing the race card'? This is not a poker game, despite a whole lot of cheating going on somewhere. When a person says, "The Premier likes to play the race card... ", what you really are saying is, "The Premier is acting in a racist manner... ". By using a euphemism for racism, you diminish its ugliness, and you indirectly sanction it as a tactic, rather than seeing it as behaviour. Let's lay the cards on the table: "Playing the race card" means being racist.

FED UP WITH THE RHETORIC

Southampton

A lesson from Booker T

July 14, 2009

Dear Sir,

Mr. Walter Roban's repugnant outburst directed towards Miss Claire Smith was completely unjustified. He could learn a lesson from Mr. Booker T. Washington who said: "Great men cultivate love. Only little men cherish a spirit of hatred." The silence emanating from the PLP Cabinet and backbenches is truly deafening. Why have they chosen not to speak out against such damaging remarks? Because they obviously condone Walter Roban's hateful and hostile retaliation to a member of the voting public. It would seem elected officials who form our Government sorely need a Code of Ethics and Behaviour.

BARBARA THOMSON

Warwick

Dubious cable billing

May 25, 2009

Dear Sir,

I have been a loyal CableVision customer until now. Now they have betrayed me. This is how it goes. I have had a DVR box for four years now. My wife has been paying the cable bill until one day I noticed that we were being charged for three cable boxes – one DVR and two digital boxes. We are supposed to be getting one digital box for free.

So I called CableVision and spoke to Ms Jeffers and she told me that she can go back as far as her records show on her computer. To give me a credit so I received my next month bill and they gave me four-month credit. I believed it was as far as they can go.

Now I have received my bill for last month and they charged me for pay per view for eight months that I never ordered.

So CableVision customers out there, if you have a DVR box make sure that they give you your free digital box. I don't care if you don't use it, just take it and give it to someone and charge them for it if you want because they have been doing it for years to us.

A DISGRUNTLED CUSTOMER

Warwick

Humans the real culprits

June 9, 2009

Dear Sir,

I am writing to address the topic of "Wasting Water" in response to Concerned Resident's letter of May 25, 2009.

The average North American (including Bermudian) will use approximately 50 gallons of water per day; of this amount approximately one to two percent (1 gallon) will be used for drinking and food consumption.

More and more Bermudians choose to either consume purified bottled water, or purified water produced through their own under-the-sink Reverse Osmosis at home for themselves and their loved ones for very valid health, safety, and peace-of-mind reasons.

Although local bottled water and at home Reverse Osmosis water both use raw untreated well and/or tank water for their production, to these people the "use" (not waste) of three gallons per day of untreated water for the purpose of drinking and cooking is more than warranted.

We humans are the real culprits at wasting water. The problem lies in how we "Bermudians" waste a great portion of the remaining 46 gallons of water that we use every day. There lies the greatest opportunity to preserve our precious well and tank collected water. There are many simple and relatively inexpensive ways to preserve water including just to name a few: Using flow reducing shower heads, shutting the water off when soaping, adjusting toilet holding tanks to hold less flushing water, and inspecting/servicing water tanks every two years to ensure cracks are sealed. These alone could save more than one third of those 46 gallons.

Although we should all appreciate Concerned Resident's comments on wasting water, it should also be mentioned that his three gallon rejected Reverse Osmosis water can very easily be returned to the tank, pumped back into the hot water line, or collected for secondary use such as the watering of plants and gardens around the home.

PAUL E. CLAUDE

President

ClearWater Systems Ltd.

MPs showed honour

July 13, 2009

Dear Sir,

I would like to take this time to thank Mr. Terry Lister, Mr. Elvin James, Mr. Randy Horton, and Mr. Wayne Perinchief for their recent public pleas to Dr. Brown to step down. I am ecstatic to see such a display by these members. They have heard the people's cry. They have not ignored the open displays of unrest amongst we, the people, and I congratulate them on their sense of honour.

They have put country and people before themselves and that is what true good governance is about. Mr. Dale Butler, I feel, started the ball rolling with his courage to not let such a blatant disregard for our laws stand at the hands of Dr. Brown.

I also want to thank Ms Renee Webb for her article because she is right. White people here are Bermudian too and they have a right and duty to express their dissatisfaction for bad governance without being labelled a racist just because the person they deem to be wrong is black.

And I say it goes both ways as well. Just because a black person criticises a white person or vice versa, it does not mean that critic is a racist! Dr. Brown and his followers, such as Minister Roban, should be ashamed of themselves. They complain about racism, yet they fester it up themselves. What hypocrisy! I believe that former Premiers Dame Jennifer Smith and Mr. Alex Scott had a better grasp on what it is that needs to be done to heal this Island's racial past and I believe there are current PLP members who can do an even better job that should be elected as Premier.

This is my fourth letter to this newspaper in just over a month. In each I have called for Dr. Brown's resignation and for an end to this poisonous racial rhetoric that is spreading. I will continue to write to this paper, and protest alongside my fellow Bermudians of all colours and creeds until he is ousted or steps down.

Bermudians, now is the time to stand as one voice and one body. God created us all different, yet equal at the same time. We are all deserving of respect, dignity and opinion. Dr. Brown's current leadership is stripping us of those qualities and we must all now stand as one and demand these rights be returned to us under a worthy leader.

ROBERT DAVIES

Devonshire

Putting country first

July 7, 2009

Dear Sir,

One of the challenges of party political government is that the leader of a party is not always a good leader of the government and, by extension, of the country and the community.

There are, indeed, potentially conflicting interests between the ambitions of a political party and its leader, and the aspirations of a political party constituting the government of the day. The aim of the party, and its leader in particular, is to be elected to govern. The aim of the government, and its leader, should be to work on behalf of the whole community to protect and serve the interests of the people.

Conflicts of interest arise when the party leading the government, and its leader, are more concerned with protecting and serving their own interests and authority than the general welfare of the people.

The current leadership of the Bermuda government is a good example of typical political leadership, notwithstanding any inherent defects in it, and, on the other hand, poor quality of government on behalf of all the people of Bermuda. A government leader who has declared that "We had to deceive you" must immediately cause alarm bells to ring about his priority to protect his and his party's vested political interests rather than the welfare of the community at large.

The current government leadership of Bermuda, with its questionable ethos of "the end justifies the means", has regularly employed tactics of deception, manipulation and connivance to serve its self-interested political purposes. That might be in the nature of power politics, though it is not necessarily good politics, even in that context. It most certainly, however, does not constitute good leadership of a whole country and the community of its people who represent an increasingly diverse range of interests and aspirations.

I would suggest that there are probably people within a political party in government who are better leaders of a country than the incumbent party leader, and that, once in power, a party should be able (or even required) to elect or appoint the person they think is best qualified to lead the government and, by extension, the country. That person might, or might not be the leader of the party.

The point, however, is that the people deserve to have a leader who is truly respectful of the welfare of the whole country, inclusively, and, more importantly, its people, rather than one who is persistently protective of his or her own narrower political interests and those of their party.

G. FAIELLA

London, UK