Judge-alone panels, yes!

August 12, 2010

Dear sir,

We need to hurry up and push for a judge panel to judge gun crimes. Juries just aren't getting the job done here effectively. We all need to pray for successful and stern convictions and punishments. So the prosecution, Police and any people in the community who knows what's happening need to buck up, and work together to let's actually get the gun criminals behind bars! They all are still roaming our streets! People, it is a matter of time and a matter of natural violent progression before these gun holders turn more onto innocents...we are already seeing it! Armed house robberies are occurring. It is NOT unfeasible things won't turn to store and bank robberies at gun point in broad daylight. These guys shoot people in broad daylight in front of tons of onlookers already and still get away with it. You think they don't realise this?

The more they get away with, the more brazen they become. We are a breeding ground for shameless criminals. The days of Bermuda being known as a safe, enjoyable, friendly place are on the chop block people. Let us taken swift and stern action to stop all this mayhem before the axe falls down on Bermuda's reputation. Once the axe falls heads will roll, people. And we may never get back what we loose. STOP THE VIOLENCE!

ROBERT DAVIES

Devonshire

Affirmative action policy

August 14, 2010

Dear Sir,

Your reporter, Tim Smith, did an excellent job in presenting my point of view with which, I am told, some in the PLP hierarchy strongly disagree. However, I must comment on one point. Most people know by now that I believe that the PLP should have adopted an affirmative action POLICY by this time. They have not.

As a result the Jim Butterfield affair was handled badly from the outset and to the casual observer appears as a personal vendetta not as a policy. I could never say that I was "pleased" about the expression of a personal vendetta. I do believe that if it had been policy and not personal we would have heard of the same thing being done to others. We have not. I do believe that since it was so easy to have done it to him it could have been done to others who have enjoyed centuries and decades of preferential treatment. It has not been, so I cannot say that I was "pleased" that it was done to him. But there should definitely be a policy of Affirmative Action to address the injustices of the past, often expressed by unearned preferential treatment of whites and denial to, and exclusion of, blacks, which still impact most blacks.

EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish

'Atlantic Princess' slipping

August 13, 2010

Dear Sir,

You are noticeably starting to slip away from being the Atlantic Princess you once were. As a long-time visitor to Bermuda, it gets more noticeable every time I return. I am talking about the violence and gang-related crime/drugs that threatens your ability to survive as a people and as a country. You wonder why tourism is down and yet you fail to see this part of the equation. If you noticed the situation, more effort would be placed on adopting more severe penalties and jail sentences for those who feel that the gang life is more beneficial.

Yes, the global economy has been hit very hard in the past few years but you cannot blame this downward trend for everything. I lost my job after 20 years due to the economy and I was able to visit you last year. I make 50 percent less than I did in 2008.

I read of shootings almost every week in The Royal Gazette and I wonder what it will take before common sense prevails. My wife and I have frequented the Island(s) many, many times since 1985 and we are saddened by what we read. Eleven murders in Bermuda in the past 15 months. Per capita, this ratio is more than what has taken place in the city of Columbus, Ohio, this year. How can you possibly let this persist?

Bermudians have always held a special place in my heart, simply put, because of the fact, Bermuda is a special place and like no other. But the fact is, there is a very ugly scar that is running from one end of the Island to the other. Lives are being needlessly lost. Families are being disrupted because of the gang warfare and the drug problem. Tourism, an industry that drives the Island economy, is shrinking. Do you think that the big businesses who use Bermuda as their corporate headquarters are going to stick around once the violence starts affecting them at their doorsteps? You are trying to use a band-aid to stop a hemorrhage.

It's time to start putting the bite back into your laws. Your Parliament needs to move in haste to set forth laws that will take the bite out of crime. Bermuda needs to be a benchmark in handling gang violence and illegal drug trafficking. Regardless of who is in power, and for the sake of your country, you need to work together to accomplish a very critical goal. We are seriously thinking of returning next year for another visit to Bermuda. I am not encouraged by the current way gang violence and the drug issues are multiplying. Have your lawmakers ever heard of the caning punishments in Singapore? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore. Longer prison sentences along with hard labour are also good deterrents. I was shocked to hear last year that the St. George's Police Station shuts down of an evening. Do the crimes in St. George's move to other parts of the Island where stations are still open? Visiting Bermuda is a big deal for me and my wife. I regret to think about going elsewhere next year when vacation time rolls around. But what choice do I really have?

The Bermuda National Trust says "Bermuda For Everyone Forever". Forever doesn't seem like a very long time for Bermuda at the rate things are going.

STEVE CRANE

Reynoldsburg, Ohio

Unstable families

August 12, 2010

Dear Sir,

I am a part-time law student and female that has experienced the effects of the absence of my father.

I am very interested in attending any meeting and volunteering and providing any assistance to ChildWatch of Bermuda.

I believe that most of the anti-social behaviours being displayed in the youth and young adults in our society is due to not only being a product of their environment but coming from an unstable, unemotionally available and unloving homes, and, in addition, one of their parents not being in their lives.

One must not forget to mention the selfishness and vengeful actions of females that are not getting things their way and who decide to be spiteful to the child's father and put them in the government system. There are many women in Bermuda who have good jobs, expensive clothing and vehicles and own homes. However, they have three children from three different men and used the benefit of the system to pay for their goods when things don't go their way. It is very selfish and wrong. The children are the ones that suffer in the long run either in failed relationships, or by having low self esteems, or underachieve in academics or professional tasks or goals. The system depends on these women's motives to generate revenue and profit. Does anyone really care about the children?

I am only 24-years-old but I am noticing that our country is so focused on the effects and is not trying to get to the root causes and stop this cycle.

Everyone is so caught up on the political matters of the day and play the "race" card or competing with each other and we as the adults are allowing another generation to slip through the cracks and be lost. I do understand the frustration of the seniors and elders in this country with regards to the violence and crime. One must understand that these are effects of the home and the environment. I agree that the past should not be forgotten. I believe the anger emotionally and politically expressed through the blacks on the Island with today's events and matters are not going to help progression or decrease the anti-social behaviors in the youth or young adults. Yes, we need to teach the youth about the past regarding race, personal family experiences and other matters or stories of importance. However, we must still advise and set an example to learn from all in order for them to excel in their personal lives and in society.

As a result of learning from the past, don't use the past as an excuse to stay poor and uneducated.

I can go on as it's a big puzzle. However, I thought I would give you a bit of my reason of concern and why I would like the opportunity to assist if needed with ChildWatch of Bermuda.

We must remember children learn their behaviours. Every child only wants the love, attention and affection of their mother and father. Children want to be with mommy and daddy who are their very first role models.

CARE ABOUT THE CHILDREN

Hamilton Parish

Don't sell toy guns

August 12, 2010

Dear Sir,

Last Wednesday I attended Harbour Nights with my two boys and was appalled to see a vendor selling plastic guns that make a popping noise when shot, and around this vendor's stand were children pointing the guns at one another and having a "lovely time", pretending to shoot one another. Sadly in this day and age, it's a poor choice of toys to sell, and I for one would like to see them removed from Harbour Nights.

We do not need to encourage our children to play this way, unfortunately they are exposed to all the violence in Bermuda, they talk about it in the schools, read the papers etc, but we need to protect our children as much as we can.

LISA OUTERBRIDGE

Smith's

Losing our civility

August 12, 2010

Dear Sir,

I am a Bermudian who now resides in the States. I return to the Island a few times each year. On my recent visit I found it both appalling and sad to find rudeness and surliness to be the norm for people working in shops or in public services. It would be sad enough that the normal encounter with the hired worker is profound disagreeableness but it is absolutely tragic to find this in a country once known for civility and politeness.

Does it not occur to the employee that if they do not engage with the public in a pleasing manner they might in fact lose a job? Such unpleasantness will turn customers away and therefore put their own employment at risk. Their abrasive behaviour will in turn only end up hurting themselves.

It is with sadness for my country and its reputation as a very generous and friendly society that I write this letter at this time.

NANCY ANNE MILLER

Washington, CT

Private or public schooling

August 12, 2010

Dear Sir,

A recent correspondent in these pages, on August 13, a "competent, committed and capable educator with experience, exposure and expertise", demanded that Bermuda should privatise public education because the existing model was established, historically, on a "racist foundation". She contended that "We must…establish a just and equitable system of education for all of Bermuda's children regardless of their race, creed or colour". Her contention, or at least implication, was that privatised education for all school children in Bermuda would achieve the goal of equality of education for all.

The validity of this argument depends on its assumption, first, that the quality of all privatised education would be as high as that of the quality of private education today, by comparison with public sector education today. That, I would suggest, is an unsubstantiated leap of faith for which she gives no evidence. Just because government schools are privatised does not necessarily mean that they will guarantee to achieve the standards of existing private schools; it is the school itself and by that I mean primarily the educators within it rather than its status as private or public, that determines the quality of education it delivers, especially when it has the freedom to articulate its resources in the most effective ways it can.

The other assumption the writer implies is that a wholly privatised education system would "establish a just and equitable system of education for all of Bermuda's children". The implication is that private education delivers equal high standards to all those in the private school system. I might suggest, on that reasoning, that a wholly public education system could also deliver such equality; indeed, it would deliver greater equality because the Ministry of Education would (or at least should), by the nature of its constitutional inclusivity, be committed to an equal distribution of the resources at its disposal. Furthermore I see no reason why, if the Ministry of Education did its job properly, all public schools should not provide the very highest quality of education for Bermuda's children. Why should it be assumed that public schools are generically of poorer quality than private schools? That might be the case now, but it most certainly does not need to be so.

What I assume the writer is implying is that if the quality and standards of teaching, resources and curriculum of Bermuda's private school system were inculcated into a wholly revised privatised system, then the standards and quality of ex-government schools would rise to the same or similar levels as private schools today. But I cannot see the logic of how it is necessary to "dismantle the Ministry of Education" and privatise public schools in order, ipso facto, to achieve as high or even higher standards in public education as in the private sector.

What is necessary to achieve that is for the Ministry of Education to aspire to and, more important, execute superior standards and quality of education, deracinated from the principles of racial or social inequality that, according to the writer, has been the historical foundation of public education in Bermuda. The genetically re-engineered and upgraded system might then be newly replanted on the more equitable grounds of cultivating a well educated population without regard to racial, social, gender, ethnic or financial status and distinctions, which is the hallmark of a truly democratic, prosperous, humane and just society.

One last point: a truly private school system, that is independent of government financial support needs to finance itself wholly by its own means (at least that's what I understand by the term "private education".) I have no idea what it costs to educate a child in Bermuda's private schools, but I am pretty certain that there are many families in Bermuda who could never afford the cost of unsubsidised private education. What then, I ask your correspondent, of equality of education for all?

GRAHAM FAIELLA

London, UK