Where's the support?

January 26, 2008

Dear Sir,

Regardless of all the objections and complaints it looks like Belco is going ahead with their plans to expand. More and more it shows that the citizens of Bermuda have no say whatsoever on what goes on here.

The asinine statement by Belco that the taller chimneys will make things better does not sound truthful. Soot is going to fall regardless of how tall they build.

When the residents of Warwick had the problem with Southlands everyone in Bermuda rallied around them, and those of us in Pembroke would like the same support.

SEEING IT AS IT IS

Pembroke

Flagged out

January 26, 2008

Dear Sir,

It is with great sadness that I must apologise to the entire Irish community for the mistake in the flying of an Italian flag on the balcony of Flanagan's Irish Pub & Restaurant. In no way was it done on purpose and was a mistake made by the company I ordered it from, and also in my hast to fly my new flag I did not actually pay close enough attention to the color. It will be fixed in the next few days.

I must however reply to the letter written in Saturday's Royal Gazette regarding the issue. In doing so I have spoken to my incredible Staff who has given me there synopsis of the situation.

1. "We are all colour blind here anyway".

2. "If you can't beat the Italians, join them."

3. "Who cares, our sales were the best ever when that flag was flying"

4. "Hey boss, great marketing, where did you learn that?"

5. "Leave that Lasagna dish on the menu, it's a hit."

6. "It would have eventually turned orange."

At the tiome of writing, there are 51 days until St. Patrick's Day, and I promise you that it will be fixed by then.

Top a da day to ya !

CHRIS GARLAND

General Manager

Flanagan's Irish Pub

Get your facts straight

January 30, 2008

Dear Sir,

Please allow me a small amount of space to respond to Larry Marshall Sr.'s Opinion piece printed in the January 30 Royal Gazette. I can't be bothered to spend a lot of energy on him because he in turn spends so little time confirming his "facts," so it will only be a small amount of space.

1) Regiment troops are paid for parades, and for whatever else they do in uniform, contrary to his rather strange statement that they aren't paid. Not only are they paid, they just got a raise.

2) The Officers (and the other senior ranks), if he ever bothered to actually look, are on average equally populated by blacks as they are by whites and Portuguese, in spite of what he seems to think. If anything, there are more blacks ¿ a trend which reflects the population of the country as a whole. What a surprise. And since those ranks are purely voluntary (i.e. people stay around past their required three years out of choice rather than legal obligation), Mr. Marshall must be missing something about why those people stay.

It certainly isn't about slavery, because they choose to remain past their years of service. Maybe he thinks each and every one of them is brainwashed or an idiot ... I'm sure they'd have something to say to him about that if he were to be man enough to ask in person.

3) There are very few "grown men" who walk through the gates of Warwick Camp on their first day. And there certainly aren't any grown men running around this country having six children with five different women, dealing drugs and putting rims on their car before they put food on the table. I'm sure all the staff in the Regiment would love it if parents in this country did a better job raising their children, but sadly they don't. So again, Marshall must be missing something. He's missing what most of the parents in this country are missing, actually ¿ he's missing what it takes to raise a man, and to be a man. He thinks there are men in this country? There are barely any.

4) Marshall can trumpet until the fat lady sings about what used to happen in the Regiment. The only thing that matters is what happens now. I'm sure there are plenty of things in his past that he's not proud of. If we're to believe that once he had flaws but he's now a better person, then that's no different than saying that the Regiment once had flaws but is now a better organisation.

He doesn't bother to check his facts, and he continually calls out the hot topics of racism and slavery in an attempt to rile up a hornet's nest, when he has no foundation for what he's claiming.

Pretty much standard Government tactics. He should run for office.

SOLDIER

City of Hamilton

Setting an example

January 29, 2008

Dear Sir,

Today I heard a man use profanity in reply to comments made by another individual on Mr. DeCosta's public talk show. He said, F**k twice.

Though surprised, I was even more surprised that a few individuals called after Mr. DeCosta said he was banned from calling-in until he apologised. These individuals called to support Mr. Hughes because, his "comments were out of character" and like the ex-candidate said, "sometimes we fly off the hook" and "I'll mediate to get him to apologise". Another individual called to say that, "his contributions are worthy to not be banned" and another called in to say, "he is surprised"!

So, if an honour student is caught cheating on an exam, would that child be removed from the exam room, but given an automatic pass rate, based on past exams taken? My faith in rational thinking was slightly restored when one or two individuals called to support a ban or even to ask him to not call in for a week or more.

So do we ask the Police to arrest the young person swearing in a public place, but ignore public comments made over the radio by an adult?

I would hope that the individual the comments were directed at would file a complaint.

I write to say that these individual responses are a reflection of a community where individual reasoning is diminished and unethical behaviour is justified. A community where newspapers and TV tell us who our black leaders are and a community where we are told to spare the rod and spoil the child. A community that has been indoctrinated to believe that "timeout" is important for children and a community where activism is based on individual return.

We have become a community, despite diversity, that is turning a blind eye to our children's future. Children learn from what they see and hear. As adults we continue to set bad examples for kids and young adults, yet blame them for whom they are and how they express themselves..

SAM

Warwick

Crime and its causes

January 22, 2008

Dear Sir,

"Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime" was a New Labour mantra in successive election victories in the UK.

This saying was borne out of the zero-tolerance strategy used in New York City so successfully by then-Mayor Giuliani and the then-Police Commissioner, William Bratton. In turn, their strategy was borrowed from the often quoted "broken window thesis".

The thesis suggests that a certain sequence of events can be expected in deteriorating neighborhoods: evidence of decay (broken windows, accumulated trash, deteriorated building exteriors) which remains in the neighbourhood for a reasonably long period of time causes people who live and work in the area to feel more vulnerable and to begin to withdraw.

They become less willing to intervene to maintain public order (for example, to attempt to break up groups of rowdy teens loitering on street corners) or to address physical signs of deterioration.

In response to this, some vandals may become bolder and intensify their harassment and vandalism. This makes residents even more fearful and less likely to participate in community upkeep. Offenders then come in from outside the area, sensing that the neighbourhood has become a vulnerable and a less risky site for crime. The authors of the thesis wrote: "One unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares ¿and so breaking more windows costs nothing."

Colonel Burch should remember this as he declares an "all out war" on crime and makes "unrelenting efforts" to rid Bermuda of crime. The Colonel needs to remember that it is not simply a matter of arresting criminals. It is about stamping out the causes of crime and the feeling that a neighbourhood is unsafe through cross Ministry initiatives.

In other words if there is graffiti on a bus stop (as there is on Palmetto Road and has been for some time) then the Ministry of Works and Engineering should scrub it off.

If there is garbage strewn about an estate road every effort must be made immediately to remove it.

If residents of an estate are consistently playing loud music and annoying their neighbours they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It is efforts like this, coupled with zero tolerance policing (ticketing people for running stop signs etc.) over a sustained period that will make Bermuda safe again.

Simply flooding the streets for two weeks with police officers and then sending them away from the frontline of policing will not (it begs the questions why the flood of officers is not more permanent if they are available now).

Finally, whilst the above may sound simple, it is costly in terms of money, time and resources. If the Colonel is serious on cutting crime, then such costs will be worth every penny. However, we all know that actually improving the state of the education system rather than paying lip service to improvement will make the biggest difference of all in cutting crime.

Mr. Editor, that is the second front of the "all out war". Over to you Minister Horton...

MICHAEL M. FAHY

Hamilton Parish