June 7, 2003

Dear Sir,

Fresh TV is all right except for a few things:

1. Every now and then you can't hear what a person's saying or singing because the sound goes off and on (technical glitches).

2. There isn't enough talent (yes, Bermuda may have local artists, but not all of them sound that hot nor sing songs of their own instead of off the radio or some CD).

That song 'It's over' by that girl Iris f/Ninja Cutty would sound better if Ninja Cutty wasn't in that song. Another artist tried to sound like Buju Banton and so forth.

3. Is there anything on this station for other people other than young people?

BERMUDIAN

Pembroke

June 7, 2003

Dear Sir,

Ah, socialism. It's like love. Everyone has their own definition of it that is convenient to their circumstances.

For example, when Dame Lois Browne-Evans says she is a socialist she doesn't mean like Stalin who was responsible for an estimated 50 million dead Russians. She says she likes Castro, but then she says she's not for the death penalty. That's not like Castro who apparently is. Castro doesn't like that kind of socialism either because he has said that he is against capital punishment as well!

Socialism is a language game. The grand master was Lenin who redefined what he meant by socialism two or three times a week during his revolution. Let's not even talk about Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Eastern Europe and the rest because the versions of socialism are endless. Once they come to power they disagree with all the others. They have one thing in common though. They all have massive government bureaucracies to provide the services cunningly provided by vile capitalists in non-socialist countries. If you want one argument against socialism here it is. Government services don't work very well. Civil Services are morasses of waste and sloth more often than not. We who live in Bermuda know this from experience.

And speaking of life experience let's talk about capitalism. A long time ago, so Marx says, human beings all lived together in harmony in communal societies. Then capitalism came and there was a blight upon the land. But no fear, socialism will bring us down the road to an equitable and harmonious anarchy again. There is absolutely no historical basis for this but it is a pretty picture. It sounds like it's a narrative borrowed from the Christians; but let's not go there shall we?

What has happened in history is capitalism. It's the only organic mode of social organisation. It wasn't invented. It developed naturally and without the help of intellectual dreamers and for all its appalling sins (they are numerous), it certainly isn't any better or worse than any other system that has been tried. Why do people do bad things? I don't know. But they don't have to be capitalists to do them. What is capitalism? It's not what you want it to be or what you imagine it to be; it simply is what it is. A cat is a cat because that is what it came out as. Politicians say they defend capitalism and believe in it. That's nonsense. You can believe in air and believe the sun will come up. That doesn't make you special or worth voting for.

Capitalism is the way we live now. If you want to change it, all you can do is alter it. You can't get rid of it. That would be like claiming you are a silicon-based life form; you can say it but it just isn't true. Everyone in Bermuda is a capitalist because we live here and engage in the capitalist process. If you live here you can claim to be a socialist but you comply with and benefit from capitalism. Capitalism doesn't care what you think; it cares what you do. If you think I'm wrong; read Marx. You don't have to have a theory of history to change capitalism; you just alter it. It has been altered a thousand times before. And will be again. It's not like love. It's like life.

JOHN ZUILL

Pembroke

June 8, 2003

Dear Sir,

My wife and I visit beautiful Bermuda from time to time, having a relative who is a resident. We usually stay for three or four weeks and always obtain a month's bus pass (currently $36).

A minor source of irritation is that it is only a month's pass if purchased at the beginning of the month! If one arrives at any time after this, then those days are forfeit and no discount is available. We obtained our passes on May 14, thus losing virtually a fortnight! We were here for the first three days in June and had to buy tokens for those days, thus adding insult to injury.

Surely, it's not beyond the ingenuity of the authorities to rectify this anomaly? Shouldn't a month's pass actually mean what it says? If this problem could be solved then we could report 100 percent satisfaction as visitors when we next come.

RON BURLINGHAM

Southampton England

June 6, 2003

Dear Sir,

On May 31, I wrote to you to express my concern over an abandoned motorcycle that had been left on the sidewalk about 50 yards from the junction of Montpelier and Middle Road in Devonshire. My letter was published yesterday, June 5, and I thank you for doing that.

On Wednesday evening, June 4, some time before 11 p.m., the blue and white Suzuki vanished. I was optimistic that the owners had turned up, full of remorse for leaving it for a few weeks on the sidewalk. My optimism was short-lived. The Suzuki has been deliberately dragged down to the Montpelier Road entrance of the Arboretum, taken round the hedge and flung on its side. This is a deliberate act of littering. I suppose someone thought they would save on having the cycle trucked away. Let's see if we can catch these people and hope that the courts will make them pay up as much as can be levied. Keep Bermuda Beautiful, please take note! I saw an older couple in a blue car remove the Suzuki motorcycle's licence plate. I assume they have something to do with this, and may be planning to use the plate on another motorcycle. Can the TCD put a tag on the plate in its files and go after the owners when they attempt to use it again or before? With all these computers whirring and clicking so cleverly, surely we can catch these people with a few clicks! We read about rubbish and cycles and appliances being dumped on the Railway Trail, and on tribe roads and in out of the way places. When I've been hiking on the Railway Trail I have seen so much discarded trash. People seem to go to so much trouble to litter! Someone would have worked up a real sweat pushing or dragging the bike into the Arboretum.

ROSS ELDRIDGE

Devonshire