The lead story in today's Royal Gazette (Saturday, February 3) was once again a great story. Mr. Owen has been a very good US Consul General and a good friend to Bermuda during his time here.

His points on the difficulties arising from the use of the American stop-list for people with convictions for small amounts of soft drugs were extremely interesting to me.

Some years ago a Senior Official at US Immigration told me that the people with these types of convictions were on the stop list because their names were gleaned from the local newspapers.

So in other words, under Bermuda law rapists, child molesters etc. (whose names cannot be published, under Bermuda law) are shielded to a degree whilst some unfortunate soul who gets busted before he can smoke his first joint can be placed on the US stop list.

Don't get me wrong, newspapers should be able (and required) to print all the news that's fit (and legal) to be printed. It seems unfair to give Chester the molester more protection under the law than marijuana smokers are given. It wouldn't take much to change Magistrate's Court Rules to stop this travesty from occurring.

I ask the people who presently hold the power to change the rules on Magistrates Court procedure to affect these changes without delay.

SPANISH POINT VOTER Pembroke Editor's note: The reason why some sex offenders are not named in court reports is that to do so, could lead to the identity of their victims, who have a right to anonymity.

Let's exchange jobs February 2, 2001 Dear Sir, Bermudians have been trained, and retrained, and retrained, and retrained...

with programmes from whichever country we had as a pet at the time. Currently, our pet is Canada. My observations are that these "training programmes'' have done little to prepare Bermudians for what is expected from them in the workplace. Now, when Bermudians are told that they must participate in yet another training session, they sign, trot along to the sessions (if they are mandatory) participate at whatever level they feel (mostly as little as possible) and wait for it all to be over. Very little is gained and several very competent training staff have left Bermuda frustrated and confused.

The Sonesta Beach Hotel currently has the best training programme for their employees. They send them to the Bermuda College to be professionally trained, and on satisfactory completion, the employee will get a Certificate of Training that is recognised world wide instead of one that is only recognised (mostly) within a particular hotel chain. But this alone is still not enough.

Bermuda is competing internationally and therefore Bermudians must have international exposure to the workplace, in all areas. The only edge a guest worker has over a Bermudian is greater exposure (they are certainly no smarter) and therefore more confident. Bermudians who have worked overseas, unlike those who have not (including college students who return home immediately after graduation) do not have a problem competing with guest workers.

I suggest setting up an Employee Exchange Programme with the United Kingdom, Canada and America. Here is how it will work.

Take Bermudians who are currently employed and send them off for a minimum of one year to one of the participating countries to do exactly the job they are doing here in Bermuda; mason, saleslady, dishwasher, bartender, labourer, carpenter etc. Let them fill the jobs of their employed counterparts who will come to Bermuda and fill their jobs here for a year. It would only be a job swap, and the only qualification required is that you must have been employed in the same job, or with the same company, for one year continuously., This will provide the necessary, confidence building, outside exposure that is lacking in our Bermudian work force, and guest employees will no longer be viewed as coming here to take Bermudian jobs but to trade with Bermudians.

I urge the powers that be to consider this before jumping into bed with yet another organisation that is going to come here to "retrain'' Bermudians once again. Probably getting the same results. Keep doing what you did will keep getting you what you got. Right? AL EASTMOND Devonshire Keep cash on Island January 15, 2001 Dear Sir, Perhaps we, as Bermudians need more of an education about long distance phone services that are now available to us.

Perhaps we need to think more carefully about why we choose to use the phone services that we do.

As a consumer with historically astronomical long distance telephone bills, I join others in feeling sour about paying inflated prices for so long. It seems now that Internet service providers such as Logic have entered the phone market, there is real competition in the field and I finally have a choice. Of course I am left bewildered, along with many consumers about how a company drops phone rates from over a dollar to 50 cents in a matter of months and still makes a profit.

Perhaps these phone carriers should come clean and `fess up' about why their rates were so high! I suspect it is simply because they were getting away with it.

The past aside, I have never been one to cry over split milk, I have changed carriers to LogicPhone (I'm not leaving my business with a company that has ripped me off) and now I pay extremely good rates without any restrictions on when I call, how long I call or who I call.

As for illegal callback services, GlobalTel's insistence on luring locals to spend overseas concerns me. Many a time I have argued with friends, the merits of keeping money in Bermuda for a stronger economy and improved local service.

I fully understood the temptation of callback services when local companies still charged high rates. I agree that to use outside services for a short time does help to put the pressure on and bring prices down, that is true of any service.

Now that Bermuda-based companies have responded, let's keep the money here -- imagine if we all went with callback services -- we'd lose our new-found choice.

For years I have lamented the lack of competition in Bermuda, in many fields.

Finally, we see it happen and locals aren't supporting it. I'd urge anybody who cares about the state of our home to drop callback services and exercise your choice locally.

THANK YOU LOGICPHONE Hamilton Thanks for coming January 31, 2001 Dear Sir, May we through your column express our gratitude to all who came and all who assisted with the PALS Memorial Christmas Trees in the Washington Mall and The Bank of Butterfield.

Nearly 2,000 messages were placed on the trees, each for a special person at this special time of the year.

Many generous donations were made to PALS along with words of encouragement for us to continue our work in caring for the cancer patients within our community.

Again, our sincere thanks to all who came.

JOANNE ARMSTRONG Devonshire Hotel sets high standard January 25, 2001 Dear Sir, I am staying at the beautiful Sonesta Beach Resort, having escorted a group of 80 people from Toronto, Canada for a bridge tournament.

A couple of days ago, one of my ladies misplaced a valuable set of pearls and feared the worst. The hotel security department (and management in general) were superb and handled the situation so well. Unfortunately, somehow the loss was reported in The Gazette . The pearls were found yesterday, hidden away by my client in a golf shirt and it is imperative that everyone know that no theft ever did occur.

I have been so very impressed with Sonesta Beach Resort in every way in the sensational view, the meals and the attitude of all staff members are all exceptional. I escort groups all over the world and this property will rank very high on my list.

BARBARA SEAGRAM Canada