Missing WHDH

October 1, 2009

Dear Sir,

I have been away and so I may have missed Cablevision's explanation for this nonsense. Channel 6, formerly WHDH Boston, has become the African Music station. Given the close historical ties between Bermuda and the New England area, including tourism, education, medical, sporting etc, I am at a loss to understand this peculiar change. Surely it cannot be permanent? If so, you may wish to amend your daily TV listings and I will cancel Cablevision and use my satellite dish.

ST GEORGE'S

Not everyone can wait

September 23, 2009

Dear Sir,

With apologies to Camelot "Do you remember"? Others and myself worked the streets of Hamilton with a Petition that begged Government not to close the Medical Clinic at the Hospital, mostly for the elderly and people who found it difficult to afford the price of health insurance. We got hundreds of names because it offered first class professional care and filled a vital need in the community. It cost whatever the patient could afford, it provided every service under one roof, X-rays, lab work, counselling, physical therapy and medications at the pharmacy, even a cup of tea and a kindly nurse to give you comfort and assurance, and if you were very lucky, even a ride home with a friend. How do I know all these things about the Medical Clinic? because I am a nurse and I worked at the hospital and I would hear the praise and satisfaction the patients would relate to me, I knew some of the nurses, and what a wonderful team they were.

So what do we have now? Confusion! A promise of something called Future Care, future care? Not everyone can wait. You can have Future Care if you belonged to HIP prior to this new plan, not everyone was told this! So everyone got excited as they heard what a wonderful benefit this would be and they were right, the service HIP offered, was excellent, and now to graduate to an even better service called FUTURE CARE, to some, who were not on HIP transferred when they heard of the benefits. They should have been told that they would not be able to be enrolled in Future Care if they were not on HIP before, and that they would have to wait until Government would phase them in at a future date, and perhaps they should also have been told not to give up their other insurance till they received notification from the Government that they had been accepted into Future Care, and could now draw on the service. There is no question that we are being looked after extremely well now. The price of this care has increased considerably. HIP used to be $186.96 a month, and then it increased to $201.50 a month, and then the transfer to Future Care from HIP went up to $260. This very increase is much cheaper than any insurance that can be obtained, but even then, this could be too much for some seniors who are living well under the poverty level, which I believe is somewhere in the region of the upper twenties or more a year. So what are they to do? Government must have a plan for the Seniors who are in difficulty now and so we come full circle Dr. Brown.

The Medical Clinic should never have been closed before you had HIP and Future Care up and running successfully. Thar horse that keeps finding itself behind the art, proves how irresponsible you are with people's lives and welfare. It should be possible to open up a facility, temporarily, for patients that need help now, while they await the coverage that Future Care will give them in time.

DIANA WILLIAMS

When did things change?

October 5, 2009

Dear Sir,

The defenders of the racial salary gap should tell us exactly when race, racism and white privilege became insignificant. Surely even they know that from 1834 segregation, exploitation and exclusion of blacks was the very foundation of our society. We all know that in 1959 public places were desegregated and that senior posts in the Civil Service began to be substantially filled by blacks in the late 1970s and early 80s.

However in 1980 when I returned to Bermuda with a string of Academic degrees and qualifications (from Columbia University, no less, not some unknown black College!) and a very varied professional experience acquired while abroad, the only job that I could get when I returned was the one that I had before I had acquired any of that. My education and very wide experience meant nothing. Meanwhile I watched while much younger whites, foreign and local, with much less experience, or none, and often fewer qualifications were promptly placed in highly paid administrative roles as soon as they set foot on the Island. So exactly when did this major shift take place where race, racism and white privilege ceased to be a significant factor?

EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish

Odd choice by BEC

October 5, 2009

Dear Sir,

It is no wonder that there have been different conclusions in the Employment Survey and in the CURE surveys when compared to the Employers Council study, "The Shift". "The Shift" was a "study" conducted by Larry Burchall, who, by his own admittance, only has only a Cambridge School Certificate. The Employment Survey, was conducted by a statistician at the Bermuda Department of Statistics who has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics and a Masters of Business Education. The CURE survey was conducted by Cordell Riley who is a former employee at the Department of Statistics and who has a Master's Degree in Tourism Marketing and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Survey Sampling, among other academic qualifications.

Certainly the powers-that-be at the Employers Council would not accept Mr. Burchall performing the simplest surgical procedure on them or their children, because he lacks the scientific knowledge and training, Yet, they had no problem commissioning him to conduct a scientific survey on Bermuda's employment trends. I find this odd for two reasons. Firstly, Mr. Burchall obtained his Cambridge School Certificate through his studies at the Berkeley Institute, and secondly, the BEC members are some of the first to say that Bermudians are not educated and qualified to enter certain sectors of the economy. It's also interesting that Mr. Burchall gleans all of his information from the Department of Statistics and then rewrites what the experts have written.

Surely I am not the only person who finds it strange that the Employers Council would take Mr. Burchall's study as gospel.

LAVERNE FURBERT

Hamilton Parish

What did we pay for?

October 1, 2009

Dear Sir,

Please allow me to comment on the flooding situation on Woodlands Road, outside of the Butterfield & Vallis loading docks. This particular stretch of road was reduced to one lane for months while W&E attempted to fix the flooding that occurs every time we get more than a quarter of an inch of rain. After watching the activity on this site for months, we all assumed the problem was solved. However, after a sudden squall this afternoon at approximately 4.20 I couldn't help but notice that the canal had flooded the road by 4.25. What was resolved during all those months? What did the taxpayers pay for? It appears the problem is no closer to being resolved than before we were inconvenienced with one-lane traffic for all those months.

K. SMITH

St. George's

P.s. Perhaps someone from W&E could look into the guard rails that have not been installed since the job was (apparently) finished several months ago

Chalk it up to experience

October 3, 2009

Dear Sir,

Can someone from the Public Transportation Department please do something about the dreadful state of our bus stops? Unfortunately, from the moment the gaudy new covers were stuck on all the bus stops, they started to deteriorate as they became torn and scratched. They are now peeling off after a hot summer, and it is obvious that the material is totally unsuitable for our climate. Maybe it sounded like a good idea at the time to make them reflective, but let's put it down to a bad experience and move on. Just select attractive shades of pink and blue paint and have the men paint them like they did before.

GOT THE BLUES OVER PINK AND BLUES

Smith's parish

Inquire into the truth

September 30, 2009

Dear Sir,

Look at how much suffering we created; for what? A bigger house, a bigger bank account, more fame, more power, more prestige, for example becoming the President or the Prime Minister. One day death will take all that away. Only that which cannot be taken away by death is real. Everything else is unreal. It is made of the same stuff that the mind is made of, dreams. Your mind contains memories of the past and the future, desires, jealousies, power, the mind is nothing but dreams. Then what has to be done? Think of something higher — something that is beyond desires, something that cannot be destroyed, something that will destroy sorrow. If your search the ultimate, each moment of your life will become more and more peaceful, calm, quiet. If you search for the truth, or God, or whatever you want to call it, you are in search for the deepest in life, and the highest in life, and you are not after spurious things. Your very search will bring a new quality to your being, you will feel together, and you will feel a new joy in your heart, not coming from the outside. The real joy never comes from the outside. It is the spurious that comes from death that can take away only that which has come from the outside, never on the inside. The inside is eternal.

The cause of misery is always ignorance, and nothing else. Jesus says truth liberates. Truth liberates — not the truth from the scriptures, but the truth that you come across through your own experiences. There is no need to have many goals, one is enough. Inquire into the truth of your life. Only one search is enough, to deliver you from all your miseries, sufferings, hells. Inquire into the truth of your being, anger, greed, list — go into each and by going into each, you will discover yourself -you have truly come into the "Kingdom of God".

BERNELL WILLIAMS

City of Hamilton