Do bridge work at night

June 23, 2008

Dear Sir,

Why is it that "we the public" find our purse constantly being abused? (In this case by Works and Engineering) i.e. the latest is, over the weekend, work was being done to the bridge, (that by the way, leads to the airport or for those in the east, the hospitals.)

In any event, why can't/isn't this sort of work that undoubtedly disrupts the flow of traffic, be done at a more convenient hour/s … when people are less active, like nights!

Also wouldn't it be less expensive too, rather than to pay "double time for labour"?

JUST CURIOUS

St. George's

Pedalling race

June 18, 2008

Dear Sir,

First the Chinese were classified as white and now that they are being classified as black. Wow! I imagine that both decisions were thought beneficial at the time.

I wonder if Barack Obama's mother liked having her ethnic origins obliterated. Barack is "black" because his father is African, while her daughter is classified as Eurasian because both parents were taken into account. At least Tiger Woods honours the fact that his mother is Asian and refuses to be categorised.

Mankind has lived through some horrible racial events.

The destruction of the indigenous peoples of North and South America. Millions dead. Slavery and the conquest of less developed peoples. Millions dead.

Pogroms in Russia. Death and humiliation. Hitler and his toxic murderous regime. Jews, Gypsies, and anyone that band of imbeciles thought inferior. Millions dead.

The massacre of the Chinese by the Japanese. Millions dead.

Apartheid, with its evils. Death and humiliation.

Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Darfur. Death and Humiliation.

The extinction of the indigenous people of Tasmania. Gone forever because uneducated people thought the Tasmanians were not human.

The war and partition of Cyprus. Two groups of people living on a small island who live in separate worlds.

The Turks and their destruction of the Armenians.

Mugabe and his disregard for the ethnic minority and their contribution to the success of Zimbabwe and his destruction of a beautiful country.

Ethnic tensions in Guyana and Trinidad.

The mayhem that is the Middle East.

Shall I go on?

Don't you think it is time we moved away from racial classifications altogether? We are all from the same continent originally. Political excuses being used in the name of race irritate me. Anyone who has the need to see people only as a skin colour are sad, incomplete people. Anyone who is comfortable only with their own race is crippled emotionally.

Anyone who peddles race is the devil's spokesperson.

HUMAN

City of Hamilton

Hit and run

June 20, 2008

Dear Sir,

Yesterday at around 2.30 p.m. a bike was headed out of Lindo's in Devonshire when a woman, driving her car and paying more attention to her cell phone conversation than to the intersection, pulled out, knocking the young female cyclist off her bike and sending her to the ground.

The cyclist sustained the obvious injuries which were finally dealt with at the hospital:-Road rash, cuts and bruises, and a damaged ankle to mention a few painful inconveniences! The car and driver carried on and never looked back. Sure the bike was damaged, but that is secondary to my concerns.

In the shock and impact of the moment, the cyclist missed her chance to note details of the car and wasn't the driver lucky? No-one witnessed the accident! Nor was anyone nearby to assist her.

The point of this is to emphasise once again, the negative aspects of driving and talking on a cell phone at the same time. In 1997 a friend of ours was critically injured at about this same spot by a woman who failed to look before exiting the driveway. He nearly died and his recovery, against all odds, was painful and lengthy.

Is anybody out there listening when these cautionary alerts go out? Somehow I doubt it!

I think it's time for flashing yellow warning lights to be placed at all two-way access parking lot entrances as a reminder to drivers to pay attention to what they are doing..

APPALLED AND ANGRY

Devonshire

Hurt and left in road

June 19, 2008

Dear Sir,

Dear lady, whoever you are,

Thank you for not stopping to see how I was after you hit me and caused me to fall off my motorcycle at around 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 19, next to Lindo's in Devonshire.

I'm sure you had an important conversation in progress on your cell phone as you changed your mind about which way you were turning and, though some might call it hit and run, I understand the importance of carrying on as though nothing had happened in your small grey car.

Please don't worry about me, aside from extensive grazing, blood, bruising and pain making me unable to do my 'commission-based pay' job, I'll be fine.

Also please don't worry about the damage to my bike, even though I can't pay to get it repaired as I can't earn any money for a while now, I'm sure it will fix itself.

I'm just happy to see that the community spirit is alive and well in my home country.

ALEXANDRA

Hamilton Parish

Film shocker

June 23, 2008

Dear Sir,

On the evening of June 12, BIFF treated the community to yet another thought-provoking film, as part of their monthly series. The film was well described in e-mail notifications and posters.

The audience arrived expectantly, as we were introduced to a genre of film depicting the less often told story of the East Indian experience in apartheid South Africa, a tale set in 1952.

We sat quietly through the depictions of brutality against the innocent people of colour perpetrated by the South African police. We sat quietly through the obvious, adulterous, relationship between a married man and a married woman (brother-in-law and sister-in law no less).

We sat quietly through the beating of the wronged wife by her adulterous husband and we even sat through the happily attempted manslaughter of a pedestrian, black man (kaffir), by a white South African man driving a car with no lights.

It was not until 90 minutes into the film when two women, consenting adults, exchanged a very chaste kiss, as they began to explore their mutual attraction, compassion and love, that six members of the audience decided to leave, rather loudly, and apparently not to return.

If I interpret their action correctly, my musing is only this: Where does the hypocrisy begin and end?

PERPLEXED!

Warwick

Golf closure shame

June 19, 2008

Dear Sir,

The announced closing of the St. George Golf Club comes as a shock to me, a US resident who has visited Bermuda annually since 1976. Our family have been members of the St. George's Club timeshare since it opened in 1983 when we began our annual two week stays as one of the first member-occupants of that fine facility. In 1990 we purchased two more weeks, in October, so that we could spend about a month a year in Bermuda. One of the main attractions to Bermuda has been the very good golf facilities available at every level of play and at reasonable cost. We have played at every course in Bermuda and made a point of having at least three rounds a week at St. George Golf Club and two rounds at either Port Royal and/or one of the private clubs.

As we have aged over the 32 years of visiting Bermuda as tourists, we intended to confine our golf to the challenging, shorter St. George Golf Club. Gone now is that hope for our waning retirement years. The capricious decision by Premier Brown to close the St. George Golf Club is verifying the change in Bermuda, change that has become unfriendly toward tourism in the last few years. And gone, for Bermuda, is the spending of our family and our golfing partners in the town of St. George, the restaurants, Mulligan's, Cafe Gio, The Carriage House and even at Griffin's at our Club. Gone, because we will look for a venue other than St. George and Bermuda for the four weeks' timeshare that we can exchange to other resorts around the world.

The flights and accommodations are unfortunately already booked, thus this October will likely be our last two-week visit to Bermuda.

Barbados and the Bahamas beckon.

JF PILARO

President

BRAE Partners, Inc.

Atlantic City, New Jersey