forced to sit down and put pen to paper, after all I did vote for a change and put my X next to Arthur D.O. Hodgson & K.H. Randolph Horton, the H&H team we like to say. From where I sit (in a taxi) and see Bermuda today ,I can't say very much about their performance as to the taxi industry, add this to their resume over the last two years, a pink slip is in order. I know there are people who will say `you have to look at the bigger picture' well that is true too, but how can I look at the bigger picture if I can't get my glasses repaired, or I can't afford to pay for a new pair. While it would be fair to say Dr. Ewart Brown and Elvin James could not get re-elected if it was up to the taxi men of this country. They talk the talk but they just don't walk the walk. I quote from the PLP general election platform 1998, page 45, `transportation, A PLP Government Will: Conduct a feasibility study on methods to limit increases in taxi operational cost; through such measures as import duty concessions on tax, spare parts and fuel'. Was it just another Election lie or a Election promise that will be forgotten? I know I have had enough.

Like another early letter writer I can't vote against the guys in Warwick West, but I can vote against the guy in Hamilton West. The time has come for all taxi men to take a look at their representatives and start with St.

George's South.

DRIVING BACKWARD Hamilton Parish Time to take the reins January 15, 2001 Dear Sir, It is sad when people have more confidence in the ability of outsiders to determine what is best for their own country and write to the Colonial mother country to try and convince them of their inferiority. Britain has made several attempts to force us to grow up but we continue to resist.

How are Bermuda's young people supposed to develop a pride in self and being Bermudian when we continue to perpetuate the erroneous belief that Bermudians cannot possibly know what is best for their own country. If Bermuda is to evolve into a positive community, some fundamental psychological changes must take place.

1. We must eliminate the belief that we are inferior because we are Bermudian.

2. We must eliminate the belief that Bermudians cannot effectively rule their own country and make important decisions.

3. We must eliminate the erroneous belief that black Bermudians are not capable of good decision-making.

4. We must eliminate the assumption that the mother country will act fairly and equitably simply because they are European (it is they who spent hundreds of years making sure we believed all of the above but there has been little attempt on their part to undo the damage they were initially responsible for).

There is no greater democratic process than for all of Bermuda's elected Members of OUR Parliament to discuss the proposed constitutional changes. The public will have the opportunity to hear what each of them has to say on the matter. Democracy is not some elite bureaucrat from another country telling us what is best for us. Bermudians should find such a suggestion insulting. The disturbing element is that some of us don't.

Bermudians, it is time to believe in yourselves so your children can be proud to be Bermudian. Re-examine your reasons for supporting a constitutional conference, which historically owes its existence to the belief that the colonials are incapable of important decision-making. This is the beginning of the 21st Century. Rid yourselves of the Colonial mentality, which perpetuates racism, inferiority complexes and low self-esteem.

A SAD OBSERVER Sandy's Parish Why can't it be cheaper? January 15, 2001 Dear Sir, Nn-one should be surprised at the precipitous collapse of the air/hotel component of Bermuda's tourism industry. Refresh your mind by referring back to your own reporter's failed attempt to obtain a single positive recommendation to visit Bermuda from (Bermuda partner!) travel agencies in New York. The bad word was: Bermuda is great, but too expensive.

While we rush to make the airline prices the scapegoat, knowledgeable people around the industry will tell you that the airfares are not out of line with the Bermuda price experience generally, and in the hotels in particular.

Airlines are incensed that they, not us, should be the ones begged to pull our fat out of our fire. They will tell you that ever-increasing numbers of Bermuda residents happily pay the fares to circumvent the excessive local price structure. This, they say, proves the fares are not the problem; if locals balk at Bermuda prices, why should not the visitors? Make the Bermuda experience acceptable to your own residents, they suggest, and you will begin to solve your tourism disaster. And, they say, as volumes shrink, so will the service, while as a matter of economics, fares will rise in tandem, driven by the declining load factor.

You editorialise that there is an increase in cruise visitors without whom we would be `sunk' -- but fail to address the real question. That is: Why is it, in spite of a strict restriction on the number of ships and visiting days, that the ships are booked absolutely solid with satisfied visitors (but who reject the cruise/hotel programme) -- in the face of a complete collapse in air arrivals? Obviously, the difficult-to-swallow answer is that Bermuda is a powerful attraction, but only if it is priced right.

Prices are most influenced by the need to cover expense, and the largest expense for an industry is usually the payroll. If the per capita payroll is higher than the competition's, in our case the US, our industry cannot be competitive with them. Payrolls are driven by the need to pay the work force enough to live reasonably. `Reasonably' in Bermuda means being able to live with out high prices. Obviously if prices were contained or a means found to lower them, there would be less upward pressure on payrolls. So, if a cost analysis of the primary cost-of-living components was objectively studied, methods of reducing them might be suggested. Over time, stabilised expenses would lower prices generally, compared with those in the US, further ameliorating upward compensation pressure.

One outcome of any analysis would soon turn up the fact that huge inventories of spare parts are imported for cars, air-conditioning and food handling units and every other kind of appliance imaginable. All these parts must be on hand, or expensively housed off-island, as opposed to the overnight availability enjoyed in the US, where customs, customs clearance time and expense, is not an impediment to rapid delivery. The great majority of these parts here are never even used, and the duty paid on them, and the carrying cost of all of it, is absorbed into the prices of the appliance, inflating it dramatically.

Suppose this duty was collected as a sales tax instead, as they do in the US? In fact, why is it the US employs the sales tax method to collect their consumption tax? Could it be more cost effective, and therefore competitive? Why is it in the US that the tax is not charged when a case of goods is delivered to a warehouse, using a single invoice, which anyone would think would be simpler, instead of collecting it piecemeal, at the cash register? Yet their prices are dramatically lower, what is it they know and do that we don't? One thing is clear, the extreme high cost of living in Bermuda cannot be laid at the door of Bermuda's island status. Large quantities and varieties of goods are moved aboard ship to communities up and down the US coast.

Refrigerated produce is trucked thousands of miles to distribution centres, broken down into other trucks and driven hundreds of miles to supermarkets in distant places far smaller than Bermuda. At the end of it all, many prices are half of ours. Why? Why is their distribution system so much more cost efficient than ours? Should we not at least inquire? OSTRICH Give women weapons January 15, 2001 Dear Sir, It is a curious and awful oversight that our culture does not allow women to protect themselves. A friend was recently reminiscing about her childhood walks in our shrinking forested areas and saying that she wouldn't walk the Railway Trail now. Remote quiet places are no longer safe for women. I said she should take a can of mace and she told me that it is illegal for women to carry mace.

Despite the fact that women are anatomically disposed to rape in a way that men are not, training and arming them has never been considered an option.

Women are slightly smaller than men. They are usually at a disadvantage in a conflict. Without weapons a woman is left with few viable options. For example, when we ask women to take self defence classes we ask women to use their bodies to defend themselves in hand to hand combat. This is the one defence option they are likely to lose. If they are given a weapon they know how to use, their chances of deflecting an attack must improve, since an extra-physical element has been introduced to the conflict. That betters their chances. It is said that if a woman carried a weapon it might be taken away and used against her. Why is the same thing not said about men? The Police have said that mace, if allowed in public, might be used against them, but the same could be said about knives, machetes and even cricket bats. They are all legal.

The expense in money and misery of not training women and arming them to defend themselves is enormous. I have known one woman who found the occasion of her rape to be an exotic adventure; only one. I have known a dozen other women for whom the experience was appalling and life altering. Often their first thought immediately after the rape was suicide. Only one ever saw her rapist convicted. This aided her recovery from the trauma. The rest were denied that comfort. Many know their rapist and see him in the area in which they live. Most were still repairing the psychic damage ten years later. Those raped in childhood or as teenagers don't ever seem to recover. The fact that we are willing to pay that price instead of giving women the power over the larger sex, implies that we are content with the situation and that we are complicit in its continuation. In abstract terms, it implies that a woman's sexual dignity is not hers but belongs to and will be protected by society at large. This is absurd of course; especially when we consider how ineffective society is in protecting women from rape.

We should prepare women for the awful day and give them the right to defend themselves. It should be absolutely common place for women to carry a weapon.

It should be an accessory to any long journey, walk, or a date. They should know how to use it. Why, it might be fashionable; an elegant sword, a well balanced baton with an electric stun option, or a wild looking pepper spray holster.

Reader, you will find this extreme until you talk to a woman who has been raped. Both sexes endure the pain of rape by living with the fear, rage and guilt it creates. Often the rapist escapes without any personal burden. The woman and her family must endure the pain. It is a fact of life; there has never been a time when rape did not occur. It is the perfect crime in that it truly benefits no one. Let's legalise weapons for women. After all, they have always been more responsible in using them, than men.

JOHN ZUILL Pembroke