June 11, 2005

Dear Sir,

Well, I suppose that now Jennifer has become a Dame, it is OK to go Independent.

I am not quite sure whether to “throw up” on the steps of the House or just in the privacy of my bathroom. I, along with many others, am disgusted at the “twin values” of this hypocritical Government. I would suggest that they should be ashamed of themselves, but I guess they are incapable of such an emotion.

It will of course, for many, be the final nail in the Independence coffin. The call for Bermudians to “unite” and be as one, is yet again lost with the creation of yet another PLP “better than you” person.

It also belittles the work that so many undertake here, with neither reward or recognition. The only good news is that it is a “hollow gesture”; no-one in their right mind could take it even remotely seriously.

Definition of hypocrisy

June 13, 2005

Dear Sir,

The Queen's Birthday (and New Year's) Honours are meant to recognise contributions to society, however, they ARE the most colonial vestige of the British Monarchy in existence today.

I have no difficulty with recognising a Jennifer Smith or anyone else but, to all those supporters of the PLP whose agenda is very clearly ‘Lets rid ourselves of all things British' - do any of you know the definition of ‘hypocrisy'?

System is out of date

June 14, 2005

Dear Sir,

Paula Cox was the only Cabinet Minister for whom I had any surviving respect. Today I lost even that vestige of respect. I quote your newspaper of this morning: “Stating that Bermuda's Customs Department sits on the cusp of a brand new era, Ms Cox said Customs revenue represented the single largest source of Government revenue.

“This numbingly contradictory statement explains a lot. Our Finance Ministry just doesn't understand how the world actually works today. To admit that the greater part of our Government revenue is based on Customs duty when the rest of the world has been steadily ridding itself of that economic albatross since the Administration of the late President John F. Kennedy is a matter for national humiliation, not ministerial pride.

Customs duties made sense back in the days when the greater part of them were paid by our tourists - without their even knowing it. Now we have very few tourists and they complain about our prices. The economic weight of this archaic system of raising revenue is the single largest contributor to these sky-high prices. Our sky-high prices are, along with rip-off airline fares, the principal cause of the collapse of tourism and the major reason why so many Bermudians shop abroad and get away with as much as they can going through Customs at the Airport.

Added to the ridiculous cost to the consumer this generation's out-of-date system of raising revenue is the absurd complication of Customs classifications. These, we are told, are essential because we report to some international bureaucracy that demands it. If Bermuda simply stopped reporting its Customs figures entirely the difference to any international bureaucratic report would be absolute zero. In the meantime everyone is burdened with yet another reporting cost and more civil servants to tally it all up.

Our Customs Department is arguably a greater waste of money than the civil servants in the Ministry of Education and that is reckoning just what the Department costs, not what the ultimate huge cost to the man in the street is.

The whole ramshackle, out-of-date system should be scrapped and replaced by a simple sales tax or some similar, practical, system. Unfortunately the Finance Ministry and its Minister seem too ignorant and too incompetent to understand which end is down.

Asking for early burial

June 15, 2005

Dear Sir,

If you allow me the space, I would quickly like to direct a few words to the large group of bikers who nearly collided with my car late on Friday night at Mcgall's Hill.

I don't know how many of you were out there pack racing but if you are reading this, I just want to say that everyone of you clowns are asking for an early burial if you continue to pull stunts like that as it's only a matter of time before your luck runs out.

Instead of racing on a public street where too many things can go wrong for you and others, take your need for speed to the new Southside racetrack where you can do it safely, sensibly and legally.

Wake up guys! Don't kill yourself or others by abusing the rules of the road. Haven't we had enough road deaths this year?

Please find my dog

June 13, 2005

Dear Sir,

Our dog has been missing since May 28 in the Spanish Point area. She is a miniature Pinscher/black and tan. Please call 732-3805 any time if you have any information about our dog.

My six-and-a-half-year-old left the kitchen door open six inches and has been unable to deal with the guilt since. He is angry with me because I won't call in CSI. My nine-year-old daughter totally blames him and does not want him for a brother any more. I have had them both in counselling to sort out the war. I am still up at all hours - every time my daughter hears a dog bark she thinks it is Breanna.

Please help me put my family back together by returning her. There is a cash reward for any information leading to her recovery. Any clues or leads are welcome!Thanks to all who have called in leads so far.

A shameful choice

June 12, 2005

Dear Sir,

Below please find a copy of what I have written to the Hospital Boards regarding their proposal for using our National Resources in the form of the Botanical Gardens and Arboretum. Personally I think it stinks.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Save our National Parks for our children. Each of you should be ashamed of yourselves for wanting to use up Botanical and Arboretum land for expansion, especially since there is a base hospital building already up in St. David's and there is plenty of base land available in Sandys from the Canadian bases.

The management of the current hospital is not done well. Using up valuable land space that is part of our National Parks is shameful as our children are the ones who are going to suffer from concrete jungle syndrome if we keep going the way we are. No to your proposed ideas of 30 percent expansions in both areas ... use base lands.

Our own economic pie

June 15, 2005

Dear Sir,

I just want to share with my fellow Bermudians some of my thoughts, ideas and questions I have in reference to the idea of economic empowerment in Bermuda. Let us all face the facts and reality that white males have all of the economic power in Bermuda. They are no fools. They are not going to just give up this power so that other historically disadvantaged groups can increase their share of Bermuda's economic pie. This idea of increased sharing of wealth cannot be legislated as the UBP wants us to believe it can, and it cannot be effectively pursued by the ruling PLP government.

Most key business decisions in Bermuda are made by white males. It is human nature for them to promote and do business with “people who look like them” because this is the group they are most “comfortable” with. As a young black aspiring business executive, if I ever get to the position where I have to choose between promoting one employee over another, both have equal qualifications and experience, however one is white and one is black, guess who I'm going to choose, the black one. So this is just how the economic pie remains among the same group of white males.

What we black professionals must aim to do, is to try and encourage black businessmen outside of Bermuda to partner with us in setting up businesses in Bermuda. The PLP Government cannot do it alone. We must find ways of creating our own economic pie instead of continuing to crawl to “The Master's” table to get crumbs. I remember attending a forum a while ago in which Sir John Swan mentioned that people must go “downtown where the money is” and encourage them to invest with blacks in projects “in the back of town”. This is easy for him to say as a successful UBP member and former Premier. However, I now wonder how successful would he be today if he had never joined the UBP. Who knows?

Now us black businessmen in Bermuda have to change our ways also. For whatever reason we cannot seem to keep successful businesses in operation. It appears that we start getting greedy, lazy or jealous and stop supporting, encouraging or sacrificing for each other. We must learn how to work hard together collectively for the betterment of us all. This is a tall order. I don't want to make excuses but maybe we are not socialised to cooperate with each other or it is not part of our culture or maybe it is just not in our genetic make-up. Look at the number of successful Portuguese businessmen here in Bermuda. We used to tease and laugh at them and think we were better than them and still do, now they laugh at us all the way to the bank.

I'm also curious as to what happens to senior black executives or black-owned businesses in Bermuda. Sooner or later they seem to fall by the wayside. Recent examples, Allan Richardson at Bank of Bermuda, Ronald Simmons at Butterfield Bank and back a number of years, Ingham Brothers car garage and numerous other construction companies. Oh, there is now Phillip Butterfield at HSBC-Bank of Bermuda. With all due respect, I'm sure Mr. Butterfield is a very knowledgeable, experienced and astute businessman, however, he is not the “true CEO” of Bank of Bermuda. This role is really performed by the HSBC managers and Mr. Butterfield, sadly to say in my personal opinion is a token figurehead.

Now, what really prompted me to write this letter was the fact that I just found out that Evan Greenberg, the new CEO of ACE Insurance and son of Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, former CEO of AIG Insurance does not even have a college diploma. Here we are, always telling Bermudians that they need to get a proper education to be successful when in reality they just need to know the right people and be a white male.