June 8, 2004

Dear Sir,

We, the undersigned, wish to express publicly our support for the Bermuda National Gallery, its leadership and especially our appreciation for the present BNG Biennial exhibition.

Contrary to recent reports in the local newspapers, suggesting that the Biennial is limited to certain stylistic preferences and that some of our best-known Bermudian artists are therefore excluded from the exhibition is untrue.

The Biennial exhibition is one of the most inclusive of all Bermuda's exhibitions. The only limitation is that the work be from the last two years and be either by Bermudians or by artists resident in Bermuda.

The list of artists published by Andrew Trimingham in a recent review of the Biennial, suggesting that these artists were excluded from the Biennial exhibition is certainly misinformation. The truth is that most of the artists named by Mr. Trimingham did not submit anything to the Biennial jury and therefore could not be considered.

Our understanding is that these artists did not submit work to the Biennial jury for all kinds of differing but personal reasons.

Furthermore, the invitation extended to Professor Gregory Volk to lecture at the Bermuda National Gallery was in no way an effort to gain support for the Biennial by the leadership of the Bermuda National Gallery.

Indeed the invitation to Professor Volk to lecture at the BNG was extended to him many months ago and long before the make-up of the Biennial was determined.

Additionally, the suggestion made in a recent letter to the editor, that Professor Volk is not a qualified critic, because of his lack of art history qualifications is just so much foolishness. It is well known that many of the famous critics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were also lacking in art history qualifications.

Included in such a list are the names of John Ruskin, William Morris, Charles Baudelaire, Guillaume Apollinaire, Sir Herbert Read, Clement Greenberg, David Sylvester, Robert Hughes and Arthur C. Danto etc. The list could go on and on, but none of these had any art historical qualifications. But paper qualifications in art history are not necessary to being well informed in art matters and indeed, Professor Volk is obviously ell informed, otherwise one can hardly imagine that he would be on the art faculties of such institutions as New York University or the State University of New York, let alone a regular contributor to Art in America.

The attempt in one recent letter to the editor to malign PartnerRe for underwriting the lecture Series at the Bermuda National Gallery is certainly reprehensible. We, the undersigned therefore wish to express our gratitude to PartnerRe for sponsoring the lecture series at the Bermuda National Gallery.

The ongoing contributions to the cultural health of the Bermuda Community by the Bermuda National Gallery is well known and so we, the undersigned, find the attempt of a few to undermine the good work of the Bermuda National Gallery as unacceptable.

CHARLES ZUILLMIKE HIND

COLIN M. (DUSTY) HIND

SOPHIE CRESSELL

ANTOINE JUNT

IAN MACDONALD-SMITH

PETER LAPSLEY

JON LEGERE

WILLIAM WEST

GRAEME OUTERBRIDGE

GLEN WILKS

KENDRA EZEKIEL

DANIEL C. DEMPSTER

BARBARA BLADES LINES

Rethink new bus shelters

June 8, 2004

Dear Sir,

I hope you are deluged with letters protesting the new bus shelters! Plexiglass indeed! Don't the “powers that be” know that our beautiful and unique stone bus shelters are one of our tourist attractions! I sincerely hope whomever is responsible will rethink this decision.

SMITH'S PARISH RESIDENT

And explain them too

June 8, 2004

Dear Sir,

I agree with Alan Smith. Someone in Government should explain those new bus shelters.

They seem to have translucent roofs and sides, so the sun comes in and bakes the inside while reducing any incoming breeze. The old ones were cool in the summer. And the new ones are ugly. Are they really better? I don't see the point. But then I don't get most of what Government does. I'm a civic ignoramus.

JOHN ZUILL

Pembroke

Curb the influx of expats

June 1, 2004

Dear Sir,

Housing crisis - simple reason over populated, over crowding.

This Government must put a kerb on guest workers that are flocking to Bermuda to work and get rich at our own peril. If that was put in force we would have a lot of places empty, maybe we would make less money but it will be better that way then see Bermuda becoming a Hong Kong. We do have our future generation coming up, that's scary our Island is almost ruined now.

Too many buildings, too many cars, it is so sad to see our once ‘Isle of Rest' become what it is now.

BERMUDIAN

Devonshire

The loss of two ‘greats'

June 14, 2004

Dear Sir,

What a sad week it was, to suffer the twin defeats of losing The Gipper and Ray Charles. The latter, who rose from abject privation to defeat blindness and make music that gave listeners more goose bumps than anyone since Judy Garland, will not be forgotten, as long as any listener lives to recall his sonorous, pulsating tones.

The Gipper (nee Ronald Reagan) conjures a whole set of different memories. Before I reached puberty, with no TV, the big treat was “the Saturday matinee”, and, often as not, it starred Ronald Reagan.

They say that he played in “B” movies, but, in those days, they were all “B” movies (Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny, Citizen Kane” - all thought to be “B's” when they were made).

Anyway, to my generation, our late President was known as “The Gipper”, the nickname for George Gipp , a role that he played in “Knute Rockne, All American”. The Gipper was the film equivalent of “Jack Armstrong, The All American Boy”, a favourite radio icon of that era.

As one eulogist observed, “As an actor, Ronnie played himself - a good guy” - as did John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, and countless others.

Ronnie was an optimist and a kind soul, and it was palpable, on and off screen. He spoke warmly of his enemies and converted them into admiring adversaries. True genius, that. No one seemed able to anger him, a giant, by all reasonable standards.

His political life seemed almost unimportant to many of us. He was who he was, our hero, and none of that political-stuff mattered - except that it took him off the movie screen and that was a loss.

Of course, he was a marvellous orator, the best since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, won four elections to the White House and, unlike FDR, no hidden agenda lurked within his metaphors - Ron spoke his heart, and we knew it.

The Gipper was enticed into politics by Barry Goldwater, the Arizona Senator who wrote “Conscience of A Conservative”, the modern bible of capitalism and less government (a rather Ayn Rand philosophy). When Ronnie spoke in his behalf, he spellbound the audience and became a target-candidate for some office somewhere.

Later, Ronnie helped Nixon with similar, ineffably gripping oratory. Both parties wanted Ron, as they did Ike, and the Repubs prevailed. He ran for Governor of California, did a fine job, and then for President.

Having spent so many years in movies, he entered politics quite late and was some ten days shy of 70 when elected President the first time. So, he became the oldest man to serve in that office.

When he was inaugurated the first time (1981), he said these immortal words: “Government is not the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem.”

Reagan distinguished the government from the country. He loved his country deeply, but, like Jefferson and many of America's founding fathers, he viewed governments as “necessary evils”. He viewed them with a jaundiced eye and measured enthusiasm. He wanted to reduce the size of the government, its interference in our lives and its taxes.

He did his very best. Whatever he did, and didn't, he had the right idea. One man, sadly, can't do it all, and many of his plans were scuttled before adopted or before he left office or after, and he, himself, was forced to abandon by compromise many of his most fundamental beliefs. (He was a free-trader, to his credit, but he was forced to put embargoes on autos, steel, etc., due to pressure from all sides and to barter decisional votes for other objectives.)

Then, his Justice Department (led by AJ Meese, who was later almost indicted himself) took on Gestapo-like tactics (a lot like the current DOJ), and persecuted innocents whose opposition became an irritant. I doubt that Ronnie ever realised what was happening there.

His crowning achievement, of course, was his verbal assault on the USSR, calling it “the evil empire” and publicly challenging Gorbechev to “tear down this (Berlin) wall” - which brutally divided Germany in twain for some 50 years.

Ron succeeded, and the Communist bloc collapsed, freeing millions of enslaved East Europeans and millions more within the old Soviet Republic, breaking it into numerous republics, quashing its overt slavery, and opening the door for freedom, democracy and capitalism. He, thus, undid the Treaties of Potsdam and Yalta, at which FDR was beguiled by Stalin, the nefarious assassin of eight million kulaks (property owners), to contravene Churchill's importunate requests to let Gen. Patton push the Russians out of Eastern Europe, which predictably ceded it to Russia's unforgiving control. The breaking of the Communist Bloc was a triumph of gothic proportions, and history will surely bless Ronnie for this.

In the end, there were many scandals, as well, as there have been with every administration within memory (except Jimmy Carter's one term), but these will pale in the shadow of the man and his positive actions. History should love this man almost as much as do those of us who grew up in awe of “The Gipper”.

None of the above is really the point. The man, Reagan, his smile, his thumbs up, his kind words, his humorous remarks and wit-driven attitudes, and his work ethic, were monumental examples to which most of us aspire. We loved him as much as you can love anyone whom you've never met.

So, here's to Ray Charles, whose lack of vision engendered an intensity of musical feelings that pierced our minds and hearts to the marrow of our bones, and to Ronnie Reagan, our beloved Gipper, an example for all: Heroes past, yes, but vivid, living heroes in our minds forevermore.

A LAMENTER FROM THE GREAT SOUND

Warwick