Bermuda's problems

September 3, 2007.

Dear Sir,

Please allow me to state some of the gripes I see on this Island.

1. The hedges are coming out on the roads, some sidewalks have so much you have to almost walk out in the road.

2. Many of the roads have holes that are not good. Someone could have an accident on a bike, not to mention what it does to one's car.

3. The bicycles are passing on the inside of your car or overtaking at such a great speed, not to mention the noise after they have altered the engines.

4. One cannot hear each other talk if a car behind you has a radio blasting which is done a lot. They double park just to talk seems like that is also overlooked it depends who you are I guess?

5. The seniors get a pension raise – the raise is less than the HIP increase that has already risen. We have to pay for visit to any kind of medical doctor outside of the hospital.

6. If a senior does not have a rental income or assistance from family or friends there is no way they can eat properly or get the prescriptions needed if they are a diabetic, heart, or cancer patient.

These were supposed to be the (golden years?) We both have heart, diabetic and other ailments.

The money allotted for prescriptions from April 1 for one year runs out by mid July. Then it's up to us to get medications or go without. In a lot of cases it's prescription or food.

NEGLECTED SENIOR

Pembroke

I'm taxi-savvy

September 14, 2007

Dear Sir,

Following Mark Britton's letter to the Editor in today's Royal Gazette I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with his feelings on the continually unreliable taxi service in Bermuda. Given the huge number of taxis here it shouldn't be a major headache to get one come to your door in such a small island – but sadly, it is!

Up until May this year (when I finally gave in from sheer irritation and purchased a car), I spent four and a half years without a car or scooter. I used a combination of bus and taxi to get about, taking a taxi several times a week. I spent on average $150 per month on taxi fares going mainly from Hamilton to my apartment in Shelly Bay.

I learned very early on that you never call the main taxi depot numbers because you'll wait forever and a day for a cab to show and to add insult to injury; will probably get a surly response when you call after some time to check where your ride is!

I relied almost totally on a small handful of taxi drivers that I came to know were reliable. I am talking in particular about Kevin in the London cab, Andrew Trott, Michael the tennis fan, Randy who works nights and Theron, the qualified firefighter. Good job, guys and thank you!

Unfortunately many taxi drivers seem to prefer hanging out at the Hamilton Princess taxi stand chatting with their pals or zooming at top speed to the airport, ignoring any requests hailed from the side of the road on the way there. I know this from bitter experience. God help you if you are caught in the rain and are trying to hail a taxi. They are not going to stop for you if you are even just a bit damp.

The amount of complaints I have heard from friends in Bermuda on the aggravation of trying to get a taxi are staggering and seemingly never-ending. This summer my neighbour insisted on paying me the fare she had intended to pay a taxi because she had to get me out of bed one weekend morning after the taxi she had booked the previous evening to take her guest to the airport from Shelly Bay did not show up at all. Her pal was going to miss her flight as a result if I had not been able to drive them. Tourism Department please note – this made an unpleasant, embarrasing and stressful end to that tourist's stay on the island.

Just recently I was driving in Spanish Point one evening heading home and saw a group of three young women racing across the road desperately trying to get the taxi in front of me to slow down and stop. He had no passengers in the cab and the For Hire sign was not on. Both he and I, by necessity, slowed down. They were pleading with him to take them into town as they had rang for a taxi 40 minutes previously but none had showed, so they were standing on the street trying to get a taxi. He would not help them as he said he was not working.

On recognising one of the women I told them all to hop in my car and I got them safely to their destination of Reid Street – going out of my way and back into town because no taxi would show up or stop for them. Police please note – how sensible is it for young ladies in nightclub-wear to be forced to stand in the dark by the side of the road waiting and waiting for a taxi?

These are just two examples but I hear of a new one almost every week and especially during the tourist season when residents are told by drivers that show up late that they are 'lucky to get a taxi at all'. What kind of service is that? It's supposed to be 'public', but clearly it is not.

Unless there is some kind of organised inquiry into service standards and customer satisfaction I cannot see the situation improving. Especially as the much-lauded GPS system hasn't done one thing to rectify the situation, as far as I can see.

Miss W

Hamilton Parish

Commissiong is right

September 13, 2007

Dear Sir,

In response to Non-Racist Woman's letter on Wednesday August 29, 2007, I disagree with you whole heartedly. Mr. Commissiong is not racist.

He is blunt and speaks harshly because this topic is one that requires probing and reflection on what it means to live in a white supremacist society and benefit from white privilege. Mr. Commissiong requires a medal, because this is a tough subject and he has consistently opened the dialogue for us to shed our fears and let go of our unproductive guilt. You have missed that, which demonstrates your denial and avoidance to what non-white people feel.

You are mistaken to suspect that other Bermudians feel neutral to the colour issue and it is more about the heart. If you walk in the shoes of a non-white person, you will feel the pain and oppression, which is evident in the life of blacks on a daily basis. You would know that non-white people have no choice but to deal with a predominantly white world.

Many of us want to run away from the fact that this society is a white supremacist society. Robert Jensen, states that we want to ignore the system of oppression that has influenced our lives and continues to influence them. That those on the bottom have an obvious motivation to resist the system: to remove from their lives the source of the oppression. But what of those who in some way benefit from the oppression, what might motivate them to act for social change. What are you doing for social change?

You speak of generalizing, and your reasons of not voting for the PLP but you haven't addressed your own hatred of this oppression. You want to blame people for speaking the truth.

Again, I agree with Robert Jensen, when he states, we should hate that fact (that we live in a white supremacist society and benefit from white privilege), and if we haven't done enough to change that world, well… He goes on to state, whatever we have done, it's not enough. It's not enough because the white supremacist society still exists. The fact that it exists should cause us discomfort, every day.

Mr. Commissiong probes our hearts and souls to feel this discomfort because the hatred of this society and ourselves is the first step toward being able to truly love. Your comments to justify that you are not racist and that you love black people speaks to your denial.

Truly you have missed the point of the platform for the PLP and Mr. Commisiong's role to open the dialogue. Let's continue to be honest about this and not stop the harsh truths that need to be discussed.

B.T.

Sandys

PLP didn't tackle racism

September 12, 2007

Dear Sir,

I greatly respect Minister Butler for his energy, creativity and hard work. He and I frequently speak with one voice on the issue of positive social values. He has made a particularly significant contribution in his numerous historical publications and now in his current endeavour to produce documentaries and taped interviews.

It is therefore important in the interest of historical accuracy to clarify a comment that he made in His Baptism of Fire (Royal Gazette, September 11).

As a youngster he became a PLP 'insider" by attending those (what are widely reputed to be) heated and boisterous PLP caucus meetings. I know of them only by reputation since I have never attended any of them and therefore have only an outsider's perspective. Mr.Butler reports that lesser lights of the PLP often in those meetings indulged in racial rhetoric.

However, that kind of rhetoric never surfaced in the public arena since from its inception I was in conflict with, or bitterly critical of, the PLP as represented by its public voices and public faces, its leading lights, so to speak, because they refused to touch the issue of race relations despite our rigidly segregated society of the time.

Their sole, entire emphasise was on Labour where there was certainly major injustices. Their refusal to directly address racism and segregation was, in part, because of their desperate desire to have a racially integrated party and, in my view, in part, because they were intimidated by the economic power of the white Community.

The socialistic rhetoric of men like Mr. Walter Robinson, in my constituency (socialist in rhetoric and philosophy), Mr. Wilfred (Mose) Allen, whose vehement denunciations of my point of view were frequent, Mr. Eddy DeJean (whose mother was white) and others made it possible for their enemies to charge them with Communism (about which blacks knew nothing) and so successfully persuaded black Bermudians to steer clear of the PLP for many years.

Even today I sometimes wonder what the story of the PLP would have been if they had challenged racism and segregation at the outset since that was something which blacks understood very well. When the two former Premiers refused to address the issue of racism directly they were well within the tradition of the early PLP.

Those whites who are so angry and horrified at the racial rhetoric of the current Premier and one or two others, should realise that since they made no effort to close the economic disparity between the races despite the racially accomodating polices of both the early PLP and the two former Premiers something needed to change.

DR. EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish

Things will change

September 13, 2007

Dear Sir,

While the PLP are continuing a policy that denies people who are senior citizens from receiving their pension retroactive, they found it very easy to pay themselves retroactive pensions and increased MP pays etc.

The United Bermuda Party Government when next given the opportunity to govern our people, will ensure that any senior citizen who, has attained the age of 65 and has not yet registered will receive the pension retroactive according to birth date, when they complete the necessary documents.

RAYMOND RUSSELL

Pembroke

Make charities professional

September 12, 2007

Dear Sir,

Having read the interview with Wendy Augustus in the September 7 edition of the Mid Ocean News regarding the professional qualification she has just received in non profit management, I'm left hoping that those who still insist that charities should be run by volunteers, or by staff paid a stipend, will begin to realise how out of date and misguided their thinking is.

Ms Augustus' interview coincided with coverage of the Honourable Minister Dale Butler's focus on increased accountability from Bermuda's registered charities. The two prerequisites (professionalism and accountability) go hand in hand and are a sign of the evolution of Bermuda's non- profit sector.

Charitable organisations in the US, Canada and the UK realised quite some time ago that in order to attract and retain funding, and in order to sustain a non-profit on a long-term basis, having qualified staff paid a fair wage is critical. As Ms Augustus so correctly stated, and as Minister Butler clearly understands, donors are increasingly discriminating as far as the investment of their dollars is concerned. It's not enough to be a kind person with well-intentioned motives and a passion for doing good. Business intelligence, superior communications skills and solid project management experience are mandatory – and that's just to get a donor's attention. Once you're at the table, you need a sound business plan and proof that you can meet deadlines and deliver on your promise to make a difference in the community. You need to be accountable.

If that sounds too corporate or too business-like – well, welcome to philanthropy in the 21st century, where the business practices of the for-profit world are being applied with great success and efficiency, and with passion and commitment, to non-profits.

Charities that can prove they meet a need, in a way that is not being done by the public or private sector, or by other charities, and do so consistently and well, are the organisations who not only will be funded – they will endure.

Those who begrudge paying salaries to charities' staff, arguing that funds are being taken away from programmes, don't understand that it's not possible to raise funds and deliver quality programmes and services using just volunteer and/or poorly paid staff. The sliding timelines, sporadic accessibility and Band-Aid communications that this model represents (often artificially bolstered by the noblesse oblige of the privileged few) inevitably lead to a hand-to-mouth organisational lifecycle or, worse, a complete collapse. It may work for one-off events, and indeed volunteers are the lifeblood of non-profit events, but it can not sustain a professional office and it can not support quality, accountable programme delivery – which is what the clients of the charitable sector in Bermuda need and deserve.

Congratulations to Ms Augustus on her well-deserved recognition for achieving the non-profit management designation, and to Mr. Phil Butterfield, in his role as Chairman of the Bermuda Hospitals Charitable Trust, who supported her in this initiative. I'm hoping that the example they're setting is noticed and applauded and has the much-needed effect of silencing those who still dwell in the dark ages of philanthropy. And kudos to Minister Butler for his efforts to improve the effectiveness of the non-profit sector.

B.D.D.

Devonshire