Blood rules

November 27, 2010

Dear Sir,

MOOOObro! I am, in blood donor terms, a “mad bull”. For years, I happily and regularly donated my valuable R-negative blood in Bermuda until I went to visit my wife at the University of Exeter, Devon in England in the late 1990s. On returning home, I discovered that this visit had made me unclean in spite of my not going anywhere near a mad cow. I read in Saturday's

Royal Gazette under the headline “Only three percent of residents donate blood” that Bermuda adopted the US rules barring all donors who had lived in the UK or Europe during the 1990s. How ironic since being barred at home I have freely donated blood in the USA having totally disclosed that I visited UK in the 1990s. And I wasn't permitted to donate blood in Bermuda because of that visit? I wonder, where do Great Britons get their blood from these days? I've not heard that it is killing anybody or making people ill. Maybe we in Bermuda should ask the UK to donate some of their blood if we are so short of healthy people and we are to continue to be “stuck by the rules” of a country to which we have no allegiance, and accepts blood from anyone, healthy or not .

JOHN DALEBLED ALMOST DRY

Pembroke

Share the pain

November 26, 2010

Dear Sir,

Can somebody explain to me why many of the dwindling numbers of privately employed people in Bermuda have to accept shorter work weeks, lower pay rates and a much reduced pay packet while continuing to support the bloated and often under-performing and overpaid civil service employees on full pay and full benefits? It is about time the civil service pay was cut, as is happening in other countries, so they can share in the hardship suffered by the rest of us who are trying to deal with the financial debacle that has been and continues to be the PLP Government's “financial strategy”.

Pembroke

Jobs matter too

November 29, 2010

Dear Sir,

I am among an unknown number of non-Bermuda residents (visitors, emigrants, and such) who have commented on the correlation among education, economic equality, and criminal activity (not all in the same missive, necessarily). Today brings Mr. Faiella's letter, and a quite well written one it is. He doesn't say whether he is a Bermudian living out of country, or a visitor such as I. It matters, to the extent that a Bermudian has far more at stake. And he doesn't take the next step. Educating the populace is all well and good, and I've “volunteered” to teach in the new technical curriculum should it ever be instituted, but until Bermudians have an expectation that their education can be used in appropriate employment, you may only be increasing the level of angst among citizens who feel even more exploited than they do now. Kind of like Lucy, Charley Brown, and the football (American one, that is).

It is dangerous to offer a dangling carrot without the intention of ever making its attainment material. Building an indigenous industry(ies) which will hire newly educated Bermudians is just as vital as providing the education; both efforts should be progressed at the same time. India, bless its heart, has taken a different tack: provide the education, but no domestic industry to absorb the graduates. It has been able to employ those graduates at very sub-par wages by the export of labour route. But India is a big country, not only in population, but extent. Were Bermuda to take that tack, it would fail quickly: The populace is sequestered into 22 square miles (approximately). Bermuda is really a small town. As such, it needs to recognise that there's little room to hide.

ROBERT YOUNG

Connecticut