ALVIN Williams'headlined "Keeping up with the Joneses is big thing in Bermuda today" made for bittersweet reading (, June 23).

It was like an obituary for a well-loved friend ? the "old" Bermuda so many of us grew up in, the "old" Bermuda whose values shaped our values.

How sad that the old Bermuda is dead; how much sadder that what's taken its place is a rat-race society dedicated to the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar ? and the total disregard of our fellow Bermudian men and women.

The "new" Bermuda (I'm not talking about the one the Progressive Labour Party says came into existence in 1998 ? the "old" Bermuda died long before that) shows no interest whatsoever in preserving any sense of community or community values.

It shows no interest in teaching our children right from wrong.

It shows no interest in the plight of those Bermudians who are being shoved to the margins of this society as the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" continues to grow (your other columnist Heather Wood has pointed out the ridiculous fact that in a community where the average income is more than $50,000 a year, a third of Bermudians live on or near the poverty line ? only in Bermuda would a $50,000 income put so many people into that category) .

It shows no interest in other than the accumulation of personal wealth regardless of the consequences (i.e., importing more and more exempt companies and exempt company people we don't have room for but who some Bermudians grow rich from housing, feeding and providing with office space, cars, etc.)

Well done, Mr. Williams. Thank you for putting the dilemma we now face as a result of this runaway Bermudian materialism into such very bold perspective.

@TIMES-18:PLP's soft on crime

DRIVE-by shootings! Drug gangs fighting turf wars! A triple shooting in a bar on Court Street a couple of months ago. A seemingly endless list of unsolved or unprosecuted murders going back several years. It's beyond belief. We have sunk to the level of Jamaica.

Our Police Service seems to have all but disappeared particularly from the ever-growing number of dangerous areas: Court Street, St. Monica's and Glebe Roads, Ord Road (now expanded onto Cobb's Hill, Dunscome Road and South Shore Roads, most of Sandys Parish and much of the East End.

The supposedly law-abiding populations who must know who make up these drug gangs are more afraid of the gangs than the gangs are of the police. On the rare occasions when the police attempt a prosecution no witnesses can be induced to testify.

This terrible set of circumstances plaguing our once happy and peaceful island can be laid directly at the doorstep of our present Government.

Notoriously soft on crime even when they were in opposition (presumably because they did then and still now do depend on the criminal vote) they have, if anything become even worse now that they are in power.

The once efficient Police Service has crumbled before our eyes and nothing has been done about it. The inept Minister, Randy Horton, blustered wildly in Parliament last Friday but claimed Government is taking the collapse of law and order in Bermuda "very seriously".

To the Regressive Labour Party Government, taking something seriously means putting more people on the Government payroll to talk about it. As far as I can see all that has ever actually been done by this hopeless gang of egotistical incompetents who call themselves a Cabinet is to change a few names in the hope that that might make a difference.

Nothing of substance ever changes; the same old decline in competence continues remorselessly on its entrenched way. We still treat mental illness in the same old haphazard way at the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute as we did when it was St. Brendan's Hospital. Nothing changes except the name.

A couple of weeks ago there was a march on Parliament to protest this very unwillingness on the part of the Regressive Labour Party Government to do anything. It actually seems to have had an effect, but it will assuredly be a very brief effect unless the pressure is kept up. Perhaps there should be a march on Parliament every Friday the House is in session to demand something more than this froth of talk that goes on in Government instead of action.

In the meantime,competent Bermudians who are making obscene fortunes as accountants, lawyers and money managers should wake up and smell the coffee.

The disgraceful unwillingness of what is now Appleby, Spurling, Hunter to maintain so much as one Member of Parliament has not been forgotten. The likes of ASH had better wake up to the fact that without competent people in Parliament (and you, Mr. Editor, in your latest , could count just five at most; I count only three) the island will inevitably slide further and further into the Third World at very grave risk to their feeding trough. Even with a hard-working, fair-minded, unbiased and progressive Chief Justice, nothing has actually been done to improve our judicial system. The Attorney General's now completely politicised and badly depleted office is in a state of total disarray.

Combined with a disintegrating Police Service, it is no wonder law and order is falling ever faster into the hands of the drug gangs. Combined with this terrifying decay in Government is the distressing sense among the thinking public that Government is becoming more and more venal. Government favour seems to be more and more often for sale.

Perhaps this growing sense of corruption in Government accounts for the failure of HSBC to get its seven-storey building. They had to do something to try to counteract the wave of revulsion against the PLP Government now sweeping the island.

@TIMES-18:What's his problem?

WHAT is Derrick Burgess' problem? Why is he taking sides with a "dickty" American surgeon who says he only came to Bermuda because his unprofessional behaviour meant he was unable to find work in America? Why is he taking sides with this American against working Bermudian men and women at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital who this doctor has upset with his attitude problems and rudeness?

Until recently Derrick Burgess was president of the Bermuda Industrial Union. He was a good president and dedicated himself to the "cause" of Bermudian workers.

So I don't understand why he is now not defending the rights of working people instead of siding with a who is only here because his bad attitude made it hard for him to find a job in his own country!

@TIMES-18: Give them the boot

I THINK it is about time the Minister of Telecommunications revoked the Bermuda Broadcasting Company's licence. REASON: The shocking picture that they supply to Cablevision.

Most Bermudians subscribe to Cablevision. Cablevision should take TV 7 and 9 off air until Bermuda Broadcasting is willing to SPEND the cash required to give Cablevision a decent signal.

Just look at the World Cup broadcasts: you cannot read the names of the players on their jerseys. The ball looks fuzzy. The sound quality is a joke (cross-feeds, etc.) So Minister Michael Scott: "Whatcha gonna do?" Cablevision's Jeremy Elmas should refuse to carry such sub-standard picture quality and I hope by the time of the next World Cup in 2010 someone who cares about the quality of the production will be awarded the rights instead of Bermuda Broadcasting.

Nothing personal guys, but you really need to get your act together.

TONY BRANNON

Southampton