Songs for Power 95

January 5, 2005

Dear Sir,

Two songs that have dancehall beats but,are actually R&B songs are: Through With Love by Destiny?s Child and Closer by Floetry and,should be played on Power 95?s reggae jam.

SONGS WIT? SPICE

Pembroke

We let ?them? win

December 26, 2005

Dear Sir,

May I have a few lines in this paper to discuss the aforementioned. ?They? have succeeded in convincing us that it is the foreigners fault for coming to Bermuda to be exploited by unscrupulous employers. How can it be their fault when they come to Bermuda to make a better living for themselves in a foreign environment that we call home? We have a stigma that is attached to them immediately upon their arrival in Bermuda. The stigma of ?oh it?s another foreigner come here, can?t speak English but has a job and a place to stay?.

How do they do it? I?ll tell you how. They come here to work for Bermudians and residents of Bermuda. They work for mediocre pay that any right thinking Bermudian would be rightfully loathed to accept (see note). They live in an apartment with four or five others whilst the ?unsuspecting? property owner is always paid his/her rent on time and of course, when $1,200-$2000 is always in the hand at the end of the month, who cares? When three and four people share the rent, the amount is minuscule. So long as the house is kept clean and there are no loud noises emanating from the apartment, who in their right mind is going to question where the rent comes from? The foreign worker is no longer the Portuguese, it is the Bangladeshi, the Indian, the Sri Lankan, the Filipino and a myriad of other nationalities who traditionally come from a less fortunate financial background than us here in Bermuda, the land of plenty.

Let?s look at the fallout from this simple process:

The foreigner arrives in Bermuda to do work that ?Bermudians won?t do?. He/she is given a place to stay, a bike to ride and an appointment at TCD, all at cost of course! This same place to stay is one more apartment that is now off the market to Bermudians because there are hundreds of foreign workers here. It is also staff housing that is not offered to Bermudians (which really would be affordable housing!).

The work that he has come to do isn?t difficult to grasp, normally no skill is involved so even locally unskilled labour should be the proper choice. The foreign worker works harder to make the equivalent to his Bermudian counterpart (who is paid slightly more). The ?harder? work is perceived to be a sign of initiative and in some cases is the justifying factor that employers use when scheduling work for Bermudians and foreign staff.

As Bermudians, this becomes a sore point and how do we combat it? Some stop working, some work more to the benefit of their pocket and the detriment of their home life or some act disgruntled and perform less while at work and then the boss fires them due to ?lack of performance?. We have been turned against ourselves in the quest for greed.

Ask the ?average? Bermudian who is trying to buy a home how hard it is. Then ask the ?above average? Bermudian who owns a home or two and is either selling it to make a quick dollar or is renting it at the over inflated market value caused by some of the factors mentioned. But wait! What about the homeowners who continue to get the high rents from middle class Bermudians who have good paying jobs (not ?good jobs? because any job is good). So now compare this to the Bermudians who have jobs that are less paying and have to work two and three jobs to make ends meet? Some of the same homeowners who have cold, uncompassionate hearts and have forgotten their roots are the same people who could afford to charge $1,000 less on their rents and give the struggling families a break and a chance to save a shilling or two? We are so jaded by money that we have lost almost all of our core values as a society.

Perhaps it is a perpetuation of our 500 year history that is built on piracy, deceit, secrecy and Lord knows what else. Shall we as a modern society allow these pervasive and destructive trends continue?

Time will tell and at the end of the day when we are at our limits of frustration and some just ?let loose?, who will rescue us? Will it be the exempt company who has encouraged the rents to be pushed up? Will it be the homeowner who has made thousands off the rents? Will it be the Govt of the day who everybody blames anyway? No way!

They won?t rescue us at all. The ?they? is indeed we who have come a long way in 500 years and are succeeding in destroying it in a matter of decades!

Wake up Bermuda and let us stop our own destruction fuelled by our own greed.

Note: Nanny work to include polishing silver, babysitting/childbearing, errand running, etc. Also, working outrageous hours day and night while being paid ridiculously low amounts of money. This personifies what people in Bermuda, local and foreign, are subject to.

LGGL

Devonshire

Seeking the truth

December 27, 2005

Dear Sir,

When first reading your article in The Royal Gazette (December 19) it seemed inconceivable that Health Minister, The Hon. Patrice Minors would say she is ?fed up? with the Salvation Army?s requests for more cash, and publicly make a statement that ten percent of the funds donated to the Salvation Army to provide services to the Homeless Centre are sent abroad.

But we have to realise that Government is under tremendous pressure to meet our many needs and the Hon. Minister may have spoken in a moment of pure frustration because Government has to cut costs somewhere, and someone has to bear that burden. It places the Hon. Minister in an intolerable position when Government decides, in its collective wisdom, that one area for cost cutting should be in caring for the poor, the mentally ill, the homeless, the alcoholics, the drug addicts and those amongst who are at the very bottom of the economic ladder; in other words, those whom the Salvation Army has struggled to care for on a daily basis for decades.

To the best of my knowledge, the full-time Salvation Army staff in Bermuda work for a pittance compared with anyone in the private sector or the civil service. It will be fascinating to follow the futile quest to find another agency or group, one with the necessary experience, infrastructure and committed staff, willing to work for the same meagre pay and under the same rapidly deteriorating conditions as those folks in the Salvation Army. Does anyone have any ?pro-active? suggestions as to who might do a better job?

There have been some comments from our talk shows experts about all this money donated to the Salvation Army to take care of our homeless being sent off the Island, despite their audited accounts apparently showing this to be false. Unfortunately, the Minister?s comment about her belief that ten percent of these funds are sent abroad have been taken as gospel by some callers. There is no way that Minister Minors would deliberately mislead the public, even though her comments may seem to have fuelled the rumour which Major Lindsay Rowe says is ?a lie that someone is perpetuating.?

It would be helpful to the public at large if Minister Minors could now provide us with a brief explanation as to where she obtained her information about these funds being sent abroad.

She will no doubt have ordered someone in her Ministry to check on the facts, and now is the time to be transparent and tell us the truth. Does she have evidence to support her belief, or was she provided with false information which is indeed perpetuating a lie. In either case I would call upon the Hon. Minister to do two things. The first is easy. Report her findings to the public because we have a right to know. The second is always difficult for any politician. If it is untrue then publicly say that a mistake was made and issue an apology to a charity that has been serving the interests of the downtrodden of Bermuda without fear or favour for the past century.

FOR TRANSPARENCY AND TRUTH.

Smith?s

Actions speak louder ...

December 15, 2005

Dear Sir,

On May 5, 2005 ?P? delivered a speech entitled ?Bermuda ? At a Crossroads?. Given the conduct of certain Government members over the seven months since the speech was delivered by ?P?, it is sensible to review some of the remarks made by ?P? in that speech.

In the nationally televised speech, ?P? said ?I have directed my Ministers to always (?P?s? emphasis) ensure that in their policy making and implementation measures that substance is favoured over platitudes, that transparency is favoured over obscurity, that action is favoured over lip service?I have also directed my Ministers to ensure that in their conduct, at home and abroad, that they recommit themselves to the path of integrity, respect for others and good governance (my emphasis).? Mr. Editor the question I ask is whether the relatively new Senator and Minister of Works, Engineering & Housing (a.k.a. ?the Colonel?) was excluded from ?P?s? dicta.

Given the Colonel?s most recent alleged faux pas in deliberately disconnecting a white caller from his radio phone-in show and making it known that the caller was in fact disconnected due to her race, it must be the case that ?P?s? direction was not passed on to the Colonel when he re-joined the Government. Clearly the Colonel has not ?recommitted? himself to the path of integrity and respect for others (query whether the Government as a whole was committed in the first place). Perhaps there is a Shakespearean explanation for the Colonel?s conduct? Perhaps the Colonel merely follows the example of integrity set by ?P?? With no apology forthcoming from the Colonel in respect of the disconnection and even worse no apology forthcoming in respect of his outrageous tirade regarding ?house ni**ers?, essentially the entire Cabinet becomes tarred with the same brush of racially divisive comments - after all in Westminster systems of government there is something called collective responsibility. In fact, it is totally reprehensible that no-one within the Government has publicly distanced themselves from the Colonel?s remarks. Perhaps the Colonel?s colleagues are completely apathetic or worse, actually agree with the Colonel?s diatribes.

Mr. Editor, ?P? and the rest of the Government supposedly want race relations improved. I certainly do, so does the UBP and so do most sensibly-minded people in Bermuda. Racially divisive comments and actions by Ministers will not assist in this goal. The Colonel says it is his human right to make such disrespectful remarks he recently made over the public airwaves.

In fact his outburst makes a mockery of the very spirit of the Human Rights Act and calls into question the Act?s usefulness. ?P? and the Colonel must remember that actions speak louder than words when it comes to bringing the races together. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ?We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.? Particularly over the Christmas season ?P? and the Colonel should remember this quote before speaking or pressing keys on a Blackberry.

MICHAEL M. FAHY

Smith?s