Bringing shame to US

October 14, 2006

Dear Sir

I would like to use your newspaper to say "Well Done" to the judge and the appeals judge in the case reported on the front page of your Friday 13th edition.

It is crazy and disrespectful that the father of one of the jailed Americans, questions the sentence laid down, and then threatens to call any American politician he can think of, to try and get Americans to boycott Bermuda.

I am a member of a cruise related board, and it seems to be that the general cruising American public, agree with my thoughts. A law breaker is a law breaker, no matter what their country of citizenship, and should be dealt with under the constraints of the law broken.

The offenders and their families are a disgrace to the American people, who, not only by their original actions, but by their continued disrespect of the Bermuda Authority's have brought great shame to the United States of America.

Drainage problems

October 12, 2006

Dear Sir,

I'm not sure which dept of public works this letter should be sent to. Yesterday was a prime example of the street flooding here in Bermuda. One of the many reasons the streets are so flooded, is the clogging of the sewer system. For example, at Church Bay Park there is a sewer drain that is so full of dirt/mud that you can't tell anymore that a drain even exists. Because the drain is so full of dirt , South Road floods over in this area every time it rains. This represents a dangerous situation for cars and bikes. Maybe a team should go out on the roads to locate these drains and to make sure they are functioning properly. It sure would help with the roads flooding everytime it rains...

Diabetes 'time bomb'

October 11, 2006

Dear Sir,

The following article was published in the British Journal 'OPTOMETRY TODAY', dated October 6th. 2006 Volume 46.

"The true extent of the UK's diabetes 'time bomb' has been signalled by new figures which show that the number of people diagnosed with the condition increased by over 100,000 in the past year. The news follows the launch of a campaign to make people think about their weight in relation to the sight threatening disease (OT, News September 22)

Details for England, published last week by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care, show that diabetes prevalence has soared from 3.3% to 3.6% or from 1,766,000 to over 1,890,000 in just one year. "These figures show that diabetes is one of the main health challenges facing us today," said Douglas Smallwood, chief executive of charity Diabetes UK, "and the problem is getting worse all the time. Diabetes is a serious condition, which can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke and nerve damage that can cause amputation.

"We also know that up to 750,000 people have diabetes and are not aware of it. This means that thousands of people are going about their daily lives unaware they have a condition that reduces their life expectancy."

The figures also show large regional variations.

Birmingham and the Black Country and North East London have the highest rates at 4.1% of their populations. The lowest rates are in the Thames Valley area with only 2.9% of the population diagnosed with diabetes."

The Bermuda Diabetic Association does a wonderful job but it is an uphill battle they are waging. Bermuda needs to be aware of the killer diabetes can be IF it is not diagnosed, treated with constant care, on the part of the patient.