Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Sharon Turner: Boasting about taking more from us in taxes - Oct 30, 2018 - 12:51:28 PM
 Dear Editor,
The issue on the ground is ultimately this: the
government is taking more of the people’s money, but doing less for the
people in a tangible way with the extra money it is taking. That is what
more revenue versus less expenditure ultimately amounts to in real
terms. So yes, you have a figure for first quarter (and it is only first
quarter), but all governments must ask themselves “how is life changing
on the ground for everyday people in their everyday lives?”
Yes
you are collecting more in VAT, but all that means is our bills have
increased and we have less of our own money to spend. Yes you are
choosing not to spend money on certain things...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Stacey Moultrie: Lighthouse Point proposed development by Disney Cruise Line - Oct 16, 2018 - 11:20:12 AM
 Dear Sir or Madam,
One
of the reasons I am a marine biologist and environmental planner is
because of the many hours I spent on the Bay in Savannah Sound,
Eleuthera whenever I visited my grandmother, Lillian Culmer. I spent
many summer breaks and holidays in Eleuthera. I consider it my second
home. There are few places on this planet that are as beautiful with so
many pristine areas...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Essy Bootle: Hands off Nassau Harbour! - Oct 15, 2018 - 9:56:45 AM
Dear Editor
I read with horror the news that Royal Caribbean
Cruise Lines has a bid before Government to redevelop Nassau Harbour. It
seems that under Prime Minister Minnis, we risk being completely taken
over by the gaudy, tacky theme park nightmare that is cruise ship
tourism.
Lighthouse Point for Disney, a new port for Carnival
Cruises in Grand Bahama, and now this? If he is not careful, Dr. Minnis’
legacy will be transforming the Bahamas into the republic of neon
lights, silly games and plastic water-slides...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Brilliant Bahamian authors with brilliant books - Oct 15, 2018 - 9:51:20 AM
 These are the brilliant Bahamian authors with brilliant books:
Nicollette
Bethel, Marion Bethel, Christian Campbell, Emile Hunt, Sonia Farmer,
Ernestia M. Fraser, Helen Klonaris, Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming, Patricia
Glinton Meicholas, Gilbert Morris, Angelique Nixon, Patrick Rahming,
Keith Russell, Obediah Michael Smith, Ian Gregory Strachan and Telcine
Turner-Rolle. [The length of this list quadruples were I to include the
authors I love and admire of the wider Caribbean - among them, Derek
Walcott and V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Laureates who, fortunately, are
established and are well known worldwide already...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Pamela Burnside: Da new beginning dun end - Oct 13, 2018 - 7:08:22 PM
 As I prepared to write this letter I serendipitously clicked on one that
was written in May 2017 which expressed the sense of optimism and
anticipation I felt for the new beginning following the election that,
sad to say, has been short lived. That 2017 positive energy is draining
away - I am so fed up of being fed up when one gubment tends to be as
disappointing as the last!
I have asked myself why this is so,
and reckon it is due to several reasons, the main being that we continue
to use the same formula of relying solely on foreign direct investment –
a form of beholden servitude – and expecting a new result. It won’t
happen – we are still stuck in the rut of same story, different day!
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
28,000+ Signatures for preservation of Lighthouse Point - Sep 23, 2018 - 3:47:36 PM
 28,000+ Signatures Cry Out for Preservation of Lighthouse Point, Asking
to Give Island Jewel Away is Like Asking Me to Hand Over a Child
I am a man and I cry. There, I have said it.
I
cry for the inhumanity of human against human. I cry for all the parts
and parcels of The Bahamas that Bahamians do not have access to.
Please, please do not make Lighthouse Point one of them.
Every
time I learn of a little piece of this beautiful archipelago that is
being developed without kind and gentle care for its future, I am torn
between wanting to scream and shedding another tear. Like others who
support Save The Bays, I am not anti...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Pamela Burnside: Are we ready to ‘be who we is’? - Sep 2, 2018 - 12:13:35 AM
As I sit here at the beginning of a new month and reflect on the
newspaper articles of the past several weeks, I can but shake my head in
frustration and ‘bogglement’ as our country appears to be settling into
the same ol, same ol formula of leading us nowhere fast!
A
dearth of inactivity is descending upon the new government, blanketing
the promise of change and hope that accompanied them on their arrival
into office. It appears sadly that this government is on its way to
also turning into a ‘gubment’ - thus leading me to take pen to paper
once again to try, and try hard, to ask them to please ‘see what dey
lookin’ at’. We have answers to some of these challenges staring us
right in the...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Kirkland H. Bodie: Show us the money - Jul 25, 2018 - 1:48:11 PM
 Hello again my Bahamian citizens, another year has gone by, and it
baffles me that there is still not one word being said in any quarters
about our thirty million, plus, dollars ($30,000,000+) that was spent,
wasted or pocketed on the so-called Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival.
I
am still waiting on the forensic report to be tabled in the House Of
Assembly concerning their fiasco of a ‘carnival’ for the past three
years of 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Firstly, let me break this down, most of us broke Bahamians cannot
fathom what a million dollars is, so let’s make this as simple as
possible...
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Letters to The Editor
Pam Burnside shocked by appointment of new Minister of Youth, Sports & Culture - Jul 15, 2018 - 6:01:17 PM
The Power of Art - I was totally shocked by the recent appointment of the
new Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture! Having smiled with relief
when Minister Pintard was appointed, confident that his Ministry would
benefit from his firsthand knowledge and appreciation for art and
culture, I must now disappointedly admit that the machination of
‘politricks’ leave me speechless!
I have no knowledge whatsoever
about the newly appointed Minister’s cultural or artistic attributes and
can but live in hope for a positive future in this regard, but having
read comments stating that a Minister need not be proficient in any
particular area in order to perform effectively at his or her job, I beg
to differ. This country has been saddled with a litany of Cabinet
Ministers with mostly legal backgrounds for the past several decades who
have exhibited little to no knowledge of, nor appreciation...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Pam Burnside: What's in a name? - May 3, 2018 - 7:34:26 PM
 I would like to say a sincere ‘thank you’ to whomsoever made the
decision to remove the revered name of “Junkanoo” from the middle of
“Bahamas Carnival”. Now our proud centuries-old tradition is back in its
rightful place!
Secondly, and in the same vein, I would like to
strongly entreat the Bahamian public (particularly politicians and the
media) to treat our proud nomenclature of “Over-the-Hill” with the deep
respect it deserves and not besmirch this rich heritage by referring to
it as the ‘inner city”...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Who Moved My Corned Beef? Thoughts on the new National Breadbasket - Apr 13, 2018 - 6:52:29 AM
The only constant thing in life is change, and the time for changes to
our approach for improving our nation’s nutrition status is now! Last
week, in the good company of numerous community members, civil society
partners and other public health stake holders, I attended The Ministry
of Health’s Town Hall Meeting at the Theodore Grant (TG) Glover School.
The setting for the meeting ushered in a sense of pride, not only
because the evening’s backdrop paid homage to a formidable educator, but
also because it was carried out in a space where our most
impressionable citizens are being academically nourished for their roles
in the future Bahamian landscape...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Sharon Turner on the Oban deal - Mar 11, 2018 - 7:34:06 PM
Editor,
That the government lacks effective public relations is
without question. But over the last nine months and most recently with
the now infamous Oban deal, the vice grip choking the collective hope
and blocking the tide of promised good governance and critically needed
national reform is not the absence of public relations, but the absence
of public respect.
When a Heads of Agreement is signed, it is not
a deal between the FNM and a developer or the PLP and a developer. That
Heads of Agreement is a legally binding agreement between the
Commonwealth of The Bahamas and a developer. This means all of us, you
and I, are bound to that developer...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Pam Burnside: S.O.S. - Save Our (City's) Soul - Jan 30, 2018 - 11:04:38 AM
Dear Editor,
S.O.S. - SAVE OUR (CITY’S) SOUL
In the late
1900s my late husband, architect and Bahamian advocate Jackson Burnside
III, wrote a newspaper article under this same title, bemoaning the
burgeoning loss of pride and appreciation for our country’s soul – i.e.
our unique, rich Bahamian Art, Culture and Heritage. Although he is no
longer physically with us, I will intersperse this letter with several
of his quotations, which are still so very relevant today...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Cedric Moss: More Carnival Duplicity - Jan 8, 2018 - 4:02:13 PM
Dear Editor,
Recently, Minister of Youth, Sports, and Culture
Michael Pintard made a further statement on the government’s involvement
with carnival. I found it contradictory, duplicitous, and confusing.
Still, in the January 2, 2018 issue of the Tribune, Minister Pintard
said, “There is no contradiction in our position and certainly no
duplicity. We, as a government, are out. This is now a private venture
that will be guided by the government through an amended commission. But
for all intents and purposes, all avenues are open.” Huh? If carnival
is truly now a private event...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Sharon Turner: I’m Grand Bahamian & I support assisting Dominica’s storm victims - Oct 1, 2017 - 1:29:37 PM
Dear Editor,
Personally, I have no problem with us assisting the
children of Dominica. I do not believe that providing help to those in
need will suddenly make us destitute or less able to be helped, and I
live in Grand Bahama where things have been tough for years. Were it not
for foreign aid, from the United States in the North to Jamaica in the
South, our island would have suffered even more pain than it did during
Frances and would still be in darkness after Hurricane Matthew last
year. When we saw those foreign guys on those poles fixing our light, we
didn't block them at the border or tell them get out of our country
because you are not Bahamian. We didn't block our borders in West End to
foreign groups who came in bringing relief supplies. Their countries
have major problems too...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Joseph Darville: Once again the Serpent’s Head Must Be Severed! - Sep 2, 2017 - 1:08:55 PM
 The regurgitation or the “Spy Bill” sends shudders up my spine. Mind
you, personally, I have absolutely nothing to hide. Actually, under the
previous administration, I was very sure my phone was tapped and my
emails hacked. But obviously, they found nothing untoward there to come
at me for. To add to my contempt for what they were illegally doing, I
even chided them with a few tasty words whenever I became aware of the
interception.
What boils my insides is the fact that with all the
hope and expectations we had and hoped for with the new administration,
we seem to be going down the same road of dictatorial and despotic
rule. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am quite aware of and in...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Kirkland Bodie seeks accountability for 'failed' Junkanoo Carnival - Aug 15, 2017 - 2:28:04 PM
For several years now, but to no avail, I have been requesting that the
former government have a forensic audit done on the failed Bahamas
Junkanoo Carnival (aka somebody else’s culture), and now I am calling on
the Minnis administration to have a forensic report done on behalf of
the Bahamian people and the cultural community.
I am so ashamed
and disappointed in the former Prime Minister Perry Christie, the former
Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe and the former Minister Of Youth
Sports and Culture Danny Johnson. Johnson who these days is trying to
reinvent and distance himmself from the gang of garbage men he hung out
with for the past five years...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Oswald T. Brown: Sir Geoffrey Johnstone was a great Bahamian - Aug 14, 2017 - 12:04:13 PM
As a young reporter with The Tribune, I got to know Sir Geoffrey
Johnstone very well and as someone who became a Black Power Advocate in
the 1960s because of the oppressive racist policies of the United
Bahamian Party (UBP), of which he was a member, he was not one of those
that I considered to be a racist. In fact, in my opinion he was an
extremely decent human being.
I did not reach this conclusion by
happenstance, but rather by interaction with him in various settings,
including a one “in-your-face” confrontation when I indeed did call him a
“racist SOB.” Johnstone and Pierre Dupuch were the UBP candidates for
the Far East constituency, which included Fox Hill, in the 1962 general
election, and the PLP candidates for that area were Arthur Hanna and
Arthur Foulkes, my journalistic...
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Former M.P. Pierre Dupuch Comments on Bahamas Health Care System. - Aug 12, 2017 - 1:00:43 PM
 Many moons ago when I was a freshman studying economics at St.
John's University my professor, Fr. Martin, walked into the classroom
and said, "Open your books and write this down. The definition of
Economics is the allocation of scarce resources among competing needs
and wants."
Over the past sixty years I have seen successive
governments run this country contrary to the basic rule of economics,
the allocation of scarce resources among competing needs and wants. In
1982 Sir Kendal Isaacs appointed me the Shadow Minister of Health in the
House of Assembly. From there for ten years I watched the then
Government whittle away scarce money with no rhyme or reason. Since then
I
Columns :
Letters to The Editor
Patrck Rahming: The Business of Tourism - Aug 12, 2017 - 10:52:09 AM
Dear Editor,
There seems t be some confusion about the way a tourist
destination works. Vested interest (hospitality unions, entertainers,
tourism officials) have obscured the simple, basic way tourist
destinations really make money and how that money is available to the
widest community. So I thought it might be worthwhile to, in layman’s
terms, try to lay the destination business model out, so that public
comments might have better context. As I said, the model is
simple. In this discussion, I will refer to the destination as a “shop”.
While the Bahamas as a whole is a “shop” (more correctly, a mall), I
will refer to individual destinations within the Bahamas as “shops”.
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