Dear Editor,

I hope The Bahamas realises what happened Friday with the 140 workers laid off from the Wyndham Resort. Bahamians now thrust onto the unemployment line walked to their Office of the Prime Minister, and what did the Prime Minister do? Order that the police stop them from being able to access the office, and officers consequently formed a human chain to keep Bahamians from coming to see the man they put in office.

A human chain of officers to block Bahamians from their own elected leader? So now Bahamians are the enemy to their own Prime Minister? These workers were not armed and were certainly not violent in any way – so what was the need for riot-styled formation of police officers?

Then Minister of Labour Shane Gibson, who showed up to showboat with the workers, told the media he knew from earlier in the week that the workers were going to be jobless – but the workers knew nothing, and according to their union, the union was not given the notice required as per their industrial agreement.

What that indicates is that the government did nothing at all to try to at most, save these jobs and at the least, satisfy itself that the hotel handled the terminations in a manner consistent with their industrial agreement.

Responses to Tom Purvis reports:

Tom, what a great job you did detailing the game in such a short, well written article.  I am very impressed and will try and email your article to my son-in-law who is a good friend of John Harbauch's. Keep up the great work.

  - M.L.

I see a bright future for this young sports columnist.  Tom hit on the most interesting stats & provided a play by play for those who didn't get to follow the whole game.  Well done!

  - M. W.

Well Mr. Purvis,

I think you did a fine job of writing your first article for Info@bahamas. I especially liked your use of so many statistics, and figurative language, ("battle for the Lombardi," "49's surged", "Lewis finished his last ride."  Very effective.

I also enjoyed the ending, "Will they ever meet on a Super Bowl field again?" It is always intriguing to end a piece of writing with a question.  

So I say well done!  Keep up the good work Tom.

  - C. D.

I, like many Bahamians, sat on my couch on Monday evening shocked that the "NO" vote overwhelmed the referendum.  So too I believe were the hosts on our various TV stations.  I choose to watch Cable 12 and was highly entertained by Darold Miller's 360 degree turn around and George Smith's hysterical 'blame everyone' but the government.  Who by the way I believe had clearly totally confused the electorate.

So the next day on the talk shows I expected to hear various commentary and maybe a little humble pie.  Especially as many of the supposedly "journalistic" hosts were so blatantly 'YES' biased.  But what I did not expect was to be called a LOSER by Wendell Jones and his team of obnoxious panel personalities.  When one loses a VOTE or lets say an election, one does not spend the next day demeaning those who voted against them.  Well, at least those with class don't!

I listened in shock as Mr. Jones called all Bahamians who voted 'NO' losers and spent two hours laughing at those they felt had not made the right decision.  Jones, Algernon Allen and Mr. Eric 'Bumpy' Watkins spent the two hours talking about how web shops should be legal and why people should have voted yes.  They (unlike Bodie) did not even bother to have a 'No" advocate on the panel - they just spent the entire show complaining about the idiotic people who voted 'No'.  To add to that Allen was pulling a "Jones"  on all callers and only listening to the ones he agreed with and hanging up or disconnecting 'No' callers.  A habit Mr. Jones perfected over the last two weeks and on the last day even had a "headache" on air as he could not dain himself to speak to people who disagreed with him!

According to Wikipedia it says that journalistic ethics usually include " — truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability — as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public."  I did not hear any accuracy, objectivity or one bit of IMPARTIALITY on Love 97 this week, or in fact have I for the last few weeks.  As they say when you take your loss, take it like a MAN!  

Mr. Jones I am not a LOSER but you may be!

- Queen Patty

Government-sanctioned lawlessness must cease

It is not possible for The Bahamas to tackle and beat the scourge of crime if crime in any form is being purported and indeed exalted as untouchable. Either we are going to crush crime, or crime is going to crush us.

Any government Minister who is telling the Bahamian people that the courts have ordered the government and the police not to enforce the law with respect to illegal activity is willfully being untruthful to the nation. No court will ever order that a crime not be handled as a crime, and that crime can no longer be fought and prosecuted.

The selling and buying of numbers is a crime in this country and has always been a crime. No opinion poll or injunction changed that law in any way nor could it, and neither of the two suddenly created a situation where that law cannot be enforced. Any government and law enforcement official who is aware that this crime or any other crime is taking place and does nothing to stop it is a party to crime – that too, is the law of the land. So right now we are being governed by an administration of lawbreakers with respect to the numbers business.

And any member of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition who sits by quietly while the same is taking place is just as guilty as those who are perpetrating this web of deceit and criminality on the Bahamian people. Even more to the point, the Opposition as members of the legislature, are aiding and abetting the aforesaid web by neglecting or refusing to stand against it and use all possible legal and civil avenues to thwart it.