I'm overseas again but have been able to follow some of the goings-on this week, and not for the first time I'm impressed with some of the content in the Gazette opinion and LttE columns.
First from the LttEs: I'm not "Hope Springs Eternal" from Southampton but the letter posed by him/her was brilliant. Any new political movement cannot thrive if current politicians are involved. That also includes Khalid Wasi, for one, and may also be applied to former politicians. People like Renee Webb or Stuart Hayward may yet to have a voice in local politics, for example, but they still represent something of a 'relic' perspective. If Jamahl Simmons didn't show up at the PLP rally donning a green shirt he *could* have been an option, perhaps. But no, ideas must be seen as fresh and unsullied by the current perception of same ol' politricking.
The very first listed letter asks the Gazette to omit defining race in its articles, and this could be a good idea to trot out. Without defining race, the reader is probably not going to come to snap judgements about what people say. It's unfortunate, but that's modern-day Bermuda for you.
A whole bunch of commentary about the Premier's actions is in today's column and they're all pretty poignant. Almost all are critical, but previous publications do have letters in support of the decision. I think that's fairly representative of what the general population thinks of the situation; many people just don't like the decisions made without discussion with the Governor, and think that the whole "immigration" response is baloney.
It ends with a call to keep a new city park tidy and free from vagabound-types. I have seen the situation that the author mentions about the pedestrian crossing now only being accessible by going into the road - it's really piss-poor and somebody should be slapped for not fixing that issue beforehand.
The Sports Editor has a new piece as well; often his writing comes across as a pointless rant, but sometimes it makes good sense and this is one of those times. The Island Games have served our 'minor' sports quite well and even our established sports like track and field and sailing have seen benefits. With international football currently running backwards, perhaps the bar needs to be lowered and development using the Island Games should be considered by the football PTB.
He mentions that many of the sports facilities in Aland are funded by revenues from a gaming sector; I like that. I've always thought that supporting sport and the arts is a great way to distribute earnings from such ventures, and if Government does elect to go that route it's potentially a good win-win situation. We need small-island solutions for our small-island society, and if we observe what places like Aland, Faroe Islands, our neighbours in the Caribbean and others do, we can learn what to consider implementing and what to avoid like the plague.
He ended up with an assault on the big-game fishing community. Now I don't have a full opinion on sport fishing, except that I think it's a bit of a pointless pursuit. Fishing shouldn't really be a sport, rather an activity with the end result being food on the table, with the entertainment value of finding and reeling in the fish factoring in. It's interesting, I have to admit, and something ordinarily not on Bermudians' radar.
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