Bahama Pundit

Chavez Assassination Not the Route to World Peace

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Pat Robertson’s statement calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent shock waves around the world.

Mr. Robertson is one of the most popular television evangelists in America as well as a political activist who once sought the nomination of the Republican Party to run for president of the United States.

He is believed to be well-connected to the present administration of President George W. Bush and his neoconservative hawks who misled America into an expensive and disastrous war in Iraq.

So it was not surprising that his words stirred up such a hornets’ nest. Even though he has made many outrageous pronouncements in the past, it was still shocking that this Christian leader could openly advocate the murder of the democratically-elected leader of another country.

In response to the torrent of condemnation which followed his remarks, Mr. Robertson at first tried to blame the media for misinterpreting his words, a not unfamiliar tactic. Then he interpreted his gangster parlance “take him out” to mean kidnapping.

But what he did in fact say was clearly heard and understood by millions in his own country and around the world:

The Bahamian History of Cable TV

by Larry Smith

Back in the day, electronic entertainment for Bahamians consisted of scratchy LP records, clunky 8-track tapes, boring Zephyr-Nassau-Sunshine radio, and touch-and-go reception of a few Miami television stations.

To receive those grainy transmissions (on channels 2, 4, 7, and 10) you had to install costly rooftop antennas (a pain in the neck to take down during hurricane season) along with special “signal boosters”. And even then, bad weather would produce a blank, snow-filled screen.

In America, cable television began cramping the style of over-the-air television networks in the 1970s. The first satellite delivery of programming to cable occurred in 1976 when Home Box Office televised Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier’s “Thrilla in Manilla”.

That same year a Stanford University professor built the first consumer direct-to-home satellite system. It was a large dish-shaped antenna used to pick up cable TV programmes distributed by content providers (like HBO) to their subscribers.

In the early 1980s Bahamians went crazy over this space-age technology . Sales of big-dish satellite receivers soared, and anyone with a passing interest in electronics could set up shop and make a fortune supplying local demand.

Watergate & a 'Nation for Sale'

by Larry Smith

It has been 33 years since the Watergate break-in that forced US President Richard Nixon from office, after an investigation that has been described as the greatest achievement of modern journalism.

That “third-rate burglary” made few waves at first. In fact, Nixon was re-elected by a landslide a few months later, and it was entirely feasible that government obstruction would have succeeded in putting a lid on the whole story.

But that didn’t happen - thanks to the secret help of an official nicknamed Deep Throat (after an infamous 1970s porn film). This anonymous source encouraged Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to pursue the story, which led to Senate hearings and finally to the
resignation of the president.