Bahama Pundit

Reforming the Bahamian Senate

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

The Preliminary Report (PR) of the Constitutional Review Commission is disappointing as it relates to Parliament, particularly the Senate.

True, it is only a preliminary report and it says that its suggestions are not yet recommendations which will be contained in the Final Report (FP). Still, it gives a clear insight into the thinking of the Commission with regard to the future of the Senate.

There is a general feeling among Bahamians that the Senate, as it is presently constituted, does not serve the country as well as it should and that it ought to be reformed. The Commission acknowledges this, but what it suggests in the PR is hardly reform. It is more of the same.

On Censorship

by Nicolette Bethel

A couple of months ago, the entire Bahamian community was convulsed by the banning of the movie Brokeback Mountain. All sorts of people weighed in on the issue, but the argument never really got off the ground. The reason for that was that there were really two arguments going on. One was the question of homosexuality. This argument suggested that the Bahamas (government, Christian community or censorship board) was duty-bound to protect the public morality against the evils of same-sex love. The other was the view that adult citizens of a democratic nation should be given the opportunity to choose whether to expose themselves to those evils or not.

Now there should be no doubt in my readers’ minds where I stand. I believe that the pulling of the movie was arbitrary, hypocritical and absurd. In all likelihood, it was a knee-jerk reaction on the part of a handful of influential people who assumed that the Bahamian public would not object. But I don’t want to talk about that. Not yet.

Fake Site Tries to Divert Users from the Truth About Rum Cay

by Larry Smith

An anonymous web site has been set up (www.effieknowles.com) to divert Internet users away from this site - presumably so they won't read the information posted here about land speculation on Rum Cay.

This fake site features only one page - which carries an illegal copy of my original article (The Effie Knowles Saga). None of the comments listed on this site, nor the subsequent stories I wrote on Rum Cay, are included.

It appears that some people think these comments, and later information posted by me, are impacting their efforts to sell Bahamian land of questionable title to unsuspecting buyers over the Internet.

There are any number of web sites out there purporting to sell beachfront lots on Rum Cay. And this is despite the fact that the various speculators on the island are feuding among each other over who owns what.