Anna Nicole Smith & Bahamian Politics Make Classic Comedy

by Larry Smith

Cabinet minister to permanent secretary: "Do you see it as part of your job to help ministers make fools of themselves?"

Permanent secretary to cabinet minister: "Well, I never met one that needed any help."
—from the British television series, Yes Minister.

Permanent secretary Leila Greene to Housing Minister Neville Wisdom: "How you gonna call somebody and tell them you come to investigate them?"

Housing Minister Neville Wisdom to permanent secretary Leila Greene: "That's something, eh?...I won't tolerate that...I shouldn't be talking to him."
—from the Tribune's voicemail.

After being caught on the Tribune's voicemail dismissing the right to know, Housing Minister Neville Wisdom went before Parliament to say that the press and the people do have a right to know about matters regarding public expenditure.

"I am obligated to provide information, but not files" said Mr Wisdom, who has withheld said information for the past several months despite frequent press inquiries.

He went on to table said information in Parliament, although there was lots of missing information described only as "blank".

From this we must assume that neither the minister nor the PS can find their own records - suggesting they are incompetent. The other possible explanation is that they are withholding potentially embarrassing information.

Mr Wisdom has become alarmed. He says he is afraid that peeping toms will be sneaking around his home to spy on his conversations. This is rather paranoid in our view (although personally we suspect that the government engages in the same practice with our phones).

This whole affair is a very simple matter that has been turned into a complex boondoggle by Mr Wisdom. The facts are that public funds have been spent to provide public housing. As members of the public we want to know how those public funds have been spent by our public representatives. Case closed.

*****

Permanent secretary to cabinet minister: "But it is the truth, minister."

Cabinet minister to permanent secretary: "I don't want the truth. I want something I can tell Parliament!"
—from the British television series, Yes Minister.

Anna Nicole Smith's brief stay in the Bahamas has generated more newspaper copy than Prime Minister Perry Christie has over the past four years.

The former nude model is truly amazing in this regard. And her 'celebrity' is confirmed by the fact that the bobblehead doll made in her image is Ohio Discount Merchandise's biggest seller - along with the replica of Jesus. (We thought you'd like to know that).

Besides her sexual assets, Anna's celebrity is largely underwritten by her 1994 marriage to an 89-year-old Texas billionaire, who died soon after - supposedly leaving her half of his estate.

After becoming pregnant recently, Anna decamped to the Bahamas, where she became the "close friend" of Immigration Minister Shane Gibson, who admits to never having met her until a couple of months ago. Gibson fasttracked Anna's permanent residency, and may even have - according to one eyewitness - conducted official business in her Eastern Road bedroom.

Anna delivered a daughter at Doctors Hospital in September and her 20-year old son, Daniel, died in the hospital room a few days later while visiting her. Autopsies show he had a lethal cocktail of anti-depressants and methadone in his system, along with other over-the-counter medicines. Methadone is a prescription drug used to treat heroin addiction.

Daniel was the product of Anna's 1985 marriage to a man she met while working at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken in Texas. They divorced three years later.

In late September, while her late son languished in a local funeral home, a Baptist pastor performed a mock wedding for Anna and her lawyer, Howard K Stern, on a yacht off Rose Island. Close friend Shane Gibson was on hand to witness Anna and Howard frolicking together fully clothed in the sea - a new twist for the "bride".

According to Wikipedia, the "wedding" photos were then sold to People Magazine for around $1 million. On the who's who web site, NNDB, Stern is described as a "TV personality" and "a dweeby lawyer".

Anna was later evicted from her Eastern Road home by a former lover who flew to Nassau to hire big-money law firm, Alexiou, Knowles & Co - whose principal is the majority owner of the Nassau Guardian. Anna, in turn, hired the president of the Bahamas Bar Association, Wayne Munroe, to sue both the ex-lover and her former law firm, Callenders & Co - whose principal is the chairman of the Nassau Guardian.

Meanwhile, Minister Gibson and Callenders attorney Michael Scott, a former FNM parliamentary candidate, have traded broadsides over the delivery of a $10,000 cheque to pay for Anna's permanent residency certificate. And back in America, another ex-lover has filed a paternity suit claiming to be the father of her new baby - a claim disputed by Howard Stern, whose name appears on the baby's Bahamian birth certificate.

This complex drama involves senior cabinet ministers, powerful law firms, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy investors. But most people don't realise that it's not real. The tagline for Anna's last show on the Entertainment Television channel can easily apply to the current one: "It's not meant to be funny, it just is."

After Daniel's death, Anna hired celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht to perform a private autopsy on her son in Nassau. Wecht has played a starring role in the deaths of the rich and famous for years.

But although he cleared up the cause of Daniel's death (something that local authorities have yet to do), Wecht's participation only added to the soap opera.

A few months ago he was indicted by a US grand jury in Pittsburgh for misusing his public office for private gain - in one case trading unclaimed bodies in the county coroner's office, which he headed, to a university in exchange for use of a laboratory there for his private practice.

If convicted, the 75-year-old pathologist could lose his medical license and spend years in prison. Wecht blames the indictment on a vendetta pursued against him by the local district attorney.

Wecht is certainly a more cerebral celebrity than Anna Nicole Smith. News reports say he has worked on, written about, or offered analyses of nearly every noteworthy death investigation in the last 40 years, from the re-examination of the Kennedy assassination to the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Vince Foster and Kurt Cobain to the O.J. Simpson trial.

His criticism of the Warren Commission findings on the Kennedy assassination led movie director Oliver Stone to hire him as a technical consultant for the 1991 film "JFK".

But he is not too big to take care of the little things in life. The Pittsburgh indictment accuses Wecht of dispatching county employees to walk his dog, haul his trash and do his personal shopping, including buying tennis balls and nostril swimming plugs.

In fact, Anna should probably check the invoices she received from him. Prosecutors claim he was also bilking dozens of private clients by inflating his travel costs. According to the indictment, Wecht booked cheap flights to meet clients or testify in trials, and then submitted bills listing more expensive flights on letterhead from a defunct travel agency.

A fiction writer couldn't make this stuff up.

*****

One permanent secretary to another: "But once they have accepted the principle that senior civil servants could be removed for incompetence, that would be the thin end of the wedge. We could lose dozens of our chaps, hundreds perhaps."

The other permanent secretary to the first: "Thousands..."
—from the British television series, Yes Minister.

Permanent secretary to cabinet minister: "One must assume that until now you've attached little importance to (education)."

Cabinet minister to permanent secretary : "I think it is extremely important. It could lose me the next election."

Permanent secretary to cabinet minister: "Ah!! In my naivety, I thought you were concerned about the future of our children."
—from the British television series, Yes Minister.

An anonymous teacher who recently came out of retirement at the urging of the Ministry of Education to help stop the rot in our failed schools claims that scores of new government teachers have not been paid their salaries since the start of term.

"Two months into the school year and teachers are being shafted, demoralised and frustrated by systematic neglect, arrogance and disrespect," he told the Tribune. "It appears that it takes three solid months or more to pay teachers."

This is no idle gossip. Tough Call is personally acquainted with two teachers who fall into this category. These highly qualified young Bahamians left good jobs in America to work in our public school system in order to make a contribution to their homeland. But the "system" cannot be bothered to pay them.

How is it that the education minister and his bureaucrats can make the outrageous presumption that new
teachers can wait until the "system" gets its act together? If memory serves, school opens every year in September - so why do new teachers not make it onto the payroll until November?

If we're not paying attention to education, we might as well all join the brain drain reported by the International Monetary Fund and leave tomorrow. More to the point, why would any young, educated Bahamians want to come back home to work under such circumstances?

And how can the government expect the public to buy in to massive new bureaucracies like National Health Insurance when it can't manage something it has been "looking after" for ages?

It is almost universally acknowledged that public education is a disaster in this country - which will have serious consequences for society as a whole - but the government can't even avoid small problems much less resolve big ones.

Comments

[SIR LACELOT]

MY FAMILY AND I LEFT THE BAHAMAS ABOUT 30 YEARS AGO FOR AMERICA ,WE WERE A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY THEN ,AND WE HAVE GOTTEN WORSE ,HOW VERY SAD !PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU WILL JOIN THE FIRST WORLD ,I WOULD LOVE TO COME HOME.

[Andy Hanna]

Well Sir I would love to talk to you n true english but mind would not allow me so I would translate it better in Bahamaian broken english da bahamas is not a third world country you and others that think like ya have third world minds. you wish you was home enjoying the best weather, people and beauty da world has to offer nuttin wrong wit da us but u dont know wat u missin if push come to shove were u ga run um peps like u with ya third world no forth world mentality. never dis my country cuz i gat a prob with any one who try ta dis this country god gave me and others to enjoy live is wonderful here ist been better ever scence da day you left.

[Andy Hanna]

Well Sir I rushed that frist comment but this is to the frist commentor of this add. I would love to talk to you in true english, but one mind would not allow me so I would translate it better in Bahamaian broken english. da bahamas is not a third world country you and others that think like ya have third world minds. you wish you was home enjoying the best weather, people and beauty da world has to offer. dere is nuttin wrong wit da bahamas, u dont know wat u missin. if push come to shove were u ga run. umm...... peps like u with ya third world no forth world mentality. never dis my country cuz i gat a prob with any one who try ta dis this country god gave me and others to enjoy life. its wonderful here in fact its been better ever scence da day you left. ur surname sounds just like you, foriegn. and thats my five cent.

[larry smith]

Thanks for reading. Taking your comment at face value I would offer the following response:

How can you say there is nothing wrong with the Bahamas? There is no such thing as perfection. There are good things and bad things. A true patriot would want to fix the bad things to make the Bahamas better.

How can you object to criticism? If it is genuine and constructive it helps us to improve. We all need a splash of cold water in the face sometimes.

And while it may be wonderful here sometimes, I am sure you can recall occasions when it was less than wonderful.

Let's work on that.

[DP]

Larry you are right on the money. I think a part of our problem is that some people have this "Take it or Leave it" mentality & that is going to help destroy our Country.

[Juan]

There is nothing wrong with leaving the place where you were born to seek better opportunities elsewhere. I think the comment above is not fair. It is nor fair to leave a place and expect those who stayed behing to fix that place for your convinience. If you wanted to make it a better place, then perhaps, you should have stayed and rolled up your sleeves and get the work done.

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