Bahama Pundit

The Bahamas and Orkney

by Larry Smith

 KIRKWALL, Orkney -- Visiting this remote group of islands off Scotland's northeast coast recently, I was struck by some remarkable similarities to the Bahamas.

Our small Loganair turboprop - similar to Bahamasair's inter-island aircraft - was delayed in Aberdeen for three hours, and several suitcases failed to arrive in Kirkwall until the following day. The Orcadians on their way home from Scotland took it all in stride, much as Bahamians are wont to do.

Loganair was founded in 1962 by a big construction company, and is the oldest airline in the UK continuously operated under the same name. It connects relatively isolated islands and communities in Scotland, Orkney and the Shetlands just as air taxi services link remote settlements in the Bahamas.

Kirkwall is Orkney's main town, an easy-going harbourside community of about 7,000 in a 70-island archipelago. With a total population of only 20,000, Orkney is similar in scale and character to Abaco and its cays, where some 15,000 people make a living from high-end tourism, fishing and farming. 
 
Orkney welcomes somewhat more tourists - about 200,000 a year. But visitor satisfaction levels are just as high as they are in Abaco, which receives about 100,000 affluent tourists annually. The locals are as friendly and helpful as any Bahamian out islander.

Conscientious Stupidity & Public Education

by Simon

There are numerous achievements of the government-operated primary through secondary school system.  We can boast of fine teachers like Emile Hunt at C. V. Bethel and dedicated administrators like Cheryl Samuels at H. O. Nash.

Amidst success stories, there are outsized failures, inadequately and partially measured by low standardized test scores and a trickle of graduates attaining diplomas.  

The public education report card includes poor grades assessing the system’s inability to graduate greater numbers of students competent in English, the grammar of citizenship, and the language and practice of civility.

Martin Luther King Jr. often thundered: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”  The algebra of failure in our public schools -- of poor letter-grades, of poor statistics, of crime rates associated with the failures of this system -- are symptoms of conscientious stupidity by various stakeholders of public education.  

The Obama Haters

 by Simon

The quadrennial US presidential marathon is a contest to elect a head of state and head of government who combines many roles including that of commander-in-chief and national myth-keeper in chief.  

As it was from the beginning of the American Republic, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are battling over who best represents and who may best interpret the patriotic narratives of America for his contemporaries.

The frustration for Romney and company is that his often poorly-tuned invocation of “America the Beautiful” has failed to drown out the ruffles and flourishes of “Hail to the Chief” which accompany Obama as he navigates the demands of the presidency with a confidence and cool driving his haters to distraction.  

The Policeman who Took on the Numbers Boss

Edited by Larry Smith
In 1952 Paul Thompson was recruited by the Royal Bahamas Police Force in his native Trinidad. One of his early postings was to a special squad assigned to raid the Numbers houses. Thompson was a legendary detective who rose through the ranks at CID to become an assistant commissioner of police before retiring in 1981. Since then he has been a security consultant. Now 85, Thompson is about to publish his memoirs. The following extract from his forthcoming book - A Policeman's Story - describes a dramatic encounter with the equally legendary Numbers boss, the late Talbot "Stokes" Thompson. The encounter led to a blazing shootout on Mackey Street - most unusual for the time. 

From A Policeman's Story, by Paul Thompson
The Numbers racket has been widespread on New Providence for many decades. In my day, Bahamians bought numbers from street vendors, or in bars and petty shops over-the-hill. Some number sellers visited offices, shops and other businesses to provide custom service. 

Buyers would choose a number (often based on their dreams) and the vendor would give him a piece of paper with his number on it. The seller would record the name of the buyer in a notebook for reference when the draw was made. This differed from the present-day operations, in which the numbers are drawn outside of The Bahamas, usually in the United States, and all of the administrative work is done by computers.

Back then, the Numbers houses held the draws locally - except for the Cuban lottery, which was drawn in Havana every Saturday and broadcast over Cuban radio stations. There were three main Numbers houses on New Providence operated by very wealthy men - Talbot Thompson, Percy Munnings and Eugene Toote. 

Apart from their Numbers houses, Thompson and Munnings were known to be involved in heavy personal gambling, often winning or losing small fortunes in a single night. In later years, Father Allen, a well-known restaurant owner, established a fourth Numbers house. All of these men are now dead.

The Crisis of Teaching and Learning

by Simon

Mrs. Callahan, now deceased, was a master teacher who eventually became an adjunct professor of education.  During her storied career she taught elementary, high school and college students.  

She taught in public and private schools, counting among her thousands of students, children from well-heeled and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.  She taught in depressed inner city schools and in leafy suburban enclaves.

In her last decades as a teacher her specialty was a Methods in Teaching seminar for prospective elementary and high school teachers.  Two foundational principles were the basis for her encyclopaedia of methods tested and honed over many decades.  They were not novel ideas, though it is remarkable how often they are forgotten or ignored.

The first principle was the constant reminder that elementary and secondary school teachers need always remember that primarily they teach students and secondarily a subject matter.  The second principle was that most discipline problems flowed from a breakdown in the teaching and learning experience in the classroom.

Condi Rice on Education (in the Bahamas)

by Larry Smith

Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a stirring speech at last week's Republican National Convention in Tampa that focused on education in America. As a top foreign policy expert, she noted that "strength begins at home." Although in American terms this refers to leadership in military technology, we thought her more general message would be a useful one for Bahamian policymakers to hear.

Along with Barack Obama, Rice is a key role model for the African-American community. Born in 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama - the only child of a Presbyterian minister and a schoolteacher - she grew up surrounded by racism in the segregated South, but went on to become the first woman and first African American to serve as provost of Stanford University. In 2001, she was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush, and became the first black woman to serve as secretary of state (from 2005 to 2009.) 

Rice earned her bachelor's degree in political science in 1974; a master's in 1975; and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies in 1981. After leaving her government job, she became co-chair of the Independent Task Force on US Education Reform and National Security, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. The task force includes 31 prominent education experts, national security authorities, and corporate leaders. 

This group of experts has warned Americans that "Educational failure puts the United States' future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk. The country will not be able to keep pace—much less lead—globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long."

And education reform is not a question of money. The United States invests more in K-12 public education than most other developed countries, yet American students rank 14th in reading, 25th in math, and 17th in science internationally. More than a quarter of students fail to graduate from high school in four years; and for African-American and Hispanic students this number approaches 40 per cent.

Does that sound familiar? It should, because both sides of our political divide have recently acknowledged the failure of the Bahamian public school system in the face of even worse statistics. This is after many years of political stonewalling and prodding by private sector leaders and commentators. The business community in particular has long complained that a large percentage of Bahamian students leave school functionally illiterate - in other words, unable to compete for a decent job.

Perry Christie’s Three Gambles

by Richard Coulson

Prime Minister Perry Christie was elected on promises about fixing the country’s main social problems: crime and education.  Any solutions for  these deep-seated dilemmas will be long-term, and changes  will only appear incrementally.

But he also stakes his reputation on three critical issues that will  be  resolved  promptly:  re-taking a majority position in Bahamas Telephone Company (BTC);  a referendum on “numbers” gambling and a national lottery; and  allowing oil exploration in Bahamian waters. Each of them is a high-stakes gamble that  could  make him appear brilliant or inept, determined or vacillating.