Bahama Pundit

Dead People on Facebook & Unskilled People in the Workforce

by Larry Smith

"How can you rape an underage girl and then post pictures of her online?"

That was the question posed by the grieving mother of Rehteah Parsons, who says her daughter was never the same after four boys sexually assaulted her two years ago.

When a cellphone picture of the alleged assault was circulated around her Nova Scotia high school, Rehtaeh immediately dropped out, and eventually committed suicide. Her funeral was held on Saturday. 

The initial police investigation had ended with no charges filed, due to lack of evidence, but following public pressure the police reopened their investigation. A large part of that pressure was a threat by the hacker group, Anonymous, to identify the boys online.

In 2009 a New York City emergency medical technician faced misdemeanor charges after being accused of taking a picture of a female murder victim and posting it to his Facebook page.

The Dignity & Equality of Gays and Lesbians

by Simon

Recall the hysteria and hate-drenched anti-gay demonstrations of the previous two decades protesting gay and lesbian visitors cruising to the country to experience our Bahamian hospitality.

Some of the gay bashers invoked the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19.  Genesis, like other books of the Hebrew Scriptures, consists of numerous literary genres and devices.  

Genesis contains not one, but two, creation accounts, literary renderings crafted by ancient scribes to convey theological meaning.  Today, mostly literalists still believe these to be factual accounts, though the science of evolution demonstrates otherwise.

The Second Emancipation & Gay Bahamians

by Simon

In the still fresh second decade of this century there continues to be a fundamental shift in humanity’s moral imagination with regard to respecting the dignity and advancing the equality of gays and lesbians.

In this decade and during this century, gays and lesbians will experience less prejudice and witness the end of discrimination on various fronts.

Fear-mongering accompanied by malevolent rhetoric are the eager co-conspirators of prejudice and bigotry, all of which gay and lesbian Bahamians continue to experience as targets of malicious attacks on their humanity.

It is unacceptable to publicly attack someone as a “nigger” whether from a public platform, in a blog, in a tabloid or in Parliament; in the case of the latter whether from a Member on their feet or from their seat. 

Similarly, it should no longer be tolerated when the rhetoric of intolerance is applied to gays or lesbians in these venues, with venom like “sissy” or the feminization of a man’s name.

Despite Low Turn-out, Bahamians Vote Down Legal Gaming

by Larry Smith

The internet arrived in the Bahamas in 1995. The government drafted its first e-commerce policy in 1999. And by the early 2000s, so-called web cafes were scattered across the island. The shops were licensed to provide internet access to the public - with no overt promotion of gambling.

A new generation of Numbers chiefs had developed sophisticated online gaming software based on computer servers outside the Bahamas, where gambling was legal. Customers here could use the internet for anything they wanted, but the web shop's gaming home page appeared on every screen and most people understood exactly why the web shops existed. 

Fact is, anyone can sign up for an account from any computer anywhere to participate in a variety of gaming activities. For example, Island Luck's home page features poker, casino-style games and sports betting, in addition to a numbers lottery.

It's head office is in Malta, but it claims 15 web shops on New Providence, Exuma, Abaco and Grand Bahama. The number of web shops in the Bahamas has grown annually over the past 15 years, with 28 said to have been licensed by the government in January 2012. 

Bahamians gamble with impunity because of two factors. First, the authorities have never bothered to enforce the law with any vigour. Second, the Numbers business is now mostly electronic, and the Lotteries and Gaming Act was not designed for this. So our Bahamian web shops have become part of a booming global online industry worth more than $30 billion annually. 

It is interesting to look back at how the politically very well-connected Bahamas Uncensored website described the gaming situation in 2003:

PLP’s Betrayal of the Movement for Equality

by Simon

“A right delayed is a right denied.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

The Bahamas Independence Conference convened 12 days before Christmas 1972 at the red Dutch brick Marlborough House in central London, which once served as a royal residence, eventually housing the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation.

Leading the Bahamian delegations were Premier Sir Lynden Pindling (PLP) and Leader of the Opposition Sir Kendal Isaacs (FNM).  The central order of business was the independence constitution.

Marlborough House, adorned with paintings, murals, tapestries and sculptures symbolizing the apogee of British imperial and colonial rule was now a museum of sorts where the nadir of empire was unfolding with a succession of colonies holding independence talks in the stately mansion.

There was, at the conference, another irony; a tragic one:  Ten years after women’s suffrage and at the birth of a new constitution committed to equality, the PLP, the party which helped usher in majority rule, opposed full equality for Bahamian women in terms of passing on a right of automatic citizenship to children born outside The Bahamas of a non-Bahamian husband. 

The Very Strange World of Gambling in the Bahamas

 

by Larry Smith

When I was young, people called me a gambler. As the scale of my operations increased I became known as a speculator. Now I am called a banker. But I have been doing the same thing all the time. -- Sir Ernest Cassel (1852-1921)

In gambling, the many must lose in order that the few may win. -- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

The gambling debate in the Bahamas has always been surreal - part of a weird fantasy world that is difficult to navigate with logic.

There are two zones to this strange world - one in which three or four hotel casinos operate legally as tourist amenities, and another populated by hundreds of illegal Numbers sellers catering to tens of thousands of Bahamian gamblers.

The casino zone originated in the 1920s, when Prohibition in the US offered a chance to make huge profits from bootlegging. Money flowed freely, and millions were invested in real estate, with new resorts like the Colonial and Montagu Hotels coming on stream.

Although organized gambling was officially banned nationwide, a small casino called the Bahamian Club began operating seasonally in 1920 on New Providence, catering to a very restricted clientele. It was located on West Bay Street, east of Fort Charlotte.

The Numbers zone dates back to 16th century Europe and has been thriving here since the 1800s at least. This game of chance is associated with poor communities around the world because punters can bet small sums of money and get credit from their bookies.

The Sociology of Choice

by Simon

In 1973, the year of Bahamian independence, the US-based fast food chain Burger King launched the “Have it your way” advertising campaign.  In a famous jingle the chain promised they could: “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce.  Special orders don't upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way!” 

The burger house, like others, was spreading its franchise globally, and adding a critical dimension to its marketing strategy.  That dimension was giving consumers a customized product with greater choice, a hamburger made to order satisfying a range of tastes.

Burger King’s strategy was the opposite of what the automobile pioneer Henry Ford quipped in 1909 about the mass-produced Model T: “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”

Putting the War on Crime in Context

by Larry Smith

"(Former police prosecutor) Keith Bell said the only way to address the problem was for the political class as a priority to agree on a common agenda for crime reduction and comprehensive legal reform." -- Tough Call, 2008.

"People blame the PLP government and they blame the FNM government, but it is really the family and the way they bring these kids up." -- Livingstone Miller, taxi driver, 2007.

With all the shock-horror at our skyrocketing crime rate, you would never believe that the causes and consequences of the country's social slide have been copiously documented over the past 20-odd years by a slew of commissions and reports.

From the 1984 commission of inquiry into drug trafficking; to the 1994 task force on education and the committee on youth development; to the 1998 national crime commission; to the 2003 prison reform commission; to reports by the prison superintendent and chief justice; to the 2008 House select committee on crime headed by Dr Bernard Nottage - which never actually got to report because parliament was prorogued.

And that is by no means an exhaustive list.

Keeping Up Appearances

by Simon

The lead character in the British sitcom, Keeping Up Appearances is the pretentious social-climber Hyacinth Bucket (who prefers her name to be pronounced Bouquet).  Hyacinth is middle class “wedged between a working class background and upper class aspirations”. 

Though she and husband, Richard, are financially comfortable, “the lady of the house”, as she refers to herself, is obsessive about giving the appearance of being higher up on the social ladder of British society.

Among much of today’s Bahamian middle class, keeping up appearances is also important.  Bahamians generally know how to look good.  We have the nice clothes with the requisite brand labels and accessories from jewelry to designer eyewear.  We also accessorize our status with just the right car or SUV.

Today, much of this is a desperate keeping up of appearances as much of the middle class is in financial turmoil.  The turmoil and deep-seated anxiety is affecting everything from divorce rates to chemical dependency to voting patterns.  Many are barely surviving paycheck-to-paycheck and from maxed-out credit card to maxed-out credit card.  

For more of the middle class than many may imagine, the credit card shuffle is a seemingly never-ending juggling of ever mounting debt with a dwindling availability of credit in order to stay afloat.

Purging the Pus of Racism

by Simon

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often likened his campaign of nonviolent direct action of agitating for racial equality as purging the pus from a boil.  Dr. King knew that the civil rights movement had to engage in moral provocation of the dominant power structure which upheld white supremacy and denied black equality.

He utilized marches, sit-ins and boycotts to unmask and draw out the ire, base feelings and warped mindsets of those committed to inequality.  Dr. King knew that there were many who might not don the Klansmen’s signature white costume but who shared their racist mindset.

The civil rights legend also appreciated the range of racist feeling.  A range extending from a Klan supporter to someone who, though not advocating violence against blacks, certainly did not want to sit next to a black person much less have them live in their neighbourhoods. 

The civil rights movement had to confront the vicious racists and the less vocal racists who tolerated racism in its obvious and subtle manifestations.  Much has changed in America.  There is a memorial on the Mall in Washington D.C. in honour of Dr. King.  America has elected a black President who gave the keynote at the dedication of the new King Memorial.