Larry Smith on Crime - I've got an easy solution, but Pardon me, Larry, is that a bias showing?

Larry Smith writes, as usual, an eminently well considered article on the subject of crime. Read it here: What to do About Crime in the Bahamas

We flap our gums a lot about all this, and there is just too much navel gazing (Larry quotes the repeated commissions and study groups).

All that is needed is to enforce the law. Period. It's one thing that is not done in the Bahamas.

Last week heading to the Airport took us from 7:50 am to 9:20 am to travel about 13 miles. During that drive we watched repeatedly as cars pulled out from the lines and flew up the right hand lanes. In one instance when they reached the intersection there was a policeman there directing traffic. All he did was come over and speak to the driver, who was then allowed to peel off into the traffic to repeat the offense once more.

That's just one example. Most of my Bahamian readers can reel off countless others.

So I repeat ... unless and until we are willing to enforce the law AND to allow ourselves to be subjected to said enforcement, we can forget about all the other theoretical solutions out there.

What reduced crime in New York? Zero tolerance. What will reduce crime in the Bahamas? Same t'ing bro'!

By the way ... Larry quoted a pretty shaky statistical correlation in his article between Societal Health and Popular Religiosity from the Journal of Religion and Society. Wasn't it Mark Twain who quoted Disraeli as saying there are three types of untruth - lies, damn lies, and statistics? (Check out this book from 1954 updated in 1982: How to Lie with Statistics )

Unfortunately, as usual, even the most basic of personal experiences can counteract their implied claim that religion is somehow detrimental to society. As much as one might want to malign the correlation between crime and "fundamental" religious belief, in my experience the most religious areas of, e.g., the US are the safest. Iowa, anyone?

Is there perhaps something else at play which is not even detected due to the established bias of the "statisticians"??

Let's not forget, please, that much of what we take for granted in modern society is the result of "religious" campaigning.

Go no farther than the influence (sadly unheralded as it still is) of William Wilberforce. Where would we be in terms of crime if we didn't have universally free education, for just one example.

Check out these books by Rodney Stark for an alternate view:


The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and
Western Success


and



For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations,
Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery

A marvellous play on words ...

This post really is about the Bahamas and Books:

THIS looks like fun this weekend: http://soularize.net

N. T. Wright, Brennan Manning, and one of the bunch whose "Divine Nobodies" I really enjoyed: Jim Palmer.

As much as we have a tendency to complain about how little there is to do in Nassau besides sand, sun and sea, these things do come along and we really ought to make the most of them!

This is an incredible range of authors and subjects, each of which is worth your while in some way or another. It's not a question of feeding on your usual fare 'cause there are no alternatives. Man!

All'Italia

So we're off to Italy for two weeks ... land of the leaning tower of Pisa, pizza and pasta. Don't forget risotto, gelato and vino, either.

We'll fly in to Milan, head off to Florence, then a couple days in the Chianti hills, down to Rome, maybe hit Pompeii, possibly over to the Adriatic to visit Moana Higgs Carminucci who grew up with us here, then on up to Venice and back to the Cinque Terre (Vernazza) before heading up to Lugano, Switerland for business.

Hopefully we haven't bit off more than we can chew.

Watch here for photos and updates ...

BC's Brilliant!

If ever a comic tickles my funny-bone it's likely to be BC.

Hart plays with words like a consummate juggler with 5 knives in the air at the same time!

Today's strip is incredible ... it needs to be read and re-read to catch all the twists.

Only comic strip I ever enjoyed more was "Snake Tales". Here's the Wikipedia entry (very minimal): Snake Tales Wikipedia It's another of those strips you just have to "get" to get. Does anybody know if this guy is still drawing? Haven't seen any for ages.

Apostle Paul Rejection Letter

Jan and I are here in Atlanta for the Logos Bookstore Association annual general meetings and then a booksellers convention and the Atlanta Gift Show.

More about all that later ...

In the meantime, I ran across this hilarious link which has personal significance for me:

http://jimost.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/apostle-paul-rejection-letter

Many years ago I did my master's thesis at Middlebury/Instituto Internacional in Madrid on the Spanish Law of Religious Freedom of 1967 and its effect on non-catholic Spaniards ("La Ley de Libertad Religiosa del 1967 y su efecto sobre los acatolicos Españoles¨). As part of that process I got excited about what I saw in a couple of evangelical churches there and was challenged by some of the folks I met to work among them. I wrote off to a prominent Stateside mission board, offering that I intended to attend Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (I had attended Gordon College) and then I would be available for training and eventually for the mission field, hopefully in Spain.

I got a letter back saying they were concerned about the fact that it had come to their attention that there were professors who held to a "post-millenarian view of eschatology", and steering me to Columbia Bible College instead.

Ooops ... end of interchange with those folks.

And here I am 33 years later in banking and bookselling in the Bahamas (love that alliteration!).

Must have been a God thing!

It's still Rosie!

It's been a looong time since an update.

But ... the more things change in some areas, I guess the more the stay the same.

Ah, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie ...

Rosie logic ... ???

Sometimes I think logic should still be a part of standard school curriculum everywhere.

Some people really, really seem to need it.

Rosie O'Donnell, the liberal equivalent of Mel Gibson (though she didn't seem to be drunk at the time), up and says on her new gig ... The View, on US network ABC ... "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America." [click on the quote for an excellent link on the subject in the Say Anything blog]

Last time I checked "just as" is still a statement of equivalency. Unless of course it depends on what the meaning of "as" is.

Who knows?!? These types of idiotic statements by people who never switch on their reflective genes are what's dangerous to civil discourse in the U S of A. And of course they're equally dangerous here in the Bahamas. Or anywhere, for Heaven's sake! [sorry, Rosie]

My recommendation? Forced reading of
"Don't Believe Everything You Think".
Here are the 6 things Kida says are dangerous about what we think:
- We prefer stories to statistics.
- We seek to confirm, not to question, our ideas.
- We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in shaping events.
- We sometimes misperceive the world around us [and don't even realise it]
- We tend to oversimplify our thinking.
- Our memories are often inaccurate.

An almost amusing quote ...

No matter your opinion of the men, this is intriguing ... and were it not for the circumstances, it would be beyond hilarious:

"It is very sad to be dying, and on top of that, be visited by Hugo Chávez."

(From today's Miami Herald column by Carlos Alberto Montaner, about Castro)

What the h... is Bahamianisation? Really?

So ... this subject continues to leave me perplexed rather than anything else. OK ... maybe sometimes a little bit upset. OK ... it makes me mad!!!

I just don't know what it's all about, unless it's simply and only for political consumption. It's certainly not reality. And it won't help anyone get or keep jobs.

Sometimes I wonder if the people who "shoot out the lip" about having been victims of discrimination against Bahamians by employers ... particularly foreign employers ... can see beyond the end of their noses.

If they would only stop focusing short, they'd know about all the Bahamians who have been sent abroad by those same employers. I'm one. And I can name any number of others without even trying hard. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count those I know personally who have benefited from postings abroad by their accounting firms, banks, trust companies, etc. And those are only the ones I know about. And to kill that other bugaboo ... they're every colour in the spectrum.

One guy has held two positions in Nassau that were the result of "work permit" ads - one quite senior. In one case the Englishman's personal effects - labelled for Nassau - were stopped on the docks in Manila. Years later he was still upset! Just to show that foreign employers are more than willing to save money by hiring a Bahamian rather than swing for the rent and vehicle allowances, etc. they have to pay the "import". And before you say it ... this company has a fixed pay scale worldwide for each executive grade. So no savings on that score by hiring a "cheaper" Bahamian.

Not saying there aren't exceptions to this stuff ... but good policy - let alone life decisions - should never be based on the exceptions.

Instead of constantly crying "woe is me" the short sighted naysayers should ask themselves if maybe ... just maybe ... they are not employable for reasons other than the fact that they are Bahamian. They could perhaps change those aspects of personality - their basic aproach to life - that deny them what they consider to be the "good positions".

One [white] Bahamian aquaintance of mine years ago made a career of alienating pretty well every potential employer. If he considered himself capable of handling a job, then it should have been his. Said he. And he threatened lawsuits. 'Cause after all he also had a law degree. And in this little town pretty soon every human resource professional around had heard of him and avoided him like the plague. If he was willing to be belligerant before getting hired, it was a pretty good bet he'd be a "problem employee". Eventually he moved to the US ... and got treated pretty much the same, for what it's worth.

So ... it's not about nationality, is it? It's about character and ability and potential and willingness to learn and work one's way up.

Some of us went overseas low on the totem pole. We could have taken the tack that, after all, we had degrees ... MAs, even PhDs. But we learned the ropes ... did what we were asked. And we went beyond that. And pretty soon we had bosses that didn't want to see us go. We got promoted up against others who appeared to be better qualified on paper. And we were in somebody else's country. And we waited for work permits. And they were granted fairly. In part because each of those governments knew that part of the "tit-for-tat" was that their nationals were being sent abroad to other places for training and experience which would later be valuable to them.

The only influence we could bring to bear was who we were. What we could do. How hard we were willing to work.

We've received training in countries both more and less developed than our own. We've been away for short periods and long ... and we've been everything from trainees to management. Some of us got language training. Some of us got further education at our employers' expense.

In due time we came back home to contribute. To raise our families. To do what we could for our little corner of the universe.

I ask myself where I would be today had I been treated by my host countries overseas the way Bahamian politicians seem to be proposing. You just can't have it all. As much as you'd like to. If we're going to treat others this way, we shouldn't expect much better ourselves.

In my humble opinion, in one short month the politicians have managed to pretty well kill any hope we might have had of becoming a serious international finance centre.

Think it through, folks. There are consequences to all this.

And why doesn't the story of Bahamians overseas get told more often? Hunh? Why? Is it only politics? Or does the media love to feed only on the negative? 'Cause it gets people worked up? Why not tell the good stories. Of the Francises, the Wells, the Fountains, the Havens, etc. etc. etc. who have been away, done the hard time, and come back. Of the others that are still there, learning, accumulating experience.

Where's that story??

Finally: "Rising Tide. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America"

It was my frustration with the US media's nonsense over hurricane Katrina last year that got me to dive in to this. I got to the point that if I heard another "worst natural disaster in American history" or "storm of the century" remark I just knew I'd throw something at the TV or radio or rip up the newspaper or magazine or whatever.

First up ... "American history"? What's that? We've got like 200 years or so of the kind of presence on the continent that might be capable of recording this kind of information for posterity.

Second ... the idea that the kind of mess that was Katrina needed to be reported in superlatives is beyond me.

I can't pretend to be aware of the whole panoply of history, but I was aware (partly because it happened around my birthday) that the Galveston hurricane of 1900 was horribly more deadly. See "Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History".

"Rising Tide" is a hard slog. I won't try and convince anyone otherwise. On the other hand, it's worth every re-read of a pithy comment, or double-take at a surprising fact. And if when you're done you want to learn more, there's an excellent bibliography at the back.

Barry's epic - and it is just that - covers not just the flood which dispaced almost a million people (in a nation 1/3 of it's current size) and inundated many times more millions of acres in up to 30 feet of water. It's an incredible commentary on the national society of the day, on New Orleans politics and personalities (the "Big Easy" was by far the most influential city in the South at the time and was, essentially, the cause of much - if not all - of the upstream disaster). This alone is worth the price of the book. Was it ever more colorful or interesting anywhere else? Still is.

Barry gives insight into the national politics of the day (and I had forgotten - or never knew - that the Republicans owned the black vote back then). The disaster was the launching pad for the presidential ambitions of Herbert Hoover (and many think he would never have been president without it). He's a terribly interesting recurring character, by the way.

Sometimes there are flashes of brilliance in the way Barry turns a phrase or expresses a concept. But at other times the text is about as clear as the Mississippi mud of which he writes. Never mind. You'll learn of the engineering history of the Mississippi, and of the fascinating personalities who fought over their theories, sometimes in the most incredibly violent of ways.

The economy of the South and integration of ex-slaves is given a rather different treatment by Barry than what one is accustomed to in popular films and media. The thought comes across quite clearly that were it not for the 1927 flood, integration - at least in the Mississippi Delta states - would have taken a much different turn. Many assume that the black exodus from the South to the North had to do with the Civil War or, later, the legal racial discrimination which was so prevalent. Not the vast majority. It was the 1927 flood, which left a devastated economy and destroyed the infrastructure in the Mississippi Delta, and particularly on the east bank all the way up beyond St. Louis. No houses, no jobs, no home-town - why hang around?

So ... dive in. I don't think I've ever felt more educated by a book. Take it in small doses if you will, but you'll end up knowing a heck of a lot more than virtually every news anchor out there, as far as I can tell!

Happiness is ... the Bahamas??

Say what?
Yup ... according to the University of Leicester, as reported in the Nassau Guardian yesterday and splashed on TV screens everywhere, we're no. 5 in the world "league table" of content.
Do these guys listen to the same talk shows we do??

Back to Books

For those who read this for the books ... hold on a coupla three days.
First, I want to post a piece on our cruise.
Then, I'd like to write a couple notes about our trip to Colorado Springs, Boulder and Denver.
The first stop was to visit Susie P, a missionary to South Africa who was a friend of ours in Quito. We've maintained contact ever since.
We also stopped to visit a childhood friend of Jan and myself, Janice M who lives with hubby Geoff in Littleton, CO.
Then Boulder for the Logos Association Conference. Lots of great book stuff there. It'll probably be a long post ...
And on to Denver for the ICRS, formerly known as CBA ... the Christian Booksellers Association convention.
So ... stay tuned. There's good stuff ahead.

Another one off the payroll ...

Well, a happier theme to this post.

Son Brendan graduated from Gordon College on May 13th.

It was a day to remember for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which was the incredible rain and floods. The ceremony had to be moved from the usual Quad to the Bennet Center (gym) which didn't do a bad job of accomodating the majority of celebrants.

Besides the rain, we had to deal with a couple other screwups to the schedule.


Neil couldn't get there Friday night thanks to the weather, so I had to get my mother and Jan to the Bennet Center early, get down to Logan Airport for Neil and back to campus before 9 AM ... so of course we didn't get to check out of the hotel until after graduation.

And after graduation my mother had a terrible time in the pouring rain trying to rush over to Lane Student Center for the reception and a chance to meet the profs. and Brendan's fellow grads. In the rush Mom's athsma got the best of her and she had to stop off in the lobby of Wilson Hall, I had to rush for the car and get her. By then we knew we had to get back to the hotel to finish packing and check out.

Through all this our friends, the Pomazons (we go back to the early 80s when we lived in Malden and then Salem, MA) were trying to put together some sort of lunch encounter before we had to get to Logan for a 6:30 flight to LA.

After about a dozen phone calls they graciously offered to go get some Quizno's so we would be a bit less anxious. Meeting somewhere was out of the question given the pelting rain, which just wouldn't give up.

In the end Pomazons and Roberts had a marvellous visit and enjoyed a great cake in the warm, dry Pomazon kitchen. And 90 minutes of breathing time before the madness of the airport.

Long story short ... we made it to Logan, flew uneventfully to LAX, boarded the Carnival Pride for Mexico on May 14th ... and while we were waiting to pull away from the pier Amalia Pomazon called to update us on the flood. It ended up invading their basement and it turned out we got out of there just an hour or two before the roads became impassable.

So, Brendan. What for most graduating classes is a rather unremarkable day turned in to something unforgettable.

We'll make it up to him with a visit to Homecoming in October ... Gordon is "alma mater" to both of us.

Colyn Roberts, '72

A Paul for All ...

It's been a couple months.

My absence from here began with a graduation and a family trip. More about those later.

During our trip, though, we got the devastating news that Paul Cartwright had passed at 58.

It's hard to write about Paul without hyperbole ... he was special in just about every way that matters. And he had a great voice. And a screwey sense of humour. And he was a natural mimic who could "put on" just about any accent he'd ever heard ... including some foreign languages he didn't know!

But what I will forever remember about Paul is his faithfulness to his calling.

Paul was one of the most natural counsellers that God ever put on the face of the earth. People from all walks of life, colours, creeds and origins found in him someone who could relate to them and offer appropriate advice.

Paul was convinced that he was called to help those who didn't have an obvious financial access to counselling, and he served at the Christian Counselling Centre, a ministry of Calvary Bible Church here in Nassau.

He could have had great financial success in private practice, but Paul (and wife Priscilla, too) was convinced that if he bloomed where he was planted, his needs would always be supplied.

And that was true. We've lived close enough to them to know it is. We've seen it.

Paul was one of the "Divine Nobodies" that Jim Palmer talks about in an upcoming book by that name. Someone who's a bit of an unsung hero. The best kind, in my opinion.

His blessings weren't necessarily financial or material. At Paul's funeral a packed church and a quiet undercurrent of assurance were testimony, though, to just how blessed he really was.

And in a strange way ... and I don't know exactly how to express this ... Paul's legacy will make itself manifest.

Look forward to it.

Count on it!

"To Own a Dragon" and a word or two about life without rules.

I didn't warn anyone this one was coming, but it got to the top of my reading pile and just kinda of leaped into my hands ... and then I couldn't put it down.

Donald Miller is one of my favourite authors these days.

Between the verbal ADD of "Blue Like Jazz" and the depth of "Searching for God Knows What" there's his marvellous way of communicating life - and life-lessons - in "Through Painted Deserts" (previously published as "Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance") and now this easily digestible treatise about boys growing up without a father's input "To Own a Dragon", focused on how maybe God "as father" fits into that picture.


But don't be fooled into believing this isn't for girls or women or guys whose dads were around. There's so much universal truth told - in Don's inimicable simple, straightforward, often ROFL funny style. Man, I wish I could write like this!

In general, though, I love Don's approach to life as a Christian. Here's a special quote from his website donmillerfans.net that puts into words - in a way anyone can understand - what it must mean to approach life as a Galatians Christian:

I am not a “how” guy in any way. this is a constant criticism of my work, because so many want steps on how to live based on my perceptions. i’d rather live in the tension than have the false comfort that i am “doing life right.” for what ever reason, i perceive “steps” and “points” as a mental trick, to get me to “do” something so i can feel like I actually understand an issue, rather than grapple with the tension the actual question entails.

Wow! Think about that. 'Tain't simple. But it sure is profound.

PS ... I'm heavily in to Lamin Sanneh's "Whose Religion is Christianity". Deep. Brainy. Such a different approach. Stay tuned ...

Lawyers vs. Engineers (or vice-versa)

One of the funniest lawyer jokes I've heard was about the engineer who was sent to hell by mistake.

Typically, he couldn't leave well enough alone and soon had Satan fixed up with cold running water as well as hot, "fired up" an air-conditioning system and generally was improving the place.

When God got wind of the mistake, he insisted Satan return him to Heaven. When, for obvious reasons Satan refused, God threatened to sue.

Of course Satan wasn't terribly worried. "God," he said. "Where are you going to get a lawyer?"

It may not be the best segue to this article in Business Week recently (can you tell I'm behind on my reading??). But having an engineer son I'm well aware that their brains do indeed work differently from those of lawyers.

And what's true of the US Congress & politicians is also sadly true for the Bahamas ... most of them are lawyers. Without people who understand how the world works (store owners, entrepeneurs, hoteliers, indeed engineers) in Government very little that's rational comes out of Parliament - or Congress, or the Diet, or Las Cortes or whatever it's called in your home country.

What say?

We call it a "Rage". Descriptive indeed.

Just to "prove" it's not always idyllic on the bay ... this is a photo taken this afternoon of the waves crashing on the barrier islands about 5 miles north of us here.

Truly spectacular. And unusual indeed for April.

Bahamas Bucks what??

Larry Smith writes some thoughtful, researched and sometimes ROTFL funny columns in The Tribune. This is one of them: A Bahamian Political Review

This one kinda starts off in the same vane, but then veers into some rather currently conventional comments on Brokeback Mountain, Censorship, Religion, "Gayness" etc.

OK ... no real bone to pick with the column (any more than normal!) apart from the rampant generalisations - but they're equal opportunity generalisations, so we'll let 'em pass.

But a couple thoughts and comments about the whole Brokeback/Censorship/Gay Agenda controversy:

First ... Pastor Lyall Bethell, Apostle [??] Cedric Moss and Pastor Allan Lee wrote a letter to the editor which missed the point on censorship by a mile. In comparing the voluntary restraint of the Tribune in not printing pornographic photographs with the coercive imposition by government of a movie ban, they really don't quite get the point.

No matter what one's views on morality, the example of Jesus ... the really Christian approach to these things ... doesn't even come close to what I see the established church trying to do in the Bahamas today with marches on cruise ships and an extremely narrow focus on only ONE aspect of sexual sin. (To his credit, Cedric Moss has been very vocal in recent years about other condemnable aspects of the films passed for viewing).

I simply don't see anywhere in Holy Writ where Jesus used - or recommended the use of - civil government to impose an agenda on society. Matter of fact he ate with tax collectors and sinners without condemning them beforehand ... it's what got him trouble with the established clergy of his day.

It is not ... repeat NOT ... the Church's job to change society in any other way than by the attempted persuasion (dare I say conversion ?) of one person at a time ... and that, largely by example (see John 13 guys).

NOW ... to the point of the latter part of Larry's current article: While the Western press would have us believe that "gayness" is innate, the science is still not clear. Indeed, accompanying the original study noting the brain differences between gay and straight men was the qualifyer that it was not certain which came first ... that brain differences may indeed develop as a consequence of a lifestyle (as it does with other learned behaviours).

But be that as it may ... what REALLY concerns me ... is suppose we find (as studies have already shown) that criminals have brain differences. Do we then excuse criminal behaviour?

The horror of this scenario is that rapists, murderers and plain old "tiefs" would have to be excused by the justice system, wouldn't they? Not their fault!

So ... IF a behaviour is wrong (and I'm not pronouncing on gayness here, understand - it's immaterial to the essence of the question) it's wrong. PERIOD.

Don't people have ANY control over their impulses? Do we HAVE to always give in? Do we have no responsibility for our actions?

Again, I want to make it clear I am not pronouncing here on my personal view of a particular aspect of morality. But the questions need asked.

And there are serious implications in the answers which various societies eventually reach by consensus.

I see what they mean ...

From The Nassau Guardian's website today: www.thenassauguardian.com

A kinder komment on Kerzner

I sometimes get very tired of Atlantis bashing.

The Royal Towers certainly isn't the prettiest thing to ever grace a skyline ... at least from the New Providence side of the bridge.

But there's no denying that the Bahamas of the last 13+ years would not have been possible without the Kerzners.

I see and hear sooooo many negative remarks ... including one pseudo Bahamian poster on the Cruise Critic website's boards who said, in as many words, that [she] wished the man's island would sink into the sea!

Sweetie ... there wouldn't much of a tourism infrastructure left in place if it hadn't been for the "Russian Jew from South Africa" to quote from Larry Smith's "Tough Call" of Dec. 2005 (click on the text of the paragraph to see the whole hilarious article).

"Of course, we had to find a Russian Jew from South Africa with the smarts to build a replica of an Out Island village on Paradise Island, where a single drink costs $14 plus tip. But we managed to do it, and now tourists can safely browse the marina shops and listen to Bahamian music without fear of being harassed, cursed or spat upon."

And just in time to put the lie to those who continue to say the Kerzners give little back, Butch and co. donate $250,000 for a swimming pool/facility at St. Anne's - one of the local Anglican secondary schools.

Here's the article from the archives of the Nassau Guardian: Kerzner gives to St. Anne's