Disgusted with this web-site,

How na?ve!!!

You've never lived here and yet you presume to know how your idealistic notions of the world will be received in this community and culture.

Many people that come here share your ideology.

Many also end up expressing some of the views that you read on this web-site.

Untill you have experienced the frustrations of living in this environment, I suggest that you keep your powder dry.

Perhaps you'll have the courtesy to update us with your views after having actually resided in Bermuda for a couple of years.

Living in a community that is so divided, in which freedom of speech for all practical purposes exists only for a very few....and not expatriates, and in which it is politically acceptable for bigoted and racist views to be expressed by some segments of the population but not for others, will stretch the patience of anyone.

People in such circumstances need to vent, and this is one of the few places where expatriates can do so without fear of repercussions.

There are many wonderful facets of Bermuda, but its community relations are not one of them.

No matter how much respect you show your fellow man (or woman), in Bermuda you will as an expatriate regularly fall victim to the small-mindedness of a small but vocal proportion of the local population, and there will be nothing that you can do about it.

Let's see how you feel after a couple of years of it.

SoB

........and as if by magic the Premier kindly provides a truly classic illustration of my point.

Read the attached link from the online Royal Gazette:

http://www.theroyalgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051005/NEWS/110050088

Does the Premier honestly expect anyone to believe that his comments weren't racist?

In almost any other democratic country the man would have stepped down in disgrace by now, but not in Bermuda.........

Now imagine what the result would have been if the leader of the Opposition had made a similar comment.

In my view outrage would be justified in either case, but I'm also sure that the political consequences would be very different depending on which uttered - or in this case erroneously transmitted - the words.

I had a chat with the Bard.

He has a few words of advice for P:

"The devil can cite scripture for his purpose". Merchant of Venice (Act I, sce. III).

"The game is up." Cymbeline (Act III, Scene III).

"What's done cannot be undone." Macbeth, V.i.68

"Mislike me not for my complexion,..." Merchant of Venice (Quote Act ii. scene. 1).

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Hamlet, II.ii.249

"Tis not the many oaths that make the truth, but the plain single vow that is vow'd true." All's Well That Ends Well, IV.ii.21

"To thine own self be true." Hamlet, I.iii.78

"Things are often spoke and seldom meant." Henry VI, III.i.268

Yeah, right!!!!

"You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely". The Winter's Tale (Act I, Scene I)

I hope.

And he also had a few words for the rest of us:

"Friends, Bermudians, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury P, not to praise him". - Julius Caesar (Act III, Scene II)............okay, so I edited this one a little!

"Off with his head!" Richard III (Act III, Scene IV).........I didn't edit this bit

SoB