The Road Not Taken - Poem by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Yes John you hit the nail on the head. Dealing with Central Revenue you wonder if the people at the top know what they are doing. Property tax bills went out telling people that their property had been reassessed at a higher value than the previous year and you had a few weeks to challenge the "reassessment". That's not the way to do business. Property owners should be notified well in advance of the actual bills coming out that the value of some/all properties were going to be reassessed and why. The owner should have ample time to object to the reassessment and provided with written reasons as to why his/her/their objections were not accepted so that they can appeal the matter if they wish to. Everything here is so arbitrary and fails to recognize that people have rights too.

If you listen to Dread Fred and Alfred Sears, you get the impression that lying or saying nothing is exactly what they want people/the government to do - lie and cover up for the PLP's chronicle of fiscal irresponsibility. No, we voters need to know so that we can prepare for what might next follow. And all this crap about "show me the plan" and "get on with the job and stop telling me what I already know" is BS. How can I plan or move on until I know what I have to work with, what I have to spend, what are my pre-existing commitments? It is time to face facts and bite the bullet. Perry and company may have known how to dance but they sure didn't know how to manage anything with any degree of accountability, frugality or rationality.

He's had a long run, at times apparently furled by political relations. My memories are that he initiated high priced, call dropping cellular service that became BTC's lifeblood and it has taken 20 plus years and mobile competition for us to finally see lower prices and better cellular service from BTC. The fibre to the home is overdue although I gather that Flow TV needs some work to become a viable competitor to Cable Bahamas. At least he made sure their services are national which you can't say the same thing about the competition.

This is either laziness on the police officer's part or sheer ignorance of the law and not acceptable in either case. Under the road traffic regulations made under the Road Traffic Act, the Controller of Road Traffic is responsible for designating bus stops, no parking areas, loading zones and the like. The police are then responsible along with road traffic inspectors (the people in the blue on dark blue uniforms) for enforcing the Act and its multitude of regulations. If buses started parking in the taxi spaces or no parking zones, the police are not going to say "That's not my responsibility, go see Road Traffic". As one respondent noted, when you drive down Bay Street the police are on every corner with their summonses waiting to book you for expired inspection and other driving infractions. So it's okay to book us for an expired vehicle inspection regarding a vehicle that the police don't register or inspect but they can't enforce the law regarding loading zones. The Commissioner of Police needs to jump on this immediately and get his people in line. They can't selectively enforce the road traffic laws. And the police should understand that it's their job to resolve issues like these not tell a civilian "This is a Central Police Station matter, call them". They should take the matter up with the Commissioner, resolve it and advise the public as to what was done, why and what will happen going forward. I agree that taxi cabs have too many of the parking spots on Bay Street and no one has ever explained why. Regarding the handicapped parking spaces, unlike Florida and other places there is no law penalising people for parking in such spaces without the requisite decal. If you watched the Parking Wars show on TV, you see where the penalty is $300 for parking in such spaces. Also, there is no information available as to where one would go in order to apply for the handicapped decal.

This blue shuffle of responsibility is unimpressive. The road markings are put there by the Controller of Road Traffic under regulations under the Road Traffic Act and enforced by the police. So take as an example the bus stops. The Controller designates them and the police enforce them, although road traffic inspectors are also similarly authorised. If a bus is letting off or picking up passengers in the downtown area anywhere than at a bus stop are the police going to say "It's not my responsibility" and let the buses do as they please? I think not and past experience has shown otherwise. The person who needs to weigh in on this matter and get his officers back in line is the Commissioner of Police. If they won't allow civilians to park in the taxi spots all day then why are they allowing anyone to park in a loading zone all day? Is it laziness on the part of the officer that Mrs. Raine dealt with or is it ignorance of the law? Either way, the Commissioner of Police needs to address this ASAP. No civilian should be told "Call Central Police Station, it's a matter for them." A responsive, responsible police force would say "I will deal with it" and resolve the matter then issue a press release stating what was done and the results.

We can't prosecute Perry because he allegedly didn't break any laws but a way needs to be found to close off these untidy business arrangements by people in government who spend our money willy nilly with friends, family, lovers and others, without any need for accountability, disclosure or obtaining value for money. I see where in the UK these types of "crimes" fall under the aegis of the Auditor-General and the National Accounting Office who submit regular reports to Parliament on government spending and obtaining value for money. How can a man work for government without a written contract saying what he is to do, within what timeframe and at what cost to the public purse. In the NGO that I worked for, we regularly hired consultants and advisors but never without a written contract spelling out all of the terms and conditions of the engagement and how the relationship would come to an end, natural or otherwise. Every new piece of work was a new contract. Any "extras" to an existing contract had to be agreed in writing on the specifics and the cost. No loose ends. We cannot allow these types of loosey goosey arrangements to continue into the future. If necessary, then we need a law or regulations governing government procurement of goods and services so that people who go astray when handing out contracts and public funds can be held to account.

The most important question is how were these men able to get their hands on a gun in the first place? How do these guns get into this country through our porous borders? Are customs and immigration officers in cahoots with whoever is importing them or is our inspection system just that poor? Until we can clamp down on and terminate people's ability to import hand guns and assault rifles into this country, we will continue to have this problem. And for once I agree with the Commissioner of Police that the sentences handed out by the courts for illegal gym and ammunition possession is too lenient. I see where the Chief Magistrate gave Dwight Major 9 months in prison for possessing and unlicensed firearm and bullets.
That's ridiculous. Until you start giving these wannabe hoodlums some real time for illegal gun possession, then to me the courts are sending the wrong message. Guns kill; yeah you can have them for protection but their sole or primary purpose is to kill. So what socially redeeming purpose did the two hoodlums in this news story have a gun for? What socially redeeming purpose did Dwight Major have his gun for or any of the others charged with the same offence? We shouldn't consider giving them any leniency until they disclose where they got the gun from and how.

I didn't see it Minnis getting testy with the press or touchy about the question. Anyone not in the newspaper, TV or radio business knows that reporters are not your friend. As my father explained it to me years ago, they have inches and inches of newsprint or hours and hours of airtime to fill and they don't really care where they get their content from as long as the newspaper is full of print and there is no dead air on TV or the radio. We have to realise that Naughty is being mischievous as well as trying to be humourous. As long as we keep those things in mind, we can enjoy his columns or his radio shows.

The longer we go with this whole Baha Mar affair, the more convinced I become that the Exim Bank or the Construction company decided that they wanted to own the property for whatever they had loaned to Izmirlian. How is it that the company that was doing the construction and whom the developer complained performed shoddy work that was never fixed or corrected winds up owning the property? Or is it that the lender who is difficult to distinguish from the contractor winds up owning the property? Whatever it is, the lender or the contractor has profited to the tune of ownership of the property as the result of shoddy work? Something does not seem right but at the end of the day it arises out of contractual relationships between the developer and the contractor and the developer and the lender. The other part of this whole deal that stinks to its core is the way that none of the foreign workers have been paid. This is most unfair. They worked for the company. They should be paid. Casts the Bahamas in a bad light that it really doesn't care about humans beings regardless of their nationality or that it only cares about human beings of a particular nationality.