I apologise for the snideness. I have a tool in the internet that gives me access to the entire body of knowledge of man, and I use it to look at pictures of cats and get into arguments with strangers.

I do value facts, enlightenment and truth. That is why Trump raises my ire. He is a detestable human being. If Hilary stood on a stage with 5 children with 3 men, America would slut-shame her. When Trump does the same thing ( 5 kids with 3 women ), he is making America great again. God Bless America. She needs it now more than ever.

Naw, he is an American senior citizen living in Florida with nothing better to do than to post on various fora around the internet.

I stand corrected, CUBA has 63,000 hotel rooms. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2016/0…. Adding 100,000 more -- same article.

Because all of the money was being sunk into the Hotel Corporation where it was being drained off by the political cronies in a corruption scheme that rivals Mugabe/Putin/Castro and company.

LOL. I suppose that when you were young, rainbows were black & white. It is instructive to see the workings of an unenlightened American mind. Gotta love the supporter of a president who is a sexual predator, a serial liar, and a narcissist with a Grade 4 vocabulary. But I suppose that is a sign of the decline of the American way. Even KFC made a new party bucket for these Republicans -- it consists entirely of right wings and azzholes.

Don't get insulted, but is your life devoted to spreading ignorance?

You say that Carnival Cruise Lines will add more ships to Nassau. Nope. As a matter of fact, since last August, under their Fathom brand, they were the first company to have Cuban tours. And a French cruise company called Ponant is running cruises from American ports.

Starwoods Hotels is expanding. Havana has only 61,000 rooms, and it is difficult to book them, because 7 airlines are now offering flights to Cuba. The demand is insatiable.

However in the past few months the demand has flattened a bit, because hotel room prices have doubled due to the demand, and it is getting quite expensive. Also, tourists are worried that Donald Drumpf, whack-job president will shut down the travel to Cuba.

But all in all, the demand is still quite healthy, especially for cruise lines, since they do not put a burden on the old hotel rooms that need to be updated. There is still an insatiable curiosity about Cuba, and it is exotic compared to the Bahamas.

Last year in the September timeframe, a Florida-based cruise analyst/consultant told me that on one cruise line that he was not at liberty to disclose, only 23% of their passengers got off at the first point of call in Nassau. The cruise line in this case, deals with an older demographic of people who have already been on several cruises. The consultant was hired to conduct a survey of people boarding the ship, asking them to rate ports of call, intent to disembark, and intent to shop at the ports of call.

The results for Cuba were staggering. Almost 100% of cruisers indicated that not only would they disembark in Cuba, but they were prepared to spend between $250 and $500 on average with cigars and rum topping the list. Souvenirs, indigenous foodstuffs, and music were high on the list of shopping intents. Whereas almost three-quarters of the passengers said that they were either indifferent to Nassau or were content to stay on the ship. I think that the average spend in Nassau is around $64.

Other ports of call that rated highly were St. Martin, Cayman Islands, Jamaica -- especially Falmouth, which is a relatively new port, Gustavia in Saint Baarts and St. Kitts.

Poorly rated ports of call, other than Nassau, included St. Thomas, Tortola, Cozumel and Puerto Rico.

I am still amazed that the police officer was out on a run. The ones that I see, are so fat that they couldn't run if their lives depended on it.

The way that I see the education system failing, is due to the old methods left by the British. They work fine in a different time and place, but not here. The reason for that is cultural, socio-economic & geo-political.

Children in the Bahamas first need to be taught life skills that they do not possess. They need to be taught from an early age about sexual health, nutrition & health maintenance (ever see the shopping trolleys of mothers buying lunches -- Doritos & such), coping skills, mindfulness, financial literacy, entrepreneurial skills, human interaction skills such as problem-solving, social cooperation, networking, self-sufficiency and strategic thinking. In the past, all of these skilled were imbued by a 2-parent nuclear family. Those days don't exist in the Bahamas any more. Those missing elements are the holes in their ability to be educated.

We need to shift from standardised outcomes left over from the colonial period, to teaching life skills coupled basic, first principle knowledge modules. We must abandon the short-hours school day of segments, and create self-paced but effective learning. School cannot be a factory for moving students through various forms based on age, but rather based on competencies in core subjects.

And like Tal said, you can't teach a hungry child, or for that matter, a child fueled by sugar and carbohydrates.

And because life skills need to be taught, I think that gender segregation is a good way of doing it, especially if you want, from an early age, to inculcate boys to protect ya tings and fer girls to keep their knees together unless the rubber hits the road.