>we are not "dumbed down", we accept and manipulate the political culture that we have inherited from the British

If that were true, then you have to look at the Cayman Islands. Caymanis have a standard of living equivalent to Switzerland. They were not dumbed down. All of the good jobs (non-service jobs) go to Caymanis and the service jobs are done by foreigners on up to a 7 year work permit. They have a thriving middle class, an orderly run government that occasionally gets arresting for teifin' (never happens here), and a literate trained middle class.

Bahamians are dumbed down. They will sell their vote for a turkey. Not one in a hundred believes that tings will get better than they are now. Bahamians have lost the ability to hope because of criminal independence government under Lynden Oscar Swindling.

It doesn't help that most of the teachers can't speak the Queen's English. They are underpaid. They are not given the proper resources. Their is a culture of slackness throughout the Bahamas. We put up with non-functioning traffic lights, slack government departments that take 12 weeks for a passport, having a baby with the new police officer in the Family Islands to grease the wheels, electing crooks like Shame Gibson back into Parliament, ... I could go on and on. The Prime Minister is a lying slack-mouth and so how do you expect anyone else to be something less than slack if all that the daily life demonstrates is that slackness is the status quo. Jesus Christ is not worshipped -- it is mediocrity that is.

Have you seen the social media pictures of prom? One is even arriving in an ambulance. You have these kids in costumes costing hundreds of dollars and not one in ten could tell you what is the answer to 11 times 12 minus 32.

Poorly socialised is a misnomer. They are unfit for anything except Bahamian society at the present. I'm willing to bet that if you had a metal detector, there would be more than one handgun in the prom cummerbund.

Perfectly and eloquently said. That is the problem. Children having children.

>There seems to be a concerted effort to put their collective thumbs in the face of anyone who questions or challenges government. As a Bahamian, I find that totally distasteful.

As a lawyer, you should find it criminal, unconstitutional and un-democratic. These kleptocrats need to be reined in. Democracy is dead in the Bahamas, and corruption is rampant. This is the Dark Ages of our independence.

Great -- an amateur hour parking lot for untrained amateurs. Next door we should have a market for all of the street vendors to congregate in one place, and an agora for phone card vendors (what's left of them), and a round-about for newspaper vendors. Let's make a trade park for all of the informal economy. The real businesses who pay taxes could just give up their business licences and move to a trade park with no overhead.

Yes - let's promote mediocrity.

Co-sign. Completely agree. The less transparency, the hard to do business, the more that bribery and corruption works.

Looking for an investigative reporter on the Tribune or other newspaper to chase this story down!!!!!!!!!!! There is some sort of meat here!

You're right. All sorts of planes for hire (including one by a conchy joe architect) with no questions asked, no worries on the persons or just cargo flying, and cheap flights. Authorities need to question the pilot, call the insurance company and the FAA, get the BCAA out and ask the passengers on how they came to be aboard. The RBDF could take a lead here as well, since they did the rescue.

Something smells to high heaven here. The plane could have been "sold" as a matter of convenience and you can escape inspections etc by being caught betwixt and between two jurisdictions and fall through the cracks. This definitely doesn't pass the smell test!

Interesting side note here that nobody picked up. The plane with tail number N51AZ is registered to a Delaware company called Prestigious Aircraft. The address is the home of multiple Delaware companies from a Cosmetics/Nails business to various investment companies designed to hide beneficial owners. So I looked up the company owning the plane in the Delaware registry of companies, and the company is not in good standing. This brings up all sort of questions. The FAA registry must be kept up to date, and it has not been. The company is probably no longer a company. Did the plane have proper insurance? How did it end up in the Bahamas if its beneficial owner is a non-compliant Delaware company, and why were the passengers all Bahamian? Was it a rogue charter company that Randy Butler talked about? Someone leasing a plane and not getting permits and licences to operate a charter? Inquiring minds want to know.

There is a lot more going on here than meets the eye. Deserves an investigation.

Click on pic to enlarge the Delaware company registry.

http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2015…

Tell the accused rapist chairman to sit down and shut up. Maybe someone should take him aside and give him an acquaintance to the truth. However, the truth is something that the PLP exercise a lot of effort in trying to kill.