Why are you so ready to jump to conclusions, particularly when the information in the story does not support your assertions, especially about the bends (the divers were not surfacing)? Or even hypoxia or hypoxemia which do result from low oxygen levels (so why this person and not all the divers using tanks from the same source?), but also from lung and heart diseases and medications.

I applaud Dr. Smith for his thoughtful letter regarding the future of education. I especially appreciate his concluding line, "We stand on the cusp of a moment that offers us the opportunity to harness accelerated technology and flexible approaches to equip our human capital for new age demands, to increase our capacity to thrive as a country," and implore political and civil service leaders and concerned teachers, parents, and others to actively advocate for revolutionizing our antiquated system of public education.

Elsewhere, I wrote about possibilities for reform, including this Guardian Op-Ed: https://thenassauguardian.com/a-respons…

One paragraph missing from the piece (it was a footnote) is the toxic practice of gaming the exam system by some schools: Gaming the system includes having small, accelerated classes where students are cherry-picked by department heads, meticulous teacher intervention in coursework before it is submitted, teaching for the test by providing model answers for time-worn recycled exam questions, providing students electronic access to all questions that have shown up on exams for, say, the past five years, paying teachers for exam results (despite the unfair distribution of talent), etc, etc… Then, too, there’s privilege: Students fortunate enough to have college educated, economically successful parents who willingly provide personal and professional support for their children (e.g., excellent technology, expensive tutoring, travel experiences).

Hmm... While visitor arrivals are not back to 2019 numbers for the first three months of the year, they certainly are healthy and are a vast improvement over 2021. Numbers are Jan-March total arrivals and have been rounded: 2019 = 1.78 million; 2021 = 116,000; 2022 (preliminary) = 1.35 million. And some islands like Exuma are seeing record numbers of visitors. See https://www.tourismtoday.com/services/s…

Unfortunately, this kind of violence is not unique to The Bahamas. Fortunately, successful violence prevention programs have been implemented by school districts or, in countries like The Bahamas with a unified public education system, government agencies. Such programs include:

Individual school-level actions such as teams trained to address violence, appropriate teacher training in positive discipline and ways to defuse potential violence, clear, enforceable violence prevention policies, and, perhaps most important, classes that include simulations for students starting in kindergarten and continuing through high school. Children must be taught life skills which include safe behavior, how to protect themselves from abuse, and how to have difficult conversations when they disagree with each other. Students must be involved in developing programs, as they know best why violence perpetrated by youth occurs and where and can help come up with workable solutions.

On the national level violence prevention and conflict resolution must be part of the MOE's curriculum. If necessary, design BJC and BGCSE exams for the program. Surveys must be conducted -- on teachers, students, parents, social workers/counselors, pastors, etc -- to have concrete evidence on which to develop such programs. Once programs are implemented, they must be monitored and evaluated for effectiveness so they can be fine-tuned for optimum success. Teachers must be trained, and violence mitigation/prevention professionals must be readily available in all school communities. Where appropriate community organizations exist, partner with them (e.g., mentoring, after-school programs). Parenting classes designed to improve parenting skills must be offered. Gone are the days of intergenerational households where grandparents were around to counsel. After all, parenting is one job we aren't trained to take on.

As with anything else, this requires money. However, violence is -- and always has been -- a serious problem in our society. However, as our population grows, as gang affiliations increase, as a sense of coherent community continues to breakdown, as families spend more time on their smartphones and less with each other, as weapons become more dangerous and proliferate, etc, etc, the problem will only continue to grow. Unfortunate, but reality. It's time to stop wringing hands and pointing fingers and come up with meaningful strategies for addressing this unfortunate challenge.

Does the Right Honourable Mr. Davis understand how heavy each Bahamian’s carbon footprint is because of our decades long dependence on an industry and lifestyle that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Think cruise ships, airliners, freight boats, tour boats, self drive cars and boats, electrical generation, water production, imports of almost everything needed to survive from places far and wide,etc, etc..

Time to stop pointing fingers and playing with smoke and mirrors and come up with concrete strategies for change. Start with small doable steps that each citizen could take (from changing light bulbs to carpooling to solar water heaters) while formulating realistic short, medium, and long term goals for the country as a whole (large scale renewable energy, mandatory LEED building codes including rainwater cisterns for new homes above a certain value, ecotourism, education).

I gave several interviews and I hope that pulling the salient points together in one place can be helpful to understanding my position:

#1 Anyone who has sexual intercourse with a child under 16 is disordered.

Excuse me sir, is your definition of "disordered" illegal? That's what the primary issue is here. Immoral, yes. Abusive, yes. But, for this discussion, the word is illegal.

And, yes, Mr. DPM, the age of consent must be raised to an unqualified, unambiguous 18 years old. No loopholes.

Regarding " Does it mean now that the laws have to be changed or upgraded?" Did you read what the existing law says?

Section 10, not 1.

I'd be remiss if I didn't include this from the above Act:

10. (1) Any person who — (a) has unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under fourteen years of age, whether with or without the consent of the person with whom he had unlawful sexual intercourse; or (b) attempts to have unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under fourteen years of age, whether with or without the consent of the person with whom he had unlawful sexual intercourse, is guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for life.

Is this truly one of our nation's leaders saying this? Since when is it acceptable to defend -- especially publicly -- sex between and adult and a minor?

According to Section 11 under the heading "Indictable Sexual Offences" of The Bahamas's Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act, 1991:

11. (1) Any person who — (a) has unlawful sexual intercourse with any person being of or above fourteen years of age and under sixteen years of age, whether with or without the consent of the person with whom he had unlawful sexual intercourse; or (b) attempts to have unlawful sexual intercourse with any person being of or above fourteen years of age and under sixteen years of age, whether with or without the consent of the person with whom he attempted to have unlawful sexual intercourse, is guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for life.

My understanding of this: In The Bahamas statutory rape law is broken when an adult (18+ years of age) has sexual intercourse with any person older than 14 and younger than 16 with or without consent.