Why is Dengue Fever up 300% so far this year?

Dengue is serious business, and a secondary infection can be a disaster shutting down the liver or damaging the heart.  That’s serious business alright.

Epidemic Dengue is also serious business when it comes to tourism and the economy.  So what is the government doing about a spectacular 300% increase in cases?

It should be a national emergency, but all I see is the same old, same old.

American complains about Barbados Justice system in child custody matter.

Talk ya talk!

By American “CU”

I feel it is my responsibility and duty to inform your readers, especially the ones here in the United States, on the favoritism and bias or non-decisions handed down as orders by some in your judicial system in Barbados. Especially if the presiding Judge happens to be friends with the opposing counsel, or maybe they both belong to the same labor party.

This all started back in May of this year, when my daughter  finally got an interview with the US embassy to obtain her Green Card for her and her daughter. Even though they were never married the child ended up with the father’s last name and the Embassy requested that he provided a letter of permission.

This ended up in the courts and this one judge that in my opinion did not have the desire to rule and therefore, started in motion a set of procedures that prolonged the request. She even included the Child Care Board and even they did not change her original thoughts, that if the mother wanted to leave the Island, she must leave her three year old daughter with the father.

She has now even added fuel to the fire by giving the order that my daughter cannot bring her daughter to the United States until she comes to the United States and find a job which would show her that my daughter is capable of taking care of her daughter. Have you ever heard such stupidness?

First, the US embassy was satisfied with the evidence that I presented to them, showing that I and my spouse is more than capable of taking care of both of them until the mother finds gainful employment. If my financial affidavit was not strong, the US Immigration would not have allowed the Visas.  So could someone tell me why this madam justice has made such a decision? Tell me this is not a miscarriage of justice just because she has “Black Robe Syndrome”.

Meanwhile the winder of opportunity for my daughter to relocate to the US with her daughter is slowly closing. Everybody knows you only have six months after the interview to leave Barbados or you’ll lose the visa and will have to start from square one all over again.

Maybe, this is what the Judge would like to see happen, so she could keep her friendship with the father’s counsel.

Arab-Israeli Conflict or Jewish-Muslim Conflict? Whatever it is, can it be solved?

A Barbadian engineer and author proposes some answers
Our blogging friend Grenville Phillips II is a prolific writer and what I’ll call an “activist structural engineer” in the best sense of the term. Whether the subject is the proper installation of rebar when building a home, or politics or religion – he looks at all the factors, identifies the problems, researches and then methodically builds his solutions.  Read anything at his Weighed in the Balance blog and you’ll see proof of that.

But Grenville is also a man with a sense of history and humanity – he’s not just a numbers guy. I think it is the combination of structural engineer, historian and teacher with genuine concern for humanity that makes everything he writes so worthwhile. That, and his talent for being able to present his ideas clearly and simply enough to be understood.

Writing under his nom de plume Walter Phillips, he has published two books…

Solving The Arab-Israeli Conflict, (2009) subtitled “A practical way forward that allows both sides to negotiate a solution in good-faith”and

Brothers Kept Apart (2008) “Compelling and explicit evidence that exposes the myths that have unnecessarily divided Christians and Muslims for the past 1,300 years.”

Time to buy Phillips’ latest book!
For some reason I missed Grenville’s blog post Solving the Arab-Israeli Conflict but after recently coming across it and reading the wonderful discussions he provoked from around the world, I think I have to purchase and read his latest book.

Damn, I hate it when Grenville makes an argument in such a compelling manner that I have to rethink my own perspective! (Just kidding – that’s what I love about life, learning and growing.) - Marcus

PS: If Grenville doesn’t mind, I think we’ll put his blog and books on our banner list.

We Were Promised Cricket World Cup Accounting Would Be Delivered NOW. (Did We Stupid Bajans Really Believe That Promise?)

The financial and public relations disaster called Cricket World Cup has come and gone – and with it hundreds of millions of tax dollars that will see our grandchildren still working to pay off the debt decades from now.  We were promised an accounting.

The time we were promised to have that accounting is now.  Barbados Underground has the story, but don’t hold your breath…

Prime Minister Owen Arthur promised years ago that we would have a “full accounting” of the GEMS Hotels expenditures and that has yet to arrive.

As Owen Arthur and company have proven time and time again, we stupid Bajans will believe anything.

Clyde Mascoll Lectures About Proper Management

Newly frocked Barbados Minister of State Clyde Mascoll lectured delegates to the first International Management Conference held at Amaryllis Beach Resort, last Monday…

If a country is going to be competitive in this new global environment, then it has to understand how to get more out of its inputs, which, therefore, means that the critical issue confronting the region is how we can become more productive, said the Minister.  He stated that management would play a critical role in enhancing this productivity.

How do you get workers to work harder? How do you get workers to do better? How do you increase you output with the available resources you have? That's the first requirement for productivity, and in the short term, management is critical to that, said Mascoll.  …Full article at The Barbados Advocate.

Barbados Politics: Too Much Confusion, So Much Frustration

Our friend Titilayo runs Gallimaufry*, “A blog about nothing in particular.” This week, SHE (corrected!) sums up the political feelings of many Bajans with his post “Too Much Confusion, So Much Frustration“…

All of which just leaves me shaking my head. As I said, I try not to get tie up with politics, but I found myself unaccountably let down by Mr. Mascoll’s move to the ruling party… I had always thought of him as a man of some integrity, a man who would be directed by principle and not by political expediency. And now, much like Jeannette Layne-Clark, I find myself somewhat dismayed and disappointed.

Gallimaurfry reader Sungoddess commented… “My concern is that there is no real opposition in Barbados. It’s very close to a political dictatorship, because there is no opposing view.”
Yes, indeed, Sungoddess. Yes, indeed.

*Gallimaurfry: A hotchpotch, jumble or confused medley.

Enforcing Environmental Laws In Barbados – Forget The Police, We Need Specialists

According to the Minister of Energy and the Environment Elizabeth Thompson, the Cabinet recently approved “a comprehensive Environmental Management Act for Barbados”. (Barbados Advocate article link here.)
While we are pleased to see the Government finally taking steps to provide Barbados with modern and enforcible environmental laws, nobody should get too excited because Cabinet approval is only the first step in a process that will take many months or even years before we see actual law in place.

After 12 years of not one single environmental dumping charge laid, we will not hold our breath for this present government to produce actual results. Barbados has come to expect talk, studies and more announcements like this one. Real results? No.

But as long as we have Minister Thompson and the Owen Arthur government thinking about the environment, let’s talk about enforcement of environmental laws. Here is our position…

Forget About Using The Police To Enforce Environmental Laws
For at least the last year, and perhaps much longer, Environment Minister Thompson has been going on and on about how she wrote two letters – one to the police and one to the previous Attorney General – to try and have some attention paid to enforcing environmental laws. In February, she mused about having the police go undercover at illegal dumpsites. In May, she blamed the police for not trying to catch people dumping garbage by the roadside, and just last week she was again whining in public about those two letters she wrote a year ago.

Liz – get over it. The Royal Barbados Police Force is not coming to the party. The police are currently 130 officers under strength, violent crime is escalating in Barbados as it is everywhere, and they are busy preparing for Cricket World Cup 2007 – the largest and certainly the most demanding security operation they have ever undertaken. And that is even without considering that some of the participating nations near and far are hotbeds of Muslim terrorism.

The police are not interested in environmental investigations and if they are somehow ordered to act, they will only provide lip-service and feign activity. The police rightly believe that they lack the specialized knowledge and training to enforce environmental law – and that their priorities have to be elsewhere – violent crime, public order and safety.

So forget about using the police to enforce environmental laws. The police might agree to an occasional secondary support role, but to expect anything more is simply unrealistic – and is not the best solution anyway.

Barbados Needs Trained Environmental Enforcement Specialists
The Ministry of the Environment should form it’s own Environmental Law Enforcement Squad to investigate violations, gather evidence, bring charges before the court and to work with the prosecution to prepare and present cases at trial. This is what is done in most other jurisdictions because only a specialized environmental enforcement unit can build the necessary longterm knowledge, training and experience to be effective.