Viewpoint

As the RCIPS comes towards the end of its community road show a number of persistent issues have been raised by the Caymanian public at the meetings. One of them is the lack of trust the people have in the RCIPS as a result of a catalogue of different complaints that have never been resolved.

Much has been said about a cruise ship docking facility on Grand Cayman. We are probably the last place in the Caribbean to realise we need such a facility. What are we waiting for? Until all ships have bypassed us and like services to our people and visitors? We have gotten so complacent; we let them wait weeks and months for a simple approval.

Christians have many friends who do not believe in God, and they often wonder to themselves, “Will these friends go to heaven?” It is a very important question that needs a satisfying answer. Will many of our friends who are both agnostic and even atheist be in heaven? When we look to Scriptures and use our minds, we see that the answer is ‘Yes’.

I read in amazement a recent comment on CNS in response to this website's story on Roy Bodden’s latest book. Someone purporting to be a white Caymanian was expressing disappointment with the author’s reference to white or near white Caymanians being more economically advantaged than darker skinned Caymanians.

During the political era of Mr Truman Bodden and Mr Benson Ebanks the country’s student body was subjected to minor changes every eight years without any real education reform. What these gentlemen possessed was a clear vision for the country’s economic growth: they took advice from the experts, assessed and managed the threats and ensured stability.

The Cayman economic explosion began in the late seventies when, simultaneously, banking, tourism and development (construction) began to grow at such a rapid pace our inability to supply the high demand for labour for these industries became a threat. New immigration
legislation and the “Protection Board” were introduced and the economic pull factor facilitated the rest creating a fourth industry, Labour Trade.

I was privileged to be among the small audience that supported the round table discussion on gambling, sponsored by Generation Now, which was held last evening (July 29th) at UCCI. Aside from the awful acoustics, which made it difficult for both panellists and audience to clearly hear what was being said, it was an evening well-spent. It was one of those occasions that offered more light than heat, for a change.

Successive governments in the Cayman Islands have sold to the populace that much of the success of islands is based on its indirect and highly regressive tax system. Given the Anglo-Saxon predisposition to measure “success” in terms of aggregates (GDP and conspicuous consumption patterns chief amongst the favoured measurements), they may well be correct.

It was only a few months ago that a local defence attorney warned that Cayman was sleepwalking into legislation which was slowly eroding the people’s civil liberties. He was speaking after his client faced being tried a second time for murder following his acquittal the first time by a judge. This double jeopardy situation is as a result of changes to the Criminal Justice bill that enables the crown to appeal not just against a sentence but against a verdict.

A local businessman, writing in this month's Journal, struggles to explain to his 14 year old grand-daughter why her generation will be saddled with a debt run up by successive governments of his. A reader could be forgiven for concluding from this that the author is what political observers would call a "deficit hawk" (political observers themselves, deficit hawks are fiscally conservative beasts, decrying excessive government borrowing on principle).

The United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands has always opposed gambling. This is principally because it is contrary to our Christian beliefs, but it affects all of society, with the evidence that gambling leads to a deterioration of the social fabric as it exploits human weaknesses, undermines work ethic, leads to increased crime, is destructive of family life and promotes personal and institutional greed. It exploits the most vulnerable in society and represents a major transfer of resources from the very poor to the very rich.

(Jamaica Gleaner): We are happy that the Cayman Islands authorities, as has been reported by the territory's premier, Mr McKeeva Bush, are trying to think of ways to ease the visa restrictions they placed on Jamaican travellers. But while Mr Bush's suggestion of opening entry to Jamaicans who already hold US visas can only be considered a first step, we assume that it is proffered in a genuine spirit of cooperation while both sides pursue a more practical fix.

I’ve been following the National Conservation Law since its early gestation. Now that we are (once again) looking at the hopeful possibility of its coming of age in the legislature, I see signs that the discussion is deteriorating into what I call a phony debate. Here are a couple of examples to explain what I mean by that:

Gather round one and all for I have another story to tell. Does everyone remember the first chapter in the story of Robb’n in the Hood and The Sullen Men and all of the other folks that inhabit the land of Ya? I hope you do but if you don’t, don’t worry. I will tell you where to find that chapter at the end of today’s story.

On the International Day Against Drugs this year (26 June) Mark Scotland, the minister with responsibility for health said, “Teenagers and young adults are particularly vulnerable to using illicit drugs. Many times they are subjected to strong peer pressure to experiment with illicit drugs. Moreover, young people tend to be either misinformed or insufficiently aware of the health risks involved in using drugs.”