Youri Kemp suggests a way to address New Providence traffic

by Nicolette Bethel on September 1, 2010

And I think he’s on to something.

The long term benefits would be the upgrade of an essential public good, more persons using the public transportation system instead of their 1 and 1/2 cars daily, a new company to be listed on the national stock exchange, a cleaner environment, savings to the average consumer on fuel, an efficient and reliable bus service along with a new industry complete with everything from administrative staffing, to mechanics, to bus drivers along with the creation of a private sector entity, financed with government bonds or backing — an entity that can actually pay off its debt to the government or other parties or being co-owned by the government via shares, while providing a useful and essential public good in addition to it being sensitive to individual livelihood.

via Caribbean News Now!: Commentary: Getting around in New Providence.

By the way, the link to the COB study he refers to is here:

http://nicobethel.net/uploads/transportation_report.pdf

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The bondage of freedom

by Nicolette Bethel on August 17, 2010

A group of 90 leading academics, authors, journalists and human rights activists from around the world has called on France to repay the 17 billion euros £14bn “extorted” from Haiti in the 19th Century. In 1825 France demanded 150 million gold francs in compensation after the Haitian Revolution, through which the country gained independence.

via Repeating Islands.

Well now.

On the surface, there is not much to argue with here. The idea is interesting, arresting even, and exciting, given the names of the signatories, who include

American linguist Noam Chomsky, French philosopher Étienne Balibar, and the Euro MPs Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Eva Joly.

Here’s the question, though. To whom would this payment go, and how would it be remitted? Simply erasing the debt is not enough; there is also the long-term damage done to the core fabric of Haitian democratic society that resulted from the isolation of Haiti that occurred over the century following the revolution, not to mention the complete lack of national infrastructure in the country even today (a lack that the American occupation of the first decades of the twentieth century, an occupation that could be read as America’s own imperialism, did not rectify). This is worth a whole lot more thought. Discussion and thought.

But worth considering nevertheless.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-15

by Nicolette Bethel on August 15, 2010

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Woo-hoo! I’m in the Caribbean Review of Books!

by Nicolette Bethel on August 10, 2010

What’s the big deal?

Well, if you have to ask, you haven’t been seen the CRB. And you really don’t have any excuse; I’ve blogged about it, twice (or more). It’s not just that I finally finished the review that Nicholas invited me to do lo these many months ago. It’s also that I’m really stoked about who’s in the CRB today with me: Mark Dow, who’s got publication credits up the wazoo, the kind of credits that you have to don sunglasses to read.

And it’s a review of Sidney Mintz’s work, which makes me proud. Mintz made my anthropology — and my thought, and my national and regional pride too — what they are today.

So go on over and check it out. And while you’re at it, spend some time on the site. It’s worth it.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-08

by Nicolette Bethel on August 8, 2010

  • RT @lordstreet: Playwrights Workshop presents A TRIPTYCH OF PLAYS at TTW from August 13th. Don't miss them!!!!!! (cont) http://tl.gd/30epl7 #
  • OK Bahamas. Time for the revolution. Too long now we been ruled by drones. #
  • RT @MoveOn Google: Say no to VZN to kill #netneutrality Don't be evil! http://bit.ly/dgxZdY #
  • Uh … hello … anybody got any info re the BTC outage? #
  • Reporting some BTC weirdness: We're sorry, all circuits are busy now. WTF? Did we flash forward? #
  • Yes I am preparing to prepare semester plans. #
  • Trying to get my head around the next 2 months. Back to work, Shakespeare in Paradise, wrap-up toto 5 & getting ready for toto 6 – no joke. #
  • First week in forever I made NO tweets. Yes I'm still alive yo. #
  • RTing Rob b/c don't hear from him much: RT @oppcabb must question my habits, such as squeezing empty cans before throwing them in the bin #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-25

by Nicolette Bethel on July 25, 2010

  • Hear hear! #
  • Sustainability is a joke. Water in the desert. We should be smart as whips. #
  • Nassau would shrivel to dust if we couldn't rely on barged fresh water from Andros. No way that 250000 ppl should survive on this lil island #
  • Am being charitable & guessing that the barge couldn't make it across the Tongue of the Ocean this week #tropicalstormbonnie #
  • No water in the tap this morning. TTL I was raised in the 1970s & know how to live without running water. #tropicalstorm #
  • Olive Senior talks tomorrow @ COB. Lecture theatre in the Tourism complex. 7 PM. Reads Sunday at PopOp. #BWSI #
  • More to the point. When leaving the meeting I ran into Olive Senior in town for #BWSI & she remembered me from Miami 1992. #
  • We shall see. Time will tell & it longer than rope. Nuff said. #
  • Not the greatest fan of resorts but I met with a rep of this group back in 2003 & they still spinning the same line:a truly Bahamian resort #
  • Went to a very interesting meeting yesterday at Baha Mar – http://bit.ly/aEptVK – if they deliver what they say it'll be exciting. & fresh. #
  • TriniBahamian poet Christian Campbell shortlisted for Forward Prize. Bigups to Christian!!! #
  • Hailing all Caribbean artists: Go follow @Carifringe!! #
  • I love the @CRB! Even if I am a delinquent. #

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Please. Don’t Call Me White.

21 July 2010

It’s become fashionable for youngish Bahamians (people in the mid-30s range or so — people born since Independence, that is) to call individuals whose skins are cork-brown, tawny, biscuit brown, tan, paper bag brown, teabag, beige, coconut bark, gumelemi, tamarind, mango, eggshell, café-au-lait, milky tea, carnation, condensed milk, or thereabouts “white”. To be a “white” [...]

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Reimagining oneself: possible, and profitable

19 July 2010

Came across this in my reading and thought not of the change in Durham, SC itself, but in the attitude and the social structure that wrought that change. We are trying something similar here with the various attempts at rejuvenating downtown, but we aren’t thinking big enough. To start, we need a municipality to govern [...]

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-18

18 July 2010

Patti – if you have the courage & a little madness you can tell the truth as you see it. #BWSI # Lynn – I'm still here. I'm still here. They haven't silenced me yet. #BWSI # Lynn – I try to tell the stories I have been taught not to tell. The ones I [...]

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Bahamas Caves in National Geographic

18 July 2010

Dis my Bahamaland. I tell you dat. Offshore flooded caves, so-called ocean blue holes, are extensions of the sea, subject to the same heavy tides and host to many of the same species found in the surrounding waters. Inland blue holes, however, are unlike any other environment on Earth, thanks largely to their geology and [...]

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