Imagine many years hence an anthropologist at the University of The Bahamas using digital\u00a0recordings of the ZNS evening news broadcast to conduct research on Perry Christie\u2019s years as\u00a0prime minister.\u00a0\u00a0What might she discover?<\/p>\n
As a gift to posterity and to help future researchers save time and effort, we are already able to\u00a0pass on some insights which will only solidify over time.<\/p>\n
Notably, Christie and the ZNS evening broadcast share a singular trait.\u00a0\u00a0They are incorrigibly\u00a0late, again and again and again.\u00a0\u00a0It seems that ZNS, despite decades in operation, is daily\u00a0caught by surprise that the evening news is scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm, not 7:02 or 7:05 or\u00a07:07.<\/p>\n
ZNS, like the Christie administration, seems incapable of being embarrassed by the poor\u00a0quality of so much that it does and its sheer and entrenched incompetence.<\/p>\n
As an aside, the day that the two leading print journals revealed details of a report on alleged\u00a0abuse at the Detention Centre, the state evening broadcast news failed to report the story.\u00a0\u00a0Were\u00a0they commanded to do so as an act of censorship by their political minders and bosses?<\/p>\n
How free is ZNS today to report stories critical of the PLP?\u00a0\u00a0For many, why is 2013 starting to\u00a0feel like the 1970s and 80s at ZNS?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, forget the numbers\u2019 houses.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps the government might consider a national\u00a0lottery that has as the winning combination the exact time that the ZNS evening news broadcast\u00a0begins, with the additional prize of a ZNS news mug for anyone guessing 7:00 pm.\u00a0\u00a0Supplies\u00a0of the mug are unlikely to run out.<\/p>\n
Perhaps there can be a \u201cStraight Seven Jackpot\u201d payout, the winner having wagered correctly\u00a0the staggered times the news begins seven nights running, which will be a monumental\u00a0accomplishment.\u00a0\u00a0There can also be payouts for three out of seven nights or five out of seven.\u00a0\u00a0The combinations are endless.<\/p>\n
How foolish to imagine such a lottery.\u00a0\u00a0It was already defeated in a national referendum that\u00a0proved to be a spectacular failure for Christie and his new and improved Gold Rush PLP that\u00a0would be ready in the First 100 Days and from day one to build a bridge to the future as the\u00a0government of hope and help committed to Urban Renewal 2.0 and putting Bahamians First.<\/p>\n
Were there an international prize for sloganeering as a substitute for ideas and governing, the\u00a0PLP would consistently win it, with its endless ability to produce more slogans than common\u00a0sense and action once in office.<\/p>\n
Then there would be the Bahamian television broadcast award for political showboating and\u00a0theatre, jointly awarded to ZNS and the Christie administration.<\/p>\n
Story one on the evening news:\u00a0\u00a0Perry Christie said today, \u201cBlah, blah, blah.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Second story:\u00a0Perry Christie said today, \u201cBlah, blah, blah.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0And just for a change in the third story: Perry\u00a0Christie said today, \u201cBlah, blah, blah.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the blah, blah, blah government in two senses.\u00a0\u00a0First, it is an uninspiring and visionless\u00a0government.\u00a0\u00a0Secondly, as before, this is a government of plenty talk and little action.<\/p>\n
During and after his rambling meanderings, one knows that the prime minister said something.\u00a0\u00a0The problem is that one is not exactly sure what he\u2019s actually said.<\/p>\n
As opposed to those times, sometimes he literally says nothing, despite promising a fuller\u00a0accounting.\u00a0\u00a0The country is still waiting for Christie to provide more details on his and the\u00a0PLP\u2019s relationship with Peter Nygard.<\/p>\n
Then, there is Christie\u2019s pretzel-like comments.\u00a0\u00a0Having repeatedly postponed speaking before\u00a0the Constitutional Reform Commission, the prime minister sought a clever out, perhaps\u00a0convincing to him, but unconvincing to most Bahamians.\u00a0\u00a0His excuse: He didn\u2019t want to\u00a0prejudice the commission.\u00a0\u00a0Really!?<\/p>\n
Perhaps ZNS can provide a useful service, namely a canned laugh track as used in situation\u00a0comedies.\u00a0\u00a0It can be played whenever the prime minister offers a comment for which laughter\u00a0is the best medicine and response.<\/p>\n
As reported in the press, the Governor General, the Leader of the Opposition and many notable\u00a0Bahamians found the time to prepare for and to appear before the Commission.<\/p>\n
Cue laughter: Christie contradicted himself by stating that his Attorney General had already\u00a0offered the Government\u2019s thoughts.\u00a0\u00a0Why didn\u2019t he say that when he cancelled appearing\u00a0before the Commission for the second time and counting.<\/p>\n
Did the Attorney General prejudice the Commission by speaking on behalf of the Christie\u00a0administration?<\/p>\n
The saying goes, \u201cIf you don\u2019t laugh, you\u2019ll weep.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Listening to the prime minister\u2019s tortured\u00a0rationales for his inaction and bumbling incompetence is likely to produce tears of laughter,\u00a0sometimes just weeping, and sometimes the wailing and gnashing of teeth.<\/p>\n
Mind you, the same prime minister who did not find the time to appear before the commission\u00a0did find time to deliver a lecture on constitutional reform.\u00a0\u00a0He had plenty to say on that\u00a0occasion.<\/p>\n
What he did not say and did not do, was to accept responsibility for making the referenda\u00a0process in The Bahamas more politically difficult and charged, more of which in a subsequent\u00a0column.<\/p>\n
When he\u2019s not too tired to answer questions, answers to which he solemnly promised long ago,\u00a0Christie is busy making speeches and excuses as a substitute for governing.<\/p>\n
He seems still to believe that talk is action.\u00a0\u00a0Like a genie, he must believe that when he speaks\u00a0things are supposed to materialize.\u00a0\u00a0See for easy reference: National Stadium, National Health\u00a0Insurance and doubling the investment in the national education budget.<\/p>\n
The prime minister recently said that he\u2019s knows that Bahamians are frustrated.\u00a0\u00a0The problem\u00a0is that he may not appreciate that Bahamians are mostly frustrated with his poor leadership of a\u00a0government that is performing even worse than the do-nothing years of 2002 to 2007.<\/p>\n
Ranking PLPs and younger PLPs, including many professionals, are soured on and vex with a\u00a0feckless administration careening from one crisis to the next, with a prime minister barely in\u00a0control of his own government.<\/p>\n
Mr. Christie\u2019s response, \u201cBlah, blah, blah…\u201d all of which can be seen on the ZNS evening\u00a0news beginning at only God knows when.\u00a0\u00a0Stay tuned and be prepared to laugh and to weep.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ZNS, like the Christie administration, seems incapable of being embarrassed by the poor quality of so much that it does and its sheer and entrenched incompetence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[93,142,424,60,129],"class_list":["post-40200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-corruption","tag-incompetence","tag-perry-christie","tag-plp","tag-zns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}