St. Maarten Private Eye

A while back, the Today started a new section a few pages in titled Opinion and Commentary and I've been watching it closely, trying to figure out what it is. Very rarely does any item have a name and quite often the items are generally supportive of Today's views.

Now I realize that we here at SXM PE don't use our real names,t for the same reasons the writers of the Today's O & C page decline to, but we do use Writing Names or Aliases and I think this is an important point to make, because this enables the readers to build up a profile of the writer. This enables readers to make a better analysis of what has been written, for example, people know pretty well where I stand on many issues by my writing under the name Local Hero and you can challenge or question me on them directly here if you choose to. You can go back and see what I've written before, catch me in contradictions if I make them, Local Hero has a reputation, good with some people, not so good with others, hopefully a minority :).

My point is that I think the Today should give their regular O & C writers names, it doesn't have to be their real one. And if the item is written by Today staff, which I suspect many are, then it should say so.

Yesterday there was an item in the O & C section about Nova, it's hard to know what to make of it, it seems to come across as a kind of apology to Nova and Mirjam Bartlesman for the Editorial.

No smoke without fires? Shouldn't it be the Today investigating those smoke clouds to see if there are fires? And just how much is a lot? Sounds evasive to me. But then, how would the Today know the answer?

To be fair, Corruption is only one part of SXM's problems, the rest is made up by ancient and backward laws, or no laws at all, inept and incompetent management by certain politicians and public officials, leading to dysfunctional underfunded departments, short sighted vision and governmental transparency of a brick wall. Oh, and a dumbed down and intimidated 4th Estate.

LH