Love My Bahamas

Just had to share this. Artists Takin Ovah!!If you're on Facebook, go find the Love My Bahamas page and have a look at the art.When CariFringe starts, there will be tours you can take of the art.

Love my Bahamas Downtown Art Experience is a mural project that will enliven the walls of downtown Nassau. It involves 15 local and international artist. Come and visit the open studio space where you can see the artist at work, and learn from the rich visual arts scene in The Bahamas.Share with us this unprecedented art experience by visiting:via Live Positively Bahamas - Journal.

(And they said it couldn't be done.)

BWSI 2010

BWSI 2010!Bahamas Writers' Summer Workshop 2010. First public meeting/discussion @ the Hub is ongoing. First - what? Panel? Reclaiming the Bahamian imaginal. Discussion about where we situate ourselves and how and how writing must be situated in the imagination of a nation.Commodification of the self - of the national and the personal self - the colonization of the imagination. The separation of the self from the earth. So much to say and more.Who? Lynn Sweeting, poet; Patti Glinton-Meicholas, writer; Keisha Ellis, writer; Christi Cartwright, writer, interviewed by Helen Klonaris.Saturday, July 17th, 7pm @ The HubRestorying the Bahamian Imaginal LandscapeKeisha Ellis, Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, Lynn Sweeting, Christi Cartwright (Interviewer: Helen Klonaris)

14 Films Challenge & the Ministry of Tourism

Over on The Bahamas Weekly, a story's running that announces the release of the fourteen films commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism as part of this year's  marketing campaign for The Bahamas.For those of you who don't know, or don't remember, this campaign has come under considerable fire from local filmmakers, photographers and other artists.The films are now all finished, and if they're all like the teaser, they'll be interesting to watch. There's no doubt that the idea is a brilliant one from the point of view of marketing The Bahamas  The question remains, though: was the campaign ill-conceived from the point of view of Bahamians?The discussion so far seems to be generating more heat than light. The Ministry of Tourism certainly seems to have gone on the defensive about it. "We are surprised," said a press statement early in February, "at the criticism that has been directed at this promotion." And that bemusement is further developed:

It would certainly have made headlines in The Bahamas if, instead of devising a search among Britain's young film makers to be selected to come to The Bahamas to shoot, we'd announced that we were selecting 14 of our own people to shoot promotional videos of their country to show in Britain, but it would have had minimal impact in Britain. Aside from the interest British citizens will have in the output of their own young film makers, their output is likely to be perceived as more credible than material produced by Bahamians about their own country.via thebahamasweekly.com - 14 Films Challenge films are ready to watch - Voting ends March 14th.

There's a whole lot more in this vein, all supporting the idea of breaking into the UK market, attracting attention from the British, widening the tourist net, etc, etc. And the arguments are all good ones. I can't take issue with them: the attention of BAFTA, the attraction of British sponsorship, the penetration of the British population by appearances in British cinemas, and so on.But here's my problem.I have no doubt whatsoever that this campaign will get the people here. None at all. The British will come as a result of this campaign. And in the short run, it'll be deemed a success, just like so many marketing campaigns run by the Ministry of Tourism.But will it last?I'm going to argue that the likelihood of it lasting is very slim, and the key to that argument is contained in the Ministry's defensive statement. It's the idea that lies at the heart of the way in which the Bahamian government spends its money: "their output is likely to be perceived as more credible than material produced by Bahamians about their own country."The government of The Bahamas, no matter its colour, stripe or initials, in the end, has absolutely no confidence in the people of The Bahamas to do anything of worth. And because of that, governnment funds, whether collected from the taxpayers or borrowed from some international agency, are almost never invested in projects that will do more than maintain the aging status quo in our economy and our society -- tens of millions on the dredging and redredging of our harbour, more tens of millions on the construction of new roads, more contracts with concessions to multinational resorts to come in and "provide jobs" for the least productive among us, more maintenance of inequalities, more skewing of the local GNP by collecting the uber-wealthy to hike up our collective numbers while not doing a whole lot fresh and new to spark economic activity that is indigenous, reproducible, sustainable, resilient. As a result, we spend waste a whole lot of money on packaging and distribution and invest virtually nothing in the product itself.Because the 14 filmmakers challenge could've done exactly what it's doing now with a different spin. It could've got the same mileage -- or more -- by incorporating Bahamians into the equation. Rather than assuming -- and stating that assumption publicly! -- that Bahamian work is "less credible" than UK work in Britain, the Ministry of Tourism could have spent the same investment on a competition between young Bahamian filmmakers and young UK filmmakers. It could've invested not only in the advertising of The Bahamas -- in the packaging and the distribution of the product -- but in the improvement of the product as well, with the goal not only to raise awareness in Britain of The Bahamas and its existence, but also to generate some respect for the people of The Bahamas at the same time. Because it's respect and love and curiosity that keep people coming back, and the hospitality that comes from being respected -- not more pretty pictures and stereotypes of "native" activity, no matter how well packaged, how cleverly distributed, how brilliantly conceived the idea.

Rex Nettleford Dies

Professor Rex Nettleford Is Dead Prof. Rex. Nettleford CaribWorldNews, WASHINGTON, D.C., Weds. Feb. 3, 2010: Vice Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies, Professor Ralston Milton `Rex` Nettleford, is dead. Nettleford died at 8 o`clock tonight in the George Washington Hospital last night. He was 76.via CaribWorldNews.com - Global Caribbean Daily Newswire.

10 to Watch in 2010, 01/10 | The Independent

Kareem Mortimer listed as one of the "ten filmmakers to watch in 2010" put out by the Independent Newspaper, UK:

DAY TWO of TEN - KAREEM MORTIMERBahamian filmmaker Kareem Mortimer shakes up his homeland's homophobia with Children of God, which debuted last month. Read what his mentor, Steven Beer, had to say about Mortimer's savvy handling of actors and a limited budget, only on Facebook.via 10 to Watch in 2010, 01/10 | The Independent.

Read more. And congrats to Kareem!!

Geoffrey Philp - Two More Ways to Help With Haiti Relief

And you know that I'll be buying into the first of them for sure!!! Via Geoffrey Philp.

I'll be making a contribution to Cafe Cocano because it represents some of the things in which I believe: the ability of Caribbean peoples to overcome any situation and that we are responsible for creating the changes we want to see. Unless we (InI) do it for ourselves, nothing will happen.***Because I also believe in the power of the Word and that with giving, we can also speak/write/do great good, I'm recommending a site--thanks Randy!-- VWA{Poems for Haiti):VWA: Poems For Haiti was created by Caper Literary Journal as a way to inspire people to think about the tragedy in Haiti. We want people — readers and writers alike — to generate hope through a time that is very dark. We have luxuries many do not, and though some of us cannot help in major ways, sharing your work in the name of their pain and strength is something we can do. VWA, the kreyòl word for voice, aims to turn the pain and inspiration into literary works.via Two More Ways to Help With Haiti Relief.

Day of Absence 2010: Third Response – Investment

If the Day of Absence is really about tourist’s pleasure, if this iswhat we really care about, let us at least be honest about it. Isincerely believe that we should deal with our own cultural hungerbefore we worry about how to provide better shows for our visitors.Confusing the two will eventually bring us right back to the sameemptiness, no matter how much money we throw at the problem.

Ward Minnis, "Trying to Make a Dollar out of Fifty Cents", p. 7

Now I'm not really sure where the idea comes from that Day of Absence is about the tourists' pleasure. Perhaps it comes from my own vagueness about the idea, which Ward has very succinctly dissected and served up, but I'm not so sure about it. I'm not so sure because the tourists are rarely in the back of my mind when I think about Bahamian art and culture. I happen to be of the view that we need to create for ourselves, and that visitors will appreciate what we create for ourselves far more than they appreciate what we make for them. For one thing, we know ourselves a little better. Whenever we think we know what the tourist wants, we generally end up holding the wrong end of the stick.

But perhaps it comes from the implication, which is probably clearly present in my original articles and responses, that Bahamian taxes ought to be invested in Bahamian cultural production. In the original exchange a year ago, some of my readers, one or two in particular, protested that implication, crying out that it should the onus should not be upon the government to support culture, that we pay too many taxes already, and we should not expect the government to pay more. My initial response, a year ago, was that I wasn't asking for more money to be collected from Bahamians to be spent on culture; I was asking for a reallocation of the money that is already being collected. But in responding that way, I made it seem as though I agreed with the idea that it isn't part of the government's responsibility to support indigenous cultural development. I may have been ambivalent then; I was certainly not interested in waiting for our government to move. However, a year has passed, and that ambivalence has passed.

Of course our governments should support our culture. Cultural expression is as fundamental to human existence as anything else that our government does support. I might even argue that it is more so; the collective creative production of any group of people is what lays the bedrock, in concrete terms, for the identity of that group. As an anthropologist who teaches sociology, I teach students that humans are social animals, that humans have culture, and that the process of cultural production is as fundamental to a society as the process of reproduction is to the continuation of the race. That we seem to think that culture (of which "the arts", I would argue, is a sub-set) is an optional investment demonstrates to my mind how deracinated we are as a collective, how unserious we are about our unity as a people, and how little we seek true nation-building.

For it is a lie that big (should I say real?) countries (the USA is generally pulled out of the hat at this point) don't invest in their cultures. I cannot think of a single important civilization that does not have what we would categorize as vast investment in cultural production.

Let's just take the USA as an example, since it is often hailed (can't always fathom why) as being the proper model for economic and social development.

I often hear the argument that because the USA doesn't have government investment in culture, we ought not to have it either. There's no need really to strip away the absurdity in this statement -- no need to do the standard parental "if your friends jumped off the bridge would you jump too" schtick. What I'd prefer to do is to poke holes in the assertion itself; for anyone who truly looks at the USA with unprejudiced eyes will realize that the statement is profoundly untrue.

The point about the USA that we often overlook is that it is a country that positively brims over with government. There is the federal government, to begin with, which is located in Washington and headed up by the President and the Senate and Congress, and which is governed by the philosophies laid out in the American Constitution. And it's true to say that at this level, there's relatively little apparent investment in culture. (We can get away with believing that if we never go to Washington D. C., but that's another story -- what Americans have invested in their monuments, their libraries, their museums, their galleries, their theatres, and their symbols of power would power the Bahamas for many budget years.) We can get away with saying it because the USA doesn't have any minister or ministry of culture -- no federal agency that sets cultural policy, pays bureaucrats to do cultural things, or make collective cultural decisions -- other than the National Endowment for the Arts, that is.

But if we stop there we miss the point.

What people who have convinced themselves that the USA does not invest taxpayers' money in culture fail to mention is that the smaller and more localized American government structures become, the more investment in culture there is. It is most apparent at the municipal level, where every city has a library, a theatre, a gallery, and cultural companies of every kind, and where businesses, taxpayers and bureaucrats alike invest millions into cultural activity. Where high schools can boast better theatres than exist anywhere in The Bahamas -- anywhere, not excepting our local plantations (hotel resorts), and where individual artists make their living off of cultural grants of every description. But counties make their own investments, and no state exists that doesn't have its own local state-sponsored cultural cluster. Nowhere else in the world, except here (and perhaps in our sister slave-fragment societies), is culture expected to flourish in a vacuum, nor does it. On the contrary; in many places, the strength of a locale's culture is often used to measure the strength of the place itself.

In The Bahamas, though, we do not protest investment in tourism, which usually means investment in inviting other people from other countries to come and set up things -- hotels, shows, cruises, film series, what have you -- here. We do not think twice about the need for new roads or new stadiums or new schools, though new hospitals and prisons seem to be as remote from our possible reality as the first state theatre, concert hall, or school for the performing arts. We are a people who invest in our front room, where the strangers sit, while we languish in poverty in the rest of the house, and we are a people who choose to defend this habit.

I do not believe that it is optional that our governments invest in the creative output of their people. I do not believe that we are whole as a nation when we still, after all these years, have no national library, no national theatre, no national school for the arts, no national concert hall, no national performance arena. I do not believe we are truly independent without such things, for we have not provide ourselves with the space or the ability to create, to celebrate, our own indigenous, vibrant and ever-changing realities. I do not believe that roads are more important. I no longer believe that schools are -- for what can schools teach our children without Bahamian cultural production? I no longer believe that hotels or harbours or airports are worth the continued starvation of the Bahamian spirit; I'm not sure if I ever did. The Day of Absence, and the call for some thought to be given to an investment in Bahamian art and culture, is not about tourism at all. It is about finding, and reminding us of, ourselves.

Day of Absence 2010: Second Response - Quality

... are all Bahamian artists worthy of respect?

The simple answer is no. Why should anyone respect bad poetry, bad writing, bad painting or poorly organized festivals? ... Allow me to suggest that there are perhaps two reasons why Bahamians, on the whole, have not received much in the way of international (or local) acclaim for their art. The first is that average Bahamians, and the rest of the world, don’t understand us. The other, and more interesting, reason is that we are not that good.

Ward Minnis, "Trying to Make a Dollar out of Fifty Cents", p. 2

Lest it be thought that by calling for a Day of Absence in honour of artists and cultural workers I'm seeking in any way to recognize those who produce poor work, let me say right now I'm not.* We Bahamians have cultivated the habit of supporting certain cultural endeavours simply because they are produced by Bahamians, regardless of quality. We have suppressed our critical faculties in these arenas, clinging to the idea that (somehow) because we are all Bahamians, we should not point out failures or weaknesses. The result is that a whole lot of sub-standard stuff gets lauded and magnified in our country because we have one standard for Bahamians and another standard for everybody else. The further result of that is that we come to expect sub-standard work from Bahamians, so much so that (whether we admit it or not) the very adjective Bahamian stands for mediocrity. The default assumption about, the knee-jerk reaction to, all Bahamian cultural endeavour is Ward's reaction -- we are not that good.

I want to turn this around. Yes, it's true that we Bahamians produce a lot of crap and pass it off as "art". But it's equally true that we Bahamians produce quite a bit of stuff that is world-class as well. Rather than starting from the common default, that we aren't that good, I want to make it a question. Or rather, two.

The first question is: how good are we?

In asking it, I'm not accepting the default -- that "we" are not that good. Many of us are not. But this is no different from any other country on this earth. Most creative endeavour the world over is crap. Much of what we consume from other countries, if we were to strip away the packaging and the marketing and the little stickers that we use in our brains to signify not-Bahamian, is crap too. Most of the movies we watch are crap; most of the music to which we listen is crap; most of the TV shows we watch are crap; and most of the clothing we buy is crap. Crap is not unusual. Nor is it limited to The Bahamas.

What would appear to be more home-grown, though, is the conflation of this universal truth with being Bahamian, and the conclusion that because most of what is produced creatively in The Bahamas is crap, "we" are not that good.* Like Ward, most of us choose the worst of our cultural product to make our argument, and to justify our non-support of Bahamian artists.

We also use the mediocrity of the majority to cultivate laziness on our own part. Very few of us invest the effort in trying to define what makes Bahamian art good, and prefer rather to allow the Wide World to decide that for us. It's an interesting strategy, because it assumes that quality will always rise to the top, no matter what. Because Bahamian art has little international recognition, we argue, it's clearly not that good. Because foreigners don't know where we are and what we have to offer, we are quite naturally second-rate.

That's one way to look at it. But if we choose that method, then we really ought to be consistent. Not to be too outlandish, but we ought also to assume that because the world doesn't know about Junkanoo, Junkanoo must be a second-rate carnival, as global fame is the most important criterion that there is to judge quality. We ought to assume that before Tonique was a star, she wasn't that good -- for it's fame, not her ability, that denotes quality. Or, to push it even further, we ought to assume that if nobody in the world acknowledged the physical beauty of our nation, that beauty would be non-existent. It's global fame, after all, that matters, not our own ability as individuals to judge what is excellent for ourselves.

So I'm turning the challenge around, because I don't think that it's in anyone's best interest to accept the word of pundits like Ward and me or to judge Bahamian achievement on the accident of fame. Before we get too wrapped up in the condemnation of the worst of Bahamian culture and creative ability, perhaps we should discuss, or consider, the best.

How good, for example, are Cleophas Adderley, JoAnn Deveaux-Callender, her husband Lee, Audrey Dean-Wright? How good is Alia Coley, or Naomi Taylor or Ralph Munnings? How good is Ronnie Butler? Max Taylor? Robert Bain? Philip Burrows? Paul and Tanya Hanna? Ian Strachan? Fred Ferguson? Isaiah Taylor? The Burnside Brothers? Gus Cooper? Vola Francis? Ward Minnis? Nicolette Bethel?

Suppose I say that Cleophas Adderley (to name just one of the above) is one of the most outstanding musicians of the Caribbean region, if not the world, and should be recognized as such by all -- and suppose I supported my contention with concrete examples taken from his work and the work of others. How would you answer me? What criteria would you use in making your argument? At the very least, you should be familiar with the broad canon of his work; you should be aware of the work of his peers on the global scale; you should have some musical exposure to be able to judge his reach, his aim, and his achievement of that aim; and you should be able to articulate that answer using evidence of a sort. If you aren't, there's little chance that I'm going to accept any contradiction in the matter. Most of us, though, aren't in a position to judge Mr. Adderley fairly because most of us have not got the exposure to do so, or have not cultivated the habit of credibility when it comes to judging Bahamian art. What we have got is a preconception, and it is this that we use to make easy pronouncements -- that we're just not that good.

Part of the purpose of the Day of Absence is to raise these very questions and to put the consumer, not so much the artist, on the spot. By seeking respect for Bahamian artists and cultural workers, I'm really seeking respect for the arts as a whole. Very few people would make the kinds of pronouncements about athletes that they do about artists, in part because we understand and respect sport. Art and culture are a different matter. We do not put the effort into judging either because we do not think they can be judged; at the same time, though, we undermine this idea by accepting others' judgement in the matter. By choosing not to develop our own critical eye, we disrespect in the most fundamental fashion art, culture, and the people who produce it.

The second question is: how do we get better?

So I start from the perspective that not all Bahamian art is "not-good-enough". That doesn't mean that we are as good as we could be -- not at all. So how do we ensure that the quality of our achievement (which, collectively, is low) measures up to our promise (which, collectively, is high)?

When a child is born, he or she has the potential to develop in many different directions. It's the responsibility of the adults around that child -- the parents, the teachers, yes, even the state -- to provide that child with the tools required to develop that potential. And so the child is schooled and tested, is given instruction and taught skills. If the adults do their jobs well, that child will be equipped to succeed, or at least to make a go at success.

We do not do the same with Bahamian creativity. Ours is a nation that abounds in talent of various kinds. I happen to believe that this is not incidental to our geographical and historical realities; we have, after all, carved a living out of rocks in the sea that for most of our history were judged unprofitable and barren, useful only as a strategic holding in the British empire, and left largely to themselves. To survive we had to be creative, with the result that creativity is all around us. Perhaps because of this abundance, though, we tend to take talent for granted, and to assume that it will take care of itself.

The truth is, it won't. Study after study demonstrates that no matter where you are in the world, the creativity that abounds in childhood wanes as people age. Abilities must be cultivated through exposure and training, through example, criticism, testing, and practice. Voices change; vision fades; bodies grow weaker and stiffer, words become harder and harder to string together. As time passes, abilities die.

And yet every one of the above requirements to make creativity flourish is in short supply in The Bahamas. Young creative Bahamians find themselves in a vacuum more often than not. People who want to act are not exposed on any large scale to Bahamians who are acting in world-class facilities or with world-class standards. There are no acting schools, and no acting programmes in the public schools either. Young Bahamians who are musically inclined have to feel their own way, modelling themselves on recording artists whose voices or talents may be very different from their own, rather than on Bahamians whose face-to-face contact can give them direction that would be more appropriate to their inclinations. Dancers copy what they see on TV without realizing that dance is a long process of cultivating the body to obey what the mind tells it to, and perform at considerable risk.

We have consigned the achievement of quality very much to chance. Very often, this is because too many of the people who say they seek quality are the most reluctant to assist in its creation. It's not their job, they say, to help artists with anything at all. Nor is it the job of the state. Taking refuge behind the cloak of "not good enough", they play the game of Catch-22 -- get good and I might supportcha, but ine ga help you get good. The same people who wouldn't dream of expecting a budding sailor to prepare for world-class competition without a boat, or to ask a triple-jumper to compete in the Olympics without training, think nothing of telling Bahamian creative artists to do the equivalent in their fields.

This is what the Day of Absence concept is all about. It isn't about withdrawing the arts from society; it's about imagining a society without the arts. It's about taking our collective inclination to its logical and absurd conclusion. Ward and others' opinions notwithstanding, Bahamian society is not art-less. But we are blind to the arts that do exist; we are oblivious to their quality, assuming a universal lack thereof; and we accept without question the error that great art grows out of nothing, demanding to reap where we have not sown. The Day of Absence does not have to be about activism to succeed. It succeeds if it inspires a new way of seeing. It's about changing the mindset of us all.

For I'm not merely talking about artists here. I'm talking about art itself. In calling for a Day of Absence in honour of cultural workers and artists I'm not suggesting that we honour them for what they produce. Rather, I'm asking for us to honour their choice of the arts, and that we honour the creative process itself. To do so requires that we cultivate the ability to recognize quality in the arts, and to insist upon it from our artists -- to demand the best of our Bahamian artists, to set standards by which we abide, and to take the time to develop those standards for ourselves.

The real default is not lack of achievement; it is a refusal to recognize achievement that exists, and it's the tendency to give respect according to personal allegiance instead of quality. I'll close with one small example. The discussion regarding Day of Absence has spread to Bahamas B2B, where Ward's critique is recognized and a further critique developed.

The critique is by and large a solid one, and it carries the argument even further, calling for young artists to respect their forefathers and to reach for excellence by recognizing artists who have gone before. Throughout it all, the writer reiterates Ward's comment that quality or achievement should determine a public response to Bahamian artists. This is a position with which there should be no argument; respect and/or adulation should be earned. It also takes issue with the Day of Absence concept, questioning the idea that Bahamian artists should be automatically respected, and that they should be judged on their achievements. "Some Bahamian artists," s/he writes,

think that because they are Bahamian, their art should be respected and command high prices. This, despite the fact that their work is often uninspiring, lacks originality and shows poor craftsmanship..

Is the respect they seek based on commercial success, or artistic acclaim?

Making art to make money isn't the same as making art to make art. Art that comes from within isn't always commercially successful. People may not want to display your inner demons on their living room wall. Meanwhile, producing commercially successful art might make an artist rich but not necessarily earn them respect from the art community.

...

If certain young Bahamian artists are bitter thinking they deserve more respect, they might be wise to show established Bahamian artists more respect, instead of dismissing them as "old school", while demanding their place above them.

Absolutely. The call for respect for Bahamian artists is a blanket one. It cannot expect respect from others if respect is not also accorded to those who have gone before. At the same time, though, and in a strangely subtle way, the writer reinforces my own position -- that Bahamians do not always to give respect to one another in cultural and related fields (in this case, intellectual) when it is due. For while making much of Ward's Master's Degree from Ottawa's Carleton University, s/he consistently refers to me as "Ms Bethel". That I happened to earn a doctorate from the University of Cambridge seems incidental to the discussion. Not that I make a big deal out of the title as a rule; but as the article devotes an entire paragraph to Ward's qualifications, a little consistency might be expected.

Let's return to Ward's comment.

Seeking respect before it is due and other such nonsense is putting the cart too far in front of the horse.

I might agree with him in specific terms -- no one should respect "bad poetry, bad writing, bad painting or poorly organized festivals", not even (or especially) when they are produced by Bahamians. Seeking respect before it is due is not what Day of Absence is all about. However, as the writer of the column of Bahamas B2B has demonstrated very succinctly, neither quality nor achievement appear to determine the according of respect even after it's due. Allegiance -- which Junkanoo group we support, which political party we favour, whose family we were born into, whether we like sports or culture, whose opinion diverges from ours the least -- seems far more important in the end.

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*some edits made Jan 4, 2010

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Day of Absence 2010: First Response - Clarity

The critique(s) offered by Ward Minnis about the Day of Absence concept on his blog, Mental Slavery, and on Bahama Pundit, are both comprehensive and impressive. And he's right, in several places. Particularly when he writes

Her Day of Absence clouds over and conflates many different and unrelated ideas while advancing an awkward historical agenda and a cumbersome theory of cultural development. It is political and apolitical, about something and about nothing, clear and blurry, all at the same time.

he's got a point.So I figure that if I'm going to begin to answer him, I'd better make my assumptions clear. I'm not so convinced that the ideas that Day of Absence floats are either "different and unrelated" or entirely deserving of the adjectives "awkward" and "cumbersome", but that could just be me. What I will admit is that the way in which the concept was presented mashes together all sorts of concepts in what could be read as an unholy mess; and so the first part of the response will attempt to address this issue and to clear a couple of ideas up.So let's start with premises. Here are my assumptions.

1. Culture is separate from neither history nor politics. It is not a discrete, bounded entity that we can neatly stow in anything at all. An anthropological definition (there are many) might suggest that culture is what occurs when specific groups of people respond to the environment in which they find themselves, and that that environment is geographical and historical. Culture helps shape and respond to identity. It occurs both subconsciously and consciously, and it is elastic and malleable. Central to culture is change, and that change happens whether we try to make it happen or not. When a group of people ignores its culture (in the anthropological sense) culture change will occur without direction and without purpose. I believe that The Bahamas, by ignoring artists (whose main function in society, if we want to be really crass, is to make manifest the subconscious elements of collective cultures), has consigned itself to having its culture change on it without realizing, comprehending, or affecting that change.
2. Bahamian culture is not a discrete or bounded entity. It never was; the idea of bounded cultures is a myth of convenience that served numerous political agendas in the past. But in the twenty-first century, its boundaries have dissolved almost altogether. Every culture's have. All cultures are melting into one global culture, one real-time, international, digital cloud. It is not possible to separate our daily consumption of culture (in most cases, other people's) from our infrequent production of it. Ward is completely correct when he says

The reality is that most, if not all, of the images and products that filter our way from the great foreign cultural creators, such as the United States, have been produced by professionals who have already been compensated.

That has always been my point. However, that reality does not stop us from continuing to compensate those professionals by paying for their creations. Ward misses the point when he assumes that I am drawing some artificial line between Bahamian (which he takes the trouble to underline) artists and other professional artists. I can't. I could only do so if we all stopped consuming international cultural products. Consumption and production are two sides of the same coin, and no amount protectionism, favouritism, or nationalism will affect them. It's Ward's decision to talk about Bahamian artists, not mine. But more on that later.

3. I don't call from an abstention from all art not because I believe Bahamian artists are absent (absence is not the same thing as invisibility, which is what led me to Douglas Turner Ward's play in the first place), but because I believe that it is important for us all to reflect on the centrality of culture and cultural production to our lives -- and then to ask where we are in the equation. Culture is a global entity. Our consumption of it crosses borders without thought most of the time. But where we are lacking is in presence not merely in the local environment, but (perhaps more importantly) in the global one. Who are we? The answer is far far more than the name of our favourite Junkanoo group; but do we know?

These are the premises from which the idea of Day of Absence was born. They don't have to be agreeable to everybody; but I articulate them so that they can be understood. If they are still "cumbersome" and "awkward", so be it; they are where I stand.

Day of Absence 2010: Introduction

Well, it's that time again.

What time? you may ask. Because it's not like this is a regular occurrence, a public holiday so to speak, or anything grand or exciting. But the new year is a-coming in, and February is nearing, and it's time for me to observe the Day of Absence once again.

Now for those of you who weren't around, who didn't get the memo, or who really weren't aware, the Day of Absence I'm talking about is a day set aside for us to remember and recognize the work of artists and cultural workers everywhere. Of course, I'm a Bahamian, and I live in The Bahamas, so it's a day to remember and recognize Bahamian artists and cultural workers, who go largely unsung, unnoticed and unremembered, and who are generally assumed not to exist in this nation. But it's not exclusively for Bahamians. It's for anyone who has ever taken art, the artistic and creative impulse, for granted.

The date is February 11. It's my date, and I chose it. Last year this time, when I announced the concept, I did so in a political fashion, and, borrowing the idea from Douglas Turner Ward's play of the same name, asked people to imagine a world without art, without artists.

And damn, the idea worked. It caught on far more broadly than expected. It seemed to spark something in people's imaginations, and especially in Bahamians' imaginations. It was accompanied by some buy-in from radio stations (one or two had a minute of silence at a specific point of the day in honour of the idea, and many had artists on to talk about their (our) place in the world). It seemed to begin conversations, some of which are continuing to this day, and transforming themselves into action. And it inspired a protest, a physical demonstration, that took place on COB's campus.

And it is still working, apparently, because it's generating some pretty solid critique. Over on Mental Slavery and on Bahama Pundit, Ward Minnis has taken apart the idea pretty thoroughly. In a nutshell the core of the critique is that (a) the concept is ill-founded and muddled, and the theory on which it rests is unsound; (b) Bahamian artists don't need more absence, they need presence; (c) it isn't the government's job to give artists their place in society--artists have to earn that place for themselves; (d) developing culture for the tourists is a bad goal to have; and (e) the choice of the date is unjustified and just plain wrong, gives undeserved honour and recognition to my father, and is an exercise in nepotism more than anything else.

Well. Dem's fightin' words, specially the last set. But I'm not going to engage them just now. Instead, I'm going to use the period between now and January 12th to respond to these areas in some measure (though not necessarily at length, because, well, the critique itself is evidence that Day of Absence 2009 did something of its job).

And in the meantime, consider yourselves invited. Ward and I are going to be sitting down in a public forum on January 12th at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas to discuss these ideas.

Though I'm not really sure what all I'm going to have to say, other than thanks to Ward for starting this year's discussion and spreading the idea of the Day of Absence further than it went last year.

Cheers. If you buy Ward's argument, no need to read any further. But if, like me, you don't, or if you're keeping an open mind, check back here over the next fortnight or so to read my responses to his three main points.

And consider the work and contribution of artists to the world. If you're Bahamian, go on and bring it home. Make a point of researching what Bahamian artists have done (there is a record, believe it or not, a thin trail that can be followed, if you're willing to put in the effort). Don't add deposits to our national bank of ignorance by making sweeping generalizations about who we are(n't) and what we're (not) doing. On February 11 (if you aren't offended by the fact that it's E. Clement Bethel's birthday) or on some other day (if you are) make it a point to learn something you didn't know about art, artists and culture in general, or about The Bahamas in particular.

As for me and my house, we'll be observing the Day on the 11th. 42 days and counting.

Preserving tradition in Jamaica - Jonkonnu and Christmastime

We love to believe in the uniqueness of our traditions. Well, let me correct myself. We love to believe in the uniqueness of Junkanoo. The heartbeat of a people, we've called it. Festival of The Bahamas. The cultural pinnacle of our selves, our lives, our work (I trust my priests will forgive me for this). If I were to collect up the tweets and FB status updates* I found on Junkanoo this year, I could make a book of them. And that book would be smug. And purring.We tend to forget -- or, more probably, we don't know -- that Junkanoo in the Bahamas is not unique. It is expressed uniquely, to be sure, though what the modern parade has become is a fascinating mash-up of African-American and Trinidadian elements, many of them eclipsing the traditional core (though it survives in pockets here and there). We tend to ignore the fact that our Christmas carnival (yes, I use that word advisedly) is one of several such John Canoe festivals in the so-called New World. And perhaps most of us don't know that the most studied and written-about John Canoe festival may still be Jamaica's Jonkonnu, and not ours (though that is rapidly changing).So in the interest of broadening horizons, then, a taste of what happens in Jamaica at Christmas:

Screams pierced the air like sharp knives, high above the sounds of fifes and drums and even a grater that created music for dancers in colourful costumes. Children, teenagers and even adults were sent running; they were afraid.One little boy could not manage the excitement. Scared of the men in the masks, he escaped the grasp of a guardian and ran into the arms of another, in an attempt to get away from the taunts of a dancer. There was no gruesome end to the story though, as the Kayaea Jonkonnu Group performed on the streets of downtown Kingston recently.

The group had just finished a stage performance when they took to the streets, giving many an experience they had never had before - though the tradition is more than a few decades old. Some pretended, as part of the excitement, but many in the crowd watching the festivities were genuinely afraid of the antics of the dancers who charged at them aggressively, while all the time demonstrating a variety of dance movements.

Behind the masks and the costumes, there is much happening.

via Jamaica Gleaner News - Preserving tradition - Jonkonnu dancers find it hard to remain viable

So here's my question. When does change become too much change? When do we adapt so much that we no longer recognize ourselves? I'm not sure myself; I'm tossing this idea out to provoke thought. Or not. As you wish.

---

*Not at all sure that these links will remain active OR visible by people who don't tweet or do facebook ...

On Stilton Cheese & Culture Change (a little anthropology for Christmas)

I want you to check this out.

The history of Stilton can be traced back to the early 18th century and although it is clear that the recipe used has changed quite dramatically over the years it remains one of the world's best known and much loved cheeses.Quintessentially English, Stilton has its own Certification Trade Mark and is an EU Protected Food Name.This means that:- it can only be produced in the three Counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire- it must be made from locally produced milk that has been pasteurised before use- it can only be made in a cylindrical shape- it must be allowed to form its own coat or crust- it must never be pressed and- it must have the magical blue veins radiating from the centre of the cheese

Stilton Cheese - Welcome to the home of Stilton Cheese - Britain's historic blue cheese and Britain's favourite blue cheese

Now you don't have to be a fan of Stilton cheese to get where I'm going with this. Stilton cheese is one of the things that the British use to mark their Britishness, and the way it's made is very carefully monitored. What this means is that

a) someone had to study how Stilton was made and decide what was unique about the process;

b) someone had to regulate that uniqueness;

c) someone had to enforce that regulation.

There are three steps to the process: research and analysis, standardization, and enforcement.

Now I'm going to argue here (as I've done before) that culture does not just happen. Well, it does, but when people who (like the British) are really mongrels, hybrid groups of people living in geographical spaces where the original cultures and inhabitants have been effectively destroyed and/or replaced, it needs a little help to keep reproducing itself. Culture changes, and can change really rapidly, in the blink of an eye -- like what is happening I write to the indigenous Junkanoo beat (which is being swallowed up by a hip-hop rhythm that is being played by too many drummers who have no real grounding or training in authentic Bahamian rhythms, owing in large part to the fact that we mistakenly believe that our culture is genetically encoded and will always reproduce itself). Europeans, who have been self-conscious for centuries, know this better than most people (the Chinese know it best), and so don't worry about the sort of nonsense that suggests that culture will take care of itself; they know quite well that it won't -- that Anglo-Saxon culture will be swallowed up by Norman culture and disappear before you now it, or that languages will die if they're not carefully watched and preserved.

So for all of those of you who believe, as too damn many of our government officials and politicians believe, that culture is a luxury that we don't need, that it is something that big people grow out of and that is really only good for keeping children from getting restless (of course we believe this, otherwise we wouldn't keep linking our cultural administration with Youth, Sports or Education), thanks very much. Because of you, because of your stubborn refusal to recognize what is important about us and define who we are, you can be sure that what plenty of what we believe to be "Bahamian" is very soon going to disappear, going to change beyond all recognition.

And no, not all change is evolution; and not all change is good. Sometimes change is colonization, assimilation, ethnocide.

Think about it when you're watching your Junkanoo this year and ask yourself whether there is anything in it that someone from 50 years ago will even recognize about our parades. Then go back and check out the definition of Stilton.

Cheers.

Black British Theatre - Britain gets a Black Theatre Archive

Sixty years of forgotten treasures

Britain is to get a Black Theatre Archive. Playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah relives his role in its creationIn Britain, my work is almost exclusively compared to that of Roy Williams. This has always enraged me. Roy is a fine, prolific writer; but even if we were to be compared on the most obvious grounds – race – we still write out of two very different black traditions. I am terribly influenced by the African-American canon and stand on the shoulders of playwrights such as Edgar White, whereas Roy's work has echoes of Caryl Phillips. And Roy, I would argue, takes inspiration from sources closer to home. What amazed me was that US critics seemed to get that. Although they weren't always complimentary, to me that was secondary: what was important was that here was intelligent, detailed analysis and context.

Sixty years of forgotten treasures | Kwame Kwei-Armah | Stage | The Guardian

Unforgettable moments from the CHOGM opening

In keeping with the survey of Caribbean blogs that tell us that here in The Bahamas we are not alone, here's a taste of what the CHOGM attendees (including our own Prime Minister, who appears to believe that the building on Shirley Street we call the National Centre for the Performing Arts is good enough for the Bahamian people) had to experience in Trinidad and Tobago. The photograph is from the inside of their spanking-new National Academy for the Performing Arts (which takes one's breath away). The commentary is less flattering, though. Go have a read.

To say it got mixed reviews is an understatement. Some people loved it. Others hated it. I wish I had seen all of it. But of what I saw, the following moments from the opening cultural show for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting stood out most ...

* P L E A S U R E *: Those unforgettable moments from the CHOGM opening

Killing with kindness

We on the arts community in The Bahamas often like to believe that things are different for artists in other Caribbean nations. This blog post from PLEASURE blog suggests that it's not so:

Tomorrow, the spanking new $518 million National Academy for the Performing Arts around the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain, will officially open. But a few blocks away, at the corner of Roberts and White Street, Woodbrook, the historic Little Carib Theatre will remain boarded-up and shut. The restoration of that historic theatre, which was founded by local dance legend Beryl McBurnie in 1947 and which has played a key role in the development of the arts in this country, has stalled for about two years.The problem? Reportedly a lack of funding, with an additional $2 million needed to complete the restoration not forthcoming from the State. The same State that can pump $2 million into a flag around the crumbling Hasley Crawford Stadium and which can build arts academies apparently at the snap of its fingers.

* P L E A S U R E *: A place for the arts

It sounds all too familiar -- white elephants being created by decision makers more interested in showing off, attracting foreign investment, or negotiating cool perks than in building a nation for real. Of course in Trinidad, where oil money confers delusions of splendour, the showing off is of the glitziest kind.

The context: the T&T government has built, with Chinese money, something it is calling its National Academy for the Performing Arts, which is fancy, and which can ensure that the T&T government can have something that can be plastered on glossy magazine pages as evidence that the Caribbean is not home to transplanted savages and native beachbabes clad in Lion of Judah hula skirts and floral arrangements. At the same time, though, as is common with us all in Caribbean societies, the things that have made central contributions to the development of the arts are left to languish, perhaps because they're not glitzy enough, or because they mean nothing to the philistines who far too ordinarily get themselves elected to positions of power, or because they represent too much competence, outspokenness or creativity for the individuals who have been given charge of the government departments responsible for implementing government's policies. In Trinidad, the Little Carib Theatre and the Trinidad Theatre Workshop share fates that are not very different from the Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts here in The Bahamas, which is being eaten from top to bottom by a very happy army of termites, or from any of the so-called "National" performing arts entities, not one of which has an adequate home:

Examine, for instance, the traumas of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop (TTW), once housed at the Old Fire Station Building on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain. The TTW, whose founder was Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, was housed at that historic building for ten years from 1989 to 1994, when Walcott won the Nobel, and then to 1999.

Yet, after a swanky restoration, and the construction of a National Library around it, the TTW was quickly booted out of the building and left to find accommodation in a small gingerbread house on Jernigham Avenue in Belmont. To date, despite its name, the TTW has no real theatre of its own, with a small space at the house in Belmont acting as a performance area. The Old Fire Station is used for such things as press conferences by the Ministry of Information as well as hosting administrative offices.

* P L E A S U R E *: A place for the arts

There are times, indeed, when I'm thankful for the studied and deliberate contempt paid to Bahamian artists and arts in this country, thankful for the fact that the turn-of-the-century $3 million gift the Chinese government earmarked for our own Centre for the Performing Arts was not spent the way the Chinese wanted it to be spent (i.e. on renovating the NCPA on Shirley Street so that it could actually house performing arts, rather than function as it has been doing for the past 9 years now, as a glorified church hall). PLEASURE blog shows what might have happened:

The new academy was designed without any real consultation with the local artist community whatsoever, according to artists. The design was done by a Chinese firm, built by a Chinese contractor in accordance with Chinese building codes and specifications.

The building was supposedly inspired by the national flower, the Chaconia. But that is a loose association; the structure looks more like an imitation of the Sydney Opera House. Or a kind of sophisticated alien space-craft. How it fits into its environment also seems to have been an oversight by the designers, as the building looks away from the green of the Savannah and its environs, instead of paying tribute to them. This week, as preparations for tomorrow's opening continued with curious members of the public strolling around the academy, Chinese workers who will never be afforded the luxury of attending the swanky performances inside worked overtime to the sound of Chinese techno music playing from speakers housed in large wrought-iron boxes around the building's perimeter.

Questions have been raised about the adequacy of the steel used to build the structure, as well as the suitability of the design for performance. One Government minister has even pubically admitted, at the hearings of the Uff Commission of Inquiry, that some aspects of the building may be unsuitable to "performance" and more suitable to "training". And the myriad of concerns over top-level  corruption looming over Udecott, the State company that handled the project, go without saying.

* P L E A S U R E *: A place for the arts

Despite all of this, in the face of it, the arts in Trinidad and Tobago are flourishing, thanks to individual action in the vacuum.

It is a crowning irony that throughout all of this, some have managed to find fertile places for art in the most unexpected of places. For instance, the million-dollar, shimmery structure that will open tomorrow may be an audacious sight, but it may never compare to what is happening at smaller spaces like Alice Yard, which is a few blocks away from the neglected Little Carib Theatre on Roberts Street.At Alice Yard, a simple backyard has, over the last three years, done more for contemporary arts and discourse in this country than any $518 million mega-project can hope to do. Could it be that the State's neglect has actually engineered the conditions for true artistic creativity?

* P L E A S U R E *: A place for the arts

The answer, apparently, lies in taking matters into one's own hands, in not waiting for the "government" to deliver what one needs. (Hail Rik and Idebu!) So here's to us, artists. Artists of the Caribbean, unite!

Differing Further

I only began to touch on the reasons for my not agreeing entirely with Ward on his assessment of the theatre industry here in The Bahamas. To recap: his take on things proposed that the surest way for any writer to make a living at writing creatively in our country is to do it for theatre. He offers these arguments in his defence:

• Up front costs for the producer-writer are less than production costs of a feature film.
• Audiences for popular shows are immediate and probably larger at one time than audiences for films.
• Selling out shows - playing to packed houses - will give you the kindof return on investment that is needed to maintain viability.

and

• Formulaic writing will ensure the returns for the playwright's investment.

(Ward, correct me if I'm offbase here -- this post has been some time in coming and I may have forgotten details, but it seems to me that these are the basic premises you put forward.)My problem in jumping on his bandwagon regarding the rewards adhering to writing for the stage in The Bahamas involve most particularly the fact that theatre (in all its forms -- dance, opera, and drama) cannot take place on its own. Of all the arts, it is the most collaborative. Oh, sure, you can say that film is collaborative too, but it is quite possible for an individual to make films; BIFF is full of them, documentaries that rely on a single camera, a single person, and a catchy subject. The fact that film is a medium that records and plays back (and is therefore infintely portable, theoretically, and therefore able to generate revenue from many markets, not just one) is one of the most liberating aspects about it; and if one wants to make a living as a documentary filmmaker, in The Bahamas or anywhere, I would argue one can do so. In fact, the more exotic the topic the better in most documentaries, so perhaps The Bahamas provides the perfect palette for the filmmaker. We're as exotic as they come, our aspirations notwithstanding.But theatre? Can that exist without collaboration? I'd say not. At the very very least, the artist needs an audience. Usually the artist also needs a whole heap of other supporters as well: technicians to handle light and sound, people to assist backstage, people to sell and market the show, and so on. It is indeed possible for a multi-talented individual playwright to do all of that himself. But easy? No. And not even preferable. The energy required to perform to the audience's satisfaction is far better concentrated on performance, not on hustling and promotion and production. Michael Pintard's success has, ironically, led to his retirement from the stage; he works behind the scenes, while he hires people to deliver his words. Terez Davis, on the other hand, has a business partner who helps her to manage the publicity and dull stuff to allow her to slip into the character of Daisy and remain in front of the audience.So the centrality of collaboration that lies at the heart of theatre, which gives theatre its peculiar power, is also what makes it oddly less able to sustain a long-term living for its practitioners. The revenue might be enviable, and come in all at once. But nobody seems to consider the overheads that are incurred -- or that they have to be spent before the revenue comes in, on faith as it were. One might say that this is not so different from film, and one would be right. But the immediacy of theatre also lends it an urgency that film does not share. Film records and retains, and its preparation can be done in stages over long periods of time. But theatre? The alchemy that drives performance -- especially performance of the part-time community variety -- has an expiry date. When people do not have the luxury of full-time engagement with the stage, their energy comes from a number of sources -- the freshness of the material, the chemistry of the cast, the response of the audience. It's possible, when people are fitting their performances around their everyday lives, for a show to peak and to taper off. Where there is no extensive community of ongoing classes, courses and workshops and no time to engage in them if they do exist, part-time performers find it more difficult to keep things new and exciting, and shows can go stale over time. And so in the kind of theatre that exists in The Bahamas, productions have an optimal rate of investment and return. And as live performance is variable, and unpredictable, that rate will vary over time.In order to make money off your writing, Ward argues, you need to find a formula and stick to it. In order for your writing to be viable, to sustain you, the formula will suffice. This formula will find a ready audience, will allow for a stability of expenditure and revenue that, once it's been fine-tuned and located in fairly predictable spaces (like James Catalyn and Friends' relation to the Dundas), will work. And he's right, as far as it goes. My objection comes from the idea of sustainability. The problem with formulae is that they are boring, especially in live theatre. They can work fine day in day out on apparently "free" media like television, because there's no effort involved in consuming them; they can also work fine in film, because most blockbuster films have the money and clout behind them to create a demand among audiences who might not otherwise be interested in them. But in live theatre? Not so much. I would argue that the formulae that he extols would begin to pale, to taper off, if they had to run day after day after day, if they were mounted on a monthly basis, if they were produced in the kind of time frame that would allow for real sustainability. Even Pintard's shows have expiry dates. Even Summer Madness has a season -- the end (and in good years the beginning) of Summer.No. If we're looking for formulae, I would argue that the true measure of sustainability in contemporary Bahamian theatre lies elsewhere: in Thoughtkatcher's Da Spot, which sustains audiences for weekly performances over two or three months (again, a season), perhaps precisely because it's improv, because of its unpredictability. There is a formula, true, but it's not the writer's formula. It's the performer's, and audiences go back because they never know what will happen next.Or perhaps the other formula that was truly viable and which could be maintained over time was the formula practised by the Dundas Repertory Season between 1981 and 1999, and which allowed for the production not only of formulaic comedy shows but for plays, musicals, new shows and old. That season ran from January to May, and ran a rotation of shows, a different one every month, during that time. Some shows made money, and some shows lost, but for 17 of its 19 years the season never made a loss. The revenue from the season sustained the Dundas and paid directors and technicians (though not actors or backstage crew). And unlike the formula proposed by Ward, the revenue didn't rely on meeting the audience's demand. Rather, it depended (like Hollywood and other truly successful art forms) on having the audience discover a demand for things it never knew it liked before, and thus laying the foundation for future sustainability -- the possibility for growth.So what am I saying? Perhaps I'm agreeing now with Ward -- that theatre allows the Bahamian writer her best chance for making a living. Well, I don't know about that. The whole secret of the Season's success was that it served up a variety of shows for a wide range of audience tastes, and therefore didn't depend on a single writer. But it also spawned a whole crop of new writers as well -- who didn't necessarily make a living off their plays, but who were nevertheless able to write what they were called to write without tailoring it overmuch for an "audience" that they knew only imperfectly. But I am conceding that it may be possible to sustain your living by writing for theatre -- but only if you recognize the need for collaboration, understand that theatre cannot happen with one person alone, and -- perhaps most important -- have the ability to access performance spaces that allow for viability to happen, that are not so prohibitive in their overhead that all one's revenue goes into paying the rent.

Begging to differ

with Ward again (c'mon, what did you expect? I mean, really.) Not that he's totally off base. He's right, as usual, but only partly so.

Here's how he begins his fourth post on the viability of Bahamian art:

If you want to be a professional creative writer in the Bahamas you are going to have to be some kind of playwright. It really is that simple.

Poetry is currently back in fashion, but in its raw form, on the page, or performed at small events, open-mike style, it will not make you any money. The only way that poetry can make you money in the Bahamas is if you package it as a play.

--Ward Minnis, Hollywood, Michael Pintardand the Viability of Bahamian ArtPart 4: Laughter is the best medicine…

K, so let me just say that I don't quibble with this statement. There is some real truth to it -- especially if you're not looking to make a whole lot of money.

Because it's harder than Ward makes it seem. Even Michael Pintard doesn't hit home runs all the time, and supplements his income as a writer by doing other things -- in short, by hustling to make opportunities for himself every day of his life. Terez Davis' Daisy character may earn her money, but surely there's a reason for why one writes in the first place -- and if one is locked into formulaic theatre for the rest of one's life, then there's not a whole lot of point. Better to do it as a hobby.

I'm still convinced that it's easier to make a living off films in The Bahamas than off theatre. The main reason is that theatre requires you to work with other people, while film does not. And the up-front overhead for theatre is substntial.

But more on that later, when I have more time on my hands. For now, go read Ward's post, and then go think about your own position for yourselves.