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I suppose there are many people who will consider me vulgar. Most, I think, will be people who find cause to disagree with me. That's unfortunate, because I deplore vulgarity. Certainly public vulgarity. Vulgarity of the kind that would have embarrassed the likes of Dame Lois or Fred Wade or 'Mose' Allen.

   With all that, I'm still a normal heterosexual male with a penchant and preference for members of the opposite sex. I think of women as my equal, though I suspect some women today consider that all women are superior to all men. With them, I have a fundamental disagreement - but that's another story.

   I do feel that treating women as though they are nothing but a 't**s and a**' package is demeaning. Fundamentally demeaning. However, as the septuagenarian Hugh Hefner and his Playboy empire have discovered, there's gold, much gold, in treating women as packages of 't & a'.

   So I was taken aback when Bermuda's Premier, representing me, representing the Progressive Labour Party, representing all the people of Bermuda, and representing the memory of people like Dame Lois; chose to publicly attach me, you, his Party, Bermuda itself, and the memory of people like Dame Lois to Hugh Hefner's 't & a' show. I was further chagrined when this national attaching was done on a world stage and touted for all the world to see.

Bosom of the party

Perhaps, deep in the bosom of the Progressive Labour Party, perhaps even led by some of the Progressive Labour Party stalwarts, there is a cabal - large or small - that revels in 't & a' shows. Perhaps, this year, at the annual Progressive Labour Party conference there will be a special show put on by Hugh Hefner. Perhaps - in order to outdo this year - next year's Music Festival will feature a 'Playmate' segment with lots of displays - at Bermuda's National Stadium - of 't & a'.

   The broad membership of the Progressive Labour Party has a well-known public stance as a deeply, even archly conservative political group. Conservative in that it generally supports the free market economy, is opposed to gambling and casinos, rejects the idea of legalizing same-sex unions, and would happily bring back capital punishment and the 'birch'.

   The Progressive Labour Party, throughout its 35 year history has been a party that has maintained a very close relationship to the Christian church and its Christian dogmas. In fact, most Progressive Labour Party occasions start with a prayer. So I find it difficult to believe that this archly conservative church-attached group wanted, really wanted, to be publicly and globally associated with an expensively mounted but still cheap and vulgar 't & a' show.

   But times change. People change. Perhaps the values of the 'new PLP' now embrace this kind and level of association.

   If that's so, then these new values are not in sync with my values.

I also believe that the majority of the people of Bermuda do not want a national association with Hugh Hefner's 't & a' show, even if the attachment brings in a dozen or so tourists in one year.

   Meanwhile, over at the Ministry of Education...

Editor's note: The astericks and abbreviations were inserted into this column by the editor. The columnist made a strong argument that the rawness of the original language was integral to the tone of the article but on balance, it was the editor's decision that the point could be made forcefully enough without the use of words that some would find offensive.[[In-content Ad]]

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