Even in paradise, I repeat, the political contention rachets high.

The best quote of the week came from one person involved here. He said, "I learned in sports the rule that 'it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.' In politics, the rule seems to be 'how you place the blame.'"

My sister-in-law said: "The photos you've taken are so beautiful. Looking at Bermuda through your eyes, I realized that these are places I see every day, like those you've taken right from my balcony! But I guess seeing it so often, I've gotten used to it and stopped seeing how beautiful it is."

I said: "I ride along in the car, or travel about here, and constantly think how lucky you are to live in such a place. How can being around so much beauty --- streets lined with flowered bushes, hillsides terraced with pastel houses, the breathtaking beaches and coves -- everday, not affect your attitude?"

Do I feel safer here? Well, let's put it this way, the week before I left America, Baltimore -- where I lived -- had ten murders. Three of the people died in a running gun-battle down the center of a city street. In one of the shootings leading to these murders a child in a stroller caught a stray bullet. Bermuda, where I am now, had what is categorized as its first murder of the year this past week. (I use the phrase "what is categorized as" because the victim was a man whose body was discovered on the street by a shopkeeper. The police are treating the death as a murder until they can determine otherwise.) Remember, this is one of the world's most densely populated places. It's just that most of the world will never match America's propensity for violent crime, especially homicide.

In other words, it is unusual in the world -- outside of America -- for people to kill other people when not involved in armed conflict or terrorism. Blowing somebody away is a uniquely American sport.

The whole issue of having "a piece of The Rock" that is this oceanic promontory seems to obsess most people's thoughts and underlie a lot of the political controversies here. Add to that the natural chafing that comes with ethnic diversity.

Bermuda's population is sixty percent Black, both native and expatriate; there's a large Portuguese community with historical roots here -- whom the local whites discriminated against for years and treated as "non-white;" and much of the employment comes from offshore corporations from other countries. These global corporations have traditionally favored either bringing in White expats to fill their executive management positions or chosen local Whites over local Blacks when hiring for those. That's one of the underlying reasons that CURE even exists. Bermuda continues to grapple with issues of race and ethnicity.

Because Bermuda is located closer to North America than to Europe or Africa -- it is not in the Caribbean, but is rather approximately 800 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina -- there are a number of Canadian expats here and the influences of both Canada and the United States are heavy. Most Bermudians get their television viewing via satellite. The local station, ZBM, runs programming from the three major US television broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) during the majority of primetime.

Yet, with a church tower rising every few hundred yards, the long tradition of staunch loyalty to the British Crown -- Bermudians have repeatedly rejected at the ballot the prospect of becoming an independent nation -- and the concommitantly prudish sense of scandal, Bermuda is a very conservative place. It even affects fashion: I think I'm the only person I've seen wearing cut-offs since I've been here. (My mother balked.)

One can even find an expression of that conservatism in the opinion, held by many here and often quoted in the newspapers and televised news broadcasts, that gambling machines should be banned because they don't fit Bermuda's "cultural heritage." (By that, one could take it to mean Bermuda's church-going heritage. Gambling is seen by many as a scandalous vice that destroys families, it appears.)

The density of population, the miniscule size of the place, and all the foregoing factors, make Bermuda an extremely self-conscious nation. (If this Web site ever surfaces on Bermuda's radar screen, it's almost certain that e-mails of protest at this analysis of the place would follow.) Often, from the perspective of an outsider, it would seem that the awesome beauty of the place is looked upon by its inhabitants chiefly as the, admitted, capital asset it is, to the discounting of how fortunate they are to be here...

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