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DIANE PHILLIPS: Road to White House does not run through The Bahamas - What is Ron DeSantis thinking?

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got lost on his way to the nomination for Republican candidate for US president in the 2024 election.

DIANE PHILLIPS: All over in a heartbeat, why? Argument to preserving Junkanoo pieces throughout the islands

It happened again this year. Just like it does every year. The magic sounds, rhythm and beat of Junkanoo are still pounding in our ears, our hearts are still beating a bit faster, we can hardly stop doing the shuffle, when it all comes crashing down.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When bad things happen to good people

A young man with a college degree, good job, solid marriage and a six-year-old daughter is about to start a gofundme page.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The Lessons My Father Taught Me

Today is December 14. You’d think I would be used to it by now. But I am not. Every year, the date catches me and twists my insides around like a pretzel with a stomachache. It is the anniversary of my father’s death, December 14, 1966, 67 years ago.

DIANE PHILLIPS: ‘Tis the season to be... WHAT?

‘TIS the season to be jolly, deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la, or so the song goes, but as a friend reminded me it’s also the season for something else – licensing firearms.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The missing Bahamian holiday – when do we officially give thanks?

FIRST it was the decision to peg Bahamian currency to the US dollar when a choice between the past and the future had to be made. Call it the first milestone in a culture that would slide into alignment with its neighbour to the north over the following decades. Later it was sharing the same taste in music, fast food, the stuff of everyday life, even the jeans we wore.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Swimming - when sport becomes survival

IN the darkness of pre-dawn, when most of us are pulling the covers over our heads finding a perfectly good excuse to snuggle right where we are for a few more minutes, Percy Knowles is preparing for his morning routine, the same as he has done for decades.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Amazing success stories of Romer Street, Fox Hill

THERE’S a tree-lined street in the historic neighbourhood of Fox Hill that is much like many tree-lined streets in Nassau. Tall sapodilla trees with outstretched limbs nestle kids who climb them to pick the sweet, brown-skinned fruit. Youngsters who scramble up the tree know if they do not get to the season’s offerings first, the limbs will unburden themselves of the heavy load and once a dilly falls from high up it will splat on the ground, spilling the sticky filling and dark seeds.

DIANE PHILLIPS – ‘I’ve never felt more comfortable outside the US than when I was in Grand Bahama’

The man sat down a few rows away. In a nearly empty and sterile, freezing cold Grand Bahama International Airport terminal with only a handful of early arrivals waiting for much later flights, it was hard not to make eye contact with the few lone folks who were already there, a mother and toddler, a few men who spoke in rapid staccato-like sounds like they were from somewhere far away, and this gentleman, middle-aged, laden with an encased guitar and assortment of backpacks and hefty hand luggage that indicated he had been around these parts for a while and was heading back to wherever he came from.

DIANE PHILLIPS: All is fair in love and hamburgers

WHILE the world is at war and innocent women and children are held hostage amidst growing fears of all-out global conflict, the lowly burger has become a hot potato in The Bahamas.

DIANE PHILLIPS: ‘Build your hotel somewhere else!’

BALMORAL is a quiet neighbourhood on Sanford Drive in Nassau. Situated a block south of the Cecil Wallace-Whitfield Centre that houses the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance, and just east of Liberty Overlook, the residence of the American Ambassador when there is one, Balmoral is a highly desirable residential community.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When the public speaks up, bad ideas can be grounded

A UNIQUE thing happened this week. Amid the horror played out on TV screens of violence rocking the Middle East with innocent men, women and children being captured and slaughtered, entire cities and villages burned and destroyed, amidst the burial of a revered Bahamian Cabinet minister who suffered an untimely and shocking death and amidst the tearful memorial for the head boy at QC who died before he had a chance to live, there was a bright and shining light.

Diane Phillips: There’s a hero inside us all

IF you are not busy, stop a minute, please. Find a mirror. Forget how your hair looks. Don’t worry about your collar. Pay no attention to the spot on your shirt where the tea spilled or the shoe where the little mischievous one decided your tennis shoe was as good a canvas as any and scribbled with crayon while you were cooking.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Creative solutions needed to address society’s inequities

A MAN sleeps in his car, hoping it will not rain tonight so he can keep the windows open. Not far away, a few miles along the coast, another man writes a cheque for $3.2m for a beachfront condo he will use six weeks of the year.

DIANE PHILLIPS: East of East Street - an opportunity to get it right

THERE’S a once-in-a-century opportunity in the life of a city to reshape Downtown Nassau and it’s staring us right in the face, begging, pleading for every great idea we’ve got.

DIANE PHILLIPS: It’s 5 o’clock somewhere – A tribute to the life and lyrics of Jimmy Buffett

WHEN Jimmy Buffett died last week, tributes poured in from around the globe for the legendary singer, songwriter, performer who flipped a tune called Cheeseburger in Paradise into a feel good movement we could all digest with a smile.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The high cost of power

THE predictable mid-month e-mail from BPL landed in my inbox. Trying to ignore its presence, I continued working, aware it was sitting there, waiting to be opened. As usual, I was slightly curious but knowing it would set me back I weighed the hope for a miracle against the dread of knowing it was summer (the bedroom air conditioning was running at night) and the sinking feeling the bill was probably going to be a little higher than last month’s which was bad enough.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A few thoughts about contrasts

Would morning be so beautiful if it did not emerge slowly from the darkness of night? Would recovery be so welcome if it did not follow illness? Would the sight of a loved one you had not seen in years be so sweet if you had seen them yesterday?

DIANE PHILLIPS: What has happened to America? Where is the leadership?

THE land where I was born and stood tall as a child, head held high, beaming and proud to be part of the greatest nation on earth, no longer feels like the place of high moral ground it once was.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The irreplaceable creativity of Rolfe Harris

THE irreplaceable Rolfe Harris – an artist whose work will forever paint a picture of The Bahamas in its fury and its beauty. The Bahamas punches above its weight in so many ways – in sports, music, the culinary arts, in the romantic allure of the country’s cays no matter what shattering events turn other worlds upside down.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Suppose we could feed ourselves? One farmer says we can

WHAT could The Bahamas do with an extra billion dollars a year – build two new hospitals? Upgrade schools and fund after-school programmes? Pay down the national debt, boost social services to better serve the elderly and disabled?

DIANE PHILLIPS: Last manse standing – let’s get together and save Collins House

THERE’S a Joni Mitchell song whose lyrics are timeless: ‘Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone … They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.’

DIANE PHILLIPS: DOWNTOWN DREAMS – it’s more than buildings, a living city means people living in it

Atlanta. Baltimore. Buffalo. Chicago. From Cartagena, Colombia to Seoul, South Korea, from the steel capital of Pittsburgh to the motor city of America, cities across the globe have found ways to reinvent themselves, dusting off industrial pasts and emerging as vibrant urban scenes with a future.

DIANE PHILLIPS: There will never be another gingerbread house

THERE will never be another gingerbread house. Not like the ones Graham Bruce created, the magical, whimsical three feet high edible works of art handmade of gingerbread, brown sugar and love, adorned with sparkles, candy, nuts and candy canes, complete with windows that let the light shine through. They were architectural and culinary wonders, those gingerbread houses, days in the making and happy slow hours in the guilty devouring.

DIANE PHILLIPS: On a ladder, every rung is important

The photo would have been easy to overlook. It was one of the many I get daily from BIS (Bahamas Information Services) which churns out non-stop information about Cabinet ministerial activities from sunup to sundown and beyond, bless their souls.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The thing about pain

DURING a month filled with celebrations, it’s easy to forget about those who are just trying to get through another day. The excitement they feel around them may make it harder to endure what they are facing. Maybe it deepens the divide between where they are emotionally or physically and where they think others are, making them feel even more alone and farther apart from the land of those planning barbeques and fireworks, backyard parties, official flag-raising and parades.

DIANE PHILLIPS: We’ve never had stricter environmental legislation nor more disrespect for our land, water or our view

What has happened to us? Where did the ‘we’ go who respected our elders, our beliefs, our surroundings?

DIANE PHILLIPS: The immense significance of small men and women in the world

AT a public consultation the other night a man approached the microphone and started with the words, “I know I am just a small man.” He used the words small man almost apologetically, as if he wanted the audience to think he was insignificant, unimportant because he did not own a big business or to feel sympathy with him if we, too, were not the big shots in the room.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Careful consideration needed on how sponsorship of The Bahamas’ new national sport is done

THERE’S a temptation brewing on the waters, especially the churned-up waters around regattas. Now that sailing is the national sport - a much-welcomed and long overdue move - the attention to one version of the sport, Bahamian native sloop sailing, is greater than ever.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Bahamas’ biggest export – Bahamians

Brain drain growing, 56,000+ Bahamians living in US and more being lured

AT a press conference this week announcing a $250,000 tourism leadership scholarship provided by the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board and managed by the Lyford Cay Foundations, there was a seismic shift in the tone.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Morgan Freeman live, another nod to the orange economy

ONCE you’ve played God, it must be hard to be human. But on a recent Sunday night in the Atlantis Theatre, the real Morgan Freeman strolled out on stage, took a seat in a comfortable armchair and talked with a crowd of film festival goers, answering every question with humour and honesty, even if a few would not have gotten a thumbs up for intelligence on Rotten Tomatoes.

DIANE PHILLIPS: 'I miss you everyday’ – A letter to my mother

Dear Mom, Sunday is Mother’s Day. I wish you were here.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The impact of distressed properties on neighbourhood safety and value

EVERY bank and financial institution has them – loans that go bad. Monies lent with the best of intention to customers who have the best of intentions of repaying the funds borrowed to build or buy their dream home or grow their business.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Yella, the king of the queen conch

THEY call him ‘Yella’, though not even he remembers why. Someone just did, and it stuck.

DIANE PHILLIPS: In development, is there right or wrong, or just two sides to a story?

SOMETIMES there isn’t a right or wrong – just two sides to a story. This is one of those cases.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Post-pandemic job seekers will need to be discerning and selective

THE following is based on a conversation with a senior executive recruiter and her comments about the overall state of the job market were so on point – and in some respects, so alarming that much of what follows is her assessment and most of it in her words. So if you are among those who think something changed that is not likely to change back after the pandemic, brace yourself.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A possible solution for Bahamians to benefit in the hospitality industry

Created just 15 years ago by two friends who rented out an air mattress on their floor when a major event sucked up all the hotel rooms in San Francisco, Airbnb has turned the short-term vacation industry on its head.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Curing PMH’s ills one blanket at a time

How do you fix a problem that costs 20 times more to run than the revenue it generates?

PRINCESS Margaret Hospital is in poor financial health. And that is being kind.

DIANE PHILLIPS: New mooring hotspot at Montagu, but are there plans to accommodate?

A STRANGE phenomenon has been taking place in Montagu Bay in recent months, growing exponentially in recent weeks.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The mystery of the missing medical test

THERE must be a million medical tests out there. You can check your blood type, heart rate, hearing loss, even your vestibular, whatever that is.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When things go wrong, Consumer Protection Commission indeed helps

IN EARLIER days, I dreamed of solving problems. Not the big ones like ending world famine or creating world peace.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What is wrong with this picture?

SOMETIMES it is not what is in a picture, but what is missing that matters. Say a story about about a little boy and the dog who follows him everywhere, but only the child is pictured, leaving the image of the dog to the imagination. An oversight? Most likely. But the picture doesn’t hit the mark. You know something is missing.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When hallmark holidays exact a toll on our soul, just bring on the super sports

SUPER Bowl Sunday was enough excitement for the week so when Valentine’s Day rolled around 48 hours later, some of us just weren’t quite ready for another celebratory occasion, though there’s little doubt that restaurants were full, jewellery was flying off the shelf and you couldn’t find a red rose in town unless you spray painted it.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Another iconic Bahamian voice gone, there’s a hole in my radio dial

There’s a hole in my radio dial. It’s where Island FM 102.9 used to be. I can’t even write Island FM 102.9 without humming the music in my head, drawing out the ‘point niiiiiine’ as if it were a word.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Saying goodbye to little Loki

EVERYONE tells you they’re old, they’ve lived a good life, it’s time. They use the word time as if there were a place on the clock that says time to be born and time to die.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Double decker curiosity – The lawyer behind the novel red bus restaurant and what drove him to do it, a zany twist in the road

ON a sliver of land, not much more than 50 feet wide and maybe 100 feet long, on Shirley Street in Nassau, sits a red double decker bus just like those you see in London.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Stop looking at immigration as a problem that needs to be solved instead of an opportunity that needs to be seized

EVERY day, thousands of people desperate to escape persecution, war, famine, violence or just in search of a better life flee their home countries. They pile into overcrowded makeshift boats or rafts. They cross harsh terrain with whatever possessions they can carry on their back, many with young children at their side, even in below freezing temperatures.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Thanks, Eric Carey, you took the elitism out of the Bahamas National Trust and made it ours

WHEN Eric Carey said a final formal farewell to the Bahamas National Trust at the end of December, he left an organization that belonged to the people.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Finding our roots, literally

THE very word farming conjures up physical images. Words like honest labour, grit, sweat on the brow, God’s green earth. Its words are prayer-like -- praying for good weather and absence of insects that eat what you are growing before you can harvest it.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A true story of brotherly love

YOU see them walking together, never one or the other, always the two of them, side by side, each wearing worn out clothes and carrying worn out bags.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The little team that could – and did

IT was a nail-biting, hold-your-breath moment that lasted for weeks on end. Would Team Bahamas – kids who had worked so hard to qualify and had their hopes pinned on faith -- get the funding to go to Marseilles to participate in the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games?

DIANE PHILLIPS: Influencer wariness

THE UNINTENTIONAL IMPACT OF THE COLLAPSE OF FTX

RONALDO, the drop-dead handsome, talented Portuguese footballer, gets $1.6 million per Instagram post, another $800,000+ per Tweet. When he vouches for dandruff-beating Clear shampoo and hair products, enough of his 443 million followers scamper to scoop up bottles off the shelves that he’s worth every penny of the funds he earns as an influencer.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Island hopping, anyone? Kudos to Bahamas.com for whetting the appetite – now what?

BY any measure, the Ministry of Tourism’s website, Bahamas.com, is breathtaking. Packed with beautiful beaches, dazzling experiences and perfect people, it is sheer eye candy, promising the best of everything in a sun-kissed destination.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Open your eyes and see the beauty of foreign in all of us

ON a bright, sunny morning last week, the students, faculty and staff of LN Coakley Senior High in Exuma poured out of classrooms and gathered along the halls and in the courtyard, filling every available foot of open air.

DIANE PHILLIPS: View from the sidewalk

IT’S amazing what trying to look at something through someone else’s eyes can reveal.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Remembering the softer side of Hugh Sands

AT 4 o’clock on Tuesday, November 8, the bells of Christ Church Cathedral will ring out as those who were fortunate enough to know Hugh Gordon Sands crowd the stately structure where this great Bahamian will be put to rest, his life story recounted, his contributions memorialized.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Speaking up and speaking out for justice – even if the victim is someone whose opinions scare the living daylights out of you

IT’S a dilemma lawyers overcome easily, giving their legal best to represent people they do not necessarily like. They take an oath to seek justice for those who seek it even if it feels like the person demanding it does not deserve it. They do what they were trained to do, protect the less likeable or even the guilty, to preserve the process that allows everyone to have confidence in a system that works.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The lighter moments of a rainy night

I DREAMT that I learned how to play chess last night. As I said, I dreamt. My chances of thinking about what move to make six moves from now and getting it right are about the same as my chances of winning the lottery, or maybe even less likely since there have been cases of people winning the lottery.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Street people – Where home is a piece of pavement or a plot of littered land

W E see them every day, the street people of Nassau.

DIANE PHILLIPS – Island Follies: A photographic look at the architecture that helped shape the beauty of our country

We are all guilty of it, we look at a city or a neighbourhood and see the big picture without stopping to think how it got that way - tall buildings or low level, peaked roofs or flat, classic or contemporary style, sprawling properties or narrow frontage. Rarely do we stop to wonder whose hand helped shape that built environment, or if there was a singular hand that left its mark on what stands today.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Trying to take up incentives turns into a saga

A YOUNG couple, solid professionals with sound jobs and a dream for their future on the family island where they were raised, say with every day and every reply from government their dream is sliding farther away. We’ll call them Monique and Sean.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Rick Fox – The long road home

RICK Fox, lightning fast in a career that led to three consecutive NBA World Championships, took the long, slow road home, back to The Bahamas.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What happens when the bridge to the future is condemned?

RIGHT now, today, 45 promising students with ambitious goals and a determination to succeed need a hero.

DIANE PHILLIPS: 50 years ago this week, Bahamians saved lives at Munich Massacre - and happier reasons Bahamas makes international news

FOR a little country, The Bahamas makes a big splash. Not perhaps in the way you are thinking – as a standard bearer in tourism or an incessant voice in moving climate change issues up the ladder of priorities, not even as a real estate hotspot that keeps getting hotter the worse things get anywhere else in the world.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A woman with a world of surprises up her sleeve

THE first time I met Eunice Rose she had a rake in her hand. She was explaining to her partner in a part-time landscape business the difference between two types of ferns. The partner was tall, strapping, packed with sinew, muscle and eagerness to work but far less knowledgeable about the greenery in front of him than was the woman next to him with the rake who never broke stride even as we spoke.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Young kart racers hoping to be the next Lewis Hamilton

OUT on a lonely stretch of tarmac hidden from view by a long concrete barrier that runs for blocks with no real apparent purpose is a Bahamian boy or a girl with a dream – to become the next Lewis Hamilton.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Who really named The Bahamas? Was it Lucayans, not the Spanish and does it really mean what we think?

FOR AS long as any of us can remember, we have believed what we have been tol that the Spanish who first discovered these islands in 1492 gave them their name, Bahama, meaning shallow sea.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When fear of violence shrinks, aggression becomes all consuming

I AM terrified of guns, of any kind of violence, in fact.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The surprising good, bad and scary story about sunscreen

CERTAIN smells remind you of the sweetest days of your childhood, in my case, it was the sun-kissed days in the Florida sun, punctuated by the thrill of crashing ocean waves and the unmistakable aroma of Coppertone. That coconut scent, the medium warm brown container (the colour I strived to be), was as much a part of my little girl days as a beach blanket and a little red bucket.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Corporate tax will be the next test, though we already pay more in VAT and Customs duties

Forty-nine is behind us, the flag-waving, parades, retreats, the beer, barbeques and day at the beach are memories.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The more things change…

ANNIVERSARIES, national or personal, become times of reflection. In personal relationships, that reflection can evoke feelings of joy or sadness. There are memories that jump right out at you – the first kiss, the birth of a child, a graduation ceremony, a fight when words that should never have been spoken rang out and would not stop ringing in your ear.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Growing the economy doesn’t happen when you do what you’ve always done

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis set off a maelstrom of misdirected mischief when he announced elimination of duty on pleasure boats, a concept that goes back decades and was intended to come to fruition at least ten years ago.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A whole lot of hot air and for what?

ON a bright Saturday morning, a short, paunchy man with a ruddy complexion, round face and a cherubic grin climbed the stairs and entered the front door. His personality was as sunny as his name, though I was never sure if Sonny was his real name (I always meant to ask) or if it was because of the role he played. He was one of the mischievous original Little Rascals on TV and screen and for most of his latter years, he made Nassau his home.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why do we feel so unsettled? Is it because we’re in the Age of Confusion?

I wasn’t around and probably you weren’t either, but after the upheaval of WWII, history seems to show us the relieved and exhausted world settled down to a new predictability.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Green high-top Converse a symbol of pain too much to bear

For a moment last Tuesday, Mathew McConaughey could have run for and been elected President of the United States. For a moment, the Oscar-winning actor took us all where we needed to be – in the heart of Uvalde, Texas where on May 24, a deranged 18-year-old brandishing an AR15 walked into an elementary school and for 40 minutes before the SWAT team arrived went on a killing spree, leaving 19 children and two teachers dead.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What has happened to us?

WHEN I was young, we carried books to school, not guns. When I was young, I knelt by the side of the bed and prayed asking God to make my family happy, not to keep them safe from the bullets of an evil lunatic or the fury of a troubled teen. When I was young, l was innocent, but the world did not look then like it looks now. The weather was unpredictable, not the person sitting next to you.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The day the rains came

IT was Friday, the 13th.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Cars, cars and more cars

THERE are 145,000 registered vehicles, give or take a few, in The Bahamas, 90% of them likely on an island that measures 21x7 miles. The only thing we might have more of in terms of numbers is cellphones, but then there is one big difference. Just about everyone knows how to use a cellphone.

DIANE PHILLIPS: IS OUR ECONOMIC WELL-BEING THREATENED?

FOR a writer, it’s hard to make economics exciting.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What it takes to breathe new life into historic Nassau

PARTS of this column first appeared nearly five years ago. Sadly, it remains all too relevant. The Tribune has agreed to re-run it today at my request in light of the Davis administration’s commitment to rescuing and resuscitating the historic city of Nassau.

Diane Phillips: Transforming an Eleuthera eyesore – a lesson for historic Nassau?

FOR 45 years, the single-storey stone building stood abandoned. Shards of glass were all that remained of what had been windows. Once the home of a local family, it slowly sank into a hideaway for rats and rodents, strewn with broken beer bottles and half-pints, blind to nefarious activity. The structure in total disrepair was not in some remote out of the way place, but in direct view of hundreds going and coming daily from Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera to Cupid’s Cay and beyond.

DIANE PHILLIPS: How long will we bury our heads in the sand?

THERE are 8,700+ words in the Chapter 5 of the constitution of The Bahamas. That’s the chapter dealing with Parliament. I read every one of those words, some of them twice, because I wanted to make sure I was reading correctly when I saw references to disqualifications for serving in the Senate or the House of Assembly if you are deemed to be of unsound mind, for instance, or serving a sentence exceeding 12 months or under sentence of death.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Activists in the board room? Can it happen in The Bahamas?

WE may tout our advanced technology, our award-winning cloud data saving capability, our internationally acclaimed Family Island beaches, but when it comes to knowing how to make a difference in something that could save our very country, we turn our backs on today’s tools and dig out yesterday’s toys.

DIANE PHILLIPS – Brent Stubbs: To the quiet goes the glory, even if it takes a little longer

WE are so busy looking for the greatest of all time, we even created an acronym for it. GOAT gave us an excuse to focus on the best of the best - the Simone Biles, Serena Williams, Tom Bradys, LeBron James and Michael Jordans of the world.

DIANE PHILLIPS: I never knew you cared so much, now what about Downtown?

MUCH to my shock, the March 4 column ‘Montagu Madness’ criticizing the explosion of signage cluttering and disrupting a view so many worked so hard to create set off a maelstrom of response I could never have predicted. The column which was even picked up by World News sparked a petition – though aimed at the wrong target, but well-meaning – and numerous others since that column appeared have been calling for the removal of signs.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why the lost art of letter writing matters now more than ever before

IN a time when we stare appalled, shocked and helpless at the horrors Ukrainians face as they try to defend their sovereign nation against an unprovoked and unthinkable attack, why when we watch with hearts breaking as families are being ripped apart, when we see strangers stepping around dead bodies in the street, why now should we care about letter-writing?

DIANE PHILLIPS: Montagu madness, yes, I have a right to be angry

THOUGH I don’t think I am alone in noticing how cluttered Montagu foreshore is looking, I do claim rights to my anger. In 2010, I dedicated the better part of a year chairing a steering committee for the redevelopment of Montagu. It was a role requested by then- Montagu constituency MP Loretta Butler-Turner.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Ty’s Place - every dish served with love, hope and heart

DOWN a narrow no-name road off Village Road at the end of the pavement lies a 120-year-old Bahamian cottage. The sign above the veranda says Ty’s Place. If you’ve ever been there, you will never forget the day and the experience. If you’ve never been there, tomorrow is not too soon.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The lighter side of soppy

VALENTINE’S Day came and went. Did you notice? No, neither did we. It was probably because it was on a Monday and a Monday that followed the Super Bowl no less. I mean, how much excitement can one body handle?

DIANE PHILLIPS: The far-reaching Olympic moment that should have us quaking in our sandals

NO matter how much Nathan Chen defies gravity and figure skates like he is a swirling missile flying gracefully through the air or snowboarding legend Shaun White continues to dazzle in his fifth and final Olympic appearance, there is one moment that stands out above all others from the 2022 Winter Olympics underway in Beijing, China.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Dawn Davies – an unassuming collector with wicked sense of humour will leave an indelible mark on the world of visual arts

THE first thing Dawn Davies says when you walk into her home which is less house and more living museum with art everywhere - on walls, tables, in hallways, even on the ceiling - “Among the important art works displayed, I like a bit of whimsy, including the folksy, kitsch and craft.”

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why it is so hard to back pedal and so necessary now

FROM the time we are old enough to walk, we put one foot in front of the other, moving forward. Statistics tell us the average person walks about 3,000 to 4,000 steps or about 1.5 or two miles a day, a little less as we age. Unless we are engaged in specific athletic training, like running up and down a staircase or backing up to catch a football thrown deep, the steps we take propel us forward.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Our love-hate relationship with Jeopardy

LIKE millions of others, my husband and I watch Jeopardy every night, well, just about every weekday night. I don’t know why we are addicted when we lose so consistently. It’s like asking to be punished and going back the next day and the next and the next after that for more punishment, hoping somehow after enough punishment, there will be a reward.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The Great Resignation – is The Bahamas vulnerable?

ALL the talk about everything COVID has made us weary.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Strange as a 3-dollar bill, but it’s real and I get it

I HAVE a $3 bill. It’s Bahamian. I can’t remember where or when I got it, but I always believed there was something special about it so I tucked it away in a small basket with other odds and ends in my daughter’s room right next to a US $2 bill which I also cannot recall where or when I got it.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Sharing and caring isn’t hard – and makes life oh so much better

IN sailing, there is something called the groove. It is not a place, well, technically, it is, but it is more a feeling. It’s when the wind is in your face, the sails are set and trimmed perfectly, main and jib in tight, going upwind heeling at 30-35 degrees, water rushing under you and the boat feels like it is powering itself, just flying along, which is really an oxymoron because the one thing sailing is not is fast.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The grinches who stole Christmas

TODAY is Christmas Eve. At least technically it is Christmas Eve. For all those who had plans to gather with family tonight or tomorrow and had to cancel those plans, thanks to the grinches who stole Christmas, it doesn’t feel like Christmas Eve.

DIANE PHILLIPS: You never know when the phone might ring

MY father died 55 years ago today. I still remember the phone call delivering the news. I was packing to visit him in Florida, leaving in the morning to catch the first flight from Louisville where my then husband and I were living for six months.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Poster child of the Bahamian brain drain

WHILE all eyes were on Tiger Woods at the Hero World Challenge at Albany last week, something else that was happening in the rarefied air of the sport was nearly overlooked.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Art in public places, lifting spirits and boosting revenue, bank on it

THERE’S a new reason to smile while driving along Eastern Road. It’s a painting of a young woman with eyes like giant saucers, glowing cheeks and silken skin, a face of innocence amid a swirl of bubbles.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The Atlantis lesson on xenophobia

SOMEONE I highly respect reminded me recently of the reaction Bahamians had when we heard a hotel magnate from South Africa, a man known to throw lavish parties aboard a private jet and enrich himself in a land of apartheid, had purchased much of Paradise Island. Bahamians were enraged, apoplectic.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Desi and Di hanging up their aprons

USUALLY when someone says the kitchen is closed, they mean for the day. But come November 22, when Desi and Di hang the closed sign on The Kitchen it will be for good. After more than 22 years and more chicken dishes, quiches and bowls of okra soup than they can count, the little deli on Shirley Street will become just another part of Nassau history.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The remarkable Erin Brown

ON November 13, hundreds, or as many as a few thousand people, will watch as a Bahamian woman is named godmother of a ship at a dockside ceremony in Port Everglades, Florida. Among those with cameras flashing and pens poised will be 150 members of international media. Their eyes will be on a 41-year-old mother of two, a woman named Erin “Bionic “ Brown.

DIANE PHILLIPS: From here to Glasgow

IT is 4,581 miles from Lynden Pindling International Airport to Glasgow International Airport in Scotland, a country known for its castles, golf, bagpipes and its own mischievous Chickcharney, the Loch Ness Monster.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Empty shelves today, can a barter economy be far behind?

A year or more ago when we first heard the words supply chain interruption, the idea felt distant, like someone else’s problem. It’s the way we used to feel about climate change. Surely, someone would fix it in time. Then along came Dorian and we knew climate change wasn’t someone else’s problem. It was ours AND everyone else’s.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The surprising twist in the Christopher Columbus statue saga

ON Saturday, October 9, two days before Heroes Day, police arrested a man for destroying the statue of Christopher Columbus on Government House grounds. The act went locally viral in minutes.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The Punch and the power of one

IF you read the final issue of The Punch yesterday, published three days after the death of its editor, publisher, creator and defender Ivan Johnson, you had this sinking feeling in your gut that an important chapter in the history of The Bahamas had closed.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Mr PM — You are so right, we are not in this alone, but the future will be built on what we alone do

ON September 25, Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis addressed the General Debate of the 76th Plenary Session of the United Nations. Still in the victory lap of his party’s win at the polls and assumption of the reins of governing a country with more needs than money to meet them, he spoke for 16 minutes and some seconds with real conviction, delivering a message that should not be lost on the Bahamian people.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Prime Minister, please keep your eye on the prize

EVERY prime minister in recent Bahamian history has faced what at some hour must have felt like a Sisyphean mountain to climb. Hubert Ingraham had a hurricane named Andrew. Perry Christie had a deluge of crime and debt. Dr Hubert Minnis had a double blow, Dorian and COVID.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why do so few Bahamian families stay in politics?

Many years ago, a very well-known politician cum head of a major sporting body said he was getting out, leaving the public spotlight. I asked him quietly in a social setting one evening, “Why? Why when you are at the top of your game, everyone knows your name, you can travel anywhere, get an audience with anyone, why leave now and kiss it all goodbye?”

DIANE PHILLIPS: The good, the bad and the unfinished of the current government

I promised myself when I started writing this column four years ago that I would stay away from politics. In close to 200 columns since, I’ve held politics at arm’s length except on that rare occasion when discussion of policy trumped distance from party.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What happened to our compassion for Haiti?

ON Saturday, August 14, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Haiti, killing more than 2,000 people, over 20 times the number who died in the Surfside building collapse which had us glued to our TV screens watching the tragedy unfold.

DIANE PHILLIPS: For Whom the Bell Tolls

THERE is a particular line in the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls that goes like this: “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”

DIANE PHILLIPS: What in the world has happened to us?

I’VE often wondered if my parents had it a whole lot better than my generation and I think they did. We’ve never eaten more but felt less satisfied. We’ve never owned more but felt less complete. We’ve never had so much technology and so much information at our fingertips yet done so little to make the world safer. We’ve never worked longer but relaxed during time off less. We’ve never travelled more but arrived home less rested or changed by what we experienced.

DIANE PHILLIPS: There’s always a heavy price for broken promises and betrayal

WE don’t often talk about love and politics in the same breath. Well, maybe if we are married to a politician but for most of us, the words politics and love are about as far apart as the Model T and Tesla.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Words matter, so choose them carefully

AS a writer, I love words, simple, honest words that say what they mean. Words like doggonit. I mean, you know exactly what that means. You can feel a fist pump the table even as you say the word.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Fix the tax policy and the eyesores will fix themselves

ON Wednesday of this week, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis used the occasion of the opening of Margaritaville at The Pointe to pledge attention to downtown Nassau, promising to take urgent action to rid the historic city of derelict buildings.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Beach access – whose right is right?

THE toughest political issues – the ones that wake a sleepy village and thrust it into frenzied activity or turn the somnambulant into the firebrand – are those that impact our own backyard.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Villain or folk hero – our mixed emotions about the Barefoot Bandit

MONDAY, July 11, will mark 11 years to the day that international fugitive Colton Harris-Moore was captured in Harbour Island, Eleuthera. The capture ended a brazen two-year crime spree during which the teen, better known as the Barefoot Bandit, stole airplanes, boats, broke into businesses and homes and evaded police in three countries while taking the world along for a ride, post after Facebook post.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What we should learn from the Surfside tragedy

For days after a 12-storey luxury high rise in Surfside, Florida crumbled, leaving a scene that looked more like a bombed-out city in Syria than an upscale coastal town in America, we were glued to the screen. As the hours passed, the horror of what happened hit harder, loss of life climbed, hope of finding survivors waned.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A Rose that will always bloom

THERE are photographers and then there was Roland Rose.

DIANE PHILLIPS: If you have trouble sleeping, you are not alone

If you have trouble sleeping you are not alone, I am right there with you. So are millions of others.

DIANE PHILLIPS: There was no one quite like Sylvia Munro and now she’s gone, leaving the saving of a legacy behind

The death notice was a simple one: Sylvia Munro, nee Williams, Born Jan 17, 1929, in Chicago, ill. Passed away peacefully in Nassau on April 3, 2021, at the age of 92.

DIANE PHILLIPS: This isn’t the first time we’ve had to get tough to beat a disease

WHEN the first local cases of COVID-19 were reported in March last year, The Bahamas headed by a medically trained Prime Minister, got tough.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The eye – so small in size, so large in life

The eye is so small in size, so large in life. Think about it. Of all your senses, what would be the worst to lose?

DIANE PHILLIPS: A long walk to Freedom (of Information) - now let’s see it work

Upcoming elections are a lot like oncoming hurricanes.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Taking the elitism out of sports

THERE are some sports that only the wealthy will ever be able to afford, like polo. Despite polo’s best efforts to convince a dubious public that it is not just the sport of kings, the reality is that with a team switching horses several times during a single match and each horse running what Forbes estimates to be $45,000 not to mention the costs of the athlete riding it, polo is never going to be everyman’s sport.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Along came Starbuck’s and nothing was ever the same again

The date March 31 passed two weeks ago with hardly anyone noticing, or maybe I missed the celebration and hoopla you might have expected on the 50th anniversary of a product that changed the culture. Starbuck’s turned 50 on that day and we are all a little poorer, a pound or two heavier and definitely more satiated for it.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Man’s best friend - then it’s time we started treating them properly

When it comes to pets, humans can be a downright mess. Even those of us who love our Bellas, Fluffys and Fidos and smugly think we are spoiling them, are doing them wrong.

Diane Phillips: Twelve years fighting a lie destroyed his life - now justice is finally served

You may remember Rod Bethel. He was the nice-looking, neatly-groomed manager at City Market in Harbour Bay Centre back in the 1990s. Kids and their folks crammed his little aquarium filled with fish, asking questions. He always took time to answer or personally find an item a customer just couldn’t locate.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A day filled with such hope and excitement ends in tragedy

We’ve become so inured to statistics about death due to COVID that it took the startling images on the front page, online and on-air Monday to shake us out of our zombie-like acceptance of death on a daily basis.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Just when we thought we were helping the planet

Lots of things break down. Cars and trucks break down for sure. So do bikes, boats, fork lifts, just about anything mechanical. Even the body breaks down. And sadly, sometimes, once promising personal relationships break down. But it turns out that the one thing we pinned our hopes on just a few short years ago, believing when it broke down it would be beneficial, may have let us all down.

DIANE PHILLIPS: King of the Waterfront – Lundy doin’ what he did half a century ago and lovin’ it just as much

MENTION Bahamas waterfront and images of fancy estates and condos overlooking broad sandy beaches come to mind. But there are no swaying palm trees or wide green gardens on the other waterfront. It’s chockablock with side-by-side boats up on blocks, overflowing dumpsters waiting to be emptied, the sound of work shoes squeaking on oil-stained concrete paving, a radio blaring, men’s voices rising to be heard above the rumble of machinery.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Every little bit of care helps in the life of a single mom who lost her job to COVID

If you want to measure the impact of COVID-19, you can find it in the bare cupboards at Alysha’s apartment. Or the empty space where the refrigerator used to go before she had to sell it to help keep a roof over her children’s heads. The signs of the pandemic are everywhere in this space – the stove parts on top of the pulled apart appliance that only needs $153 to make it work again, but right now in Alysha’s world, $153 might as well be a thousand.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why are we blind to what outsiders can see?

SOMETIMES it takes someone from afar to show us what is right in front of our faces.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Can someone please explain why this is allowed to happen?

A real-life Hatfield-McCoys is playing out on a narrow, paved path off Village Road in Nassau. That’s where a few residents on the southern side and in a neatly fenced in area at the cul de sac on the western end have been fighting a seemingly endless battle with an unlicensed hotel that occupies the northern side.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Another slice of history lost to our cultural apathy

ON January 29, another historic building on Bay Street burned. Long before it was known as the Cotton Ginny building - named for the popular clothing store it housed - the striking stone structure had been the art studio of the late Elyse Wasile whose hand-painted small ceramics found their way into homes, embassies and great estates around the world.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Out of the pandemic, a new way of talking

TEN years ago, unless you worked in the WebEx division of Cisco, you would never have heard the name Eric Yuan. Heck, even five years ago he was just one of those Silicon Valley geeks, an engineer with a dream, to create a better video conferencing system that was easy to sign in and out of, operated with low overhead expenses, offered high quality virtual interaction and was inexpensive for the consumer.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The light of hope shines again as shameful Trump leaves the stage

ON Wednesday, a huge weight was lifted off the shoulders of the world. Donald Trump left Washington.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What would have happened if the rioters were black?

THERE are moments you never forget. They are seared into your brain as hard-wired as the DNA you were born with. Like November 22, 1963, the day John F Kennedy was shot. I was a freshman at the University of Florida on my way to a chemistry class. A bell rang out, speakers blared, students were running in every direction. I made it into a classroom, don’t remember which, and in seconds everyone – strangers who had never met before – everyone was crying and huddled together in shock and disbelief.

Remembering Butch: The man who shared his heart and love to create a million memories

This week we lost a giant in the Caribbean tourism industry - Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, who brought vision and excitement, romance and luxury to the world of all-inclusive resorts.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Goodbye, good riddance Peter Nygard, your protectors can’t silence or frighten us any more

One-time glorified fashion mogul Peter Nygard sits in a Winnipeg jail, claiming he is innocent of what might be the most heinous charges ever brought against a resident of The Bahamas. The history-making accusations include a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct ranging from sex trafficking to rape, including drugging victims, according to documents filed in a southern New York court, often vulnerable young girls from disadvantaged homes.

DIANE PHILLIPS: One death too many, please let this not be real

WHATEVER the cause of death, there can be no greater heartbreak than that of burying a child. Children are supposed to bury their parents. It’s not supposed to be the other way around.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Honouring a man who loved life - and helped change ours forever

No one in the family remembers exactly where or why LeRoy Bowe picked up golf as a hobby. They just know he used to tell the story of how much he loved it, the feel of the swing, the ball arcing high in the air and the extreme satisfaction of its landing where you wanted it to go, so far away.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Who is Potcake?

If you live on the eastern side of New Providence or have reason to be there, you see a figure that’s hard to ignore. He’s about 5’8”, sinewy, looks tough as nails and then some and oh, yes, he’s dragging a oversized cart of some kind with hubcaps hanging off the side, a mashed up stuffed animal on the handlebar and a cardboard sign with his thought of the day on the back.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Virginia got her wish, Santa, can I have mine?

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus.

DIANE PHILLIPS: It’s not a number we should be afraid of but we’re selling ourselves short

If Friday is supposed to be the most eagerly anticipated day of the week - a tease to the excitement of the upcoming weekend - why is it that at least once every year it is saddled with being a 13th? And wouldn’t you just know it – in 2020, the year we cannot wait to wave goodbye to – we got a double dose of misfortune with two Friday the 13ths, today being the second.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Backyard issues make the best frontline politics

On November 12, a revised proposal for a major $100 million development on Love Beach in western New Providence will go before a public meeting at Town Planning. The proposal calls for multi-storey buildings housing 121 condominiums to be constructed adjacent to the four small buildings of Palms of Love Beach on one of the finest stretches of soft powdery white sand in a near-urban environment anywhere in The Bahamas.

DIANE PHILLIPS: From humble beginnings to representing The Bahamas

There is one memory that, no matter how many successes he racks up, Louby Georges can never forget.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Will these 36,000 voices be heard in the argument about oil?

WE are so busy glaring at COVID-19 we are about to be blindsided by something that could take a greater toll on The Bahamas for decades to come – a seemingly imminent plan to drill for oil.

DIANE PHILLIPS: We drive by them every day, stick thin faces hiding a story few of us care to listen to

The first time I met Jennie (not her real name), she was the picture of all-American wholesomeness, the kind of girl who looked like she was raised near the cornfields of Iowa or flew in fresh from the cheese belt of Wisconsin. Long, dark hair with sun streaks running through it, bright, light brown eyes, full of life and anticipation. I’d guess her age to be in her late 20s.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Take to the streets - Moms Lives Matter too

There’s a potential major movement that hasn’t attracted a blaring headline or, come to think of it, a single official member yet. But you can feel its rumblings stirring. Even if it got fully organized, even if it huffed and puffed and built numbers and momentum, its members would be mostly selfless, well-behaved people who would never incite a fuss, let alone stage a riot, take to looting or toss hand grenades. They’d probably be cleaning, polishing and storing the ammo.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Abaconians' anger is raging beneath the surface - we need to move now to make sure it doesn't explode

What’s happening in Abaco should never happen anywhere in The Bahamas.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why are there so many words and the right one is still hard to come by?

Someone just told you that at this very moment your perfectly fit, enviably healthy female friend is being airlifted to a Florida hospital with a life-threatening heart problem. You are flabbergasted.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A year later - the Abaco couple now living totally off-grid

One year ago this week, Daphne de Gregory-Miaoulis and Nick Miaoulis rode out monster Hurricane Dorian atop their Abaco Neem production centre and retail store in Marsh Harbour. For nearly five long days and nights, they clung to balcony doors and occasionally each other. On the last day, a Friday they will always remember, the exhausted husband and wife managed to make it to their farm 15 miles south of the city.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Sean Connery reaches landmark age

An irresistible ladies’ man but with family at his heart

The first time I met Sean Connery he knew exactly who I was, much to my shock. I was flattered. That was before he lashed into me, transforming me into an ant looking for a rock to crawl under. His unmistakable deep-throated baritone mixed with Scottish brogue came barrelling at me to let me know I had made a mistake in something I wrote.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Once I was lost, now I am found

Once upon a time, a family took a long vacation by van, exploring the backwoods and places they had never been before. Though taking the lesser known route came with some risk, it was a chance to unite, to be together and what an adventure it would be, creating memories to last a lifetime.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Mario’s mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore

It’s funny how people spend their lives doing one thing, get really good at it, make a name for themselves, and suddenly they turn up doing something so different you’d think it must be someone else with the same name.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Cocooning in the time of COVID

Staying at home is changing our lives in ways we never imagined. We grew up thinking we had to go to school, get into and through college if we were able, so we could “go out” into the world and find a job and later, when we were old, be able to retire and stay home.

DIANE PHILLIPS: True tears for a real hero who devoted his life to the struggle for equality

If you watched the moving coverage of the long farewell to former US Congressman John Lewis this week and did not shed a tear, please check the place where your heart is supposed to be.

DIANE PHILLIPS: There really is no place like home - shame we don’t go out and see it

It began with a thin piece of paper that fell out of an old folder. I can’t explain why I kept it for more than 40 years or why I kept any of the stuff in that folder, for that matter. Instinct, maybe, but back to the slip of paper. It was a small 4.5”x 8.5” flyer, now yellowed with age, with the name and photograph of Earl Nightingale, the legendary author and radio personality who ruled the airwaves in the 1950s and ‘60s.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Welcome back, Tellis - now you have the toughest job of your life

Standards Inspector of Security Forces. It’s an impressive title and to the best of my knowledge had not been bestowed on anyone before July 1 when it was handed with all the layers it entails to the former Commander of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, Tellis A Bethel.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Good riddance to that planet-killing piece of throwaway plastic

With eyes on COVID-19, the economic fall-out and an attempt to re-open the borders, it would have been easy to overlook a major milestone this week – crunch time. July 1, 2020, time to kiss those single-use plastics goodbye.

DIANE PHILLIPS: It’s not COVID that’s the killer, it’s poverty

It’s no wonder we can’t wrap our heads around the COVID crisis. First of all, it came out of nowhere.

DIANE PHILLIPS: This pandemic is no respecter of reputation

We see the statistics, the staggering numbers of new cases in places where beer taps flow freely again or people gather in peaceful protest convinced their moral conviction could keep COVID at bay.

DIANE PHILLIPS: How easy it is to forget how lucky we really are

We are so spoiled. So utterly, utterly spoiled and fortunate and lucky beyond our wildest dreams. We live in The Bahamas.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Add his name to the list - George Floyd, another victim of American racism which won’t go away

The statistics have been there all along. You can read them if you have the courage to digest. You can study the charts, hot spots, numbers, watch the nightly news, gasp at coverage and go about the rest of the evening as if nothing changed if you have a mind to.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A bit of common sense and we can unleash at least one economic tiger

This is one of those good news, bad news stories. The difference in this one is the bad news has an easy fix. Here’s how the story begins.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Is it time to bite the bullet and sell Bank of The Bahamas?

The time has come to sell Bank of The Bahamas.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Sounds great - a job for life where you can’t get furloughed or fired

Wikipedia tells us there are two billion mothers in the world, 84.5 million of them in the United States. We don’t know exactly how many mothers there are in The Bahamas but one thing we do know – an awful lot of them are holding down the fort on their own.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Life at a standstill - but not for Mother Nature

THERE is nothing normal about the new normal, and that might be a very good thing. Not in all ways, of course, but maybe in some ways and maybe, just maybe some of those are worth stopping a moment for, thinking about and yes, appreciating.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Guess what - we’re discovering we really can do things for ourselves

Complain, gripe and grumble all you want about being stuck at home. The reality is that while it is killing the economy, it is saving lives.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A sporting icon from an age of real stars

Amid the obsession with lives in peril, saved or lost as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the passing of a legend who once stood for the finest in extreme sports, performance and glamour in Nassau nearly went unnoticed.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The sadness of suspicion which hangs over us

We all know the obvious consequences of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. We see the closed signs on shops, the empty airports, ports, schools and churches. We see an economy temporarily grinding to a halt. We hear the silence of streets after 9pm and we are far happier than we should be to see the garbage collection truck because it signifies activity.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Essentially, we could do with some flexibility

When you consider that Hubert A Minnis has been a doctor ten times longer than he has been prime minister, you can appreciate his medical stop-the-spread-at-any-cost approach to COVID-19.

DIANE PHILLIPS: It’s time to stop, think and be ready when the world starts turning again

We have all seen the pictures. Empty streets in downtown Nassau. Empty seats on planes. Prince George Wharf and Festival Place, where the usual complaint is overcrowding, now eerily silent. Store shutters and roll downs sending an unmistakable message – closed for business. At LPIA, the nation’s largest and busiest airport, you could stage a soccer match outside two terminals without causing inconvenience to anyone trying to check in.

DIANE PHILLIPS: We were warned, didn’t listen and now must face the consequences

I’m writing this on a Sunday midday knowing full well the numbers will change by Friday when you read it. As of now, there are 87,000 cases of coronavirus. That’s 2,000 more than there were 20 minutes ago. The death toll stands at nearly 3,000 and no doubt will jump while I continue to write and monitor.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The finest line of all – the last breath

AN old friend died this week. His death was not the saddest part of the story, the end of his life was.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The culture of power is changing before our very eyes

Through the six decades that I have been writing thousands of published news articles, magazine pieces, more lately columns, I have steered clear of politics and have rarely tapped the overflowing well of famous people whose legacy descends into a downhill slide from grace.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What's love got to do with it anyway?

News alert. Today is Valentine’s Day. That is, it’s a news alert for anyone who drove to work today with blindfolds on and did not see pop-up florist stands proffering roses for those to whom planning ahead was something that could be procrastinated.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Can’t Grand Bahama ever catch a break?

What happens in and to Grand Bahama transcends partisan politics and for nearly two decades has challenged every administration in office. What was once proudly deemed The Bahamas’ Second City, was founded in mid-last century as a planned resort, a glamorous casino a magnet.

DIANE PHILLIPS: How many could have survived Dorian if they’d known how to swim?

The enormous economic toll of Hurricane Dorian continues to shake The Bahamas with Finance Minister Peter Turnquest this week confirming we were borrowing hundreds of millions more to help rebuild our devastated islands.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When a minister’s soft voice shouted in rage

When a Methodist minister writes a tell-all book about his life, you aren’t too surprised to hear him wax eloquently about the one woman he loved for half a century, or the fact that he never lost faith, no matter how many challenges he faced.

DIANE PHILLIPS: If your hands are full, what else can a girl do?

Here comes a group of women, all belonging to the same church. There’s something awry about their shape so you wonder if it has to do with their particular form of worship or was it what they served after Sunday School?

DIANE PHILLIPS: Riding for Dorian relief

Jeanne Dupuch and Anne Maury grew up in Nassau close friends with a special bond – their love of horses.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Dick Coulson never had to hold an elected office to be voted one of the most influential men in Bahamian history

There are men whose lives are remembered because of the high office they held, titles they dined on, money, women or fancy toys they accumulated. Richard ‘Dick’ Coulson’s life mattered not for any of the obvious reasons.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Standing idle as corruption reigns carries a heavy price

Fighting corruption would be a lot easier if it had at least a little sex appeal.

DIANE PHILLIPS: It all starts with a simple idea

Who among us hasn’t at one moment or another thought, “If only I were younger” or “If only I had more financial backing, I could do such-and-such” or “Why doesn’t someone create a business to do (xyz)?”

DIANE PHILLIPS: Leave our debt for another day - we need to spend to fight off climate change

Like most folks, I hate to owe anything to anybody. I feel a sense of supreme satisfaction paying off a credit card. I even enjoy paying bills (except BPL which infuriates me), but as I said, knowing that I’m momentarily debt-free and what I earn is what I get to keep - at least until the next bill comes along - provides a good-all-over feeling.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Our brave new world where we can vanish into a screen

When Disney launched its streaming service on November 12, 10 million people signed up the first day, a subscription rush so much faster than expected it caused the system to crash. That hiccup was quickly fixed to the delight of families who could soon settle down and watch Toy Story 4 as many times as they wanted for a monthly fee.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Time for a revolution in our thinking and our schools

One of the brightest men I know was engaged in a conversation with another friend and myself on the subject of education when he remembered a quote, grabbed his phone and found the words he was looking for. It was a quote by Einstein on genius and how the misuse of teaching thwarts potential.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Whatever happened to Coral Harbour dream?

Out on a remote strip of road where the airfields of New Providence dwindle away and the land forms a T-junction with an extra arm, like a partially amputated roundabout, lies a subdivision called Coral Harbour.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Stuck in the spider’s web of the great credit card machine

If you ever want to waste a morning, try to cancel a credit card. In life, there are challenges and then there is the challenge of unwanting and ditching, whether online or by phone, a four-inch plastic card that holds the power of purchasing anything you want with an insertion, swipe or scan.

DIANE PHILLIPS: In such dark days we all need a lighter moment

To the average reader, Page One of a newspaper contains the news they most need to know to get through the day. But in newspaper parlance or the world of those who have worked in the extremely underpaid and overworked world of journalism, there is only one part of Page One that truly matters. It’s called above the fold.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When it’s simply a matter of helping our neighbours

When the Miami Herald ran a front-page story on the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian on September 27, instead of mountains of debris, homes without roofs and lives torn asunder, the image it showed was a bearded man, bent over at the waist, handing a child a toy.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Three Bills, hundreds of clauses, one giant step to save The Bahamas

IN the 1960s, long before the Queen Conch was the subject of conservation debate, the mollusk was so plentiful that some considered it a pest.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The Mudd shows two sides to every story

IF ever there were proof that there are two sides to a story, it’s in the history of The Mudd, a community obliterated by the flood waters, swells, surges and winds of Hurricane Dorian. The Category 5 storm of historic proportions took an untold number of lives and wiped out a shanty town that more than 1200 people called home.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Meet the real people who left home to come and help The Bahamas

DAVID Radford-Wilson is 53, tall and muscular. With looks that would be equally at home in a jersey on the soccer field or a power suit in the board room, he’s an executive coach with clients including a director in a major London bank, a legal counsel in an American law firm and a high-ranking officer in the British government foreign office. By phone or face-to-face, he coaches them in crisis leadership and training.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What happens when the story’s off the front page?

At the Fox Hill Community Centre, volunteers try to keep 56 children occupied. It isn’t easy. The shelter is at full capacity with 250 souls. It is one of the better ones, newly built, air-conditioned but still it is rough. People aren’t supposed to live like this, herded like cattle, sleeping in rooms with hundreds of strangers, sharing toilets with those they have never met, wearing the same clothes day after day.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Dorian’s emotional toll – where are the shrinks, the counsellors, the comforting hugs?

On August 23, 1992, family members were stationed on an island just off Bimini when Hurricane Andrew slammed The Bahamas with ferocious winds that topped 200 miles an hour.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Bringing light to the children whose lives are in darkness

The first time I saw Angel, her frightened eyes flashed back to some unnamed horror she had experienced. Those dark eyes, so filled with fear and terror, dominated her face, obliterating other features. Later, I would see a new Angel, growing up and out of the fear, strong, smiling, overcoming the terror that had forced officials to remove her from her home as a child.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Where was the battle to clean up Clifton won? The courtroom

If you think the environmental woes of the world will be solved by tree-hugging, species-loving do-gooders, you’re so wrong.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The strange, sick case of Jeffrey Epstein and why some people can never be satisfied

The world has watched the Jeffrey Epstein story unfold with the same kind of stomach-churning fascination with which it watched the Charlie Manson murders, curiosity piqued by a failure to understand how someone could do the things he did.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why violence and hatred are so hard to understand

Let me state this up front. I am not a psychologist and I have absolutely no training in the psyche of anything. Sometimes I don’t even understand why my dog barks at nothing, or nothing that we can see or hear. Just stating all that up front so you don’t have any expectations that what I am about to discuss has any scientific basis whatsoever and is based solely on serious conjecture.

DIANE PHILLIPS: That sexy lingerie . . . why, oh why did I save it all these years?

For my 50th birthday, our close friends Jackson and Pam Burnside gave me a very sexy, see-through piece of lingerie. It was an all-in-one panty and top with ever so thin straps, made all of lace and imagination.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Who invented the to-do list anyway?

I was trying to remember when I wrote my first to-do list. Maybe in high school or college.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Brent’s departure exposes that bizarre Bahamian custom - resentment of success

It’s hard to get over the past. So when a white man who happens to be wealthy decides to offer himself for public service in a country where white people, possibly his own ancestors, once had slaves and colonial rule led to what some call the plantation economy, the past stomps on the present. In your face, present. It brazenly paints current perception with a patina of ugly reflection.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Success secured by quietly going it alone

In a few days, The Bahamas will celebrate its 46th anniversary of Independence. There will be the usual pomp and circumstance, the banners, flags, bunting, music and feelings of pride and nationalism. It will be preceded by a Beat the Retreat on the 7th and culminate in a Junkanoo rush-out on Bay Street that insiders say will be different from any that came before.

DIANE PHILLIPS: How a British war hero and a young Bahamian woman proved that love really can conquer all

On June 17, three generations of a low-profile Bahamian family boarded flights to a remote town in Wales where the man who was their father and ancestor would receive one of the highest honours ever accorded.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A real show of community we can all learn from

When a tour bus carrying four locals and 24 passengers from a Carnival Cruise Line ship docked in Eleuthera crashed on Monday, the rush to assist was nothing short of phenomenal.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Will a tiny piece of DNA revive a lost royal breed?

We take so much for granted. Rightly or wrongly, we believe we are invincible and our coping ability will fix anything. Throw a problem at us and we will find a cure. Tell us a species is nearly extinct and we’ll pull off an 11th hour rescue. We’ll rush through legislation. We’ll scour funding. We’ll create a habitat to ensure survival and change destiny.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Honestly, I’m all in a pickle

It’s possible that I slept through the last decade but highly unlikely so how else do I account for the fact that until Friday I never heard of the world’s fastest growing sport? Wonder if you have.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A lack of pride laid bare for all to see

You can blame it on whatever or whomever you want. You can point fingers at the Airport Authority or the Ministry of Tourism & Aviation or the Ministry of Works but the real problem with what is supposed to be an international airport at Great Harbour Cay is a lack of pride.

DIANE PHILLIPS: There’s no explaining why you feel the way you do – or maybe there is . . .

Next time you can’t figure out why you feel a burst of happiness for no apparent reason or you suddenly sank into a slump, check the weather. It has a lot more to do with how you feel than you probably realise.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A Sunday conversation with a friend

Friends are easy, tough, strong and weak. They demand so much of us and we of them. We make friends almost as early as we say ‘Mama,’ ‘Dada,’ we link hands when we are just about old enough to reach out and touch someone other than our parents. Even when we are too young to know the word for friends, they are there for us.

DIANE PHILLIPS: If only road traffic deaths were a little sexier

Car accidents aren’t sexy news. They don’t compete for headline space with juicy scandal or murder for hire.

DIANE PHILLIPS: When will the penny drop? It’s just not worth it

Usually a sucker for the underdog, a protector of whatever species is facing undeserved or premature extinction, the penny is one lesser specimen of which I am not a fan. Quite the opposite, I stare at it with wonderment, like why in the world is it still around?

DIANE PHILLIPS: A stench of entitlement laid bare

In March, when the story broke revealing some 50 people had been indicted in the US for what was labelled a “racketeering scheme” involving Hollywood hotshots, hotheads and CEOs paying up to $500,000 to have test scores altered so their children could get into good colleges, shockwaves radiated from coast to coast.

DIANE PHILLIPS: We're selling ourselves cheap and it's got to stop

Once the avenue of luxury shopping dreams, today’s Bay Street is more accurately the ageing T-shirt capital of The Bahamas. All is far from lost.

Rooms with a view - but not this big

A proposal is before the Department of Physical Planning to build a resort complex to be called The View Love Beach on a 7.4-acre site on Love Beach.

So much water, so little identity

The Bahamas is defined by its waters.

DIANE PHILLIPS: He is not a dummy - the life and lessons of Michael Wells

In everyone’s life, there is someone who changes you. For me it was Michael Wells. Michael was born with cerebral palsy, the result of a breach birth. No one expected him to live past the age of 20. In June, I helped him celebrate his 53rd birthday.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Hey you, stupid, switch your phone off

Our daughter got married last Saturday. It was magical.

DIANE PHILLIPS - Lake Killarney: Unseen beauty under threat

Out in the middle of the island mostly hidden from view is one of The Bahamas’ greatest treasures. It’s called Lake Killarney and today it is under threat from development that is encroaching on its banks with buyers building down into the swampy marshes and destroying mangroves by the hundreds with careless abandon.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Cyber crime - it’s just a keystroke away

It is Valentine’s Day and I should be writing a soppy love story instead of something that sounds like fear-mongering against a backdrop of Darth Vader. But recent events converged to force this from the bowels of my keyboard, a warning that even when you think you’re safe, think again.

DIANE PHILLIPS: From the rubble of Joaquin, lives and a community rebuilt

There are three things Anita Collie Pratt will never forget when she thinks of Hurricane Joaquin – the howling of the wind, the sound of the sea as it roared closer and closer until it crashed through her door and when it was all over, the kindness of strangers.

DIANE PHILLIPS: More than one way to put out a Fyre storm

There’s hardly a soul who hasn’t heard of the Fyre Festival debacle, an elaborate scheme to lure the newly rich and somewhat famous to the beautiful beaches and waters of Exuma for days of languishing in the sun, frolicking in the sea and imbibing the best of champagne and Bahama Mamas with intervals of music and dance.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Never underestimate the Power of One

Long before he became the latest iteration of superhuman James Bond 007, actor Daniel Craig debuted in an often overlooked movie called The Power of One.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Admit it - there’s never been a better time to put off what you have to do today

Over the holidays as our little public relations office was officially closed, I worked there nearly every day anyway because it is what I do.

DIANE PHILLIPS: We may lack a little luck but we never lose hope

Another day, another week, goes by and before you know it, you look up and another year has gone by. And you wonder, how did it go so fast, no wonder they say time flies, what did I get done?

DIANE PHILLIPS: I’m being robbed and it’s driving me mad

There are 18 thieves in my house, maybe more, five in my bedroom alone, another six in the kitchen. I have tried to ignore them, shut my eyes and pretend they are not there. I have willed them away and tried cover-up tricks to get rid of them, but I can’t. Most of them are smaller than a fingernail but thieves they are. They steal my sleep and run up my BPL bill.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Americans will spend $465 billion on their Christmas gifts, what will Bahamians do?

The Washington-based National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail trade association, estimates Americans will spend $465 billion on Christmas gifts this year.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Dusting off the covers to reveal the memories hidden beneath

Every time I get into one of those frenzies known as the immediate need to de-clutter, I stop cold at one room where history lives.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Back to school and opening eyes and minds

Over the past two weeks I have had the great pleasure of going to primary school. To say it has been a while since I last went to school would be an understatement on the order of well, let’s just leave it there. Some things are just obvious.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Who dreamed sovereignty could hurt so much?

There probably isn’t a Bahamian soul alive today who would trade independence for rule by another. We are so proud of being a sovereign nation and a success story from the moment we threw off the reins that bound us that we celebrate every year as if it were the first.

DIANE PHILLIPS: So whose idea was it anyway?

Long before someone decided to make life easier, there were a lot of everyday things you could to that were actually easier to do. Remember the days that you used a large impressive key to open a hotel room door? There was something classy about that. You felt you had arrived and taken possession, even if just for a day or two.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Remember, love doesn’t come in a computer programme

In 2013, the movie HER, the story of a lonely writer who falls in love with a computer, won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Helping the helpless but a story which fills us with shame

If you live on the eastern side of the island you see them every day – men and women in light blue shirts and khaki pants holding tin cans in the shape of a church. They wait patiently for donations, a few hundred dollars a day coming from regulars who know the work these extraordinary men and women do. They are the members of Ambassador Chorale and the money they raise helps to house, feed, clothe and teach those who have fallen through the cracks or whose drug-sodden parents are incapable of caring for them.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Questions for us all over the response to Haiti quake

What follows is not a soliloquy in print about whether Prime Minister Dr The Rt Hon Hubert A Minnis did the right or wrong thing when he pronounced “Bahamas First”, signalling no help for Haiti in the wake of an earthquake that took lives, destroyed buildings, left people homeless last weekend. Much has already been written about that.

DIANE PHILLIPS: That eureka moment in Exuma

At 3:30 yesterday CNN interviewed a man named Jeff Todd about a phenomenon called swimming pigs. Todd lives in his native Canada these days with his wife and twin daughters. He is in his early 30s, a former Nassau Guardian business editor, AP contributor, prolific journalist, author of three books and, of late, a serial Exuma promoter whose fascination is with the swimming pigs.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why we love to see the Tiger roar again

I first noticed this strange phenomenon when working at the National Enquirer and its sister paper, the now-defunct Weekly World News. We humans are like passengers. When a new celebrity or sports hero appears on the scene we climb onboard, celebrating their talent, commenting as if we were experts on their particular skills. We watch them perform, applaud for them.

DIANE PHILLIPS: How do you know when it’s time to trade the old for the new?

There is an almost inexplicable pleasure in cleaning out a drawer, a satisfaction that far exceeds what would seem appropriate for such a mundane task.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Without a goal you never know what you’re going to get

Remember when you were little and everyone asked if you knew what you wanted to be when you grew up? You looked at them feigning respect and thinking what kind of idiot is this tall person in front of me? I’m six - my idea of the future is dinner! But as that six-year-old got older, the expectation that she would set goals became more ingrained. We grow up and long before there was such a thing as a bucket list, we were expected to set goals. What we want to be. Who we want to be. Eventually where we want to be. Even how many children we want to have.

DIANE PHILLIPS: I’m going to sit right down and write myself a letter

Every woman could have written the beginning of this column. I did not. It was sent to me by someone close and special and it was too good not to share so I do so in the form in which it landed in my inbox.

DIANE PHILLIPS: He brought fame to The Bahamas and when he died few noticed

As The Bahamas prepares for yet another state funeral and honours are bestowed on new deserving recipients, a man who brought joy and wonder to tens of thousands and fame to The Bahamas slipped quietly away almost unnoticed.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Let perfection be . . . leave Lighthouse Point alone

Some things are perfect just the way they are, even when we don’t understand why they are the way they are.

DIANE PHILLIPS: We’d better hope it’s not already too late

On the front page of this past Sunday’s New York Times was a photo of a large green area that at first glance could be a grassy knoll.

DIANE PHILLIPS: For all the words I’ve loved before . . .

Every time I hear the Willie Nelson song “For all the girls I’ve loved before”, I find myself transposing the word “words” for girls. I am not sure why and it probably doesn’t matter. I am not denouncing the right to love girls and Willie has my blessing. Personally, I have loved a few myself – my daughters and granddaughters and had I thought of my late mother as a girl instead of a mother, I would have included her.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Come on - it’s simply not cricket

Officially, cricket is the national sport of The Bahamas. Officially, oatmeal without sugar and cream is really good for you.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Excitement of danger - until hate is pointed directly at you

This is a very personal story and, in some ways, it is a story about all of us.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The little shop with a window back on time

At the southeast corner of Bay & Frederick Streets stands a store that seems to defy time. The sign above the door reads simply A BAKER & SONS, ESTABLISHED 1894. If you were alive when it opened, you would be 124 today and probably not remember the day it opened. But for most of the rest of us, we cannot remember a time when it did not exist nor when we were not fascinated by the fact that it remains, a survivor of the days when men’s shirts and baby clothes shared the same kind of tight plastic see-through protective wrapping.

DIANE PHILLIPS: In the name of human kindness, what has become of America?

A CHILD cries out, her outstretched arms clinging to her mother as officials tear her away, her tiny trusting fingers nearly ripping Momma’s skin holding on for one last futile second. Her mother’s pleas go unheeded.

INSIGHT: Crumbling before our eyes

WHEN I wrote a column last week that started with the words - shame on me - I was fighting back tears. I am a Bahamian citizen and as guilty as every one of us who stands by and lets history crumble before our eyes. Earlier that day, I had stood in front of a building that once housed Pan American Airlines headquarters and realised, just as I had the Sunday before when a young friend and I pushed away the bush to get inside Blackbeard’s Tower, that we are letting our incredible history vanish piece by piece, decaying block by block, day by day.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A slap on the wrist and a wake-up call

Shame on me. I am a Bahamian citizen and I am sitting by and watching history crumble before my very eyes.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Memories you can touch

On Sunday, I threw away a Scrabble box that was more than 50 years old. It was hard to do because my parents’ hands had touched it. My mother died in 1965, my father the following year. That Scrabble box was one of the few remaining things I had with a trace of their DNA on it.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A tale of two lighthouses

Lighthouses captivate our imagination and move us in a way we rarely stop to define. Maybe it is because they stand apart from all else around them - tall, proud, lonely, independent, dependable, a sentry that never needs sleep.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Silent longings for a sense of community

I went missing last week, not literally, but from the regular routine of work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, and found myself accidentally in small town America. How I got to where I’d had no idea I was going is probably the funnier part of the story, but the consequences of what I found when arrived were interesting enough to give pause for thought, a whole heap of pause, in fact, and the takeaway was both greatly satisfying and stomach-bubblingly unsettling.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Dear Mr Minnis . . .

Dear Prime Minister, Cabinet, Loyal Opposition . . .

Diane Phillips: And the award for gross stupidity goes to . . .

If there were profit to be earned, some savvy entrepreneur would create an award that rewards the dumbest ideas ever. The scheme could work just like other awards, except it would be funnier. Like this letter which I received a little while back. It was sent to me by a well-known retailer.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Three cheers for the Commodore and his crews

There is a lot that many of you out there know about me. I’m the other side of middle age and stuck with too much energy for my own good. I say what’s on my mind. I have had a lifelong love affair with words and secretly confess that I spend ridiculous amounts of time thinking stupid thoughts like which is a better example of a double-middle-consonant verb that sounds like what it means, hobble or cobble. When you say the word hobble you immediately think of someone bent over, struggling for the next step. But when you say cobble as in cobbling a… anyway, you get the picture.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Walkabout not workout uncovers lost glories

On Tuesday, my personal trainer, a man named Robert Hamilton, and I were walking. It’s what we do when I am too lazy to work out after a gruelling 12-hour day when I could think of at least a dozen things more preferable to push-ups and crunches.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why we’ll take the human touch every time over any other form of communication

“Hi, Joe on time for the call here. Anybody there?” Guess I’m a minute early, Joe thinks silently, hoping no one else remembers and it will all be over before it starts.

DIANE PHILLIPS: What we feel when the familiar fades away, even when you weren’t a fan

ONE day after a crowd of 800,000 descended on Washington in the March for Our Lives demanding stricter gun control in the wake of the Parkland school shooting that killed 17 students, wounding another 17, Remington Outdoor Company, America’s oldest manufacturer of arms and munition, announced it was filing for bankruptcy.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Where, oh where, has my attention span gone?

Where, oh where, did our attention spans go? I lost mine somewhere between the cell phone, Kindle, Surface and life. Hopefully, I did not put in the laundry with the week’s linens or sock it away in a drawer like I did one time with $100 bill that would have come in so handy had I remembered it when needed instead of years later by accident when I didn’t.

DIANE PHILLIPS: How did the future get here so fast?

There is a phobia for just about everything. Fear of heights, fear of open spaces, fear of looking ridiculous, no just made that up. But the fear I find most relevant to all of us in The Bahamas is something I just learned the name of. It’s called Chronophobia and it is a fear of the future.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Now why didn't I think of that?

It’s official. As of this week, Jeff Bezos, age 54, is the richest man in the world and the first on Forbes magazine’s richest people list whose net worth tops $100bn. For anyone who has spent the last 20 years under a rock studying whatever lives u

DIANE PHILLIPS: We cherish excellence yet tolerate so much that falls short

Like thousands in The Bahamas, we have been glued to the TV since the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang started on February 9.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Why Bahamians defy the retirement odds

Many of my friends are of retirement age. But they don’t, retire that is. Why would you choose to work when you could choose to not work, a question that assumes the choice is not based on a need for money, but is strictly a personal one? The question intrigued me so I began to a totally non-scientific study. I asked about ten people, ten being a large enough sample to provide a clue that would have one of two outcomes – reaffirm my guess or be such an eye-opener as to qualify for revelation status.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The least among us can inspire so long as we have a dream

Local drama aside for a moment, this was a very good week to watch history unfold and think about why some events move us, others shake us to our core and still others make us so proud we have to contain ourselves or we might just burst.

The Bucket List: Is it really all it’s hyped up to be or should we kick the bucket down the road?

Bucket Lists interest me. I also feel threatened by them or maybe intimidated is a better word because I don’t really have a full bucket list and that makes me think I must be a pretty boring person.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Rainy days and rainy nights, what's a poor soul to do?

Funny the things that cause you to think differently about a subject that was staring you right in the face all along. It happened to me recently. Late last Wednesday, I was heading to Florida.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Let’s be honest - it’s time to clean up our act

We often talk about beautification, meaning planting flowers or adding greenery, lighting, benches in a pedestrian area. We include clean-up where appropriate, public art where possible, underground irrigation where affordable. But we rarely stop to think how the place we are beautifying got into the shape it did that required beautification in the first place.

DIANE PHILLIPS: As we celebrate two lost lives, can I ask a favour?

Two funerals are scheduled for tomorrow, one for a toddler named Aidan Carron who spent the last year of his two-year life in a hospital battling the effects of therapy-related leukemia.

DIANE PHILLIPS: A year to re-ignite belief in our country

It is easy to say The Bahamas is at a crossroads. You could say that at the end of any year though a new year is only an artificial separation of one day from the next. Birds don’t mark the years, nor do wild animals. Man does it out of convenience to give us a moment to stop and reflect, to think about where we were and where we are going.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Don’t fret, what’s there to worry about?

My late mother-in-law, God rest her soul, was such a worrier that one day when she had nothing to worry about, she confessed she was worried that she had nothing to worry about, as if she had overlooked some major reason for worry, and would regret it. She spoke about worry as if it were a place that should have been dusted but wasn’t and would be revealed to her extreme horror by distinguished guests later.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Let’s resolve to do something a little different in life

Down deep inside all of us behind our outwardly well-adjusted exterior there are conflicting wishes. We wish we could be a genius who invents something that changes the world or we wish we could be rich or thin or beautiful or best of all rich, thin, beautiful geniuses who invented something that changed the world. But we settle for what we are because either we believe we are ill-equipped to be anything else or we are ill-prepared to do the work required to become all those things we wish we were.

DIANE PHILLIPS: Picture this - life with a different perspective

Photographers must be about the luckiest people in the world. When they don’t like the view they see, they can change a lens. 50mm to wide angle, 100mm to panoramic, 400mm to capture the hair on a hare. The price they pay is lugging all that special equipment around, tripod, camera bag, backdrop, cords and cables. But what a deal – a tiny bit of heavy lifting for the ability to create the view you want when it was not there the first time you looked at it, like magic in a leather bag.

DIANE PHILLIPS: The records we hold, the ones we love, the ones that shame us

The Bahamas holds an amazing array of records. From athletes who have run faster and jumped higher to world-shattering numbers of shark species in our 100,000 square miles of waters, The Bahamas shines. We exceed in sailing, singing and culinary arts. Our hotels are among the most famous on the globe, our fantasy islands among the most sought after, our beaches among the most dreamed of, some of our residents among the most noted or notorious.

DIANE PHILLIPS: It takes courage to go where you haven’t gone before

You’ve probably never heard of Stella McCartney. I never had either, until she landed on the cover of my favourite business magazine, Fast Company, in October. McCartney, a famous fashion designer, it turns out, is known for her men’s, women’s and children’s clothing as well as shoes, bags, caps and even gifts.

Time to honour our nation's heroes

History waits for no one and clocks do not stop because a loved one dies. Each time we lose someone who means something special to us in our personal lives we wonder what more we could have done for them before they passed or how we might have acted differently had we known their end was so near.

YOUR SAY: How long before the gates go up on Cabbage Beach? Is it time to buy?

In 2005, a jaw-dropping California court ruling sent shock waves through a crowd of Hollywood A-listers.

Gaming’s here, it always has been and it’s never going away

IF you grew up anywhere near the water tower in the heart of Nassau or just east of Chippingham, there is a sound that you will always identify with a group of men having fun the old-fashioned way. They didn’t have guns or knives or utter predictably ugly multi-syllabic words. They had dominoes and the sound was the clack-clack of tiles in a game that involves a combination of skill, strategy and yes, a dose of luck.

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Brain drain growing, 56,000+ Bahamians living in US and more being lured

How do you fix a problem that costs 20 times more to run than the revenue it generates?

THE UNINTENTIONAL IMPACT OF THE COLLAPSE OF FTX