Today I broke one of my New Year's resolution not to waste money. But as someone told me this morning that I was honoured with the headline in the esteemed 'The Workers Voice', the BIU's newsletter, I made an exception.
So, at great pains I paid 25c for my copy and, well, the entertainment factor alone is worth more than the cost, by alot.
I'm going to hit a few of the highlights over a few more posts, but the reason I bought it was for the headline story which invoked my name: 'LaVerne responds to Gazette columnist Dunleavy's attack', which was just a reprint of the first of Laverne Furbert's two non-response responses to my column regarding Derrick Burgess' comments on managing the Bermudian worker.
I'm going to follow this post with a line by line analysis of Ms. Furbert's two letters, but the interesting thing was the intro to the piece:
'Editor's note: The following is the text of a column that appeared in the morning daily this week. The piece was authored by Sister LaVerne Furbert and it was in response to a column that criticized Brother Derrick Burgess for a statement that he is purported to have given to The Bermuda Sun recently.' [Italics mine]
'... a statement that he is purported to have given to the Bermuda Sun recently.'
'Purported'! This is The Workers Voice, the official newsletter of the BIU, the union that Derrick Burgess is president of. And they want to suggest that he might not have given the statement but don't have a definitive confirmation or denial from him (he's quoted in other articles so his phone must have been working)!
But I can understand why the Union is furiously backpedaling on this and misstating my argument - or as someone said to me 'trying to unring the bell' - but I've seen no retraction from the Sun, and surely Brother Derrick could have confirmed for his own newsletter whether he actually said it. Which of course he did.
But anyway, the content of the article is a reprint of the original RG non-response. But of course they didn't have the courtesy or integrity to include my original column, which is certainly convenient if you want to misstate my argument in your response and suggest I actually personally attacked Derrick Burgess, and not a statement that he obviously regrets making.
More soon ...
