Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Leaves Shimmer
Leaves shimmer in uncoordinated
unison:
The Gardener at work
A bird hums high on sugar
Buzzes away on its own breeze
And me
I sit in a monsoon
Drenched:
The Gardner stoops to his work.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
You Decide
Recent mail from China:
We are an international electronics wholesalers and retailers, our sales of computer, television, cell phone, game consoles and other products, we have a very good price and credit, and our products are the real book has to guarantee that if you buy more than items, products you will be presented,
all to do at：hhomemall.com
Waiting for the arrival of you.
Result: Unanswered because who the hell knows what they're saying!!
Recent mail from Nigeria from Dr. Brown Babaginda:
[Bulk] (PLEASE I NEED YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE AND TRUST)
Unopened due to possible virus and scam contained therein.
Recent mail from the U.S.:
Does it satisfy her?
Please Her Like Never Before.
Special: Buy 3 Get 1 Free Today.
Really, really could use this but not willing to as 3 for 1 is just not a good enough deal for a true-blue Indian like me.
We are an international electronics wholesalers and retailers, our sales of computer, television, cell phone, game consoles and other products, we have a very good price and credit, and our products are the real book has to guarantee that if you buy more than items, products you will be presented,
all to do at：hhomemall.com
Waiting for the arrival of you.
Result: Unanswered because who the hell knows what they're saying!!
Recent mail from Nigeria from Dr. Brown Babaginda:
[Bulk] (PLEASE I NEED YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE AND TRUST)
Unopened due to possible virus and scam contained therein.
Recent mail from the U.S.:
Does it satisfy her?
Please Her Like Never Before.
Special: Buy 3 Get 1 Free Today.
Really, really could use this but not willing to as 3 for 1 is just not a good enough deal for a true-blue Indian like me.
Monday, May 03, 2010
And I Quote
"We may spend the better part of our professional lives projecting strength and toughness, but we are all in the end creatures of appalling fragility and vunerability."
-- Alain de Botton, Harper's Magazine, April 2010
-- Alain de Botton, Harper's Magazine, April 2010
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Worth Repeating
The Pope Should Be Questioned in Sex-Abuse Cases
By Christopher Hitchens
Detain or subpoena the pope for questioning in the child-rape scandal? You must be joking! All right then, try the only alternative formulation: declare the pope to be above and beyond all local and international laws, and immune when it comes to his personal and institutional responsibility for sheltering criminals. The joke there would be on us.
The case for bringing the head of the Catholic hierarchy within the orbit of law is easily enough made. All it involves is the ability to look at a naked emperor and ask the question “Why?” Mentally remove his papal vestments and imagine him in a suit, and Joseph Ratzinger becomes just a Bavarian bureaucrat who has failed in the only task he was ever set—that of damage control. The question started small. In 2002, I happened to be on Hardball With Chris Matthews, discussing what the then attorney general of Massachusetts, Thomas Reilly, had termed a massive cover-up by the church of crimes against children by more than a thousand priests. I asked, why is the man who is prima facie responsible, Cardinal Bernard Law, not being questioned by the forces of law and order? Why is the church allowed to be judge in its own case and enabled in effect to run private courts where gross and evil offenders end up being “forgiven”? This point must have hung in the air a bit, and perhaps lodged in Cardinal Law’s own mind, because in December of that year he left Boston just hours before state troopers arrived with a subpoena seeking his grand-jury testimony. Where did he go? To Rome, where he later voted in the election of Pope Benedict XVI and now presides over the beautiful church of Santa Maria Maggiore, as well as several Vatican subcommittees.
In my submission, the current scandal passed the point of no return when the Vatican officially became a hideout for a man who was little better than a fugitive from justice. By sheltering such a salient offender at its very heart, the Vatican had invited the metastasis of the horror into its bosom and thence to its very head. It is obvious that Cardinal Law could not have made his escape or been given asylum without the approval of the then pontiff and of his most trusted deputy in the matter of child-rape damage control, then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Developments since that time have appalled even the most diehard papal apologists by their rapidity and scale. Not only do we have the letter that Cardinal Ratzinger sent to all Catholic bishops, enjoining them sternly to refer rape and molestation cases exclusively to his office. That would be bad enough in itself, since any person having knowledge of such a crime is legally obliged to report it to the police. But now, from Munich and Madison, Wis., and Oakland, come reports of the protection or indulgence of pederasts occurring on the pope’s own watch, either during his period as bishop or his time as chief Vatican official for the defusing of the crisis. His apologists have done their best, but their Holy Father seems consistently to have been lenient or negligent with the criminals while reserving his severity only for those who complained about them.
As this became horribly obvious, I telephoned a distinguished human-rights counsel in London, Geoffrey Robertson, and asked him if the law was powerless to intervene. Not at all, was his calm reply. If His Holiness tries to travel outside his own territory—as he proposes to travel to Britain in the fall—there is no more reason for him to feel safe than there was for the once magnificently uniformed General Pinochet, who had passed a Chilean law that he thought would guarantee his own immunity, but who was visited by British bobbies all the same. As I am writing this, plaintiffs are coming forward and strategies being readied (on both sides, since the Vatican itself scents the danger). In Kentucky, a suit is before the courts seeking the testimony of the pope himself. In Britain, it is being proposed that any one of the numberless possible plaintiffs might privately serve the pope with a writ if he shows his face. Also being considered are two international approaches, one to the European Court of Human Rights and another to the International Criminal Court. The ICC—which has already this year overruled immunity and indicted the gruesome president of Sudan—can be asked to rule on “crimes against humanity”; a legal definition that happens to include any consistent pattern of rape, or exploitation of children, that has been endorsed by any government.
In Kentucky, the pope’s lawyers have already signaled their intention to contest any such initiative by invoking “sovereign immunity,” since His Holiness is also an alleged head of state. One wonders if sincere Catholics really desire to take refuge in this formulation. The so-called Vatican City, a political nonentity covering about 0.17 square miles of Rome, was created by Benito Mussolini in 1929 as part of his sweetheart deal between fascism and the papacy. It is the last survival of the political architecture of the Axis powers. Its bogus claim to statehood is now being used to give asylum to men like Cardinal Law.
In this instance the church damns itself both ways. It invites our challenge—this is where the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights becomes relevant—to its standing as a state. And it calls attention to the repellent origins of that same state. Currently the Holy See has it both ways. For example, it is exempt from the annual State Department Human Rights Report precisely because it is not considered a state. (It maintains only observer status at the United Nations.) So, if it now does want to claim full statehood, it follows that it should receive the full attention of the State Department for its “lay” policies, and, for that matter, the full attention of the Justice Department as well. (First order of business—why on earth are we not demanding the extradition of Cardinal Law? And why is this grave matter being left to private individuals to pursue?)
It is very difficult to resist the conclusion that this pope does not call for a serious investigation, or demand the removal of those responsible for a consistent pattern of child rape and its concealment, because to do so would be to imply the call for his own indictment. But meanwhile why are we expected to watch passively or wonder idly why the church does not clean its own filthy stable? A case in point: in 2001 Cardinal Castrillón of Colombia wrote from the Vatican to congratulate a French bishop who had risked jail rather than report an especially vicious rapist priest. Castrillón was invited this week to conduct a lavish Latin mass in Washington. The invitation was rightly withdrawn after a storm of outrage, but nobody asked why the cardinal could not be held as an accessory to an official Vatican policy that has exposed thousands of American children to rapists and sadists.
Only this past March did the church shamefacedly and reluctantly agree that all child rapists should now be handed over to the civil authorities. Thanks a lot. That was a clear admission that gross illegality, and of the nastiest kind, has been its practice up until now. Euphemisms about sin and repentance are useless. This is a question of crime—organized crime, by the way—and therefore of punishment. Or perhaps you would rather see the shade of Mussolini thrown protectively over the Vicar of Christ? The ancient Roman symbol of the fish is rotting—and rotting from the head.
Hitchens, a NEWSWEEK contributor, is a columnist for Vanity Fair.
By Christopher Hitchens
Detain or subpoena the pope for questioning in the child-rape scandal? You must be joking! All right then, try the only alternative formulation: declare the pope to be above and beyond all local and international laws, and immune when it comes to his personal and institutional responsibility for sheltering criminals. The joke there would be on us.
The case for bringing the head of the Catholic hierarchy within the orbit of law is easily enough made. All it involves is the ability to look at a naked emperor and ask the question “Why?” Mentally remove his papal vestments and imagine him in a suit, and Joseph Ratzinger becomes just a Bavarian bureaucrat who has failed in the only task he was ever set—that of damage control. The question started small. In 2002, I happened to be on Hardball With Chris Matthews, discussing what the then attorney general of Massachusetts, Thomas Reilly, had termed a massive cover-up by the church of crimes against children by more than a thousand priests. I asked, why is the man who is prima facie responsible, Cardinal Bernard Law, not being questioned by the forces of law and order? Why is the church allowed to be judge in its own case and enabled in effect to run private courts where gross and evil offenders end up being “forgiven”? This point must have hung in the air a bit, and perhaps lodged in Cardinal Law’s own mind, because in December of that year he left Boston just hours before state troopers arrived with a subpoena seeking his grand-jury testimony. Where did he go? To Rome, where he later voted in the election of Pope Benedict XVI and now presides over the beautiful church of Santa Maria Maggiore, as well as several Vatican subcommittees.
In my submission, the current scandal passed the point of no return when the Vatican officially became a hideout for a man who was little better than a fugitive from justice. By sheltering such a salient offender at its very heart, the Vatican had invited the metastasis of the horror into its bosom and thence to its very head. It is obvious that Cardinal Law could not have made his escape or been given asylum without the approval of the then pontiff and of his most trusted deputy in the matter of child-rape damage control, then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Developments since that time have appalled even the most diehard papal apologists by their rapidity and scale. Not only do we have the letter that Cardinal Ratzinger sent to all Catholic bishops, enjoining them sternly to refer rape and molestation cases exclusively to his office. That would be bad enough in itself, since any person having knowledge of such a crime is legally obliged to report it to the police. But now, from Munich and Madison, Wis., and Oakland, come reports of the protection or indulgence of pederasts occurring on the pope’s own watch, either during his period as bishop or his time as chief Vatican official for the defusing of the crisis. His apologists have done their best, but their Holy Father seems consistently to have been lenient or negligent with the criminals while reserving his severity only for those who complained about them.
As this became horribly obvious, I telephoned a distinguished human-rights counsel in London, Geoffrey Robertson, and asked him if the law was powerless to intervene. Not at all, was his calm reply. If His Holiness tries to travel outside his own territory—as he proposes to travel to Britain in the fall—there is no more reason for him to feel safe than there was for the once magnificently uniformed General Pinochet, who had passed a Chilean law that he thought would guarantee his own immunity, but who was visited by British bobbies all the same. As I am writing this, plaintiffs are coming forward and strategies being readied (on both sides, since the Vatican itself scents the danger). In Kentucky, a suit is before the courts seeking the testimony of the pope himself. In Britain, it is being proposed that any one of the numberless possible plaintiffs might privately serve the pope with a writ if he shows his face. Also being considered are two international approaches, one to the European Court of Human Rights and another to the International Criminal Court. The ICC—which has already this year overruled immunity and indicted the gruesome president of Sudan—can be asked to rule on “crimes against humanity”; a legal definition that happens to include any consistent pattern of rape, or exploitation of children, that has been endorsed by any government.
In Kentucky, the pope’s lawyers have already signaled their intention to contest any such initiative by invoking “sovereign immunity,” since His Holiness is also an alleged head of state. One wonders if sincere Catholics really desire to take refuge in this formulation. The so-called Vatican City, a political nonentity covering about 0.17 square miles of Rome, was created by Benito Mussolini in 1929 as part of his sweetheart deal between fascism and the papacy. It is the last survival of the political architecture of the Axis powers. Its bogus claim to statehood is now being used to give asylum to men like Cardinal Law.
In this instance the church damns itself both ways. It invites our challenge—this is where the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights becomes relevant—to its standing as a state. And it calls attention to the repellent origins of that same state. Currently the Holy See has it both ways. For example, it is exempt from the annual State Department Human Rights Report precisely because it is not considered a state. (It maintains only observer status at the United Nations.) So, if it now does want to claim full statehood, it follows that it should receive the full attention of the State Department for its “lay” policies, and, for that matter, the full attention of the Justice Department as well. (First order of business—why on earth are we not demanding the extradition of Cardinal Law? And why is this grave matter being left to private individuals to pursue?)
It is very difficult to resist the conclusion that this pope does not call for a serious investigation, or demand the removal of those responsible for a consistent pattern of child rape and its concealment, because to do so would be to imply the call for his own indictment. But meanwhile why are we expected to watch passively or wonder idly why the church does not clean its own filthy stable? A case in point: in 2001 Cardinal Castrillón of Colombia wrote from the Vatican to congratulate a French bishop who had risked jail rather than report an especially vicious rapist priest. Castrillón was invited this week to conduct a lavish Latin mass in Washington. The invitation was rightly withdrawn after a storm of outrage, but nobody asked why the cardinal could not be held as an accessory to an official Vatican policy that has exposed thousands of American children to rapists and sadists.
Only this past March did the church shamefacedly and reluctantly agree that all child rapists should now be handed over to the civil authorities. Thanks a lot. That was a clear admission that gross illegality, and of the nastiest kind, has been its practice up until now. Euphemisms about sin and repentance are useless. This is a question of crime—organized crime, by the way—and therefore of punishment. Or perhaps you would rather see the shade of Mussolini thrown protectively over the Vicar of Christ? The ancient Roman symbol of the fish is rotting—and rotting from the head.
Hitchens, a NEWSWEEK contributor, is a columnist for Vanity Fair.
Friday, April 30, 2010
What am I Reading
Currently reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. So far so good. Half of a Yellow Sun received the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.
The New Yorker said this about the book when it was first published:
Based loosely on political events in nineteen-sixties Nigeria, this novel focusses on two wealthy Igbo sisters, Olanna and Kainene, who drift apart as the newly independent nation struggles to remain unified. Olanna falls for an imperious academic whose political convictions mask his personal weaknesses; meanwhile, Kainene becomes involved with a shy, studious British expat. After a series of massacres targeting the Igbo people, the carefully genteel world of the two couples disintegrates. Adichie indicts the outside world for its indifference and probes the arrogance and ignorance that perpetuated the conflict. Yet this is no polemic. The characters and landscape are vividly painted, and details are often used to heartbreaking effect: soldiers, waiting to be armed, clutch sticks carved into the shape of rifles; an Igbo mother, in flight from a massacre, carries her daughter's severed head, the hair lovingly braided.
I am also starting, but not wholly into, The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill - brother of Dan Hill! What a bunch of over-achievers!
The Book of Negroes won the 2007 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. It was the winning selection for CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2009.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Chaand Ke Saath
chaand ke saath kayi dard purane nikale
kitane gam the jo tere gam ke bahaane nikale
fasl-e-gul aayi phir ik baar asiran-e-wafa
apane hi kuun ke dariya mein nahaane nikale
dil ne ik int se taamir kiya taajamahal
tuune ik baat kahi laakh fasaane nikale
dasht-e-tanahaayi-e-hijraan mein khada sochata huun
haay kya log mera saath nibhaane nikale
...
JAGJIT SINGH
kitane gam the jo tere gam ke bahaane nikale
fasl-e-gul aayi phir ik baar asiran-e-wafa
apane hi kuun ke dariya mein nahaane nikale
dil ne ik int se taamir kiya taajamahal
tuune ik baat kahi laakh fasaane nikale
dasht-e-tanahaayi-e-hijraan mein khada sochata huun
haay kya log mera saath nibhaane nikale
...
JAGJIT SINGH
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Afghanistan: Exit Strategy Needed
Robert D. Kaplan, writing for The Atlantic this month, points out the one and only reason why the U.S. and Canada and all the rest should get the heck out of Afghanistan before it becomes hopelessly difficult to save face and avoid any more loss of life for the Canadian Forces. Italics are mine.
The story of Colonel Chris Kolenda, of Omaha, Nebraska, is instructive. Kolenda, a West Point graduate with the sharp-eyed, comforting manner of a family physician, commanded the 1st Squadron of the 91st Cavalry from May 2007 to July 2008 in northeastern Afghanistan, on the border with Pakistan. When Kolenda’s 800-soldier battalion arrived, armed violence was endemic. Coalition headquarters in Kabul blamed a Pakistan-based insurgency. “The conventional wisdom was wrong,” Kolenda told me. “Almost all of the insurgents were locals who fought for a whole variety of reasons: they were disgusted with ISAF, as well as the government in Kabul; their fathers had fought the Soviets and now the sons were fighting the new foreigners.”Allow me to interpret: Afghanistan is not a banana republic; it is not a Haiti or a Panama where overwhelming force can be applied simplistically. It is politically fractious, geographically far and culturally alien to the West. Without the will, money and manpower for an extended, neo-colonial stay, the war is lost. Just as it was lost by Alexander the Great, the British, the Russians (who were next door to Afghanistan), and now the (other side of the world) U.S. led coalition.Then there was the “psychodrama of interethnic and clan frictions,” abetted by the fractured mountainous landscape. The area was populated by Nuristanis, Kohistanis, and Pashtuns, all of whom harbored disdain for the Gujars, migrant farm workers from over the border, who, in their eyes, were “not real Afghans.” (So much for the argument that there is no Afghan national identity.) The Nuristanis, in turn, were divided into the Kata, Kom, Kushtowz, and Wai clans. The Kom were split into hostile and well-armed groups whose current divisions stemmed from the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, when some of the Kom backed the radical forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, known as the HIG, or Hezb-i-Islami-Gulbuddin, and other Kom sub-clans were loyal to the moderate National Islamic Front of Afghanistan. The Kata, meanwhile, were generally loyal to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (“Army of the Righteous”), which carried out major attacks against India from bases in Pakistan. The Pashtuns themselves were divided in some cases, on account of blood feuds, into five elements.
Kolenda apologized to me for “getting down in the weeds,” but explained that until he’d learned who was who, and who was fighting whom, his battalion couldn’t make progress and escape the cycle of ferocious firefights that had characterized the first three months of its deployment. “People were often giving us tips about bad guys who weren’t really bad guys, but simply people from another faction with whom the tipster had a score to settle.”
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Tarah and Mansoor
Cuties: Mansoor and Tarah at Rox's 50th Birthday Celebration.(Click to see larger pic.)
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Seth's Red Converse Shoes
Seth proudly displaying his new shoes. We went to the SoftMoc warehouse and got a pair of converse high-tops for him. Also pictured is his BLACK hoodie as he wants to go "goth" on us....sheesh!
Friday, April 09, 2010
RePost: Names I Love
There have always been certain names that have always captured my imagination. Names that make me think, "Wow, that name has a certain ring to it."
Names like: Jhumpa Lahiri, Anjali Holstein, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Koyalee Chanda (Emmy award winning director of Blue's Clues) Jurgen Goth and Jian Gomeshi.
I'm not quite sure why some names just stick with me like old friends. Does anyone else have these same associations with names of people that you know of, but don't really know?
And the best name of all? Why, Tarah (Star) Noor (Light) Paryani (Pari or fairy).
Names like: Jhumpa Lahiri, Anjali Holstein, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Koyalee Chanda (Emmy award winning director of Blue's Clues) Jurgen Goth and Jian Gomeshi.
I'm not quite sure why some names just stick with me like old friends. Does anyone else have these same associations with names of people that you know of, but don't really know?
And the best name of all? Why, Tarah (Star) Noor (Light) Paryani (Pari or fairy).
Friday, April 02, 2010
Thoughts From the Sixth Floor
The nurse's station is a seething mass of work complaints, professional armour against patients' requests and female politics.
Sunnybrook Hospital's standard of service delivery is miles ahead of Toronto East General's.
Why are the orderlies, on average, more pleasant than the nurses? Is this due to their lower professional status within the hospital or due to the general difference in gender between the two professions?
All the relatives on this floor seem to be swimming in their own ocean of worries.
There is the smell of death coming from the room across the hall...then again, it is Passover, right?
Why do the doctor always seem to be moving on before you have time to even formulate a question or two? They tell you things you have never heard before; they explain all the alternatives; but never let you wonder about which course would be the right one...almost as if the "right" decision will be made for you. You are ancillary.
There is a Swiss Chalet, a Tim Horton's, a cafereria and gift shops; there are TVs, beds and laundry facilities; doctors and pharmacies close at hand. Maids to make up the room and people to push you to the next department. Free, clean clothing for the asking. Pools, I'm sure, in the physio area and lots of rooms with nice views. Why would anyone want to leave this place?
Sunnybrook Hospital's standard of service delivery is miles ahead of Toronto East General's.
Why are the orderlies, on average, more pleasant than the nurses? Is this due to their lower professional status within the hospital or due to the general difference in gender between the two professions?
All the relatives on this floor seem to be swimming in their own ocean of worries.
There is the smell of death coming from the room across the hall...then again, it is Passover, right?
Why do the doctor always seem to be moving on before you have time to even formulate a question or two? They tell you things you have never heard before; they explain all the alternatives; but never let you wonder about which course would be the right one...almost as if the "right" decision will be made for you. You are ancillary.
There is a Swiss Chalet, a Tim Horton's, a cafereria and gift shops; there are TVs, beds and laundry facilities; doctors and pharmacies close at hand. Maids to make up the room and people to push you to the next department. Free, clean clothing for the asking. Pools, I'm sure, in the physio area and lots of rooms with nice views. Why would anyone want to leave this place?
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Letter to the Sheraton Chain of Hotels
Hello,
I stayed at the Sheraton in Nassau from March 19 - 22, 2010. I am writing in order to inform you that the service at this particular location is atrocious. I have stayed at the Sheraton in Markham, Ontario, in New Delhi and in Niagara Falls on numerous occasions.
The staff at the Nassau property at the front desk are anything but helpful. When I arrived, having made my reservation through my bank's point system, I found that the Sheraton in Nassau did not have my reservation. I presented my voucher and other documents, but the manager at the hotel (Cypriana) did not recognize the voucher. I gave her my copy of the voucher as she assured me that she would call the Sheraton's reservation department in order to clear up the mix-up. Over the next three days, I talked to at least 6 different people at the front desk in person and over the phone.
I finally used the internet to get the number of the RBC Travel Assist line, I called the assist line. At this point, I was asked to use the phone in my room to make the call. I declined and used the phone at the front desk so as not to incur any long distance charges of my own. The RBC travel assist rep. was extremely helpful and took care of my bill and, amazingly and in contrast to the Sheraton staff, told me to not to worry and enjoy the rest of my vacation and that she (the RBC Travel Assist rep.) would figure out the details of the reservation and payment for me with the hotel manager.
This experience of the many days spent talking to the front desk and the single phone call to the RBC Rep., more than anything, brought home to me just how terribly inattentive and uncaring the staff at this hotel are. There are other minor incidents which occurred, from minor lapses of courtesy with other guests (such as not even saying something like, "thank you for staying at the Sheraton" to staff simply shrugging their shoulders when they were corrected about extra amounts billed to guests bills.) Which, by the way, happened to me as well. I was over-charged about $60 on my final bill for buffet breakfasts which were included in my package!
I have gone on at length only to bring home the point that what is happening at the Sheraton in Nassau is not just the lack of a quality customer care experience (which I have come to associate with the Sheraton name) but the degradation, in my mind, of the Sheraton brand. You have a beautiful property in Nassau, but your brand is taking a beating for no particular reason except that it has become acceptable at this location to view the guests as burdensome or as annoyances.
Thanks for listening,
Zahir Paryani
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I stayed at the Sheraton in Nassau from March 19 - 22, 2010. I am writing in order to inform you that the service at this particular location is atrocious. I have stayed at the Sheraton in Markham, Ontario, in New Delhi and in Niagara Falls on numerous occasions.
The staff at the Nassau property at the front desk are anything but helpful. When I arrived, having made my reservation through my bank's point system, I found that the Sheraton in Nassau did not have my reservation. I presented my voucher and other documents, but the manager at the hotel (Cypriana) did not recognize the voucher. I gave her my copy of the voucher as she assured me that she would call the Sheraton's reservation department in order to clear up the mix-up. Over the next three days, I talked to at least 6 different people at the front desk in person and over the phone.
I finally used the internet to get the number of the RBC Travel Assist line, I called the assist line. At this point, I was asked to use the phone in my room to make the call. I declined and used the phone at the front desk so as not to incur any long distance charges of my own. The RBC travel assist rep. was extremely helpful and took care of my bill and, amazingly and in contrast to the Sheraton staff, told me to not to worry and enjoy the rest of my vacation and that she (the RBC Travel Assist rep.) would figure out the details of the reservation and payment for me with the hotel manager.
This experience of the many days spent talking to the front desk and the single phone call to the RBC Rep., more than anything, brought home to me just how terribly inattentive and uncaring the staff at this hotel are. There are other minor incidents which occurred, from minor lapses of courtesy with other guests (such as not even saying something like, "thank you for staying at the Sheraton" to staff simply shrugging their shoulders when they were corrected about extra amounts billed to guests bills.) Which, by the way, happened to me as well. I was over-charged about $60 on my final bill for buffet breakfasts which were included in my package!
I have gone on at length only to bring home the point that what is happening at the Sheraton in Nassau is not just the lack of a quality customer care experience (which I have come to associate with the Sheraton name) but the degradation, in my mind, of the Sheraton brand. You have a beautiful property in Nassau, but your brand is taking a beating for no particular reason except that it has become acceptable at this location to view the guests as burdensome or as annoyances.
Thanks for listening,
Zahir Paryani
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Nassau: First Full Day
Had a large breakfast. Lay on the beach till 1 p.m. and then rented a scooter. Unfortunately, my friend, Chris, was not comfortable riding on the scooter and we soon rented the bike and took the local transit into town.
Downtown Nassau is full of tourist trap type of shops and supposedly high-end jewellery stores. Everything is overpriced but it was nice to walk through town anyways.
Pictures of our time on the beach are trapped on my iphone, but below are pictures of our day out.
Close up of beach bags for sale at the straw market in Nassau.
This cute old graciously allowed me to take her picture and called me boo-boo, darling and baby, which was very sweet of her. She looked the part of the doting grand-mother and who doesn't love doting grand-mothers.
Sign with Chris' finger for a comment.
One of many mega-ships which come to harbour in Nassau, releasing tourists to drink in the streets, buy over-priced crap in the stores and generally act like they own the town. Or they just looked frightened and wonder if they'll ever make it back on the ship for another game of shuffle board.
Downtown Nassau is full of tourist trap type of shops and supposedly high-end jewellery stores. Everything is overpriced but it was nice to walk through town anyways.
Pictures of our time on the beach are trapped on my iphone, but below are pictures of our day out.
Close up of beach bags for sale at the straw market in Nassau.
This cute old graciously allowed me to take her picture and called me boo-boo, darling and baby, which was very sweet of her. She looked the part of the doting grand-mother and who doesn't love doting grand-mothers.
Sign with Chris' finger for a comment.
One of many mega-ships which come to harbour in Nassau, releasing tourists to drink in the streets, buy over-priced crap in the stores and generally act like they own the town. Or they just looked frightened and wonder if they'll ever make it back on the ship for another game of shuffle board.
The Enigma of Arrival
Flight was eventless...Will definately fly WestJet again instead of Air Canada.
Getting out to the airport in Nassau was a nightmare. We waited in line for 1 hour. There were only 4 booths\officers taking their sweet time with clearing the backlog of 3-4 flights arrival at about the same time. In order to remedy this situation, a live band came on the band stand reserved for just this situation. Which means it happens all the time! After an hour, I had move about 15 feet. Finally fed up with the waiting I went to the front of the line, to see if more booths couldn't be opened up. Or at least they could put the band to work clearing the backlog of tourists.
I asked to speak to a supervisor...such a North American thing to do! I was told to go into an inner office, where there were about 10 customs officers and one head honcho identified by a single star on his epaulet. Totally ignored and told to sit, I decided to stand with hands folded in front of my crotch. Defiance with a touch of subservience.
When a woman, amply stacked, looked at my passport, she wondered why I was in the office. I told her I was going to be late for a meeting at the Sheraton and told this to the guy at the booth and then he sent me in. Note: Playing dumb is good, making up lies can be helpful. She asked me which guy sent you here....I said I couldn't remember which guy, but it was a guy...not a girl.
She said, come with me. We went to an unoccupied booth. She stamped my passport and immigration document and voila! Out the door to greet my friend and enjoy the weather!
I love the third world.
Getting out to the airport in Nassau was a nightmare. We waited in line for 1 hour. There were only 4 booths\officers taking their sweet time with clearing the backlog of 3-4 flights arrival at about the same time. In order to remedy this situation, a live band came on the band stand reserved for just this situation. Which means it happens all the time! After an hour, I had move about 15 feet. Finally fed up with the waiting I went to the front of the line, to see if more booths couldn't be opened up. Or at least they could put the band to work clearing the backlog of tourists.
I asked to speak to a supervisor...such a North American thing to do! I was told to go into an inner office, where there were about 10 customs officers and one head honcho identified by a single star on his epaulet. Totally ignored and told to sit, I decided to stand with hands folded in front of my crotch. Defiance with a touch of subservience.
When a woman, amply stacked, looked at my passport, she wondered why I was in the office. I told her I was going to be late for a meeting at the Sheraton and told this to the guy at the booth and then he sent me in. Note: Playing dumb is good, making up lies can be helpful. She asked me which guy sent you here....I said I couldn't remember which guy, but it was a guy...not a girl.
She said, come with me. We went to an unoccupied booth. She stamped my passport and immigration document and voila! Out the door to greet my friend and enjoy the weather!
I love the third world.
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