Reflection

If we can open our minds enough to accept nature as our partner and co-worker we will find ourselves at peace. Our energy will increase, our sense of well being and the course our life takes will only be enhanced by our conscious efforts to include nature in the web of connections we weave every day.

Don't be surprised at the growth you experience when you embrace nature. You will become more personally beautiful when you take the small amout of time necessary to interact with it. Wake up early and watch a sunrise, catch a sliver of the moon interacting with Venus, stop to watch leaves flutter as you are walking to work. The time it takes to interact is miniscule in relation to the good feelings it will leave you with.

Sometimes it is hard to remember that we are part of Nature and that we are only one strand of the whole unifying structure that cocoons us.

If we impact it negatively it will increase our discomfort. So partake of its majesty whenever you can.

This morning a large group of us combined exercise and an appreciation for our island environment that encourages us to partake of its offerings. The ocean called and we entered to experience its power and the power it released to us. It was a beautiful morning, clear, sunny and sprinkled with enough waves to move us quickly to our destinations. We had visitors that oooed and ahhhhddd and were most positively touched by the swim and all they saw.

Seeing other people so enthralled with a world we never take for granted just warms my soul.

i hope you enjoy the pictures.

See you next week.

St. Croix Holidays are Here

doesn't look as bad as it felt while swimming in it

It really feels like the Winter Solstice here today. The northwest swells were a challenge to swim through this morning(a surf advisory was out but we went anyway), visibility was minimal just enough to find the path to where you were going, but the ride back in was a blast...surfing all the way... The wind(20-25k)after getting out raised the goose bumps in warp speed. The Christmas Winds have set in with a vengeance, bringing clouds, big swells and gnarly weather to the island.

Its howling up here at the aerie. Comforters are on all the beds(i know you statesiders will laugh at how wimpy we are). i think the night time temperature hasn't dropped below 70 but we are freezing. Sweat shirts and long pants in the evening are a must.

i've been baking my holiday cookies and handing them out to friends only problem is i seem to be testing the quality more than necessary. Out and about around the island it is very festive. A new friend that just moved to the island and swims with us said his wife woke up to drumming and singing this morning, he told her she was hearing things. But when another friend arrived they said they had gone through a huge group of people dancing along behind Stanley and the Ten Sleepless Nights. So it sounds like jouvet which is the start of festivities. i really, really love this time of year.

Chicken Shack setting up the party

Christiansted is decked out in new lights. The Gentlemen of Jones seem to have replaced a lot of the old decorations and even have the Star of David on one end of town. The lights look really bright this year and the ones that cross the street are lovely. The boat parade was last weekend and the Christmas village is going up and every where you go food smells make you want to eat constantly. The racetrack has lots of activity, trainers working their horses and general sprucing up.

All the stores are jammed, people seem to be doing a lot of shopping and finding a parking spot close in takes all ones ommming skills. Kids and family are pouring in from college and jobs in the states. i'll bet this year more are coming home for reunions. Partying is taking a toll and we have barely gotten started...this won't end until the 6^th when the island winds down the festivities with the big parade.

Yummy Lobster

Music is everywhere and i want to share some of our traditional stuff with all a you in the states. So here is Stanley and his gang singing Mama Bake your Johnny Cake Christmas Comin.

See ya next week if i make it!

St. Croix-Aren't we Lucky to live Here-A Medley

 

Steeple Building is getting its shingles replaced today

Anyone going through Christiansted for the next five days will have to put up with some slow down. The steeple building is getting a well deserved face lift. New shingles, matched as well as possible to the historic ones, have to be installed.  In order to do this in the middle of town the contractors will be following the practice used in the past to replace them.

What this means is the top has to come off so the carpenters can work safely doing the replacement. To take the top off a large crane will be put in place to lift it down to the ground. The crane will impact the road and traffic will have to be diverted while it is in place. The roof will be repaired, the crane will put it back on and then be removed so traffic can flow smoothly again.

If you have ever wondered how a pig gets roasted this is the first step

Last weekend after a long swim we ended up having coffee at Bernies in F'sted. The owner was having a birthday bash latter that day and friends were preparing the pig to roast. i like to take pictures of all sorts of things and although it looks gross its interesting too. Notice the way it is attached and the seasoning sticking to the skin.

We have such interesting road side stands...love the hats

One of the really great things about driving around St. Croix is you never know what you will see. This stand really caught my attention with all the hats hung out for everyone to view. i hope the owner had a good day.

I love Century Plants and this one is just getting started

Massacred by a crazy bush wacker

A few years ago an amazing Century Plant at the bottom of my driveway decorated the skies with the most incredible curves you have ever seen. A big C that grew into an S and then flowered. i have scoured the entire island for years trying to capture another one and so far nada. Pictures of the curvaceous one are in the August 2008 blog. This one caught my eye the other day because the top had a bit of a curve so i'll be watching carefully to see what it does. Another one that had promise and was in a spectacular spot had its top lopped off by an over zealous bush wacking machine. i can hardly pass it without lamenting its demise. Don't they realize how many years it takes to even get to the flowering stage?

Where are the surfers?

Beautiful waves have been pounding the shores this past week and when waves and weather combined to deliver that "aren't we so lucky to live here feeling" i went out to take pics and just enjoy everything. i was amazed to find no one surfing these waves in a spot that is usually full.

So much character, I love this boat

 This island has so many beautiful things to photograph and enjoy it just never ceases to astound me. My underwater camera broke when i dropped it so i missed some spectacular pictures of a very large octopus regaling us with his ability to camouflage himself yesterday. He went through all the hues from bone white to a complete blend in with some dark coral. We also had an outstanding Moray Eel that was a brilliant green and completely exposed, he wrapped himself around one of those hated Lion fish, which are really quite beautiful, and just moved on. The turtles, fish and general good feel made for an outstanding day in the water.

Tanker waiting to unload, sun reflecting off its port side

Tankers can be beautiful too when they are waiting just off shore to be called into the refinery. This one had the sun reflecting off its port side and made a small statement in a huge sea of blue. And finally the moon. Sometimes we get so busy we forget to look around and enjoy the small things. Everyone lives in a place that has its own beauty, capture it, look for it, savor it. Connecting is important in personal relationships but it is also important to connect with your environment. Try to do a little bit of connecting each and every day. See ya next week.

The moon last night    

Personal Responsibility

Moral insanity is mania without hallucination. Sufferers maintain their intellectual capacity but become carried away by emotions or moral dispositions, so much so that facts or reality fail to impact them.

Today we have a group of people on one side of the political landscape that are able to lump and blame all poor people, all unemployed, all disabled, everyone on welfare, and anyone that has had anything bad happen to them into the sub category of those who have failed the personal responsibility test.

This test has no questions but does put you in a category of pass or fail depending upon your economic status. Rich is pass, poor or unemployed is fail. It doesn't matter that you may have been born into wealth or came about it illegally, if you are rich you've passed.

Being poor means you have failed the personal responsibility test even if you have worked your entire life and are now unemployed because your factory shut down or your industry has ground to a halt.

Unemployed means you have failed the personal responsibility test even if you have sent out hundreds of resume's, been to umpteen job interviews along with hundreds of other people and are still on unemployment and can't find a job. Collecting unemployment checks even though you have payed into the system for this very reason to insure you against job loss is still failing the test.

The personal responsibility test never takes into account cause and effect. Never acknowledges that many things are beyond your control, like who your parents were, where you were born and how you were raised. Like the factory you have worked for your entire life that shuts down and sends the jobs overseas putting hundreds out of work. Like the company bailing on the pension plans and health care pay outs...or firing you two years before you reach retirement age for some bogus reason. That's your fault you know, you weren't personally responsible.

Failing the test means those who lost all their hard earned money in pension plans and may need welfare to help out in their old age because they were wiped out they weren't personally responsible. Failing the test means that even though you have planned and saved for old age, have health insurance but have to go on Medicaid after selling your home and depleting all your retirement savings when your wife suffered a type of cancer the insurance company wouldn't pay for. You've failed and deserve what happened to you, you weren't personally responsible.  But the people that sold you the insurance policy that doesn't cover your specific disease aren't complicit.

The conservatives defend the view that the rich are moral but the poor or even middle class that are losing homes and jobs and haven't been able to pull them selves out are somehow lacking in personal responsibility and a strong moral fiber.

The personal responsibility test fails to look at that most important segment of society that is causing millions to lose their homes and jobs; that caused the economy to tank by risking other peoples money and then having the taxpayers bail them out, what happened to their personal responsibility, why aren't they held accountable? Why do they get a pass? Its because we passed laws that say corporations are not people when it comes to accountability but they are when they want to finance politics, meaning they write the laws.

Private success and personal freedom depend upon the government protecting all of us equally and that is not happening today. Today it is more about self interest, the ethics of greed and profit as opposed to a market that works for all of us.

The reason that people that put us in this bind are not being prosecuted by our government is because it is too hard. They have too much power and money and can fight for years in court to avoid convictions. But the little guy, that guy that has failed the personal responsibility test he can't even get a hearing to avoid being thrown out of his house.

The hard working taxpayers, the 99% that bailed out the banks and financial institutions don't want corporations controlling their lives more than government. We the People had no control over any of the decisions made in 2008. Corporations govern our lives for their profit not for the nation, those that got bailed out and borrowed that 7.7 Trillion we are only just learning about, they made 13 billion off us...how much did you make? But that shouldn't be the question, it should be how much did you lose? They will send us into oblivion if it means they can make money.

Shouldn't we all be asking why they aren't paying their fair share for the massive amount of tax dollars that 99% of us have spent building the infrastructure they use daily, for the massive amount we have loaned them at rates we will never enjoy?

When we talk about personal responsibility expand that meaning to include those that have caused others to suffer. That have made money off our tax dollars and still want to contribute less and less to the maintenance of this nation.

A robust public is necessary for private success. Corporations have used the government and our tax dollars to their advantage but they don't want you to understand that. We want a Market for All not a Greed Market. When you think about personal responsibility think about how it applies to the wealthy and corporations too, not just the poor and down trodden. Think about cause and effect.

And PS:

When you support busting unions, you support lower wages, longer work hours, and no health insurance or pensions. You support the destruction of the middle class and people moving into poverty. When you support lower taxes for the wealthiest of us you defend the view that the wealthy deserve the power to control you. You support the failure to pass the personal responsibility test. The wealthy and corporations don't care about you, they care about their bottom line, and they sure as hell will use you to vote in their favor.

Corporations and the wealthy need to contribute more, they don't get off using the government for their purposes and to our detriment, that is not what we are about as a nation. Its time to ante up.

Money Takers

There is no such thing as a “job creator” unless you want to call the customer the “job creator.”

No employer is a job creator, they are all money takers including those that have huge business employing hundreds of people. If any of us have to hire more or get rid of workers its not because we are creating or destroying jobs its because we are trying to make money. Making money has nothing to do with creating jobs. No one started a business to give you a job.

There is no such thing as a job creator, but there are lots of money takers all over the country and they can destroy jobs quite easily in order to take in more money. All that off shoring and closing down factories was done to make more money period.

When you hear don't tax the “job creators” its a load of bull. The rich aren't the job creators, they are the money takers, they hire and fire at will depending on the money, they could care less about creating a job for anyone or paying a decent wage.They are all about making money and nothing else.


American Airlines is a perfect example. They have been trying to negotiate a deal with their employees who took a huge cut(30%) in 2001 so the company wouldn't have to go into bankruptcy. They want them to take even less money today and the employee's are balking. So what does the airlines do but go into Chapter 11 yesterday with $4 Billion cash on hand so they can have their contracts with their workers voided. This is about busting the unions and taking money away from the workers. These guys aren't job creator's they are money takers.

The American consumer is the real job creator. But if they are reduced to poverty then there is no job creation. Without stimulating the economy by spending money on fixing up the nation while the little guy recovers we will see no new jobs only more examples of the above. Without customers there will be no jobs.

Today you have the workers that produce supply and consumers that create demand. The rich are just the middle men that administer the system and suck up the profits. Profits are unpaid wages.

According to US Census data from 2009, 21.7 million of the 27 million small business's are one man or one women shows. i'm a small business, my husband is a small business but we have no employee's and didn't create our jobs to employ anyone else but ourselves.

If any company decides to buy up its stock instead of investing in research and development those people that lose their jobs as a result of this business decision are not considered at all. People that are hired are only there to make the company money, they are not there because the company wanted to create a job for them.

We have had reduced taxes since 2001...1.6 Trillion worth of reductions, where are all these jobs the money takers have created. i don't see them do you?

By 2011, unemployment rolls had increased by over 8 million workers.

If the most powerful driver of the economy is through the spending done by the middle class and poor and they don't have money to spend more jobs are lost. The rich can't spend enough to keep it afloat. As the middle class shrinks, demand shrinks and jobs dry up.

Over the last decade, the top 1% have seen a HUGE increase in their wealth and they have seen the lowest tax rate in over 60 years, so where are the jobs if they are the “job creators?” Why has the stock market not moved in a decade, its because the rich take, that is what they do, they take and now they are hoarding as well.

It is time to wake up and make them pay their fair share in taxes to keep this nation what it was and to put money back in the economy. Remember there is no such thing as a “job creator”, there are only “money takers” and they don't need any more tax breaks.

Dollars-A short history

There is a money machine down there somewhere

A link to gratitude at the bottom of this piece.

 United States Money...Federal Reserve Notes...dollars and cents...those things we carry around in our wallets and pocketbooks...those items we take for granted...those things we work hard to accumulate were relatively unknown up until the last decade of the eighteen hundreds.

Prior to this all sorts of so called “money” was backed by private banks, foreign governments and individuals placing value on items exchanged. There was no common currency that could be exchanged and valued equally until the establishment of the nations first bank after the adoption of the constitution in 1789. 

Washington and Hamilton established the first bank but things weren't so easy as the banks charter was only good for 20 years and was voted out only to be reinstated by Madison himself when he was president. Madison, the same man who had argued against a national bank, finally understood its value when faced with the calamity a decentralized system entailed. He was instrumental in starting the second national bank but still had his reservations about its life span so again only gave it a charter for 20 years. In between the lives of the two banks there was a five year span when inflation got completely out of hand.

Squash faces

At the end of the second bank's term the country was thrown back to the vagaries of independent banks that went bust quite regularly. Inflation and counterfeiting were massive problems as was confusion about how to value all the different bank notes floating about. There were 1600 different banks all issuing notes. Finally in 1862 Demand Notes(greenbacks as they were popularly known) were printed but stability was still not to reign.

“During the free banking era banks were short lived compared to today's commercial banks, with an average life span of five years. About half the banks failed and a third went out of business because they could not redeem their notes.” Wikipedia

Break time at the Blue Moon

After the financial panics of 1892 and 1907 the Federal Reserve System was created to regulate the flow of money and credit and to issue currency that would be used nationally. By 1929 the design was standardized and 99% of money exchanged in the US was with reserve notes.

Like most other nations our currency is not backed by anything. We agree to its value and it goes up and down on the open market. “The Fed's monetary powers did not dramatically change for the rest of the 20th century, but in the 1970s it was specifically charged by Congress to effectively promote "the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates" as well as given regulatory responsibility over many consumer credit protection laws.” Wikipedia

Unusual mushrooms in my lawn this morning

Today many in our public domain that have not researched the history of our national currency want to go back to the wild wild west days of the way it was. They would prefer an environment where no one knows what anything is worth, nothing is centralized and banks go bust regularly and only stay open an average of 5 years. Personally i think we are far better off with the way it is, even with all its warts.

Little Factoid...the US is 16^th in broadband speeds and pays the most for it. South Korea is fastest followed by Hong Kong, Japan and then Romania.

This morning a friend pointed out cumulonimbus clouds that were just spectacular when we were swimming. i looked them up just now and realized we were most definitely experiencing a natural high.

CLOUD NINE - "The expression 'up on cloud nine' to describe a feeling of euphoric exaltation is based on actual terminology used by the U.S. Weather Bureau.

Clouds are divided into classes and each class is divided into nine types.

'Cloud nine' is the cumulonimbus cloud that you often see building up in the sky in a hot summer afternoon. It may reach 30,000 to 40,000 feet, so if one is up on 'cloud nine,' one is high indeed. "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins"

i got a link from an acquaintance to a piece about gratitude in the NY times today and since it is the holidays i thought i would share it with all of you. Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/science/a-serving-of-gratitude-brings-healthy-dividends.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

See ya next week

In box

Cruise Ship Day in F'sted

Today has been a bit hectic so i had decided to re-print an old piece i got in my inbox this afternoon but it wouldn't let me add pics to it so i trashed it.

It was all about beer, an empty mayonnaise jar, rocks, pebbles and sand and how your life is filled up with all these things but you aren't seeing it. You are missing out by filling up your life with useless stuff instead of concentrating on the people around you. It was a strange mix of items but the beer at the end was a bonus when it said to enjoy one with friends or family.

Everyday i get stuff like that in my inbox...jokes, heartfelt poems about how to get along, missives that if you don't send them on something awful will happen by tomorrow(i hate these the most but i love that people send them it means they were thinking of you for a split second even if they want to bring the wrath of all the jumbies down on your head if you don't send it on). It's still the thought that counts haha.

Kentucky Fried in F'sted

Any way i read an article about what may have been a coordinated effort by Mayors in cities around the country to evict the Occupy groups from their respective parks. Apparently the mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan admitted to BBC to having a conference call with 18 mayors around the country just before the removals occurred. If the resulting seizures and evictions were just plain coincidence then you can believe that if you want.

Pictures of Police in riot gear clearing out peaceful demonstrators made me wonder why more American's aren't protesting this behavior. When the Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan, Syrian etc. police forces came out to clear away demonstrators we cried foul. We wanted them to stay in the streets and protest freely, but apparently we don't want those same guarantees here. What's up with that? If we are a democracy demonstrating 24/7 should not be a problem, isn't it written into our Constitution you know that bit about Freedom of Speech.

The ducks at Agriculture, they thought I was going to feed them.

 Something to think about:

 If i withdraw $100 from an ATM machine and pay $1 for the privilege my percentage is 1%. If a poor person withdraws $20 but gets charged that same $1 their cost of doing business is 5%. So who has an advantage here?

Petty thief's and Don's

i've been having an exchange with a friend concerning class warfare, stealing from one to give to another and the large gulf of ideology that keep us apart even though we actually agree.

Class warfare in the past was relegated to the fight for decent wages, working conditions, health insurance and pensions. This was a hard won fight that has slowly been chipped away over the past 30 years. No longer are workers confident that any of those provisions above will be available to them or their children. But that is not what this piece is about.

The term class warfare is now being used to take the focus off the extreme wealth disparity that has occurred recently. One side claims that asking for shared sacrifice is class warfare because we are asking the wealthy to chip in and share the burden. The idea that no new taxes means the Bush temporary tax cut can never expire seems to escape them. Its not a new tax just a reinstatement of an old tax that was never meant to be a permanent reduction.

We all agree that spending has gotten out of hand but focusing on cutting so called “entitlements” and not including cutting military spending or government subsidies just doesn't cut it. Just the word “entitlements” brings up “welfare cheats” that makes the blood of conservatives boil. The idea that someone is sitting home using your tax dollars to live in a crappy house, living month to month, probably not having enough money for food by the end of that month is more abhorrent than the corporate big wigs using your military and taxes to fight their wars, using your taxes to subsidize their companies, using your taxes to get back rebates when they have already made billions. Isn't there something grossly wrong here. Instead of focusing on the “dons” that are doing all the stealing, the right wing focus is on the “petty thiefs” the poor single mom that can hardly make ends meet.

The idea that hard work will result in riches is a fallacy. As George Monibot says “If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.” 

Print out these statistics and read them over and over. Does this seem right to you? Who is doing the stealing?

Between 1947 and 1979, productivity in the US rose by 119%, while the income of the bottom fifth of the population rose by 122%. But from 1979 to 2009, productivity rose by 80%, while the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4%. In roughly the same period, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%.

“Their acolytes, in academia, the media, think tanks and government, created an extensive infrastructure of junk economics and flattery to justify their seizure of other people's wealth. So immersed in this nonsense did we become that we seldom challenged its veracity.” George Monibot.  He means the wealthy manipulated events to make sure money flowed up.

The theft has not been accomplished by the petty thief's, who most refer to as the welfare cheats, the theft is going on daily by the dons at the top who have manipulated our system of government and the media in such a way that wealth has streamed upwards and not trickled down at all.

The problem today is that all of us really want more representative government. We don't want money and influence controlling the process. Today Washington is a revolving door of legislators and lobbyists changing jobs as the tide turns, one year a lobbyist the next lets work for a legislator so we can write the laws.

Jack Abramov, a DC lobbyist, who was convicted of fraud and corruption and who has just gotten out of jail is doing the rounds of the talk shows. He details how lobbyists use their influence to write legislation that serves their clients not the nation. He details how the whole system is one big bribery scheme and how both sides are in over their heads. He claims the only way to clean it up is to take money out of the equation.

The problems in this country are not related to the poor or entitlements, they are centered around money and its outsized influence in our government and how it operates. 

Turning Sixty

A long time ago i wrote a piece about extended families. Those people that you consider family even though they aren't related by blood. i think the official

definition was all those living under one roof, though in this case i want to include those that don't actually live with us. i want to include all those friends and family that took time out of their lives to take care of me, to spend time with me, and to celebrate with me.

A few weeks ago i took off for England to visit family and to close up loose ends my Mom had left in the place of her birth after she died. All my aunts, uncles and cousins have lived in the same city for generations and can trace themselves back hundreds of years. On this side of the Atlantic our nuclear family missed out on those ties that bind but gets to experience it first hand whenever we visit and i think we extend this sense of family to those outside our family because it just feels like the right thing to do.

From the pick-up at the airport until the drop-off at the end of the trip i was literally wrapped in a cocoon of family love. There was nothing they wouldn't do to help make my trip as comfortable and stress free as possible. To say i had a fabulous time is an understatement. Every single day i was taken care of, i was fed gourmet meals, i was toured around and i was helped to accomplish those tasks necessary to finalize the hanging bits of my mother's life. i had lovely walks in the park, bird watching outings, fish and chips, lovely long chats with every member of the family. We dined in quaint restaurants, shopped in fancy stores, picked up groceries on sale and indulged in sweet tooth debauchery in tea shops. It couldn't have gone any smoother if i had written a fictionalized story.

Everyone in England was super and it never rained. Believe it or not it never rained. Even the traveling back and forth across the Atlantic, going through customs, renting cars, finding arrival and departure gates, never getting jet lag. It was surreal. i think my Mom must have had a hand in it as someone was definitely looking out for me.

Back in the states i even had time to visit more family in NY, help with homework and fly out the next day just in time to miss winter moving in.

When i got home to St. Croix, more unforeseen events awaited. My daughter and her friend had decided to surprise me with a visit to celebrate my 60^th birthday and popped out from behind the half wall when i arrived home after the trip. i have never been so astounded in my life. Being taken care of continued on through the long party weekend. They cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner and wouldn't let me do a thing.

Kaja,Mo,Sheelagh,Ariel

It started with cracked Stone Crab that Kaja brought from Florida. The Finfolk breakfast on Saturday with all my buddies i have been hanging out with for 20 years. Art, Ariel and Kaja put on quite a spread making the whole morning seamless, but this wasn't the end. The culmination came on Sunday with close friends they had invited for dinner outside on the deck. The Filet Mignon, Scallops, scalloped potatoes, asparagus, salad with homemade blue cheese dressing and Ariels Chocolate cake and Arts vanilla ice cream. My sweet husband, daughter, son and second daughter catered the most amazing weekend i have ever had in my entire life.

i'll turn 60 every year if this is what it is like. So many friends joined in with the family and celebrated with us. i don't ever write about myself or post personal pics, this blog wasn't supposed to be about me but these past few weeks have been the most amazing and i don't ever want to forget that family and friends are what makes life worth living.

Thank you all for a wonderful few weeks.

Sheelagh