Do you speak Crucian?

i usually go to the LaReine vegetable market early on Saturday mornings. The open air market is on once a week so if you miss it you have to wait until the next weekend. Young and old set up their stands with all sorts of fruit and veggies that are in season. The range of colors on the tables are delightful. It’s a killer having to wake up so early on a weekend but if you don’t get up before 6:00am you miss out on all the good stuff. 

The place is a hive of activity and just finding a parking place can be a chore. Trucks and vans are parked all over the place and people are coming and going. i usually say my good mornings to everyone when i arrive.  i walk around, see what they all have, then go back to the stands that are selling what i’m looking for and buy it. Everyone likes to chat a bit so if you are in a rush its best to give your self some extra time to connect with the vendors.

Last weekend i was buying some of those lovely long beans from my regular lady when i noticed the guy next to her had some cherry tomatoes that looked delicious. We started chatting and he asked me which state i was from. i said i had lived on St. Croix for 35 years and didn’t know where else to call home.

He laughed one of those great hardy guffaws...then asked me why i didn’t speak Crucian.

A huge bell went off in my head while i pondered his question. 

My mother was born and raised in England and had an English accent the entire time she was alive and living in the US. My siblings and myself always used to ask her why she hadn’t assimilated, why she didn’t try harder to be like Americans.  She would say we were picking on her trying to make her into something she wasn’t.

So here i was being accused of the same thing by a man speaking Crucian English. i told him i could understand everything and was really good at listening but that i felt funny speaking Crucian. i told him i always felt like i was a fraud if i tried expressing myself in Crucian. Wasn't he going to laugh at me? i told him i always answered back in plain old American English.

He said after 35 years i should be speaking the language like a native.

i really took this to heart and said both of my kids that were born here could speak Crucian and that he was right...i should be speaking Crucian when ever i’m interacting with Crucians. Crucian is the language of St. Croix and i can’t speak it.

i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to speak it…but i sure do understand the immigrant’s dilemma.

So here’s the question for today. If you have immigrated to St. Croix have you learned the language yet and do you speak it?

See ya next week.

What if I'm Wrong

i was having an e-mail discussion about Ferguson and the DOJ report that came out of there. Obviously we are on opposing sides regarding racism, white privilege, poverty, education and work and low taxes as the only solution. 

These topics are too huge to get into here but because of all that writing back and forth that line “Don’t put on your Rose Colored Glasses” has been on repeat in my brain.

“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.” Francis Bacon.

Keeping an open mind is impossible it seems especially if it impacts ones ideology.

 So here is a question for all of us. When was the last time you asked yourself “What if i’m wrong?”

When have you considered that two people can look at the exact same thing and come to two different conclusions?

When was the last time you really changed your mind about something you truly believed?

Deliberation is a step many of us skip before arriving at some conclusion. We take in information and form our opinions based upon our biases.

 If we were to buy something like a home we would ask all sorts of questions about the residence. How was it constructed, what repairs have been made, does it fit our needs, is the neighborhood one we want to live in, and on and on. We inform ourselves as much as possible before making any kind of decision. We get as much information as we can.

So why is it that in other parts of our lives we just accept what our tribe tells us and regurgitate it? 

Why don’t more of us ask probing questions before accepting certain viewpoints and perspectives.

Is it because we are lazy? Is it because being part of a particular tribe is more important than discovery? 

i don’t know, do you?

The liar’s paradox comes to mind.

This statement is false. 

“This statement is false” is true.

Outside the edge of a branch there are leaves and needles. They are different from the branch but they are connected to it, they work together even though not at all alike. What is true…what is false should always be questioned.

See ya next week

Comments seen on line

"The world's problem is people...unless we reduce the number of people we will eventually destroy earth."Anon

"The expansion of capitalism is always to poverty rich places where exploitation without responsibility thrives."Anon

"The belief that the capitalist exploiters are only the one percent is false. Every first world consumer supports that exploitation."Anon

"It doesn't matter what technology you produce if the system is designed to expand ad infinitum and destroy all. Earth will reboot without us." Anon

"Ceaseless consumption by an ever increasing amount of humans ravaging the planet for appetite and profit will not end well and is not sustainable."Anon

"By telling Tehran not to negotiate with the President of the United States, the Republican party threatens America's status as a global superpower."Leslie Gelb

"These noble legislators were saying President Obama doesn't speak for Congress or the American people." "You can now defy him and thus the United States however you wish." Leslie Gelb and you can defame any other President that comes along i might add.

Sora at Granard Pond South
Those Republicans with the good sense not to sign that horrific letter to Iran deserve mentioning. Bob Corker, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Dan Coats, and Thad Cochran

"At least some senatorial Republicans put their country above partisanship, blind ideology, and hatred of the duly elected president of the United States." Leslie Gelb

Some of those 47 that signed that awful letter are now back peddling. What a bunch of sheepish jokers...they should have done a little more thinking before they signed. 

Deutsche Bank analysts produced a 175 page report recently that details a future 15 years ahead where solar generated energy will be the dominant resource world wide. They project solar industries will generate 5 trillion annually in revenue. I'm so thrilled to read this as I've been touting its benefits since the 70's. 

Noam Chomsky thinks that corporations not progressives put limits on freedom of speech. He thinks media conglomerations dictate what you see and read.

"He said the First Amendment offered protection from government constraints on free speech, but not from corporate limitations."

“Nothing prevents me from saying in the United States that the Iraq War was the worst crime in the 21st Century, but I can reach only very marginal audiences on what is pretty obvious fact,” Chomsky said. “You can say in the United States within the mainstream that the Iraq War was a strategic blunder, as Obama did, but try saying that it’s a crime of aggression of a kind that led to the hanging of Nazi criminals at Nuremberg. Try to write an op-ed about that.”

See ya next week 

Are you a victim of noise?

Years ago when i first started working in the real estate business an older, very sweet West Indian man who was walking with a cane came into the office. i was on floor duty so i immediately welcomed him in and sat him down at my desk. He was very soft spoken and really the kind of person that didn’t want to make a fuss.

He apologized for having to complain before he even began his story. i asked him what the problem was and he began his tale of woe. Twenty years earlier he had finished paying for a piece of land in a part of the island that was not heavily developed. It was zoned residential so he set about immediately building his dream house. For a few years after it was completed all was well.

More houses were built and the community slowly grew. The lots were small, just quarter acres, and many used up all the land to build two story homes. My little old man was fine with all this. Families moved in and someone put a small grocery store in the bottom of one of the homes. He was fine with that too, even with the lady and her sewing shop.

But one day an owner of property on the corner of the street opened a bar in the bottom of his home. The little old man watched at first but then became concerned when music started blasting out of the bar until all hours of the morning. Every night the music would start and every night it would go on until 3 or 4 in the morning.

He personally went to the bar owner and asked him to turn the volume down so he could sleep. Sometimes the owner would but mostly he wouldn’t. After a few years he came into our office and spoke to someone else who had originally sold him the property. That broker told him that the bar was illegal and to go complain to Licensing  He went and complained, not just to Licensing, but to every government office he could…nothing happened.

He and his family continued to suffer every night from the noise. He lobbied neighbors and friends, called the police and tried to find a way to get the bar to tone down the volume. He was fine with the bar not the noise. Nothing worked.

After he told me his story he asked if i knew of anything at all that he could do or try. Since he had exhausted all government agencies and they had done nothing for him i was at a loss. i asked if he wanted to sell his home and he said no…it was his dream home. 

i asked if he wore ear plugs and he said he did but the noise still got through. i expressed my dismay at his predicament and really felt bad that there was nothing i could do to help him. When he stood up to go he told me that he knew i couldn’t help him but that he wouldn’t stop trying to find a solution.

The waste product(loud music) of that bar was ruining my little old mans life. How many other lives were also being impacted by that waste was a question i asked myself after he left?

Noise is all around us. Wind howling, rain beating on our roofs, the ocean pummeling our shores and birds chattering are just a few of the natural sounds we hear or don’t hear every day. Lawn mowers, loud music, bushwackers, cars, airplanes, and all sorts of mechanized items invade our ears daily.

Aural trash, sound contamination, noise pollution, and aural litter are just a few of the terms used to define that waste product.

You may think i’m going to do more complaining about all the community noise that surrounds us but you would be wrong. Where i’m actually going is to ask you all to look around when you are outside and notice all the people with ear buds in their ears and phones in their hands. No one looks up anymore, no one looks around, hardly anyone really listens any more.

The waste product that is noise is no longer seen as an annoyance. Now people actively implant noise makers in their ears to block out natures call. We no longer hear Mother Earth…we don’t hear the birds, we don’t hear the wind or waves…we can’t hear Mother Earth because we actively try not to.

Children today have very little contact with Nature and this is a huge problem for us as a species. If we stop listening and watching Mother Earth we will destroy her. Think about those ear buds, think about the kind of noise you may want you and your children to listen to.

See ya next week