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

Shopping on St. Croix

Going food shopping in my house is referred to as going over the hill. i can't do a major shop unless i drive at least 15 minutes to the first large grocery store but i can do baby shopping all along the way and that is what this piece is about today because i was noticing there are a heck of a lot of people out trying to make a buck on the side of the road. i don't know if the numbers have increased with the economic downturn but it sure seemed like newbies were out hustling.

Commerce on the island of St. Croix is a constant pressure for those folks that make their living selling goods on the thoroughfares. They have to compete with the large bulk stores that get everything shipped in and although their things are usually fresher on the road the selection is small and spread out over miles of roadside.

Wednesdays or Thursdays are usually good days to go out and bulk shop. The container ships have arrived from Florida or Puerto Rico laden with fresh food that the small mom and pops and the big grocery stores will use the new inventory to restock the shelves for another week. Produce is relatively fresh and most things are available at the commercial establishments, but the best stuff is found along the road if you have the patience to make a lot of stops.

i pretty much have to get completely over the hill before i start to see the roadside stands. The first one to greet me this morning on my journey was a Rasta(not guy in pic) with jelly nuts piled high in the back of his pick up truck. Having just finished eating breakfast and not needing a drink i watched him stand at the back of the truck with two or three people waiting patiently for him to hack off the top. His face was beaming so i guess business was good.
Just down the road from the jelly nut man was a largish woman with a home made wooden table. Off to the side were big red coolers and a sign up saying fish. She didn't have any customers but her table looked wet so i was betting that she had probably just finished up with someone. She usually has local pot fish which is as fresh as you can get. After her i came up to the post office where the lady that sells the bananas had them all laid out on the concrete wall that surrounds the parking lot there. She was sitting in the shade talking to a man not doing much business but patiently plying her goods. i just got those sweet little bacubas yesterday from my neighbor so wasn't in the market for bananas.

Over by the fisherman's market (which is no longer functioning) there were more stands set up just off the road. One of them had what looked like a dolphin slit down the middle, and an old man and the sea type standing behind the fish with a machete. A man was standing in front of the table looking like he was waiting for the fisherman to whack him off a nice slab from that fish. i had quite the time watching them, wondering how he had caught that fish while i waited for the light to change. Shades of Hemingway.

Heading towards Sunny Isle down Queen Mary Highway some of the stands were empty and some full. Two ladies were sitting behind a table that had guava liquors, jams and cucumbers. They had a beautiful umbrella up and were chatting away as the cars streamed past. I always need cucumbers and hadn't seen any so far. No one was stopped there but they didn't seem to mind. i was going to stop but put it off until on the way back. Across the street a lady had her table spread with some squash, okra, bananas and small red local peppers.

Rounding the corner the Rasta artist was busy working on what looked to be a charcoal drawing of a family. He was holding a picture in one hand and drawing with the other, oblivious to the traffic streaming past. All around him tee shirts were fluttering in the wind beside his Jah rules flags. Business was bad there, no cars stopped and i wondered how having people stop to buy things might impact his drawing.

At Sunny Isle there was another pickup truck loaded down with jelly nuts. Two guys were at the back of that truck doing a booming business whacking away and handing out the refreshing drinks. More ladies had a table set up with jams and an assortment of baked goods, they looked to almost be sold out. People were milling around and i couldn't figure out if they were buying something or waiting for a Taxi Van. Sometimes my people watching skills have to be retired in order to focus on driving. i have been known to be honked at for not moving along fast enough when mesmerized by human activity. i am definitely a people watcher.

Heading out from the intersection the action going east was non-existent except for one woman with a table filled up with nothing but avocados, our tree is pumping them out now so didn't need them. But on the other side of the road a couple of guys had a cage set up and big land crabs were crawling up its sides, that was a treat but business was slow there too.

At Cost U Less the parking lot was full and long lines of people were backed up at the check out stands. The produce section was weak and i left thinking i should have gone shopping tomorrow as they were out of a lot of things. Sometimes you have to make lots of stops to get all the things you need and even then you may end up at home still needing to fill a third of your list on the next trip out.

Shopping here trains us to improvise, it educates us in the ways of denial and gives us lessons in using products that are produced locally rather than shipped in. People all along the roads are trying to make a living selling us their goods, they need us to patronize them just as regularly as we patronize the big stores.
Patience is a real virtue on St. Croix and i think it trains us to realize that we really can't have everything we want which is a good thing.

See Ya Next Week

Occupy Wall Street

Over on Red State Erick Erickson has a picture of himself holding a piece of paper saying “I have 3 jobs, I have a house I can’t sell, My family insurance costs are outrageous, I’m paying massive student loans, But I don’t blame Wall Street, Suck it up you whiners, I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain. Get a job hippies.”

Occupy Wall Street has finally caught the media’s attention and that of right wing blogs that have been hammering on the “jobless hippies” that are showing up to lend their support. The issue is complicated at best.

As they are wont to do conservatives have lumped those protesting into the “dirty hippie” category to demean them and turn conservative followers away from considering what has really galvanized them to come out and protest. The fact that the protestors are a mixed bag of people from all income levels, races, working and not working…rich and poor seems to escape them.

Concealing the fact that it is a mixed bag of people is paramount. Those controlling the purse strings and the media do not want you to ever consider that these are normal people who are fed up with the status quo.

What is lost in the above screed of Erick’s is that the protest concerns the out of proportion influence corporate money has in government. It’s about the slow decimation of the middle class and Erick is a prime example.  He has put up a picture of himself, in his tee shirt, with his screed to prove his ideology is working when it isn’t. He’s working 3 jobs and is still not comfortable. Why isn’t he comfortable? Why isn’t he able to make a decent living on one job? He can’t blame anyone because it would trash his world view.

In April of this year McDonalds held a job fair. They wanted to hire 50,000 people but ended up hiring 62,000. Sounds great right, all these people got jobs even if it was part time, but the sad part is that ONE MILLION applied. Percentage wise it would be easier to get into Yale than to get a job at McDonalds. The admit rate at Yale is over 7% this percentage is 6.2%.

Maybe if Erick the poster boy gave up two of his jobs other people would have some work. But then he'd really be in a fix, not able to pay his mortgage or student loans. How many are out there working two, three maybe even four jobs and still aren’t “comfortable?” Where is the American Dream if even one of its staunchest supporters hasn’t found it?

The issues are complex and not simple. Why aren’t companies CEO’s that didn’t fund pensions in jail? Why are banks that were bailed out by all of us still awarding huge bonuses? Why hasn’t anyone been prosecuted for bundling sub prime mortgage securities and selling them on the open market? But those are just my questions not necessarily the picketers. There is a lot of discontent on both sides. The Tea Partiers are upset with government control and the Occupy Wall Streeters have had it with profit over people.

In my mind there is only one solution and that is to sever the connection between Wall Street and Washington. Outlaw corporate campaign donations and corporate funding of political parties.

Somewhere in the middle we should be able to find some common ground that we as a whole nation can consent to. Trickle down doesn’t work, it’s been trickle up for three decades and the middle class is feeling the heat, Erick Erickson is a prime example…go look at his picture, he is totally stressed. These people occupying Wall Street are tired of shoving our problems under the carpet; they want to have a national discussion about where we are going. The time is now and this will spread as more and more middle class wake up. 

See ya next week

Rich pay more taxes...duh!

Some brief thoughts about the environment, why are large international companies planning for man induced climate change? Why is the US military in their long range plans that they publish every year planning for man induced climate change? And especially why are insurance companies also planning for man induced climate change?

If, as the deniers claim, there is no such thing as man induced climate change, why then are all these groups planning for it? Do they know something the deniers don’t know?

Taxes

A lot of people get confused when doing the math concerning who pays the most in income taxes. On the right the argument is that the wealthy pay the majority of income taxes. Well duh i say.

If you have the top 1% making more money than 150,000,000 million people at the bottom end of the pay scale of course they will pay more, even when taxed at a lower rate because they make more than all those people combined. Remember that salient fact…they make more money than all those people combined.

The real problem is that the middle class pays more in taxes than those making over $1,000,000 a year and that just isn’t right which is why the Buffet Rule is so popular with 73% of the country according to Public Policy Polling. Even middle class Republicans like this rule.

Loopholes in our tax code allow the super wealthy who can afford to take advantage of them get away with paying a lower percentage in tax.

Example…the rich guy makes $1000 and pays $100 in taxes which equals 10%

                   The poor guy makes $10 and pays $2 in taxes which equals 20%

Who pays a higher percentage of their income in taxes?

To make the percentages equal the rich guy should be paying $200 in taxes and yes it looks like more money but percentage wise it isn’t.

Some will argue that 40% of the population pays no Federal income tax at all. i’m not sure if those statistics are true but let’s look at it. All those workers are paying payroll tax (paid by those making less than $106,000/year), sales tax, state tax etc. They are not getting off scott free. In fact the bottom 40%(120,000,000 million Americans) own a mere 0.3% of the wealth while the top 20% own 85% of the nations wealth.

In 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. (See Norris, 2010, for more details.) They only get taxed the same as the rest of us on that 19% the other 81% is taxed at a lower rate.

One of the problems with taxes and the arguments about who is paying more(which is really a non issue) is each individual’s deductions and use of loopholes varies according to how savvy you are. Like so many of these "articles" that discuss taxes they all totally ignore what is actually paid – because in the end they can’t take into consideration loopholes, exemptions, deductions, capital gains and shelters.

So when you hear that 40% pay no taxes don’t believe it, they pay more than you think just trying to exist.

C'sted, VI Steeple Bldg. Views

i'm pretty prejudiced when it comes to St. Croix and its historical beauty compared with other islands through out the Caribbean. We were very fortunate to have the  Danes layout Fredericksted and Christiansted and throughout our history to have concerned citizens that fought to preserve and renovate important historical structures.

In 1952 The Christiansted National Historic Site was created to preserve the Fort, Customs House, Steeple Building, Danish West India and Guinea Company Bldg., and Government House. These structures located within walking distance of each other have been re-done many times since their original construction in the 1700's and are a small representation of how the Danish economy churned from then until they sold the islands to the United States in 1917.

Today some of these buildings are getting a lot of loving TLC from contractors hired to do some needed renovations. After too many hurricanes passing through the buildings were looking stressed and the Park Service put in their requests to the Feds for funds to do some much needed repair on all the buildings.

The Customs House is the biggest part of the project, its getting rotten wood that had been impacted by water and termites replaced and or repaired. Park Service personnel and government architects have put a lot of effort into maintaining the integrity and antiquity of
all the buildings even down to reproducing the lime plaster that goes on the outside of the structures.

They are repairing windows and doors, the gallery roof, replacing shingles, repainting and putting the weather vane back on top of the Steeple Building. The Scale House, the bathrooms and both of the Guniea House kitchens are getting attention. The Fort was tended to first and the project overall is scheduled to be complete sometime in April.

But the reason i wanted to write this piece is more about the views that can be had from the top of the Steeple Building. Christiansted is beautiful, people from all over the world photograph it from all angles and lighting conditions. It is a never ending study in architectural beauty across all the ages.

Access to the tippy top of the Steeple Building has been cut off for a long long time. When i heard they were doing repairs up there i asked if someone could take a camera along and snap a picture out of all eight sides.
Since access is limited and timing for the lighting was not going to happen i had to be satisfied with what ever results were obtained. The day of the shoot it was cloudy but i think St. Croix shines even on a cloudy day.

Enjoy the spectacular views from a building your government is renovating because it wouldn't be happening without them!

Potpourri

Originally this weeks edition was going to focus on local architecture and the continued support for its preservation but the pictures i wanted to publish aren't available right now so its on to other things.

There is a contest going on in England to develop a new design for Pylons(electrical wire support structures) that grace countrysides everywhere. England has decided to update theirs so they solicited the help of designers from all over the world through a contest. The contest closed in July with 250 entries but is now down to the final 6. Over at http://www.ribapylondesign.com/shortlist you can view the finalists and comment if you so desire. i kind of fancy number 4 because it keeps the lines in a vertical configuration and looks esthetically pleasing. i do wonder if it will hummmm in high winds and also how easy or difficult it will be to climb if repairs are needed.

Guess where this is.

This is a new one for me. Apparently in Cameroon women in the mistaken belief that they are protecting their daughters from advances by men will iron their daughters breasts to make them unattractive. The Association of Aunties has been trying to educate rural women about their sexual health and how to teach their daughters to protect themselves without doing physical damage. A study has found that 1 in 4 girls are affected by this practice. All of the 200 ethnic groups in Cameroon use some form of breast ironing.

This mornings moon and clouds

So i was reading an article on psychology that had researchers studying students at Columbia University by asking them a series of questions that would divulge their confidence levels and how that affected their overall grasp of reality. The study revealed that if you were 100% confident that your view of the world was correct you were less likely to absorb factual information that would challenge that view. The article claimed that if you didn't want to be stupid you should not let emotion drive your intellect.

Did you know that Google Maps has opened up their editing to volunteers from around the world? If you have been upset by misleading map features you may want to check out their policy and send in your fixes.

Green Heron thinking he's hidden!

Hope the Whimbrel, who was fitted with a satellite transmitter in May of 2009, and that some of us here on St. Croix have been following since she landed here in August of 2009 finished her Northern migration and took off for St.Croix a few days ago. Before the final push she had attempted to fly home in August but got caught up in Tropical Storm Gert and used the slingshot effect to fly back to Massachusetts at 92 miles per hour. She rested up and moved south to Virginia where she was originally caught and fitted. She sat out Hurricane Irene and then tried again a few days ago flying straight into Tropical Storm Maria. Her transmitter is still working and the last location showed her at sea but closing in on us so we are hoping she makes it home maybe today. If you'd like to watch her you can learn more about her travels at http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?tag_id=88043 
and even sign up to get e-mail alerts.

i don't recall if i updated you on the Kingbirds that had been building nests in our West Indian Cedar tree. i think when i last left off they were working on their third nest. Well they failed again and gave up. i'm hoping next season they will do it again and have more luck. The one i called the Protector still comes and sits on the railing or visits for a bit on his old outpost, i think he learned that we were Ok to hang around and is not skittish like the other Kingbirds.

See ya next week!

Sharks Oh My

Sargasso seaweed  and fishermen

By 2012 sharks that have been facing extinction will now have a sanctuary. In July the governors of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Republic of Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia signed a resolution to create the worlds first marine protected area for sharks.

Sharks have had a bad rap but the on going slaughter of sharks for their fins forced the islands to band together in order to protect the biological diversity of their marine environments. The area created (2,500,000 square miles) will be larger than the United States and will ban the possession, sale or offer for sale of any shark fins. The islanders claimed in their resolution that the lack of full scientific certainty about the size of the remaining populations of sharks was no reason to delay action.

Manta Rays will be protected in all the waters of Yap state.

People working together

Here in the Atlantic NOAA and France have recently partnered to protect the Humpback Whales that migrate each year from Massachusetts’ Stellwagen Bank to the French Antilles Agoa Sanctuary. The agreement will strengthen the relationships, monitoring and management of the whales between the two marine sanctuaries’s and help to preserve the species.

Our East End Marine Park here on St. Croix is part of a larger trend around the world to create areas of protection that are managed by local governments. Managing locally means the needs of fishermen, residents and those being protected are mutually compatible. Our park provides a host of allowable activities unlike the shark sanctuary. Some fishing and recreation is allowed in the turtle nesting areas; while on the underwater banks, no-take areas have been developed to protect spawning fish and their nursery’s freeing them from human predators.

Ready for visitors at Rainbow Beach

St. Croix’s other protected areas include the Buck Island National Park, Sandy Point National Refuge, Jacks and Isaacs run by the Nature Conservancy and Southgate managed by the Environmental Association. All these protected areas add to the rich environmental diversity St. Croix offers to its residents and visitors.

But is that enough, have we protected enough or are we just scratching the surface? On St. Croix environmentalists have been working on an Area of Particular Concern out at Great Pond. Great Pond is regularly visited in the spring and fall by migratory birds going back and forth between North and South America. We are a refueling stop for most species of sandpipers and some warblers. The endangered Least Terns nest at Great Pond over the summer and a small group of Whimbrels one of which has been tracked to Alaska spend the winter there feeding before they make their great migration back to the Hudson Bay area and further points west. Although we aren’t the biggest land mass compared with other islands we are just as important in the over all scheme of things. Every preserved step along the way of a migratory path for marine animals and birds means a greater chance for survival.

Sunrise

As more and more trans boundary endangered species face extinction nations have to come together to create safety zones where these species can reproduce and grow unhindered by commercial concerns. We share whales, sharks, dolphin, turtles, game fish and other migratory species such as birds with many countries. It is imperative that we cooperate with other nations and amongst ourselves to preserve their habitats so they can continue to thrive and be available to enjoy and cull for future populations.

There can never be too much preservation.

See ya next week.

Sunset