St. Croix is a healthy place to live

There has been a lot of media coverage concerning the arguments in front of the Supreme Court this week that review the individual mandate to purchase health insurance in the Affordable Care Act.

i've been reading up on the issue and have been struck by comments coming from right wing spokespersons and ordinary citizens speaking their minds in different venues.

One conservative politician seemed to think that American lives would be shorter if the Affordable Care Act remains in place. He claimed that Canadians and English that want to live longer come to the US for care. So i decided to look it up and as it turns out Canada is number 12 for long life and England is 30. All the top ten have some sort of Universal Health Care that is paid for out of taxes while the US languishes at 50^th place.

The idea that the US is the best nation in the world for health care really needs addressing. If being best has to do with longevity then we are far, far, far from being even in the top ten. i looked this up first by Googling and found reference to a study looking at the years 2005-2010 for all the countries of the world. During my examination i was shocked and pleasantly surprised by the statistics but wanted more info. So i went to the CIA's World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html and found the nation had dropped down more slots from the first study i looked at.

Amazingly, and this was completely new to me, i found that the US Virgin Islands are a better place to live for longevity than in the United States. The VI is 39^th and Puerto Rico is 44^th . Wouldn't this be a great marketing asset? Come and live in the Virgin Islands because according to the CIA's world wide analysis you may live longer.

Personally i've always thought life here is healthier than in the states but after reading the list i now have proof.

There were 9 Magnificent Frigates but I missed one

Regarding the court case, i have never been in favor of the Individual Mandate preferring a nation wide single payer system where everyone contributes through taxes. If you look at the top ten on the list they are living years longer than we are with some form of single payer or universal health care. Why we continue to believe we are number one when the evidence goes against it and even our own agency publishes the fact that we aren't just boggles the mind.

The idea of being forced to buy insurance is not what is disagreeable as we already do that here with automobile insurance. Its the fact that health care is different from every other commodity and insurance companies making money off our illness puts an added cost burden on all of us. If you took out the profit motive for insurance companies we would probably be paying less in overall taxes than we do in insurance and taxes combined. Doctors would have less stress filling out one form instead of multiple forms and hospitals could collect the money they need to operate instead of arguing with insurance companies over payouts. We have the highest health costs in the world and rank 50^th. You would think with the highest costs we would be number one. Well we aren't and we continue to slide downward.

Today is the last day of arguments at the Supreme Court and everyone that cares about health care is watching. The Affordable Care Act is just the beginning of trying to get more Americans covered. There are aspects that all of us can love and hate in this bill but i think most of us would agree the insurance companies have a strangle hold over all of us that does not make the nation healthier.

See ya next week.

Bananaquit caught in a Hurricane Lamp (saved by me)

Social Security is not broke

Social Security is not broke. i'll say it again Social Security is not broke. It has never been broke and will be fully funded for another 25 years at which point it faces a gap. If you have a gap at the end of the month but know more revenue will be coming in the next month you don't view yourself as broke unless there is no revenue stream at all. In fact most of us perceiving a gap will try to close it by bringing in more revenue.

Pundits on the other side don't want you to ever consider closing the Social Security gap by requiring an elevation in the amount of income that is subject to Social Security deductions. Today you only have to deduct for any income you make under $108,000 per year. This means all those people making over $108,000 per year don't have to make deductions on the excess.

So while the little guy making $20,000 a year sees 7.5% of his income deducted, the guy making $350,000 per year only sees 2.3% of his income deducted if their employers are paying the other half. Anyone out there think this is “fair”? It is very easy to fix the gap by raising the income level. After the past two stock market blowouts i think most people realize they have one income stream they can always count on and that is Social Security. Lets fix it not destroy it.

On another note i was reading a piece the other day that is a review of a book written by Dave Grossman a Special Forces Colonel at West Point. His book called “On Killing” provides an abundance of evidence to show that most men and women are reluctant to kill a fellow human being. According to his research human beings are not natural warriors and that it is war itself that brings out aggressiveness. He says that even during actual battles many soldiers will not shoot at their enemies and will fire into the air.

Since that massacre last week by one of our own in Afghanistan i have been wondering why we aren't out of there yet, especially since polling shows a majority of Americans want us to leave. We spend 2 billion a week, i'll say that again, 2 billion a week in Afghanistan. Ralph Lopez says spending 2 billion a week to buy hatred is too much. i tend to agree with him.

Imagine what 2 billion a week here at home could do. It could fix those deteriorating roads and bridges, make mass transit more affordable, bring back some of those laid off teachers, firemen and policemen. i'm sure we could think of lots to do with 2 billion a week.

And on a final note. The rise in gasoline prices has nothing to do with President Obama. Demand is down and in fact we have been exporting some of our product overseas. When demand is down Wall Street bets on higher gas prices in the future which is what is causing the price to rise at the pump. Speculators account for 64% of all contracts where as in the past they only accounted for about 30%.

“Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—the federal agency that regulates trading in oil futures, among other commodities—warns that too few financial players control too much of the oil market. This allows them to push oil prices higher and higher—not only on the basis of their expectations about the future but also expectations about how high other speculators will drive the price.

In other words a relatively few players with very deep pockets are placing huge bets on oil and you are paying.” Robert Reich

Wall Street has gone to court to stop aspects of the Dodd Frank law that would protect consumers against these type of practices, if you want your gas price to continue to rise please don't support repeal of this important legislation.

See ya next week

St. Croix can change

Change will not come from the Virgin Islands government. Our government is too imbeded in its bureaucracy to help the island through this economic crisis. In fact it is creating more hardship by following the austerity programs that seems to be the idea du jour all over the world.

Change will come from within the community. It will come from those citizens that use digital technology, social media and the airwaves to wake up residents, visitors and investors alike to the idea that St. Croix is ripe for a new identity. Only we, those of us that live and work here, can create the vision that new jobs and opportunities are just waiting for us to discover and reap the benefits.

i'm sure there are lots of areas we could look into and last week i talked about legalizing marijuana. Here are 8 sub categories that have already been talked about but need repeating.

1. Energy...the end of June the gasoline market will open up. No longer will we be dependent upon the oil refinery to supply our energy needs. Entrepreneur's that have the backing of wealthy investors have an opportunity right now to corner the importing of gasoline to St. Croix and maybe the other two islands. Something like a cooperative could work where business owners pool their resources and create an entity that would benefit all of them. The government is not going to arrange any importer but will work with anyone that sees a future in that commodity. Lots of talk has revolved around the rack problem but remember Texaco used to bring it in over by the airport. Is there another rack there?
2. Alternative Energy...the island is ripe for becoming a testing laboratory for universities and companies that need to test their products before making them available commercially. Just recently i wrote to Professor Sadoway at MIT who has developed a liquid metal battery. One battery the size of a freight container could power 200 houses from the sun and wind power. If this becomes commercially available our island could solve its energy needs. i had no qualms asking him to use us as a testing ground, maybe others have their own ideas about who to approach. He did respond positively.
3. Retirement communities, nursing homes and assisted living facilities...If we could beef up our hospital St. Croix would be a perfect place for African American boomers to retire. Instead of bleeding residents back to the states to retire because of a lack of medical options we could keep everyone here and bring in more which would create jobs.
4. Sports venues...we don't have to build a stadium to get athletes to the island. All we need is better maintained roads. Local enthusiasts have volunteered to go to conventions and set up booths touting the fact that you can bike, run, and swim every day of the year. Biking races, running races, long distance swims, marathons, triathlons, biathlons all these bring in hundreds of competitors and their families that spend at least three or four days on island filling hotels, restaurants, car rental agencies and taxi cabs. We could spread out these competitions to bring in people every month of the year.
5. Technology... the technology park at the University that is trying to get companies to re-locate here and use the facilities as incubators for new companies that are on the cutting edge of the digital universe. Maybe you know someone that needs a place that will have world wide connectivity. Talk to them, get them excited about the island, put them in touch with the University.
6. Eco-tourism...we are one of the few islands left in the Caribbean that is not over-developed. Because of this we can continue to market St. Croix as a place to come that values and preserves its open spaces. A place that doesn't have high-rises blocking views of the ocean and is not so over-crowded that finding paradise just can't happen. We have beaches, hiking trails, parks for birding and boating opportunities. We could highlight its history and use this to our advantage. Already the National Park Service is renovating the properties in Christiansted and trying to create a museum that will tell more of the sordid history of slavery.
7. Entertainment...we have wonderful musicians right here, we have talented actors and their support crews. Someone could set up sound studios, filming venues, animation terminals etc. Make this into a place that draws in the huge revenues that go into making films. Don't say we can't do any of the above...we can all it takes is vision and a commitment to working together, networking and talking the place up.
8. Food Products...Everyone knows that Tabasco comes from Louisiana and we already have our signature Rums...what we need is a world renowned food product that we could export, maybe that's Ms. Anna's but maybe someone out there can come up with a new idea that puts us on the food map.

Most of us here have great skills that could be put to use re-creating St. Croix. We have so much untapped potential that i look upon this economic crisis as a challenge for all of us.

i have a sign up over my computer that says “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not FAIL? So i ask all of us...What would you do?

See ya next week.

Legalize Marijuana on St. Croix

i was sitting in the Dr. office Monday and almost every other person had lost their jobs or would be loosing their jobs. One woman walked out from her exam and hearing us discussing jobs started railing about the injustice of being the only person working in Mental Health at Charles Harwood and she had been let go. How were her patients needs going to be looked after and why were senators relatives and friends who had just been hired in the summer and had no experience not let go first? She had been there eighteen years and was close to retirement. This place is going to contract economically faster than we can absorb she cried and then who will we blame?

She was a dynamo, capturing the entire room in her travails but leaving undefeated for she was fighting back. She was not going to roll over and accept her job firing. She was going to start discussions with everyone she could and still find space to laugh about her situation.

Most of us there were discussing new ideas to help move the island into a better place for everyone. The mood was not defeatist at all in fact it was very optimistic. All of us recognized the need for an economy built upon demand that could be self sustaining. But the form that was going to take eluded us. We needed someone like her to go out and fight for a new identity.

For too long we have been known as the industrial island not a vacation mecca like St. Thomas or St. John. This has hurt us commercially and financially because we really aren't well known, we are off the vacation radar.

Everyone, i don't care if you are rich, poor or in-between wants to live in a peaceful place. They want to live their lives unencumbered by fear of home invasion, robbery or unintended death. Unfortunately St. Croix has its problems that are brought on by a lack of jobs, lack of education and a thriving drug industry.

Eight indicators reflect a peaceful society according to research that has been done by the Institute for Economics and Peace, you need:

• Well-functioning government
  

• Sound business environment
  

• Equitable distribution of resources
  

• Acceptance of the rights of others
  

• Good relations with neighbors
  

• Free flow of information
  

• High levels of education
  

• Low levels of corruption
  

These are items that we as an island nation could easily work on and market to the world. St. Croix needs an identity and one such identity could be that unlike the tourist islands we are a residential island that seeks residents that want to transform the island into a place that we can all live on peacefully.

Our society is involved in self defeating thinking and behaviors that continue to depress living standards. “Peace is statistically related to better business environments, higher per capita income, higher educational attainment and stronger social cohesion,” says the Institute for Economics and Peace.
In order to create that environment for all of us it means that we as a community have to work at building structures that can contain violence, or get rid of structures that encourage violence.

With the economic turmoil that has wracked the island over the past few months we are looking at the very real potential for increased criminal activity and all its assorted negative impacts upon us.

We as a community can either sit back and let it happen or try to deflect those repercusions.
i think one method of deflection is to legalize marijuana. Make St. Croix, just like we did the casinos, the only island where marijuana can be grown and sold legally. We all know where to buy it even if we don't partake. We have lots of people that are hustling every day making a living off illegal drugs because they have no other options. If we legalize marijuana all these young men and women would have instant jobs. We could create a new economy, generate new taxes and cut down on some of the senseless killing that takes them out. Maybe we could even see our crime rates plummet bringing on that peaceful environment.

i know this may be a rather radical suggestion, others have made it before me and California has tried passing laws that have failed so far. NORML works all over the country trying to legalize it and Hawaii is trying to decriminalize along with over two dozen other states that have various forms of laws they are trying to pass. It is coming, some state will pass a law legalizing it and start gobbling up the money. Why shouldn't we be first, reaping the economic benefits instead of always being last. Think about it.

See ya next week.

Leap Day

One of the first things children learn in school and at home as they are growing up is to follow the rules. Rules help children to stay safe, be fair, learn and get along. Rules invite children to respect truth and honesty, to listen, and to take care of things. When children don't follow the rules it can impact other children, parents and their teachers negatively. Children aren't independent beings, they depend upon others for guidance and sustenance and need rules to control their behavior. It is important that they learn quickly how to follow them.

Now consider that adults and children on the other hand do have options regarding rules. If they choose not to follow the rules chaos may very well be the result. Adults understand that we follow rules to coordinate ourselves with others so that everyone has basic expectations regarding interactions. But what can we learn from children?

Most adults think there are only two ways to go about rules(law), you either follow them or you don't. But children have a third way which is to ask “WHY” before they agree to blindly follow. Parents and teachers spend years explaining and reinforcing “WHY” particular rules are important. It takes a lot of work to get all children to obey the rules and toe the line.

Today we are bombarded from both sides of the political spectrum by those that either want to “level the playing field” or have everyone lie down and accept that “life isn't fair.” The “life isn't fair” group says trust business, don't regulate them, let them use free speech and money to create laws that gut environmental protection, depress wages, close down the postal service, gut public education(we don't need an educated population), let our infrastructure rot and make access to non emergency health care a right only the wealthy can afford.

The left calls the media a conservative mouthpiece while the right says its controlled by liberals. Well both groups are wrong. The media's sole purpose is to trumpet the corporate mantra that business is right and all others are wrong. The corporate media is involved in hiding all the harm corporations have caused all over the world. We need look no further than this island to see the damage corporations have done to the south shore. To see the red mud and hulks of their machinery rotting away under the rising sun now that they have drained all they can.

As George Monibot has said “The corporate press is involved in a naked attempt to rebuild the nation around the demands of business” and not the population. For instance having a postal service was written into the constitution so the population could have reasonable access to the national debate without business skewing the discussion towards their interests alone. Today we are losing that communication portal under the push to privatize. Some may say the internet is replacing it but please remember that the internet is not a substitute for free speech as long as we pay private portals that try to exert control over what passes through or how you gain access to material or even the speed at which your connection delivers it.

Rules and ideology replace thought. Rules and ideology are comfortable but they won't help you make progress for yourself or the community. Rules and ideology work when change is slow but today we see change banging at our doors. We have to create an environment on this island and in the nation as a whole that at least attempts some leveling. People and business need to be regulated, no one group should hold sway over the other. No amount of power and money should allow corporations to walk away from their responsibilities to the communities they impact.

Today is a leap day, an out of the ordinary day, a day to think differently....so like the children above do...start asking WHY we should lie down and accept another rotting hulk on the south shore just because life isn't fair.

St. Croix Ag Fair 2012

St. Croix celebrated its 41 annual Agricultural Fair this past President's weekend. Its always been one of my favorite activities of the year and i partook 2 out of the 3 days it was on. i think the reason i enjoy it so much is the food is always fabulous; how could it not be when everyone is competing to win first prize in their specialties.

All sorts of different bands showed up to grace the stages, you had steel pans playing by the duck pond, reggae, quelbe and Heritage Dancers performing on the big stage and smaller bands and performers doing their magic on the third stage. You'd see people you hadn't seen in ages bopping along to the music or sitting in the prepared chairs under the tents seat dancing.

Schmoozing at the fair becomes an art form if you have come with a friend or relative. Time slows down as you get reacquainted with those you haven't seen in ages and it can be your turn to wait while your partner chats or their turn to wait while you chat. It can take hours to get from one end of the fair to the other. Most everyone is happy as the kids and grownups have booths tending to their needs. When you get tired a trip over to the yellow tables under the mango trees will get you out of the sun and give you a chance to rest your bones and eat some food.

i have never been at the fair when the line for Armstrong's ice cream doesn't stretch out both sides of the van and inside the food building more lines await as you salivate over the delicious smells; trying to make your mind up how many things you will try this year can be daunting. i always like to cruise all the booths looking at the ribbons before i decide where to eat. More time for chatting is always available as you wait for the ladies so colorfully dressed to dish out your food.

Over at the west end of the fair produce and plant vendors are set up waiting to sell you this seasons crops. More lines and more chatting as you wend your way up and down the aisles trying to find that plant that will fit perfectly in the empty spot waiting at home. Schools display their projects and ribbons grace the winners booths. Parents and past parents check their kids schools to see how they did.

But this year there was a gaping hole in the plant building. The section Hovensa usually takes over to display its contribution to the island was empty. It was strange passing it and not seeing Hovensa workers handing out goodies to hoards of kids after they had passed some test they had to do first. i think this was my first real physical indication that they are on the way out. i have to say it was sad not to see them there.

Back outside the animals did their thing. The cows, pigs, goats, rabbits, chickens, birds and turtles waited in their pens or cages to be gawked at by adults and children alike. No one can pass them by and not see something to touch their heart. In the petting area the looks on children's faces when they picked up a rabbit or stroked a chick was enough to make my day.

i ate, schmoozed, watched and strolled and can't wait to do it again next year.

See ya next week.

Mardi Croix...Don't Worry

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky, they do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life.”

And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the wild flowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith?

So do not worry; do not say, "What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?" It is the gentiles who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God's saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well.
So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25

If you have ever read the Catholic Bible or the New King James Matthew's piece in Chapter 6 about worrying is a real gem. i've read both and they differ in the final line in ways that has me, a lapsed Catholic, preferring the Catholic version which is above.

Attending Catholic school made it mandatory that we read and understand the bible. Religion class was an integral part of growing up and did more to induce the use of the words “WHY” or “WHERE IS THE PROOF FOR THAT” by myself than any other class i've ever had to sit through. i drove the nuns nuts with my unending questions. i was never one to just sit back, absorb, and believe. i questioned incessantly, still do, i drive people nuts with my questions.

But i do think that section of Matthew's about not worrying took hold. Either i was born without the worry gene, which i doubt, or i took it to heart at a very young age, for to me worrying is a complete waste of time. It solves nothing.

i think most of us understand that worrying can cause illness. When you constantly think about what could happen it can interfere with your appetite, your relationships and your job performance. It can cause high anxiety and panic attacks, it can result in sleepless nights and a lot of distress. In some excessive forms, worrying can cause physical ailments like:

• difficulty swallowing
• dizziness
• dry mouth
• fast heartbeat
• fatigue
• headaches
• inability to concentrate
• irritability
• muscle aches
• muscle tension
• nausea
• nervous energy
• rapid breathing
• shortness of breath
• sweating
• trembling and twitching
  

• suppression of the immune system
• digestive disorders
• muscle tension
• short-term memory loss
• premature coronary artery disease
• heart attack
  

Those are a lot of symptoms that a chronic worrier has to contend with. Luckily there are simple methods to tamp down the worry gene. Meditation, giving up caffeine, relaxing, having a strong social network, exercising, worrying for only 15 minutes a day, wearing a rubber band and snapping it whenever you catch yourself worrying and recognizing that you are a worrier.

So like Matthew said in the last line: “Do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Wake Up

I'm not religious but this is beautiful

Meteor Blade writes at the Daily Kos and i picked up this quirky little story he wrote to explain that President Obama has not made the recession worse.

"Okay. Let's say a guy has steered a car off the road and is speeding down a steep embankment at 90 mph, headed for a precipice. Let's say the guy opens the door, leaps out and rolls away from the car toward a memoirs publisher standing nearby. Just as that happens, another guy manages to leap into the driver's seat and immediately starts trying to turn the car away from the precipice. The car begins to slow and its trajectory shifts, but it's still headed downward, and for quite a while it's all the new driver can do to keep it on the ledge below which lies a very big crack-up.
Meanwhile, some radio-amplified bystanders are shouting, "Over the cliff! Over the cliff! Hope he doesn't make it!" because they don't approve of the way the new driver got into the car in the first place or the route they have surmised he plans to take. They call upon other bystanders to do whatever they can to block the new route from being picked. And those bystanders start shouting: "Get your foot off the brake! Let go of the steering wheel. The car will turn by itself!" And they roll rocks in the way of a change in direction.
Despite this, the driver begins to make headway and the car works its way off the ledge and starts back up the hill. At which point Mitt Romney shouts from the rooftop counting room of one of his nearby vacation homes that the new driver has failed to stop the car in its tracks and get it back on the road as quickly as an expert like he would have done. He claims the driver is still not steering the way a real driver would, that, in fact, the car would have not been in danger at all if he himself had leaped into the driver's seat instead of the guy who did."

Baloney.

President Obama has not made the recession worse, if anything he has stopped the freefall and reversed  course. You can believe that or not depending upon your ideology but the facts and Moody's back him up on this: 

“For example, we estimate that, without the government’s response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8½ million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation”

Here's another one for you...human induced climate change. There are loads of people out there that have been mislead by think tanks and so called scientists that have been bought and paid for by energy companies to create doubt

Why is it that 98% of the climate scientists that actually do the research world wide are in agreement with anthropogenic global warming? They speak with one voice which is highly unusual in the scientific community. There is no controversy, I'll repeat that, there is no controversy the data from all over the world indicates human induced climate change is a reality.

“Oreskes and Conway revealed from memos leaked to the press that in April 1998 the right-wing Marshall Institute, SEPP (Fred Seitz’s lobby that aids tobacco companies and polluters), and ExxonMobil, met in secret at the American Petroleum Institute’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. There they planned a $20 million campaign to get “respected scientists” to cast doubt on climate change, get major PR efforts going, and lobby Congress that global warming isn’t real and is not a threat. “

Why do you suppose they did that....MONEY...LOTS AND LOTS OF IT. They could care less what happens to the world for they will have enough money to survive any calamity.

Last week i talked about demonizing. This week i want to ask all of you to stop accepting what you are being fed without being skeptical about the motives of those trying to convince you to believe things that really go against your best interests. Think about the tobacco industry when they said smoking didn't cause cancer...well now you know it does. Those that spread doubt do it because it is about the MONEY.

Human induced climate change is real. It will affect your family in ways not yet imagined. If you want the same world you grew up in for your kids and grandkids...WAKE UP. Go to www.realclimate.org and learn what real climate scientists think.

See you next week.

I am others

Hibiscus Show

i have friends who are my polar opposite. We disagree about many things but find common ground in our pursuit of healthy living. We share time together and remain committed to participating in activities that we each view as mutually beneficial to our overall health.

All of us give back to the community in our own ways, all of us are hard workers and committed to our families. We all believe in our nation and want it to continue to be a guiding light for others but we see governments place in our lives through different lenses.

Squid

Why we disagree on how to move the nation forward continues to baffle me because at our base we are really extremely similar. We all want the same things and yet the road to get there is opposed to each other.

i've been reading a book called “The Anatomy of Peace” by the Arbinger Institute. They use as an example families dealing with young adults that have become drug addicts to show how all conflict is the same.

Can you see the Flounder?

One of the most salient sentences i read was one directed at a parent who maintained that he was right during a particular exercise. The moderator asked him if he had ever met anyone who thought he was wrong. Just think about that anytime you are in conflict with another person, have you ever considered that you could be wrong?

No conflict can ever be solved if both parties think they are right. The moderator used this to explain to parents that our way of being towards others might be at the heart of the conflict. Sometimes we just keep perpetuating the problem, we go around and around and provoke the very behaviors we want to eliminate because we can't change how we relate.

Round the island race

We all tend to demonize those we disagree with, we lump them into categories and dehumanize them. i do it myself. If you say the word Republican to me i lump them all into a group of angry, greedy, self indulgent, war mongering, climate denying bigoted people. But the reality of my real Republican friends doesn't compute. They are none of those things so am i wrong to think those thoughts?

Are they wrong to think of Democrats as wimps, takers, socialists, communists, judicial activists and baby killers. i think so. That is why we have to humanize all of us. Stop making demons out of the other party. If we want our country to move forward we have to first find a way out of our internal wars that poison most of the political discourse.

When Decartes stated Cognito ergo sum...I think therefore I am, Martin Heidegger hundreds of years later pondered it and asked where the language necessary to make that statement came from. Of course we all know the language came from others. When you think about this deeply you have to realize that being in the world with others is fundamental because we couldn't acquire language without others. We can't live without others.

In order to understand our nation we have to view each and every person as an individual as a real person who may contribute to our well being. Don't demonize anyone. Look at everyone you encounter over the next week. Look at them all carefully, notice them, really really notice them, notice what they are doing for a living, notice how you are interacting with them, even if they are in the cars ahead of you or behind you, they are all interacting with you. And remember we may be individuals but we are in the world with others.

Clips

Pelicans, Belted Kingfishers and Ospreys all love this tree

Some days the ideas don't come fast and furious so i surf the net looking for trends that affect humanity. On St. Croix the Hovensa closing is the main topic of conversation and will create unknown opportunities for years to come; we still have far to go before we feel the real effects. i'm avoiding writing about it because i've taken a position of wait and see. So on to other things that can also impact us and our environment.

There's a hint of a rainbow wayyyyy back in that cloud

Hawksbills and Greens...of the ten tagged in August at Buck Island National Park eight are still sending out signals whoo hoo. The map at seaturtle.org shows all of them remaining in the Caribbean between Puerto Rico and down as far as Antigua. They slowly meandered away from St. Croix with some going north and others heading south. It will be interesting to see if they come back and when.  i'm always checking the turtles at Cane Bay and so far none of ours have been tagged.

Hawksbill at Cane Bay

Hope the Whimbrel...that bird is freaking amazing and she is ours. Hope lives here from September to May at Great Pond on the south shore until she takes off to migrate north to her breeding grounds close to the eastern Alaskan border. She flies non-stop from here to Virginia where she fuels up and continues the trek north and west. She has had a monitor on her for three seasons and is one of the few Whimbrels still transmitting data to scientists. She has proven that Great Pond is an extremely sensitive wetland area and needs protecting.

Great Pond where Hope hangs out

New York Attorney General Eric Schnierderman will be co-chairing an investigation into risky mortgage packaging and the abusive lending that lead to the housing bubble that crashed our economy. This was a long time in coming and it is just a start but maybe some where down the road those that took advantage of inexperienced buyers will be brought to justice.

Customs House

Newt Gingrich is experiencing a revival of sorts. This summer his rising star bit the dust when his campaign staff bolted. i think most of us thought he was finished but he stayed in the game. Now he has won South Carolina and is trying to win Florida...apparently his schtick is redemption, he has seen the light and changed his ways. i think Gingrich is a professional con man and if conservatives can believe that he has repented of his ways and he becomes their nominee for President of the United States then they will prove to the world that they really can be led like a cow to slaughter.

Beliefs...it is easier to believe and not question than it is to question.

According to Michael Shermer “Men and women, indistinctly, have the same tendency to believe weird things. What changes is the type of weird thing. Women believe more in mediums, spiritualists, fortunetellers, witchcraft, amulets, alternative medicine and healers. Men prefer to believe in the paranormal, pseudoscience, creationism and UFOs.”

Saturday Market at La Reine

Jails are a business and we are number one in the world for incarceration. A New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik, "The Caging of America," shockingly notes:

"Over all, there are now more people under "correctional supervision" in America - more than six million - than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height."

The toll on minorities is devastating because a lot of poor black and white men were incarcerated for non-violent crimes:

For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today - perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system - in prison, on probation, or on parole - than were in slavery then.

Gopnik is appalled: "The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life."

And here's my two cents on that issue...when jails became a business the need for customers increased. Without customers there can be no profit so the fact that we are the number one jailers in the world does not surprise me.

Until next week, see ya.

ST Croix Oil Refinery closing

If you can't wade through the stuff see below for oil refinery comments.

Two individuals interacting through the use of vocalized reverberations that are recognized as containing a code of sounds that both understand. When you think about speech it is amazing that the grunts we emit induce reactions from those we want to impact in some way.

Green Turtle's never have goop on the rear of their shells

i don't know if any of the rest of you have ever done this but when i was young maybe seven or eight i would say a word to myself over and over. i'd repeat a word say...ant... for instance...ahhhnnnntttttt. i'd watch ants going about their business, trekking along in single file, bumping heads with ones going in the opposite direction and say to myself ahhhnnnttttt. i'd say it slowly over and over while i was leaning over watching them and think about the sounds and wonder how in the world ahhhnnnntttttt ever came to be the sound we use to indicate an ant. i'd repeat color sounds, sounds for objects, all sorts of things and never be able to understand why that particular sound became responsible for identifying something we take for granted. i still don't completely understand how we originally agreed that certain tonal articulations had any meaning at all.

Hawksbills always seem to have goop on the rear of their shells

Apparently i'm not alone. Linguists, anthropologists, philosophers, evolutionary biologists and psychologists have all wondered how human language developed. Those that follow the Bible believe that Adam was the first human to speak a designed language that was later scattered into separate languages at Babel by God. Chomsky a linguist at MIT thinks we may have a “language center” in our brains that enables the youngest child to acquire language innately. Others think the evolutionary tweaking of a few genomes way back when is the only thing separating us from the animals.

Moray body language

The Oxford English Dictionary has almost 176,000 words in common usage, 47,000 words in it are obsolete and 9,500 are derivative. No one really knows how many words the English language contains because it adds and subtracts them constantly based upon usage. It is thought that English has more words than other languages because of the addition of Latin and French after the Norman invasion in 1066.

Atlantic Ray trying to get away

The difference between us all lies not in our understanding but in our vocal projections. Since we attach different meanings to sounds we can't always speak to each other but we can understand every human on the planet through their body language. All humans recognize laughter, sadness, puzzlement, distress, arm signals, head nods, gestures and pictures that we draw. Travelers, even without knowledge of the language of the country they are visiting can get their needs met through sign and body language. We can communicate on an elementary level at all times no matter who we are with.

Can you read his body language?

Conversation can be verbal or non-verbal and both methods or a combination of the two clue us in to the intentions of those we interact with. Sounds may convey meaning but the way you look, listen, sit, move or react can give a much more in depth message. You may be trying to convince someone of one thing while your body language is sending a mixed message. If the two aren't working together the receiver of the information may have his or her doubts.

Today on the island we all got the horrible news that the oil refinery is closing. Everyone is talking about it and most of it is negative. Lots of people will be loosing their jobs and moving off island to find work. Everything will be affected, housing, gasoline, schools and all the business's that worked directly or indirectly with the refinery.

St. Croix has experienced ups and downs through out its entire human history and this will not be the worst thing that has ever happened on the island. Over time we have had earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunami's and declining economies brought on by the demise of the sugar industry, aluminum, rum and now oil. At one point in the 1600's all residents were ordered off. In the future it will be something else that will crash and burn...those committed to St. Croix will stay and those that can see no new future here will leave.

My advice is wait and see how things shake out. Some other company could make a bid for the refinery, Hess may decide to re-open if market conditions change and there could be better days ahead. One just never knows. When the refinery in Aruba closed they focused on tourism and the island is now one of the top destinations. Sometimes when things go bad it becomes an opportunity to create something new and better.

Conversation on the streets will be full of melee, take it with a grain of salt. Don't make decisions based upon other people and don't bolt just because everyone else thinks that is their only option. People will continue to live and work here for eons to come regardless of the Hovensa closing.