14 = St. John Tradewinds, November 9-15, 2009 Letters to St. John Tradewinds Thanks to Barshinger’s Staff Office of the Senator-At-Large Craig Barshinger, I recently had a rather minor but complicated issue with the De- partment of Motor Vehicles. I turned to your office and had the good fortune to get the patience, understanding and help of two very kind ladies on your staff. Ms. Callwood in your St. Thomas office was the first person I en- countered when I called your office. After explaining the nature of my problem, she calmed my concerns and referred me to Mrs. Ste- phen in your St. John office. Both ladies worked with tremendous efficiency in contacting the appropriate people in DMV to bring a positive conclusion to my im- probable dilemma. My thanks to them both, they reflect all the good you are doing for the community. Best of luck with your bills: #28-0078 (property tax) and #28-0101 (ferry bill). Keep up the good work! Marty Freeman, 20-year resident This Is Paradise This community is suffering. I was sitting on the beach last night, looking at the moon and the other islands, this truly is paradise. I think all of us in this commu- nity can see it, going along North Shore Road, South Shore Road, Centerline Road, over town. Everywhere that you look you know it’s paradise, but a lot of us are suffering and don’t always see it. We really all need to get together to start taking care of our young kids so that they can all grow up and see it all the time. Greg Miller TRADEWINDS PUBLISHING The Community Newspaper Since 1972 EDITOR/PUBLISHER MaLinda Nelson malinda@tradewinds.vi NEWS EDITOR Jaime Elliott Jaime@tradewinds.vi WRITERS Andrea Milam, Susan Mann, Mauri Elbel COLUMNISTS/ CONTRIBUTORS Sis Frank, Bonny Corbeil, Katie Tarta, Eliza Magro, Malik Stevens, Chuck Pishko, Vern Tonge, Jeff Smith, Paul Devine, Jerry Runyon, Andrew Rutnik, Dustin Prudhomme, ADVERTISING advertising @tradewinds.vi CIRCULATION Rohan Roberts NEWSLINE Tel. (340) 776-6496 Fax (340) 693-8885 www. tradewinds. vi editor @tradewinds. vi MAILING ADDRESS Tradewinds Publishing P.O. Box 1500 St. John, VI 00831 SUBSCRIPTIONS US. & U.S.V.I. only $70.00 per year THIRD CLASS PERMIT US. Postage PAID Permit No. 3 St. John, VI 00831 © COPYRIGHT 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction of news stories, letters, columns, photo- graphs or advertisements allowed without written permission from the publisher. Chinnery Is Excelling at Berklee College of Music Hey St. John! It’s the little Island Girl from the big city of Boston. It has been almost two months and more since I left you and that in itself to me was a big step. It is still hard to believe that I am on my own and am living in an actual city, but then again I am loving my chance to be independent and attending my Berk- lee College of Music! And yes, I do mean my! Every minute I spend here as a musician at Berklee helps me develop my own unique sound and style. This school is so filled with gifted musicians from all over the world and I love it! I know I am in the right place in God’s right time for training to become a sound in music. Right now my major is performance. But as I become more en- lightened about the majors here at Berklee, I am cur- rently thinking about switching my major, while I still have time, to professional music which is a made-up major at Berklee. This major will enable me to take any classes I want. This means I will be allowed to study not only performance, but also other majors I am interested in such as: composing, song writing; music busi- ness; and production. I am also hoping that I will be switched to the degree program as of being a current diploma program student. My current classes are Ear Training 1 with Tom Applemen, Harmony with William Silvio, Intro to Music Tech. with Chris Noyes, R&B Lab and Per- formance Skills/ Background Singing with Raymond Reeder, Private Instruction Voice-1 with Darcel Wil- liams, Writing Skills with Steve Kirby, and Rhythm Section and Grooves for Voice with Stan Strickland. As I know Winston Maccow, a professor here at Berklee that I knew from the five-week programs, he asked me to join his Caribbean Ensemble Class which at the time I didn’t know was a level five class. It is also one of Berklee’s highest ensembles class- es. In addition to taking my classes I have also joined several groups including the Caribbean Beat Club, the Song Writing Club, the BSU (Black Student Union), the Women’s Group, Berklee Cares Group, and the Student Government Association. I am truly in the place I need to make it to where I hope to be. A for being in the Caribbean Ensemble, I am getting ready for a concert, which will be in De- cember and I can’t wait! Being from an island like St. John there are a lot of pros and cons. In addition to this, at first harmony and ear training was my hardest classes, but after putting in the work and applying myself I am doing great! Harmony sometimes gives me trouble but, like al- ways, the teachers here are so dedicated to my edu- cation that they always make time to meet with me individually so I can understand better. Other than that Boston I must say is a very beauti- ful city in the fall. Even though it is getting colder, the views from my window and by the Charles River are very beautiful. Seeing the leaves of the trees change color and fall to the ground, and the ducks and geese swimming in the river is every refreshing. Whenever I think of home it is always when I sit on the river dock. Sometimes I wish I owned a Nikon Continued on Page 16 Something on a Youth’s Mind About Her Home Out of curiosity: Many of you know, that I do a lot of work with the St. John Youth Committee. There- fore, I try to keep up with current events in the US Virgin Islands and its government. I am currently listening to the Roger W. Morgan Show (93.5 FM in St. Croix) and there is this debate as to whether or not our government should institute a part time legislature! Now, of course this discussion turned into a debate. Some Virgin Islanders feel as though our government is dysfunctional while others feel as though it is not. I personally believe that the truth lies in the middle ground. The more research that I do, the more that I realize that our government is a bit, dysfunctional but it’s not as bad as we think it is. We say that our politicians do nothing and only blow out hot air but the last time I checked we are allowing them to do so! We claim they aren’t being held accountable for their actions but are we not the ones who are sup- posed to be holding these people accountable? Why is it that so many of us are apathetic yet so willing to have a lot of “nars” to say! Yes, I totally do agree that our government isn’t do- ing enough, they waste resources, so on and so forth, but what are we doing to stop this! Complaining to one another isn’t enough. Furthermore, if our government is really so flippin’ dysfunctional why is it that we as a people insist upon re-electing these senators so often? Many of these senators have been in office for a minute! We have a culture of poverty, apathy, cynicism, and a mistrust of social institutions. Honestly, we might want to correct this because if I remember correctly, we kind of are the government. I say this not only because we live in a so-called “democracy,” but I say this because the Virgin Islands is a small place. We all know that the people in office are connected to us in some way (my friend’s father, my cousin, my auntie, my mother’s sister’s friend). So tell me when are we going to stop frontin’ and actually stand up, unite and make demands so that we can get what we need. Solely blaming the government was cute once upon a time but, honestly, our com- plaints are getting old. It’s starting to sound like we just like to hear our- selves talk because I don’t see most of us doing any- thing about it! By the way, your apathy is thwarting the efforts of those who are actually making an effort to catalyze change. Tell me, what is the problem? Hadiya Sewer