The blind leading the blind is not the formula for leadership. A Senate without astute individuals like Gilbert Sprauve, Glen Smith, Mohanani, Lockhart and Paiewonsky is one without even the voice of modernity. Such a Senate reflects the voting power of 20,000 public housing units out of 35,000 voters, not to mention 13,000 voters employed by the government voting their jobs in an at-large voting system that totally deprives minorities of say. Minorities such as the business community and the professional class of Virgin Islanders.
It does the housing communities no good to elect friends incapable of evolution toward home ownership. Rather, it entrenches the persons whose jobs depend on the continuation of public housing and the continuation of a dependent class of Virgin Islanders. Dependent on government service. On a continuation of a certain type of static relationship between client and provider.
Chucky Hansen as chair of the Finance Committee is an absurdity as profound as an oxymoron wrapped in an enigma, as Churchill might have mumbled. The fabric of our community is rent as local carnival culture sweeps aside bread-and-butter issues we face. It is not even true that half the Senate body "is not a pack of asses."
The Virgin Islands is facing the highest per capita debt on Earth: $200,000 per person – a total $2 billion debt for our tiny community. Our children do not have a consistently fine education system. Our hospitals are no one's first choice. Our Senate majority is not a body with the ingredients necessary to change these essentials for the better.
The only discourse of our polis – of our politics – must be the restucturing of our system to permit a fair representation of all the many facets of our community. We have the talant and we have the capability to solve our own problems. We have the hands and hearts in place. How do we free up the thinking head?
We do not want the federal government "taking over the Virgin Islands." We do want the federal government having hearings leading to district seats, island councils (with no new layers of government), a grand jury system, required referendums on all future bond issues, and assistance in developing the V.I. Bureau of Internal Revenue, in breaking up the vast useless territorial office administrations, and in establishing an independent auditing system.

Editor's note: Michael Paiewonsky, a businessman and onetime Virgin Islands senator, ran unsuccessfully for a St. Thomas-St. John District seat in the 24th Legislature.

On Wednesday morning 40 marathon runners, including a few Olympians, converged on Magens Bay to race a few miles together.
The group, mostly from Germany, have been running every chance they get while on a cruise on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Explorer of the Seas. For some this was the fifth time they had run on St. Thomas, said Manfred Steffnys, the group's organizer and publisher of the German runners magazine Spiridon.
According to Karl-Heinz Mölich, a spokesman for the group—and one of two runners in the group from Switzerland— Steffnys is one of the most famous marathon runners in Germany.
Steffnys, now 59, came in 17th in the Mexico City Olympic marathon in 1968 and placed 31st four years later in Munich. His magazine is named after Spiridon Lewis, a shepherd by trade, who won the first Olympic marathon in 1896 for his country—Greece—where it was held.
Others in the group are also well known in running circles, Mölich said, such at Björn Gross who has set "crazy world records," like climbing stairs in a Chicago skyscraper for 100 hours, or running 100 miles.
"There are several here who have run 100 miles," he said, sweeping his arm toward the group that was milling about waiting to begin the race.
On Tuesday the group ran 9.5 kilometers—just under six miles— in San Juan's Condado area.
According to Steffnys they will do a "fun run" on Paradise Island Thursday when they reach Nassau in the Bahamas.
"We get in too late to do a full race," he said. But that doesn't usually stop them. "Every day we have a race with a different character from a beach to the ship.
"This island is hot, " so the race was short—four miles out Peterborg Point, Steffnys said. But despite the heat, the beauty remains with him. "When you are running you may not concentrate on it, but it's there, it's stays there," he said, pointing to his head.
The sprinters in the group have competed during the cruise in a 320 meter race onboard the Explorer, which recently made its first stop in St. Thomas. The Explorer, which is 1,020 feet long, has a running track, much to the delight of the group.
Steffnys limits his travel groups to 40, "so we can all get into one bus. It makes it less complicated."
His hope is that the next time they come they will be able to entice some Virgin Islands runners to race with them. "Next year," he said.

The blind leading the blind is not the formula for leadership. A Senate without astute individuals like Gilbert Sprauve, Glen Smith, Mohanani, Lockhart and Paiewonsky is one without even the voice of modernity. Such a Senate reflects the voting power of 20,000 public housing units out of 35,000 voters, not to mention 13,000 voters employed by the government voting their jobs in an at-large voting system that totally deprives minorities of say. Minorities such as the business community and the professional class of Virgin Islanders.
It does the housing communities no good to elect friends incapable of evolution toward home ownership. Rather, it entrenches the persons whose jobs depend on the continuation of public housing and the continuation of a dependent class of Virgin Islanders. Dependent on government service. On a continuation of a certain type of static relationship between client and provider.
Chucky Hansen as chair of the Finance Committee is an absurdity as profound as an oxymoron wrapped in an enigma, as Churchill might have mumbled. The fabric of our community is rent as local carnival culture sweeps aside bread-and-butter issues we face. It is not even true that half the Senate body "is not a pack of asses."
The Virgin Islands is facing the highest per capita debt on Earth: $200,000 per person – a total $2 billion debt for our tiny community. Our children do not have a consistently fine education system. Our hospitals are no one's first choice. Our Senate majority is not a body with the ingredients necessary to change these essentials for the better.
The only discourse of our polis – of our politics – must be the restucturing of our system to permit a fair representation of all the many facets of our community. We have the talant and we have the capability to solve our own problems. We have the hands and hearts in place. How do we free up the thinking head?
We do not want the federal government "taking over the Virgin Islands." We do want the federal government having hearings leading to district seats, island councils (with no new layers of government), a grand jury system, required referendums on all future bond issues, and assistance in developing the V.I. Bureau of Internal Revenue, in breaking up the vast useless territorial office administrations, and in establishing an independent auditing system.

Editor's note: Michael Paiewonsky, a businessman and onetime Virgin Islands senator, ran unsuccessfully for a St. Thomas-St. John District seat in the 24th Legislature.

Bill Sims has a rock-steady reputation as a blues artist these days.
He has a pretty good rap as a family man, too.
And while the two concepts don't necessarily go together in the minds of many folks, they fit just fine in his life at the start of his second half-century.
So it's not surprising that the Bill Sims Blues Band will be performing on St. Thomas and St. John this weekend with Sims in the spotlight and his wife, Karen Wilson, in the audience. And their daughter Chaney would be sharing the mike with Dad on vocals except that "she's in college and can't get away," he said in a phone call Wednesday from New York.
The blues band opens the 4th annual Tillett Garden Series of non-classical concerts on Friday night on St. Thomas and moves Saturday night to the Westin Resort ballroom for a St. John School of the Arts performance.
Blues buffs can look forward to an evening of smooth city and kickin' country sounds, balanced out with some jazz, soothing soul and raspy R&B, plus a little Cajun spice and a hint of hip hop mixed in.
It's all to be heard on Sims' first album, titled simply "Bill Sims," released last year by Warner Bros./PBS Records. It came out at the same time that PBS – yes, that's the Public Broadcasting System – put out another CD also featuring Sims' music. That one was the soundtrack from a nine-hour PBS television series built around Bill Sims and his family.
The series, "An American Love Story," aired Sept. 12-16, 1999. Even though it wasn't on a commercial network, it generated a lot of interest because of its subject matter: the daily life of a loving interracial family. PBS publicity described it as the story of "a black man and a white woman who have struggled for 30 years against the racial stereotypes and societal prejudices that have tried – sometimes viciously – to divide them."
Independent film producer Jennifer Fox developed the idea for the series and did most of the work of making it happen. She went looking for a "role model" interracial family and, through a blues musician friend, found Bill Sims, Karen Wilson and their two daughters, then ages 12 and 19.
They were a "nuclear family" – a married couple providing for their children at home – but by no means a typical one in ways other than racial. After the birth of their second daughter, Sims, a blues musician with solid credentials but a career that had never quite taken off, opted to give it up to work as a househusband while Wilson pursued a corporate career.
Later, he took jobs as a carpenter and a postman – and then began easing back into the business after taking some fellow workers to hear Dizzy Gillespie one night. "I convinced Dizzy that I could play, and he let me between sets," Sims told The Washington Post. His pals "were blown away and urged me to get back into the music," he recalled.
By the time Fox took up residence on the living room sofa of their Queens, N.Y., apartment in 1992, Sims was playing regularly again in New York clubs.
Fox spent a year and a half with the family, racking up more than a thousand hours of videotaped verité footage. It was the summer of 1999 before the project was finally edited – just weeks before it aired.
Sims grew up in a mostly white central Ohio town. His romance with Wilson generated racial hostility even after they moved to urban Columbus, where he studied music for a while at Ohio State University, then played piano with a group called the Four Mints in the 1970s. The couple ultimately decided to relocate to New York.
He says he agreed to the television project because it seemed to him at the time that the more people talked about family values, they were talking about "a particular race or a particular class or a particular political party. This was a way to show that family values are present in all families. . . to show that even though we're an interracial couple, that we're doing the same thing with our lives that everyone else is doing."
So they invited America to watch them do what they did – cope with illness, juggle finances, share the wrenching experiences of a college student on a study trip to Africa and of a junior high girl starting to date.
Fast forward to 2000: "Bill Sims" has helped put Bill Sims on the blues map.
The only "Popcorn Music Review" terms the CD "a terrific blues collection" and says Sims' "soothing voice is part Bill Withers, part Aaron Neville." And "Blues Bytes" on the bluenight.com website calls it "an excellent example of modern blues by a modern bluesman."
On the PBS series soundtrack, Sims performs his own "Dark Moon Risin'," "I Want to See You Again," "Just Like You" and "Lovin' Friends." The album also features Otis Redding, The Temptations, Aretha Franklin and others.
Backing Sims for the Virgin Islands concerts are George Mitchell on bass and Tony Mason, who appears on the "Bill Sims" CD, on drums.
The concert Saturday at the Westin begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 for general admission and $25 for students with I.D. They may be purchased in advance at Connections or the Westin front desk. Seating is open. For further information, call 779-4322 or 776-6777.
For those interested in taking in the St. Thomas concert Friday night at Tillett Gardens: Seating will be cabaret style in the garden. Polli's Restaurant will be open only to concertgoers, with regular menu service until 10 p.m. for patrons seated at restaurant tables. The bar will be open all evening, with limited menu service available to those seated in the garden. Tickets for the 8 p.m. concert are $25 in advance or at the door, with seating reserved. For reservations, call 775-1929.

Efforts by the Virgin Islands government to meet its obligation to provide fire service to Water Island residents have drawn a declaration of war from the head of the firefighters union, Daryl "Mousey" George.
George charged Tuesday that talks between the administration and Water Island residents about establishing a volunteer fire service, using residents as a first response, is part of an ongoing effort to rid the territory of the professional fire service, and replace all paid personnel with volunteers.
The administration has flatly denied the charge, with officials saying the government has an obligation to provide fire and other services to Water Island residents. Special Assistant to the governor Roy Frett said the government simply cannot afford to do so now. "Water Island has never had any type of formal service and because of the fiscal condition is not good, we are presently unable to provide the type of resources to man a station, around the clock, seven days a week. The volunteer service will basically provide a service until we are in a better financial footing to provide the resources need for a full-time fire presence."
George sees the creation of any volunteer force to provide any of the fire services required as an attempt to undermine unionized professionals, as well as an effort by the government to avoid filling vacancies. "One thousand persons have signed on to a petition to reopen fire houses in Bordeaux and Dorothea but the governor has ignored the people." The two fire stations were shut down because of fiscal constraints
about two years ago and the unions have since claimed that the residences and business on the north side and west end of St. Thomas are at risk.
Frett said the administration has no intent of replacing professional firefighters,
but is interested only in trying to meet a minimum level of service requirements on Water Island. "This government has no intent of getting rid of firefighters to replace them with volunteers. "
The unions representing fire fighters have made it clear that they will use the current effort to provide service to Water Island as their opportunity to press longstanding demands on the administration for adequate manpower and equipment.
Despite all the attention Water Island is drawing, residents remain without fire protection. Somehow the government's inability to fund its professional service is preventing even volunteer work.
Ironically, as the differences between the administration and the union were festering during the early part of this week, Government House announced that in addition to repairing fire stations territory-wide, the division intends to hire 16 additional firefighters during the upcoming fiscal year.

High gas prices and costs for parts and maintenance are driving an increase in taxi fares slated to go into effect Friday in the territory.
The first hike in 13 years came about in negotiations between the Taxicab Association and taxi associations on the three islands. The taxi associations had sought bigger hikes but agreed to compromises that will raise the cost of most rides between $1 and $2.
St. Thomas will see the biggest fare increases, particularly to tourist destinations such as Magens Bay ($2 increase to $8.50) and Coki Point (up $2.50 to $10). Similarly, the cost of getting to the Westin or Caneel Bay resorts on St. John will jump a whopping 60 percent, from $2.50 to $4 per person.
Fare hikes on St. Croix will be more modest, going up $1 on routes from Frederiksted to Sunny Isle or HOVENSA (to $16 per person) and staying the same in some cases.
In its announcement of the new fares, the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs' Taxicab Division also reminded the public that taxis on duty must be available for all visitors and residents and encouraged the reporting of any taxi that refuses a fare. To report a violation, call the division at 773-2226.
A complete list of new fares for all three islands will be available on the Source by Friday.

The annual Physicians' Gold and White Ball will take place Saturday, Dec. 9, at Palms Court Harborview Hotel, with Dr. Leighmin Lu as this year's honoree.
Lu, the chief psychiatrist at the Roy L. Schneider Hospital, has been on St. Thomas hospital staffs for 29 years and has been practicing psychiatry in the Virgin Islands for 38 years.
The ball will feature "music by the Seabreeze band, a silent auction, and Dr. Alfred Heath as master of ceremonies," committee member Marilyn Ayala said. Things will get under way with a cocktail sip at 7 p.m., followed by the program at 8, with dinner and dancing afterward, she said.
Sponsored by the V.I. Medical Society, the Schneider Hospital and the V.I. Medical Institute, the ball is open to the public. Tickets are $100 per person, with proceeds to benefit the Medical Society Scholarship Fund, which assists local students pursuing studies toward careers in medicine.
Dr. Frank Odlum, president of the hospital medical staff, said the sponsoring entities will be grateful for the community's support "in assisting us to raise scholarships for deserving Virgin Islands medical students."
Lu practiced at the Knud Hansen Hospital and later at St. Thomas Hospital, which was subsequently renamed the Schneider Hospital. He serves as a consultant to the V.I. Justice Department and its Bureau of Corrections. Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, he is an active member of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association and the American Geriatric Society.
To reserve and arrange for the purchase of ticketsm or to obtain further information, call Ayala at 776-8311, ext. 2317.

Virgin Islands Delegate to Congress Donna Christian-Christensen gave the keynote address at the Opening Breakfast on International Day on health care for the National Black Caucus of State Legislators 24th Annual Legislative Conference being held this week in Charlotte, North Carolina. Christensen, a physician, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus's Health Braintrust, spoke to the conference of African American legislators from across the country, including the U.S. Virgin Islands on Tuesday morning, on how the lack of equity and access in health care has hurt people of color around the globe from Africa to the Caribbean to the minority communities of the United States. Noting that HIV/AIDS is the biggest threat to the health and well being of people of color across the globe, Christensen also pointed to the devastation that heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and preventable accidents have as well. "Our ability to close the gaps, eliminate the disparities, and achieve good health depends on all of the factors upon which the equity and access we seek is built," Christensen said. She spoke of the CBC partnership with national and international community groups which has netted more funds in the US and proposed new funding for Africa and the Caribbean to fight HIV/AIDS. "Because of this virus, and because of our lack of resources to effectively address it, the economies of Africa and the island nations of the Caribbean, and of our communities here, are clearly at stake."
Christensen told the legislators that the success of conquering the pandemic depends on collaboration. "There are excellent surveillance systems in Africa that could work here, there is data on the effect of cultural factors in the Caribbean that could enlighten U.S. research and practice, and there are programs that work in communities of color, here or elsewhere, with similar infrastructure deficiencies, that might be a model that our brothers and sisters in either place could use." Christensen stated that while her support is with Vice-President Al Gore, no matter who the new occupant of the White House is, that the health care needs of people of color has to remain at the forefront of the national agenda. "We will continue our initiative, here and abraod, and we will continue on the path we have charted to reach our goal of equity in health status, and full access to quality health services." She urged the state legislators who are "closer to the ground" to "keep the heat on us so that we don't lose our focus." Christensen was introduced at the conference by fellow Virgin Islander, Senator George Goodwin. Also in attendance were Senators Donald Cole, Adelbert Bryan and Almando Liburd

Round up all the usual suspects and send them to A BoardWalk In on Dec. 6, from 7 to 11 p.m. in Christiansted.
Accomplished guitarist Jon Reuck will appear for one night only at A BoardWalk In located at the Best Western Holger Danske Hotel on the new Christiansted boardwalk. Reuck, former owner of "The Usual Suspects," is a popular island entertainer.
A BoardWalk In, managed by chef Antoine Doos, opened recently and serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as terrific bar drink specials and snacks. The restaurant is also available for special events and parties. For more information call 773-5762 or event manager Priscilla Lynn at PrisCo 713-8012.

St. Croix garbage haulers Tuesday threatened to stop picking up trash for the Department of Public Works starting Wednesday because of money owed and a lack of communication.
Paradise Waste Systems, Dan’s Trucking and Bates Trucking pick up roll-on-roll-off trash bins and house-to-house trash for Public Works. But the owners of the companies said that recent unilateral decisions by the government to cut house-to-house trash pick up to one day a week on top of nearly $1 million owed for work already done is forcing them to protest.
Last week Public Works announced that because of budget shortfalls, it was cutting trash to areas with house-to-house garbage pick up from two days a week to one. That decision, said Lloyd Daniel of Dan’s Trucking, was made without input from haulers.
"They haven’t really spelled out how that is going to happen," he said. "They haven’t said how it will affect the contract."
James Bates of Bates Trucking said that if house-to-house pick up is cut to one day a week, it doesn't mean people will cut down the amount of trash they produce. His crews, he said, will now have more work to do in less time.
If the haulers stop picking up the government’s trash Wednesday it won’t be the first time. Because of a lack of payment stretching back five years, haulers stopped working and trash started piling up around the island.
But Gary Thomas of Paradise Waste Systems said that promises made to haulers nine months ago by the government to get them back on the job haven’t been made. The government is in arrears about $1 million, the haulers said.
"To date, we haven’t been paid owed money," Thomas said. "I haven’t been paid for agreements entered into nine months ago."
In addition to halting garbage pick up earlier this year, trash haulers struck twice in the summer of 1999 to get paid for work dating back to 1995. That stoppage ended after Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James appropriated approximately $420,000 and arranged new hauling contracts.
Public Works officials couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday.