Hello again, dear reader...

While I woke up today I thought about my car, and what idiotic heavy piece it is, the weight of it compared to what it does for me. A light car weighs a ton, 1000 kilos, that is 2200 lbs, a medium car 1100 lbs more, that is 1500 kg and a heavy one 2000 kilos and over! [Multiply kilo by 2.2 to get pounds.] Please realize what we are doing, we are dragging more than a ton of metal with us to get our body with a weight of about average 75 kilo from A to B! Realize how ridiculous this is! That we drag 15 to 30 times our own weight around to get somewhere. The heavier the car, the more gas we burn. That produces the dreaded greenhouse gasses that heat up the atmosphere, that melt the pole caps, that raise the sea level, make the polar bears extinct, drives the Eskimos from their hunting grounds and destroys low laying islands. It also changes the climate and hurricanes these years are stronger than those in our parents and grandparents times. I have been greatly troubled to learn this and used as small a transport as possible, that is to say: a 5 gear 125cc engine on two wheels, weighing less than twice my own weight, a mere 140 kg, a smart and fast going motorbike of Asian origine that carried me (and a passenger) with ease over any steep hill around the island. Untill an inattentive [surely intoxicated] driver in a big car hit me when I was standing still, waiting for traffic to pass. Now forever invalid I had to return to drive a 4 wheels transport of 1160 kilos with a 1600cc engine, dragging more than a ton with me wherever I go. More than 12 times of what is needed to transport me. This is disgusting. And it is still a moderate car, not a big SUV or pick up truck. See on the back of many vehicles the displacement, 1.6 is 1600cc, 2 liter is 2000cc, there are cars of 2800cc and more. That is crazy and a little, no very criminal, I will vote for the politician who will restrict the weight of vehicles on the island. In order to spend less on road maintenance, and environmentally conscious, in order to sleep quiet and know that I have done what I can for my world, my planet, for my children's future. Tax vehicles by weight, and discriminate between a light and a heavy car, let carowners pay for what they do to our world, get real mister politician, wake up.

Just to let you know what [unconsciously] plays in my head: Before I woke up today I was abducted by three unknown men, who took me to the airport, gave me another name and a Swiss passport, then flew me in a small jet to an American airport, I have no idea where, and there put me on a plane to Germany where they left me alone. From the German airport I was to fly on to Switzerland. I understood from talk with the 3 goons that they were secret service and that I was an undesired entity and therefore deported, extraordinary rendered, so to say... Then I woke up and realized it was a dream.

Did it mean maybe  that I better shut up lest I get deported???

Chamba Chada

We will not get hit this year again

This year we will not get hit by a major hurricane, because there is no reason why we should. LUIS, 11 years ago was the one we really needed and that was the one we got. Just like Katrina was the one for New Orleans, LUIS was the one for SXM.

Because those places needed a major clean up and no government or agency could ever have cleaned up LA and SXM better than those hurricanes. And what is best, no common person of ordinary wit ever suspects that secret government powers are behind those hurricanes.

From where I sit, I see a huge flamboyant tree in its full blooming red flower splendor. It announces the summer season, the time of heat, of days with too little or too much wind. The red color is a clear warning: “Here is the season of dangerous weather!”

What hardly anybody knows is that the weather is under the control of (very secret) government powers. Storms can be enhanced, they can be send in certain directions. This is done with knowledge that Nikola Tesla revealed about 100 years ago.

Our (grand-) parents saw the first movies, still black and white only, and without sound. In many of those early movies were storms with rain and thunderstorms with very realistic lightning flashes. Nikola Tesla made those lightning flashes with his coils.

Those of us who have Internet only have to google “tesla weather control” to get close to a million English pages with information about Tesla and his weather controlling inventions.

See: http://www.freedomdomain.com/weather.html from where I quote:

“Is it strange how, when we are in the middle of summer, it can be raining out, and one day it is very "hot", the next day it is 15 degree cooler, and two days later, it is "hot" again? Does this seem strange? How about earthquakes in parts of the world, that are so devastating, that if they were to happen here, our whole economy could be ruined.
Do you think it is "odd" that people would suggest that the government can and does control the weather? I KNOW it sounds a little paranoid, but if you do the research to investigate, you will undoubtedly arrive at the same conclusions. OUR WEATHER IS CONTROLLED!” end quote.

Meet Tom Bearden: Lieutenant Colonel U.S. Army (Retired). President and Chief Executive Officer, CTEC, Inc. MS Nuclear Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. BS Mathematics, Northeast Louisiana University. Graduate of Command & General Staff College, U.S. Army. Graduate of Guided Missile Staff Officer's Course, U.S. Army (equivalent to MS in Aerospace Engineering).

On his website http://www.cheniere.org/ you find how it is done.

So worry little this season, as the great clean up is already done at our little island in 1995, we will not have any major hit again. The secret electromagnetic installations on Cuba will no doubt steer most of the storms towards the most vulnerable American oil installations to punish the USA for its useless decades long embargo that has not stopped Cuba from becoming a nation with better health care and less illiteracy than its oppressor.

A United Nations Treaty exists which pledges all member states to refrain from using Weather Control as a lethal weapon upon other states but I don’t think Cuba cares for that one.

See: http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/enmod/text/environ2.htm

Signed in Geneva May 18, 1977
Entered into force October 5, 1978
Ratification by U.S. President December 13, 1979
U.S. ratification deposited at New York January 17, 1980

So there we have it, all you unbelievers, check it out and know from now on that your GOD, Allah, Jehovah and Krishna have little to say about what Hurricane will hit where.

With love and care

Captain Zen

I am still of the meaning that the ruins of the old saltfactory must be restored and made into a tourist attraction. As a stage for local musicians to perform, as a museum of our past and as a way to show the folks of today what happened here long ago.

Here we get this enormous number of foreigners coming to Our place; now, what can we show them?? The site of the old salt crushing factory would be One true and solid historical place, where with pictures and a guided tout; with local music and folkloric dress the tourist could get some insight in the past of Sint Maarten. Small bags of salt could be sold, a hat weave could sell his products while coconut water and rum refreshes the guests on the bar... Are there no

sint maarteners with money to develop the sitt? Are there not a number of very rich sint maarteners who could do this thing for their own island to preserve the culture?

Does the department of culture not have the obligation to preserve and maintain the cultural monuments that we still have? Every day that passes makes the thing sink deeper in the muck and oblivion, and soon they will be gone beyond recovery. It is my strong conviction that the fort at great bay and the saltruins must be made into tourist attractions. Marigot fort is a well visited stop of tourist tours, the Old House French side shows signs of how to do something for the island. If only I had the money, I would make the saltruins a money making place as there is a great potential in tourist related business there.

Hearing the dreadful news on the international radio waves, I realize how very fortunate we On St. Maarten/Martin are. Earthquakes, floodings, wars, murder and rape trials, ethnic and religious violence, the list is endless. The world has made hell for itself. Man against man in all its ugly forms. Why this is so, I cannot understand. How men have let themselves be so sickly indoctrinated with beliefs in superiority and so blinded as to fight other men, of the same race and country often, anyway, of the same planet, the globe. This silly idea of globalization has until now done nothing to bring peace and understanding to the planet. Neighbors are fighting as never before, weapon production is in full gear and the hate between nations goes on. The primitively is everywhere and civilized behavior is almost unheard, of. Efforts to curb violence are not made, to curb the fabrication of weapons, to educate for love and constructive environment protection, to broaden the minds of the young, none of it. Religions continue to shout their superior position over others, nations continue to reinforce borders. Immigration policies separate poor from rich, exploiting only those  it can use. Disgusting hypocrisies within beliefs, nations and industries are rampant. The USA fabricates *tools for human torture, high voltage stun guns and belts, for export to countries it condemns for human rights abuses... It bans tobacco at home, only to export it to third world countries... It does not want to curb its greenhouse gas emissions; instead it wants other countries to halt the development of the same, so it can continue to emit its overload of co2. Wish I was ignorant of these truths and live in blissful innocence Now I am bothered by the fact that I know at my fellow men are abusing their Own. And there is nothing I can do about it.

Having been a sailor on yachts for 15 years, I have encountered dolphins in the wild, that is: the open sea, often enough. It is a joy and pleasure to see these creatures play under the bow wave, jump and turn. I wish everybody could see it. Then I saw 2 dolphinaria , one in Holland, Harderwijk and the other on La Palma, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean. Wonderful, amazing and unforgettable. Better than lions in a circus, or the elephants and tigers, monkeys, and what have you... However, I hate to see anybody, any animal in captivity. But well, what people do to each other, for small things like stealing, money embezzling and other materialistic abuses is not very different.  Full jails everywhere. Then the poor cows, the pigs and worst of all the fowl. These innocent animals are worse of than all the others together. Prisoners all their lives, they are killed in their prime, to end up on our plates. I hope mr. Graham Crabtree reads this, and please explains to me what is so different In a dolphin from a playing calf in the meadow, a performing tiger in a circus or a chicken in a box, being force fed to be mechanical killed, plucked and put in a freezer. The mentality expressed in the article:  Save the dolphinsÓ, was more against the person who wants to open a dolphin lagoon to let people enjoy these lovely animals than it was to defend the animals itself. Defend them,  by all means, but please also fight for the closing of all zoos, abolishing of animal slavery in circuses and stop ignoring the cows, chickens and other food-chain animals.

They are all our living friends, and all of them are just as endangered as we human animals are. Otherwise the exercise of writing SAVE THE DOLPHINS articles make no

 impact on any rational, logical thinking human being. None. Short sighted people may love to follow the sentimental, emotional subject of just this one air breathing water creature as they will likewise give their signature to save the gold winged butterfly in Mozambique. SAVE THEM ALL, as God spark of life is in all of them.                  

Here is the remedy for the national problem. Most people claim to be nationals of the country they are born in. Others through marriage with one that is born there, others through being there very long. The ones that believe to be born there do so because their birth certificate says so, or  their parents say so. But nobody can be sure. For, let me tell you: nobody, not one living human being remembers consciously where, when and from whom s-/he was born. Nobody remembers the day, the week, the month, not even the year s-/he was born. Neither can the place of birth be remembered. So this outcry: I am right, because I'm born here, is based upon second hand information, documents and family.

Strangely enough, nobody knows this from the heart for sure. The only thing that one can know for sure, is not when and where one is born exactly, but in general, that one is born on planet Earth, one can be sure. We human animals are all born on this here ball of dirt that hurls through space with an incredible speed around the star we call the Sun once a year, and which turns with a speed of  40.000 km per 24 hours around its own axis. There can be no mistake, we are all global citizens, and we better live up to it. It's high time we realize that. Internet calls the world the global village. That now is too much, The world is big. Almost big enough to hold us all. If we continue to multiply as in the last 50 years soon there will be not enough place for us all. With rigorous birth control, intelligent family planning, we may save some degree of comfort for our children, because we are all together on this planet. We must realize that we here, use 12 times more waste than people in Africa, and that their suffering is the indirect result of our wasting. So Let me hear you scream:I am  right, I am born here. When "here" means the Earth. We should scream that all together, no matter where we are born.

Who is the God of Random? It is the God that many St. Maarteners believe in.

Those that buy lottery tickets and numbers, those that visit casinos and and pray that the God of Random will favor them.

Devoutly they look every day first at the page that shows the winning numbers. Eddy Williams announces with his graveyard voice those numbers, more serene than a prayer to the Virgin Mary, every day on the radio. It is so serious that a nationwide industry is built around the worshiping of the God of Random. Worship booths are abundantly placed at every strategic corner of the land, not a mile can you travel without seeing one or other sect represented. At those booths you can pay your offering and sacrifice your contribution so that maybe the God of Random will favor you with money. All over is the God represented? The God of Random voted for me as I could not make up my mind who to vote for. Who of the candidates merits my confidence? If I look at what the politicians have accomplished the last few years, I worry so much that my ulcer starts to play up.

 Here goes: Mullet Bay problem still not solved, road markings not done, no white lines, domestic violence not made a major criminal offense, mareachausee still not invited back to help curb crime, still nothing done at the road over the St.Peter hill straight into Marigot, which would be a real improvement, instead Link One Phase Two, ending up at the same bottleneck down the hill at Cole Bay, where still no roundabout is planned, the sewage still running wild at the Middle Region road, Dutch Quarter area still looking worse than the fourth world, the lagoon still too polluted too swim in it. And more signs of disastrous conduct by politicians.

So I made 23 scraps of paper and numbered them, folded them and put them in a box, shook it well and choose one . Voila, my vote was decided by the God of Random who is so fervently worshipped in this country. This God decides which team starts at international football( soccer) matches when the umpire flips a coin. When on a narrow road two cars face each other and none wants to give way, the God of Random should be asked to decide who should move first, by flipping a coin in the air and catching it, lay it flat down on the other hand. The stubbornness of drivers is ridiculous and childish. The mentality of the people is so immature; one wonders what will become of the country once it is on its own... The God of Random certainly should be worshipped, as only He knows the outcome.

After reading  comment on Sinterklaas and his Black Peters I had a vague feeling that he missed something. He states that black Peter represents everything that is: “ugly, stupid, frightening-  and bad”. They are wrong. Beauty and ugliness are in the eye of the beholder, and in the eyes of black people, a white Peter would be more ugly. Stupid now is another matter. What is so stupid to be in the service of a high official? Sinterklaas is(was) a bishop, a pretty high rank in the hierarchy of the Christian church who was the authority at those times. And still very much is. Frightening,Black Peter is only to those children who misbehave and who do bad things. Black Peters are policemen. And they should be frightening to the bad ones. Bad, I do not see where they gets the idea that Peters are bad. And if he feels that Sinterklaas represents all that is good, his feelings are his own. After my research into past, Nicolaus from Myra on the Mediterranean coast in Turkey, was traveling all along the harbors of the then known seas and helped women and children who had lost husbands and fathers through storms a shipwrecks. He gave the children the presents that they needed or liked on the way, some North African young men came along to help him. No slavery , no stupidness, nothing ugly or frightening. Nothing racist about all this, there is no exploitation, and the black fellows help the old man voluntarily. Here on St. Maarten I often enough see some young black boys help carry a load for an old white man. What is so racist about that?? The only person who can ever know who you are and how you think and how you feel is yourself; do not try to speak for others, as you cannot know what the others see, feel or think.

What I as an observer find very strange is that modern  people walk around with the same Book that the racist slave masters of old had in their hand to justify their doings. The old testament of the Bible makes it look like slavery is a normal and accepted practice, and it was in those days. The very book that brought so much misery to so many, now is in the hands of black people that swear oaths on it and believe it is the One and Only Book. Exodus 21 does not talk about what color a slave has, but it makes a difference what the slave beliefs. If the slave was of the same belief as the authors he(she) only had to suffer 6 years, if not,it was a life sentence. Sinterklaas is of the new faith that Jesus came with. No slave talk there and that his helpers happened to be black was mere coincidence, it was there he traveled where the people had had a bit more sun than in Turkey. Cool down mr. Lake, and check with yourself and with history what the facts are. Black Peters are the upholders of morality, and law. To reward the good and punish the bad. Help where it is needed and do so voluntarily.

Now look here, the road is long and heavy. The cars are made to go fast and comfortable. They are so, and we love it. We go in them everywhere. We go as swift as we can go. We love it. And we pay road tax. To have the road made safe. Not to kill or to get killed. The cars and the roads are not made for that. We have to slow down a bit now and again. When a victim dies from our love of cars, it is a martyr, a saintly dead. A speed bump should be made on the spot where a car, that was not made to kill, and the victim, who was not meant to die, collided. We should slow down for that. Get real. Our cars and roads are not made to kill. Mistake too bad. I vote for a bump at the spot that a life, a precious life was taken, by a car that was not made to kill. To plant a tree alongside the spot, as memorial, with a bump, so that all that pass can reflect a moment on death and the car that he is in. Not made to kill, not meant to die. How sad. Better study the art of dying. Just to be prepared, you never know. And better still, study the art of driving, untill you really know. Those things we should do. With a speedbump well visible, we slow down. For death we must slow down. Always and forever. Respect

And what does the Department of Culture do to promote, expose, cultivate, stimulate culture? The Culture Club, another name of a group of concerned people; doing what? Folklore, old proven ways of doing things, articles for use in and around the house made in a particular way, different from somewhere else, from another culture. Historical cultural sites, rock carvings in caves, from a people long gone, ruins from buildings long out of use. The monuments of culture, we should have some here on Sint Maarten. But nothing is done to preserve them, we are losing out on culture. At our schools the children learn about foreign cultures, classical music from Europe, arts like dance, ballet, statues from the old Roman times, Greek and Egyptian. What does our department of culture do to bring cultural happenings to the island? Invite dance groups, musicians from other cultures, give performances to the young people who are going to be equals with those of same age groups from other countries instead of lagging behind and only know these cultures from books, Video screens and so. How many people work at the department of Culture and what exactly do they do all day? What do they get paid for, sitting in an airco office with computers and telephone? Will they organize street fairs with artists from all over? Or set up a group to preserve the remains of the old salt factory on Arch road? Or an art festival once a year like on other islands. If carnival is the only cultural expression of Sint Maartens people, what do we need a department of culture for??? Does the department keeps a list of all the artists on the island, all the dancers and musicians and painters, does it help them when these people need assistance for expositions, costumes, performances, rooms to exercise, rehearse and the like? The pan club is OK, steel band music is important for the tourists, however, all kinds of music can welcome a visitor. How much money does the department have available, where does it come from and for what is it intended? How much do the people working(?) at the dep. of Culture earn per month/year? What exactly do they do for the citizens of Sint Maarten? What justifies their salary? Let us have some cultural activity, before the IMF closes it down. Which is inevitable as it produces nothing.

It is on the news that the USA is going to step up its defenses with a missile defense shield that would protect it from incoming flying bombs. How that must be accomplished is still not clear as any airplane, disguised as a commercial liner could be used as a missile. Missiles could be fitted out with airline transponders, so defense systems would not see them as weapons. That be as it may, imagine the USA succeeds in making the defense system work. Then it would be able to terrorize, attack or threaten the rest of the world without retaliation possible. Why is the USA so afraid? What has it done in the world that it fears attacks? Something that never reached the news lines? Things that upset other countries with the old fashioned ideas of revanche? Why not pursue a policy of peace, and prosperity instead of war, weapons of destruction and human suffering? Is the USA really of goodwill? Is it not upsetting much of the world by flaunting its wasteful way of wealth? Why must an Indonesian work 8 times longer than an American in order to buy a shirt? Why must someone in Congo go without electric light as war goes on in that country with guns made in the USA? And why does a dog in the USA eats better than a child in Afghanistan? While the USA wants to play global policeman it does not help to equalize global suffering. Hypocritical behavior on smoking as an example: ban it at home, export cigarettes abroad, does not vouch for Americas good intentions. It does not look like the USA is going to change its ways anytime soon, based upon the cowboy mentality of killing the locals and exploit the conquered land. Enormous amounts of money are needed to make an umbrella against foreign missiles, billions of dollars; we better prepare for less tourists coming in the next ten years. It is time Sint Maarten politicians look into starting up some education for the fabrication and production of articles that can be exported instead of only chambermaids, casino dealers ,taxi drivers and waiters. If the producing strong economy of the USA is taken away by its costly defense program and the tourists cannot afford to come anymore, they will still be able to buy articles made in Sint Maarten and brought to them: Guavaberry booze, beautiful paintings of beaches and palm trees, and other things that at present are not yet made but should be in the idea box of government. Think of music, jewelry manufacturing, special tropical jewelry, Caribbean and creole style things that do not yet exist. Think ahead of the storms to come, because the past can teach us nothing, as nothing will be the same, ever.

I accuse the island government of neglect.

Lawmakers, law enforcers, department heads, and all others who fail to do something that they know could help. I accuse the island government of doing serious bodily harm to many people, through neglect. I accuse the commissioner of traffic of incompetence for not improving road safety. I have seen enough blood on the roads. I have heard enough cries for help, seen enough shattered bones, destroyed careers, depleted bank accounts, limping citizens, overworked surgeons and underpaid nurses, hopeless year long dragging court cases, fortunes lost. All through traffic blunders. They call it accidents. It is a form of terrorism, by people who are as uneducated as some governments employees. Accidents do not exist, only acts by unthinking, not looking, intoxicated and sleeping, cell phone using dimwits. Laws against speeding, overtaking, not stopping for pedestrians etc., should be enforced, a thousand times more more than wrong parking laws.  Government got money for Link One Phase Two, they make a road to Cay Bay Industrial area, BUT THEY DON’T PUT WHITE LINES ON OTHER ROADS.  Accidents do not happen. Every mishap is the result of a persons actions. Clearly, the people of Sint Maarten need guidance. The majority does not think. Witness the need for signs that announce fines for littering. Any normal thinking person does not litter, needs no sign every hundred yards. On Sint Maarten it is needed. The common man needs signs, guidance, a yellow line to wait behind, ropes to form orderly lines in post office, airline check in counter and bank. Otherwise the man of ordinary wit makes blunders, fights, gets hurt. He needs to be protected against himself . It is governments responsibility to protect its people, also on the countries roads, WITH CLEAR MARKINGS AND SIGNS. We have laws against maiming, hurting and killing each other with guns and fights and drugs and domestic violence. But hardly at all with cars. Those persons responsible for road safety seem to have no logic, do not objectively observe clear facts, have not the brainpower to see the relation between our hospitals financial burden and traffic accidents.

 WITH IMPROVED ROAD SAFETY, HOSPITAL COSTS WILL GO DOWN..

 Who can ignore that? The greatest calamity is that the responsible people do nothing, see nothing, feel nothing, say nothing. Our roads invite trouble.

 When asked why no white lines, the commissioner for traffic answered that his paint is not good and does not stay. My reply to paint again and again just like the grass on roadsides is cut again and again was not answered. That we could get good paint from the French side, or Holland, not answered.  The cost of road signs and markings is not as much as the cost of caring for traffic victims.  Death is not a problem, the deceased is gone, suffers no more. It is the wounded victims that claim the surgeons time and fill hospital beds. The problem is for the family, the hospital, nurses, the doctors, lawyers, employers.  When I drive past the SMMC I hear the cries, when I am at the other end of the island I hear them , when I fly over the ocean to Europe, I hear them still, those that suffer the loss of a limb, an arm, half a face, an eye, a finger. All from the stupid moves some ignorant persons do in traffic.

 Because there are no signs to guide the ignorant, to show who has right of way, no white lines to indicate where to stop, there are not enough lights, no side walks, not enough bumps...... North of here, the French part is cleaner, clearer, safer, brighter, well kept, civilized, NORMAL, an example of how it should be........

Murder, violent encounters resulting in serious bodily harm for the victim, and/or loss of income, transport and use of bodily functions are punishable crimes. Or are they??? In certain cases they are but if these things happen between traffic partners they are not.

Hit by a car, driven by an angry or depressed or careless driver goes unpunished. No matter how many victims roll bleeding on trolleys into the hospital, laws to curb these road crimes are not in place. Doctors tend to traffic victims more than to any other sickness in hospitals and all that because the perpetrators who put these people in  hospital are innocent as the law decides. I say Bull Shit, nobody who hurts another human being is innocent. How can I make this known to the lawmakers? By what norm do these lawmakers judge? If a crime happens in anger, or in sudden instinctive action, or through stupidness, or in innocence, the victim does not care. The victim has to cope with a lame leg, or a blind eye or a missing hand and the perpetrator is guilty, no matter if he did it on purpose, through carelessness, through stupidness or whatever.

Ignorance of a law does not mean that that law does not apply to you. Ignorance in traffic means to my thinking not that one can hit someone and get away with it. If you run a red light and you say sorry, you still get a fine. If you hit someone with your car, maim him, hurt him, or whatever, and you say sorry, you go free... Why is that???

As a victim of a traffic hit by a careless driver I am now waiting over 6 month for justice. Costs that I cannot bear, troubles, handicap and nerves, under medication , not so much now for physical pain any more, that lasted only three month, but now for mental agony, because I am going mad. Want to kill myself instead of waiting for justice that seems to be non existent. This is maybe the 6th or 7 th letter I write on this subject. I wish it was the last. Having debts to friends, landlord and doctors, hospital, why should I continue? Angry that the man who hit me did not kill me. That would have been the end of my troubles. But no, I have to talk to my lawyer, ask for free court procedures~ -- as all my savings are gone. And take medication so as to stay functional and not become mighty mad at the person who did this to me, or go look for him, to take revenge, as the old testament advises me. why do we have laws??? I would think to keep the citizens in a kind of morally acceptable way of conduct. But in traffic any citizen can misbehave and abuse any other participant to the full. Morals are not taken into consideration and I wonder what my lifelong honesty and morality have brought me. Is it not time for me now to go out and steal a car, drive it like mad, send a few pedestrians into hospital with injuries as it does not get punished anyway? Stealing a car is called joy riding, hitting anyone (without intent) is not punishable. And any- way, if I should get jail time, by writing some articles in the Herald I will get freed sooner, as we all have learned from the famous shoplifter who gets praise from the judge for his public writings and confessing that he is a thief. I should have built up a buffer allowing me to steal me rich unpunished after all the articles I wrote. Cultivating crime is what I call it and it makes me sicker than I was already from the hit I got on the 2nd of December.'99. And this is the truth, so help me God.

Green, clean green, straight green, bright green, organized green, clear green, light green, dark green, gray green, soft green, red green, deep green. Holland is so very clean. Red, white, and blue are the flag, topped with orange for the Queens mother birthday, the day after I arrived, 30 of April 2002.

As long time resident of Sint Maarten, I send you my first report from Holland where I seek funding to open a school in Sint Maarten.

Even the garbage bins are green, unobtrusive, inconspicuous and not out of harmony with the environment, wherever there is a house or a dwelling. There is no visible garbage anywhere. No empty bottles, plastic bags or fast food paper plates and cups. This is the first impression after the overwhelming greenness. The filth and garbage of Sint Maarten is not here. Praise the Dutch! They have found the solution for a healthy and clean environment.

It works as follows: Garbage is separated by the people who make it, and goes in designated bins, green glass in one, and brown glass and transparent glass each in different small containers that stand at places where everybody can easily reach them. Paper in another, as well as plastic. In the bin one has in front of the house goes mixed household garbage. Biological offal, food rests etc. can be put in the compost bins in certain areas, for those who produce that, restaurants, food producers. On the street bins, the private bins, a label with dots, like an enlarged braille letter, is stuck. That label contains information of ownership and is read by the computer that is part of the truck which collect garbage. It knows whose bin it is and it weighs the bin before and after emptying. It calculates the price one pays for the garbage collection... One pays for every kilo of collected garbage 25 Euro cent.

For wood, construction garbage and old furniture one pays 18.- Euro per cubic meter. One can bring it to the dump or for a fee, have a truck come for it. Disposal of broken electrical equipment, iron and paper is free.

Here you have it, the garbage story of how a rich country makes itself richer. I tell you how it works, now you act on it.

As long as Sint Maarten does not educate its uncaring population to take care of its garbage, there is little hope that it will get help from Dutch politicians who come and see. The filth, the carelessness and the total neglect for the countryside works as a psychological detriment upon those who could dispense of funds. Why should one give help to people who do not care for their own place? What would you do for someone who makes a mess and then comes to ask you for help? WouldnÕt you say to first clean up your act before giving anything? First let people do what they can do them self, before giving help with what they cannot do.

Why not separate garbage, and make on the dump certain places for different sorts of filth? Glass to the left, electrical stuff to the right, paper in the middle. Once you have a great heap, recycling companies will ship the loads away. Compress car wrecks, and let the owner of the wreck pay for it. Containers can be filled with paper for recycling. Make the people who make filth pay for the removal of it. Why continue to ignore that what must one day lead to shame, health problems and loss of tourism, toxic residues that kill plants and animals? A Herculean task, but one that will reap great rewards. The very agreeable cleanliness of Holland is something that looks unreal and impossible to me coming from the dirty roadsides where the empty bottles lay as far as they will fly from a open car window. After a bush fire, all that is exposed and it looks so poor. It looks so sick. It is the result of sick minds in stupid heads of people who have no love for their own country. Who do not deserve help or assistance, and who Holland officials certainly will not give autonomy to start on its own. A people who shows no love for its own environment is surely not ready to go on its own. I understand better now why Holland is so against Sint Maarten leaving the Netherlands Antilles, it is still in the baby state of mind, it is not yet house-clean. It still is a baby, and first needs to grow up a little more.

I am tired of trying to give ideas, to give advice, to point out  errors, to ask for betterment. I will stop writing to my beloved readers. Because nothing is done about my ideas.  I do not ask God for help, I do not pray to some invisible power, I ask the men in charge to do their job. Read here the incomplete list of  things that are not done.......

No white lines on the roads, no pavements for pedestrians, no cleanliness in the ghettos of Middle Region, Dutch Quarter and Cay Bay. No garbage bins in the ghettos, no better behavior by young police men. Nothing done about the abandoned hotel at Upper Princess Quarter. Or at the salt crushing ruins at Arch road. Still no solution on Mullet Bay Resort. No local industries, no schools for young artists, jewelry repairing or making, no souvenir manufacturing, no schools for teaching  tourist guiding, no high level service teaching. No road over the St. Peter hill straight to Marigot. No garbage recycling bins like on the French side. No stop on free plastic shopping bags that pollute the environment seriously. No refunds on bottles. Do the people in power never travel to civilized countries? And if they do, are they blind to see how things are done there? Are we governed by blind and deaf mental cripples? And most annoying, still no education towards inner development, instead churches full of ignorance and lies. Church leaders, priests and others, are under investigation everywhere in the world for child sex abuse. They should also be under investigation for keeping the people ignorant about the truth of God. Real teaching of how to reach enlightenment, spiritual liberation, would lead the real world to become a better place. Then, the plea some weeks ago in the newspaper by the craft producers did not get answered by the governing powers, who seem not to be interested at all. The whole island economy and spirituality is in a pitiful  mess. What I can see and understand is that the people who should take care are not competent. Resulting in the economic stranglehold that the tourist industry has over this island.  The political ignorance  and ill will of not wanting to be full member and part of Holland, without different laws, just like a county, a province, a part like every other town and place, has brought about the poverty and dirty roads and lack of social  assistance that we enjoy now. How blind can people be not to see the prosperity and civility of the French side that is a normal part of France, and the ugliness of our roads and dirty shambles in our shanty town ghettos that are locally ruled. Time for a change, but as the good artist Michael Jackson sings: “they don’t really care about us.” Us being all people that are not in the Antillean Governments pay. Imagine the tourist say: