In your article entitled "St. Croix to Host Party of the Centuries" the following incorrect information was provided.
"At 17.6 latitude and 64.5 longitude, the scenic Point Udall is the United States’ eastern most point in the Western Hemisphere. That then makes St. Croix the first place on American soil where the sun will shine on the new millennium."
Not so! The last time I checked the day begins a 180 degrees East Longitude. That makes "our sister U.S. Territory", Guam
(145 degrees East Longitude) and Wake Island (165 degrees East Longitude) the places on
"American soil where the sun will shine first on the new millennium." (The winner, and the American flag and Americans are supposed to be there, would obviously be the South Pole where you can savor yesterday, today and tomorrow as well as be the first and last to do whatever.)
Additionally, only politicians could engage in such a ridiculous "bread and circus" phony hype. (5000 Quelbe dancers, 1000 member steel orchestra, 150 mocko jumbies and a dozen handshaking smiling politicians.) Good Lord! They are expecting 50 percent of St. Croix's population to show up at Point Udal. Not a smart move considering all the factors associated with this date.
Remember also it is New Years Eve, when the roads are ruled by a plethora of drunk and disorderly. Mix this with Y2K and a few doomsday freaks, add those regular knaves that are out looking for trouble, pepper this with the drug dealers and regular nightcrawlers, then multiply this by several thousand, spread immediately over the tissue-thin existing infrastructure
and you end up with the fact that this is a good night to stay at home.
Remember the same politicians that used a power outage to justify a curfew are now suggesting you venture forth, and bring your family to a cliff on the east end of St. Croix on the most vulnerable day of the year. This promotional scheme has not been carefully studied. The chances of serious problems are increased at a time when the government has difficulty providing even basic delivery services.
The message we send out is that we can't fix the island's classrooms but we sure can throw big party, can't we? We should now know that politicians have no self-restraint when it comes to spending taxpayers money on fun and frivolity. Yet when they do we lavish them with our votes.
Also please consider the important fact that the new millennium does not begin until Jan.1, 2001, (There wasn't a year "0"! The monk started counting at 1 AD!)
Certainly, the correct information shouldn't restrain those that take nearly half or all our yearly earnings.
They have our number. But they can't count. What else is new? They can have another party on the correct date! But when the media becomes promoters of this distorted hype, the charade will endure as truth and justice weep.
