New intern
The Beacon has a new intern. Tiana Hewitt is a 16-year-old student at Cedar International School. A proud feminist, she appreciates people who stand up for gender equality and women’s rights. The avid reader’s favourite books include Little Women and the Hunger Games Trilogy. Ms. Hewitt’ first article — covering the West End Back to School Fair — appears on page 24.
Anegada iguanas
A Beaconite was happy to note that the vast majority of the critically endangered Anegada rock iguanas housed at the Anegada Head Start Facility survived Hurricane Irma and the year since, according to the facility’s warden, Lionel Smith. Only about two were lost in the storm, Mr. Smith explained, and 42 remain. “The iguanas are doing well,” he assured the Beaconite last week.
Community Board politics
This week the Beacon shared an article on Facebook about the BVI Community Board forum — directly to the BVI Community Board. It was a risky move, considering that the article outlined how moderators on the social media site had been deleting news articles, but were sporadic with moderating other types of posts and often didn’t seem to follow their own rather vague guidelines. Would Community Board administrators recognise the article as newsworthy — providing valuable information to the community — and let the post stay untouched, as they do with hundreds of posts from government that they say serve that same purpose? The answer is no. The admins, one of whom has never set foot in the territory, allowed the post to stay — along with two comments defending their board — but they quickly disabled comments in time to squelch any criticism. Another Facebook user re-posted the story to the page, only to have it deleted by admins a short time later. Yet another user said he was banned from the board altogether (not for the first time) after he commented about admins unfavourably. Of course, admins reserve the right to delete and moderate whatever they want, as was correctly pointed out by one commenter. But because of the responsibility that comes with screening the news on a popular platform, they should have clear guidelines and transparently follow them. As long as they continue to fall short of that standard, the page risks of becoming a mouthpiece for government or other interests masquerading as a forum where anyone can post information of public interest. If admins stay their current course, perhaps they should consider changing the forum’s name to more accurately reflect the kind of posts that it allows: the “BVI Government and Ferry Schedule Board.” Meanwhile, the Beaconite would like to give a shout-out to the admins of BVI National Forum and BVI Abroad — Hurricane Irma (which, like the Community Board, has said it’s not a “discussion board”) for allowing the article to remain untouched.
The magic of Disney
An unabashedly cynical tour operator a Beaconite met at the Tortola Pier Park, watching passengers from the Disney Fantasy pour into the territory amid a parade of steel-pan musicians and moko jumbies, said, “You know, I never liked what Disney stood for as a company, … but I’m happy they’re back.” The Beaconite, who likes to consider herself similarly cynical (though it doesn’t surface very often in her work), had to agree. The so-called “magic of Disney” is as much marketing as it is reality, but there was a truly genuine spirit of joy and hospitality infused throughout the territory on Tuesday as the VI proudly showed off its culture to visitors, especially after working so hard for so long to welcome them back. Sure, Disney may be an at-times ruthless multinational corporation with an often-criticised founder, but you can’t help but smile when you see Dumbo the Flying Elephant flapping his ears across the bow of the ship.