From yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph page of bigpinekey.com.

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We will begin accepting emails on September 30^th for publication on our first day back from vacation, October 1.

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bigpinekey.com  /  The Coconut Telegraph

I don’t remember Deer Ed ever going on vacation before. Maybe he did and Ageheizmer’s has set in. No matter, there is gonna be a serious great giant sucking  withdrawal sound around Big Pine Key and elsewhere, as the gossips and whiners have to seek out something some other kind of soma to suck on and keep them from shaking all apart. I suppose they can spend quality time on the Sheriff’s website (keysso.net) page that features new arrivals in the Stock Island Hilton each day. That’s already the most widely visited web page in the Florida Keys, the mug shot and book ‘em page of the Sheriff’s website. Then next most visited days of our lives page is the Coconut Telegraph, which has readers all over the whole wide world, as well as the local hicks and professors and, ahem, lunatics.

Now, if that crowd wants to keep up with this lunatic’s driveling, all they have to do is go to goodmorningfloridakeys.com each day. If there are two posts on a day, the gmfk.com post there will provide a hyperlink over to goodmorningkeywest.com. Vice-versa, that site will provide a hyperlink back to gmfk.com, if there are two posts for that day. I have so many readers who hate my guts so bad that they just can’t stop reading the drivel I put out, I’d hate to see them suffer unnecessarily horrible just because they aren’t getting to shoot up their daily hate Sloan juices on the Coconut Telegraph. So I’ll do my gol-darndest to keep them extra special riled up and the Watchers sufficiently entertained while our deerly-beloved Ed is off having a nice time somewhere, not giving a shit about any of us — who can blame him?

Meanwhile, yet another pilgrim wandered by on yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph:

If Sloan were really committed to winning this BOCC race, he would be writing about substantive issues (budget, salary increases, public safety, development, the county’s future); the stuff of value to the voters, the people over whom and for whom he will be making decisions.  It’s a pretty awesome responsibility, having power like that.

I wonder if this writer ever read anything I wrote, or ever attended a candidate forum?

There is an Independent District 4 county commission candidate, who is tearing up the county budget. Don Vasil tore up the city budget when he was a City Councilman in Marathon. He tore Marathon’s budget up so well that he didn’t get reelected to the City Council. So don’t vote for him for county commissioner. Vote for David Rice, who loves to do business on the side with the County and the Sheriff, using no-bid contracts. That’s why I backed Mario Di Gennaro in the Republican primary, despite his heavy baggage from his first two years on the County Commission.

As for being a county commissioner being “a pretty awesome responsibility, having power like that . . . “

Yep, that it is, but the power angle, well, one vote never has gotten anything done on a five-member commission, and it never will.

What one commissioner can do, though, is talk about what all the other commissioners won’t talk about. What one commissioner can do is call the other commissioners and staff out in public at county commission meetings and on his daily blog all the people who hate him love to read because they hate him. What one commissioner can do is push for county ethics ordinances that have real teeth. What one county commissioner can do is sit in on county staff meetings and find out what staff are really up to.

What one commissioner can do is pick up the telephone and talk to the State Attorney when he isn’t busy doing something else. What one commissioner can do is pick up the phone and talk to certain journalists, who are happy to hear from him. What one commissioner can do is pick up the phone and call the county administrator, county attorney, head of various county departments, and arrange for a prayer meeting with Jesus before the sun goes down the next day.

What one commissioner can do is file suit on his own dime, as a dissident commissioner and concerned citizen of the Keys, on behalf of all people in the Keys, asking a Federal Court to stop FEMA and the County Commission, Growth Management and Code Enforcement from destroying the Keys economy and its way of life by the removal of 7,000 (or so) so-called illegal downstairs enclosures in a community of 65,000 people.

What one county commissioner can do is grill developers and their talking heads, and county staff who have defected to the developers, so thoroughly at county commission meetings that they wish they had never been born. What one county commissioner can do is find out where the budget really can be cut and let the people know about it, and ask them to lean hard on their commissioners to do something about it, or meet their demise in the next election. What one commissioner can do is come up with novel ways to increase private sector revenue in the Keys,which will translate into increased sale taxes and a slowing of the slide in property values with corresponding slide in ad valorem tax revenues.

What one commissioner can do is leave his front door open at his county commission office to all of his constituents, who are welcome and invited to come see or write to him, or call him. If they come in with a real and legitimate concern that he actually has some ability to try to do something about, he will be more than happy to hear them out and get to work on it. But if they are worried about President Obama, or Afghanistan, or Tallahassee, he will tell them to go there to lodge their concerns, and not to come back to see him unless they have something he might be able to do something about.

There is nothing one commissioner can do about global warming flooding out the Keys in 100 years. Nor is there anything one commissioner can do about the next ice age setting in and turning the Keys into a suburb of Greenland. Nor will one county commissioner be able to help constituents get rid the iguanas, the feral cats that eat wild rats that like to get into people’s homes and set up housekeeping. Nor will one commissioner be able to help constituents get rid of their mother-in-law or husband.

Nor will one commissioner be able to help constituents get their beloved cat down out of a tree. Call the Fire & Rescue about that. While Fire & Rescue personnel are coaxing the cat down out of the tree, maybe they can be coaxed to turn the water cannon on the mother-in-law and husband, and on the nearby cowboy code enforcement officer playing like the boss of everything and scaring people’s husbands and mother-in-laws into scaring cats up trees.

Sloan Bashinsky 

political advertisement, approved and paid for by the unsubstantive candidate

There’s a bit more poetic and etheric treatment of much the same subject today at goodmorningkeywest.com. Click on this here handy hyperlink to get there.

Most of the time I can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com. I hang out around here a lot more now that the aliens gave up abducting me after they realized I was a lot more trouble to them than I was worth.

From yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph of bigpinekey.com:

Sloan Bashinsky
 
political farce advertisement, approved and paid for by the District 2 county commission finger candidate

There is a slightly different version of the same theme today, slightly more elevated, so to speak, at goodmorningkeywest.com. Click on its weblink to get there, if you wish.
 
I can be reached most days and nights at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

From yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph page of  bigpinekey.com. 
 
[Staff Infection] Please help by telling me what is, and how to help my husband who has Mersa. What and where does this come from?  Too many are getting it lately in the Keys — 12 cases!
 
I pulled this from Wikipedia online:

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It may also be called multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or oxacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (ORSA).
  
MRSA is, by definition, any strain of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria that has developed resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics which include the penicillins (methicillin, dicloxacillin, nafcillin, oxacillin, etc.) and the cephalosporins.
  
MRSA is especially troublesome in hospitals where patients with open wounds, invasive devices and weakened immune systems are at greater risk of infection than the general public.
 
MRSA-type skin staph infection is pandemic in the Keys. It thrives in a subtropical/tropical environment. Contrary to what many believe, MRSA is not a disease only homelees people contract in the Keys. It is widespread throughout the mainstream population also.
 
MRSA is contagious and can be passed by touch. It might also be able to jump from an infected to a non-infected person. Washing with soap and water is effective prevention, if you come in contact with someone presenting open MRSA sores, which are unmistakable.
 
If MRSA infection is internal, the patient probably should be put under a steady IV antibiotic drip for a month, or even longer, in a hospital.
 
MRSA nearly finished me off in the summer of 2003, after I contracted two nasty abscesses on either side of the base of my penis and one in the right side of the crack between my buttocks. Emergency surgery gouged out the abscesses, leaving horrible open non-sterile wounds. It took two months for the surgical wounds to close. I had to wash them daily and apply jells furnished by the doctor. There was no reinfection in the surgical wounds.
 
I was on a course of powerful antibiotics for a while. However, after stopping the antibiotics I experienced recurring abscess outbreaks in new places on my skin over the next few months, each of which outbreaks a new round antibiotics resolved but not even more new outbreaks. Eventually, the angels stopped the recurrences. More on this further along.
 
Flash forward to 2009. Another MRSA outbreak in an abscess on the right side of my stomach. This time I did not use medicine. Instead, I applied oil of oregano to the abscess for a few days. I got this oil at Sugar Apple health food store in Key West.
 
I also applied a mixture of iodine and Vaseline petroleum jelly. Iodine kills any bacteria but is too powerful to apply undiluted to abscesses, because it eats up the skin in the abscess. Vaseline jelly dilutes the iodine, keeps the wound moist and open, so it can heal from inside out. Apply the iodine/Vaseline jell directly to the abscess four times daily. Do this regardless of what a doctor tells you. Maybe best not to tell a doctor you are doing it. Do it until the MRSA abscess is entirely gone.
 
You can purchase Vaseline and tincture of iodine at any drugstore. Neither are expensive. Open the Vaseline container and use a spoon or table knife to remove some of the jelly. Open the bottle of iodine and pour it into the vacated space in the jelly. Use a toothpick or the table knife to work the iodine into the jelly. Do this in as little light as possible, because light weakens and even destroys the medicinal value of iodine. Keep working the iodine into the Vaseline until you have a uniform pink jelly. Then apply some of the iodine jelly to the abscess and close the container tightly and store it in a dark place, away from heat. Store the tincture of iodine in a dark place, away from heat.
  
There was a spiritual component with both of my MRSA outbreaks, both of which followed nasty conflict with other people. I knew via spirit means that these nasty conflicts triggered the MRSA infections in 2003 and in 2009. This is not something I would tell a doctor.
 
I was unable to work through the spiritual component of the 2003 MRSA skin outbreak, followed by repeated skin outbreaks. As indicated agove, angels healed the infection after I had suffered with it for about nine months and was convinced new prescriptions of antibiotics were not going to stop the recurrences. The second round of skin MRSA in 2009, I was able to work through the spiritual component and the abscess on my stomach responded to the home remedies and slowly went away and there was no recurrence.
 
I realize many people do not like to think in this way, but there are people who do think in this way and it is for them, mostly, that I speak of the spiritual component of MRSA. Like it or not, there is a spiritual component to most human diseases. This is so regardless of what doctors might say to the contrary. In fact, there is a spiritual component to just about everything experience, whether we like or dislike the experience. Some people are able to approach life in this way, but most people are not.
 
It is too bad doctors are not trained in the spiritual component of human disease. Some doctors learn about it on their own, but most do not and treat only the physical component of human disease.
 
The same lament can be said of psychologists, lawyers, and other help professionals. There is a spiritual component to almost all adversities human beings experience, but the methods of this world nearly always only treat the physical component.
 
Everything I write is aimed at both the physical and the spiritual components in the target. I never treat just the physical anymore, because there is no separation from the physical and the spiritual. As below, so above.  As above, so below.
 
To the woman who wrote in about her husband’s MRSA, get with your husband and ask God, or whatever you believe really is in charge, to show you both what you need to see that is related to your husband’s MRSA. If it is skin MRSA, use the home remedies right away, and keep using the iodine-Vaseline jelly until the MRSA is completely gone. Also use the antibiotics your doctor prescribed. But do not rely entirely on the doctor, because he/she is treating only the physical part of the MRSA infection, and antibiotics cause their own troubles, but the iodine-Vaseline jelly only causes trouble for skin MRSA.
 
Whenever I get an open cut or abrasion now, I apply the iodine/Vaseline jell to it. No point in taking any chances with open wounds in this climate. I also would use iodine/Vaseline jelly on spider bite after dousing the bite in hydrogen peroxide solution as soon as possible.
 
Sloan Bashinsky, citizen

Photo taken last night at Parrotdise’s Friday open mic. Parrotise is a waterfront restaurant and lounge on Little Torch Key.  The damsel was with a friend damsel. They asked if I had anything to do with the Coconut Telegraph? Yeah. Was I Sloan? Yeah. The damsel not in the photo asked if  she could take my picture to send to her mother in Wisconsin, I think she said. She said her mother had recently started reading the Coconnut Telegraph and had made it part of her morning routine, and she had expressed interest in the crazy person who wrote stuff there. Voila, be careful what you ask for.

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

So I called George, to see if he was at his county commissioner office on Big Pine Key, the next Key up US 1 from Little Torch. I got his voice mail. It was closing on 1 p.m, and I decided to head to Big Pine to have lunch with Rose Dell and her mother, Coco, who own and operate Coco’s Kitchen in the Big Pine shopping center. Originally from Nicaragua, they came to America when Rose was very young. The story of their history in the restaurant business and the Keys would make a good human interest story in the Keynoter or Citizen.
 
Anyway, I walk into Coco’s and grab the only stool left at the counter, only then to see my left-hand diner is George Neugent his own self. I say, ”There you go running my traps again.” I had learned that line from George when he accused me of running his traps after finding me in Coco’s one morning for breakfast, eating his regular Coco’s breakfast – huevos rancheros. My regular Coco’s breakfast, too.
 
I let out what happened at Monique’s sentencing hearing after she pled straight guilty, not no contest (nolo contendre). Then I tell George that Bill Lowey told me to tell him my conspiracy theory about how Danny Coll’s sneak attack. George doesn’t buy it. He says the outcome would have been the same vote split, if I hadn’t entered the race and closed the Republican primary to just registered Republican voters. Maybe so. Against Danny, George would have swept the Ocean Reef precinct, and, as they say, all the rest would have been history.
 
Ocean Reef going for George was the upper Keys centerpiece of Danny’s strategy. The lower centerpiece of Danny’s strategy was Key West and its large Cuban-American voter contingency.  The middle strategy was Danny’s personal and business presence on Big Pine and nearby Keys. The Ocean Reef negative-vibe strategy ran down the Keys, the Key West positive-vibe strategy ran up the Keys. Surely I jest. Read on.
 
During the primary campaign, Danny Coll’s good buddy, Mark Howell, Editor of Solares Hill, did a huge documentary spread on Cuban-Americans, in which Danny was one of two featured, successful Keys people who had been born in Cuba. It was a good piece. However, it ran in direct violation of a Solares Hill and Citizen (which owns Solares Hill) policy of not giving candidates for office gratuitous press coverage before the election. I knew of that policy, having had Mark Howell himself once explain it to me. So I wrote to Mark and said to forget me, but Solares Hill owed George Neugent equal treatment, to level the playing field in his and Danny’s race. Not a peep did I hear back from Mark.
 
At Coco’s yesterday, George chipped in another piece of Danny’s strategy. Just before the election, Danny ran radio ads in Spanish up and down the Keys, which George said had caught him napping and had enhanced Danny’s showing in the primary. But for those ads, George said, his margin of victory would have been greater.
 
A lot of people do not realize that nearly all Cuban-Americans are Republicans because President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, chickened out in the middle of the American-backed invasion of Cuba, launched to oust Fidel Castro and return Cuba to Cuban expatriates living in exile in America.
 
I had never considered the possibility of a Cuban-American voting block in the Keys, until I dreamt of large Hispanic men, wearing black suits, black ties and white shirts moving in on and taking over a community in which I was involved. I wrote about that dream, and that it had caused me to wonder if there was a Cuban-American voting block in the Keys, with ties to South-Florida Cuban Americans? If so, was Danny Coll their front man? If so, why would they choose Danny when he had so many troubles in his personal and business life? Why wouldn’t they choose a cleaner candidate?
 
(See my 7/27/2010  Men In Black – District 2 County Commission Race post to goodmorningfloridakeys.com. You can get to that post by clicking on its title in the previous sentence.)
 
Enter Richard Sands, who wrote a letter to the editor about a week before the primary elections, which the Citizen published. In his letter, Sands said the above post revealed the real reason I was backing George Neugent and getting onto Danny Coll. Sands said I am a bigot and am racially prejudiced against Hispanic people.
 
Sands letter actually was crafted by Danny Coll’s campaign manager, Tim “Hit Man” Gratz, whose reputation in not entirely clean campaign tactics, according to what I read on the Internet, dates back to Watergate times. The Internet search also revealed Tim had shown keen interest in Cuban-assassination-of John-F-Kennedy theories, which is what drew Tim and Danny and Mark Howell together. Mark had run a number of pieces in Solares Hill about that watery topic.
  
The Citizen published next day George’s reply to the Sands/Gratz letter, but the Citizen waited until after the Republican primary to publish my reply, which I had sent in before George had sent his. The Citizen waited to publish my reply, because it didn’t want Cuban-American/Hispanic voters to see it before the election. Here it is again. 

In a recent letter to the Editor, Richard Sands accused me of being bigoted and racially prejudiced toward Hispanic people, and he said that‘s why I have been telling people to vote for George Neugent in the District 2 county commission Republican primary.
 
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident by my having eaten several meals a week at El Siboney in Key West, until it was sold to Hispanic people I didn’t know and the people who had been like family to me faded away.
 
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident in the five or so meals a week I have with Rose Dell and her mother at Coco’s Kitchen in the Big Pine Key shopping center, where I cut up with Rose and her mother, and with gringos and Hispanics, and anyone else I can get to play with me. Rose nearly split her sides laughing when I told her of Sands’ accusations.
 
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident in the number of Hispanic people, usually men, but a few women, I pick up at bus stops on US 1 and give a free ride to Key West or up the Keys.
 
As I wrote to someone the day before Sands’ letter to the editor was published (later published to goodmorningfloridakeys.com), I like Danny Coll; if he gets his business and private life straightened out, he might make a good county commissioner in four years and his Cuban origin might come in real handy if/after the US normalizes relations with Cuba.
 
I think it was two years ago that the Citizen adopted a policy of not endorsing candidates for office, which I had sometimes written was what the Citizen should do. Report the news, present interviews with the candidates, then let the voters decide which candidate to vote for. Alas, the Citizen, and its captured monkey rag, do not follow their own rules. The big rag and the little rag backed Danny Coll all the way. If you don’t now believe this in your heart, you need to see a psychiatrist.
 
Flash forward to today’s Citizen (keysnews.com), which contains a letter to the editor from the real author of the Sands’ letter. Read Tim Gratz’s letter today, which again does not tell readers how to get to my7/27/2001 Men In Black – District 2 County Commission Race post to goodmorningfloridakeys.com. Observe how  Tim twists what I wrote into his own psychotic dellusion.
 
After making the comparison, ask yourself why in the world Danny Coll associated himself with Tim Gratz? Ask yourself if you would want Danny Coll for a county commissioner, knowing he was being steered behind the scenes by Tim Gratz, a disbarred lawyer, who stole fiduciary funds from a client. A father being prosecuted in the courts for not paying child support.  Ask yourself why Danny Coll associates with Tim Gratz?
 
Back to the District 2 race between George Nugent and me. Here is another erectile-dysfunction attack on bigpinekey.com‘s Coconut Telegraph blog (yesterday):
 
[The Devil Made Me Do It] Most of us just laugh at our perennial candidate who claims he does things because God tells him what to do. How many times have we read that someone does harm to someone because God told him to do it? We have seen his vicious writing attacks on a number of folks. Because our local weirdo takes no personal responsibility for what he does (he blames it on the “voices”). Maybe we should realize he has the potential to do harm because God told him to do it.
 
Right, the Devil made me back George Neugent over Danny Coll. Right, the Devil sent me that dream about Danny Coll being a front man for South Florida Cuban-Americans. Right, the Devil  made me file in the District 2 race, which closed the Republican primary to only registered Republicans and very well might have stopped Danny Coll from beating George in that primary. Right, the Devil made me write this post today.
 
You can bet the conch farm the Devil is running whoever put up that comment on the Coconut Telegraph, I suppose one of George Neugent’s groupies. You can bet the conch farm the Devil is running Tim Gratz. I told Danny Coll to get rid of Gratz. When Danny didn’t do it, that told me the Devil was running Danny, too. What a bucket of snakes.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, the infuriating candidate from Little Torch Key

8:45 a.m. this morning brings Monique Acevedo before Judge Mark Jones, to enter a plea of guilty or nolo contendre to charges of swiping around $413,000 from our school system. Nolo contendre basically means the charges against the defendant are not denied but the defendant does not formally admit them either. Both pleas are guilty pleas, but nolo simply sounds a little nicer. Ether plea saves Monique a trial by a jury of her peers, and puts the entire load for determining her fate on Judge Jones.
 
Monique’s husband, Randy, our former Superintendent of Schools, was already convicted for helping cover up Monique’s theft. His case is on appeal.
 
After his conviction, before he changed lawyers, Randy’s local lawyer, a former assistant prosecuting State Attorney, was arguing in the local press that Randy was charged and convicted of helping Monique cover up crimes for which she had not yet been convicted, so how could Randy be convicted, if Monique was not yet convicted?
 
That defense was about the same as two apprehended bank robbers, one driving the get-away car, the other going into the bank to stick it up. The get-away driver is tried first and defends on the ground that the stick-up defendant has not yet been convicted, so the get-away driver cannot be found guilty.
 
Horseshit dreamed up by defense lawyers. If, beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury believes from the evidence that a bank robbery was committed by the stick-up defendant, and if the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, believes the other defendant/accomplice was waiting outside the bank in the get-away car, then the jury can convict the accomplice even though the stick-up defendant has not yet been tried and convicted.
 
Now before Judge Jones is the stick-up defendant. Now comes the moment of truth. Will Judge Jones go easy on Monique, perhaps even give her house arrest for a while, followed by probation and a long-term restitution payment plan? Probation is what Randy received, even through he showed no remorse at his sentencing hearing and admitted not that he had done anything wrong; and then he appealed his conviction. Or will Judge Jones put Monique in prison? If so, for how long? And under what terms of eventual release? That’s what we all are waiting to learn today.
 
Monique will be allowed to put on character witnesses, if she wishes, and use their testimony, and the fact that Monique and Randy have minor children, and the fact that Monique might have been mentally deranged and on mind-altering drugs when she raped the school system, to try to persuade Judge Jones to go light on her. Assistant State Attorney Mark Wilson will be able to cross-examine those witnesses, which might turn out pretty embarrassing for them in a community still in shock and outrage over what Monique and Randy did.
 
Shock and outraged evidenced by the fact that just last week this community at the polls, by about 2/3 of the votes cast, revoked the historical election of the Superintendent of Schools method and replaced it with a Superintendent who will be hired, supervised and fired by the School Board. The Acevedos were the reason for this change in selection of School Superintendent. Several times previously, attempts to make this change were soundly defeated at the polls.
 
After Monique’s rape and pillage was discovered, Randy refused to take a voluntary paid administrative leave. A majority of the School Board, Steven Pibramsky and John Dick dissenting, refused to force Randy to take paid administrative leave. The School Board and school system were in pandemonium. They had what appeared to be a criminal for a School Superintendent. An elected official, Randy could not be fired by the Board. Only the Governor could remove Randy. The Governor waited until Randy was arrested and booked, then the Governor put Randy on leave without pay. Then, after some searching around, the Governor appointed an interim Superintendent, who is still on the job. 
 
That about one-third of the voters wanted to keep an elected School Superintendent in the face of all of that astounds me. That this county ever even had an elected School Superintendent to begin with astounds me. It was a popularity contest. The Superintendent didn’t even need to have experience in a school system. In fact, Randy had never taught school a day in his life. In fact, Randy did not have a teaching certificate.  In fact, Randy knew no more about teaching school than I know, but he became our Superintendent of Schools because people who liked him voted him into office.
 
Not satisfied with his own lack of qualifications, Randy sought to enhance his wife’s lack of qualifications. He got an outside firm to jimmy the requirements for a position Monique lacked the qualifications to assume. Then, Randy promoted Monique to that position. He did not tell the School Board he had done this until some time later. This new position put Monique in charge of areas where she now could steal from the school system. She used the new position well. And when she got caught, she got really uppity about it, as did Randy.
 
Monique’s Public Defender lawyer, and maybe character witnesses, will try to persuade Judge Jones to treat Monique like a common thief. Like she only embezzled $413,000 from a corporation for which she worked. Like she had worked for Key West developer-business mogul Ed Swift, and she had embezzled $413,000 from Ed’s company. Corporate white collar theft.
 
It will be argued by defense counsel that all that’s really necessary here is to put Monique on house arrest for a while; then on probation, and for her to pay all of the money back over time like it’s a mortgage. It will be argued that this is fair and appropriate, because that’s how other white collar embezzlers have been treated by the courts.
 
Excuse me?
 
Monique did not steal from a developer mogul for whom she worked. Monique stole from an entire school system and its community. She was a high official in the school system. She was a role model for the children. She was entrusted with our children’s welfare. She was entrusted with the taxpayers’ money. What Monique did, with Randy’s assistance, tore the fabric of the soul of this community to shreds. The community lost all faith in the school system, which was exacerbated by three of the School Board members vacillating on what to do about Monique after her crime became known. The Board members who did not vaccilate were Steven Pibramsky and John Dick.
 
After it was clear Monique was a thief, and a big time one at that, School Board Chairman Andy Griffith eventually came out in favor of giving Monique house arrest and then probation, along with restitution. Idiotic.
   
School Board members Pibramsky and Dick led the charge from the get-go, to deal with the Acevedos, while the other three Board members played safe. Pibramsky and his family received serious threats, which put them in fear for their and their small children’s safety. But for Pibramsky and Dick, the Acevedos might have gotten away with it.
  
State Attorney Dennis Ward has come under terrific pressure to cut Monique slack, treat her like a mere employee thief of corporate money. Make no mistake, the very people who did not want State Attorney Dennis Ward to be elected are trying to get Monique cut slack, because her husband, Randy, is a conch. As in, he was born in the Keys. He is a Key Wester. Yep, a bubba. Bubbas are supposed to get different (translate better) treatment because they are bubbas.
 
Make no mistake, if Dennis Ward had not been elected, Randy Acevedo probably would not have been charged by the previous State Attorney. Make no mistake, Dennis Ward is not going to do what the bubbas want him to do. Dennis is not going to make it easy on Monique or Judge Jones. Dennis and his troops did the job they were supposed to do, the job Dennis was elected to do. Now it’s time for Judge Jones to do his job.
 
There is one other thing that needs to be addressed today. School system administrative employee Kathy Reizel blew the whistle on Monique and Randy. Kathy didn’t blow it quickly, but she darn well did blow it. She blew it in an environment of retribution for going against the power structure. She blew it because she could not live any longer with what she knew was going on.
 
For not blowing the whistle when she first got wind of what Monique was doing, and of Randy covering for it, Kathy Reizel was fired by the new Superintendent of Schools, whom the Governor appointed. What chance now that another school system employee, or any county employee, will get fed up and finally blow the whistle? What was the new Superintendent thinking? People have been maimed and even killed in the Keys for doing less than what Kathy Reizel did. People above Kathy in the school system were not axed, even though they were part of the attitude that allowed this cataclysm to occur.
 
Kathy Reizel was the State Attorney’s chief prosecuting witness against Randy at his trial. But for Kathy Reitzel, Randy would not have been convicted. But for Cathy Reizel, Monique would not be going before Judge Jones today. If Judge Jones doesn’t put Monique in prison today, what kind of message will  that send to ever school student and adult in the Keys? How many Monique copycats will that spawn?

Here’s what Steven Pibramsky wrote to Dennis Ward, in separate letter from what the School Board sent to Dennis:

“It is important for our community that justice is served and that any sentence be significant enough to serve as an example that the trust in our educational system serves as the bedrock of our community and that this trust should not be blatantly violated with impunity.”

Sloan Bashinsky, citizen

Somostcrane was so enraged that I had filed and closed the District 2 Republican primary to Republicans, that I thought maybe he was going to have a stroke. I thought to myself he surely was a Danny Coll backer, because there was no way a George Neugent backer would be upset with my closing the Republican primary.
 
As Somostcrane and I both were leaving the affair, he gave me another angry look. When I tried to speak to him, he growled he didn’t want to hear it and walked on. I reached out and grasped his upper left arm about like I would a heavy door I was opening, trying to get him to hear me out. He wrenched his arm away, growled for me to get my hands off it him, and stormed off.
 
Now I, too, was riled, because I don’t like hit-and-runs. Trailing close behind, I said, loud enough for him and others nearby to hear, that I must be doing something right to have gotten him so riled up. Then, I stopped walking and turned around and headed back to where it had started between us.
 
Several people I knew standing nearby asked what had gotten in him? I explained and they said not to worry about it. I said, “He has a three year-old-dick and a three-year-old brain.” He was too far away to hear that, but I wrote about it and maybe he heard about what I wrote. I would have loved for him to have brought a deputy back to speak with the people who saw me nearly tear his arm out of the socket. Anger management, my ass. He was so mad that I had closed the Republcian primary, that he could hardly breathe.
 
Next time I saw Somostcrane was at the Hometown PAC forum at the Key West airport. He was wearing a “Mario” sticker and was sitting right behind me with other people wearing Mario stickers. I said to him, “I’m trying my best to help your candidate.” He said something that sort of sounded like, “Thanks.”
 
Somostcrane would be real surprised to learn what all I have remorse over, but he might not believe it. I have remorse over every rough work assignment I undertake, including what you are reading here today. I undertake the assignments anyway, because the consequences to me of disobedience are horrendous. Every time I ran for office, including this time, was an assignment. Told to file by the Boss, I filed. Simple as that.
 
Which brings me to this commentary in yesterday’s Solares Hill Sunday supplement of Key West Citizen:

My candidacy didn’t also effectively disenfranchise Independents, who could have voted in the Republican primary, if I had not filed? Actually, there were a number of closed primaries in this year’s races, including the District 4 race, where two independents filed for Mario Di Gennaro’s county commission seat. If they had not filed, David Rice would now be that seat’s county commissioner.
 
Registered Democrats and Independents had plenty of time before the primaries to register as Republicans and vote in the Republican primaries. Danny Coll wrote that very thing in a letter to the editor. I wrote it a few times on my websites. We both criticized partisan primary voting in local elections. Maybe what happened in the District 2 race this year pissed off enough voters to launch a grassroots movement to end partisan primary voting in the Keys. I hope so.
 
As for my entering the District 2 race because George Neugent asked me to enter it, what I wrote about that was I got to talking with George during a break at a County Commission meeting a few days before the deadline for filing. He asked if I was going to file, and I said I was still hoping God was going to give me a free pass. George said it wouldn’t seem right not having me in the race, referring back to 2006, when I ran against him without any other candidates having filed.

I had written many times of being told in dreams early in the year that I was going to run for the District 2 seat again, and of my strong aversion to doing it. I had wailed and moaned plenty about it. Maybe two or three weeks before I had that conversaton with George, Danny Coll put up a post on the Coconut Telegraph, blasting me for the way I was behaving; he told me to file or shut up. Danny was the first messenger from God, George was the second. More messages came after I spoke with George. So I filed, albeit reluctantly and with remorse.
 
As for criticism that I am not a serious candidate, why, then, do people get upset with me? If I was not a serious candidate, if I was of no consequence, if I was crazy, I would be ignored. 
 
Received this email early this morning . . .

I know what it is to be engulfed in pain,
Awash in evil,
Terrified, enraged, despaired,
Believing God has again forsaken me,
Then be given the truth
that again makes me free.

I know what it is to doubt,
Be lost and wandering
time and time again,
Then be rescued yet again
and my faith grows deeper.

I know what it is to blindly trust,
Then be destroyed by betrayal
time and time again,
Until I trust only God.

I know what it is to have much
and be completely of this world,
Then have it all taken away
and be in the world but not of it.

I know what it is to fail in this world,
And fail and fail and fail:
The world’s greatest failure,
I can serve only God.

I know what it is to give
and give and give and give;
I cannot stop giving
because giving is receiving.

I know what it is to explain God
time after time after time again.
Something demands I keep explaining:
Maybe someone will listen,
Maybe me.