Good Morning Florida Keys

From today’s Citizen’s Voice (Key West Citizen):
 
“If the homeless community could police themselves in respect to the environment by cleaning up after themselves, and respecting other people’s rights, it would go a long way toward their being accepted inn this society.” Yep, it would. Same applies to everyone else.
 
For example, take a walk down Duval Street at 6 a.m. any morning, and look at all the litter dropped by locals and tourists who are not homeless people.
 
For example, stroll around and keep an eye out for mainstream people smoking cigarettes. Watch what they do with the butts. Watch them throw them on the ground and into planters and other people’s shrubbery.
 
For example, Truman Annex Property Owners Association (TAMPOA), which has the gall to try to  put a guard gate and steel fence across a public road that has been the only public access to Tuman Annex, the Outer Mole, Ft. Zachary Taylor State Park and, I think, part of the Navy housing for a very long time. Longer than TAMPOA has been around.
 
For example, the other day in Sippin’ Internet Café featured three 25-or-so very loud, obnoxious, male tourists, who acted as if they were the only three people in the place. I put up with it until one of them shot a bird at an old fellow who is a regular at Sippin’ and is one of Key West’s living treasures. I told the punk that he had just shot a bird for no reason at a Key West icon, and where did he get his attitude? His friends started making ready to leave, with him in tow. A parting shot he could not resist, with an invitation to settle it outside on the sidewalk. I said I did not settle things that way. I was about to dial 911. After they were gone, I told the young woman keeping the store that I hoped she did not mind. She said she was glad they were gone.
 
For example, come to a Higgs Beach Committee meeting and listen to one fellow who keeps slamming homeless people, including talking about passing a law that bans them from Monroe County. A fellow who keeps trying to work an angle of making money off being on the Committee. Making money for himself. A fellow who wants to set up a Higgs Beach website, with a “Citizen’s Voice” type blog for people to write in and blast homeless people. A fellow I was told at the end of the last Committee meeting has gotten into all sorts of business deals that went busted. A fellow who seems to irritate the living shit out of everyone else at the Committee meetings. I wonder if this fellow is the same person who wrote into Citizen’s Voice today.
 
When I ran for mayor in 2007, I proposed that the City of Key West offer homeless people, who want to work, jobs as litter cops dressed like pirates. Station them on and off Duval Street. At the beaches and marinas. I said it would clean up Key West, improve its image, and be good for tourism. I was interviewed by several out-of-state radio stations, one nationally syndicated based in New York City. But the local newspapers and radio stations didn’t touch it. Nor did the voters. I received 64 votes.
 
County Commissioner Heather Carruthers, City Commissioner Teri Johnston, Florida Keys Outreach Coalition Director Father Stephen Braddock and I, and perhaps others, are going to a Meet & Greet with homeless people at noon day after tomorrow (Monday), at the picnic huts where most of them who use Higgs Beach hang out. We will listen and talk about our concerns. We will tell them about a sheirff deputy being put on station there, to help smooth things out for them and the rest of the public.
 
The fellow described above said we shouldn’t go to the Meet & Greet without donning surgical gloves and carrying large garbage bags. I would not touch him without wearing surgical gloves, and he would be the first item I would put in his large garbage bag, which I then would deliver to the next garbage truck headed for a mainland landfill.
 
One Human Family when it’s convenient just doesn’t get it folks. Either it’s One Human Family, or it isn’t.
 
Sloan Bashinsky, mayor candidate, 28 February 2009, Key West

I made a couple of posts lately about Mayor Morgan McPherson and his wife owning a day care center, and that being connected to Morgan’s push to round up utility bills to the nearest dollar, to create a fund to pay childcare workers more money. Night before last at LA TE DA, Morgan came over to me and said he and his wife sold their daycare center five years ago. I asked him what about the papers he had filed in the City Clerk’s Office for his 2007 mayor campaign, showing he had an ownership interest in and received income from a day care center? He said nothing and walked away. I turned to Bill Lowey, sitting on my right and told him what had just transpired. Bill said he had thought Morgan owned a day care center. I turned to Jim Hendrick sitting on my left and told him, and he said something about politics and strange events.
 
I honestly didn’t know what to think. Maybe I had looked at Morgan’s 2007 campaign asset and income disclosure form wrong. So I went back to the City Clerk’s Office yesterday and asked to see Morgan’s 2007 campaign papers again. It was the same as when I went there about a month ago. In 2007, Morgan disclosed ownership in two corporations from which he derived income: M & M Realty, in which he was Vice President; and Little Conch Academy (Day Care), in which he was Secretary. It does not appear from Morgan’s 2007 campaign reports that he and his wife sold Little Conch Academy five years ago. However, if they did sell it five years ago and Morgan reported it in his 2007 campaign disclosure as an income producing business in which he was an owner, then he made a false campaign report, which was a crime.
 
Checking online yesterday with the Secretary of State, Sandy Downs found official reports showing (and copied to me) that Little Conch Academy is still in business. As of the 2008 annual corporate filing with the Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations, Morgan was an officer and director in Little Conch Academy, as were several other McPhersons. Little Conch Academy’s address in the state filing was the same as the home of Morgan’s parents, 3301 Riviera Drive, Key West. Little Conch Academy is a McPherson family business and its employees, some of whom are family members, stand to profit off Morgan’s proposal to round up utility bills to the nearest dollar, to create a fund for daycare workers.
 
What strikes me as even more strange about this situation is that Key West Citizen is aware of the McPherson family day care business and has yet to mention it in any of its reporting and editorials about Morgan’s proposal to round utility bills up to the nearest dollar to create a fund for day care workers to make more money. I have come to expect this sort of self-serving behavior from public office holders and candidates for office. However, one might think, if one might have just fallen off the turnip truck, that the Citizen would not let something like this CONFLICT OF INTEREST go unnoticed by the general public. Since I did not just fall of the turnip truck, I do not think that way. I EXPECT the Citizen to let something THIS INSIGNIFICANT slip right through the cracks, even after I told two members of the Citizen’s Editorial Board about it. They are on my email list and received everything I wrote about Morgan and the day care center. I spoke directly with one of them, and he was very upset with Morgan having a conflict of interest. From there, it was out of my hands and in theirs to get it reported or editorialized by the Citizen, which endorsed Morgan in 2007 and now perhaps is having trouble putting into words.

While on the Citizen, I will say it’s reporter, Tim O’Hara, from time to time has labeled me a gadfly candidate. Tim does not do this in kindness, nor does he seem to do it with an understanding of the origin of the word gadfly, which Sandy Downs unearthed last year after Larry Kahn, Editor of the Keynoter, labeled her a gadfly candidate in the sheriff race, in which she became what some people came to feel was more like a super hornet flying stinger first straight up their ass. So for Tim, Larry and all other Keys journalists, and anyone who reads what they write, here is the history of the word gadfly, which Sandy also just happened to buzz my way yesterday.
 
Definition of “Gadfly”–The term “gadfly” was used by Plato in the Apology to describe Socrates’ relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse.During his defense when on trial for his life, Socrates, according to Plato’s writings, pointed out that dissent, like the tiny (relative to the size of a horse) gadfly, was easy to swat, but the cost to society of silencing individuals who were irritating could be very high. “If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me,” because his role was that of a gadfly, “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.” In modern and local politics, gadfly is a term used to describe someone who persistently challenges people in positions of power, the status quo or a popular position. The word may be uttered in a pejorative sense, while at the same time be accepted as a description of honorable work or civic duty gad·fly (gad?fli-?) a person or persons who annoys others, especially by rousing them from complacency One that acts as a provocative stimulus; a goad. “Gadfly” is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or just being an irritant.
 
Sloan Bashinsky, mayor candidate, 27 February 2009, Key West

A reply to the Prosecute:George Bush post of a few days ago from one of my old college fraternity brothers, who attended Vanderbilt Law School after doing his undergraduate work there. Then he worked a while in the U.S. Department of Justice. Then he went into private practice in a reasonably modest-sized law firm, which eventually grew into a very large law firm. Even so, he was able to retain his sense of humor, and sense.
 
Interesting point. Do we also go after the politicians (i.e., Hillary, etc.) who voted to continue funding the war? How about Obama who has done nothing to end the war?
 
 
Hi, Don.
 
Hmmm. Maybe start at the top: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, where the buck started and stopped, or so we might have been led to believe. I rather imagine there were others pulling strings from behind the scenes, who never get spotlighted. People who run things no matter who is President or Prime Minister, or whatever.
 
There is a courtroom beyond this world where we all get to stand trial. It was that courtroom I had in mind when I wrote this morning that every American who supported Bush going into Iraq is responsible for the dead and wounded on both sides.
 
I was very upset when Hillary Clinton voted to support the Iraq invasion. But what upset me the most was when Colin Powell got behind it. Jesus. What was he thinking? I felt he was being groomed by God to be our next president, and he goes to work for Bush not having a clue, it seemed to turn out, what he was getting into bed with.
 
Osama bin Laden posted to the Internet how easy George Bush was to bait, and he urged Americans to stop letting Bush have his way. I didn’t like Osama’s methods, but he was a lot smarter than Bush and most Americans. A lot smarter.
 
And, unfortunately, Osama is working off the prophesy God gave to Adam in Genesis: that Ishmael’s seed would become a great nation and would cause Isaac’s seed trouble. Mohammed descended from Ishmael, David and Jesus from Isaac. Based on Jewish and Christian scriptures, Osama can argue that what he is doing was ordained by God. The Koran has a similar passage. And, Islam claims Abraham as it’s father, too.
 
George Bush declared war on Islam when he invaded Iraq. He may not think so, but Islam does. Islam felt the same way when Bush’s father led the charge into Kuwait, because, as he said on national television, he could not let the American way of life be threatened. It was all about oil then. The first President Bush didn’t give a shit about Kuwait, except for its oil. The second President Bush ditto-ed that in Iraq.
 
Maybe I will write some about this tomorrow.
 

P.S., pretty long for a p.s., but then, some lawyers are known to say a lot to hide very little . . .
Three night before 911, I was asked in my sleep: “Will you make a prayer for a divine intervention for all of humanity?” I awoke and asked for a divine intervention for all of humanity.
 
When I learned on 911 of what had happened, rather than being shocked, upset and frightened, I was in a state of grace. My only hope was that America would not retaliate; that America would respond in a different way that would start a new way of doing things.
 
I spoke with a number of people during the ensuing days and weeks. Some were very worried about a retaliatory response, while others were all in favor and were really supporting President Bush’s moving toward invading Iraq. The most ardent Bush supporters were pretty serious Christians. Try as I might, I was unable to sway then toward the notion that if Jesus was our president, he would not retaliate. Nor did I make any headway by saying 911 obviously was a set-up, a trap; bait designed to get America to retaliate and get bogged down in a land war in the Middle East, which was precisely what Osama bin Laden had hoped would happen.
 
It then came to pass that one of Key West’s city commissioners, I think it was, sponsored a resolution along the lines that Key West opposed U.S. military intervention in Iraq without United Nations sanction and participation. Oh my, what a donnybrook! We who supported the resolution were told we were trying to disenfranchise people who had voted for President Bush. We were told we were traitors. We were told, basically, that we were to support President Bush no matter what. It was our duty. When I spoke, I said I felt like I had been disenfranchised. I said I was an American and was a patriot, and it was my duty speak out when I felt my country was headed in the wrong direction. It would be treason if I did not speak out.
 
It seemed the turning point came when Mayor Jimmy Weekley said he could not support a war over oil. He was booed loudly by some, cheered loudly by the rest of us. Jimmy’s vote, as I recall, provided a majority on the City Commission for the resolution. Yes, it passed. Key West joined other cities in sending a message to Washington that it was not okay for President Bush to go to war in Iraq without UN sanction. Of course, Bush did just that, after massaging the intelligence to make it look like it would be treason not to go to war. We know he massaged the intelligence because none of it ever proved out the way he said it would prove out. It all proved out just the opposite of the way he said it would.
 
Not long ago, our current mayor, Morgan McPherson, who defeated Jimmy Weekley in 2005 and again in 2007, said he wants Key West to be a role model city. Key West was a role model city when it passed a resolution opposing U.S. invading Iraq with UN sanction and participation. Maybe it’s time again. Time for the City Commission to pass a resolution calling for the trial of George Bush for murder. Hopefully, Mayor McPherson will offer the resolution at the next City Commission meeting. And if not him, then one of the six city commissioners. Make Key West a role model city. Do it now. Start a tsunami that will pick up such steam and force such that when it reaches Washington it will knock some sense into President Obama.

Sloan Bashinsky
P.P.S. This lead from the front page of this past Tuesday’s Key West Citizen:
 
“WASHINGTON: Urging future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.”
 
The entire article, by Liz Sidoti, Associated Press, is just as idiotic. Not idiotic writing by Sidoti, idiotic thinking by Obama. Maybe he will go down as President Dumber Than Dumber. Hard to imagine even a snake oil salesman saying it with a straight face. The look on John McCain’s face in the photo of him listening to Obama’s remarks would be priceless if it weren’t for the fact that Obama took the helm with the entire county’s ass in a sling because of President Dumber.
 
Osama bin Laden must be dancing a jig. 911 achieved what nothing ever before could. It busted the U.S. economy. Busted it.

S.B. 26 February 2009, Key West

Today brings some local entertainment. At LA TE DA, 1125 Duval Street, 9 p.m. tonight, The Golden Boys do Broadway. Vanessa Di Gennaro, the “Duval Nightingale” in my song book, is joining Bruce Moore and Bobby Nesbit in the Crystal Room. Vanessa is no kin to Key West County Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro, even though he keeps telling everyone he is her father and acts like her publicist and has been seen weeping and loudly applauding when she sings. Seating begins at 8.00 p.m. Reservations recommended. (305) 296-6706. Ticket price 26.00 plus tax. If you ain’t never seen these performers, then you ain’t never seen nothing yet. And if you have seen them, you know Key West has it’s own “Off Broadway.”

Speaking of Broadway, me and my live theater amigo and Key West lawyer Jerry Coleman took in the dress rehearsal of “Bitch Slap” at Waterfront Playhouse. Set around the production of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”, a blow by blow, sometimes more than just words and the look, expose of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis’ screen rivalry and charming personalities, moderated, modulated and instigated by Hollywood dame columnist Hedda Cooper. I learned all I ever wanted to know about these three screen sirens, and then some. One act, no intermission, it held my interest, got a bunch of guffaws out of me, and I gave it a standing ovation. Opening night tonight. (305) 294-5015.

Jerry is still hosting his one-hour 9 a.m. Wednesday morning talk show on 107.1 FM in Key West. I’m glad he keeps it going. He is a very good talk show host, has on a wide variety of Key West and Keys personalities. And some real weirdos sometimes. Sandy Downs and me, for example.

Perhaps as entertaining as “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”, but a tad shorter, is this morning’s editorial in Key West Citizen, twanging Mayor Morgan McPherson in various ways for proposing rounding up utility bills to the nearest dollar, to create a fund to subsidize child care workers’ pay. Mayor McPherson, according to his required candidate source-of-income filing with the City Clerk in the 2007 mayor’s race, is part owner in a day care center. However, no mention of that in any of the twanging, even though the Citizen Editorial Board knows about it. Sandy Downs and I would say there is a conspiracy. Other people would say we are conspiracy freaks.
 
Sloan Bashinsy, 25 February 2008, Key West

The magic is here now. I want to tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a man who appeared very successful in life. He had a job most admire and was well thought of in his community. He had many friends of upper levels of society.

After a divorce, and a few other things, the man found himself homeless. Without the friends, the position, the influence, the family…he was alone, with himself and God. You learn a lot about yourself in those times. Maybe it’s the only acceptable way to learn anything at all.

This man told me, everyone should be homeless for 6 months. That’s all it takes, and then you know. You know things you could not have known. You feel things you could not have felt, and you see things you could have never seen. The world is different from then on. An awakening you might say.

No longer will you be fooled by titles, cars, or big houses. You look at the wealth as a posturing, and the friends that go with it are not friends at all, but opportunists for the most part. Everybody using everybody…to gain a little ground or climb a few more rungs up the ladder of success.

And so he lived and ate and slept with the homeless, and he slept alone, and then with the homeless, and then alone, and so on and so on for years.

You would think if this person had it to do over again he would have chosen a different path, but I don’t think so. It made the man who he is today.

He gained money and he was homeless no more.

He still wore the same clothes and behaved the same, but now he had a roof over his head. In his mind, though, he will always be homeless. Because once you’ve been there, you know it’s always around the corner. Ask the 70,000 in China following the quake if they saw it coming. Ask the Midwest flood victims if they saw it coming.

When I was down on my luck, he gave me money. He gave me money knowing this might be what he needed to not be homeless again at some point in his life. He gave what I needed when I needed it, and without my asking for it. He has done this many times before to many different people. He never winked at God for how good he had been. He was giving to me so that I would feel the way he felt…when he was homeless. He gave out of concern for MY pride, NOT out of concern for his.

Someday maybe the Keys will realize what a giant walks amongst us. Made fun of and criticized, he walks on. Called a dreamer, crazy, a lunatic, he walks on. He seeks out those amongst us that can see past the normal vision.  Nothing is at it seems, and he is not either.

Walking amongst us, he offers up truth for those who can take it. He offers up choices for those who will choose. He tries to tell you, he’s been over that hill and he has seen, but few listen. He warns, he prays, he dreams, he begs, he foretells. He hopes maybe it will change one of us to be better.

He is Sloan Bashinsky, a dreamer, a prophet, a ghost in the flesh. And if you don’t believe it now, you will someday, when he’s gone. You’ll have your hard pressed reality bowling over your life and smashing you like a dirt road under a road grader. You’ll wonder if there is any hope. You’ll wonder if there is any dream left. You’ll wonder if there is any magic. And then you’ll remember… when he walked with us and talked with us, and we called him crazy.

You’ll beg for the light he shined, the hope he had, the dreams he spoke of. And you’ll get nothing but silence because he’ll be gone. And the reality you so clung to, you’ll try to discard like a filthy rag. And the friends you had will all have vanished into vapors. And you might know loneliness, and you might very well…find yourself alone.

And you too may walk out on it all, and live amongst the homeless to redeem what is left of your soul. Because in the end, only the soul matters. Our flesh will fail us, we will succumb to disease and injury, and finally death. But only our soul survives.

What shape will you have left it in for this last moment? Sloan has been warning, crying, wailing and begging for you to consider this now.

Sandy Downs

TIME TO CHOOSE (excerpts from a poem I wrote)

The principalities, the powers, the unseen,..the war between good and evil.
“He” knew the weapons would come on the shoulders of the evil warriors.
“He” tried to warn them. The village looked on. Was “he” crazy?

The principalities, the powers of darkness, call for heads
to be delivered on platters everyday.
And unknowingly you choose your side.

“Don’t be surprised when they hate you”, said Jesus,..
“for they hated me first without a cause.”
Jesus said his saints would be like the salt of the earth scattered abroad.

Some have lost their savor. How many are left?
Few…, outnumbered…, holding the ground, fighting the wars of the unseen.
But these words are pungent in the ears of the Christians, the civilized.

“No heads are called for”, they say.
Yet they are, by Satan everyday.
And the idle stand by and do nothing as the saints are delivered,
And the idle claim innocence of the blood of it all,
because they carried not.. the weapons to slaughter the Saints.

But I tell you truth, idle ones, you are guilty!
You chose not to engage in the battle,…
but the battle engaged you, knowingly or not.

You watched the slaughter, but raised NOT a word in protest.
Fear of losing the popular friends, fear of becoming the “salt”
of the earth…scattered about and preyed on by Satan and his
devouring angels.

Satan would not target the idle who allow him to deliver the heads on the platters.
The ones he despises are the workers of God, the salt of the earth.
They live by rules other than those seen.

They are written in the Bible, in the Holy books of old.
Most read with their lips and see with their eyes but believe not in their hearts.
Or they would become the salt, the persecuted, sawn asunder, living in
caves, destitute, beheaded, tortured in prison and so the Book goes.

And so the sale is void. There are no takers.
They want none of the hardships of the Lord elect.

The idle fall by the wayside, planted shallow, planted on rocks…
yielding nothing but thorns.
And Jesus says, “It is hard to kick against the pricks.”
The pricks of the fallen, the fence walkers, who will not choose a side.

One side is too torturous that bears the eternal promise.
The other side, Satan’s side, is full of success, victory in this world,
and awards and accolades.

The elect sleep without a home, without a country,
alone with their wounds
with only God to comfort them.
Speaking to the “Unseen” as their only friend.

You have chosen even if you refuse to.
You have chosen if you are not engaged.

You are NOT the salt of the earth if you are comforted, and popular.
No words of Jesus offered prosperity.
No words of Jesus have offered rewards here on earth.

Jesus spoke of trials and tribulations, and persecutions on earth.
Only from above from the Father, in a world yet to be seen,
will our efforts be rewarded.
In a world Einstein could not explain.

In a world where the formulas work, but no man can figure them out.
In a world too grand.
“Do you understand how I hung the moon and the stars?”, said God.
“Then how can you understand things greater?”

But the heads have been called for;
And the platters will be full,
And your hands will not be clean if you sit idly by,
And you will be rewarded with your portion for the killing.
It is written.

**************

It is ending, the Keys as we knew it. Long gone is Houseboat Row, long gone are the real conch Cruisers, long gone are the pets in the restaurants, long gone are the fishermen smoking and drinking and comparing their catch in the local restaurants. Long gone is One Human Family..the rainbows, the artists, and the dreamers. Long gone. But we must try to get it back.

We are measured as a society by how we treat the LEAST of us, not the most successful. I will tell you what I know. I will tell you that people need to start stepping up to the plate and backing these “lone rangers” trying to take their County back for them. Or it will be too late. I will remind you that there always is a choice. You can sit on the side and watch, or you can engage yourself and stand up. I will promise you, it can be done. I will tell you, it is not too late. It is too late, if it is only Sloan fighting.

10% of this County wants it all for them…. 90% want to share and be fair, but these 90% need to speak out!! Please come forward and help Sloan!

And from Leonard Cohen:

I can run no more with that lawless crowd,
While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud,
Well, they’ve summoned…they’ve summoned up a thunder cloud,..
They’re gonna hear from me.

Ring those bells that still can ring
Forget your PERFECT offering
There is a crack…a crack in everything…
That’s how the light gets in.

Sandra Downs

Subject: letters to the editor From: sandy@sandyforsheriff.com Date: Thu, April 17, 2008 3:01 am To: ttuell@keysnews.com

Silence is not golden in the Keys. The actions by those in authority to undermine our freedom of speech and press gets little attention. Why has no one written this letter yet? Rights aren’t lost in one day, they are stripped in tiny pieces from the fabric of our freedom. Bit by bit, piece by piece, until we don’t even recognize what is left. Out of fear of losing our job, we comply. Out of fear of drawing attention to ourselves, we comply. Out of fear of punishment, we comply. We comply until we have everything lef…BUT our freedom; and then we realize, we have nothing left at all.

Next time the Tibet flag is waved, remember: Bit by bit, piece by piece, taken first from the powerless, then from the rest.

Sandra Downs
 
 
Many people in the Florida Keys call her a dreamer, crazy, a lunatic. I call her friend, and thank her for her campaign donation. Sloan Bashinsky, mayor candidate, Key West

Relative to yesterday’s front page Key West Citizen piece about George Bush being prosecuted for murder, down below is a press release created by Bob Alexander of Seattle Washington, followed by a letter from the lawyer who wrote the book that started it all. Bob told me on the phone yesterday that the book was almost totally blacked out by the national news media. Pretty interesting, given the lawyer author’s previous exploits and books, which enjoyed broad national media exposure. When I asked Bob why he thought so many parents of American soldiers killed in Iraq still defend President Bush and that war, Bob said it’s too painful for parents to consider that their children died for nothing. They want to believe their children died in a patriotic cause. I said I agreed. When I said every American, Republican or Democrat, or otherwise politically aligned, who supported George Bush going into Iraq is responsible for the Iraq war dead and wounded, Bob agreed. When he said there is no way to just put Iraq behind us and move on, that wasn’t done with Nazi Germany, I said I agreed. And not with Vietnam, either, were we able to just move on. Bob agreed. And he agreed that Iraq proved America learned nothing from Vietnam. We lamented together that President Obama seems to have learned nothing either, evidenced by his increasing troop deployments in Afghanistan. I told Bob I was glad to meet him and I wished him good luck with the crusade God had dumped on him. He has my condolences. Many times have I said publicly and privately that George Bush should be tried and hung for killing American soldiers and Iraqis. Many times. Sloan Bashinsky
 For Immediate Release

Brewing Trouble for George W. BushSEATTLE, WA. Feb. 17, 2009 – A 57-year old Seattle coffee bean entrepreneur hopes he just brewed a pot of trouble for former president Bush and others in his administration.
 
On February 7th Bob Alexander his wife, Arminda and local volunteers, mailed a copy of legendary prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi’s book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, to 2,200 local district attorneys across the US. Each of these prosecutors has had at least one soldier from their district killed in Iraq.
 
Bugliosi is best known for his prosecution and conviction of Charles Mason. As a Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney, he successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and several other members of his “family” for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and six others. He lost only one of the 106 felony cases he tried as a prosecutor, which included winning 21 out of 21 murder cases. While Bugliosi’s name may be familiar to some, Bob Alexander’s is known only to customers who purchase premium coffee from his SuperBeans.com Web site. Bob and his wife were motivated to take personal action after reading Bugliosi’s book.
 
“Last Summer, I read Vince’s book,” Alexander said. “After years of thinking that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice would walk away from their crimes, here at last was hope that something could be done to help put right their horrible wrongs. In his book Bugliosi clearly lays out how any district attorney can indict and prosecute Bush, and other administration figures, for murder. All any DA needs to prove they have jurisdiction is to show that a soldier from his or her county had been killed in the War in Iraq.”
Taken by the simplicity and clarity of Bugliosi’s legal argument, Alexander initially used his web-based business to promote both the book and it’s central premise. Customers who logged on to purchase another pound or two of Kona coffee beans, were instead met with the message:
 
“In lieu of buying coffee this month … please consider picking up a copy of Vincent Bugliosi’s book instead. When you’re finished reading the book … send your copy to your State Attorney, or your county District Attorney. Or better yet … deliver it in person.” The next day, Jude Morford, founder of “woman standing,” called and told Alexander that she was taking him up on his challenge and planned to hand-deliver her copy of Bugliosi’s book directly to her local district attorney, and wanted Bob to accompany her.
 
“That’s when it struck me.” Alexander said. “Although I wanted as many Americans as possible to read this book, district attorneys should be at the top of the list. So I suggested, let’s mail this book, written by one of America’s preeminent prosecuting attorneys, to every DA in the country since it sets forth such a prime facia argument for prosecution.”
 
Alexander set up a new Web site, http://www. prosecutegeorgebush.com, asking for donations and volunteers. The goal was to raise enough money to buy 2200 books and to mail one to every district attorney in America.
 
“The site went “live” Wednesday night, September 17, 2008,” Alexander said. “The only media promotion we received was from radio talk show host, Mike Malloy. His audience alone donated more than 95% of the money we needed. By January his listeners had sent in enough $3 to $15 donations to put us over the finish line.”
 
After negotiating an “at cost” deal from the publisher, Alexander was able to cover the $17,000 for the books and postage. By February 7 all 2,200 books in the mail making to district attorneys from New York to Hawaii. In all it came to 5 pallet loads of Bugliosi’s book, weighing in at two tons.
 
Reached for comment, the author, Vincent Bugliosi, voiced hope that Alexander’s efforts will finally prod at least someone with criminal legal authority to act.
 
“I hope that this increases the possibility that a courageous prosecutor, committed to the rule of law, will hear the cries for justice from the graves of the thousands who had their lives violently cut short and take the ample case I have laid out in this book before an American jury to let them decide whether George W Bush and others from his administration are guilty or not guilty, and if guilty and, if found guilty, what the punishment should be,” Bugliosi said.
 
When asked what he thought about the prospects of his efforts sparking a Federal, state or local investigation and prosecution Alexander said he had little faith that either federal or state systems of justice will rise to the occasion, which is why he mailed Bugliosi’s book only to local prosecutors.
 
“I don’t believe we should wait to see what the feds or states will or won’t do,” Alexander said. “Or to paraphrase a popular bumper sticker … ‘Think Globally – Prosecute Locally.’”
 
For more information contact:
 
Bob Alexander
http://prosecutegeorgebush.com
Toll-Free 1-866-394-9571Letter below written by Vinncent Bugliosi for Bob Alexander to include in books mailed by Bob to 2,200 local prosecutors at Bob’s expense. Bob told me on the phone that, after considerable haggling, he purchased the books from the publisher for $3.50 each. S.B.

_______________________________________

I am herein enclosing a copy of my New York Times bestselling book The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder. I hope that you will find the time to read it and that you will agree with its essential conclusion-that George Bush took this nation to war in Iraq on a lie, under false pretenses, and therefore, under the law, he is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 young American soldiers who have died so far fighting his war in Iraq.
 
If you agree, I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to talk or perhaps meet with you to discuss two main points. First, whether there is sufficient legally admissible evidence against Bush (in my opinion, there is clear and very persuasive evidence) to warrant a criminal prosecution against him now that he has left office. It should be noted that in addition to all the primary evidence set forth in my book, I think we can be very confident that during a grand jury investigation and with the power of subpoena, much more evidence of Bush’s guilt (as well as that of his co-conspirators like Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice) will emerge. Just one example. In a book by Ron Suskind that came out after mine, The Way of the World, he presents evidence that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a document linking Hussein with Al Qaeda. The second point to be considered is whether your office would have jurisdiction to prosecute Bush (see pages 154-156, 168, 305-307, and 309-310 of my book) for the murder of any soldier or soldiers from your county who died fighting his war. If the answer to each of these questions is “yes,” and you are willing to proceed with this legal case, I would of course be available to assist you in any way you saw fit in this historic prosecution. That assistance could range, if you chose, from being a consultant all the way up to and including being appointed a special prosecutor.
 
Indeed, a recent candidate for a state Attorney General announced at a press conference with me that if she won, she would appoint me special prosecutor to seek a murder indictment against George Bush. But she entered the race too late (on September 18, just a month and a half before the election), and because she had an under-financed campaign she was unable to get her message out to the citizens of the state. As a result, she did not do well against a well-entrenched Democratic incumbent who had been in office since 1998. It should be mentioned that a poll showed that by 4-1, people in the state said they would vote for a candidate for Attorney General who would pursue Bush criminally. But the campaign, without adequate funds, was unable to connect the candidate with this sentiment already out there. In a related vein, a New York Times-CBS national poll in 2005 showed that the majority of Americans believed that Bush had “intentionally misled” America into war in Iraq.
 
I don’t have to tell you that in America, no man is so high that he is above the law. If we prosecute those in America who only commit one murder, under what theory don’t we prosecute a president who is criminally responsible for over four thousand murders? And let’s not forget the over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, children and babies who have died horrible, violent deaths because of Bush’s war. Bush is obviously guilty of these murders also, but I was unable to establish jurisdiction here in
American to prosecute Bush for the deaths of these Iraqi citizens. However, I was able to establish jurisdiction here in America to prosecute Bush for the deaths of those American soldiers who have died in Iraq fighting Bush’s war.
 
By way of footnote, although I am aware of one constitutional scholar who says that George Bush has immunity from prosecution, the only legal authority he cites for this is a civil case, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982). But the Fitzgerald case only holds that a president has immunity from civil lawsuits, not criminal prosecution. Indeed, the United States Constitution itself (Article I, Section 3, cl. 7) and The Federalist Papers (Alexander Hamilton in essay number 69 in 1787) make it clear that the president has no immunity from prosecution. If a president had such immunity, there wouldn’t have been any need for President Ford to pardon former President Nixon in 1974. Several prominent constitutional scholars have endorsed the conclusion of my book that Bush can be prosecuted for murder in an American courtroom for the deaths of American soldiers in the Iraq war.
 
One additional point. The cost of this proposed prosecution would be great, most likely far beyond the budget of your office. However, there can be little doubt that if it became known that your office was actually proceeding in the prosecution of Bush, and funds were needed, all the money that was necessary would pour in from people around the country to help finance the prosecution. This, of course, is completely permissible. An example in point (but where the group was a number of Louisiana
businessmen) was New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Clay Shaw for conspiracy to commit murder in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
 
To capsulize my feelings on this matter, although I may not succeed, I’m not going to be satisfied until I see George Bush in an American courtroom being prosecuted for first degree murder. George Bush cannot be permitted to get away with murder. I realize my biggest obstacle is the perceptive observation made by Mark Twain: “Why is physical courage so common, but moral courage so very rare?”
 
Thank you in advance for your consideration of this matter, one that would be the biggest murder case in this nation’s history. I look forward to a positive response from you at your earliest convenience.
 
Sincerely,
 
Vincent Bugliosi
 
P.S. A documentary for the big screen based on my book is nearing completion and is scheduled to be released within the next half year.

Received this reply to yesterday’s Captain.Shovelhead post from Domingo, a retired scientist email pen pal living in New England:
 
Here is a quote for your campaign adds that exemplifies your political platform!?

From my little helpers to you!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/arts/music/21cohe.html

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
 
I replied that about a year ago Sandy Downs burned three Cohen CDs for me, and I keep one in my car and listen to it anytime there is nothing on the radio I like.
 
Later yesterday, I received a lecture from Sandy about the need for me to encourage people to go wireless, rather than scare the daylights out of them about it. She said God talks to us all the time and we need to start listening. I said I had been thinking about an analogy for several days, which I used to use: that God is like a radio and speaks to us on whatever frequency we are tuned into: the marriage frequency, the church frequency, the work frequency, the sports frequency, the political frequency, the booze frequency, the music frequency, and so forth. I told Sandy that once upon a time my work was trying to teach people how to listen to God, one on one, in groups, and in stuff I wrote. I said going wireless is different from all of that. When you go wireless, it is something that is done to/for you. After that, you are hearing from God and it can get really rough. Sandy said not to scare people like that. They want to hear from God. No, I said, people do not want to hear from God, because God does not tell them what they want to hear. And so it went, the dilemma I always face when this topic comes up.
 
Dreamtime early this morning brought a pretty sharp correction, in two areas.
 
First, I had been too hard on a friend for “letting me down” about something important he had roped me into involving a pasttime he and I both enjoy doing together. It would have been a real stretch for him to go through with it, then he decided he wasn’t prepared and backed out. As a result, I told him I could not participate in that pasttime with him for a while.
 
Second, I had missed the wireless signals entirely that God had provided through Domingo and Sandy. This happens often: I miss a wireless signal, and then I’m corrected. Such is life, being wireless. Meaning, if I say it’s wonderful hearing from God, then I’m lying. But, as I told Sandy yesterday, I hate to think how I would have turned out if I had not been made wireless. I hate to think it. So while I think Key West, the Keys, America, or even this planet going wireless would create a great deal of discomfort for just about all people, I feel going wireless is the only way for people to move toward something bigger and better. Human beings simply are not equipped to get there on their own. They need help letting the light in through the cracks.
 
I suppose it needs to start somewhere. Why not Key West? I know the wireless terrain because I have lived it for over twenty years. I’m happy to share my own experiences and tell other people what their wireless experiences look like to me. If I make a mistake, I will be corrected and will let them know. This is pro bono. Gratis. Independent of my running for mayor. Independent of who anyone wants to be our next mayor. You may not like what I tell you, but it will be my best shot. I will give it hoping that it means something to you, and that you can and will use it.

Sloan Bashinsky, Sunday (Domingo), 22 February 2009, Key West
 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com / (305) 407-4285 (cell)

The texts of an email exchange triggered by yesterday’s In.Kind post:

Sloan,
 
I read your emails often and I am very interested in your dreams.  Do you ever dream about 2012?  If you wrote about it I missed it.
 
I also like your  idea of running for Mayor here.  I voted for you when you ran before for (commish?)and was sorry you did not win. I can relate to you but I think you might have trouble getting the more conservative votes.  I am in business here and associate with conservatives but I am really very liberal.  If Obama had shown his true liberal self he probably wouldn’t have won as easily.  Do you think this would work for you?
 
Better to get voted in, so that you can then help us, than not to get voted in.
 
Good luck.
 
Iris
www.keywestfinest.com
305 296 7606
305 304 1602
 
Hi, Iris.
 
Thanks for your encouragement, thoughts, and previous vote for me. If it was in a city race, it was for mayor. If a county race, for county commissioner.Sometimes my dreams are a bit TOO interesting for me. Sometimes I’m left feeling like a manatee run over by a cigar boat. This morning was such a time. Heap big commotion going on in the spirit world is my take. Heap big.
 
No, I never dream about 2012. I first started hearing about 2012 when I lived in Boulder, Colorado in the late 1980s through 1995. Lots of interest about that in the New Age community, and I heard in the Native American communities. I read some stuff on it but don’t remember much about it now, other than it has to do with Mayan Calendar predictions of some kind of MAJOR Earth event/change/shift by 2012. I get so much ongoing about stuff I’m involved in day and night, that maybe 2102 gets washed out, or maybe I’m just shielded against it. I also seem to be shielded against the prophesies of the New Testament, mostly in Revelation. Can’t imagine what that was like for the fellow it happened to. Can’t imagine him really being able to make much real sense out of it. Someone like that today, they just might lock up and throw away the Key.
 
A great concern of mine about Obama was he appeared to me to be a chameleon. I could not get a sense of what he was underneath, except through inference from “collateral” goings on. I was very disturbed that he shucked Jeremiah Wright, whose rhetoric was indeed harsh, but, alas, I still feel he had a pretty good sense of the truth about America’s relationship with the devil. It really bothered me when I heard Obama say he would increase America’s military involvement in Afghanistan. For the life of me, who majored in Economics at Vanderbilt, I can’t see any way for the nearly $900 billion infusion and the $75 billion for homeowners facing foreclosure and waging two wars in the Middle East to save anything. Although Obama said during the campaign that he prayed for guidance, G. W. Bush said the same thing about his decision to invade Iraq. Obama chose several people to be in his administration who ended up being not as appropriate as he had hoped. If he’d been treated to the kind of radar alerts I receive, I imagine he would not have even tried to make those selections in the first place. I imagine he would not have said he was going to increase American military presence in Afghanistan. I imagine he would have stuck with Jeremiah Wright. Wouldn’t have gotten him elected, probably, but what do we have now? The Anti-Christ? An Anti-Christ? I sure hope not. But I can’t help but wonder.
 
I went into that about Obama as a way of answering your question about my adopting a disguise for my campaign. I don’t know if I could even do it. It would bother me and might even be constitutionally impossible for me. On top of that, the angels might not allow it in any event. On top of that, I’ve been so open about me for so long in Key West and the Keys that some people might think I was trying to trick them by suddenly acting differently. A gander at the homepage of goodmorningkeywest.com pretty well blows any cover I might adopt with a straight face that might cause me to feel like a, hmmm, politician. A covert agent, I don’t seem to be.
 
Even so, my buddy Todd German keeps giving off vibes that he thinks I might do better in campaigns if I didn’t use the God and angel talk. Jim Hendrick gives off the same vibes. I’ve heard the same from other people. For years I’ve heard that, regardless of what I was doing (before I got into politics). The rub is, if it were not for the “other” giving me input, I would be useless to the work I’m given to attempt. And I would be a sitting duck for scam artists I didn’t detect by my own wits, and plenty of such there are. Plenty of such.
 
Meanwhile, I’m digging up more shit as each day passes, with more than a little help from my “friends.” Probably not a great campaign theme, but I can’t wait to see the art layout for the T-shirt design Sandy Downs dreamed up and told me about today. She’s going to get the T-shirts done at her expense. It all came from her. Already I can see ways to use the design in ways other than T-shirts. It may not get me elected, but it sure as hell says it all in pictures and a few words. It sure as hell does.
 
Sloan
 
 
Next morning p.s.
 
Some dreams last night, followed by some ruminations, followed by pondering your first name, Iris, led me to ponder looking at something that happened yesterday a little differently. The recommendation by Mad Jack that Key West City become wireless. Penny Johnson at Sippin’ Internet Cafe told me yesterday evening that she and Onet have no problem in their business with Key West going wireless but they feel there will be a hefty price tag; either lots of advertising popping up on people’s monitor screens or the City charging access fees. I said that isn’t what I had in mind at all, and meant for the City to provide it for free, as part of its advertising. I said needed to look into it more.
 
I’ve learned that what happens when I’m awake is as capable as being approached as a dream as what happens when I sleep. Pondering all of this, it came to me that perhaps Mad Jack was a messenger that perhaps Key West needs to go wireless in a different sense. Jim Hendrick sometimes refers to my ability to receive from beyond as my having “wireless,” and that’s a pretty darn good analogy. I told him the other day that I had not always had it, but in August 1988 it was installed (or maybe just activitated), and then began a long breaking-in, getting-used-to period. I told Jim I have to be very careful with what I receive, and when I go astray I’m corrected, sometimes very sharply.
 
So I’m wondering this morning if Key West is headed toward having this kind of wireless installed? Might be pretty darn interesting. Might be more than pretty darn interesting. Might get the seahorses up to a full gallop down Duval Street. It might get the mermaids to hopping out of the water and taking over the beaches. Might draw a lot of attention from near and far and very far. Might cause some folks hereabouts to decide they want to live somewhere else. Whether leaving the premises would get them de-wirelessed, I don’t know. I’m wireless wherever I am.
 
Probably related is an image that passed my way yesterday with some help from one of my mermaid ”friends.” I’m standing on top of  Mt. Trashmore in pirate garb with a shovel digging down toward all sorts of creepy crawlers and skeletons most folks around these parts would recognize if they saw them. Below all of that is some really nice treasure stuff most people around these parts also would recognize on sight, including a pirate chest full of gold. That’s how it works: if you want to get to the nice stuff, you have to shovel a lot of shit out of the way.
 
Maybe I should adopt “Captain Shovelhead” for my campaign name? That would really stand out during the campaign and on the ballot, don’t you think? Thanks for jostling my ponderer.
 
Sloan 

After making yesterday’s post, I was told in a nap dream, “You can accept donations.” Waking, I figured it probably was about the mayor race: Maybe I was released to accept donations to my campaign, something I have not before been permitted by the wing-ones to do. So . . .
 
I called Todd German and told him about the dream and that, if it was about the campaign for mayor, it would require a major shift in my perspective but I was not closed to it. Todd said he thought it would be good for me to accept donations for the campaign, and then he sent me, as a “hint,” three photos he had received by email from Jim Hendrick, when he was in Nicaragua last week with Hugh Morgan at Hugh’s ranch. Hugh’s wife is Nicaraguan, thus Hugh’s interest in that country. Todd had said on the phone that he thought German in Spanish is like Herman in English. He joked that maybe he had left some Germans in Nicaragua when he was in the Special Forces down there.
 

Then Todd and I discussed the fact that Mayor Morgan McPherson had promoted rounding up utility bills to create funds to make it easier day care center workers to get by, and the fact that Morgan and his wife own a day care center. Todd was very disturbed by Morgan’s self-serving attitude and action. He wondered why people do not understand conflict of interest. I said a lot of people don’t understand conflict of interest, and we all have conflicts of interest, and that’s where God tests us. I tossed in that I’d read recently that Morgan had been in favor of a fund being set up, $2,000,000 the number I remember, to assist homeowners facing foreclosure. Homeowners such as Morgan and his wife.
 
After talking with Todd, I called Jim Hendrick to see if we were going to play chess later on, and to tell him about the nap dream and for him to be thinking about it. After I let him sneak off with two games, which disturbed me greatly, we talked some about my campaign. He seemed surprised to hear me say I was running to win. Todd had seemed surprised to hear that, also, when we spoke yesterday morning. Jim said there are two things I need to do to have a chance at winning. They are critical, he said. One, I need to go door to door meeting people, starting with people I know who will vote for and support me. And then I need to get them to go with me door to door, or go door to door themselves. I said I don’t know anyone in Key West who will do that. Jim looked surprised. The second thing I need to do, Jim said, is send out a lot of campaign mail. I wondered where the money for that would come from.I told Jim, as I had also told Todd earlier, that Sandy Downs had told me that she wanted to make T-shirts for my campaign. She had decided she was going to do it, she told me when I called her yesterday to tell her about the nap dream, whether I went along with it or not.
 
Jim then spoke of my getting contributions “in kind.” I said people could campaign for me, on their time and dime, and that would be a contribution in kind as long as I wasn’t involved. He agreed, but said it would be tricky, I would have to be very careful to stay out of it. I said they could do anything but attack my opponents, which was mine to do. If they attacked my opponents, I would denounce them publicly. Jim said I don’t need to attack my opponents. I said Morgan needed working over. Then I told of when I had lunch on Christmas Day with Todd German at the Yacht Harbor. I sat across from Craig Cates, who said he was running for mayor. So I asked what was his vision for Key West? Craig said he wanted everybody to get along. I told Jim Hendrick yesterday that wanting everybody to get along is not much of a vision for a mayoral candidate. Jim agreed.
 
As we parted, Jim said I should tell people that I’d had a dream in which Capt. Tony came to me and endorsed my candidacy. I brightened up, said, yeah, great idea! And I will tell them Capt. Tony told me to say fuck a lot, or he would pull his endorsement. Alas, Capt. Tony was otherwise disposed last night, tending to his harem. It caused me to look forward to the afterlife. On waking this morning, it occurred to me that Jim did not indicate any interest yesterday in contributing money to my campaign, even as my thoughts drifted back to an email he had sent form Costa Rica saying I would not be a viable candidate if I did not aggressively promote my campaign and get my name before the public.
 
Also after waking this morning, I found myself wondering if the winged ones had used Todd and Jim to tell me it’s not about money donations, but about donations in kind. Like the T-shirts Sandy wants to make. Like people who want to see me in office simply taking it upon themselves to try to get me elected. Like people who give me campaign ideas. People like Mad Jack Gunn, who hailed me this morning, as I walked to Sippin’ Internet Café to write today. Our first face-to-fact meeting. Mad Jack only corresponds with me in spontaneous verse. His donation this morning is Key West needs city-wide wireless. It will make Key West a hell of a lot more attractive to tourists. As much as I hate to disappoint Penny and Onet Johnson, who own Sippin’ and are my friends, Mad Jack is right. City-wide wireless will really help the city attract visitors.
 
I found myself yesterday wondering if I purchased a couple of buckets of paint, if I then could get a paint-contracting license from the City of Key West, to put to use the cool campaign sign idea Jim Hendrick had donated to my campaign. I saw me in the wee hours painting “Mayor Sloan” vertically on all the light posts and trees on Duval Street. Then I saw me vacationing in the Stock Island Hilton, participating in Lynne Vantrigilia’s Art Behind Bars program, eating gourmet food, practicing jailhouse law, and spreading rumors of the return of the mother ship to save the weirdos from extinction. What do you think? “Extra, extra! Read all about it! Jail inmate elected mayor of Key West.” Do you think the national media will pick up on that? The international media? The Vulcans, Romuluns and Klingons? They’ve been wondering on the City Commission where to put the new City Hall, haven’t they? How about under the Stock Island Hilton? Plenty of room there next to the petting zoo, don’t you think? Overhead cover, so rain can get anybody wet. All it would cost would be two or three hundred folding chairs and a few folding tables. Beats spending $22 million, the current budget, for a new City Hall, don’t you think? Immediate occupancy. Tear down the old, moldy City Hall and build, hmmmm, a Key West Living Treasures museum, paying homage to the weirdos, er, memorable characters who made Key West the wonderful zoo that it is today. People like Capt. Tony and Mad Jack, and Captain Kidd and Brain Dead and Lefty, to name a few.
 
Sandy Downs mentioned yesterday, when I called her about the nap dream, about putting an image of Sloan in pirate attire on a T-shirt, and an image of Sloan in the buff on a nude beach, with only enough cover to keep him off Mayor McPherson’s moral hit list. Like there’s all that much to cover. I told Sandy that she’s an artist; use her imagination. Maybe she will make it a lot bigger than it really is. I wrote to Lynne Vantriglia and asked for her artistic input, too. I own several really cool pieces done by Lynne’s students, and one by Lynne. Sho nuff one-of-a-kind living treasures themselves. Lynne’s antique paint-splattered blue-jeans, which she sometimes threatens at Art Behind Bars functions to strip out of and raffle off to support Art Behind Bars, ought to be in the Key West Living Treasures Museum, along with plenty of likenesses of Lynne and other salty Key West women, names withheld presently, to balance out the male treasures.
 
Hmmm, did I leave anything out? Probably. But what the heck? The primary is next fall. There’s plenty of time to come up with all sorts of kinky ways to save Key West, the jewel of this planet, nay, mateys, even the Universe! A magnet for mother ships from throughout the Cosmos. A nifty sidestep of the Great Depression that the mainland is about to get a real up close and personal touchy-feely romp in the hay with. A cure for still declining Key West real estate prices and upside-downing mortgages. Then we won’t need ordinances raising taxes to create funds to help homeowners or day care workers. In fact we won’t ever have to raise taxes or utility bills ever again, so flooded will Key West be with visitors. We won’t even need a Tourist Development Council or Chamber of Commerce or Key West Business Guild. We will be making so much money that almost everybody will get along and nobody will have time to go to business meetings to talk about making money. Monroe County, the State of Florida and the U.S. Treasury will come to Key West asking for donations. We will be the new Zurich, secret, er, numbered bank accounts and all. Right here on one of the corners of the Bermuda Triangle. What the heck. For all we know, Key West is the cause of the Bermuda Triangle. Move over Roswell, we’re the real deal. The real deal.
 
I’d like to tell you all of this was just a dream, so you can disregard it. But I’d be lying if I told you that. The only part that was a dream is the part about it being okay for me to receive campaign donations. T-shirt ideas are appreciated. I told Sandy and Lynne that I hope the T-shirts will become “collectors’ items.” Maybe people will have duels on Duval Street to see who ends up with one. Duels on national and satellite television. Move over Jay Leno and David Letterman. Stand down Starship Enterprise and X-Files. Better still, come join us. We’re the real deal. The real deal.
 
Sloan Bashinsky, 20 February 2009, Key West

First below is the text of an email yesterday from me to Lorri Szostak, M.D., who brought me into the food situation at the Stock Island Detention Center, and to Randy Berg, Esq., the lawyer who handed the McIntyre case against Sheriff Roth and others, which led to a federal Consent Decree that covered and still covers all jails in the Keys.
 
 
Lorri and Randy:
 
It looks to me that you two were given the jail food case to represent for God. I was brought into it to lend assistance. I will keep doing that I’m TOLD to do, but from where I sit, I see little, if any, chance for this to be resolved satisfactorily, if both of you do not do your part. It’s your lawsuit, Randy. You are the expert witness, Lorri. I hope you both will do your parts.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
 
Here is the text of Lorri’s reply, which I opened this morning. Nothing from Berg, so far.

Sloan,

I am doing my part; for you to assume or allege otherwise, just because I am doing my part differently and at a different pace than you would have me do it, is incorrect ….

Again, as I stated in an earlier post to you late January, I find your rebukes of me in your blog to be harsh and totally uncalled for.  I have found over the years that when someone informs me G-d told them I (Lorri) am to do something or other, to be highly wary of this.   I too answer to a “Higher Authority” and I have learned over the years to wait and not rush in on my own. If what you are receiving truly is for me to do, and to do now, I should be perceiving the same direction and same timing – which I am not at this time….In fact it is very clear to me that at this time I am not to go in the direction you are insisting that I go.  So please cease and desist from bashing me in your blog. 

Respectfully,

Lorri 
 
 
Here is the text of my reply to Lorri. The reference to the Baldwin case relates to a separate email she sent to me containing an Alabama federal court case denying a motion to dismiss against Baldwin County, Alabama, for toxic chemical injuries inmates in that county’s jail allegedly suffered as the result of having to deal with paint inside the jail. Many inmates, and a jail employee apparently, experienced severe toxic chemical poisoning in the Stock Island Detention Center over a period of several days when interior of parts of the jail were being painted.
Lorri,
 
I dreamt early this morning of being under spiritual attack. On waking, I could not get a sense of where it was coming from. I come to Sippin’ and go online and read your heated email.
 
Night before last, you came to me in a dream and said I needed to be more specific. That was in reference to a prayer I had made the day before, in response to Stock Island inmate Donald Bruce’s second handwritten attempt to get me involved in the paint toxic chemical situation that he, Bob Pierce, and you keep trying to get me to do something about, even though I have made it very clear in everything I’ve written publicly and privately, and in your and my many telephone conversations, and in my conversaton with Bob in jail, that I am being TOLD to focus on the jail food problem.
 
In the prayer, I asked that God’s will, not mine, be done. I added to the prayer a request for a Divine Intervention, and to that I added a request for another way, if there was one. I got a sharp internal correction after making that prayer, the last part of it was my take for the sharp correction. In my dream that night, you appeared before me and told me to be more specific. That is what led to my email to you and Randy Berg yesterday, pleading with you both to do what needs to be done to get the jail food situation straightened out. You replied. I’ve never heard anything from Berg.
 
You fell and broke your RIGHT hand, Lorri, to stop you from WRITING and to get you to do something else. You kept writing. Then you got shingles on your FACE, to get you to look at your PRIDE. Bob Pierce, Donald Bruce and many other inmates are being starved and poisoned, depending on what they eat or don’t eat, and that did not drive you to really try to help them. The case was given to you by God, Lorri. You are the lead in it. It all hinges on how you deal with it.
 
All I can do is try to explain it to you, as I have for over twenty years attempted to explain this sort of thing to many, many people personally; then there were the tens of thousands of people, including thousands of inmates, who read books I wrote about the truly rough work assignments God dishes out. You turn away, Lorri, at your peril. What the peril is, I cannot say, because I do not know. All I know is there are consequences for not following through with what God gives us to do, and when the consequences come, we may not even connect them with what we didn’t do that we were supposed to do. Already you have broken your right hand and contracted shingles . . . 
 
Apparently you agree with Bob Pierce and Donald Bruce that the paint poisoning is more important than the inmates being starved and/or poisoned with bad food, since you keep trying to involve me in the paint poisoning. Twice I called my own personal attorney, who sometimes gets involved in rough cases, to see if he was interested in the paint poisoning. He never returned my calls. Therefore, unless and until I hear directly from Above that I am supposed to get involved in the paint poisoning, it is not mine to undertake. If I get something different from Above, of course I will get involved in the paint poisoning, too.
 
You surely have learned by now, Lorri, after all of our many phone conversations and emails, and from what I post daily, email copies of which you receive, that I’m liable to publish anything. What on earth causes you to think you are any different from anyone else? Or from me, about whom I also write plenty, for better and for worse?
 
Sloan