Good Morning Florida Keys

The Body Is Sacred (Key West)

In yesterday’s Citizens’ Voice, a nude beach critic said the body is sacred and should be respected. I figured the odds were pretty good, like maybe 110%, that this was a religious-right person. I also figured this person didn’t remember the story of Adam and Eve correctly. It was Adam and  Eve who decided the body God had made wasn’t sacred and needed to be covered up. It was Adam and Eve who decided there was something wrong with being naked.
 
While I sort of hate to say it, sort of, it looks to me that the religious right has usurped God and ignored the very Scriptures they claim to be the inerrant word of God. Perhaps it is they, therefore, who should pack up and leave what even some of  them, I wager, call Paradise, and go live somewhere that agrees with their misinterpretation of the Bible. Somewhere that thinks the body is dirty and not sacred. Somewhere like Vatican City or Bahrain. Outside of places like that, great works of art of this world have long indicated that the body truly is sacred.
 
Jesus told his disciples that when they went before the tribunal not to worry what they would say; the Holy Spirit would put the words into their mouths. What happened to Aphrodite and her girlfriend at Hometown PAC’s Call to Candidates at Salute was the same thing. The two yong women were seized and used by the Holy Spirit to tell the crowd gathered there that God wants nude beaches here.
 
As if to say “Right on!” I heard a few days ago that Channel 76 (Key West) has been running replays of Hometown PAC’s Call to Candidates gathering at Salute on Higgs Beach, including Aphrodite and her girlfriend supporting nude beaches.
 
As if to say “Right on!” I received this poem by email the other day from someone on my email list who had been sent  it by someone elese:

We have numbered bars

We have quirky ways,

Our ideas are different

We have weekends of craze!

This debate over beaches

To say the least,

Is the craziest so far

It’s just a beach!

If we allocate it for nude

Why would one care?

Our town is the reason

It all works down here!

Sign a petition

Fill out some forms,

Everything gets done here

It’s a simple matter of furlong!

Post some signs

Some ads for our beach

A suggested name to call it..

“WITHOUT A STEECH”

author unknown  2009

Back to the present, sort of, from today’s Citizens’ Voice: “Now they want nude beaches in Key West. And people wonder why the Conchs are leaving. The people who want this is one of the reasons.”
 
Really? People like me are one of the reasons the Conchs are leaving? Really?
 
I bet this will be news to Mayor Morgan McPherson and the six city commissioners. I bet this will be news to Keys Energy Services and the Aqueduct Authority. And news to School Superintendent Randy Acevedo and the School Board. And news to Chief of Police Donnie Lee and Sheriff Bob Peryam. And news to to Key West Chamber of Commerce, the Key West Business Guild, and every business person in Key West. And news to Key West Citizen.
 
I’m looking right now at a document prepared by Todd German, who is on the Citizen Editorial Board and works for Centennial Bank (formerly Marine Bank), which he told me he prepared mostly from published Census Bureau statistics. The 2007 Census figures show an 8% decline in population. In the 25-44 age bracket, we lost 8,000 people, which offset by a gain of 4000 people in the 55-64 age bracket. It is no big secret that most of the 25-44 age bracket departees left because they could not  afford to live here. It is no big secret that more young people will leave for the same reason.
 
One of the arguments being used for allowing nude beaches is it will  attract visitors who would not ordinarily come to Key West and the Keys, but will do so if there are nude beaches. Can this be proved? No, it can’t be proved. What we can do is look at what happened in other areas where nude beaches were allowed, over the screaming and howling of the religious right, to whom I would hardly be surprised to learn the Citizens’ Voice critic belongs but did not come out and say it directly.
 
We can look at the nearest nude beach known to me in the US:  Haulover Beach in Miami, which provided a HUGE shot in the arm to that area’s economy. We also can look at local anecdotal market research. The frequent inquiries the Key West Business Guild Welcome Center gets about Key West having nude beaches. The same inquiry local taxi drivers get. The same inquiry a sidewalk artist friend of mine frequently gets. The other day, a fellow who hangs out at Sippin’ Internet Cafe told me, now that he had thought about it, over the past few years he supposed 20 people had asked him on the sidewalk where the nude beach is?
  
Beyond economics, many locals who want a nude beach here sincerely believe it is in complete keeping with the spirit of Key West. I am one of them. Beyond even that, many of our citizens want to use a nude beach to use themselves. I am not one of them, but I might do it anyway under the put up or shut up principle. 
 
I was told by people who have been here much longer than I that there used to be a nude beach in Key West, and some topless beach areas. But in the 1970s, we got a religious-right mayor, his name now escapes me, and he got rid of au nturale on Key West beaches. I wonder if he were our mayor today, if he would try get rid of our gay residents, whom, I understand, make up about 30% of our city’s population?.

Sloan for mayor
 
Political advertisement, approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky

Free Beaches (Key West)

Thomas Jefferson

Consider the personnal saga of Richard Mason, a Korean war veteran and President of Southeast Florida Free Beaches/Naturists Society, taken from three different emails he sent to me. It appears Richard also is a veteran of the very kind of war he risked his life believing he had defended in Korea.  
 
Sloan:

I became a nude sunbather because of my health.  I have psoriasis.

I contracted psoriasis while in the US Army.  It was originally diagnosed as a fungus infection. In 1953 the treatment options were few. We had no doctors where I was stationed. We had medics. These were tough battle experienced rangers from World War II, who thought we were a bunch of sissified Americans and they enjoyed taunting us.

Every illness we recruits incurred was compared to an open belly wound on the battlefields of France and thus we did not know what being sick was really like.

In my case. they would scrub the wound with GI Soap, aka Fels Naptha, and then pour alcohol on it to kill the fungus all the time laughing. .  Pain has no more extreme limits than that. Then they would give you a quick acting liquid that would give you about 10 seconds to get to a restroom or you would defecate in your pants.

During the 1970s I was covered from head to toe with severe psoriasis.  I was visiting the VA Hospital daily for coal tar and ultra-violet light treatments both A & B wave lengths.  I have had over 1500 treatments as well as x-ray and nitrogen mustard (mustard gas) applications . I was sleeping in a rubber suit covered with an ointments. The final deep sleep started to look good. as an option.

The doctor recommended I try salt water and natural sunlight. I requested an received a prescription for same.  Being shy, I did not know where to go. About this  time I heard the folks of So. Fl. Free Beaches on the radio discussing their Constitutional Rights to a designated clothing-optional beach.

I contacted them and joined them on a Sunday visit to a remote beach on Key Biscayne. While nude, four policemen showed up on Horseback and threatened to arrest us for being lewd & lascivious. and indecent exposure.  I showed them my prescription and we were told to dress and leave the beach or go to jail.  In America. This happens. You are run off and accused of something that you are not.

This is where organized naturism comes into play. If there was no group representing the issue, where would an individual go for representation?

We could not find an attorney that knew anything about public nudity law so we started going to the Law Library at the Univ. of Miami. We spent two years researching every case involving public nudity and Sheppardized them. Made copies of hundreds of court decisions and put together a book of the pertinent cases on the issue.

The point is that most police officers do not know the courts interpretations of statute law. Most arrests on the issue of public nudity are wrongful citations.

Mere nudity in Florida is not a violation of the law ( Fl s/s 800.03 ) concerning lewd & lascivious behavior. The nudity must be combined with an action. Nudity & more. 

Nor is it indecent exposure, providing it is in a plac e set apart for that purpose.,  Thus the need for a designated place.

Additionally, Florida is an Antebellum state of the Old South. The laws of Jim Crow are still on our books.  One law that was placed there to control the former slave population is Florida’s Disorderly Conduct  Law FL s/s 877.03.

This law allows a person who is offended by another, to contact the police and file charges of disorderly conduct. The police can still cite or arrest on this statute.

That is why it is important to have signage that states: “Beyond this point you may encounter nude sunbathers”  The police will not honor a complaint from a person that walks by such a signs and then files a complaint. Neither will the courts.

What happens to people that use nude beaches and resorts is that they become desensitized to the nudity and discover that it is really about personal freedom.  They also realize that mere nudity is not offensive.  Further, they discover that in human relations, once you get rid of the decorations and the sexual attraction of nudity, it is then that you can develop a social relationship based on a persons personality. 

What is in  a person’s heart and mind becomes the important factor. Not the shape of their body or the titillation of peek-a-boo clothing or the focus factor of a skimpy bikini.

Isn’t that how we all want to be judged and accepted. Not by the label on our clothing or the brand on our shopping bags.

Richard Mason
 
—————————

My being a naturist has given me the personal experience of having my life threatened by Christian church people in three locations in Florida, where I went to speak out against anti-nudity ordinances being promoted by local church ministers.  The hate & intolerance against me was chilling.  I was shocked to experience this in America in the 1990s. 

I got a lesson on what Blacks must have had to go through. In  St. Johns County, a large redheaded man promised to hang me from a tree if I did not leave town immediately. All this in front of the political establishment and the local deputies, who, I believed could not wait to witness the event.

The fact that I was from Miami was bad enough. But to be from Miami and speaking up for a clothing optional beach was a serious breach of their beliefs.

I heard one anti-Semitic remark.  I reminded the person that Jesus was Jewish, which triggered a storm of denials and furthered my threat of injury.

Since these church people we reacting very un-Christian, I went to 3 large main churches in one community and asked if they would speak out against the hate being practiced by these other small churches.  They would not do it.

It was my enlightened moment that these different churches were just different market segments to the same mythology.

I learned that it was not about the word of Jesus at all. It was about religious muscle. These churches have meetings once or twice a week, so they can organize their voters and threaten politicians all while violating the IRS code and the 1st Amendment.  It is a business. It should be taxed.

Richard

——————————-

If you condense the teaching of Jesus down to one word. that word would be “LOVE”

I believe it was stated in Corinthians. Love is not an emotion, it is an action.

That basically means to practice the Christian faith, which is really a derivative of the Jewish faith, one has to initiate actions that that express love. Love for your fellow man. Love for something that is the creation of God.

Feeding the poor is more important than going to church.

Helping the sick is an act of the love that Jesus spoke about.

That is why I am a follower of Jesus but not a Christian. When I go to church it is to the Universal/Unitarian Church.  They have it right.

However, the only time that I have really felt close to God was being nude on a beach. The vulnerability and the honesty overwhelmed me.

Richard

Yesterday, a prominent Key West man told me he is surprised the religious right has not yet spoken out against nude beaches. I told him and several other people lately that I expect a strong and perhaps vicious reaction from the religious right. Speaking as a lawyer, the religious right pressuring our elected elected officials into protecting the religious right’s views would be a violation of the separation of church and state protection provided by the First Amendment, a violation of freedom of expression protection of the First Amendment, and a violation of the unalienable rights set out in the Declaration of Independence, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As a private citizen, who is not a nude beach enthusiast but who has been to nude beaches and took off my clothes there, I see nothing wrong with it. I also feel it totally fits the eclectic drumbeat of what many here call the City of One Human Family.

Sloan Bashinsky

Citizen

Nude Beach Market Research

 This morning’s Key West Citizen features a mostly nude beach friendly editorial, leading off with yours truly championing the movement. However, the Editorial issues two challenges:
 
“It has been rumored that one of the most frequently asked questions at certain welcome centers is, ‘Where is the nude beach?’ If this is true, let’s see the numbers to help quantify the demand for such an attraction.”
 
“Much has been said about the amount of money and business a nude beach would bring to Key West and Monroe County. What is missing are the hard numbers to back it up. If dollar figures are to be used to bolster the argument for a nude beach, we at the Citizen would like to see the research and analysis done to substantiate the argument.”
 
I will take the challenges one at a time. Because I am running for mayor of Key West, I begin there.
 
Hmmm. No rumor. I received an email from John Guiliano at the Key West Business Guild Welcome Center, which I published to goodmorningkeywest.com and goodmorningfloridakeys.com, and my “spam” email list, saying one of the most frequently asked questions they receive is, “Does Key West have a nude beach?”
 
Hmmm. I published that I was told by a sidewalk artist (welcome center) I know pretty well, who sets up near South Beach and the Southernmost Point, that passersby frequently ask him, “Where is the nude beach?” These passersby are visitors, because we locals know we don’t have a nude beach.
 
Hmmm. I published that I was told by a former local cab driver (welcome center) that he and other cabbies (welcome centers) often were asked by fares, “Where is the nude beach?” These inquiries came from visitors, because we locals know we don’t have a nude beach.
 
Hmmm. I doubt these indigenous welcome centers for nude beach market research, for which not a penny was paid, ever considered that they would be asked at some future date by the Key West Citizen Editorial Board to furnish written proof of market research instigated not by them, but by our visitors. The most valuable market research there is — consumer instigated — because it’s spontaneous.
 
As for contrived market research, perhaps the Citizen Editorial Board should consider its newspaper’s own online clothing optional beaches poll. As of two days, 75% or responders were in favor of clothing optional beaches.
 
Perhaps the Editorial Board also should consider the number of people who chimed in at Citizens’ Voice in favor of nude beaches, and compare those numbers to the number of people who chimed in opposed. I wager the percentage in favor was higher than 75%. More like 95%.
 
Perhaps the Citizen Editorial Board also should consider the audience response to my remarks and Aphrodite and her friend’s appearance at Hometown PAC’s Call to Candidates in favor of nude beaches. Todd German is a member of the Citizen Editorial Board and is on my email list and receives all my posts. He was at Salute that evening, hosting the event for Hometown PAC. He saw and heard the audience‘s loud and warm response in favor. He can report that to the Editorial Board.
 
Perhaps the Citizen Editorial Board also should consider that the Editor of its newspaper, Tom Tuell, appeared on US 1 Radio (a Citizen subsidiary, I have been told) with Bill Becker, and they reportedly chimed in favor of nude beaches. As did, I was told, the US 1 Biz Baz program, and US 1’s hugely popular Miss Leah, and perhaps quite a few callers-in.
 
Of course, we could form a citizen committee to research the demand for nude beaches to death, and the committee could then talk the city into hiring a fancy high-priced consultant to do “real” market research, using taxpayer dollars we don’t have to spend on the comprehensive market research we already did locally for nothing. Well, we could do that.
 
Or, we could contact other “welcome centers.” Pedi cab drivers. Clerks at places of lodging. The Chamber of Commerce. Etc. I guess we could do that, to make sure the “rumors” we’ve heard about people wanting to know where Key West’s nude beaches are actually are true. But would those other “welcome centers” have thought to keep written records for the Citizen Editorial Board numbers crunchers?
 
I’ll ask Ed Block that question, and for his general sentiments about my response so far. He is on my email list and receives all of my posts, and is on the Citizen Editorial Board. In another life, Ed was head of AT&T’s public relations, including its advertising. He ought to be able to evaluate the indigenous market research we’ve already had done for us for free, and let the Editorial Board know how he feels about it.
 
As for the second challenge from the Editorial Board, I invite each and every one of them to go up to Haulover Beach in Miami (see photo above) and spend a few hours there contemplating the huge impact that wildly popular nude beach has on that area’s local economy. Not that I think Haulover Beach is like any beach in Key West, but it’s the closet “comparable” we have to go by. And not that I think money is the only reason we should have nude beaches in Key West. There is just something positively nuts about an eclectic/eccentric place like Key West, situated in the middle of the ocean, a city that bills itself as a world-class destination resort, not having a single public nude beach. Something absolutely nuts.
 
As for outside of Key West, perhaps the Editorial Board should talk with County Commissioner Sylvia Murphy, who has said she is very much in favor of nude beaches. She said at a Key West Business Guild candidate forum last year that, when she was a spring chicken, she had used the nude beach on Grassy Key. Perhaps the Editorial Board also should speak with County Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro, who has said he is very much in favor, having lived a long time in Europe which is littered with nude beaches. And perhaps the Editorial Board should speak with County Commissioner Heather Carruthers, who has traveled abroad and seen that other countries have nude beaches, Heather called County Mayor George Nugent a redneck at a county commission meeting, after he compared nude beaches to prostitution.
 
Then, perhaps the Editorial Board should speak with George, who told me following Hometown PAC’s Call to Candidates at Salute week before last (several hours after making his slanderous remarks about nude beaches at the county commission meeting), that he himself had been to the nude beach at Bahia Honda State Park, when that beach was still permitted, and he had seen someone there who is pretty well known in the Middle and Lower Keys. Someone who already had emailed me about using that beach, and her strong sentiments in favor of nude beaches in the Keys. The same George Nugent who put up a bunch of sort of nude movie stars on his county-provided online server last year.
 
Lastly, to Key West Citizen. Inasmuch as my name was invoked in the challenges your Editorial Board threw out (impliedly to me), I ask that you publish this reply in full, under the equal time and fairness doctrines. Even without the World Health Organization telling people to stop traveling to the U.S., we need all the ammo we can muster to set Key West, and the Keys, apart. All the ammo we can get.Sloan for mayor

Political advertisement, approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky

216 Duval Club (Key West)

Below is the text of an email Josh Borders received from someone up Miami way who reads the Today’s Flakey Drivel page of goodomorningfloridakeys.com, the sister website of goodmorningkeywest.com. Followed by what I told Josh and some other thoughts about the $216 ticket he got for easing his bicycle through a red light at the corner of Angela and Duval Streets about 7:30 a.m one day last week.
 
Josh:
I am a busy man and I really, really did not want to get involved in this. but.
I hate to see a guy get screwed.
First, the police officer was justified in giving you the ticket if there is a law on the books, and you violated the law.
Stop beating up on the cops, they can help you by not showing up in court or claiming they cannot identify you in court if asked. They could be your way out of this.
In police jargon, you “were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Now, let’s develop a strategy that will win your case.
If you do the following, you will increase your chance of winning.
Strategy:
* Write a letter to the Mayor and each city commissioner and ask them to review the city ordinance that trapped you with a ticket. Tell them the circumstances and then tell them that you sat at the intersection for 20 minutes and saw dozens of people violate the same statute and the on-site police did not enforce the law.
State in the letter that you are asking them to do a traffic study to verify whether this ordinance is practicable and enforceable.  State that you believe that the police ignore it because they don’t believe in it and that it is the type of ordinance that can become a nuisance, clog the courts and irritate tourists, who are the communities prime source of income  and should be replaced with better signage and lighting systems to prevent accidents.  Ask for their response.
Send this letter by “Certified Mail, return receipt requested.” You can put them all in one envelope for mailing economies.
If possible, repeat your visit to the intersection and see if you can record the scene that you witnessed on a video tape.
When you go to court, plead Not g\Guilty and request that the judge withhold adjudication until after the traffic study is complete. Tell the judge that you wrote to the city for a study. Tell the judge that the ordinance has created hundreds of scofflaws and that its enforcement is so arbitrary that it could be that you got the ticket , while dozens of others do not because the officer did not like who he thought you were, what you were wearing and thus leaving the decision making to an officer’s personal  prejudices. In effect you were discriminated against.
If the police office does not show up, tell the judge that you are requesting the the ticket be dismissed on the grounds that the police officer is not there, so there is no one there that can identify you as being the person that was on the bike.
If you cannot show up on the court date, write a letter to the judge requesting the the court hearing be delayed up till after the city communicates with you on the results of the traffic study that they are going to conduct. State that if the city agrees with your contention the the ordinance is flawed, then the ticket could be dismissed on the merits of the case.  The ticket becomes redundant.
If the judge does not buy your arguments you should be able to request community service instead of the fine.
We could use you on the beach picking up the trash and the seaweed.
Best of luck.
A friend.
 
Josh said this person is a nude beach person.
 
I said this writer might either be a lawyer or a police officer.
 
I told Josh to share the email with local attorney Sam Kaufman when he sees him. Sam wrote to me offering to handle the ticket for free and I gave Josh Sam’s business card, which I carried in my wallet because Sam is my personal lawyer. I told Josh he needs to run everything by Sam, to prevent screwing up what he is doing. I also said we don’t want to stop beating up the police, or the city, especially the city, because the mayor, county commissioners, city manager and city attorney all received an email from me explaining what happened and I have yet to hear a peep or a cheap out of out of the aforementioned officials. Donnie Lee, Chief of Police, did reply to me, and twice to Josh. Maybe the 216 Club will become an international event, a packed courtroom filled with cameras and reporters, drawing mega attention to Key West.
 
Josh told me about this particular officer’s (not the officer in the photo, as far as I know) questions and demeanor at the time of the accident – -stuff like, “Do you really live here?, you have an out of state driver’s license.” “Do you really rent a place to stay, aren’t you homeless?” ”Do you really weigh 240 pounds, or don’t you weigh more than that?” — caused me to say this officer sounded like he has a cowboy attitude. I also said maybe the officer’d had a fight with his wife over breakfast that morning or maybe his home was being foreclosed, and he took it out on Josh, who maybe he mistook for a homeless person.
 
Actually, Josh is the night desk manager at Eaton House. He rents a room in a house in a Key West. He has told me enough stories over chess games at Sippin’ Internet Cafe for me to know he is an ambassador for Key West to its visitors who come to Eaton House looking for a place to say and for activates to take in while in Key West. Some of the visitors are drunks wandering in late at night with no place to say and only then learn from Josh the cost of accommodations in Key West and nearly faint. Eaton House has a couple of smallish rooms Josh rents out at affordable rates (for Key West) to these pilgrims when space is available.
 
Let’s play what if, for a minute. Let’s play what if last week, after the call to candidates evening meeting at Salute, County Mayor George Nugent didn’t have the accident on his bicycle. Suppose instead, after hanging out at Salute a while and having a couple more whiskeys and dinner, he got on his bicycle and made it back to Duval Street heading toward his hotel room. Suppose when he reached Angela Street, he crossed on a red light. Suppose the same officer that would later arrest Josh Borders for that same crime was at that intersection and put Mayor Nugent and 50 other people in the 216 Club, with a D.U.I. charge added on. What do you suppose the city commissioners, mayor, city manager and chief of police might have done about that?
 
Here’s something else to consider. Last night a woman I’m getting to know — she sells her own artwork on Mallory Pier most nights — told me at yet another stupendous Open Night last night at Sippin’ Internet Cafe that her son was arrested when he was 13 for running a red-light on his bicycle in Key West. After going through all the legal rigmarole, the case finally was tossed out by a judge. However, many years later, when he applied for automobile insurance, that arrest showed up on his record.  
 
I will send a copy of this post to Police Chief Donnie Lee. I’ve had good dealings with Donnie, as I had good dealings with former Police Chief Buz Dillon, who became my good friend. Buz had trouble with a few officers and he dealt with it. That’s all Chief Lee needs to do here. What the City Commission and the Mayor need to do is come up with a uniform city policy for how Duval Street is going to be managed day and night. For example, an officer on foot on Duval Street told me about six weeks ago that he does not enforce the open container law on Duval Street, but everywhere else he enforces it. Made sense to me, given the carnival nature of Duval Street, that it be treated differently.
 
On another front, for Mayor Nugent, who the morning of his bicycle accident likened nude beaches to prostitution at a county commission meeting (although he himself had used the nude beach at Bahia Honda State Park when it was  open there), is this from today’s Citzens’ Voice: “My wife and I are Christians and nudists, and we think it is totally awesome that the city of Key West and Monroe County are considering a nude beach. We’re tired of driving all the way to Miami.” Amen, brother. Amen.

Sloan for mayor
 
Political advertisement approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky

 :-)

The subtext of this ad run by Sandy Downs in Key West the Newspaper this week is that I, the putative stud, recently said I might use a nude beach if I was hung like a horse and had the physique I had in law school. The ad was supposed to show who who ran it and that I had nothing to do with it coming about, which is true. But the legal details (paid political advertisement by Sandy Downs, the candidate had nothing to do with it) got left out by the blue newspaper.

What can I say? If wishes were horses, pigs would fly? Actually, pigs have been known to do just that in Key West. If you don’t believe me, well, you must not have seen any Fantasy Fests yet. Pigs flying everywhere on Duval Street. Then, of course, there are the pigs who run for elected office. Politicians. Nothing like the other kind of pigs.

Meanwhile, very sad news. Aphrodite left Key West to be with her sister and her new baby. The sad news is I’m going to really miss her, but I won’t ever forget her, and I sort of doubt a lot of other folks won’t forget her either. Thank goodness her true likeness was featured in Solares Hill last Sunday, for which I understand from reading a Keynoter article today, by a Miss Southern Baptist Convention runner-up contestant, caused some commotion that led to Solares Hill’s esteemed and enlightened Editor, Mark Howell, being called on the carpet and told not to show any more topless women photos in Sloares Hill. What’s the world coming to? No damn good, if this crap keeps up. No damn good.

Political advertisement (this post), approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky, who doesn’t look anything like the photo above, he’s sad to say, except for the neck-up part. But he very definitely is fully for nude beaches in Key West. Very definitely. And so is Aphrodite. And so are a hell of a lot of other people, apparently. Solares Hill is a Citizen subsidiary. We might therefore wonder if the Miss Priss who called Mark Howell on the carpet for showing off the most looked for photo in the Keys ever read the Citizen’s online poll, or kept up with Citizen’s Voice comments strongly in favor of nude beaches? Strongly in  favor — 75%. Far as I know, I’m the only candidate now or past for elected office in the Keys strongly in favor.

There ain’t no fig leaves in Paradise folks, nor any secrets. So get nekkid!!! See you at the nude beach. Gotta walk the talk.

Keystone Cops?

RE: traffic ticket..?

From:	Joshua Borders (josh_borders@live.com)
Sent:	Sat 4/25/09 5:33 AM
To:	dlee@keywestcity.com; keysmyhome@hotmail.com; clopez@keywestcity.com; kream@keywestcity.com; jscholl@keywestcity.com; ssmith@keywestcity.com

Hi,

   Josh Borders again about the traffic ticket I received on Duval St.

     First, Mr. Lee, with much respect to how full your plate can get in your role as Police Chief, in our last correspondence you asked me to identify the officer who gave me the ticket, so maybe you could help.  I did, badge number 256, and I also gave you the citation number.  Since that e-mail, I have heard nothing back from you, although yesterday you sent Sloan an e-mail, saying that I had to set up a court date and appear before a judge to plead my case and ask for leanience.  Seems like an awful lot of dancing around in the dark, for an easy problem to fix.  Anyways, I will do what I must, and thanks to Mr. Bashinsky, I have people more than willing to help with this ridiculous matter.  It is ridiculous for the following reasons…..

     Last night, I sat for about a 20 minute spell at the exact same intersection I was TICKETED at,  and watched the exact same offense happen again and again, some just in other variations. Drunks stumbling through, sober people completely disregarding the light, skateboards skating through, bikes crossing through, some stopping first, some not, pedicab drivers going on like it was no ones business, and I also seen POLICE OFFICERS there. Not the entire time, but I watched it happen in front of a few.  BUT NOT 1 TIME…  NOT ONCE, did I see anyone ticketed.  To make matters worse…  NO ONE WAS EVEN STOPPED OR WARNED, NOT 1 SINGLE PERSON.  Another thing I noticed, it seemed as if just about everybody was walking around with open containers.  I KNOW there is an open container law.  Again, plenty of police, nobody bothered, questioned, stopped, or ticketed.  So maybe I was just caught on Duval at the wrong time, maybe its only okay to break laws on Duval between the hours of 8:00 am and 3:00 am the next morning.  I was obviously caught at about 7:30 am, when things are MUCH calmer on Duval, and maybe for that reason, I was not given a break.  This ticket is OUTRAGEOUS, not only in cost, but in character and spirit.  Doesnt a first time offender and a local at that, for such a petty crime, deserve at least the same amount of forgiveness if not more, as the thousands of people who do this on a day to day basis on Duval street??  It’s not fair, it’s just not fair.  Had I done this before, or ANY other traffic violation for that matter, you would never have heard a word about it from me if I was ticketed.  I would have apologized and said you got me, I messed up, with shame in my eyes.  

     That is just not the case.  What happened is ridiculous.  Im tired of hearing that nobody can do anything about this,  pardon my french but that’s BS.  Somebody should step up to the plate on this one.  Is that how you want to treat the hard working citizens of Key West?  Your drawing a line between the people, and those who are to protect and serve them. It’s a shame that so many others such as Mr. Sloan Bashinsky and some of his colleagues even need to come to my aid, I should not have been ticketed, a warning was just.  Like I have said before, I can’t afford the ticket.  Thanks to Mr. Bashinsky, if worse comes to worse, some of the great citizens of this community, out of shame for it’s officials, who wont do it themselves, have offered to help me in this matter.  I would like to thank Mr. Bashinsky for his efforts, and understanding in this matter.  Hopefully it won’t be taken to any extreme, and somebody who does have some authority (because no one is claiming to) will step up and hit a home run. 

       Again, thank you Sloan, your efforts are appreciated, I can afford to get you a cranberry cake next time I see you!  You know, for a guy that’s often referred to as a crazy loon, you seem to be a pretty decent helpful person in my book.  That’s all that matters, so what if you talk to angels and God talks to you and sends you on missions,  so does just about every Minister, or church leader I have ever seen, and people believe them…..  The only difference, is they aren’t called a crazy nut.

       Thank You,
       Josh Borders – citizen of Key West.

Coral Sea Battles (Key West)

While the Conch Republic celebrated yet another secession from the world yesterday, war games of a different sort waged.
 
In reply to yesterday’s Key West Justice post, I received two longish emails from men on my email list, one of whom used to practice law in my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, strongly backing the officer who gave Josh Borders a $216 traffic ticket for crossing Angela/Duval intersection on his bicycle against a red light early the day before yesterday morning. These two writers championed a severe police crackdown on Duval Street traffic violations. Draconian, actually. End result: Main Street, USA. Death.
On the other side of the fence, I received an email from the Key West Business Guild suggesting that I have a large enough email list to invite people on it to each contribute $1 to pay Josh’s fine. A second email from a man I used to legally represent in Birmingham offered $50. A third email from Attorney Sam Kaufman, who is my friend and lawyer and supporter, offered to defend Josh in court for free.
 
I was left thinking Josh’s case might divide Key West in much the same way I was thinking nude beaches might divide Key West. I found myself wondering if God is going to arrange a lot more events that will divide Key West. I found myself wondering how that might affect my mayoral opponent Craig Cates, who seems to me like a good man. His vision for Key West is for everyone to start coming together and getting along. My experience with God, and it seemed to be Jesus’ experience in the Gospels, is God tends to arrange situations that cause people to come down on one side or the other, I suppose to enable God to see where they stand.
I also received a reply to yesterday’s post from Key West Police Chief Donnie Lee, to which I replied:
 
Sloan,
 
I have not instructed my officers to increase the amount of tickets written. The fact of the matter is that the City receives pennies for a citation written for a statue violation. Citations are written to help change behavior in the interest of public safety. If a traffic crash is not involved it is solely up to the officers discretion whether a citation is written. I have suggested to Joshua by email that he set a court date to plead his case and circumstances to the officer and judge for leniency.
 
Donald J. Lee Jr.
Chief of Police
305.809.1042-office
305.809.1043-fax

Hi, Donnie. Thanks for your reply.
 
I don’t know if I’m glad or not to learn the state gets most of the fines local bicyclists pay for moving violations. Maybe the state should be chipping in more money to help us pay our police officers write traffic tickets for the state coffers.
 
Being a lawyer, once upon a time anyway, I know why citations are given and I don’t argue when I get traffic tickets I have earned. I’ve had had two moving violations in the past three years in the Keys. One was passing on the shoulder a few cars that were stopped and backing up Big Pine Key traffic. I went by at about 5 m.p.h. The ticket was something over $100. The other ticket was passing on a yellow line on Lower Matecumbe Key going about 45 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone, with about two miles of straight road ahead and no oncoming cars in sight. The car I passed was going about 35 m.p.h., and plenty of traffic was being stacked up. That ticket was something over $100. I paid both the tickets and put it behind me, even though I felt the passing on the right violation was absurd and should have been a warning ticket.
 
Here, we have a $216 dollar ticket for something that happens probably a thousand times a day on Duval Street. Are we going to start ticketing everyone who rides a bicycle through a red light on Duval Street? In the interest of public safety, are we also going to start ticketing all pedestrians who jay walk or cross on Duval against green lights? And are we going to start ticketing open-container violators on Duval, who tend to wander aimlessly out into Duval traffic? I’m only talking only about Duval Street, which is an ongoing carnival and let’s hope for the sake of Key West and the local economy remains that.
 
Josh told me this morning that the arresting officer said he could go to defensive driving school. But when asked if it would get the ticket reduced, the officer said no. I suppose a judge can reduce it. What a lot of hassle, though. I’m going to see to it that Josh’s fine is paid for him. Under the circumstances, and in view of what I have paid for moving violations in automobiles, which clearly were far more serious, I can do no less.
 
Sloan
 
At some point in the war games yesterday, I FYI’d the latest Aphrodite & Crew nuclear beach adventure report to the Key West city commissioners, mayor, city manager and city attorney:
 
FYI, I received a report last night at Sippin’ Internet Café from two young men. They went yesterday with Aphrodite and another young woman I have gotten to know somewhat to the part of Rest Beach that abuts the 1800 Atlantic condominiums. They spent several hours out there sunning au naturale virtually alone. Virtually alone, in that only a couple of people came onto that over 200-yard stretch of beach while they were there. Virtually alone, in that a few people at 1800 Atlantic came out on their balconies and watched, and some took photos. When I asked the young men if anyone at 1800 Atlantic seemed to mind them being there?, they said no. I said it was a test-run, to show us how the folks at 1800 Atlantic feel about that part of Rest Beach being clothes-optional.
 
Sloan
 
Perhaps in keeping with the latest Rest Beach report is the new ad on page 8 of this week’s issue of Key West the Newspaper (kwtn.com), which Sandy Downs ran on her own for my campaign. When she told me a few days ago it would be a real doozie and she hoped I liked it, I asked if I should maybe buy a one-way ticket to Patagonia? Well, I do like it. In fact, I think it’s fucking hilarious. Sandy told me last night that it also is posted somewhere on keylargokey.com, a website hosted by the utterly despicable Sal Gutierrez, who sometimes strikes me as having started his own Conch Republic, to do battle with the original one that boldly claims full sovereignty over the entire Florida Keys, especially the southernmost.
 
Yesterday morning on the Mohawk, the Conch Republic Navy, by its own admirals’ frank confession, admitted it had let the Vandenberg hotel for homeless fishes (after we killed the reef) and its secret rum-detecting radar antenna be smuggled into Key West under cover of broad daylight. Ably defended by court-appointed counsel Jim Hendrick, the bad defendants were let off the hook due to the Conch Republic Navy’s own contributory negligence: sleeping off a hangover while the Vandenberg was smuggled in broad daylight.
 
Perhaps the Conch Republic Navy could stand some competition. Or perhaps it should just try to recruit Sal Gutierrez into its ranks, since his despicable character meets requisite high pirate standards. So joined, the two Conch navies might then permanently scuttle the entire fleet of northern aggression in the upcoming battle of the coral sea.
Sloan for mayor
 
Political advertisement, approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky

Key West Justice?

Below is a series of emails about a $216 traffic ticket issued by a Key West motorcycle police officer to a local bicyclist for crossing the intersection of Angela and Duval Streets against a red light.
 

bicycle traffic ticket situation?

From:	sloan bashinsky (keysmyhome@hotmail.com)
Sent:	Wed 4/22/09 12:03 PM
To:	jim scholl (jscholl@keywestcity.com); morgan mcpherson (mayor@keywestcity.com); Bill Verge (bverge@keywestcity.com); Barry Gibson (barry@barrygibson.com); Mark Rossi (mrossi@keywestcity.com); Teri Johnston (johnston@keywestcity.com); clayton lopez (clopez@keywestcity.com); dan kolhage (dkolhage@keywestcity.com); SD Smith (sdsmith@keywestcity.com)
Cc:	Donnie Lee (dlee@keywestcity.com)

Jim, Mayor McPherson, Commissioners, Shawn:
 
Below is an email exchange with Chief Donnie Lee about a $215 traffic ticket given this morning my an officer on a motorcycle to a local man for easing through a red light on his bicycle at the intersection of Duval and Angela, when the coast was clear.
 
I understand Chief Lee has to enforce the law and back his troops, but the amount of the fine is outrageous, given facts of this case and the huge amount of crossing against red lights pedestrians, skateboarders and bicyclists routinely do on Duval Street, stopping vehicle traffic that has the right of way?
 
This is the public image we want to convey? This is how we treat our citizens and visitors on the first offense? 
 
Sloan

   From: sloan bashinsky [mailto:keysmyhome@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:24 AM
To: Donald Lee
Subject: traiffic ticket situation

Good morning, Donnie.
 
I am looking at a carbon of a traffic citation, # 8084-GEB-5, issued just a little while ago to Joshua Borders, a young man I’ve been getting to know. He’s been living in Key West a few months.
 
The ticket is for “violation of a traffic device” — running red light on his bicycle at Duval and Angela. Joshua said he stopped and looked both ways before crossing the intersection. The fine is $216. The officer’s signature is not clear on the carbon, but his badge number appears to be 256. In the block for “aggressive driving” nothing is checked.
 
Bicyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians routinely cross against traffic signals on Duval Street. I think a warning would have been sufficient. I think the amount of the fine is outrageous, even if Joshua could afford it, which he cannot.
 
Are officers now ticketing all bicyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians seen crossing against traffic signals on Duval Street?
 
Thanks,
 
Sloan
 

RE: traiffic ticket situation?

From:	Donald Lee (dlee@keywestcity.com)
Sent:	Wed 4/22/09 11:30 AM
To:	keysmyhome (keysmyhome@hotmail.com)

Sloan,

First, we do not set the fines for citations the State does.  Bicyclist must obey most of the same laws as vehicles if they choose to ride in the street.  We give many warnings and we issue citations.  Its the officers discretion.  Bicyclist running red lights is a serious problem down here as you know.  Its out of control, unfortunately we only have so many resources to deal with the problem.

Donald J. Lee Jr. 
Chief of Police
305.809.1042-office
305.809.1043-fax

  From: Joshua Borders [mailto:josh_borders@live.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 12:44 PM
To: Morgan McPherson
Subject: traffic ticket..

My name is Josh Borders, I recieved a ticket on Duvall this morning for $216…  I live here in Key West, and I explained to the officer I hbave never used a bike as a primary mode of transportation.  I was unaware that crossing through was ILLEGAL,  I assumed pedestrians, and skateboards, rollerblades, bicycles treated stop lights as if they were stop signs,  which I did.  I did stop and I made sure no vehicles were coming, and then proceeded through, it wasnt as if I had blatently disregarded the right of way of others.  In fact I did it in plainview of the officer, who I seen.  I did not think I was doing anything that bad.  I fully cooperated with the officer and explained I am new to key west, and also new to biking as transportation.  I was very apologetic.  I understand ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law.  But I also understand police are allowed to use discretion,  I dont know how he could have felt right about giving me a HUGE traffic fine, I have no history of breaking the law or anything.  I cannot afford this ticket, The amount of the ticket represents an entire paycheck for me.  I am a very productive helpful citizen in the community, I work at a very nice hotel and routinely influence tourists to spend there money here on various activities key west offers, snorkeling, diving, fishing so on and so on.  I am not a vagrant with no respect for the law.  I made a mistake and am very capable of learning from it through a warning.  I am a good honest harde working citizen of key west, who made a small mistake, it is not like I just blew through the intersection,  I stopped, I looked, I crossed.  I apologize for the mistake, and will not make it in the future, there is no way I can afford this ticket.  $216???  
 
very apologetic,
 
Josh Borders

Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:28:05 -0400
From: mayor@keywestcity.com
To: josh_borders@live.com
Subject: RE: traffic ticket..

As Mayor of the City of Key West I sympathize with your situation.

There is actually state statute was directly relates to Mayor’s and any interference with tickets.

I am sure you are honest and hard working.

I am sorry that there is nothing I can do to help.

Very apologetic,

Morgan

RE: traffic ticket..?

From:	sloan bashinsky (keysmyhome@hotmail.com)
Sent:	Thu 4/23/09 1:20 PM
To:	Joshua Borders (josh_borders@live.com)

Hi, Josh.
 
Thanks for forwarding Mayor McPherson’s reply to your email.
 
If I were Mayor, I would put this on the next City Commission meeting agenda, and try to persuade the six commissioners to do something about it. They and the Mayor, acting together for the City Commission, hired the City Manager, who answers to  them. The Chief of Police was hired by and answers to the City Manager. I’m sure they all can gather at a city commission meeting and get something done about this incident, and about future occurrences.
 
I say that because it has been city policy for years not to enforce the open container law on Duval Street. If the city government they can waive that, they can waive giving bicyclists (and skateboarders and pedestrians) tickets for what you described that you did. I would feel differently if you had barreled through the red light, paying no heed to cross traffic with the right of way and the safety of others and yourself.
 
The amount of the fine truly is outrageous. The only rational (not justifiable) reason for your being ticketed at all, which I can imagine, is the City, or perhaps the Chief of Police, has instructed police officers to issue more tickets to raise money for the City in this down economy. I have heard sheriff deputies have received the same instruction from the Sheriff.
 
Perhaps that is what lay behind the recent incident of two deputies stopping and hand-cuffing a woman in her seventies for a back light that was out? Perhaps we really do have to many law enforcement officers, if they don’t have more important crimes to be dealing with?
 
You are right. This incident is not the Key West you heard about that caused you to live here. And it is not the Key West where I want to live. And I seriously doubt it is the Key West where most of its citizens want to live.
 
Sloan

From today’s Citizen Voice: What could be more natural than a nude beach? After all, we are made in God’s imagine. To cover up a copy of God’s image is to be ashamed of God.

Monday evening, I went down to Mallory Pier for sunset. Arriving, I saw a fellow named Burt playing his guitar and singing at the rear of Waterfront Playhouse. A long-time performer at Mallory Pier, he had performed Sunday night for the first time at Sippin’ Internet Café’s Open Mic, one of a number of excellent performers that night.
 
When I asked Burt why most of Mallory Square was closed off with metal dividers?, he said the folks who had put on the Sailfish Tournament had not replaced the bricks that had been taken out of the ground to provide places for tent poles. So the City had closed that part of Mallory Square off, because it was a safety hazard. Burt was really pissed off, and I sympathized, because replacing the bricks looked like it would take one man about an hour. It didn’t take much imagination to see a lot of visitors to Key West had a much less spectacular time at Sunset Celebration that evening, and a lot fewer visitors were there than is usual for this time of year.
 
I then saw several man o’ war birds soaring over the waterfront, and said, “Hello, friends, what do you bring me tonight?” Tongue-in-cheek, because what man o’ war birds, also known as frigate birds, bring me is spiritual warfare. Like clockwork, since 2002, they bring me spiritual warfare. I dread seeing them, yet I suppose it beats being blindsided by really bad spirit weather. Just to make sure I didn’t forget, as I pedaled off on my bicycle I chanced to look skyward and there was a sole man o’ war bird soaring over Mallory Square. That night, I had a pretty rough experience, about which I wrote in yesterday’s Nude Beach News post.
 
Yesterday evening at Sippin’, I had an unexpected experience of an entirely different sort with another Burt, who’d had the song about staying clear of boxes come roaring through him in about fifteen minutes’ time on Mallory Pier about two weeks ago. Burt’s girlfriend, Leah, rips hearts asunder with her beautiful voice during week day lunch hours at Willie T’s on Duval Street. She was the other woman with Aphrodite at Salute last week, as featured in this past Sunday’s Soundings section of Solares Hill.
 
At Sippiin’, Burt told me an amazing story about him, Leah, Aphrodite and three of their amigas going out to the nude beach way out at the end of Boca Chica Road on Geiger Key, the day before, which was Burt’s 29^th birthday, I think he said. During a lull in a war exercise, some Navy SEALS docked at the beach to take a breather, right in the middle of Burt and the five women, who (the women) were sunning nude. Must have been quite a breather. One of the SEALS was so smitten that he stripped down and joined the damsels in a skinny dip. What a birthday party for Burt, surrounded by beautiful women in the buff, and Navy SEALS toting weapons, with which he did not relate at all. I laughed my ass off. Burt agreed that the entire affair was set up by God, and we laughed that there is no way those Navy SEALS will ever be the same again, and they will tell a lot of other SEALS about it. God only knows what those five young women infected them with. God only knows. It just might end up changing naval history!
 
Solares Hill’s page-5 bold and bravo presentation of Aphrodite topless at Salute was a similar spirit earthquake for nude beaches. It went into thousands of households. Households with and without small children. All orchestrated by God, and the pretty ribbon that wrapped it all up was the number 5, the spirit number for the Holy Feminine, which in the Christian Trinity is the Holy Spirit.
 
I told Burt yesterday evening at Sippin’ that Jesus told his disciples they could blaspheme him and be forgiven, but if they blasphemed the Holy Spirit, they would not be forgiven. Jesus’ way of warning them ahead of time not to turn away after they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which set them on fire and began their own ministries. Before that, they were still a bunch of monkeys. Jesus planted the seed, but the Holy Spirit brought them around, I told Burt.
 
Then I told him about Monroe County Mayor George Neugent, in a county commission meeting, comparing nude beaches to prostitution. That night, as George pedaled away from Salute on a bicycle, someone opened a car door in his path and he fell to the ground and injured the arm he stuck out to break his fall. His left arm, Robert Cintron told me yesterday, and that he had taken George to the emergency room and he was still pretty bunged up. I told Burt there was a direct connection between what George said at the county commission meeting and the later bicycle accident, because the Holy Spirit wants nude beaches down here. 
 

The Holy Spirit sent Burt to Mallory Pier to write about staying clear of boxes. The Holy Spirit sent me to Mallory Pier to see the man o’ war birds, to warn me of rough spirit weather coming in. The Holy Spirit sent Aphrodite and her amiga to Salute, to nuke the crowd and the Key for nude beaches. The Holy Spirit sent Burt and the five young women to reconnoiter with the Navy SEALS and introduce them to an entirely different kind of ordnance. The Holy Spirit sent me down to Mallory Pier to see the other Burt and hear how the City had screwed up Sunset Celebration that night. The Holy Spirit sent me to Key West in late 2000, from Maui, where I had gotten my first taste of nude beaches. The Holy Spirit arranges my life experiences and directs what I write and what I dream.

What do I know? Maybe Jesus came back as a woman. Maybe as a lot of women. With God, anything is possible. Anything.

Rosa Mystica

Nude Beach Update (Key West)

From today’s Citizen Voice: I cracked up (pardon the pun) when I read that a nude beach is being considered for Higgs Beach, an adjacent neighbor to West Martello and the Key West Garden Club gardens. A couple years ago, my 11-year-old grandson was prevented fro entering the gardens to see the flowers with us because he didn’t have a top on. Talk about progress!

Alas, my dreams last night left me feeling the current nude beach tidal wave actually is like a woman who once came on very strong to me, but underneath she was setting me up to break my heart, to get even with me for something she perceived I had done to one of her girlfriends, to whom she had vowed she would get revenge against me. She, in fact, did break my heart and got her revenge, all of which was made known to me later by a friend who had heard of her scheme.As I review the past few days, I see the Siren in different situations that came up. I see her in Onett Johnson, co-owner of Sippin’ Internet Café’, happily approving my push-pinning the Sloares Hill photo of Aphrodite, who is one of his clients, to the wall in Sippin’, then Onett took Aphrodite down when a woman with a small child came into Sippin’. I see the Siren in Todd German repeatedly telling me that he is in favor of nude beaches here in Key West, and then telling me that he tells his friends who challenge him on it that he is merely doing logistics about where such beaches could be located, if we are to have them. I see the Siren in Penny Johnson, Onett’s wife, asking me last night if the angels are behind a nude beach in Key West? When I said very much so, and why did she ask?, she said she thought maybe I was going it alone on nude beaches. I said if she thinks that, then she doesn’t know me at all. It felt like my heart had been cut out of me, and as I walked home I thought to myself, what’s the point? What am I doing busting my ass trying to help Key West, when the people I most rely on don’t have any sense of God? What’s the point?

I fear maybe the angels also made the dream to prepare me for the possibility that the city and county commissioners, who today say they favor nude beaches, might weenie when pressure is put on them by the people around here who don’t want nude beaches. The prudes. The religious right. People who don’t have any sense of God or the true spirit of Key West.

Meanwhile, the current Key West Citizen online poll about nude beaches is seriously flawed, because it doesn’t give people the right choices. Here’s the poll, along with my non-italicized sentiments about the choices given:

What do you think about establishing a clothing optional beach?

1) Bad idea. People don’t come to the Keys for nude beaches — nor beaches for that matter.

Well, duh, no wonder they don’t come here for nude beaches, because there aren’t any.

2) I’m okay with the idea, but Higgs Beach is not an appropriate location. Find some place more remote.

Remote, as in out in the Marquezas? On Wisteria Island, north of Sunset Key? In Key West, the 200-plus-yard unused segment Rest Beach segment that abuts the 1800 Atlantic Condominium development? That’s my choice. Besides being actually in Key West, a clothing optional beach there will make the wealthy condo owners lives more interesting, and either help them live longer or die sooner.

3) It would be appropriate for Key West. This is a community of enlightened attitude.

If this was a community of enlightened attitude, this poll would not be going on, because we would already have what the poll is about: nude beaches

4) Make all Keys beaches clothing optional. Let’s all get nekkid.

Although I voted for option 3, I nearly voted for option 4. Later I remembered arch-conservative Barry Goldwater, who had said when he ran for President, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no crime” (or something like that). Then, I learn just a couple of weeks ago that good old Barry was a nudist, which just goes to show that the nude beach movement isn’t a liberal conspiracy to overthrow the government and God.

As of last night, 75% of responders to the Citizen poll had voted for either options 2, 3 or 4 — in favor of nude beaches.

The choices that should be given by the poll are very simply:

Do you favor nude beaches in the Keys? Yes. No.

If Yes, what specific beach or beaches?

Meanwhile, from yesterday’s Citizen Voice:

After several years of monitoring Fantasy Fest it is clear that some people should never, under any circumstances, be seen nude. I, for one, would be happy to volunteer to be chairman of the Key West Nude Commission, to check and certify those who will want to use the nude beach.

Penny Johnson jokingly told me yesterday afternoon (a few hours before she broke my heart) that she doesn’t want to see me naked on a beach. I laughed, said I don’t want to see me naked on a beach either. Maybe if I was hung like a horse and had the physique I had in law school, I’d feel differently. No maybe, God and the angels very much want nude beaches in Key West and that’s why I’m behind it. That, and it fits the spirit of Key West and should help its economy. And it might even loosen up some of its uptight citizens.

Sloan Bashinsky
Citizen (obviously, as no candidate for office would dare write something like this)

P.S. Last thought for today, also from yesterday’s Citizen Voice:

If people are offended by nudity, how do they even bathe or change their own clothes? I support a nude beach, even if I don’t go there.
 
Amen