Good Morning Florida Keys

Fallout from Friday’s “Due Process – Key West,” concerning the incarceration of a man in our local pokey without trial for well over three years.

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Sloan, when this case, Omar Brown’s, first came to my attention from somebody’s mentioning it before this week, the first thing that popped into my mind was, this is as bad as Gitmo, with alleged suspects being rounded up and stuck away in there with no due process at all for years! And, this is Key West, where everyone supposedly is given a chance to be proven innocent (or guilty, if the case might be) no matter what the circumstances are or what they are accused of doing. We all, as citizens of the United States of America, have a right to due process within a reasonable time. And, years certainly does not constitute a reasonable time, if my stint working for the state attorney in another county serves me correctly. Jail was never intended to be more than a ‘holding’ area while awaiting the judicial process. It was never intended to be a prison for long term or indefinite confinement. I hope once it begins, Mr. Brown’s case is not continued again and again until more years go by before he is released or sent to prison. Guilty or innocent, he deserves his day in court, just as does every other citizen of this island. Do you reckon it all boils down to who you are and who you know? Surely not in Key West. You reckon?

Have a nice afternoon,

Peggy

Hi, Peggy.
 
Yep, I reckon. This case, though, if Omar is innocent, or even if he isn’t but he’s acquitted or the case is thrown out, poses huge risk for the city, and perhaps even for the State Attorney’s Office, for not going after Rodriguez on its own motion, to see if there really is a case. I imagine with any plea deal offered to Omar, there also was, if not overt, then implied, the understanding that in taking the deal he would have to sign a release of the city across the board, for any damages he might or did incur as a result of false arrest, false imprisonment, denial of due process, denial of equal protection, mental suffering, loss of civil rights, and so forth. A release, I get the impression, Omar will not sign, maybe even if he’s paid a significant amount of money to sign. He says he is innocent, and if he is, then that would explain his refusal to “cooperate.” If he isn’t innocent, that poses a different kettle of fish altogether. In that case, I’m not nearly as concerned that he’s been locked up. Armed robbery is not something to take lightly. If he is found guilty, he will get credit for time served, and for armed robbery, the time served probably won’t as much as his sentence. Even so, he should have been tried long before now, and that he wasn’t tried long before now leaves me noticing what seems an awful lot like a real fishy smell in the air. That smell, and the fact that I have not been told by the angels that Omar is guilty, leaves me thinking he may be innocent and this whole thing is the city’s and the police’s, and perhaps the State Attorney Office’s, attempt to cover their own butts. I hate to say that, but having practiced law in some trenches and having lived in Key West a while and seen how it goes here for people not well-connected — you reckon? – the fix might well be on in this case. Hard to believe I would have been dragged into it by Judge Allgood, in that dream, and by my old labor lawyer friend, in another dream, if Omar wasn’t being jerked around more than just a little bit. Hard to imagine.
 
Sloan  
 

I agree, but of course, his lack of due process would lie at the feet of the state attorney, I would believe.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Peggy

Hi, Peggy.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I agree, the State Attorney’s Office is involved in the delay. If I were Judge Auldin at Omar Brown’s suppression hearing Tuesday morning, 9 a.m., absent proof that Omar Brown or his lawyer are the reason for the delay, I would dismiss the case because Brown did not get a speedy trail. Furthermore, I would insist that KWBP Officer Pablo Rodriguez be brought before me. I would examine him personally, under oath, about what he stated in his application for a search warrant of Brown’s home, which led to his arrest and incarceration for well over three years now. If I determined Officer Rodriguez lied in the application for the warrant, and that the lie was material, I would order him arrested and jailed, and would order the State Attorney to prosecute him. Our courts upholding and enforcing the law takes precedence over any contract the Police Benevolent Union has with the KWPD, over the KWPD’s right and/or duty to conduct Internal Affairs investigations, and over the State Attorney’s “discretion” to prosecute law breakers. Judge Auldin not only has the power and right to issue such an order to prosecute, he has the power to enforce it with contempt and incarceration of the State Attorney, if it the order is not obeyed. Not that I expect it to go that far. In fact, I would be shocked to see it go that far. I am convinced State Attorney Dennis Ward will prosecute Officer Rodriguez, if it appears he committed criminal acts. By the time this is all said and done, the PBU might wish it had never opened its mouth. By the time this is all said and done, the PBU, Officer Rodriguez and KWPD may all be in front of a state grand jury and/or a federal grand jury for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, corruption and violation of Omar Brown’s Civil Rights. Not meaning to issue a prophesy, the angels still have not told me after I slept on this twice more that Brown is guilty, which is their way of telling me that he is innocent of armed robbery.

Sloan

Postscript. Right after making that reply to Peggy, I ran into a local journalist I know somewhat, who told me to be very careful of Pablo Rodriguez; he’s the bubbas’ hit man. I laughed, said I hoped Pablo would bump me off and get me off this planet. I wasn’t really joking, and I wasn’t sure that was really what the journalist meant either. Maybe just that I should be careful not to break any laws, because Pablo would be looking for a chance to put me in the pokey. Either of which outcomes would save me from trying to talk Omar Brown out of suing everybody in sight, which I surely would be asked to do, because it is what Jesus would have done, if he were here and this had been given him to deal with. But then, were I Judge Audlin, if I ordered the charges against Omar Brown dismissed because he had been denied due process (a speedy trial), I also would order Brown to be paid restitution of $1,000 a day by the State Attorney’s Office and the City of Key West, calculated from the date of his incarceration, with six percent interest calculated daily.

Probably.

Recent enlightment of my ignorance provided by Richard Mason, co-founder of Haulover Naturist Beach in Miami, triggered by the recent “Cheerful Living – Key West” post, which came the day after the equally cheerful “Thanksgiving – Key West” post.

Sloan:

It’s alright to be the one to point out the downside of life. But, why not do that as a Key West persona;

Become the Key West Curmudgeon. By becoming a “Curmudgeon” you will then have the license to point out the negative bullshit that goes on.

Curmudgeons have that right to complain. In fact is is required.  Then people cannot complain about Sloan being negative, even if you care.

On the other side of the coin.

Happiness starts with being grateful. We can be happy and grateful, and still be a curmudgeon, because curmudgeons are usually pointing out the negatives of others.

Happy Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a day where naturists dress the turkey and undress themselves for a skinnydip in the ocean.

Cheers

Richard

Hi, Richard,

Actually, Todd German called me a curmudgeon after reading yesterday’s Thanksgiving-Key West post. I’m pretty sure I already earned that reputation down here before that, though. And elsewhere, too. Never particularly well received, no matter where I am.

Sloan 

Sloan:

In the State of Maine, Curmudgeons are looked up too and are necessary to balance the political stuff with the real world.

Curmudgeons basically report the other stuff and say the things that others either don’t have the balls, the courage or the guts to say.

When a Curmudgeon is articulate and factual, well only the guilty can complain.

With so many irresponsible people, idiots, thieves, crooks and hypocrites in every community, a Curmudgeon will never run out of material.

Richard 
  

I swan, Richard. This latest curmudgeon outbust split my sides. I laughed so hard that I suddenly wondered if I wuz gonna be asked to leave Sippin’. Maybe I need to rethink this. I always associated curmudgeon (as if I could have actually spelled it unaided by a dictionary) with someone like Scrooge or the sour grapes syndrome. Not something to brag about being. Like I used to have a downer view of gadfly, until sweet, little, ole Sandy Downs, who actually is a bio-engineered humanoid Playboy pinup made out of Semtex [a potent plastic explosive made in the Czech Republic], explained to me that the old curmudgeon himself, Socrates, was called a gadfly in his day, not meant as a compliment, I don’t suppose, by the targets of his wry wit and sharp tongue. Now here you have enlightened me even further about the dire need for what I’ll just go ahead and label serious assholes in society; people who don’t have the energy, much less the inkling, to be so diplomatic that what they mean when they speak, or write, somehow gets twisted into some sort of compliment, when nothing anything like a compliment was intended. I think this is probably related to political correctness, which I have long understood is a terminal illness, rivaling born again people suddenly saved from all the evil they did before they were born again, and not having to worry much now about the evil they continue to do, because Jesus died to save them from it, too, even though he never knew them and they weren’t even thinking about being born yet. What else can I say? Maybe this Walmart people forward I received from a really salty Key West amiga, along with my reply, says enough for today . If the film strip didn’t get to you, let me know and I will simply foward it up your way. I bet it would go over great at a Halover Beach revival. :-) Sloan

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In some ways, this Walmart photo gallery is not all that unlike Key West scenes, although maybe not quite as many blobs here. Maybe if we get a nude beach we will be able to compete better with WalMart for passing whales.

Hmmm . . . As I reread all of this post, I wonder if I will have to apply to the city for a license to be the City Curmudgeon, or if it is an elected position under some obscure city ordinance, for which I will have to run? Or do I simply claim the title as pirates used to do, and leave it to others to try to dispute? Cheers!

The “Sex, Lies and Audiotape” piece on page 2 of this week’s Key West the Newspaper (kwtn.com), alluding to possible conduct unbecoming by a Key West Police Department officer, sort of dovetails into something that started easing into my life about ten days ago, when I received a handwritten letter from Omar Brown, who’s been held in the Monroe County Detention Center for well over three years without trial, on charges of armed robbery.
 
This is the same case you might have read some about in Key West the Newspaper and other local gazettes, concerning KWPD Officer Pablo Rodriguez, whom the Citizen’s Review Board has tried to investigate for allegedly lying in an application to a local judge for a search warrant of Omar Brown’s home, which search allegedly turned up evidence that Brown committed armed robbery.
 
The alleged lie, as I understood it from reading the gazettes, and also from the CRB’s file, furnished to me by the CRB online, is that Rodriguez represented to the judge that he knew Brown from many past experiences with him, including arresting him. Turns out, apparently, Rodriguez never had arrested Brown. Rodriquez said in a later deposition that he had been present at arrests of Brown by other officers.
 
When the CRB subpoenaed Rodriguez to give them his side of it, he declined to appear. He must have felt he was so blatantly innocent that there was no point in going before the CRB to tell them his side. He must have felt he was so blatantly innocent that he ended up being represented in court by the Police Benevolent Union, whose lawyer launched a bunch of attacks on the CRB, including it’s very right to exist at all, to keep the CRB from investigating Rodriguez.
 
Omar Brown’s case, which is entirely separate from the CRB and Police Benevolent Union case, is coming up before Judge David Auldin on December 1, 9 a.m., on Brown’s motion to suppress, according to Brown’s second handwritten letter to me, inviting me to attend. I will attend because I have had two dreams now, telling me I’m to be involved in this case.
 
In the first dream, the federal judge I clerked for out of law school told me to get involved. Judge Allgood handled all writs (all were handwritten) from prisoners in state prisons located in the Northern District of Alabama, claiming they were convicted in violation of their Constitutional Rights. Omar Brown’s first handwritten letter to me actually was a writ addressed to Judge Allgood, for whom I still clerk, apparently, even though he passed from this world in 2002, as I recall.
 
In the second dream, I was told by an old childhood friend, who became a labor lawyer, to focus on the Police Benevolent Union, which is headquarted in Miami.
 
So where to go from here. Perhaps first a replay of my email correspondence with the CRB.
 
—————————
 
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:38:19 -0500
From: crb@keywestcity.com
To: sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com
Subject: KW CRB

Hello Sloan:

Attached are the letters (public record) that frame the defenses by the PBA. Below is a link to the material filings of the case that include PBA’s position that the CRB lacks legality and jurisdiction. Judge Audlin will hear the final arguments in this case on January 27, 2010 during a 3 hour hearing. I will keep you informed of the developments. 

http://www.keywestcity.com/egov/docs/1245339226836.htm 

Stephen C. Muffler, Esquire
Executive Director
Attorney at Law

_____________________________
City of Key West
Citizen Review Board
P.O. Box 1946
Key West, Florida 33041
tel(305) 809-3887
fax(305) 293-9827
crb@keywestcity.com
www.keywestcity.com

From: sloan bashinsky <sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thu, 11/19/2009 3:22pm
To: Citizens Review Board <crb@keywestcity.com>
Subject: RE: KW CRB

Steve. Thanks for sending this.
 
I looked through some of it, saw Chief Lee’s explanation of why KWPD does not do IA investigations in active criminal cases – so as not to jeopardize the rights/defense of the accused.
 
What if the accused waives that protection by KWPD (assuming that is the real reason for IA not getting involved)?
 
Did Omar Brown waive this protection in an effort to get an IA investigation started in his case, if you know?
 
Thanks,
 
Sloan

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:52:01 -0500
From: crb@keywestcity.com
To: sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: KW CRB

I met with John Rotello in his office and he had no problem with us proceeding.  Omar Brown insists on proceeding and has no problem.   We really do not need anything from Omar Brown other then his complaint at this moment so we don’t need him to make any more statements or allegations.  The Board felt comfortable proceeding on this particular file under these circumstances.  Normally we defer them as the Chief does, but in this case the danger is very little for Omar Brown’s rights.

Stephen C. Muffler, Esquire

Executive Director
Attorney at Law

From: sloan bashinsky <sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com>
Sent: Fri, 11/20/2009 4:18am
To: Citizens Review Board <crb@keywestcity.com>
Subject: RE: KW CRB

But did Chief Lee get permission from Omar Brown or John Rotello to proceed with and IA investigation, if you know?

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:40:59 -0500
From: crb@keywestcity.com
To: sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: KW CRB

As far as I know, Chief Lee did not try as it is a firm policy of KWPD NOT to proceed with such investigations.  The CRB’s policy is more flexible.  It is based on a case by case basis and we take into account the willingness of the Complaint to waive  their 5th amendment, the seriousness of the charges pending against the complainant, the seriousness of the complaint against the officer, the need to take any statements from the complainant, the time frame etc…    Here the CRB decided to proceed, but usually defers.

FYI.  Here is a link for the CRB newsletters over the last year.  I have signed you up for the January 2010 newsletter and thereafter.

http://www.keywestcity.com/egov/apps/egov/connect.egov?fDD=36-0

From: sloan bashinsky <sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com>
Sent: Fri, 11/20/2009 7:48pm
To: Citizens Review Board <crb@keywestcity.com>
Cc: sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: KW CRB

While on its face, I suppose KWPD’s policy makes sense, if it’s applied despite an advised accused’s request, through legal counsel, for an IA investigation, it looks kind of fishy to me, like maybe KWPD is trying to hide something.

Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:15:47 -0500
From: crb@keywestcity.com
To: sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: KW CRB

The problem with the policy is that if it is enforced so absolutely, you could allow a situation where a criminal trial goes on for 3 years (like this one) and no investigation into a possible alleged serious (alleged lieing under oath to a judge) goes without an investigation.   The professionalism issue, if it exists, is never timely responded too and/or the officer’s reputation is under a “cloud” of speculation for a very long period of time.

Justice delayed, is justice denied.

Stephen C. Muffler, Esquire

Executive Director
Attorney at Law

RE: KW CRB?

From:	sloan bashinsky (sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com)
Sent:	Sat 11/21/09 6:38 PM
To:	crb@keywestcity.com

I’m not worried about the officer, but about the accused’s right to a fair trial, to all of the evidence that might help the accused getting before the court and jury. Evidence an IA investigation might unearth, in the accused’s favor. It looks to me that the policy is really intended to prevent the accused from getting a fair trial, and, alas, to protect any officer under suspicion in the accused’s case. If the accused is convicted under that cloud, then the KWPD can point to the conviction to exonerate the officer, and the accused will claim thereafter that he/she did not get a fair trial. If the officer is clean, what does he/she care if there is an IA investigation? What does the police union care? For that matter, why does the police union not want its members subjected to polygraph in IA investigations? The contract the union has with KWPD and the Monroe County Sheriff Office prohibits polygraph in IA investigations, although polygraph is used by our law enforcement agencies to screen new hires and witnesses and suspects in criminal investigations. If I was the officer accused of misconduct in the obtaining of the arrest warrant in this case, or in any other part of the case, and I had done nothing wrong, I’d demand a polygraph examination, and I’d tell the union to take a hike, if it stepped in and tried to stop the polygraph from happening. I have never felt comfortable, frankly, when I was interviewed by the police union during campaigns. I think I have been interviewed four times now, I was not interviewed during this last race. Each time, after they were finished asking me questions, most of which seemed to me to be geared toward everything but correct law enforcement, I asked them what was more important, law enforcement officers getting more benefits, or law enforcement officers enforcing and living by the laws they are supposed to enforce? I never got a satisfactory answer.

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Not suprisingly, I never received the union’s endorsement. Last thing the union would want was a mayor or county commissoner who had been a lawyer and who did not believe law enforcement officers should receive protection from criminal investigations the general public does not enjoy. That’s right, criminal investigation, for if Pablo Rodriguez lied in the application for the search warrant of Omar Brown’s home, then I’m pretty sure that is a felony, if the lie was material. That is, if the lie was necessary to get the search warrant issued by the judge.

All of which brings up a very thorny predicament for State Attorney Dennis Ward, who himself was a beat cop on the Miami Beach PD for many years, before becoming a detective for that PD. All preceding his entry into the practice of law for the State Attorney’s Office, then at the Public Defender’s Office, where he worked when he ran for State Attorney last year. A run I supported very hard, as many people in these parts know.

It sort of looks to me that the Police Benevolent Union, its lawyer, Officer Rodriguez and the Key West Police Department, by blocking any investigation of Rodriguez, are obstructing justice. Justice for Omar Brown, who has been incarcerated well over three years without being tried. I might even hazard to guess the reason he has been incarcerated without trial for so long is because he has refused to cave in to a plea deal. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence and right to stand trial, and he has steadfastly accused Officer Rodriguez of conduct unbecoming.

Whether or not Omar Brown’s side of this is true is for a jury to determine. It is not for the PBU, its lawyer, Officer Rodriguez or the KWPD to determine. To the contrary, the PBU, its lawyer, Officer Rodriguez, because he is a police officer, and the KWPD should be fully cooperating with Omar Brown’s Public Defender, John Rotello, with respect to anything that would exonerate Brown and/or make Rodriguez out to be a dishonest cop in this particular case. All of which a jury should determine, and is entitled to determine, if Brown’s case ever goes to trial.

Ever is the magic word here, for it’s hard for me to believe that the PBU, its lawyer, Officer Rodriguez or the KWPD really want Omar Brown’s case to go to trial, for then there will be no protection for Officer Rodriguez. He, along with Omar Brown, will be tried by a jury of their peers, in plain view, with journalists present, and video and tape recorders.

Then, of course, if the jury sides with Omar Brown and turns him loose, he has a very real and, alas, a very justified big money lawsuit against the City of Key West, for what its police department did to him. Make no mistake, folks. If a jury acquits a man who was incarcerated for well over three years, there’s going to be hell to pay for it in civil court. And, it would seem to me, there also should be a State Attorney-convened grand jury investigation of Officer Rodriguez, the KWPD, the PBU and its lawyer for conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

Sloan Bashinsky

P.S. After telling a local amigo who keeps up with local and national politics that I was writing about this case today, he told me to watch my back, for Officer Rodriguez. Whether or not that was a justified warning, it is a sad commentary that I would even be told that. Yet I was not surprised. I’ve lived in Key West too long to be surprised to be told something like that.

Some of the human replies, in italics, to yesterday’s cheerful “Thanksgiving – Key West” post.
 
Every time I read something you have written it sounds like sour grapes, i.e., bitterness.
 
When I think of all you accomplished in your life, i.e., children, education; and all that you have been born to, i.e., a good family and financial security, I think you are one of the most ungrateful, bitter, people I have ever run into.
 
What are you doing to alleviate the homeless problem in Key West, etc?
 
Instead of always complaining and whining, why don’t you use what’s left of your life to change the world for the better.

I can’t see any redeeming qualities in your bitter diatrites.
 
Get honest and stop playing games that people have to spend time trying to figure out. You are similar to a maze with no way to get or out. In order to see what’s inside you have to stand on top of it and look down.
 
Judith Haney

Judith lives in my hometown, Birmingham. She found goodmornningkeywest.com a few weeks ago and sent me an email asking how I, with all my wealth, had become homeless? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it, she said. She’d known of me back when I practiced law in Birmingham. Then ensued between us a long, drawn-out email dialogue. Maybe my meeting Judith, a self-described former winner of local beauty contests, who described herself as still being “gorgeous,” at age 65, was God’s wry way of causing me to be darn thankful God abducted me in early 1987 and turned me every which a way but loose, until the Sloan who used to practice law was all but dead and very little of what he used to think was important was important at all. Admitedly, I still like pretty women, but it I found Judith Haney not to my taste, and asked her why she kept writing to me? Then I told her why: her soul knew what I would say and wanted her to receive a different  perspective.  
 
Well said, my friend.  Happy Thanksgiving, whatever option you select, and oh by the way, ROLL TIDE !! MMJ
 
I have known Mat since childhood. He has been on my email list for years and, from what he tells me, he reads every email I post for public viewing.

I love you Sloan!
Sam K

A local attorney, Sam Kaufman is my personal lawyer and friend. 
 
Sloan, a man whose life is guided by Angels, makes no mention of the winged ones in his thanksgiving soliloquy?…. were I an Angel, I would have a lesson or two for you to learn on gratefulness! But I seem to lean towards the devilish so I can commensurate with there ain’t much to  feel good about this World we are in…. yeah, life sucks… and then you die… thank God for that!   
Goble, gobble!
Sancho Panza

I have known Sancho since about 2002, only online. A retired scientist, fluent in several languages, more well-read than any person I ever knew except maybe an old Birmingham lawyer buddy and a homeless amigo in Key West, Sancho has received hundreds of my posts and frequently replies. Here’s something he wrote a few days ago, after I reminded him again, with some twisted humor, that he’d sometimes pushed Don Quixote to run for the Oval Orifice, which Don sometimes calls the Offal Office:
 
Sorry, you could never make it to POTUS… you have nothing that they could blackmail you with… you have no fig leaf left on you… that makes you a very dangerous man… very dangerous indeed!!!
 
After putting up yesterday’s cheery “Thanksgiving – Key West” post, I took a nap in which I was busted for leaving something cheery out of the post, and for not saying I was thankful for all the friends I have, more friends than any man deserves, especially a man as crass, incorrigible, unpredictable, crazy and generally irreverent and ungrateful as me (yeah, I know I is correct grammar, but it just doesn’t feel right in this context). Lots of men and women friends I don’t deserve but I have them anyway. Not that I expect any of them would stay in a foxhole with me when the ordnance aimed by God at me ongoing lands nearby, or in the foxhole itself. Only someone almost just like me would be able to do that, and of that type I’ve known only one person since God abducted me. Wife #6, who finally got blown apart by God in late 2000, on Maui, and that’s how come I ended up in Key West, where there are so many weirdos that it almost seems like my home planet. Almost.
 
Let’s see, where wuz I going with this? Oh, yeah. The cheery thing I left out of yesterday’s post. It was that Randy Acevedo, our now deposed Superintendent of Schools, and his wife, Monique, soon to be, if the State Attorney has his way with her before the jury, doing a few decades on a hard rock pile, for swiping what some folks conservatively say was $200,000 from our school system, while others say it was maybe closer to half a million $, which she was able to do, to large degree, because her husband, that is Randy, the then Superintendent of Schools, a home boy, that is, a conch, as in a bubba, promoted Monique to a position for which she was not legally qualified, and he didn’t tell the School Board he had done it for over a year, all of which (this is starting to look sort of like a never-ending William Faulkner sentence and story) gave Monique what she appeared, from all I’ve read and heard, the regal view that her new illegally-elevated position was her very own personal carte blanch license to steal the school system blind right under her own husband’s very nose, which a jury of his, Randy’s, peers took to include his covering up for her, his wife, and he got convicted of it, while she, Monique, still awaits trial.
 
Now, the part I was busted for not mentioning in yesterday’s cherry, er, cheery post is that neither Monique nor Randy were put under bond that kept them in jail pending trial for their crimes against humanity, which crimes made the Keys, as far as school children are concerned, slightly unfit to inhabit. This was not the State Attorney’s fault, because he did not like the idea of the Acevedos being on the loose (judges did it), and he certainly doesn’t like Randy now being on probation.  Nor do I. Nor, apparently, do a lot of people around these parts. Nor do the cheery angels who busted me in the nap dream yesterday. In fact, they want to know how come a woman official of a nursing home, who ripped $430,000 off a 102 year-old-woman resident of said nursing home, is currently in jail under $250,000 bond, instead of under $430,000 bond? And how come Monique Acevedo is on the loose, instead having the same bond and being in the same pokey as the woman who ripped off the 102 year-old-woman? The same cheery angels also want to know how come Monique is on the loose, when a local man has been held in the local pokey for well over three years and has not even been tried yet for what he is charged with doing? The same cheery angels also want to know how come a homeless man, who stole a bunch of donated Thanksgiving turkeys recently from a local church, is in jail, but Monique and Randy, who raped and pillaged our school system, are still on the loose?
 
Now some people may think, some people even tell me, God and angels don’t concern themselves with this sort of shit. I hear from the same people that what God and angels concern with are getting thanked and having praises and psalms and songs directed upward to them, even though God and angels are standing right beside us in the shit nobody but me (again, I is the correct English but it still doesn’t feel right to me in this context) seems to see what is actually going on. All of which goes back, I suppose, to the foxhole story and nobody wanting to be in the same foxhole with me. Well, where are they going to be instead, somewhere up there? For down here, in the live ammo, is where God and the angels are, so what does that say about where hell is? Up there somewhere? Over there somewhere? Or is it right here, where heaven is? Like I said, I’m darn lucky to have any friends at all. Darn lucky.
 
There is one other thing I need to mention today. I hardly write about everything God dumps on me, which seems to leave some people, people like maybe former beauty contest winner Judith Haney, with the impression that I don’t do very much. Most of yesterday and all of the night before I felt like dog shit because someone else was put into me for me to try to help her get over what had caused her cancer, which she mostly was treating biologically with nutrition and supplements and so forth. She was put into me because she would not, or could not, work internally. Her cancer mirrored the cancer in her spirit, which I had had put inside of me to try to effect it spiritually, which I told her in a fairly blunt way, but I tried to do it nicely. I also told her, in the same cheery fashion, that her cancer mostly was rooted in her having lived with a partially-trained shaman who had unwittingly sucked her female essence out of her.

I gave her a prescription for what shamans call “soul retrieval.” The retrieval of the female part of her own soul, which she must initiate by having a heart-to-heart with the shaman, or nothing will happen despite all of the physical pain and suffering I experienced trying to help her. Physical pain and suffering that caused me to wake up yesterday morning, Thanksgiving, wishing I wuz dead. However, that’s not what prompted yesterday’s cheery post. What prompted it was my reading yesterday’s Key West Citizen, which was so cheery that I nearly puked all over the front page. By the time I got to the Editorial inside, which spoke glowingly of how much things are improving in the Keys, I was too emotionally puked out to puke again. All I could do was wonder what fucking planet the Editorial Board of Key West Citizen was living on when it approved that Editorial? Certainly not this planet. 
 
Sloan

Let’s see, it’s Thanksgiving Day, so what do I have to be thankful for? Maybe I should make a list. Maybe I already did. A very short list. So short, you already read it. Here’s the subtext.
 
A 102 year Keys Woman is scammed out of $435,000 by the Office Manager of Marathon Manor she had trusted enough to give her power of attorney over her affairs.
 
Homeless man and accomplices steal donated turkeys from Glad Tidings Tabernacle Church, which provides Thanksgiving for disadvantaged people on Thanskgiving.
 
Women evicted from their apartments leased from Bahama Community Land Trust. Evicted because the apartments weren’t anywhere close, apparently, to being up to code. Evicted by the city. Great timing, city. Great stewardship BCCLT.
 
Mosquito Control Board, one member strenously dissentinng, agrees to keep open option of giving salary increases to it’s director, the highest-paid county employee already, and to other employees, when most people in the Keys are having a very hard time just making ends meet and many people in the Keys are going homeless.
 
County Commission, lead by Mayor George Neugent, declines to require lobbiests to register, so everyone will know who’s courting county commissioners and other county employees.
 
Key West man now has been held in the Monroe County Detention Center on Stock Island for well over three years, and has yet to stand trial.
 
Police Benevolent Union asks a court to declare the Citizen Review Board illegal in its inception, to protect a Key West Police Department officer, last name Rodriguez, who is responsible for the aforesaid man being in the Monroe County Detention Center for well over three years.
 
The KWPD declines to do an IA investigation on said Officer Rodriguez, because it has a policy of not doing IA investigations during pending criminal trials, because it doesn’t want to do anything that might jeapordize an accused’s rights, including the accused’s right to get to the bottom of why the CRB is investigating Officer Rodriguez for allegedly lying in his application for a search warrant for the said inmate’s home, all of which information said inmate might conceivably use at trial to defend himself or get his case thrown out of court.
 
The Police Benevolent Union’s contract with the KWPD expressly prohibits the use of polygraph on KWPD officers, during IA investigations or otherwise, but KWPD uses polygraph to screen new hires and witnesses and people accused of crimes.
 
From now to New Year’s Day, Alex’s Auto Wrecking and Parts is giving intoxicated drivers a free ride and a free tow home from anywhere from Key West to Mile Marker 42 from now through New Year’s Day. Also participating in the Two 2 Go program are Scott Bros. Towing and Ricky Arnold of Arnold’s Towing Service. Thank God for people doing something for someone else on their own dime.
 
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wage on, despite Barack Obama’s promises for hope and change, if he was elected President, for which not delivering he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
 
I would go out to the nude beach today, to see how many people came down here with their money to help our poor strugging economy, if it wasn’t such a long drive to Halover Beach in Miami.
 
I would go to church today, if I could find one where I felt God was in charge. 
 
I have invitations to two different Thanksgiving gatherings that I bet I wouldn’t have gotten if I’d still been homeless.
 
If was still homeless, I probaby would not have been able to see “Pirate Radio” at Tropic Cinema the other day, or take in ”Avatar” now showing at Regal Cinema.
 
I guess I should be thankful my father died and left me some money, so I could live inside and stay alive. 

Sloan

A man was sunbathing naked at the beach.

For the sake of civility, and to keep it from

getting sunburned, he had a hat over his privates.

A woman walks past and says, snickering,

“If you were a gentleman you’d lift your hat.”
 

He raised an eyebrow and replied,

“If you weren’t so ugly it would lift itself.”)

Another way of looking at it, however . . .
 
 
 

Other replies to yesterday’s “Long Live Debauchery!!! – Key West” post.
 
Good morning, Sloan. Got a good laugh from today’s ‘debauchery’ article. As for the history, though. I believe you forgot to add the prostitutes who touted their wares out in the open on Duval during Hemingway’s day. Yeah, maybe Key West  – rather its visitors, since NO-BODY who lives here takes part in Fantasy Fest debauchery, right? Yeah, maybe it does go a mite far sometimes, but having been a tourist for many more years than I’ve been a local, I can say the fantasy and acting in ways one would never do – or at least, would never get away with doing – in one’s own backyard, are, indeed, the reason folks come here every October in droves. Before I ever came down during Fantasy Fest, it was all I heard from some of my acquaintnces - “I can’t wait until October!” They did not even have to say until Fantasy Fest or Key West. Everyone knew what “October” meant. They were not referring, however, to coming down here and acting out violently to inflict harm or worse on locals. If one is a criminal, he will continue to be a criminal, whether he is from that horrid place ‘the mainland’ folks here decry so much or from Key West! Nothing to do with Fantasy Fest.
 
The thing that did not fit, however, from all the complaints against it, was lumping the nude beach in with the ‘debauchery’ of Fantasy Fest. Having tried to be a naturist only once - for about an hour – in Jamaica, I loved it when I was in the water, but out of it, just was too darned hot when despite all the sunscreen, I got burned to a crisp. So – that was the end of my naturist experience. And, probably the reason most of their naturist developments have plenty of large shade trees! That said, I can understand the draw of it and it certainly not is just being naked and gawking at all the other naked folks because most of them probably would look so much better in clothing. No, the draw of it is the freedom to be without the constriction of cloth against one’s skin. Now, that is easy to relate to. And, with entire families taking part in this lifestyle – and I have known some over this long lifetime – there is not the element of debauchery, at all. They are just living their lives – naked. In fact, I expect most guys or gals who wanted public ‘debauchery’ from it, would be invited to take their exhibitionistic behavior elsewhere. Naturism is simply what it is - a lifestyle without clothing. No more, no less.
 
Have a nice afternoon, Sloan.
 
Peggy
 

(Capt. Tony, with the parrot)

So, the other day I read an Editorial in Key West Citizen, lamenting the lack of safe streets in Key West, which I also lament. In the same breath, the Editorial blasted Key West for its debauchery, especially the way Fantasy Fest now goes.
 
About the same time, I read a letter to the editor in the Citizen lamenting the loss of the old Key West, crying out for a return to when kids could come into town and go Duval Street and not be grossed out, and go to the Strand Theater and watch a movie that was suitable for kids. An end to the debauchery. I think maybe something also was said against Key West getting a nude beach, but maybe that was another letter to the editor around the same time.
 
I wondered to myself if either writer knew anything about the history of Key West.
 
Before it became a town of debauchery, it was a sailor town, where liquor flowed like an artesian well and the Strand showed “Deep Throat” ongoing. During that time, Key West was a depot for drug smuggling. Some of its prominent, wealthy citizens, I have heard plenty of times, can thank their not so squeaky-clean ancestors for their good fortune$ today.
 
Before Key West became a sailor town and drug depot, it was a haven for $mugglers, $alvagers and $hipwreckers, who lured ships onto the reef and rocks, then went out in their boats to offer assistance and claim a hefty $alvager’s fee.
 
Before Key West was a haven for $alvagers and $hipwreckers, it was a pirate$’ haven.
 
Before that, it was a haven to Native Americans, the Calusas, who did not survive the white man invasion.
 
If you want Key West to go back to the way it used to be, be my guest. Give it back to the Calluses, and leave.
 
If you want Key West to get rid of the debauchery, clean up Duval Street, be my guest. If you succeed, I’ll leave, as will a lot of people leave. As will a lot of people who come here stop coming here.
 
As happened when the Navy cut its operation here way back, Key West will have to reinvent itself. It will have to attract a kind of tourist it never has really done all that well attracting before. It will have to compete with the likes of Disney World and the Florida west and east coast beach towns and cities that have real beaches and are a hell of a lot easier to get to than Key West, and a hell of a lot less expensive.
 
Maybe you who oppose debauchery – something I’m sure you never indulged in yourself, right?, certainly something you never secretly wished to indulge in, right? – have a plan for just how you are going to make ends meet after you kill Key West? Are you going to turn it into a world-class-artificial-beach destination for church-goers. Why not? It’s said Key West has more churches per capita than any other city in the world. Therefore, it might be a good idea, while you’re at it, to ban booze, because Key West also is said to have more bars than any other city in the world.
 
For sure, you won’t want your new breed of tourists to ever hear anything about Capt. Tony and his cussing, boozing and smuggling ways, and all of womanizing and no-telling how many legitimate and even more illigitimate children. Capt. Tony who, after three runs at it, became Mayor of Key West. Our most beloved Mayor, a living treasure sorely missed by thousands here. Capt. Tony who saw no value in any sentence that didn’t have the F word in it, that’s right, Fuck.
 
Will you tell your new breed of outwardly squeaky-clean guests before they arrive, or will you wait until after, that our inshore waters often are contaminated with fecal bacteria and they swim in our ocean at their own risk. Are you going to tell them before or after they arrive that Key West, and the Keys, have a pandemic of MRSA, which is contagious? Are you going to tell them before or after they arrive that dengue fever has returned to Key West and the Keys? Are you going to tell them before or after they arrive that they can get the same or better accommodations and food and beaches elsewhere in Florida, cheaper? Wouldn’t not telling them all of that be debauchery? Wouldn’t it be a return to the ways of the pirates, smugglers, salvagers and ship wreckers?
 
Oh, you don’t think nearly-all-paved-over Key West should rely on tourists at all? Great, you have something in mind to replace tourists dollars, so you and nearly everybody else living here won’t starve to death? What, you are going to go green, plant 400,000 new trees and turn Key West into tropical canopy and a world center for organic plants and herbal medicine, which our previous mayor wanted to do? Where will you plant 400,000 new trees here? Where will you get the money to buy them and to pay the people to plant and water them until they are established? Where are you going to put the herb farms? How are you going to keep hurricanes and their high tides from killing the tropical garden?
 
No, you saw through that pie-in-the-sky political pitch. Instead, you swallowed hook, line and sinker the sales pitch of mayor candidate Mike Mongo, who wanted you to elect him, so he could turn Key West into the online/world wide web capital (I meant to use capital instead of capitol) of the whole wide world, and thus finally get his internet and web businesses off the ground and him well on his way to being the Bill Gates of the Keys, operating not very clandestinely out of the state mental?
 
Or, is it that you just like to bitch and moan about something, and you never really get anything done, because then you wouldn’t have anything to bitch and moan about?
 
Meanwhile, here’s another reality check from Richard Mason, Korean war vet and co-founder of Haulover (Naturist) Beach in Miami, which probably gets about as many visitors per year as all of Key West gets a year.
  
—————–
What would Key West be without a tourist industry?

There would exist a certain number of retirees. Many would only be here part of the year.

There would be the down-sized military, but that would not support a robust economy. An economy that would support the existing residential community.

Without a tourist driven economy, there would not exist the hospitality industry. Think few hotels and restaurants.

It is obvious that when you subtract what exists due to the tourist industry, Key West families would see most of their children and bread-winners leaving the Island for work.

Understanding the circulation of money through a community, before it leaves the area, one can quickly see the importance of every dollar that is spent from an outsiders wallet.

Economists generally agree that a dollar, once spent, will circulate through nine to seventeen hands before it moves on and out of the community. (Probably to China)

Tracking tourist spent dollars will quickly teach one that these dollars are creating the jobs that most Key Westers rely on.  While a Key Wester can complain about the traffic, they should be thanking the tourists for coming.

Why? Because tourists have no children to school. no hospitals and nursing homes to support with tax dollars.

Most Floridians have gotten so use to the tourist industry that they take tourists for granted. Not realizing that tourists are supporting residents by not only creating jobs, but by paying our taxes.

The object of a community should be to create a balanced tourist industry, one where the tourists buy more than T-shirts.  There is no water and sewage tax on T-shirts, but the buyers impact that city service.  Whereas, those staying at hotels and eating in restaurants are supporting the infrastructure.

The importance of a European style designated clothing optional beach is that it will attract tourists that will stay at hotels and eat in restaurants. Taxpayers without children to educate. Such a beach will add to the mixture of attractions and more balance out the tourist offering.

Just a thought.

Richard Mason

——————–

As for all three guest writers above, I strongly recommend they take in the hugely enchanting, outrageous, debauchery, featuring plenty of the F word and its actual implementation in the original sense, now showing in movie theatres (Tropic Cinema in Key West), called “Pirate Radio.” Not just one viewing, but ongoing viewing. Perhaps it will loosen them up to the point they are saved, if not entirely, then to some degree, from their determination to get through life without ever once really letting their hair down and letting it all hang out, and not just being naked on a beach somewhere.

Sloan Bashinsky

(911 – south tower collapse)

Recent posts about 911 and the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan brought two replies that took me completely by surprise.One responder asked if Osama bin Laden actually had anything to do with 911? I had known this person, who is a political activist, a few years, and my response mainly was, “Where have you been?” To which challenge I was asked if I would like to view a DVD that made out a good case that 911 was entirely the doing of George W. Bush and his henchmen, and was an American coup. I said I would look at it, and would be advised by the angels who look after and ride herd on me.

Another respondent, whom I knew less well, wrote that the Taliban had not shut down the poppy production in Afghanistan after they gained control there, before America invaded Afghanistan. Au contraire, the Taliban had supported poppy production and the heroin trade it spawned.

So began my research, aided by a young homeless Marine, who had just drifted into Key West after being discharged from the Corps and returning home to find his wife had abandoned him and taken everything. He said he had served six months in Afghanistan, and the Taliban had opposed poppy production. However, after America invaded, the Taliban needed a lot of money fast, to finance their war against the American military, so they encouraged poppy production and set up a drug-smuggling pipeline from the east through Afghanistan to the west. A pipeline not just for heroin.

I later read that the Taliban were American allies during Afghanistan’s struggle to rid itself of the Soviet military. America armed the Taliban with what they needed to defeat the Soviets. Not unlike America arming Saddam Hussein so he could be our buffer and ally against Iran after the Shah was deposed by the Islamic fundamentalists and we lost control over that country.

I read only yesterday that we not only armed Saddam with conventional weapons, but also with weapons of mass destruction, which he used on Iranian troops. Not nuclear weapons, so you fill in the blanks.

Saddam was our buddy until he invaded Kuwait. The first President George Bush had been chummy with Saddam when he, the first President Bush, was Director of the CIA. He made it crystal clear on national television that it was to protect America’s supply of oil in Kuwait that he was going to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Not to liberate Kuwait, but to protect the American way of life, that President Bush said on national television.
 
Back to 911 being the handwork of the second President Bush and his co-conspirators.
 
After watching the DVD, I went online and found, to my surprise, that an entire “religion” of 911 conspiracies had sprung up and apparently is still very much alive. Fundamental to all of the different conspiracy arguments is there is no way the Trade Towers could have come down the way they did, without it being a controlled demolition. That is to say, explosive charges were strategically planted at the base of those buildings and were set off shortly after the aircraft struck the buildings. The aircraft alone, it was said, could not have caused the twin towers to collapse in a sudden heap, because the base of the towers would not have been compromised.
 
I beg to differ. Even though I have no training whatsoever in architecture, engineering, construction, metallurgy, explosives or physics, I can see how the aircraft alone could have brought both towers down. If the floors that where destroyed by the aircrafts’ impact collapsed, the weight of the floors above them, which was massive, also collapsed, and all of that weight slammed into the first floor below and it collapsed, and all of that slammed into the next floor below, and it collapsed, and so on all the way down to the ground floor.
 
Furthermore, while there was plenty of film footage of the twin towers being struck and in distress, I saw no film footage showing anything that looked like explosions at the base of the towers. What I saw looked like a total sudden failure of both towers just below the point of the aircrafts’ impact, as if explosive devices were set off, blowing out the sides of the towers at or just below the point of impact, followed by the towers’ immediate, total collapse.
 
For those who say trace remnants of explosives were found in the rubble, which the DVD seemed fairly convincing was the case, perhaps explosive were smuggled on board the two aircraft. It’s hard to believe explosives were smuggled into the twin towers ahead of time, and were placed precisely where the two aircraft would strike each tower.

The other part of the conspiracy theories — it was an American plot — that collapsed before my very eyes was there was no explanation of who hijacked the two aircraft that crashed into the Trade Towers, or the other two aircraft, one of which crashed into the Pentagon and the other into a field in Pennsylvania. Who hijacked those four aircraft and flew them on suicide missions?I bet Fort Knox it wasn’t Americans. I bet the Wailing Wall it wasn’t Israelis, whom some of the 911 conspiracists say were behind 911. I bet it wasn’t Americans or Israelis, because it’s not in their psyche to commit suicide for God or country. That’s the domain of Islam and the Japanese.
 
So did George W. Bush & Co., or some other American interests, or Israeli interests, pay Islamic terrorists to attack America? Hard to believe, but I would concede anything’s possible, except for the fact that the angels who look after and ride herd on me, and who pushed me in dream time last night to write about this today, didn’t tell me that the conspiracy theorists have it right. What the angels showed me in a dream, after this post was almost completed in the wee hours this morning, was American special ops forces going after Osama bin Laden to put him behind bars. That was the angels’ way of fingering Osama for 911.

I agree with the conspiracists that Bush & Co. used 911 to hijack America. A coup it indeed was. A coup about ninety percent of all Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents and so forth, swallowed hook, line and sinker, without ever being told by Bush & Co. that Osama bin Laden had been an American ally in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet Union (just as Saddam Hussein had been an American ally against Iran).

If Bush & Co. had really wanted to get Osama bin Laden, they would have used America’s super high tech surveillance and tracking methods and special ops forces to go after him specifically, instead of trying to take over Afghanistan, which the Soviets had already proven was impossible.

Also unmentioned by Bush & Co., they wanted to secure the Iraqi oil fields for America, and it had long been a dream of American oil companies to build a pipeline through Afghanistan from the oil fields in the old lower Soviet states to the Persian Gulf. A pipeline Halliburton Corp. would build. The same Halliburton Corp. that got all of those fat government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, after the US invaded both countries. The same Halliburton Corp. Vice President Dick Cheny ran before he became Vice President of Bush & Co. And before that, he was adviser to the first President Bush.

Incredibly, thank God, Bush & Co. failed to grasp that Islam wouldn’t roll over and die for America in either Iraq or Afghanistan. But for Islam’s counter attacks, the Bush & Co. coup would have succeeded beyond their wildest hopes and expectations.
I told the responder who loaned me the DVD, that the Bush & Co. coup was partially undone by the Republicans’ loss of the White House and Congress in the last national elections. I said, if the 911 conspiracists want to finish off the coup, they should do all in their power to get President Bush’s war puppet, President Obama, to bring American troops all the way out of Iraq and Afghanistan, yesterday.

Bush & Co. should be tried for treason and murder. Murder of American troops, and murder of Iraqi and Afghani troops and civilians. Bush & Co. and Americans who supported them and their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan already were tried in God’s court. As was Osama bin Laden already tried there.

America should remove “under God” from its Pledge of Allegiance. I was in high school when that was added to the Pledge during a national fervor to distinguish America from the godless Soviets, who beat us into space because their captured Nazi scientists were better than our captured Nazi scientists.

Sloan Bashinsky

Received this below earlier in the week from Lynne Vantriglia, the heart and soul of Key West’s and Monroe County’s own Art Behind Bars program, which has a lower recividism rate than any other inmate help program in Florida.

Re: Art Behind Bars…

From:	artbhndbrs@aol.com
Sent:	Tue 11/17/09 10:12 AM
To:	keysmyhome@hotmail.com
	1 attachment fearlessl…jpg (2.7 MB)

Art Behind Bars, the art-based community service program for inmates in Monroe County Detention Center, is please to announce its “15th Birthday Party Show” will take place Sunday, November 22nd, 2009, from 5-8 p.m. at the Pier House Resort & Caribbean Spa. The exhibition includes recent artwork from the local program and elsewhere, as well as the work of former Art Behind Bars students pursuing their own creative paths in recovery. This will be an opportunity to acquire remarkable works of original art at very reasonable prices, as well as meet some the former students of the program who have used their new-found art skills to help with their own personal transformations following release from jail. There will also be a silent auction of artwork & more from local artists and businesses, as well as a fabulous birthday buffet. Entertainment will be provided by Bongo D.
 
All proceeds from the event benefit Art Behind Bars, a 501-(c)-3 non-profit organization. Proceeds from Art AFTER Bars are shared with artist. Art Behind Bars is sponsored in part by the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Florida Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, and private donations. For more information about the program or the event, visit www.artbehindbars.org or phone 305-304-4772.
 
Image attached: “Fearless” by Candy Mense for Art After Bars
 
====================================
 
Actually, I think the full name of Candy’s painting is “Fearless Leader,” which Lynne certainly is. I’m not sure the image can be opened here, perhaps my software is still “behind bars.” People like Lynne, who have worked for years with “art therapy,” people like Candy, a former inmate herself, who have worked for years with using art to heal themselves, come to realize just how powerful the subconscious is, just how much power and control it has over people’s lives. I often tell people, who insist that people have free will, that they are viewing life as the tip of an iceberg. That all they see, the rest of the iceberg is beyond their awareness. Yet it is the rest of the iceberg that is running them and their lives almost exclusively. Until the iceberg is acknowledged, gotten to know and dealt with, step by step, for what seems like an eternity, as I’m sure Lynne and Candy will attest, people stay stuck in their old patterns and nothing really changes. Only the truly fearless, or those like me, who had no choice in the matter and simply were hauled down into the iceberg over and over and over again, ever get to really know themselves, and in that way, ever get to know other people. For all people live their lives sitting on top of this iceberg, until they take the road represented by Lynne Vantriglia and Candy Mense. And that’s why the Art Behind Bars program has the lowest recidivism rate of any inmate help program in Florida: it gives inmates a chance to really get to know themselves, and to heal. And because the vehicle is art, the mind and ego and defenses are bypassed, the soul is activated, and the healing and change occur from inside out. Sure, sometimes there’s a great deal of emotional commotion, big catharsis, as old wounds are touched and opened and healed. There is no way to get around it, if real healing and change are to occur. The wounds have to be gone back into and “repainted.” And until we do that, in some way, it’s life behind bars. Hope to see all you other inmates at the Pierhouse this evening.
 
Meanwhile, this being Sunday and my dream maker sort having insisted on it, I also will mention Jesus’ prison break formula, which is sort of the flip side, the masculine side, if you wish, of the program painted above. I start with the same iceberg, about ninety-five percent of which lies under water and out of sight, but it controls nearly all that people do. It is what causes people to become so quickly upset at other people, take their inventory for them, point the finger at them, throw stones at them. It is what lay underneath Jesus saying, Let the one who has not sinned cast the first stone; First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to help someone else remove the speck from his/her eye; If that which is within you remains within you, it will destroy you, but if it is brought out of you, it will save you; If you abide in me, you will come to know the truth and the truth will make you free. Here’s how I was taught to deal with other people doing something that triggers something really violent in me. I was taught to sit with it, to marinate in the violence and let it have me, instead of reacting to it, instead of retaliating. I was taught to wait to respond to the trigger until I had cooled off and had had a chance to develop a better understanding of what was really going on, aided by the angels assigned to lead and teach me. If George W. Bush, who had said during his run for presidency that Jesus was the person in history he most philosophically identified with, had used Jesus’ approach for himself and all of America after 911, the entire country would have made a spiritual leap, but this is not what George Bush and nearly all Americans did. They did the very thing Jesus said not to do. They sought an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and most of them are still doing that. They told Jesus to take a hike, and now they are having to face his having also said, Better never to have heard of me, than to hear of me and not do what I say to do; Many will call me Lord, and I will say to them, I never knew you. Behind bars, they remain.  
 
Sloan Bashinsky

A correction to yesterday’s ”Swift Justice – Key West” post. I wrote that Peggy Butler is Diane Bureldsen’s partner. My gaffe. Peggy is one of Diane’s straight friends.

(Halover Beach, Miami)

A letter to the editor from yesterday’s Key West Citizen:
 
Nude beaches are gentle moneymakers

Keep your shirt on, lady. To be naked is not to be immoral. To feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, cooling ocean breeze caressing your body or the freedom of swimming unencumbered by fabric is hardly immoral. If it makes you feel immoral to look at a naked body — don’t look. If you wish to expose your children to immorality, take them to Higgs Beach this afternoon.

Nudism is enjoyed by many of all ages. Families visit nude beaches and resorts together, older retired folks are retiring in clothing-optional resorts in droves, young people play and swim together. Eden taught us we should boycott apples, not bodies.

Nude beaches and resorts flourish nationwide. There are 22 organized nude resorts, beaches and clubs in Florida. Vacationers desiring a holiday naked in the sun will take their money elsewhere than Key West.

Where do they go? The closest nude beach to our “liberal” island is Haulover Beach. Haulover was a trashy, abandoned, drug-infested county park until the South Florida Free Beaches (SFFB) declared it clothing optional in July 1991. The drug dealers disappeared; parking revenues soared to over $1 million in 2002. Official status came in February 2002, when the Miami-Dade County Commission approved a Haulover master plan naming the nude beach as an official park feature.

Near Naples is a small, nude, family-run resort. Farther north, just north of Tampa, are three huge resorts that continue to sell real estate and grow. Kissimmee is the home of one of the older nude resorts. These resorts are expanding, flourishing and making money while Key West resorts sit empty.
 
We are missing a huge segment of the vacationing public. These vacationers ask little. We don’t have to accommodate 6,000-passenger cruise ships or dig up our harbor again to attract them.
 
I don’t know who you turn to for support. I can say if my God wanted me to be naked, I would have been born that way.

We desperately need a nude beach.

Geoff Schrader
S/V Three Dolphins
Key West

Next, a comment about the very seldom used part of Higgs Beach in front of the Martello:

Hi Sloan,

Your picture of the backside of the garden’s wall reminded me of the things my now 10 year old son and I have encountered over the years.  Just a few weeks ago there was a young couple smoking pot there.  Many other times we’ve seen people urinating on the wall.  We’ve also seen drug deals going down behind there.  You can always tell, by the way they act when someone walks by.  And also the grafitti that the county can’t afford to clean off the historic wall.  From reading your posts, I think the Naturists would be of a great help in eliminating the things my son and I don’t like about that part of the beach.

                                                                                         Rooster Girl

Then this comment from an amiga living up Ft. Lauderdale way, who comes through Key West regularly on cruise ships.

Sloan,

As I recall, Lady Godiva rode naken by City Hall in her little town [forget the name] to protest taxes. Perhaps a group of Lord’s and Ladies Godiva should ride by on horses– requesting an optional clothing beach.

Ginger

Next, this forward from the Editor and Publisher of Key West’s own, THE SECRET OF SALT: An Indigenous Journal.

November 18 2009

California beachgoers were officially stripped of their right to bathe nude this past October, but many naturalists are refusing to cover up.

Here’s the skinny: For more than 30 years, the far south end of San Onofre State Beach has been a hot spot for those who prefer to spend a day at the coast and leave sans tan lines. The 1,000-foot stretch of shoreline—less than 3.5 per cent of the park—is not only secluded by 300-foot cliffs, but also has had a longstanding, unspoken toleration for nudity. Traditionally, naturists were left to sunbathe in peace unless another beachgoer complained, in which case an official would ask those in the buff to either cover up or leave for the day.

The bare-skinned bliss came to a halt in May 2008, when nudists became vulnerable to fines after California State Parks Director Ruth Coleman encouraged officers to ticket those who go au natural.

According to USA Today: “Park Superintendent Richard Haydon began efforts to halt the nudity after receiving reports of sexual activity and solicitation for sex.”

With regard to Haydon’s statement, USA Today reported that Allen Baylis—a lawyer who has sunbathed on the beach since the 1970s—said that nudists don’t want sexual activity on the beach either. Baylis pointed out that sex acts take place in other public areas regardless of whether or not there is nude sunbathing nearby.

Baylis, along with two groups of bare-skinned beachgoer advocates—the Naturist Action Committee and Friends of San Onofre Beach—fought back by suing the Department.

The naked beachgoers won their first round in court. However, they were left defenseless in October, when the California Supreme Court unanimously refused to review a lower-court ruling that allows officers to site nude sunbathers.

“Nudity prohibited” signs began popping up along a trail that leads from the parking lot to the beach, but beachgoers are refusing to cover up despite the ban.

According to USA Today, “half a dozen middle-aged men were sunning in the buff one recent November weekday when temperatures were in the 70s. On hot summer weekends, several hundred nude sunbathers may show up.”

Baylis told USA Today that nudists are ready to be arrested. “If they really want to come down there and issue citations, we have people willing and able to be cited in order to take it up in the criminal courts as a matter of civil disobedience,” he told the publication. “It’s a very important issue for a lot of people.”

On September 13, more than 100 nudists showed up at San Onofre Beach with signs reading “Nude is Not Lewd” and “Nude is Not a Crime.” No citations were issued at the beach rally.

So far, park rangers have not issued any citations—but Haydon has warned park officials could begin slapping naked beachgoers with fines at any time. Tickets could carry a fine of up to $500, and would be considered misdemeanors.

A statement on the Naturist Action Committee Web site reminds nude beachgoers that “lewd activity is never appropriate” and requests that nude beachgoers “speak up for proper clothing-optional beach etiquette.”

Well, what would be more salty than naked people sweating on a beach next to the ocean? Well? Maybe naked people being chased around a beach by the ocean by Key West police officers, trying to give them tickets for not having any clothes on!!! Imagine the free attention that would get from the national and international media. Tourist Development Council, eat your hearts out :-)

The last comment today came from Richard Mason, co-founder of Halover Beach:

We keep hearing people comparing the exhibitionist nudity at Fantasy Fest with the nudity that will occur at a designated naturist beach.

This is wrong. They are two separate and distinct forms of behavior.

The partial nudity that occurs at Fantasy Fest is motivated by a completely different set of brain mechanics than the nudity the takes place at a naturist beach.

The nudity at a naturist beach is more in line with the the atmosphere of a monastery, while the exposure at Fantasy Fest is more akin to a circus.

After over 20 years of dealing with naturist recreation, asking questions of thousands of people looking for a nude beach in Florida, I have learned the following. 

Most people have an inner urge to be nude in an appropriate setting, like a tropical beach or forest. Most people have told me that they have had this desire from a very early age. Probably triggered by reading National Geographic or watching a Tarzan movie.  That is something ticking away inside them for years.

Most people have told me that they are shy and would really want to be alone, when nude in that tropical setting,but, they also fear being alone, because they believe there would be some kind of danger, being alone.

What we witness at Fantasy Fest is a form of rebellion against the forced requirement to wear clothes. Also, the rebellion against a society that will punish, through their criminal code, anyone being merely nude in a public setting. Even while praying to their God.

That is why you witness so much costuming and body paint. 

Further, many, to overcome their shyness, resort to alcohol to break down their learned restrictions on being nude. After many years of repression and being told it is wrong to be nude in public and that inner desire to be nude, being repressed, and, the opportunity to walk on a public street, exposed. now available, the alcohol gives them the courage; and the paint and other material give them some cover.

These same people will go back to their regular lives of being a policeman, pastor, school teacher. doctor, lawyer and Indian Chief. Many will feel that they got the frustration out of their system, for another year. Somewhat like bursting a boil.

Many who visit a naturist beach would never, never visit Fantasy Fare. Why, because it is the opposite of what they want to do while being on a beach. They want quiet, read a book. Enter their spiritual being with nature.  There is a mutual vulnerability while nude on a beach. You are exposed to the elements, your surroundings and other people.

Loud and noisy people are truly a vexation to the soul. Being nude on a beach is about respecting your body and the others around you. 

Many feel closer to their God, fully exposed on a beach. The wind, the water and the sea grass  all add up to a lowering of your blood pressure and a revisit to your inner self and life’s journey. When you respect your self, your body, it is then that you respect others and nature.

Just like the famous psychoanalysis stated: “Sometimes a good cigar is just  good cigar” People visiting a naturist beach say, “Sometimes a nude beach is just a nude beach.”

Let the process continue. But those that are selecting a beach for a designated naturist beach, should not go hastily off into the sun. 

They MUST consider the elements that are important to a naturist beach experience. Those elements, more important than the nudity, is a location that is remote, quiet and one where people can get lost in the natural scene.

The avoidance of cement walls, noise, and only worldly objects are best out of sight. In Key West, they want people to return for a naturist beach experience. That is only possible if visitors experience a natural area.

The only site that meets this criteria is the East end of Smathers Beach.  Remember, you are not creating a “ghetto.” You are creating a natural experience that visitors will remember.

Richard Mason

Naturist