Good Morning Florida Keys

Duval Street addict

From my distant in-law Ron yesterday, who loves and used to vacation a lot in Key West with his beloved wife, before she passed away:

SLOAN – My first thought is, there but for the grace of God go I. My second thought is, the homeless communities have rights. My third thought is, the regular hard working tax paying communities have rights. My fourth thought is, I am glad I don’t have to decide where those two rights bump into each other.

You know what I am trying to say. You have the right to pee. You don’t have the right to pee on my shoes.

The working taxpayers, their customers and vacationers have the right to the quite enjoyment of their communities. The homeless communities have the right to co-exist. It is going to take some really smart dudes and dudesses to meet the goals of both communities in both the human sense and the legal sense.

Regards, Ron

Hi, Ron. There despite, or with, the Grace of God, went I. What a jolt that was. I was in total shock. I figured all along God was going to do a last-minute rescue, since God knew I was not able to do it. God did not do a last-minute rescue. I could write a book about the funny looks, comments, I got from people after they learned where I had come from before they met me. I sometimes still get the funny looks, comments.

I suppose I really should not claim to have been homeless in the sense everyone else but one person I met on the street was homeless. I knew it was a spiritual work assignment, as did that one person I met in on Higgs Beach one morning know his being on the street was a spiritual work assignment. We understood the program, and both were refreshed to find someone else on it, amidst a sea of people who knew nothing about the program. Homeless people who knew nothing about it, mainstream people who knew nothing about it.

That fellow was not on the same assignment I was on, though. He was just passing through living on the street, headed elsewhere. I was marinating in living on the street, acquiring the experience required to speak with knowledge to the issues in public forums. I did not realize that at first, but before a year of living on the street mostly had passed, I saw the plan and how it was starting to play out.

In March 2001, I started showing up mornings at the Key West library with a missive ready to fall out of me. I got there a few minutes before opening time, so I could get right on a computer and type the missive as it fell out of me onto the monitor screen. Back then, patrons were allowed an hour on a computer each day, and the library was open six days a week. I had six missives a week fall out of me, and with what little money I had, I printed out 10 or 12 copies each, and then got on my Bicycle Bob-donated second bicycle and pedaled around distributing that day’s edition. Mayor Jimmy Weekly always got one at City Hall. A few homeless people I knew always got one. And a few other people got one.

At the top of each missive was this theme:

The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen.

My recollection is, I published the missives anonymously.

I remember a sort of funny, in hindsight, misadventure with a deputy sheriff after 911, which was when the city’s mood toward homeless people shifted to oppressive. The library didn’t let you nap in the library, and I was in there one day reading, and started feeling that “pass out” sensation coming on. Back in those days, and still, I passed out twice a day usually. It looked like taking a nap, probably was that, too. But I knew it heralded something from the Spirit coming in, for after I awoke, I would see something new to do, or ponder. It happened in church services, public meetings, and just whenever.

Usually when I was outside and felt it coming on, I would head for a park bench somewhere and let it have me, and after maybe 45 minutes it would be over. This time, though, I went outside and walked the short distance to the little pocket park next to the library and sat on one of the benches in the shade. I often had a sandwich for lunch in that little park, and maybe I had one that time, too. I also nodded off, sitting straight up, and when I snapped out of it suddenly, a deputy sheriff was standing over me. The deputy I had seen on duty in the library that day.

He said I wasn’t supposed to sleep in the park, since it was part of the library. I said I knew that, but it came over me. I passed out. Oh, did I have a medical problem? No, it was a God thing. It happened a lot. A what? A God thing. The deputy was a bit agitated. I got up to leave, he followed, nagging me. I stupidly asked if he didn’t have anything better to be doing, some criminals to catch? Bad move.

He whipped out his citation pad and started writing me up. He asked for my ID. I gave him my Alabama driver’s license. He asked where I lived? I said I had no place to live. “At large,” he said, wrote that on the ticket. He said I could not come back to the library. I said, What? “Yeah, you’re banned from the library.” I said I was in the library every day. Everyone working in there knew me. He went inside and got the older fellow who worked in the back room. I did not know him, because he worked in the back room. The older fellow said he had to side with the deputy, I could not come back.

Then, the deputy ordered me off the sidewalk. I said it was a public sidewalk, he could not order me off the sidewalk, I was not breaking any laws. He put his hand on his Glock, I guess it was. I said we should be doing something else. He said he looked forward to his day off, so he could go fishing. Get off the sidewalk meanwhile. I said I didn’t have to get off the sidewalk. He whipped out his two-way and called for backup. I said why did he do that, he had the gun? All the while, the older man stood watching, saying nothing.

I walked over and unlocked my my bicycle off the rack and pedaled off. It was over a year before I went back into the library, and there was no problem. Today, they carry copies of Heavy Wait. They have had me present at the monthly book club. I am always welcome.

One other library story, which was in the spring of 2001, when I was putting out the one-page missives.

Shorty after arriving at the library, I was overwhelmed with the urged to do a number 2. I went to the men’s bathroom. A homeless man was in the toilet stall. I waited outside a while, about to burst. No movement inside. Homeless men frequently stayed in that stall a while, shaving, washing, etc. I couldn’t hold out any longer and went into the women’s restroom adjacent, which I knew was empty. I locked the deadbolt behind me, so nobody could come in. I started doing my emergency business, and somebody started knocking on the door. Then, somebody started pounding.

I finished the emergency and flushed the toilet and opened the door, to be greeted by a deputy with hands on hips, not happy look on face. He said men were not allowed in the women’s restroom. I said I knew that, but it was either that, the men’s room was full, or I went outside and did it on the sidewalk, or in the parking lot or in the bushes. There was no other alternative, other than doing it in my pants, which I was not inclined to do. It was like 10:15 in the morning. There was no store nearby. No nothing nearby, which had public bathrooms.

A Mexican standoff developed. Finally, the deputy told me not to do it again. Maybe he’d had an emergency pit stop himself in the past. Some time later, I learned of another bathroom in the library, which very few patrons knew was there. Men and women used it. I started using it because it almost always was available. The men’s room continued to be a crapshoot, if you needed to do #2, because the toilet stall was a hangout for homeless men.

I could tell lots of bathroom stories from when I was homeless, some you would like reading better than others. Stories at the public bathrooms at Higgs Beach and at Mallory Pier, on opposite sides of the island. There was a public bathroom at the end of the bayside of Simonton Street, and there were public bathrooms at the Martin-Luther King Center in Bahama Village, and at Smathers Beach near the airport, and at Bayview Park next to Truman Avenue. I think I probably contracted the MRSA infection off a toilet seat at Higgs Beach.

But those aren’t the other bathroom stories I could tell, some of which you might not like to read. When you have to go, you go. You know that. I know that. Every person breathing knows that.

So how about a hilarious cop story. A wet, windy, chilly night in November 2003, I am sleeping on a bench in the misting rain under a thin blanket under the large Higgs Beach pavilion closest to Casa Marina. It is a rough night, the bench is uncomfortable, I keep waking up and having to turn over, pull the wet bank back up over me. Before dawn, my by then good friend, Police Chief Buz Dillon, comes to me in a dream, says, “It didn’t work out.” I wake up, hearing lots of voices and laughing.

I look around, two KW police cruisers parked beside Salute. Oh, shit. I’m going to jail. The park is closed from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. I’m not supposed to be there. Then, I hear women laughing. One comes by from the water side wearing about nothing. Then another comes by wearing her hand over her you know what. Lots of laughing between the women and the cops, all about same age, early-to-mid 20s. Another cruiser shows up, lots of chatter and laughing from inside that cruiser with the other cops and women. The third cruiser leaves.

I get a chance to speak with the woman who was butt nekkid but now somewhat clothed. “How do you get away with being on the beach without getting arrested for being on the beach and not having any clothes on?” She says, “I fuck the cops.” She laughs. I laugh. She goes over and gets into the back of one of the cruisers with two of the boys in blue, and they leave in somewhat of a haste, it seems. I hear laughter out of the windows as they head off to what I suspect is a fun time together. Am darn jealous, and figure I’m not going to get arrested with the goods I have on the cops.

When I put that into my missive later that day at the library, and sent it to my now fairly large email contacts list, Buz Dillon darn nearly had a coronary, probably because it was so hilarious, and probably because it was so conduct unbecoming. I don’t think it came anywhere close, though, to stopping Buz’s heart, as when I ran for mayor earlier that year and the bright idea came to me about half hour before a televised candidate forum at Comcast near the homeless showers at the police station (no longer, alas) to promote dressing Key West’s police up like pirates, as a publicity stunt.

When I ran for mayor the next time, 2007, I suggested offering homeless people jobs as litter cops and dressing them up like pirates and giving them fake swords, daggers and pistols to swashbuckle around Duval Street avasting and growling at litter bugs, threatening them with walking the plank and so forth and so on, if they didn’t pick up their trash. Got me interviewed on a nationally syndicated radio show in the Big Apple, and other radio shows around the country, including a station in Hawaii. Didn’t get me elected, thankfully.

Then was the time back in the early spring of 2001, when this drop dead beautiful topless blond on Higgs Beach, sitting on her blanket, she’d been there all morning, and the day before, all by her lonesome, asked me if I had the time? I rummaged around in my daypack and found the alarm clock I’d bought in Mumbai, India, and told her the time. She thanked me. I left.

I found myself thinking last week about that. I found myself thinking, surely she was in Key West to let her hair down. Why in the hell didn’t I ask her if she would like to let it down with a homeless lawyer, who sometimes had gotten along pretty well with women in the sack when we liked each each other, and he didn’t have any strange disease to worry about, and when she went back to where she came from, nobody would be the wiser. Hell, maybe she would have taken me home with her.

Sloan

Sloan – I know you are telling the truth about your adventures on the street… because, you can’t make that stuff up.

Key West really could have used you as a mayor, but you are right, your life would have been a living hell.

Regards, Ron

Higgs Beach homeless summit

Duval Street capitalist

escape from Margaritaville

Duval Street palmist

I give up

dangerous characters

free enterprise

job search

library tethering post

Outward Bound, Higgs Beach outpost

getting his bearings on White Street Pier sundial

Higgs Beach native

gypsy art

homeless Santa

undercover CIA operative

caught red-handed

squatter’s rights

tres hombres

illegal immigrants

homeless vet

Father Stephen Braddock, the guiding force of Florida Keys Outreach Coalition and father to many men down on their luck in Key West

Not pictured, because I cannot find a photo of her, St. Dorothy Sherman, Key West homeless people’s Patron Saint, who started the soup kitchen and devoted her life and her money, with much help from her husband George, both my dear friends, to serving, feeding, clothing, taking to doctors, buying medicines, etc. etc. etc. homeless people in Key West. Here are some of her soup kitchen’s patrons.

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Sometimes something comes my way that just brings out the devil in me:

From Cindy someone yesterday, unknown to me:

Fwd: Good Morning Florida Keys » God’s poet

http://goodmorningfloridakeys.com/?cat=3

Does he know GOOOH.com

if we believe something to be true and have faith even when evidence is contrary, then it is true – there is so so much that we do not understand…….

IF YOU VOTED FOR GEORGE W. BUSH OR BARACK OBAMA, OR IF YOU SUPPORTED THE WARS IN IRAQ OR AFGHANISTAN, YOU ACCELERATED THE STAMPEDE.

Ninety percent of Americans say they would like to fire Congress, but are we too busy to actually make it happen? GO is a simple, non-partisan plan to challenge every incumbent in the U.S. House with citizen representatives in the primaries. We respectfully request you visit the GOOOH web site to learn about our plan, and then join the effortto make it happen.

AS I WROTE TO CINDY EARLIER TODAY, WHY FIRE CONGRESS WHEN NUKING CONGRESS IN SESSION IS SO MUCH QUICKER, CHEAPER, EFFECTIVE?

Politicians are destroying our nation. Here is a plan to replace them. The only question is will you take a few minutes, join, and help make it happen?

PROBABLY NOT, BUT I’LL SLEEP ON IT, SEE WHAT THE JOINT CHIEFS WHO BOSS ME AROUND HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT. I’M OLD, TIRED, WORN OUT. I DON’T GO TO SLEEP AT NIGHT LOOKING FORWARD TO WAKING UP AGAIN. I ACHE. I DON’T SEE ANY CURE TO WHAT ALREADY DIED BUT DOESN’T KNOW IT YET. I WOULD WORRY ABOUT MY CHILDREN AND FRIENDS, IF I THOUGHT IT WOULD DO ANY GOOD. I AM NOT A GREENHORN TO POLITICS, HAVING RUN FOR LOCAL OFFICE SEVEN TIMES WITH TREMENDOUS SUCCESS, DEFEAT, SAVING ME FROM HAVING TO KILL MYSELF IF THE RECOUNT FAILED TO UNSEAT ME. I DETEST POLITICS AND POLITICIANS. I RUN FOR OFFICE ONLY BECAUSE THE JOINT CHIEFS TELL ME TO RUN. THIS YEAR THEY GAVE ME A FREE PASS. MAYBE BECAUSE THEY KNEW YOU WOULD WRITE TO ME. THE ONLY ELECTED OFFICE THAT EVER INTERESTED ME WAS PRESIDENT OF USA. I FIGURE I WOULD LIVE MAYBE A WEEK, IF I WAS LUCKY, AFTER BEING SWORN IN. SNIPER BULLET MOST LIKELY EXIT STRATEGY, BUT PERHAPS ONE OF MY BODYGUARDS’ HANDGUN, OR A GARROTE, OR A BOWIE KNIFE, OR POISON, OR ALIENS NOT OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT SWOOP IN AND DEMATERIALIZE ME BEFORE I SCREW UP THEIR FARMING OPERATION – FARMING HUMANS. RIGHT, YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING HOW MUCH OF THIS IS SERIOUS, HOW MUCH SPOOF? IT’S ALL REAL, FAR AS I KNOW. I HAVE A COLLEGE EDUCATION, TWO LAW DEGREES. I HAVE WORKED IN THE CORPORATE SECTOR AND HAVE PRACTICED LAW. I HAVE WRITTEN LOTS OF BOOKS. I HAVE HAD LOTS OF WIVES AND KNOW LOTS ABOUT WOMEN AND FOR SURE KNOW THE WEAKER SEX IS MEN. I HAVE LIVED ON THE STREET, SLEPT ON CARDBOARD BOXES AND OTHER COMFY BEDDING. I HAVE NEARLY DIED A FEW TIMES AND REGRET THOSE SNATCHES OUT OF THE JAWS OF VICTORY. I CAN’T BE BOUGHT, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT ANYONE THINKS OF ME, BUT I CARE A GREAT DEAL WHAT GOD THINKS OF ME, ALTHOUGH I HAVE NO CLUE HOW GOD VIEWS ME. I BELONG TO NO POLITICAL PARTY AND THINK JUST BELONGING TO A POLITICAL PARTY SHOULD BE A CAPITAL OFFENSE WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF LAW. SARAH PALIN SCARES THE BEJESUS OUT OF ME, BUT I FIGURE IF SHE GOT ELECTED ELLE PRESIDENTE, SHE WOULD TAKE USA WHERE IT NEEDS TO GO FASTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE IN THE POLITICO SEWER. FELT THE SAME WAY ABOUT G..W. BUSH AND BARACK OBAMA. OH, I MAJORED IN ECONOMICS IN COLLEGE, MINORED IN BUSINESS, AND HAD ENOUGH ENGLISH CREDITS ALMOST FOR AN UNDECLARED MAJOR. I AM A FATHER, WHOSE CHILDREN ABANDONED HIM, ONE BY HAVING PERHAPS THE GOOD FORTUNE TO DIE IN INFANCY, THE OTHER TWO FOR REASONS YET TO BE EXPLAINED TO ME, ALTHOUGH I CAN LIST SOME GUESSES, WHICH MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT BE MORE THAN GUESSES. I HAVE LOTS OF FRIENDS WHO KNOW I’M CRAZY AND SOMEHOW LIVE WITH IT, AND I HAVE LOTS OF ENEMIES WHO KNOW I’M CRAZY AND SAY THE DEVIL IS BEHIND IT, OR I OUGHT TO BE LOCKED UP FOR MY (TRANSLATES – THEIR) OWN GOOD. I AM ENSLAVED TO A BAND OF ANGELS YOU MAY HAVE THOUGHT YOU READ ABOUT IN THE BIBLE BUT THEY DON’T SEEM NEARLY AS CONSTRAINED AND CIVIL AS DESCRIBED THERE. THEY OWN ME, TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT, AND HOW NOT TO DO IT. THEY MAY CLOBBER ME FOR WRITING THIS TO YOU TODAY WITHOUT MY FIRST SLEEPING ON IT AND GETTING THEIR INPUT IN DREAMS AND SOMETIMES DIRECT TALK. WAY THE DAY’S BEEN GOING SO FAR, TOSS IN THE WEEK AND MONTH AND YEAR AND DECADE, TOO, AND THE REST OF MY LIFE, I’M ALMOST TO THE POINT OF TELLING THE WINGED ONES SOMETHING LIKE WHAT RHETT BUTLER TOLD SCARLET O’HARA: “FRANKLY, MY DEARS, I DON’T GIVE A DAMN.” I DO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT BIRTH AND BABIES, BUT NOT MUCH, AS ONLY A WOMAN CAN REALLY KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT THAT. I’M LOADS OF FUN AT COCKTAIL PARTIES, RECEPTIONS, GRADUATIONS, BABY KISSINGS, CHURCH PICNICS, AND SOCIAL GATHERINGS GENERALLY. I LOVE TALKING ABOUT SHIT THAT DOESN’T MATTER AND THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT IF IT DOES MATTER. I WISH YOU THE BEST IN YOUR ENDEAVOR AND HOPE THE TEA PARTY DOESN’T SEND A HIT TEAM TO RUB YOU OUT FOR TREADING TOO CLOSE TO THEIR TURF. I CAME TO PREFER THE WRITE-IN METHOD OF ELECTING CANDIDATES, PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T FILE TO RUN OR EVEN WANT THE JOB, BUT I DON’T SEE HOW THAT CAN WORK IN NATIONAL ELECTIONS, GIVEN THE WAY THE FOUNDING FATHERS SET UP THE REPUBLIC SO WE HAVE AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE INSTEAD OF A DEMOCRACY. MAYBE SOMETHING ELSE WILL COME TO ME LATER. IF SO, MAYBE I WILL HAVE THE ENERGY TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT. I TRIED TO RUN THIS DIATRIBE THROUGH MY SPELLCHECKER, BUT IT SEEMS TO BE ON BREAK A LOT SINCE MY LAPTOP VOTED IN THE UNION. NOT SURE WHAT IS BETTER OR WORSE, UNIONS OR CORPORATIONS. BOTH PRETTY SCARY, BUT UNCLE SAM HAS A BIT OF A LEG UP THERE. CIAO. NOTICE WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DROP THE O FROM CIAO. JUST NOW NOTICED THAT MYSELF. SLOAN BASHINSKY

Help us tell the politicians to Get Out Of Our House! National site is www.goooh.com and our regional site is www.gooohswfl.com.

Call or email if you are interested in learning more.

Keith

239-250-3320

Hi Sloan. Everyone has to make his own decision. For me, God, our Founders and many previous generations have given use Freedom under the greatest experiment the world has seen. Is it perfect, of course not. But we have a responsibility to restore and preserve it peacefully for our future generations. I am too stupid or stubborn to give up.

Good reply, Keith. I definitely agree with peacefully, starting with ending America’s war lust Jesus Christ would never sanction. Thought you folks wuz looking for potential candidates who are not politicians, so I sent you a resume. Sloan

============================

As President, my first official act would be to order the immediate, safe withdrawal from and return to America of all American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, the immediate cessation of all US Government military and economic aid to Israel, and the withdrawal of and return to America of all American military personnel from the Middle East. My next official act, if I wuz still breathing, would be to order the immediate withdrawal of and return to America of all American military personnel on all foreign soil. The purpose of these two official acts would be to eliminate the external American causes of America’s foreign wars, and to provide the military presence needed inside America to discourage Americans from killing Americans when the tests God has arranged for America start happening. As American Christians don’t hear nearly enough of in their churches, “Hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” I hear a lot of talk from conservative American Christians about America being a Christian country. But I don’t hear any talk from conservative Christians about America being a Jesus country. I don’t hear conservative American Christians talking about the Jesus I see in the Gospels.

Ciao

Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water.
The dolphins are identical. A closely monitored
scientific study revealed that, in spite of the fact
that the dolphins are identical, a person under
stress would find differences in the two dolphins.
The more differences a person finds between the
dolphins, the more stress that person is experiencing.
Look at the photograph and if you find more than one
or two differences you need to go on vacation…. 


No need to Reply, I’ll be on vacation.

State Attorney Dennis Ward

икони на светци

So, after packing a bag to head down to the Key West airport yesterday morning, I took a short walk on the dirt road in front of my place. I walked maybe two hundred yards, turned around, and by the time I got back home I was barely able to move, almost unable to close my right eye, bright sunlight was really bothering me, I was having trouble breathing, so I went inside and lay down, knowing I was not going to go to Birmingham to see an old friend who had asked to see me before she leaves this life. Somewhat recovered, I got up and called Delta, and was told due to bad weather tying up their operatives, it would over an hour wait before I spoke with a person. I went online and found a way to cancel my already purchased tickets and get a full refund. I called and emailed the person who had called me, which had set the trip into motion, and said I was not happy about it, but the Bell palsy was not going to let me travel. I said I would rebook today, if I felt I could travel. I did not say I felt more than Bell palsy was holding me in the Keys. The physical stress seemed greater than Bell palsy symptoms, and dreams before dawn had left me wondering if I was being told not to go to Birmingham. I was so sure when I received the call day before yesterday that I was supposed to go, that I purchased the airline tickets before I slept on it. A very unusual thing for me to do about something important, not sleep before I act, if I have time to sleep. I don’t feel any better today, so it doesn’t look like I’m going to Birmingham. I realized yesterday that I did not write that my doctor friend said Bell’s palsy is viral in origin, and there is very little medicine can do for it but tell people who have it to protect the affected eye, so it doesn’t dry out, take aspirin to thin the blood, and, I suppose, reduce activities. When I called my doctor friend about the trip, he asked if the symptoms were still holding, not advancing? I said it seemed to have stopped advancing. He said I should be able to make the trip okay, but neither of us counted on the angels apparently having other ideas. They can really load me up when they want to load me up, and there is nothing I can do but endure, and when it gets really heavy take two 200 mg ibuprofen tablets, which seem to help some by reducing swelling and generalized pain and headaches. Other than that, there seems to be no relief this world can offer, short of getting drunk or stoned or otherwise drugged up, the pronto consequences of which I wager would be acutely punitive for me. Despite my travail, my libido seems quite alive and well, as occasional damsels passing nearby let me know pronto, but no serious activity since Biker Chick abducted me for an afternoon over a year ago. I bet I’d be a comical sight, serious chick bait, campaigning for mayor of Key West with the right side of my face not moving when I talk, and having difficulty eating without putting my finger in my mouth constantly to move chewed food from between my right lower teeth and cheek into my mouth to swallow it, and dribbling water and other fluids down my face when I drink from a glass, bottle or through a straw without using one hand to hold my lips together. I have to chew on the right side, having had two lower molars removed on the left side and not yet replaced – the dentist’s fee for that nearly caused cardiac arrest. At least I haven’t experienced a total collapse of the right side of my face yet, and constant drooling and having a napkin ever handy. At least I can still close my right eye, by closing both eyes, and I can still wink at chicks with my left eye. At least it was not a stroke. Gravity, years, life bumps and angels win out every time. Meanwhile, I bought a black eye patch at Winn-Dixie and it looks pretty good on me, new wannabe pirate chicks to the area who don’t know better might almost mistake me for a lustful old pirate. I dunno, maybe deep down inside my old soul friend wants me to stay in the Keys she knew, before the developers had their sway, and try to have some fun in her memory. I moseyed down to Looe Key Tiki Bar last night, plopped down next to a couple I really like, and before long they had introduced me to a seriously beautiful redneck girl biker chick I had not known was a redneck girl biker chick when she was a seriously beautiful legal secretary in Key West. A real live Mustang Sally, she got some of my cylinders firing that seemed to have rusted up, until my heart broke when it finally came out the lovely honky tonk angel wuz still married but perhaps not for long.

As for stirring up commotion down here, I read in The Citizen yesterday of a “talking-stick” symposium on homelessness at Unitarian Universalist church in Key West Tuesday night, 7 pm. This church, in 2006, formed a committee against permanent insanity, or something like that, to ban me from the church forever. So while the thing in The Citizen said the symposium is open to the public, everyone who wants will get three minutes to speak, I don’t feel invited. Even if I did feel invited, I’d be hesitant to try to attend after what happened yesterday when I was barely able to walk a few hundred yards early in the morning in front of my home in the woods. And what do you wanna bet I couldn’t say enough in three minutes to get my sorry ass banned forever again? I might ask if any of them ever ate at St. Mary’s soup kitchen, where I have eaten hundreds of times, to try to get to know street people by actually sitting down and talking with them, hearing their stories? I know a married couple who attend UU, who actually took a street woman I know into their home for a while. I told them ahead of time it was a noble gesture, but it might not have a happy ending, if they did it, since women and men who have lived on the street a good while have gone part feral and don’t cotton very well to mainstream ways. I suggested they not require this woman, whom I knew pretty well, to do anything around their home except keep her quarters clean and be quiet. Maybe two years before that experiment, I had introduced County Commissioner Heather Carruthers, now County Mayor Heather Carruthers, to this same homeless woman and her African grey parrot Scorpio, and had watched Heather seem to fall in love with the woman and the parrot. Heather came to me in a nap dream yesterday morning, before I cancelled the airline tickets for the Birmingham trip, demanding that I not leave the Keys.

I had hoped meeting this woman and Scorpio would soften Heather’s heart toward street people and change the tone in Higgs Beach Committee meetings, and the steady stream of talk about “vagrants” and “bums” and “derelicts.” In fact, that did happen for a while, with some encouragement from City Commissionner Teri Johnston, who co-chaired the committee with Heather, and who also had met and been smitten, it seemed, by this street woman and Scorpio. Then, Michael Behmke took over after the committee was renamed Friends of Higgs Beach, and he led the charge, with Heather blowing the bugle, to redesign Higgs Beach for quite a bit of taxpayer wampum, so it will be virtually impossible for a vagrants, bums and derelicts to set foot on Higgs.

Street people at picnic kiosks at Higgs Beach, which the Friends of Higgs Beach intend to get rid of, stopping not only street people from using them, but also lots of mainstream Key West folks and visitors. The Friends of Higgs Beach intended to get rid of the the lovely old Austrailian pines, too, until I alerted the pine lovers to what was coming down. I never saw any of the Friends of Higgs Beach on Higgs Beach when it was my living room and office, and sometimes my bedroom. How could I say anything meaningful in three lousy fucking minutes to what I wonder are people who are out looking for yet another cause to pursue, so they can pat themselves on the back at cocktail parties and on Facebook for getting wrote up in conch color magazines and newspapers? If they want to see serious color, they should spend serious spend time around street people. I imagine it will be a hell of a lot more interesting than anything they will hear said in UU, or in a city commission meeting, or at a cocktail party, or at a Friends of Higgs Beach meeting, or in any bar, strip joint, lap dance parlor, whore house, orgy den, tatoo-parlor, art opening, twelve step meeting or church in Key West. I wonder if the UU minister ever had a meal at the St. Mary’s Soup kitchen? I wonder if he ever made friends with, not just the acquaintance of, even one street person? I wonder if the fellow and his wife who took in the street woman and her parrot will tell it like it is at the homeless symposium Tuesday night? I wonder if Gwen Filosa, who writes on homeless issues for The Citizen, will ever interview me? I wonder if she will ever quote Father Stephen Braddock, who has devoted his life to trying to help homeless people, re the city’s policy toward street people? I wonder if Gwen ever ate at St. Mary’s soup kitchen, like any real journalist would do, and talked not only with street people, but also with the volunteers who feed them daily, people who actually spend time around street people? The way the City of Key West treats street people, like they are a leper invasion, lampoons the city’s One Human Family creed. It also lampoons Jesus, who walked with lepers and himself was a street person and said somelike this, “I was hungry and you fed me not, I was in prison and you visited me not. As you do to the least of these, you do also to me.”

Here are some seriously funny quips sent to me yesterday by a bum who used to spend the cooler months in Key West, living in his vehicle. A bum who is as erudite and traveled as any person I know in Key West. I know quite a few bums like him, who still hang out in Key West. And I know a street person in Key West, who is more educated than anyone I have met in Key West. I met him At St. Mary’s soup kitchen in late 2000, shortly after arriving from Maui, from which I had been transported on the wings of a snow white dove, or something, because I sure as hell didn’t have any other way to get to Key West.

A few times in the past, I have had the opportunity to be with someone important to me, who was moving toward leaving this life. Yesterday, I received a phone call asking me to come to the beside, and today I’m flying for the first time since 2000. Flying to Birmingham. My doctor friend said flying will not affect me re the Bell’s palsy. This old friend asked for only three people, and I am one of them, the caller told me. I imagine many people will come to pay their respects and spoken and unspoken farewells. I imagine most of them will be upset. I am not upset. My old friend is going to a better place. I will miss her, I probably will cry when I’m with her, perhaps at other times, but others will be devastated. One of the others I imagine will look to me for companionship from time to time. The one who called me. I suppose I will continue to post stuff daily while I’m away from the Keys. I will have my laptop with me and access to the Internet. I can keep up with Keys stuff through reading the local newspapers online and through what I receive by email and hear on US 1 Radio online. I have kept writing daily when I was in Birmingham before. To my Birmingham amigos and amigas, I hope we get to see each other while I’m there. I arrive mid-afternoon today, which is Saturday, Delta Airlines cooperating, and am scheduled to fly back to the Keys Wednesday morning. Here is my cell phone number, for those of you for whom I only have an email address: 305-407-4285. Shalom. Sloan.

Text from chain of emails between Utility Board incumbent candidate Ty Symroski, above, and Mike Mongo, too ugly to reproduce, who started the Facebook page, 1000 Strong in favor of saving Wisteria Island. Ty is being challenged by Barry Barroso.

===================

The last few years KEYS has made a lot of progress as summarized:

The price for electricity has been reduced 13.5 %

There have been signifiicant upgrades to the infrastructure. We have not let our system deteriorate

We have initiated a rebate program to promote efficiency

A solar roof was brokered for the Ecodiscovery Center and we have received a $435,000 matching grant that we will match for renewable energy and efficiency projects

For the first time we have compiled a policy and procedures manual of board policy

Our strategic plan has become a more complete document

There still are many things to do. These are a few.

Continue system improvements

Conduct a rate study to assure fair rates that are fiscally sensible. A study is required to document the rates for the PSC

Conduct a study to assure our pay scales are appropriate and fair

Adopt a strategic goal to help the community to reduce electricity consumption

Deal with the long term issue or inaccessible lines in people’s back yard.

Thanks, and looking forward to hearing from you. ty

———————————-
Ty Symroski, Candidate

Key West Utility Board Group 1
2328 Staples Avenue
Key West, FL 33040

Ty,

Have you read “Sloan’s email” today?

I myself noticed this part:

Received this email the other day, from an email address I’ve heard from before but do not know the name of the person whose address it is:

“So smart Barry Barroso is Walshes utilities man. He does all sunset keys plumbing. And his brother’s in the aqueduct board this week BY GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENT!!! Because getting utilities to CHRISTMAS TREE IS HOW THEY ARE GOING TO DO IT by putting a pipe into CHRISTMAS TREE”

I will have to ask my good friend Barry Barroso if there is any truth to that, and how he feels about it. Sloan reminded in the written piece that Barry actually got up at one of the local meetings on Wisteria and spoke in support of developing Wisteria.

You know how much Wisteria Island means to me and the people of Key West. For the record, you wouldn’t develop it or work to bring utilities to it in order to foster its development, right?

Mike

PS I cc’d a couple of friends who care about Wisteria as much as I. I hope you do not mind.

Mike, et. al.

I think Wisteria has a lot in common with No Name Key. I think KEYS Energy should be very mindful of the local comprehensive plan as to where growth may occur, how it should occur and at what amount. That is why I am against extending lines to No Name Key and Wisteria. The comprehensive plans do not allow the growth.

At the same time, it is our obligation to respect and listen to all requests from people in our service area as to potential extensions. It is also our responsiblity to assure that the cost of extending and maintaining the electric system is bourne equitably by the applicant.

As an aside, It seems to me that Wisteria and No Name are examples of where we should consider alternatives to just extending an extension cord.

———————————-
Ty Symroski, Candidate

Key West Utility Board Group 1
2328 Staples Avenue
Key West, FL 33040

Ty,

That’s what I wanted to hear. Thank you.

Mike

===============

I, Sloan, think I recall Barry Barroso speaking at least twice in public meetings in favor of Roger Bernstein getting what he wanted re development of Wisteria Island.

Also today, From The Citizen yesterday:

A Stock Island condominium association whose homes border a 150-bed homeless shelter wants the courts to shut down the overnight facility the city has relied on since 2004 as the sole safe haven for the destitute.

I reviewed the lawsuit papers somebody sent to me.

My impressions.

Hilarious, an upscale residential devleopment built adjacent to the city dump doesn’t want KOTS in the area because of enviornmental, health, diminished property value hazards, etc., etc.

Not hilarious, the City seems to have no defense to the civil lawsuit. If that is so, the city will have to close KOTS.

Not hilarious, the City never came into compliance with the 1996 federal case, because KOTS was able to accomodate less than one-half of the city’s homeless population, yet the city continued to use its police to stop homeless people from sleeping at night, which the federal case said Miami could not do, unless the city provided shelters for sleeping and transporation to the shelters if homeless people could not get there on their own, and then they refused to go to shelters.

The Miami lawsuit was brought by the ACLU. The US District Court held it was cruel and unusual punishment, unconstitutional, to use Miami city police to prevent homeless people from sleeping at night, as part of Miami’s effort to force homeless people to leave the area. Appeal by Miami to the US 11th Court of Appeals resulted in the case being sent back down to the US District Court with a strong hint the case be settled and not make its way back up to the 11th Circuit. My understanding was, the hint implied Miami might not like what the 11th Circuit would do. My understanding was, the mediation consisted of Miami surrendering. Thereafter, that US District Court, which is the same US District Court that has jurisdiction over Key West, started running all matters related to homelessness in Miami. The city had to get everything re homelessness approved by the court. I think that might still be how it is up there.

This is what Key West faces, if it loses a copycat federal lawsuit. The same US District Court in the Miami case has jurisdiction over Key West. What if a federal judge tells the city to build a KOTS big enough to bed and shower all of Key West’s homeless people? What if a federal judge says, build that KOTs where it is right now? What if a federal judge says, put that KOTS next to the airport, where the city once considered putting it? What if a federal judge says, put that KOTS on Truman Waterfront? The state court lawsuit described in The Citizen could prove to be the tip of an iceberg, which just might end up landing on the plaintiffs, if a federal judge says put a bigger KOTs where the present KOTS is. So far, it seems the city has tried to pretend the development next to KOTS would go away. But the development didn’t go away. Now a state court judge, not the city, will decide the fate of KOTS. Will a federal court then decide the fate of the city? Will the ACLU sue the city, if it loses the state court lawsuit and keeps using its police to do the same thing Miami did? Does a bear crap in the woods?

Sloan Bashinsky, ex-lawyer

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

The original tar baby story, not the one told by Walt Disney in Song of the South, ends with the rabbit still stuck in the tar baby and the fox firing up his cookpot to have the rabbit for dinner.

Morticia of Locust Fork, Alabama wrote re yesterday’s “live like I am rich post” at goodmorningbirmingham.com. I’m beginning to wonder if she might be a close relation of Eve, curious, adventuresome, not inclined, like Adam, to sit around like a bump on a log doing mindless things. She raises good questions about important parts of the Bible, and being as she is female, and the Bible was written by men, except in couple of places, she deserves for what they are worth answers she probably won’t get in any churches around Locust Fork, or anywhere else.

Good morning, Sloan.

Really deep today.. And as for Paul being gay. Is he the one that was always leaning against Jesus in that picture of the last supper and always having his head in somebody’s lap in the scriptures and I do not mean anything sexual about that. I have always thought that about him being gay. Jesus and MM being married. YEP always thought that also. Or thought maybe they were a couple. I don’t understand why God would be so much on marriage and not let him marry or be with someone. I guess it is up to what the individual gets out of the scriptures. That is one reason I never say anything against anyone’s religion or beliefs. Everybody has a different relationship with God and we all see things in a different light.

You know my take on Eve. Sex in the garden with Satan and then with her husband. Cain belonged to Satan and Abel to Adam.

Otherwise why would God put childbearing pains on women???? Why would he just have said he was going to rot out our teeth or some punishment that fit the crime of “eating an apple.”

I guess it is one of those things that will be revealed to us when we get to where he is. Hopefully it is like it says by his grace because if it is by the way most of us live.. We don’t have a chance. No one is perfect.

I REALLY ENJOYED YOUR POST TODAY.

Morning, Morticia.

Many gears to this here 18 wheeler what I got put on to tour the galaxy in, so to speak. Yes, today’s post is deep. Deep always lurks nearby, even when I’m cutting up. Like the tides, sometimes I’m in shallow water, sometimes I’m in deep water, sometimes in between water. Ever shifting, I never know what’s coming next until I see it, although I nearly always feel its approach in my soul and body.

Paul is not in the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As far as is seen in the New Testament, Paul never met the man Jesus in the flesh, but was confronted by him in a vision on the road to Dasmascus and was asked, “Why do you persecute me, Saul?” Or something like that. Saul was Paul’s name then. He was struck blind, it says, and the account of him becoming Paul and a vigorous “second generation” disciple is provided in Acts of the Apostles, which is the fifth book in the New Testament. Also in Acts, is a good description of Peter’s life and the community that gathered around him.

I think maybe it is in Paul’s letter to the Romans that he explains the pecking order: Christ is to the head of a man, as a man is to the head of his wife, and only through her husband can a woman know Christ. In that or another letter, Paul tells his followers he wishes they are like him, celibate, and maybe in that letter, or in another, he tells his followers they should stop having sex because Christ is returning soon and there is no point in producing more children. I recall nowhere in the New Testament mention of Paul being married or having children, although he had been a Pharisee when he was Saul, and it was a Jewish man’s solemn duty, especially if he was a Pharisee, I suppose, to marry and propagate the chosen people. Being Jewish, being a man, being a rabbi, it was Jesus’ solemn duty to God to do the same, don’t you think?

While I enjoy reading about Paul in Acts of the Apostles, I often have grumbled to the angels and to people, and have written in posts, that Paul did a great deal of harm to Christendom with his male supremacy and anti-sex teachings. So far, the angels have not called me to task on any of that. Nor on my oft saying Paul was homosexual, probably not active, probably he really was celibate, but perhaps not all of his life. Perhaps that was the thorn in his flesh he wrote of in one of his letters. Perhaps that was why, in one of his letters, Paul said homosexuality was an abomination. Perhaps his drive to establish churches and grow large congregations was a displacement for his never having married or had children – his churches and congregations were his children.

I do not criticize Paul for being gay. In fact, that he was tells me how God feels about people being gay, in as much as Saul clearly was stopped in his tracks and turned around, and retooled, and then sent forth to speak for God about Jesus. I have no doubt that happened, and I have no doubt God had no prejudice against Paul being homosexual. In fact, it bears some humor, divine wit, that God would select a self-righteous homosexual persecuter of Christians, who caused many of them to be killed by the Romans, when they did not recant Jesus, to be a bearer of Jesus’ tidings to many people.

Paul was literate, was a Roman citizen, probably spoke Latin and Greek, as well as Hebrew. He was clearly spiritually gifted, but he clearly was prejudiced against sex and against women, neither of which prejudices Jesus demonstrated in the Gospels. Au contraire, Jesus extolled marriage and man-woman relations and having children. And, let us not forget, Jesus first appeared outside the tomb to three women after he returned, and he told one of them, Mary Magdalene, to go to the men disciples and tell them she had seen him and he had said he would be with them shortly.

Jesus did nothing by happenstance. He meant to send a loud and clear message, which Peter clearly did not care to receive. Quite bewildered and angry was Peter, that Jesus had sent a woman with such news. If Jesus would send a woman, why not also later send a homosexual? I bet the ranch every woman who knew Paul personally, knew he was homosexual. And I bet they did not keep that to themselves. How the Catholic church has kept Paul’s sexual orientation suppressed, and also has kept suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene and Jesus, tells me, at least, that the Catholic church is Paul’s church, not Peter’s.

Not just a few times have I told Christians to lay off reading and talking about Paul, and pour on the coals reading and talking about and living Jesus. Most Christians I have known seem to have elevated Paul to Jesus status, which never occurred to me to do. Paul was a great apostle, but he was not Jesus, and he caused, my opinon, more harm than good. I still wish the New Testament had not included his letters, but had left in his story in Acts of the Apostles.

Peter’s story in Acts is equally important, for it describes the dream he had repeatedly in one night, which prepared him to take Jesus to the Gentiles, which Peter, a devout Jew, would not otherwise have done, for devout Jews had no dealings with Gentiles. Also very important in Acts is the description of the communal way Peter and his community lived. With one exception, they put what they had, little or great, into a common pot, and all were given back what they needed to get by. The one exception is quite interesting, and I leave that for you to pull out a bible and read for yourself. It’s a right up your alley story, Morticia.

I imagine the only disciple’s lap Jesus lay his head on belonged to Mary Magdalene.

I had not thought of Cain perhaps having a different father than Adam. What also intrigues me, Adam and Even were the only two people, according to Genesis. But later in Genesis, Cain goes off to the Land of Nod to find himself a wife. There is a take in The Urantia Book on who Eve had sex with, which is closer to your theory than anything I have heard said in Christendom. Maybe it wasn’t the devil but was another man Eve had sex with, instead of Adam. Maybe a disciple of the devil encouraged it, without the other man and Eve realizing what was going on; maybe they thought they were doing what God wanted them to do? That’s what The Urantia Book sez happened, and that Eve was not supposed to do that just yet, and that was why it caused such a big commotion. Adam and Eve both were supposed to seed the evolutionary human population, but only after other things were accomplished. Eve jumped the gun. Then Adam, realizing what would befall her, went out and spread his seeds around, so he could stay with her, so much did he love her. Thus, the super man and the super woman, who had been imported from another world, where super men and super women were the norm, fell together on this world. According to The Urantia Book anyway. The Urantia Book also says monogomy was a human invention on this world, and that marriage also was a human invention. Don’t expect I’ll ever hear The Urantia Book’s version of Adam and Eve, and of lots of other things, told in a church. Google Urantia Book, plenty there to read. Lot more than what’s in the Bible. But this “heretical” stuff I write here about Jesus and Mary Magdalene and Paul is not in The Urantia Book.

Sloan

Morticia’s reply:

I cant answer back right now… I am about to get off the computer.. But I remember reading something about Adam’s daughters. They were never mentioned name wise just said Daughters of Adam.. So evidentially those two boys were not the only ones they have. I will tell you when I can what I think about some things.. Crazy as they seem… Sometimes I think too much …. Dont we all.. And I will find the scripture about one about the person laying his head in Jesus lap.. I think it was John that was always up against him… Maybe Cain took one of his sisters as a wife. Never know. M

My rejoinder:

Well, if it was one of Adam and Eve’s daughters what Cain married, why does Genesis say Cain went off to the Land of Nod to find a wife, when his sisters lived right next door, or in the next tree house over, or in the next cave down the ravine, or whatever?

When I put that question to a Keys fellow, who was making a big commotion about the Bible and his righteousness, he said what you said, Cain married a sister, that’s how it was done back in those days, since there were so few people. I had to give him credit for seeing the problem, but he did not explain why Cain had to go to the Land of Nod to find one of his own sisters to marry. More important, this fellow did not explain how come all-knowing God, who knew all there was to know about human genetics – right?- set it up so brothers would marry sisters and turn the entire seed race into Appalachian inbreeds? Just don’t make no sense to me that all-knowing God would do something like that. Makes lots more sense that there were other people, but Adam and Eve were special kind of people, which is how The Urantia Book explains it.

In fact, that book says there were people on this planet a very long time before Adam and Eve were installed here. Lots of different kinds of people, and some wuz primitives and some were super people, but not doing all that well cause of a Fall before the one Adam and Eve did. Part of their installation on this planet, as its eventual civic rulers, so to speak, was to try to correct the previous Fall, as well as educate the people geographically near them in better/higher ways to live, and eventually to breed with them, producing hybrid children superior to the local folk and more like Adam and Eve. Upgrading the race in that way, with those children turning around and doing the same, and their children turning around and doing the same. Got all screwed up, but still there was some upgrade from Adam and Eve inbreeding with the locals. You might find the history of human beings in The Urantia Book interesting. It’s easy to Google online.

Ciao

Sloan

Post-script:

In Genesis, it says plain as day that man, the species, was created in God’s image, male and female alike. In the face of that, how do I argue God is HE, MALE?

Then, Genesis seems back up and start over, and the Adam and Eve story is told. As if there were two human origin stories, and Adam and Eve was the second in time.

How do you s’pose the Bible would read if women had written it?

What do you s’pose might happen if Christ comes back as a she?

Looks to me the reason childbirth is painful is because the baby is somewhat bigger than the delivery channel.

There is a somewhat related post today at goodmorningkeywest.com.

Sloan

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

ikoni

F 18 Super Hornets

Yesterday, I watched the tape of Item J3 on Wednesday’s county commission meeting, which was about the county and the Navy’s back and forthing. I found the tape with County Commissioner Kim Wigington’s help.