Hurricane Sandy Halloween aftermath and other feminine affairs – USA mostly
Thursday, November 1st, 2012
America’s version of Halloween, witches, goblins and ghosts, and tricks or treats is a far cry from what since Antiquity has been viewed at the holiest day of the year on this planet, when heaven and earth are closest together.
Received from Sue on Key Largo this reply to to parts of yesterday’s hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and other acts of God – Florida Keys politics and beyond post:
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Hi Sloan, Happy Halloween (and that’s a whole other subject !) Jose [Peixoto, US House of Representatives candidate who lives on Key Largo] wants America to stop the special treatment, including financial aid, which encourages Cubans to come to America. – I agree. I talked to Jose at the KL Civic Club Sunday, and I said US Congress needs to repeal the Wet Foot – Dry Foot policy. He agreed, but we then both said Washing does not have the political will to actually do it. I voted to retain all Florida Supreme Court Justices on the ballot. Good decisions. Contrary to many upper Keys Republicans recommending “no” to the shall they stay questions. The Republican party line seems to be based on Gov Scott has whispered to them to help him get current judges out so he can put in judges favorable to him – and by inference – Republicans. Day after election headline: “Hurricane Sandy puts Mittens in White House – act of God.” So true. Here are some email comments I’ve received so far.
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Note to Pres Romney: Deer Mitt, Don’t kid yourself. The ONLY reason you won is because nobody in NYC, and many in the northeast, could not vote due to Sandy. Sandy gave you this election, you’re there by default. Never take the 2012 election results you won fair.
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Should Romney win, it will be because H-Sandy handed him the election. He will forever be known as the winner by default. The Romney camp must never gloat. Their victory comes at the expense (literally) of all those H-Sandy victims
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After the loss of life and physical property, the long-range worst impact of H-Sandy is that Romney has just been handed the election, by disrupting the blue states’ ability to vote, either due to no electricity, or ballots already cast being under water, or election equipment and locations being inaccessible. The Romney campaign personnel must be careful not to gloat. After H-Sandy, this will not be a true and fair election. Romney will forever be known as the default winner.
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Recently, Mosquito Control Board member Jack Bridges was kicked off the local Republican Party’s Executive Committee because he told some people he was backing Mosquito Control Board member Steve Smith, a Democrat, against his Republican challenger Steve Hammond. Yesterday, I was brought into email war about that by Kay Thacker of Key Largo, who slammed Steve Smith and Jack Bridges in a letter to the editor in The Key West Citizen day before yesterday, to which Steve replied in a letter to the editor in The Key West Citizen yesterday, which led to even more allegations by Kay and counter allegations by Steve, far too lengthy, especially’s Kay’s part, to reproduce in a post. If you wish to see it all, email Kay at oktcraft@terranova.net.
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I wrote to All:
Looks to me what really got this brawl started was, as Jack Bridges told me, Jack telling a few people he was backing Steve Smith, and then the local Republican Party ejected Jack from its Executive Committee for breach of its Loyalty Oath by his supporting Steve Smith, a Democrat, instead of Steve Hammond, a Republican, which got magnified exponentially to about 30,000 voters after The Key West Citizen reported the fracas, compliments the local Republican Party, as I see it, as I said. Maybe I missed it, Jack, if so, my apology. But for my information, at least, will you please respond with your reasons for backing Steve Smith, for whom I voted yesterday, based on seeing him and Steve Hammond be grilled at several candidate forums, and based on a story Steve Smith told me about the great fun he had trying to get a bubba conch of some influence, who worked for Mosquito Control, to actually go to work each day to earn his pay and benefits, which great fun story, Steve Smith told me, ended up in Bubba Justice in Key West: Pooping on the Public in Paradise. If you will, Steve, please tell this audience a short version of that great fun story, much as you told it to me. Thanks, Sloan
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Jack replied:
Thank you, Sloan, for accurately and succinctly summarizing this hullabaloo.
Bill Shaw and I are voting for Steve Smith for the same reason you did: we’ve seen both candidates be grilled and we’ve come to the conclusion that Smith is competent while Hammond has yet to demonstrate competence. This is not to say we agree with Smith on everything. Indeed, Bill fought with Steve for years on the Board and I have publically disagreed with Steve as well. Nevertheless, Steve works hard and is prepared for every meeting. His opinions—although I don’t always share them—are well thought-out and articulately advanced. And sometimes, they are also right. We need different perspectives on the Mosquito Board. A clash of ideas and supporting arguments usually brings about good government. Additionally, Steve’s institutional knowledge is important as well. When somebody has an idea, it’s good to have somebody there who can say “We tried that back in 1998 and it probably would have worked better if…..” As much as it may surprise some people and as good as the records may be, there is no institutional memory as good as that of the people who were there. Although I was already beginning to question Mr. Hammond’s preparation for his campaign by then, I was surprised that during three budget workshops and a final hearing, Stephen never joined the long line of citizens who rose to question, support, criticize, or offer suggestions. Indeed, if you understand the budget, that is the time to speak up. Stephen didn’t hesitate to speak up during the forums though: He leveled his sword at the Board and said we’re spending too much, but he never really elaborated much. In fact, he didn’t even know the millage rate. On Tuesday, October 23, I Stephen where he would like to cut. He kept insisting that he knew where he wanted to cut but that he didn’t want to share that with me. That simply doesn’t make any sense. I was shocked. Even I, who voted for the budget, can identify areas which, had I been able to achieve a consensus, I would have liked to cut. I’m going to work with whoever wins the election. If it is Steve Smith, I’m sure he and I and he and Bill and he and Phil will be fighting again by the next Board meeting. That is how it should be. You are also correct at how all this got blown up so big. As the old story goes, my opinion and $5.00 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbuck’s. Until I received the Grand Order of the Boot from the party, maybe 10 people knew my opinion. Funny thing is that my term on the Republican Executive Committee ended in December and I just offered to stop coming to the meetings. After all, “Bridges Misses REC Meeting” probably isn’t news. “Keys GOP Ousts Bridges From Leadership” apparently was news. Now, for whatever my opinion is worth, 30,000 people know. What can I say?
/s/Jack
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Me to Jack:
RE toeing the Republican Party line, or any political party line for that matter, received this reply to today’s post from my rabid Republican snowbird amigo who lives in the Lower Keys during the cooler months and does not tend to mingle with the local Republican Party:
“I don’t think we voted for many of the same people since I voted straight Republican. I didn’t vote the retention issues except for Pariente. I voted no with great pleasure since I remember her partisan approach in the 2000 recount. Of course she’ll win as will the others. I really wish the Republican party would give its recommendation on all of the non-partisan offices and questions. It would make life a lot easier for me.”
If he got his wish, he wouldn’t even have to think at all when he voted. About the same as voting as the Pope says to vote, I suppose. My recollection, perhaps foggy, is that the “non-partisan” Republican-stacked US Supreme Court took the 2000 US President election away from the Florida Supreme Court and declared G.W. Bush the winner without a real recount? I found myself thinking today, if Mittens wins the Oval Office because New York and other “blue states” were knocked out of the equation by Hurricane Sandy, I might view that as an act of God karma thing for President Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for waging G.W. Bush’s two seriously ruinous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America is so upside down debt-wise, and so addicted to credit card financing overseas and at home, that I don’t see it matters much which one of them wins. While Mittens has experience buying bankrupt companies cheap and turning some of them around, he’s going to have to make his own Republican Party furious, and the Democratic Party just as furious, just to try to turn America around.
So far, Mittens doesn’t strike me as having a clue what he’s trying to get himself into, and it doesn’t look me that President Obama is the messiah either. Before he beat out Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008, I was told in my sleep that Barack Obama had the potential to be The Anti-Christ. So I wait with baited breath for November 6.
Sloan
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Jack replied:
I believe your recollection of the USSC decision in 2000 is correct.
I, too, am not particularly thrilled with the selection this year. I’m not convinced that President Obama is on the right path nor am I confident that Governor Romney knows the right path.
I didn’t copy the others because I didn’t want to send a strictly political item to the Mosquito Control people on the copy list. Of course, just because I don’t want to send them political items, however, does not mean you can’t forward my response to them. Thanks again for your support, Sloan.
/s/Jack
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Wasn’t long after I received Jack’s reply that I found myself wondering if Hurricane Sandy, which seems to have clobbered New York City hardest of all, is America’s karma for the way G.W. Bush and most Americans responded to 911? I wondered if I would publish that wondering? Why not? During my sleep three nights prior to 911, I was asked, “Will you make a prayer for a divine intervention for all of humanity?” I awoke, asked God for a divine intervention for all of humanity. Thereafter, I told many people and wrote many times that America going to war in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, was a really bad idea – just what Osama bin Laden wanted America to do. I kept saying America instead should have looked inside and come to terms what it had done to contribute to 911 happening. As it turned out, 911 was a molecule compared to the destruction those two wars wreaked on America, financially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Then came Hurricane Sandy wreaking havoc in New York City, to tell all of America that it should have looked inside after 911, instead of doing the favorite masculine thing – point the finger of blame away from self. The feminine is introspective. She examines the beam in her own eye before trying to remove the mote from someone else’s eye. The result of not doing that is what we’ve been hearing all about during the presidential and vice-presidential debates – an America beyond fixing by either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, unless the winner of that race and his and the loser’s political parties get together and do a total about face and put all of their energy and all of America’s energy into facing up to and dealing with what is wrong in America. Islam is just a messenger. It’s not America’s but is God’s job to try to straighten out Islam. LOL there, too.
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Related, found this on Facebook yesterday, from School Board member Robin Smith-Martin:
Robin Smith-Martin
Please Go Vote Today . . . Vote Early. The lines are going to be Very Long next Tuesday. This election is especially important for women’s rights over the next twenty years.
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I replied: amen
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The Republican Party is the feminine’s worst nightmare come true. Any woman who belongs to the Republican Party and/or votes for Mitt Romney is a traitor to the feminine and to herself.
Furthermore, on the ballot is this anti-feminine Amendment to the Florida Constitution, which is pure Republican Party:
NO. 6
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
ARTICLE I, SECTION 28
Prohibition on Public Funding of Abortions; Construction of Abortion Rights
This proposed amendment provides that public funds may not be expended for any abortion or for health-benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion. This prohibition does not apply to an expenditure required by federal law, a case in which a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury,or physical illness that would place her in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, or a case of rape or incest.
This proposed amendment provides that the State Constitution may not be interpreted to create broader rights to an abortion than those contained in the United States Constitution. With respect to abortion, this proposed amendment overrules court decisions which conclude that the right of privacy under Article I, Section 23 of the State Constitution is broader in scope than that of the United States Constitution.
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In the same vein, in the Key West Citizen today:
Reproductive control may also be God’s will
The latest flare-up in the abortion wars occurred thusly: a Republican senatorial candidate from Indiana stated that a woman who has been impregnated as the result of a rape cannot terminate this pregnancy because it must have been “God’s will.” I remind the reader that this is not the opinion of an odd kook or two in the Republican Party, but what could almost be called a mainstream position. Indeed, none other than the party’s vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, holds such a position, his reasoning being that once the egg is fertilized how that happened becomes irrelevant. Speaking of irrelevance, Mitt Romney’s opinion of this or any other issue seems to be just that, considering how he will only give the answer whatever particular audience wants to hear. Will somebody in our media’s sound machine please ask these people the following question: Human beings seem to be the only species on the face of the Earth that understands its reproductive mechanism to such an extent it can actually control it. Why isn’t that God’s will?
Jerone Grapel
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Throughout the history of Christendom, and of Islam, and of Judaism, and of other religions, human beings have used “It is God’ will” to justify all manner of evil-doing. George W. Bush said God told him to invade Iraq. Barack Obama believed God told him to accept the Nobel Peace Prize while he continued to wage George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There simply is no reasoning with people who are convinced God has told them to do evil, because they believe what God has told them to do is good. They are insane. And if they are elected officials they are more than insane, they are dangerous. And if they are the President of the United States of America, they are more than insane and dangerous, they are in company with the likes of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and the Ayatollah Komeini. They are agents of Evil and it matters not that they attend church every Sunday and Wednesday night, and say their prayers every night on turning in and every morning on waking, and read the Bible every day. They are actually no different from Osama bin Laden, only the outside wrapping looks different.
Think again, if you don’t think angels can and sometimes do direct the weather on this planet.
Sloan Bashinsky
goodmorningfloridakeys.com
goodmorningkeywest.com