Monthly Archives: November 2011

the blue paper – no prisoners

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The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen
 
Day before yesterday brought invitation from Capt. Jarvis Osorio that I take over as editor-in-chief of Key West the (Blue) Newspaper. I wrote of that in yesterday’s sb,editor-in-chief? post, and sent this email to Jarvis:
 
Morning, Jarvis. I sent you the teaser for today’s post separately – you sure know how to start a lot of trouble :-) .
 
His reply:
 
Sloan,

Good afternoon. I wasn’t trying to start any trouble. I try to stay low key on my opinions. I enjoy reading your blogs, mainly because it’s the local news from an honest perspective from someone that is not influenced by status, money or power. Which is why I don’t read the news paper anymore.

My thoughts on the blue paper were just an idea to you. A person I respect, and that truly has an overall good heart, and intentions for the community.

Respectfully,
Capt. Jarvis Nelson Osorio
www.SaltWaterSniper.com™

 
Received this reply to yesterday’s post from another vicitm on my email hit list:
 
hi sloan,

you should do it.
the administrative bullshit dennis could just show you exactly how.
it’s not general motors down there, and he knows absolutely everything you would posssibly need.

also: it’s a weekly. it has slow days and heavy ones. you do this thing every day. you could just leave the angels at home and do this thing as straight news.

your end? your readership would go up a hundred, maybe 500 times. wtf, over.

paul


To which I replied:
 
Hi, Paul. Thanks for your reply with enough salt to avast it properly.

Hmmm.

Do you think Dennis should have any say in this? Or, wtf, should I just muster some of my Key West bad ass pirate mates and wenches, sometimes even more bad ass, and launch a corporate raid?

My readership might indeed skyrocket, and Dennis’ readership might plunge past Davy Jones’ locker at flank speed.

No way I can keep the angels out of it, unless they keep themselves out of it, which ain’t too terribly likely to happen, although they might be able to suffer through not having any mention of them on blue paper. But they would know that I would know the juicy shit that started popping up, to the distress of some and to the glee of others, would be their handiwork. Just as it was their handiwork that Capt. Jarvis Osorio wrote to me yesterday about me being editor-in-chief of the blue paper, after the angels put the outrageous idea in his head maybe without him even knowing the sneaky bastards did it.

 
I sort of doubt Dennis likes much about me, and I rather imagine the thought of him and me running the blue paper together, or me taking it over to give him a rest, might be the last thing he ever would have considered. Even so, I’ve seen some really strange things happen in my life, so I’m taking this as it comes.
 
According to Sandy Downs, while she was running for sheriff in 2008, Dennis told her what she and I were doing to bring Bob Peryam’s philandering into the sunshine was God’s work.
 
Maybe three months ago, I wrote in a post the angels told me in dreams that the arresting officer, Sanchez I think was his name, set up and framed Dennis for the D.U.I., pretty much as Dennis wrote about it in the blue paper.
 
Dennis gets a copy of every raving I publish to the goodmorning websites. He received today’s, and I imagine he will hear of it from others. Looks to me the not entirely tender offer is on his foredeck, absent the raiding party solution. Maybe Dennis will fire, or float, something back. Maybe not.
 
Do you have to file anything with the SEC (not the football SEC, but perhaps that would be more appropriate filing agency for contact sport issues), or with any other acronym, to launch a corporate takeover?
 
Meanwhile, you did not tell me where the money will come from for me to run the blue paper. Do I need to ask my pirate mates and wenches to sally forth and pillage a few cruise ships in the city harbor of their booty?
 
Further meanwhile, you did not affirmatively offer yourself as a contributing writer, so I conscripted you.
 
Sloan
 
In 2010, the blue paper declined to endorse either George Nugent or me in the District 2 County Commission race. I took that as sort of an endorsement, as George was running for his fourth term and had trounced me in 2006. He trounced me even worse in 2010.
 
The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen came to me out of the blue in the spring of 2001, when I started publishing an anonymous one-page Key West politics newsletter at the branch library, using their online computers and printer and copying machine. Going by Sloan Young, having legally changed my name the year before, I was homeless and had very little money. A typical edition was ten paper copies, which I got on my used rebuilt bicycle, which my friend “Bicycle Bob” had given to me, and distributed to Mayor Jimmy Weekly’s office, a few homeless people, and a few other people six days a week. Each day’s commentary began with: The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen.
 
I became Sloan Young in early 2010, after my father reacted very meanly to my approaching him about an older half-brother about whom I and my siblings had known nothing. In August 2008, I had learned of the older half brother, first name Travis, in my dreams and in the dreams of my then two best men friends. I went to see my father’s older brother Leo, who confirmed I had an older half brother and said he wanted nothing to do with that! I sat with the information until December 1999, when I realized it was time to speak with my father about it. After his mean reaction, I was told by the angels to become Sloan Young. I became Sloan Young.
 
Dennis Cooper and Sloan Young met in early September of 2002, after I became involved in the formation of the Citizen’s (Police) Review Board, for which Dennis and the blue paper were playing a lead role in drumming up votes in an upcoming referendum, which would pass handily despite heavy opposition from the Chief of Police, Mayor Weekley, the city commissioners, and, as I recall, The Citizen. My impression then, and now, Dennis and the blue paper won the day for the referendum.
 
Because of our prejudice against the local police, I told Dennis at a Citizen Review Board formation meeting that he and his girlfriend and I should have nothing further to do with the Citizen Review Board. Dennis didn’t see it as I saw it, and he tore me up in the next issue of the blue paper. I sent him an email, asking for a chance to reply in the blue paper to his article, which left him wearing the white hat and me wearing the black hat. I said I would publish it in another way, if he did not give me space in the blue paper.
 
I heard nothing back and published my own account to my then growing political email hit list, which included Mayor Weekley, the city commissioners, the city attorney and city manager, the police chief, a number of local journalists, and quite a few Key West people. I said in the article that Dennis held the blue paper out as being a press where journalism is a contact sport, and now we would get to see if that applied to journalism about Dennis. I took him apart and the city officials loved it, according to what some of them told me.
 
Thus really began my political career in Key West.
 
When I ran for Mayor in 2003, someone I knew pretty well, who said he and Dennis were buddies, told me to go see Dennis about my campaign. My friend said Dennis would throw his support behind me. I said I didn’t think that was a very good idea, and explained why. My friend wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I went to the blue paper offices on Fleming Street and knocked on the door. Dennis opened the door, saw me, said, “You fuck! Get the hell out of here! I’m calling the police!” About like I had figured it would go, except for the calling the police part, as by then Dennis was persona non gratis with the police force, and, by then, Police Chief Buz Dillon and I were best of friends. I left the premises, but later wished I had stuck around to see if the police would come to Dennis’ rescue. I wrote about that also, and sent it to my growing political email hit list.
 
Shortly after meeting Dennis in September of 2002, when the drive to get the Citizens Review Board referendum on the ballot was revving up, I was moved to do a The pen is mightier than the sword, thus the sword defends the pen soul drawing, which I took to Dennis’ office and, as I recall, left with a woman who said she would give it to him. When sometime later I saw Dennis and asked if he had gotten the drawing, he said yes, but he didn’t know where it was, maybe somewhere on his desk. I said if he didn’t want it, I would come get it. He said he might not have any use for it, so I later went to his office when he was there and was able to retrieve it. I don’t now remember what the drawing looked like, but I remember how strongly I felt it was given to me to draw for him.
 
That was my first indication Dennis and I probably weren’t going to hit it off, but as I wrote to Paul yesterday, I’ve seen lots of strange things happen, and I’m taking this one step at a time.
 
Here’s the link to Key West the Newspaper: kwtnblue.com. If I somehow were to become its editor-in-chief, to “Where journalism is a contact sport” I would add “and no prisoners are taken.”
 
I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com, but today I’m at at a rugby scrimmage with the All Blacks in New Zealand, trying to get my lazy fat ass in shape for next year’s journalism season.
 
Post-script: After writing the above for hopefully the last time before dawn this morning, I looked at The Citizen online, just in case something there seemed relevant to today’s post.
 
An article about the new (but used) homeless outreach RV having a bit of trouble getting rolling, because it keeps breaking down. In my line of work, that would be a seriously loud signal from God that the roving RV is not pleasing in God’s sight, and if I were running the blue paper, there would be an article about that, and about the same Citizen article appointing Mike Mongo as a homeless expert, after Mike had appointed himself such. To my knowledge, Dennis Cooper has not touched much on homeless issues in the blue paper. To my knowledge, Mike Mongo knows about as much about being homeless as Dennis Cooper knows. If Mike really wants to hold himself out as a homeless advocate in Key West, he first needs to spend six months being homeless in Key West. Aside from all of that, looks to me the new homeless outreach fellow described in The Citizen, who was brought in and mostly has been going around on foot wiith the RV on the blink, isn’t doing anything for street people that has  not been done for them for many years by local homeless help agencies.

sb, editor-in-chief?

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

Recieved this response to yesterday’s when it rains,it pours post about the Buruea of Land management looking into whether it might own Sunset Key as well as Wisteria Island:

dear sloan,
except for certain statutory authorities, all land sales of surplus properties, owned by the u.s. government, are procesed by the gsa dept.
ie blm, bia, park service, dept of agriculture, all can recieve lands, but sale to the public is another matter. land sales except to other governmantal units are very restricted. (tea pot dome 1924)
i would like to go into detail on this but i would have to put on my para-legal hat on 9 byu-hawaii 1996 , nick anderson, key west

Nick and his family have an oil business, which I’m pretty sure has done business with the gsa and/or other US Government agencies. He also has spent lots of time in Alaska, where I imagine he had some dealings with federal agencies. So I sort of imagine he knows something about what he holds forth. I myself don’t know much about this area of the law, but if I wuz the owners of Wisteria Island and Sunset Key, I don’t imagine I would be feeling all that swell now that an 8 billion pound gorilla has done gone and showed up expressing territorial interest in my real estate holdings.

Also this reply to yeserday’s post:

Sloan,
Great story today. I still read your blog everyday. Keep up the good work.
I read some where that the blue paper is going out of business. Not that I’m a fan of Dennis, but perhaps you could be the one to continue its customer base . I trully believe that the citizens of key west such as myself would love to see your name as the editor and chief.

Thanks,
Capt. Jarvis Nelson Osorio

www.SaltWaterSniper.com™ Hi, Jarvis. Thanks. The blue paper did go out of business maybe a month ago, but a public outpouring of financial support, which I was glad to see, enabled the blue paper to start publishing again. An issue came out yesterday online, so it’s still in business. I really hope the money keeps pouring in and Dennis Cooper can keep it going.

Sort of doubt Dennis’ customer base is particularly interested in hearing much about angels telling me what to do and tearing me up when I don’t do it to their liking. But even if that wasn’t in play, it’s hard to to imagine me being the blue paper’s editor-in-chief. I know zip about running a newspaper and getting issues printed and distributed, and it’s been decades since I had to make a payroll and the accounting that goes along with that. Nor do I have the capital to finance a newspaper.

But if I was, editor-in-chief, I would try to persuade Dennis to keep writing the kind of stuff he is good at. I would try to get Rhonda Linesman-Saunders to go back to writing like she wrote as Deer Abby for bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegrah – she was a stitch. I like Kimberley Denney’s salty style. I would hope Naja Giarad would continue to contribute environmental articles. I probably would not let Mick Barnes, whom I know personally and like, continue to use the blue paper to drum up business for his law practice. I have not kept up with the other writers in that stable, and don’t know how that would go.

I might invite some people I know pretty well to write sometimes for the blue paper. County Commissioners Sylvia Murphy and Kim Wigington. Key West City Commissioner Teri Johnston. State Attorney Dennis Ward. School Board Chairman John Dick. School Board Audit & Finance Committee member Larry Murray. These Keys citizen advocates: John Hammerstrom, Ron Miller, Sue Heim, Kay Thacker, Capt. Ed Davidson, Alicia Putney, Sandy Downs, Christine Russell, Tom Milone, Margaret Romero. And Father Stephen Braddock, of Florida Keys Outreach Coalition, on homeless issues. I would write a weekly hot issues column, continuing my practice of sharing other people’s views and my responses.

I would expand coverage to local issues Dennis Cooper has tended to leave for others to cover. I particularly would tear into school district issues, which I feel easily are the most important issues in the Keys now and for the foreseeable future. In that vein, I still have yet to hear back from School Board member Robin-Smith Martin re this part of an email I sent to him November 24, replying to something he hadd sent to me that day, explaining his perspective of absenteeism in some of the Keys schools:

As for financial plan, I agree, there needs to be one. However, after attending the last AFC meeting, and hearing CFO Michael Kinneer tell the seriously bad news about the budget shortfall even if the referendum passes, and after attending three School Board meetings and hearing much the same, I understand the difficulty of having a financial plan when nobody has a clue what the 2012 revenue numbers will look like until after the vote is tallied on the referendum in January 2012.2012 cost figures are obtainable now, with some degree of accuracy. Seems to me, the School Board already should have in hand worst case cost cuts for 2012, if the $9 million revenue generating referendum passes, and same for if the referendum does not pass.

I bet if you put that out before the pubic on a spreadsheet, along with details of what schools will be closed, where kids will go to school instead, how many teachers and other school district employees will be fired, and the school sports programs cut, if the referendum does not pass, it will galvanize voters to the polls to vote Yes for the referendum. If the referendum then passes, a financial plan can be generated. If the referendum does not pass, well, we all know that’s Armageddon with or without a financial plan.

Meanwhile, I cannot imagine doing financial planning based on whether or not a referendum will pass, but that’s what we are attempting to do. I’m ignorant of how it came down to the wire like this, but I can’t help but wonder how it did come down to the wire like this, instead of being put to the public a lot sooner, or some other method of raising the $9 million arrived at sooner, so there would be time for financial planning for 2012.

Perhaps you can eclucidate my ignorance on that, also.

FYI, AFC members Larry Murray and Stuart Kessler were sharply critical of the School Board and the School District at the last AFC meeting, for not raising more than $9 million, to offset the $4-6 million budget shortfall Michael Kinneer forecasted for 2012, if the referendum passes. I defended the School Board not asking for more than the continuation of the .5 mil, $9 million because I felt the Board felt, as did I feel, asking for more than was already being collected would put the referendum in jeopardy. I still feel that way.

Perhaps you can comment on that, too.

Sloan

All of which brings me to say it’s so much easier and so much cheaper to publish online, and as time passes and more and more people start using the Internet, I wonder if printed newspapers even will survive? In all events, the people above could send me articles for publication to the two Keys websites: goodmorningfloridakeys.com and goodmorningkeyswest.com. They could have their own pages with their articles posted there, most recent at the top of their page. Their pay would the same I get paid for what I write. A few kudos, lots of slams.

But I get ahead of myself, Jarvis. Private citizens like yourself, who have insights about how to make things better for the Keys and the people who live here, are encouraged to send your thoughts to me. You see how I publish what people send to me. I don’t edit what they write, other than sometimes attending to spelling and grammar. I let them have their say. Of course, I have my say, too. That is how the angels trained me to do it; that, and if I write something about someone, which is not accurate, or even if it is, I publish whatever that person sends back to me, unless asked by that person not to publish it.

Dennis Cooper does not provide fair response from people he hammers; I know that from personal experience with him. Dennis also does not write about dirt on himself and his friends. In those areas, journalism is not a contact sport for Dennis. I don’t like writing about my own dirt, or my friends’, but when the public is affected, or a public figure is involved, I do it anyway. That’s because I ain’t really the editor-in-chief. The angels are.

Darn, if you didn’t get me up on my rocky horse!

Sloan

I usually can be reached at

keysmyhome@hotmail.com, but today I’m in Havana auditioning for editor of The Ugly American. One of the job requirements is no hablas Espanol.

more from Walden, so to speak

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Found this comment at goodmorningbirmingham.com, re the Ralph Waldo Emerson part of yesterday’s holiday rumination post:

Sancho Panza, Esq. Submitted on 2011/11/25 at 11:01 am

Don Q 

The quote says to be thankful for every GOOD thing that comes to you! I think Cancer and indentured servitude might not make that list… unless you are a masochist… and there’s lots of them critters ’roundhere! LOLAnywhoooo… what’s the “Round Green File”? I thought you wanted to be cremated… maybe we can put whatever is left of you in that same file! LOLMore Waldo:

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.”

“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

and the last and my favorite:

“The earth laughs in flowers.”

Bash Submitted on 2011/11/25 at 12:19 pm | In reply to Sancho Panza, Esq..

green round file = trash can

The quote ends:

“And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

That includes cancer and indentured servitude, being shot, raped, cussed out, abandoned, going bankrupt, living on the street, getting your heart broken a time or two or three or more, being betrayed, someone you love dying, etc. etc. That’s what Emerson meant, and that is how I was trained to view life. Don’t mean I like it and am still some ways to go in the gratitude department, other than I suppose I’m grateful I ain’t the fellow who got himself indentured going on 25 years ago, not knowing he was getting himself indentured, and I’m grateful I don’t still live on the street and can buy groceries and gasoline for my car, and that I have a car to buy gasoline for, and a roof over my head that doesn’t belong to someone else who can get weird and tell me to leave – well, it does belong to God and you know how that can go …

Friendships I have many, but people I want in the same foxhole with me might be a tad scarce. I heard Ralph Waldo was subsidized by his mother, so he could do the Walden thing. That’s how I view my Walden adventure on Little Torch, subsidized by my father, after he passed over. I agree, try to complete each day, it’s history after that, although the blunders often indeed carry forward and must be dealt with and sometimes the karma endured. I don’t remember when I began a new day serenely and with a too high spirit to be encumbered by my or anyone’s old or new nonsense. I get up each morning to write about both, and sometimes something more enjoyable.

I was taught to live in the world and not be swayed by its opinions, which in living has created a great deal of solitude for me, as I find I can’t spend a great deal of time around other people and many people care not to spend any time around me, while a few seem able to tolerate or somehow even enjoy having me around for a bit.

I love flowers, maybe I should come back as one.

Sancho Panza, Esq. says: November 25, 2011 at 5:39 pm
 
Ah, yes! Maybe I missed it but I’ve yet to hear you praising the Angels for “contributing to your advancement”. I suppose that how you feel about the ups and downs of your life has a lot to do on whether you believe in reincarnation or not… you seem to believe in Karma so I would expect that you might also believe in reincarnation… which means that ALL things that happen to you now are part of a continuum and the important thing is to figure it out… not an easy task!

A lotus!

 

Bash Submitted on 2011/11/25 at 7:21 pm | In reply to Sancho Panza, Esq..

I have been shown the influencing past lives and some of the karma, for better and for worse – karma is not always adverse and can be quite pleasant by human definition. In my case, karma caused by serious screw ups in this life also entered the mix. Beyond that, for karma is only a small slice of the pie, is the soul’s goals, hopes, which are easily thwarted by the ways of this world, which itself creates karma. That’s where the angels came in, to turn me toward my soul’s goals, hopes, which often was seriously distruptive and painful, to me, to other people. I have written of all of this many times, in many ways. 

My oldest first cousin Leo Bashinsky furnished the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, to which you responded this morning without considering the entire quote . Leo sent this later today:”Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” Andre GideEverything that needs to be said already has been said many times. Probably thousands of times. Maybe millions of times. I wonder what it’s like for heaven to watch so many re-runs? I sure do hope I heard enough this time around to not have to do this again.

I found myself thinking before I heard from Leo this afternoon that Don Quixote probably would say hearing things, and thinking, is not the same thing as doing things. Not the same thing at all.

Personally, I perfer daffodils, and some of the roses. But I imagine whatever flower I need, the angels provide.

Also this from Cuz Leo:

 
Leo Sullivan-Bashinsky Submitted on 2011/11/25 at 3:30 pm | In reply to Bash.

Bash-I do confess to trying to stay on the sunny-side, but I do acknowledge the sadness in life. I think you cannot change the ways of life, however I do believe you can always make it better. Also, Henry David Thoreau is the author of “Walden Pond”. In closing, if Ralph Waldo or Henry David were to come back to take your place, who would you be?

Bash 2011/11/25 at 7:52 pm | In reply to Leo Sullivan-Bashinsky.

Hi, Leo. Darn, I really screwed that up, mixing Ralp Waldo up with Henry David. Frankly, I would hate for either of them to come back and take my place, if that meant living in my skin, which I would not wish on the devil. But how else could either of them take my place, without taking it all the way? And could they take my place, even if they lived in my skin? Only if they’d had my experiences. I don’t know if we can make it better or not, not based on my own personal experience anyway. I do believe we can try to make it better, for ourselves, for others. I also believe what that means has different meaning to almost everyone.

Obviously, what that means to me is not what it means to the angels who run me. They almost never agree with me on what would make it better, for me, for others, for this world. I wept this afternoon, before falling into a nap. I wept, because I wish I was not on this planet any more. I wept, because I ache and am worn out. I wept, because I see no point in what I am doing. I have heard what was told to me by the angels, about me, about other people, about this world, about heaven. I sit with all of that and wonder what good it does anyone, except perhaps me? Who would I be, Ralph Waldo or Henry David, or anyone who replaced me? I imagine I still would be me. I would not want to be either of them.

I don’t want to be me, either. Neither would you, nor anyone. I have been changed too much to want to be on this planet any more. I feel like an extraterrestrial who was shoved into a human body and has to live with that, and with being an extraterrestrial. I am not joking. All this I have inside of me is real, but no one wants it. You cannot possibly imagine how disconnected I feel from humanity, and how much I wish I was not diconnected. There is only one thing known to me that can cure that, and that is a woman sort of like me. An Eve prototype. I know that, because that is the only thing that has cured it in the past. That’s right. I’m talking about Adam and Eve. I was made into an Adam prototype. I’m not joking about that, either.

 I will not identify her, but there is a woman living in the Birmingham area who can vouch for what you just read. She can vouch for it because she and I were trained together by the angels. She came to see the Adam and Eve story is a forumla for reversing the Fall, and that it is a fiery return through the two fire swords wielded by the two Cherubim. If you make the mistake of viewing that passage of the Bible literally, if you make the mistake of viewing me as a Bible thumper, you completely miss the point. The formula in the Adam and Eve story is as scientific as the Theory of Relativity – only a different kind of physics. A physics Jesus and Mary Magdalene understood very well, because they lived it. As did I live it what that woman who lives in the Birmingham area, and to a greater or lesser degree with two women before her and two women after her.
 
It is very, very difficult for a woman to endure the return to Eden, when the female is so terribly maligned on this planet. No woman truly wants to be truly woman on this world. In her soul, she fights it, regardless of what she thinks she is or wants. She also fights the training her Adam counterpart receives, because it rejects the ways of this world altogether. A woman is of earth, energetically. A man is of sky, energetically. That also allows a man to make the spirit shifts more easily than a woman can make them.
 
Moreover, the Adam prototype’s vibration actually adjusts to the Eve prototype’s vibration, as her vibration cannot adjust to his. The woman in the Birmingham area, and the two women who followed her, saw my vibration physically adjust to their vibrations many, many times. If one of them and I had been able to hold the course together, we would have merged into one-flesh and would have stayed in Eden, which is a state of being we were allowed to experience, to cause us to want to end up there; but to stay there, we had to complete the bonding and purification. Otherwise, we would screw up Eden, and ourselves, again.
 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Meanwhile, seriously politically incorrect stuff from Sancho Panza, which I doubt will get very far in Ralph Waldo Henry David circles:

I was in bed with a blind girl last night and she said that I had the biggest penis she had ever laid her hands on. I said “You’re pullin my leg.”

I saw a poor old lady fall over today on the ice! At least I presume

she was poor – she only had $1.20 in her purse.

My girlfriend thinks that I’m a stalker. Well, she’s not exactly my girlfriend yet.

Went for my routine checkup today and everything seemed to be going fine until he stuck his index finger up my butt! Do you think I should change dentists?

I was explaining to my wife last night that when you die you get reincarnated but must come back as a different creature. She said she would like to come back as a cow. I said, “You’re obviously not listening.”

The wife has been missing a week now. Police said to prepare for the worst. So, I have been to the thrift shop to get all of her clothes back.

At the Senior Citizens Center they had a contest the other day. I lost by one point: The question was: Where do women mostly have curly hair? Apparently the correct answer was Africa! Who knew?

One of the other questions that I missed was to name one thing commonly found in cells. It appears that Mexicans is not the correct answer either.

There’s a new Muslim clothing shop opened in our shopping center, but I’ve been banned from it after asking to look at some of the new bomber jackets.

You can say lots of bad things about pedophiles but at least they drive slowly past schools.

A buddy of mine has just told me he’s getting it on with his girlfriend and her twin. I said “How can you tell them apart?” He said “Her brother’s got a mustache.”

Just put a deposit down on a brand new Porsche and mentioned it on Facebook. I said, “I can’t wait for the new 911 to arrive!” Next thing I know 4,000 f**king Muslims have added me as a friend!

Being a modest man, when I checked into my hotel on a recent trip, I said to the lady at the registration desk, “I hope the porn channel in my room is disabled.” To which she replied, “No, it’s regular porn, you sick bastard.”

The Red Cross have just knocked at our door and asked if we could help towards the floods in Pakistan. I said we would love to, but our garden hose only reaches the driveway.

 
I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com, but today I’m in Federal Court defending copyright infringement suits filed against me.  
 
 
 
 
 

holiday rumination

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Received an obit notice yesterday from an old Birmingham friend, with this note:

“Thought you might be interested. Lonnie and I worked almost side by side for over 45 years. He was a unique piece of work. Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. The Gen.”

ALONZO HESTER “LONNIE” LEE Jr.

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LEE, ALONZO “LONNIE” HESTER, JR. Alonzo “Lonnie” Hester Lee Jr., 76, passed away on November 21, 2011. He was born February 28, 1935 in Birmingham, Alabama to the late Alonzo H. Lee and Allie Meagher Lee. He graduated from Edgewood Elementary School; Shades Valley High School, Class of 1953; and from the University of Alabama with a Bachelors of Science in Commerce and Business Administration in 1957 and was a member of Academic honorary fraternities: Phi Eta Sigma, Delta Sigma Pi, and Beta Gamma Sigma; Social fraternity: Phi Delta Theta; The German Club; The Country Club of Birmingham; The Society of the Revolution; The Summit Club; and The American Legion Post #134. He served as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army and was in the Army National Reserve for 13 years. He was past President of the Alabama Security Dealers Association. He began working at the investment firm of Sterne, Agee and Leach at the age of 16. He recently celebrated 60 years with the firm and was a partner and a Managing Director. Lonnie was a loving father and a wonderful friend to many. He is survived by his children: Kimberly Bean (Nelson), Braxton “Chapman” Lee, Meagher Whigham (Wagon) of Mobile, Lucie Haynes (Brad), Helen Hyde (Cabot) of Nashville; his grandchildren: Elizabeth, Nelson, and Chapman Bean; Allie, Ann and Robert Whigham of Mobile; Bradley, Ann Chapman, Corley and McKee Haynes; and Carter, Cabot and Mary Lee Hyde of Nashville; his sister: Mary Nina Marriott (Sheldon); nephews and niece: Blanchard Sheldon Marriott, Jr. (Nancy), James Leslie Marriott, Lee Marriott Burmeister (Josh) and great nieces and nephew; brother-in-law, Corley “Brother” Chapman and companion, Peggy W. Cobb. In lieu of flowers, memorials should be made to The Mulherin Custodial Home, 2496 Halls Mill Road, Mobile, Alabama 36606 or a charity of your choice . A private family burial will be held at Elmwood Cemetery. A Memorial Service will be held Friday, November 25, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. at Canterbury United Methodist Church with visitation immediately following. The Reverend Sam Williamson officiating. Johns Ridout’s Southside directing.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Morning, Mat. Agreed re Lonnie. Thanks for letting me know. Nice obit. Sorry for your loss. The names some parents come up with for their kids. Find me wondering what my obit might look like, and who would write it? Maybe I’d rather go without. Maybe I’m writing my own. Hope you and yours have a good Thanksgiving. Sloan

What I most remember about Lonnie, whom I did not know very well, was he moved from The Tiny Kingdom (the super affluent south of Birmingham suburb also known as Mt. Brook) to a spread near Ensley (a run-downish old steel mill town west of and adjacent to Birmingham) and started driving a tractor and getting lots of sun and looked like a real farmer. If I were Lonnie, I would have wanted that in my obit. Yeah, probably best to the avoid the obit scene, not being around to see to it what got wrote about me might cause me to roll over in my grave, except there won’t be no grave cause I’m gonna be cremated and my ashes are gonna be spread in several parts of the Keys by my Key West lawyer or by somebody he picks. Let the goodmorning websites be my obit, written by the deceased before the event of being deceased. A bit longish obit, I admit, but then, nobody has to read it.

Meanwhile, some chatter yesterday re yesterday’s post to goodmorningbirmingham.com with another Birmimgham fellow I got to know somewhat about ten years ago, when I lived in Birmingham for a several months.

Hey, Sloan. The link [a wacky Thanksgiving] did not work and I only see post to the 22nd… just to say Happy Thanksgiving. James Hall

Hi, James. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too. Took a nap after putting up today’s post, and was hammered in dreams about the wacky Thanksgiving, so I dragged myself out of the sack and took it off the websites. I wrote it yesterday, ran it through the usual paces I have learned to use, to see how the angels felt about it, seemed okay. They said nothing about it in my dreams last night, so I published it this morning. It was the most fun thing, for me anyway, I had written in a while. Perhaps I will be allowed to use it another day, perhaps not. Won’t surprise me if I hear from others that the link didn’t work. I sent that link to about 350 people, and it went onto the Coconut Telegraph of bigpinekey.com, which has lots more readers than I do. blug, blug, blug. There was another part of the post related to local school politics down here, that remains on the Keys websites, which I did not put onto the Birmingham site. I’ve started skipping putting stuff on the Birmingham site that seems only to relate to Keys politics, which, perhaps incorrectly, I can’t imagine interesting Birmingham and Alabama readers. Perhaps I will get hammered in dreams about that, too. I get hammered plenty in dreams. Only occasionally do I get a dream I like. I take that as indication of just how stupid I am. Great way to start Thanksgiving. Sloan

His reply:

Had some wild ones last night,too.

You ex-brother-in-law, Edward, is bald because of his treatment (lung cancer). I think he will be OK. I know there is not much love…

My reply:

I had heard Eddie was having a rough go and was very sorry to hear it. I always really liked him. Haven’t really sat down and talked with him since 1999, at that sports bar below old Lakeview School. Last time I saw my sister was 2005, for our father’s memorial service. If you see Eddie, please tell him I send my best wishes. Thanks.

Not yet clear what’s to happen to what I wrote yesterday, which got scratched in the nap dreams this morning. Perhaps the round green file.

Ended up having a lovely late lunch with friends in Marathon. Their granddaughter was there, I’d not met her before. Turned out, at age 21, she’s a spook of major proportions. Not CIA spook. Beyond this world spook. We had a lovely conversation, as her grandparents suffered through. Lots of other good conversation, too. A great time seemed had by all, including their pooch, who knows to sit beside me when I’m over. Morsels tend to slip off my plate to just in front of his snout.

Sloan

The green round file got a wacky Thanksgiving. Looks like I’m slipping, misreading writing guidance that badly. Second time in a week that’s happened. So far, there are no vacations other than the kind I had at lunch yesteday with my friends and their granddaughter. When it came out that their granddaughter was not interested in older men, I said that was the worst news I had heard in a long time. Brought laughter and a very direct look from the granddaughter. God only knows where she’s headed, starting out so young – since childhood – having not of this world experiences. Including a near-death experience.

Received this from my first cousin Leo Bashinsky yesterday:

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who suggested, “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

Might be a bit hard for Eddie to feel that way about his cancer and the side effects of his medical treatment. Anytime Ralph Waldo wants, he’s welcome to come back and take over for Eddie, and for me at Walden on Little Torch.

Ciao

I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com.

sometimes out of the blue …

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Sometimes I get an email out of the blue from someone I don’t know, who has stumbled across something I have written. Sometimes that leads to an ongoing online friendship, more or less, sometimes not. I received this below the other day, via email, which led to a brief back and forth, perhaps to be continued, if she comes back to me. I tend to be pretty transparent with people who approach me online, which seems to work out better in the long run for me, perhaps also for them. 

Hello Sloan!
Greetings to you from Pennsylvania. I lived in Key West for a short time in the mid-80′s and was just reminiscing by reading some articles about Key West and came across one of yours about your homeless friend who died. Sorry to hear that. I also enjoy your website.
What caught my attention was your other friend, Dennis Riley. He was a friend of mine when I lived there. Fun guy, smart, silly, handsome. He was living in a trailer at the time and doing a little modeling.
Anyway, good memories for me now that my island days are long past (and maybe still far ahead). He may or may not remember me, but please tell him “hello” anyway if it’s not too much trouble.
So here’s what may or may not trigger some memories for him: I was in my early 20′s, he was in his early 30′s at the time. I met him when I was still living in Ft. Lauderdale, but soon moved to Key West. I was originally from NJ. I went to the college in Key West for a bit, before leaving again to move to England. Never made it back to Key West unfortunately. I was a gypsy back then. Now I’m a psychologist in Pennsylvania. I had a handsome gay brother named Jay who lived there briefly as well when I knew Dennis. Anyway, thought it would be fun to say hello. Thanks for passing it along.
Hope you are enjoying the island life. Peace. Sharon (Daley)
Village Psychology Rt 23 & Saint Peter’s Road, PO Box 273, St Peter’s Village, PA 19470
Sharon Kelly, PsyD, MBA 320 N. High Street, West Chester, Pennsylvania 19382
tel: 610-291-8551
fax: 610-469-9875
www.villagepsychology.com

Hi, Sharon. Thanks for writing. Maybe brain cell loss, I need help remembering Dennis Riley. Have an ex-wife in Pennsylvania, L.S.C.W., specializing in Sandplay Therapy. Trained under its founder, Dora Kalff. Lives in Christiana community, heart of Amish country, near Lancaster. Attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Not a gypsy, but hardly mainstream for that era. How does one become a psychologist after being a gypsy? I became a gypsy of sorts, after being a lawyer. Sloan

Hello ~ Funny, I forgot his name too until I saw some articles. Dennis Riley is (was?) the “southernmost bagpiper” for years at Mallory Square. In your article, you said your homeless friend liked the pipes and the three of you would get together. It was the article/blog where you wondered if your friend really died naturally or was maybe beaten up and left to die.
I have heard of sandplay therapy. I just do plain old talk therapy. I put a second office right in the middle of a bunch of attorney offices in West Chester Pennsylvania. I figured all that conflict would be good business for a therapist!
I guess the gypsy years were attributed in some part to too much curiosity and energy. I couldn’t settle down to sit in a classroom, and every time someone mentioned a cool place to see – I had to see it. I took some classes seriously in my later twenties and found it really satisfying and enough to give up the travels. I still get the impulse to pick up and go sometimes, but I’m pretty settled at the moment.
How did you go from being an attorney to a Key West local? Anyway, nice chatting with you…
Sharon

Hi again, Sharon.
Okay, I know who Dennis is, but I never really got to know him.
I ran out of money on Maui, went to living on the street.
Then, waking one morning, a voice I knew very well said, “Go to Big Pine Key.” I’d been told that once before, early 1995. I went then.
I had a long history with the Keys, dating back to 1956, mostly around Islamorada, where my father eventually bought home in 1963, which he kept to 2001.
Anyway, when the voice told me to go to Big Pine Key, I replied that I liked the Keys but had no money. Three days later, I was on an airliner headed to Los Angeles to link up with an old friend living there, who had some weird experiences himself. He gave me the bus fare and a little extra money for food. When I reached Big Pine on Greyhound, I heard to go on down to Key West. Lived on the street there, too.
I have had lots of dealings with clinical social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. Some of them were moving beyond their mainstream training and experiences, such as my Sandplay therapist wife, who was with me when the heavens opened to me starting in earnest in August 1988 and increasing and relentless thereafter, until she’d had enough of me in 1995.
I’ve tried to help a number of mental health professionals bearing the above credentials, some came asking for help consciously, the others unconsciously. Don’t do much of that kind of work anymore, although it was the main training for many years – experiential training, inside of me, inside of other people. Very intense, very deep. Of and not of this world.
There are closing in on 1,600 chapters at goodmorningkeywest.com about my adventures with angels while still on this planet. They abducted me in early 1987, in Los Alamos, about ten days after I, in desperation, prayed to God for help and, almost as an afterthought, offered my life to human service.
Not the kind of story you would want to tell to a Nurse Rachet, which I stupidly did once.
In 2005 my father died and after the estate settled I received an in heritance that allowed me to get off the homeless roles. I am spirit-blocked from making money, not much fun, but then, not much I do is fun, if you take into account the internal grind, which is fierce, and the loneliness.
Everything I take on externally, I take on the spirit component internally. Shit, Agent Orange, Chernobyl are good descriptions of the spirit component. As is sewerage treatment plant. I don’t get to choose much of what is given to me to do. Free will more of a joke in my life, except for how I deal with what is dumped on me. Goes better if I do it as advised by the angels, as I still seem way too stupid to know how to deal with much of it on my own.
Only time I don’t feel the loneliness is when a woman somewhat like me is put with me. That’s another adventure altogether. Maybe before I croak, I will complete my PhD in wemins studies. Maybe not.
Was considered weird even in Key West. Live on Little Torch Key now, island below Big Pine. In the woods. Walden, sort of.
Sloan

There is a Keys school district concerns post today at this link: ESOL, high student absenteeism rate and 500 KWHS students passing failed courses online, which is supposed to take you to Today’s FlaKey Drivel at goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

teaching prejudice in Keys schools

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School Board member Andy Griffiths’ reply to yesterday’s prejudice againstHispanics in school district? post: 


Well you certainly got this one wrong. But vilify me if it brings you pleasure. It is YOU who assumes that free and reduced lunch students are part of our Hispanic population. I claim poverty is the best predictor of educational outcomes and this is where we need to commit resources such as those in the head start program. There is a near one to one correlation. It always has been and the proof is easy to find. As a matter of fact, you should look up the ethnic group who is most impoverished and you would be very surprised to find out they are NOT Hispanic. I only mentioned free and reduced lunch students and you assume they are Hispanic and you call me prejudiced? Did you know I contribute my salary to Take Stock in Children so these free and reduced students can go to college? I’ll take your arrows Sloan because people who know me know better. You obviously don’t know me. AndyHere is what Larry Murray of the Audit & Finance Committee had sent to me:

 

According to today’s Citizen, during a discussion on the abysmal attendance rate in District schools, Andy Griffiths was quoted as saying:

“These are staggering numbers. Most of these numbers come from those free and reduced lunch programs, I’m guessing.

 
My email reply to Andy: Brought me no pleasure, Andy. When I turned in last night, I had no thought of writing about that today, or of what Larry had sent to me. All I had seen on my plate for today was to write further about BLM claiming ownership of Wisteria Island. My dreams last night seemed to push me toward what I posted about you.After putting up both posts today, I took a nap and got seriously roughed up in dreams and awoke thinking I probably had screwed up the post about you. I was seriously not happy to be thinking that, because screwing up posts, especially really serious ones, freaks me out and leaves me in a state of terror and such huge doubt that I wish I had not been born and am reluctant to put up any more posts.
I crawled out of bed and went online and saw nothing. Then, your email came in, which confirmed my worst fears. I apologize and will publish your email and my reply tomorrow.

You told me the night Craig Cates was reelected that you contributed your salary to college scholarships for high school graduates who needed financial help, and you had, when times weren’t so lean, been able to get matching donations from the State of Florida, yes? And from other Keys people, yes? I told you I had not heard of that and commended you for it.

I imagine African-American families are the most impoverished ethnic group. They are in Alabama and seem to be in Key West.

Andy’s reply:

Thank you Sloan,
I truly appreciate your reply.
Andy

Further from Andy:

TSIC contributions used to be 4:1 so I was generating an incredible amount of funds and loving it. The local group has stopped their match and now we only get the state match which is 2:1. However they purchase the scholarships when the student is in 7th grade so they beat inflation over the next five years.

Nationally the most impoverished group are WHITES. I am not sure how Monroe County compares but my whole point is that poverty does not have a monopoly on any ethic group. The difference in poverty is that some eat dinner with two parents at the table every night and they may attend church every Sunday. They parents might read to them. So in education we recognize there are differences in the poverty group. Students who come from impoverished families can still have non monetary assets that help them with their education. It is our responsibility (speaking as a Democrat) to assist those without assets. Philanthropy just won’t quite foot the bill. Kids don’t pick their parents so the village has to step up or pay the consequences down the road but you know that.

Audit & Finance Committee member Larry Murray’s reply to yesterday’s post:

Sloan:

Wish you had said something to Andy at the meeting or later. I wouldn’t have known had Gwen not reported it in her last paragraph.

I like your idea of requiring fluency in Spanish of new teachers. I think it’s an idea well worth pursuing.

You certainly are as deservedly proud of your daughter as I am of my two girls. Aren’t we lucky dads?!

Larry

My reply:

Hi, Larry.

Have two daughters. Eye doctor Alice is youngest. They have declined to communicate with me since early 2000, no reasons given. Internet allows me to keep up with them somewhat.

Got clobbered in nap dreams after putting up today’s post, re what I wrote about Andy. The part about requiring fluency in Spanish in Keys school children and Keys teachers was okay.

Only three minutes for citizens to speak at school board meetings. I spoke to the .5 mil referendum and dire consequences of it not being passed, and to the dire need for the school board and school district to rectify next year’s budget shortfall, minimum $4 million, even if the .5 mil referendum passes. I also spoke to the issue of school should be interesting to kids, which it was not for me until my senior year at Vanderbilt. I said every day in grammar school was like being sent to prison as far as I was concerned.

Sloan

Larry’s reply:

Sloan:

I understand. Can’t win ‘em all, but we’ll try. Your blog compensates for time limitations at meetings. Don’t fret about what you said about Andy. He has it coming.

As for daughters, I, too, am estranged from my youngest, an attorney/lobbyist in Tacoma. Fortunately, I have a strong and positive relationship with my oldest.

Larry

Also from Larry yesterday:
 
Mr. Superintendent: 

Sloan Bashinsky has offered what I think is a good idea. He suggests that all new teachers be required to be fluent in Spanish.A requirement may be a bit strong, but a preference should be, at a minimum, mandatory. We need to prepare our students for the real world, particularly South Florida and 90 miles from Havana.

Larry

Larry Murray
Audit & Finance Committee
Monroe County School District

I don’t think Larry’s recommendation to Superintendent Jesus Jara goes nearly far enough. I say again what I said yesterday, all Keys school children should be fluent in Spanish, and the teaching should begain in first grade, and all Keys teacher new hires should be fluent in Spanish, with a goal of all Keys teachers eventually becoming fluent. More on that further along.

Received this reply to yesterday’s post from a career educator in south Florida, whom I met at Looe Key Tiki Bar in 2006. He summers in this area of the Keys and sometimes in the past has contributed his words of wisdom to topics I address in posts:

Sloan – No doubt in my mind that the free and reduced price food programs in schools is an incentive to attend, not a basis to be absent. I have had students tell me that if they didin’t come to school they would not eat….for a board member to make a “guess” in a public forum does not say good things….bottom line – free/reduced price lunch programs have absolutely nothing to do with attendance or lack of attendance…..in my oppinion, based on 39 years in the business, poverty is an incentive to attend, not a deterrant – not sure where Andy is coming from…que bueno que tu hija habla español..es maravilloso tener 2 idiomas, y en nuestra patria hay mucha gente de habla español, especialment en el sur de la Florida y los cayos……Miguelito

 

When I went homeless, I learned real quick where the soup kitchen and foodstamp office were, and how to avoid starving to death. I also learned nearly all homeless people in the Keys are white. Meanwhile, I wonder why School Board member Ron Martin, who has as much time teaching and being a principal as Mickey has teaching, didn’t challenge Andy Griffiths at the School Board meeting? Surely Ron has had the same experience with poor children coming to school, so they can eat. Surely all school district staff and teachers, and principals and Superintendent Jesus Jara, know what Mickey knows, yet the staff and teachers, and principals and Superintendent Jara, at the school board meeting did not challenge Andy when he said of high student absenteeism in Keys schools:
 
“These are staggering numbers. Most of these numbers come from those free and reduced lunch programs, I’m guessing.”
 
I wrote this back to Mickey:
 
Hi, Mickey. Thanks for your input.
 
Two questions, since you appear to hablas Espanol and have had experience with such kids.
 
Does speaking Spanish help you relate to kids from Hispanic families, especially such where English is the second language, or hardly spoken, or not spoken?
 
Do kids from such families have more trouble learning in English than kids from families where American English is the first language?

Thanks.

Sloan

Mickey’s reply:
 
No doubt that speaking “their” language is a boon to relating with kids and parents….the kids learn rather quickly several things, including prejudices against their language and heritage. They also learn English much more quickly than their parents. Kids from Spanish-speaking-only homes who enter English-speaking-only schools learn English, however it is a tier process – eg: early grades curriculum is language learning based, therefore the kid learns quickly; but, let’s take a high school kid who “just got off the boat”, put him in an English-speaking chemistry class and he is in trouble…..this is why all Florida public school teachers are required to have the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) endorsement on their certificates – some of these requirements should be required of school board members.
 
I think that I answered your two questions…. You have a beautiful daughter!!!!
 
Mickey- Miguelito
 
Try to humor me for a bit, as I try to develop an analogy.
 
Night before last, I ran into Al Sullivan at a gathering in Key West. Introducing me to a young woman, Al said, “Sloan is brilliant, he is a lawyer, and he is crazy.” I admitted I was a lawyer and crazy, and denied I was brilliant. To prove that, I said I am so dumb that I don’t even know what to publish each day and have to be shown it in dreams. Then, I looked at Naja Giarard standing next to me and said, “Just ask Naja if I didn’t keep telling her the angels kept telling me to tell her to keep digging about who really had title to Wisteria Island?” Naja said yep. Not yep that she necessarily believed angels pushed me to bug her about who owned Wisteria, but that I kept telling her angels kept pushing me to bug her about it.

Here’s my dilemma. I don’t trust myself to know what I should write and publish. I got full clearance to publish the remarks about Andy Griffiths being racially prejudiced against Hispanic people. If I don’t trust my writing guidance to be 100 percent bullet proof, which I no longer do after yesterday, what do I do? What I did was tell the angels find someone smart enough to do it right without their help, or at least smart enough to know when they fuck up. I would not have written anything about the school district yesterday, if the angels had not given me those dreams. You cannot imagine how terrifying it is for me to slam the angels in this way. You cannot imagine what they can do, and have done, to me with just a wave of the hand.

After writing that with trepidation yesterday in a draft of this post, I took a drive just to get out of the house, er, trailer. I drove to Looke Key Tiki Bar, where I had met Mickey in 2006. I went there before I had gotten Mickey’s email. En route, I received information along the line that children born into families whose first language is Spanish have trouble learning in American schools, compared to American students whose first language is American English. Moreso, if Spanish children are not encouraged to speak English in their homes. Made sense to me, but I had no way of verifying it, until I returned home and read Mickey’s email.

I have the same problem Spanish kids have, whose families speak Spanish at home. Angel is not my first language, and I have as much trouble with it as I imagine kids from Spanish-speaking homes probably have with being taught in American English at school. However, Spanish kids are not given what I am given to address, and their language difficulties carry different consequences than my language difficulties. Just as Spanish-first-language kids need to be taught by teachers who are fluent in Spanish and in American English, I need to be taught by angels who are fluent in my native toungue – IF THEY WANT ME TO GET IT RIGHT. If that isn’t their aim, then what is their aim – PANDEMONIUM? SOUL DAMAGE?

Let me say it somewhat differently. Imagine you speak only American English. Imagine angels start speaking to you in hieroglyphics (dreams). Now imagine the angels start speaking to you in Spanish instead. Did that help you understand the angels any better? Of course not. How long would you have to study and speak Spanish to understand it in its various idioms? Many years, like happened with my daughter Alice. How many years longer would you have to study and speak hieroglyphics to understand it in its various idioms? Perhaps half your lifetime, or longer.

I still say the angels should find someone smart as them to do their dirty work. LOL. And I still say all teachers in the Keys should be fluent in Spanish and in American English, and all English-speaking Keys students should be fluent in Spanish. LOL. Keys Anglos are more concerned about being Americans than about teaching Anglo and Hispanic school children what will help them get along in life. If that ain’t racial prejudice against Hispanic people, then what is it?

Meanwhile, perhaps Andy Griffiths might wish to consider rerouting his school board salary back to the school district, to insure the district can afford to hire dieticians who know pizza is not a vegegable. In Alabama, the poorest, least-educated black families know pizza is not a vegetable, and if you don’t eat collard and turnip greens regularly, you have bad health.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

 

prejudice against Hispanics in school district?

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School Board member Andy Griffiths

From Audit & Finance Committee member Larry Murray yesterday:

Sloan:
 
I assume that you were as appalled as I at the highly predjudicial statement made by the School Board Vice Chairman at last Tuesday’s meeting. According to today’s Citizen, during a discussion on the abysmal attendance rate in District schools, Andy Griffiths was quoted as saying:
 
“These are staggering numbers. Most of these numbers come from those free and reduced lunch programs, I’m guessing.”
 
“I’m guessing”! We have a School Board member who does not wait for the evidence, the numbers if you will. Rather, he expresses his baseless guess while smearing the low income families of our community. His “guess” certainly betrays his predjudices.
 
It is indeed a sad commentary that a School Board member, someone charged with setting policy and direction for our schools, would so blithely offer such a insensitive and offensive remark. Considering what he said, I am surprised that he did not add that at least his assumed high absentee rate among those receiving free and reduced lunches would be a savings to the taxpayers!
 
Larry
 
Larry Murray
Audit & Finance Committee
Monroe County School District
 
I heard Andy say that at the recent school board meeting and sort of wanted to grab him and wring his neck. My dreams last night indicated poor Hispanic families were the unstated target of Andy’s remarks, which were likened to cancer – not poor Hispanic families, but Andy’s remarks. I awoke feeling I had swallowed battery acid. In my dreams, cancer is equated with Evil. Lying in bed, I found myself thinking all the more that fluency in Spanish should be required of all Keys students, and Spanish courses for students not fluent should begin in the 1st grade. I also found myself thinking the school system needs to adopt a policy of new teacher hires having to be fluent in Spanish. Whether some, or many, Keys people like it or not, Spanish is the first language of many Keys families. Hispanic people make up a large part of the Keys community going back many generations. There has been plenty of talk about Key West and Marathon, especially, profiting from the opening of Cuba to Americans, but has there been any talk of Key West and Marathon being fluent in Spanish? I have a daughter who is fluent in Spanish. She’s as “white bread” as you get. Looks like a Russian princess. But she speaks Spanish like she was born and raised in Madrid or Mexico City. She also is an eye surgeon and has taught ophthalmology in medical school. She became fluent by majoring in Spanish at Bryn Mawr University, near Philadelphia. Part of her major was an exchange program in Spain. Attending Bryn Mawr is about the same as attending Harvard or Stanford, if you are a woman. When Alice later was a medical student at Bowman-Gray Medical School (Wake Forest), her professors who did free work in the Spanish communities took her with them, so she could tell them what their patients were saying was wrong with them, and so she could tell the patients what the doctors wanted them to do. Knowing Alice, she would bristle if she heard someone make a prejudicial remark about Hispanic people, or about anybody who is not an Anglo. Me, I tend to be prejudiced against Anglos, mostly the upper crust variety. I suppose Alice would get onto me about that, too. And I suppose she would really like the video of the amazing dancing Spanish yellow retriever in yesterday’s post, provided again today: click this link – DANCING COUPLE– to see it. I say this video should be shown in all Keys schools. And in all Keys homes. And in all American homes. It’s that incredible.

Meanwhile, like it or not, American school school children fluent in Spanish have more job opportunities than American school children not fluent in Spanish.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.
 
There is another Wisteria Island exposition today at this link: Wisteria Island – 5-year plan, which is suppose to take you to Today’s Cock-a-doodle-doo at goodmorningkeywest.com.

seventh wonder dancing dog & terminal velocity

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From Sancho Panza …

DANCINGCOUPLE!!! You have to see it to believe it………………….

Just in case you started to think that you’ve seen everything………………………
 
Couple qui dance!Vous devez levoir pour le croire………………….
Juste au cas oùvous avez commencéà penserque vous avez tout vu………………………
Ceci est garanti de vous faire sourire. regarderjusqu’à la fin….
 
To Sancho Panza …
do you have the dog’s phone number, I need a dance partner this weekend
 
From Sancho Panza …
:-)Sloan the Genius? I was just thinking the other day how nice it might be to have highly advance spiritual(or microbial) consultants to light the way in this messy World on uncertainties and deceit! I do believe in the power of intuition… the problem is that it’s not something you can summon at will when you needed and put away when you don’t… like a cell phone! When it gets cold up here I think of you all the way down there and all the interesting people you get to hang around with… you gotta admit Sloan… you’ve lived a full life… I mean look at all the “adventures” you’ve managed to be a part of… your dance of recapitulation before the Eagle will be of biblical proportions! :-)

To Sancho Panza …

Such a genius, I can’t even figure out what I’m supposed to right, er, write next – please pardon the Freudian slip – so I have to be told what to write next, and the tone, and what not to include, and what to include that I didn’t think was important, and darn if the Eagle don’t make me feel like terminal stupidity already. Can’t imagine what it’s gonna be like when I don’t have this biological carcass for the Eagle to peck, but most days I look forward to seeing how that goes.

 
 
It’s true, I’ve met lots of interesting people, most of whom think I’m nuts and some of whom tolerate me anyway and even find me amusingly entertaining most of the time when I’m not pissing them off. Perhaps they express the entertainment the Eagle enjoys at my expense. The attachment fella sort of reminds me of most of my life. God, how did such a chicken little become so reckless?
 
Now, in his advancing years, he’s closing in on chicken littledom again. Not in the the keeping his pen holstered and big mouth shut sense, but in the sense that he knows there is no way he can rough it again on this world he like he has roughed it in the past. Never fear, the Eagle has limitless fantasies of how to keep me providing entertainment.
 
Meanwhile, can’t say this world needs any such thing as you suggest. No sane homo sapien, nor any insane one, as you have so often said, would consider, probably not in even dead drunk tequila or sky high peyote state, dialing up the experiences I have, and have had. I hate to even think of what might lay ahead.

My first cousin Leo Bashinsky sent me these passing thoughts the other day; he sent same about a week before – either he’s getting forgetful or I didn’t get the point the first time; he gets most of my daily ravings:

“One can go to war alone, but you can’t build peace alone.” Jacques Chirac

“It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another thing to think that yours is the only path.” Paulo Coelho, novelist

on the lighter side?

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” George Harrison

I wrote back, asking Cuz if he knows anyone who knows where he/she is going?, because I don’t know anyone who knows, and in the two Paulo Coelho novels I read (The Alchemist and On the Road to Someplace in Spain name of which I now forget – Gondolpho or something remotely like that), none of the characters knew where they were going.
 
I did not say, but I suppose you, I, anyone, can build peace alone, inside. Outside, that’s another matter. Seems I’m not being aimed in that direction lately – more like a perpetual motion wrecking ball, the beatings will continue to morale improves knock off. Every now and then I am peace inside, maybe briefly each day, sometimes a little longer, but mostly not.
 
Was told in my sleep about ten days ago, in a siesta I think, “You will cause a lot of trouble next year.” I had so hoped to be be on a motorcycle with a lady of some similar insanity, preferably fluent in Spanish and Portugese, French would help, too, I can handle the redneck and dialect necessities, touring the Americas. Now that would be a great way to grow older and croak.
 
In the cooler months, when the snowbirds are down here, I play dupblicate bridge once a week at the Senior Citizen Center in Marathon. I think I’m the youngest player, or darn close. I told the table I was sitting with before we started yesterday, when the day comes I need Viagra, I am out to pasture. I said I can’t imagine what all Viagra does to a man, which he has no clue is happening, nor his doctor either. Darn if I can remember what was said, which provoked me to say that.
 
What puzzles me, why I still have libido and no lady to dance with? Which brings me back to the dancing chica pooch you sent – seriously astounding. Maybe I can figure out how to get her onto my websites despite my mechanical retardation, which is about as terminal as my stupidity.
 
Ciao -
 
Slown
 
From Sancho:
 
I read both of those books by Coelho… the last one is “On the Road to Santiago”. Santiago de Campostella, in Galicia, Spain is suppose to be where the grave of one of the apostles is located, San Tiago a.k.a. Saint James! It was one of the Holy Christian pilgrimage destinations of medieval times… I have thought about doing it… it’s about 800 kilometers by foot!
 
Don’t know about viagra… have no plans of finding out about it… have not taken any type of allopathic medicine in decades but according to Traditional Chinese Medicine retaining the semen is important for those looking to cultivate and purify Shen!

 

It is a strange Universe… so much activity… just for the hell of it!

 
To Sancho …
 
A Key West amiga has made that pilgrimage, or part of it, three times in the last few years. I used to go places to have experiences. Everywhere I went, the angels were there waiting for me when I arrived. So learned that I could not escape them, I quit going anywhere, if I could help it. Alas, they are here at Walden, too!
 
I got tired of being alone today at Walden with the angels and the attack cat, Miss Kitty, who thinks she’s a Jaguar and I’m dinner and a her personal cat toy, so I got into my now pretty high mileage Toyota Highlander, which I bought used in 2006, and headed for Shangri-la, aka the nearest road house, aka Looe Key Tiki Bar, where the best contemporary American music usually can be found in the Keys. Just a mile from Walden, as the pelican flies, about two miles driving, unless you happen to own a boat or amphibian vehicle.
 
In about two minutes, my soul was restored and I had not even had a beer or tequila, not advised for someone who has natural-forming anabuse being manufactured in his blood. Had a blackened Caesar dolphin (not related to Flipper, called dorado in Mexico and mahi mahi in Hawaii) wrap and tater chips, and felt even better, as the gal in the band started belting out her rhythm and soul. She caused me to wonder, what’s the point in retaining my semen, when after I leave this carcass, I can’t take it with me?
 
Leaving the honky tonk maybe 45 minutes after arriving, I saw the fellow who wrote into bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph the other day, to say I am seriously eccentric and a genius, and Sloan for President! I told him I knew it was him. He laughed, we hugged. He said he would keep a lookout, he was sort of enjoying having at the Sloan-haters. I laughed, headed for the Highlander. If the Sloan-haters on the Coconut Telegraph knew who he is, they might choke. If I added up all the people who hate me, I would need a big telescope and a tower to take away the earth curvature to see to the end of the line. Biblical proportions, indeed.
 
Meanwhile, I could use a bit more activity, the kind a salty woman can provide. I kinda chuckle when I hear people talking about celibacy causing spiritual acceleration, when I know for a fact there is no faster way for me to spiritually accelerate than to be put with a salty woman with serious spiritual energies. When that happens, my fun load accelerates exponentially, and my workload and pain, due to the total unpredictability of such a woman, accelerate exponentially-squared. Jaguar Woman ain’t just something somebody went and made up.
 
Ciao
When I went to Looe Key Tiki Bar about 7 p.m., after dark, it felt like 75+ degrees Farenheit.I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com

There is a perhaps interesting Wisteria Island post today at this link:
BLM claims Wisteria Island, which is supposed to take you to Today’s Cock-a-doodle-doo at goodmorningkeywest.com.

musings from the fool on Little Torch

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Found this yesterday on bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph (CT), which I figure sent the Sloan-haters there into another rabies convulsion:

I know Sloan personally and have had many conversations with him. Even though I find Sloan to be quite eccentric, I will say again, as I’ve done in the past, I consider Sloan to be a genius! All you “perfect” people out there that try your best to ridicule him have no idea. This just shows how prejudice, biased and ignorant many of you can be. I support Sloan and always will. Sloan for President!

Unlike other posts to the CT, which have taken my side, in this case I believe I know this writer and will speak to him next time we run into each other about his eagerness to catch rabies, which in the sense I mean, is airborne and contagious.

School Board member Duncan Mathewson, who lives on Little Torch Key, a haven for fools, appointed Larry Murray to the Audit & Finance Committee. Duncan told Larry and me day before yesterday, at different times, that we should run for the School Board. Duncan said he might run again, too. Comparing notes yesterday, Larry and me agreed it’s not a job we relish having. We also agreed anyone who wants to be elected probably shouldn’t be.

However, if Larry did get elected to the school board, the folks in the school distrtict who don’t like School Board Chairman John Dick’s ongoing efforts to bring fiscal sanity to the school district would suddenly find themselves thinking John Dick is Jesus Christ and would beg John to save them from the devil – that would be Larry Murray. Larry lives on Big Pine Key. Plenty of fools there, too, as the CT happily demonstrates daily.

As to Sloan for President, I kinda imagine that only was meant to further incite the rabid ones and nothing further. Why would I want to be President of a country that is so broke, in so many ways — if you don’t believe me, just read “From the Right” on the CT for a few days – that in God we trust cannot even come close to fixing it, nor any political parties I ever heard tell of.

Even so, if I woke up one day and found myself somehow President of USA, zero chance of it happening any other way, what would I do first? That’s not too hard. I would order a nuclear strike on Washington D.C., when Congress is in session, to put me and the country out of our misery and to give new headless America a chance to start all over. Meaning, I had ordered a nuclear strike on Wall Street, too. If you think there is any other way for America to turn around, short of a gigantic meteor strike which shifts the planet on its axis so America becomes the North Pole, you are seriously out of touch with reality.

The gigantic meteor strike actually might not be all that bad. What Muslim terrorist would want to leave his or her warm desert habitat to go to the North Pole for any reason? After living in Santa Fe and Boulder for ten years, I don’t even like seeing snow and ice on television! Polar bears would have a movable feast, if they could find their way back to the new North Pole after the axial shift had relocated them to the vicinity of former India, which had relocated to the South Pole.

I suppose such a defining planetary event just might create some shifts in other countries’ short and long range outlooks, as well. Imagine northern Europe and Russia ending up inside the new Tropic of Cancer. Imagine China ending up near where Australia used to be, Australia the new South America, and South America the new North America. Maybe the Middle East would simply disappear. One can only hope.

After the religious right came around to seeing it wasn’t the second coming after all, maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn’t, burn all their Bibles and Korans and try to reinvent themselves. Right, you should by now be getting the sense that the gigantic meteor strike is my preferred solution to dealing with the mess homo sapiens have made of themselves and of this planet. Well, the person who wrote into the CT said I was quite eccentric, didn’t he? And didn’t someone write or sing somewhere that genius is pain?

Making no claim to genius, even a fool on Little Torch can see America is so SNAFU-terminal that writing about it on the CT, or talking about it over breakfast at Coco’s Kitchen on Big Pine Key, or studying on it in an American history course at Sugarloaf School is a serious waste of time and energy. Might as well talk about proving the Bible and the Koran are the literal word of God. Talk about fools, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims are leading the charge. The only charge I care to lead is toward the bathroom to take another dump.

And the horses, centaurs, dragons, broomsticks or whatever you all rode in on, too.

Meanwhile, here’s something I was moved to write the other day, which I only posted to goodmorningbirmingham.com.

heartstrings

I had a lovely, longish talk last night with my brother Major’s daughter by Gayle. Named after me, Sloan calls me from time to time just to talk. Maybe she calls because she knows she can talk with me about anything and I won’t give her a hard time. She’s pretty darn funny to talk with, not much she won’t say. Must be my Bashinsky genes that she ended up with, and maybe her Uncle Leo’s, my father’s older brother. Wasn’t much Leo wouldn’t say, although he usually limited cussing to when no women were around. Most often, he seriously cussed when he was fishing and hooked a big one and it got loose.

Sloan Elizabeth (named after Major’s and my sister, too) and I only started getting to know each other after her dad went missing last year. We started talking more as her mother’s final illness progressed. Sloan is having much the same heart wrenching over her mother’s passing that I had after my son died. You live with it, you cope. Time helps you get over it, until another grieving has its way with you. You never really get over it, but you get on nonetheless.

I send Sloan copies of my posts and she says she reads some of them. I don’t know her well enough yet to know if she shares my trait of looking at situations and sizing up what is working and what is not, and then going to work on trying to straighten out what is not working. You see that in everything I ever wrote, starting with Home Buyers: Lambs to the Slaughter? in 1983. And in the nineteen or twenty ensuing books, and on the goodmorning websites, which themselves are books of sorts – approaching 1,600 chapters on the oldest website – goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

I wondered yesterday if my propensity to go after what is not working was why, in early 1987, the angels acccepted my prayer for help and my offer to be used for human service? I can think of no other reason why they would do that. For truly, a propensity to break new ground, to challenge the status quo, to get ice water dumped on your head, to be burned at the stake or nailed to a tree, is essential to working for God.

My father’s widow, Joann, holds forth that she is close to God. I wonder how she would like having Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek standing on her neck 24-7, 365? I imagine she would like that a lot less than she likes me, which ain’t a whole lot. Irony of ironies, after he passed over, my father started asking me in dreams, the son he would not receive, to try to straighten out what he had left unfinished. I tried, even though I felt only God could straighten out his affairs. I still feel that way.

Throughout all of the upheaval between my father and me, I never stopped loving him. He was the parent with whom I had the heart connection. On receiving news of this death in late August 2005, I burst into tears. Not because he had passed on, but because we had not reconciled in this life. The late fall of 1995 was the last time we sat down face to face. In my dreams after that, he was the best father any son could have hoped to have.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

heartstrings

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I had a lovely, longish talk last night with my brother Major’s daughter by Gayle. Named after me, Sloan calls me from time to time just to talk. Maybe she calls because she knows she can talk with me about anything and I won’t give her a hard time. She’s pretty darn funny to talk with, not much she won’t say. Must be my Bashinsky genes that she ended up with, and maybe her Uncle Leo’s, my father’s older brother. Wasn’t much Leo wouldn’t say, although he usually limited cussing to when no women were around. Most often, he seriously cussed when he was fishing and hooked a big one and it got loose.

Sloan Elizabeth (named after Major’s and my sister, too) and I only started getting to know each other after her dad went missing last year. We started talking more as her mother’s final illness progressed. Sloan is having much the same heart wrenching over her mother’s passing that I had after my son died. You live with it, you cope. Time helps you get over it, until another grieving has its way with you. You never really get over it, but you get on nonetheless. 

I send Sloan copies of my posts and she says she reads some of them. I don’t know her well enough yet to know if she shares my trait of looking at situations and sizing up what is working and what is not, and then going to work on trying to straighten out what is not working. You see that in everything I ever wrote, starting with Home Buyers: Lambs to the Slaughter? in 1983. And in the nineteen or twenty ensuing books, and on the goodmorning websites, which themselves are books of sorts – approaching 1,600 chapters on the oldest website – goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

I wondered yesterday if my propensity to go after what is not working was why, in early 1987, the angels acccepted my prayer for help and my offer to be used for human service? I can think of no other reason why they would do that. For truly, a propensity to break new ground, to challenge the status quo, to get ice water dumped on your head, to be burned at the stake or nailed to a tree, is essential to working for God.

My father’s widow, Joann, holds forth that she is close to God. I wonder how she would like having Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek standing on her neck 24-7, 365? I imagine she would like that a lot less than she likes me, which ain’t a whole lot. Irony of ironies, after he passed over, my father started asking me in dreams, the son he would not receive, to try to straighten out what he had left unfinished. I tried, even though I felt only God could straighten out his affairs. I still feel that way.

Throughout all of the upheaval between my father and me, I never stopped loving him. He was the parent with whom I had the heart connection. On receiving news of this death in late August 2005, I burst into tears. Not because he had passed on, but because we had not reconciled in this life. The late fall of 1995 was the last time we sat down face to face. In my dreams after that, he was the best father any son could have hoped to have.

I usually can be reached at

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com