Status Quo must go – School District

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Bash

The other day, I received an email from Audit & Finance Committee member Larry Murry beseeching me to keep attending AFC meetings. I replied I anticipated doing that. Like Larry, I’m good at seeing problems and going after them, which Status Quo seriously does not want to hear about or have to address. Like Larry, I have zero respect for head in the sand; we never did it that way before; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; can’t we all just get along? Consider this email some time back from Larry, which I guarantee Status Quo hates.

Sloan:

As I have said before, I agree with John Dick that the number of School District administrators has been reduced. However, I contend that the minions in the Henriquez Building are extremely overpaid for their duties and responsibilities. The School District’s administrative salary schedule, with the exception of the top half a dozen or so, is grievously out of line with that paid in the private sector and there should be a review and overhaul with an eye for substantive reductions. Reducing the number of administrators is of minimal value if you overpay those who remain.

Larry

I received two other emails from Larry, which Status Quo also hates.

The first email was a forward of a string of emails within the school district triggered by Larry asking what school district employees were receiving supplemental pay for maintaining their professional certification? The email string shows it took Larry two months to get that information, which I suppose could have been furnished in a few minutes by the school district employee responsible for looking after it.

So I called Larry. He said supplements are like bonuses paid every year, permanent raises. His position, and that of AFC member Stewart Kessler, quoting from one of the emails in the chain, “certifications should be part of the individual’s qualifications for the job. Consequently, a supplement or bonus should be unnecessary.” Larry said he isn’t convinced certification supplements are spent to maintain professional certification. I deleted all but the last email in the chain to save space and because the other emails were administrative and not substantive:

From: Cheryl Allen
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:22 PM
To: Ken Gentile
Subject:A&E

They wanted to know what people received the $2300 for Professional Certification for. Using last year’s information here is what I am providing:

GUIEB	ROSEMARIE	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	M1	Network, Security and A+ Certified
AMADOR	THOMAS	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	S1	AC/Refrigeration Contractor License
GENTILE	MICHAEL	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	S1	School Bus Safety Inspector
HARPIN	PATRICK	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	S1	AC/Refrigeration Contractor License
HERRERA	JOSE	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	S1	School Bus Safety Inspector
KERNS	CANDACE	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	M1	CPA Licensure in Maryland
NICKEL	MARYANNE	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	X2	National Behavior Analyst Certification
NULISCH	JOY	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	M1	A+ and Compaq Certified
PINC	PAVEL	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	S1	School Bus Safety Inspector
THOMPSON	DOUGLAS	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	S1	School Bus Inspector/Trainer
VALDEZ	PETER	SPCRT	PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION	2,300.00	2,300.00	S1	Journeyman Electrician Licensure

Cheryl D. Allen

Cheryl D. Allen | Director of Human Resources | Monroe County School District

241 Trumbo Road | Key West, FL 33040| Phone (305) 293-1400 x53332 | Fax (305) 293-1429

Because of the way Cheryl worded her note, I called Larry and asked if he thought Cheryl had furnished all of the employees receiving the $2300 for Professional Certification, or just the ones she could find, or just the ones she chose to furnish? Larry said he didn’t know.

The other email from Larry contained a comprehensive supplemental pay spreadsheet for all school district employees for upcoming 2012. It’s too wide and too long to fit into a post, but I’m happy to forward it by email to anyone who requests it, as, I’m sure, is Larry.

Extrapolating from the 2012 spreadsheet, total supplemental pay is $856,000. 468 school district employees receive supplemental pay ranging from small amounts up to the upper $3,000 range. There are many supplemental pay categories for a variety of school district employees. Again, Larry told me supplemental pay is an addition to salary, like a bonus, paid every year.

Given the stark fiscal outlook for 2012, as was discussed at the recent AFC meeting at Marathon High School, which I summarized in the AFC meeting & troll baitpost, it behooves the School District to tell Status Quo to go to hell. It behooves the School District to slash costs to the bone, for even if the .5 mil referendum passes and produces $9,000,000 for school district operations, there will be at least a $4,000,000 shortfall in revenues vs. expenses in 2012. A shortfall that, as Larry insisted at the AFC meeting, needs to be solved now.

No longer can the School District and the School Board worship Status Quo. Status Quo must die, for the School District and the school children to live.

Meanwhile, I sure do hope the Teacher’s Union has all of the teachers it represents out pounding the pavement to persuade Keys voters to vote YES for the .5 mil extension for operating expenses. I sure do hope the administrative and maintenance employees are doing the same. For if the referendum fails and the School District ends up with at least a $13,000,000 shortfall, instead of $4,000,000, you are looking at Armageddon. You are looking at school closings. You are looking at mass firings. You are looking at no sports programs. Ah, that last sentence got your attention?

Vote YES for the .5 mil referendum extension for operating expenses.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com. But right now, I’m out stumping for the school district referendum and cutting $4,000,000 in operating expenses. Might also help if the Teachers Union faced the reality of this year’s operating budget being $11,000,000 too high, thanks mostly to the School District and School Board, and the Teacher Union, using the ad valorem tax revenue estimates provided by Tallahassee, instead of by the Monroe County Tax Assessor/Collector and Larry Murray. What is the Union thinking, arguing the School District is not in financial crisis and is guilty of unfair labor practices for trying to simply make ends meet by not paying teachers what the School District doesn’t have to pay them? The Union should have caught the ad valorem tax over-estimate just like the School District and the School Board should have caught it. Just like Larry Murray did catch it, and then he got blown off for saying the money wasn’t there to fund the collective bargaining agreement negotiated late last year and approved by the School Board early this year. And what do you suppose the tax payers also are forking out for the outside labor law expert the School District now is using to fence with the Union, which also could have been avoided if the School District, the School Board and the Union had listened to Larry Murray?

Check out the latest school district SNAFU in today’s Citizen – keysnews.com. Not only what the SNAFU was, but that the School District apparently won’t name the administrative personnel responsible for it. How in the hell does the School District hope to get the the .5 mil referendum passed, if it continues to pay cat and mouse with the public?

this man’s abc’s

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Bash

I suppose this post will have the Sloan-haters on bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph frothing at the mouth. Yesterday, one of them wrote that I had admitted I am a troll, after I wrote in a post that what I write obviously is trolling and that I am the angels’ troll bait. Thus today’s photo taken by Rose Dell at Coco’s Kitchen on Big Pine Key early this year.

Since early 1987, the angels have had me do many things I did not want to do, which some people viewed as offensive, but I only viewed as unpleasant, difficult, necessary. In a nap dream yesterday, I was told to tell you once again of the most difficult writing assignment ever given to me.

After my brother Major went missing in early March of 2010, I went way, way out on a limb, catching enormous flack from people I knew from long ago, and from people I didn’t know, writing that Major had killed himself because someone was going to out him for being bisexual and there was nothing he could do to stop it. So he tried to make it look like he had been murdered.

I also wrote that Major’s soul had decided it was time for him to leave because he was repeating the extreme little league father behavior with his young son by his second wife that he had practiced with his young son by his first wife. In no way could Major be allowed to ruin another son’s life in that way.

I wrote that Major living through his two sons in that way was rape in the spirit sense.

I was banned from the Birmingham News blogs. My sister sent word through her daughter that I must stop writing about Major, as I did not live in Birmingham and did not have to put up with the looks and gossip. I declined because I was told in dreams to keep writing about Major even though I never wanted to write about him.

The county coroner and city police then ruled Major had killed himself and had tried to make it look like someone else had done it. That created even more cries of outrage from people who barely knew Major compared to how I knew him. Compared to how his first wife and her and Major’s daughter knew him. They had no problem with the suicide finding. They knew Major’s image was more important to him than anything and he would go to any lengths to try to protect it, regardless of the damage to his children by both of his wives, regardless of the damage to his second wife, and regardless of the terror he instilled in his father’s bloodline and his father’s second wife that they were targets, too.

As I wrote into that last year, I understood it was to try to help Major’s soul, which was in grave distress over the way Major had gone about doing himself in. The very last thing that could be allowed was for Major to be allowed to get away with killing himself and someone unknown getting blamed for it. That had to be challenged. I challenged it. The county coroner and city police challenged it. Major’s first wife and their daughter challenged it. An old lawyer buddy of mine, who had been the lead trial lawyer for the Public Defender in his city, felt it was suicide. A few people I met online for the first time felt I had it sized up. I imagine my sister did not really doubt Major had killed himself, as she knew Major, and she’d had plenty of dealings with me in the past when I rattled family skeletons she wished I had left alone.

From a pure human and pure common sense perspective, plain and simple, nobody in right mind would have staged a murder that theatric and so personally symbolic to Major in such an exposed location where there was such a great likelihood of getting caught, just a few hundred yards below the public tennis club where he had met and courted both of his wives, who were the club’s tennis pro and Alabama State Women’s Tennis Champion. Of all the things Major surely thought about, he apparently never considered that a public golf course pond next to a busy road in plain view of homes on a bluff across the way was not a believable murder scene. The police and coroner had to see it the same way in arriving at their own conclusion that Major had killed himself and had tried to make it look like murder.

His body was found floating in the middle of the pond. His wrists were loosely tied to a rope around his torso in such a way that he had range of motion enough to shoot himself in the left side of the head using his left hand (he was right-handed) with a rare Browing .32 automatic pistol identical to one kept in a glass case as a joke in his father’s home. The pistol was found in the pond. Being somewhat tied up and shooting himself left-handed lent to the theory someone else did it. As did Major’s mouth being taped with several wraps of duct tape around the back of his head.

Inside Major’s mouth was a cellophane Golden Flake potato chips label. In a plastic bottle attached by a cord tied to the cord around his torso was a typed anonymous letter identical to the same letter later found in his car, along with a draft of it on a flash drive; the same letter found hand-delivered into his and my sister’s mailbox a couple of days before he went missing; the same letter found hand-delivered in his home mailbox the day he went missing; the same letter delivered to Golden Flake.

The letter criticized the Bashinsky family and Golden Flake management for greedily enriching themselves with dividends which should have been kept in the company for the benefit of the company and its employees. The letter threatened further retaliation, if the dividend policy was not reversed. The letter was well-written. The letter was written by someone who shared the same view of the dividend policy I had held since the early 1990s.

The principal beneficiary of the dividends was my father’s widow. She controlled the Board of Directors and Golden Flake management. Clearly she was the target of the letter. Major had never liked her. He had moved to California when our father decided to marry her, because they were seeing each other while his wife, our mother, was still alive. I rather imagine Major wanted to put the fear of God into his stepmother, and he succeeded. She hired a private bodyguard. I imagine Golden Flake paid for that.

I wrote about all of that on my websites after Major went missing, except for who might have paid for the bodyguard. I knew I was driving a lot of people nuts. I took no pleasure it that. As I said above, I didn’t even want to be writing about it. But I was told to write about it, so I wrote about it.

I don’t know why the angels had me disclose what I did to my sister. I may never know. But what seems to have come from it is the attacks on the Coconut Telegraph provided opportunities for me deal with it by making no excuses for what I did and by accepting the attendant seriously rough karma that wrecked my life and seriously injured my daughters and their mother because it seriously limited my ability to be there for them. The same karma damaged my ability to practice law and my ensuing marriages.

The same karma finally led to my dropping out in the hope of finding relief elsewhere, which eventually led, in early 1987, to my praying to God for help and offering my life to human service, and to the offer then being accepted and my being told I would be pushed to my limits. I then indeed was pushed to my limits, even as I had no clue what really was causing my longstanding afflictions. Perhaps a year ago, I finally understood it was very bad karma, and only a month or so ago I finally understood it was caused by what I did to my sister. Of many awful things I had experienced which had mangled my soul and I was healed of all of that, nothing was done to help me with the karma.

By the late 1980s, I was coming to understand human beings get a life review when they leave this life. Although the life review is unavoidable, there is some leeway about when it can occur. I also was coming to understand I was getting the life review in this life, to the extent I was able, or willing, to experience it. And I came to understand the point of having the life review in this life was to give me a chance to clear the way for having a different experience when I leave this life. Perhaps outing myself for what I did to my sister was part of the life review.

Sure, I know all of this I’m telling goes totally against the mainstream view. But then, going against the mainstream view is something I understood even before I asked God to help me and I offered my life to human service in early 1987. I saw the mainstream view was nearly always incomplete and incorrect. I found plenty of authority for that perspective in the Bible, where the people who walked to a different drumbeat were the people who walked with God. I also came to understand God can do anything God wants to do. As sometimes is said, “With God all things are possible.”

There was a time when I naively expected people would believe what I said and wrote about my mystical experiences, starting with the acceptance of my desperate prayer for help and offer of my life to human service. As time passed, I came to see that was a naive expectation. Yet it was hard to let go of that naive expectation. It was even harder to let go of measuring myself by this world’s standards. It took many years and lots of rough and disappointing experiences for me to understand my task is to say, write and do what I am told, and to be detached from what happens afterward. Pretty tall assignment, but the assignment nonetheless.

I came to understand my spiritual path is very simple. Do what I’m told. Experience the fallout. Deal with the fallout, as I’m advised. That is the fastest way to develop. That is how Jesus lived in the Gospels, and the way Peter and Paul lived in Acts of the Apostles. Paul, who as Saul, had caused the death of many Christians.

The way I look at it, if God took Saul and changed him, then God can take and change anyone, including you and me. Humans may never get over what I did to my sister, nor will I forgive myself for it. However, God is not human and can do anything God wants to do. Meaning, if my angel controllers tell me to run for the School Board, that’s what I will do even though I agree with the Sloan-haters on the Coconut Telegraph that I should not run for the School Board.

If I had my way, you’d never hear from me again. If I had my way, I’d be on a motorcycle with a lady somewhat like me on the bitch seat, or her driving and me on the bitch seat, touring the Americas. It’s so much easier for you on the Coconut Telegraph who hate me. All you have to do to get me out of your lives is stop reading what I write. But since you are reading what I write, here is a poem that exploded out of me in June 2003:

I am a man.

I said,
I am a man!

What means it,
being a man?

A man is a warrior:
he lives by a code of honor,
his word is reliable,
his actions confirm his words,
his commitment is holiness,
his enemies are welcome at his hearth,
he fears but moves forward,
he cries and gets up again,
he hates but forgives,
he loves and let’s go,
he doubts but trusts God,
he’s a good friend,
he seeks resolutions,
he demands nothing,
he risks everything,
he regrets his mistakes,
he seeks to make amends,
he puts others’ welfare first,
he accepts apologies truly made,
he expects nothing back,
he lives ready to die,
he laughs when he “should” scream,
he screams when he “should” laugh,
he sings just because,
he shrugs off insults,
he learns from misfortune,
he cusses God for making him,
he wishes he was done,
he loves children and animals,
he relishes a woman’s scent,
he smiles when he’s content,
he knows God’s his master,
he walks in rainbows,
his garden is the world,
his way is nature,
he loves fishing,
his wife is his soul,
his food is life,
his pay is whatever he receives.
Yep, he’s crazy.

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

homeless vets and non-vets

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Bash

a Key West homeless vet

Found this fantastical article in today’s Citizen:

Feds promise no homeless veterans by 2015

BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com

When it comes to helping homeless veterans leave the street and extreme poverty, the nation has more programs, funding and collaboration among agencies than ever before, leaders on the issues say.

“There are 4,000 open doors that didn’t exist 35 years ago,” John Driscoll, president of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, said Wednesday in an online news conference from Washington, D.C.The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has vowed to end homelessness among veterans by 2015, changing the strategies from temporary and emergency shelter to prevention, employment and permanent housing.

Homeless veterans are more likely to remain without shelter longer than their civilian peers, while growing far sicker both physically and mentally, according to a new study released the week of Veterans Day.

“They are people in a heightened state of need; the reasons are varied and complex,” said Anthony Love, deputy director at the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “It’s not just a simple thing that has befallen them.”

Veterans’ housing, health condition and access to transportation can dictate whether they can find a decent paying job.

While veterans represent 9 percent of the population, they make up 15 percent of homeless men and women, according to the report by the 100,000 Homes Campaign, which sent trained volunteers into the streets to interview 23,000 homeless vets nationwide.

The figures are consistent with those from the government, which estimates at least 1.4 million veterans live in poverty.

Since 2008, more than 32,600 veterans have been housed through federal vouchers, and in July, $59.5 million was released to 85 agencies in 40 states to help 22,000 veterans and their families avoid becoming homeless.

“We are no longer talking about things we should do,” said Driscoll, whose agency estimates that at least 100,000 homeless veterans live outside on any given night. “We have a federal strategic plan that describes how we are going to reach that goal. The keys are very clear: Access to housing, health services and income security.”

About 75 homeless veterans live throughout the Florida Keys, according to George Brentnall, director of Monroe County Veterans Affairs.

“All of the big programs are run out of Miami,” he said. “We have a van that rides up there on a daily basis — a free ride.”

Key West has a VA clinic, but it offers no emergency or inpatient services. Homeless veterans are sent to a social worker who manages their cases.

Brentnall said he knows of at least five homeless veterans who have found housing through the VA vouchers, which require veterans to earn some income.

An alternative veterans program can provide $985 a month pension that can pay for housing.

“A lot of them realize they can’t live here on that, so they go away,” Brentnall said. “We’ve sent several away, one to Michigan, or where their families are at.”

On Tuesday, a homeless veteran showed up at Brentnall’s office, saying he had come from California having believed that Key West had a special VA home.

“I get phone calls from around the country from vets saying, ‘I’m thinking about moving down there,’ ” Brentnall said. “We’re at the end of the road; there is no such thing. Don’t come.”

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

Don’t come indeed. The Key West city government views and treats street vets and non-vets like criminals and carriers of the bubonic plague.

The VA is smoking funny cigarettes if it actually believes it is going to end homelessness in veterans. Uncle Sam is manufacturing more homeless veterans daily in his stupid wars. Uncle Sam should live on the street for six months before holding forth he even has a clue about street people. As should everyone else who holds forth on street people who has not been one.

The other day, responding to the fairly recent contrasts in homelessness … post (click on link to see it), Virginia of Jupiter Beach asked how I became homeless and how I quit being homeless. Here is what I wrote back to her.

Hi, Ginny.I became homeless because I ran out of money and was, and still am, spirit-blocked from making money with what I’m good at: writing, speaking, counseling.

I didn’t, and still don’t, have the physical wherewithal to do manual labor or practice law, or even be a law clerk-paralegal. I don’t have a law license in Florida. I’d have to go back to Alabama to open a law practice, after I got my law license back in good standing with the Alabama Bar Association.

I ceased being homeless, or close to it, after my father died in late August 2005 and I received an inheritance about six months later, on Valentine’s Day as it turned out. But for that, I would still be homeless, or somewhere close, for the reasons stated above.

My homeless story is different from all others I have come across. I did meet a man a good bit younger than I on Higgs Beach in early 2005, who was homeless because his spirit handlers had caused him to be homeless. But that was not for a long duration, as it turned out. All the others were homeless because of very serious past disturbances in their lives and souls. They were living in the only way they could given their infirmities. I’m speaking of long-term homeless people, street people – not recently gone homeless people.

Recent homeless people can go different directions, depending on individual drive. Some become long-term homeless, street people, for reasons buried inside of them. Street people lose the ability to cope in mainstream. Occasionally, a street person turns around, but it’s rare a street person gets completely off the dole, living independently, paying his/her own way. That’s why I keep saying only God can change street people so they become mainstream people again. Nobody wants to hear that, who has not lived on the street. But it’s true.

The woman, Jeanie, about whom I wrote today doesn’t like living on the street, but she sees no way to live in the mainstream way by her own effort. It didn’t work out for her with the Key West couple who took her and her parrot into their home and provided them with a private room and use of a bathroom and the kitchen and living room and backyard garden.

There is no way to really understand street people, if you have not lived on the street a while. You can observe them, you can talk with them, but unless you are or have been one of them, you do not know them.

I recall you telling me of helping a woman out with money and advice and job serarch and stuff, and she got work and went back into mainstream. Maybe you told me you did for two women? Sorry, losing brain cells.

That’s where interventions such as you made can really make a difference in some cases. Beyond that, what people can do, who feel called to do it, is see to it that homeless people have access to food, clothing, blankets, showers, basic medical care, job search assistance when they ask for it, food stamps, help getting a driver’s license and/or ID card, reunion with relatives open to reunion, bus tickets, if they want live somewhere else.

And it’s really, really important that they be allowed to sleep at night, which is not okay for them to do in Key West, unless they are in a shelter. The rub there is, Key West’s shelters cannot sleep but perhaps one-half of its street people, and perhaps half of its street people will not use a shelter, even if there is space available. No chance of getting Jeanie into a shelter, for example. She is not comfortable being in close quarters with other people, and a shelter will not let her bring her parrot with her.

I picked up a fellow on US 1 about a month ago on the next Key Down. He had two pretty large bags. He was at the bus stop where the Key West transit bus stops heading from Marathon back down to Key West. Several buses a day make that loop. It took a while to drag out of him that he had already been in Key West and had gone to Duval Street and got to drinking and a woman took him home and ripped him off. Or so he claimed. The $750 he had come down with was gone. He said some of it went for 2 nights in a motel before he met the woman.

He said he was up my way because he got on the Marathon bus by mistake. Finally, he got off and had been hanging out there since the day before, trying to catch a bus back to Key West. But he had no money. He said when I stopped to offer him a ride, he was about to ditch most of his belongings in the mangroves to lighten his load. Maybe then he could walk back down to Key West. He said no way he could go to a shelter. He could not be in close quarters with other people. He said he was a journeyman carpenter, could walk onto any jobsite and get work.

I never could get out of him what had caused him to pack up and leave New Jersey pronto with his belongings on his back, but when I said it must have been something awful, he cried. I said I’d been there, done that a few times myself. I’d started over a number of times. He said he understood that from having done it himself.

I said I was a priest. He asked what kind? I said not the church kind. I worked for God. Churches didn’t like me usually.

So I took him into Old Town, where I was headed to the School Board meeting that evening, and let him out. As he got out of my car, I told him that he had to put the past behind and move forward. He had job skills. He could get work making good pay. He needed do take care of that first.

He said I was an angel. I said not hardly, but angels put him in my car because they knew what would happen after we started talking. I haven’t seen him since, don’t know what happened after we said goodbye.

Sloan

I forgot to tell Ginny the fellow asked if I could help him get something to eat and a soda for his dehydration. I gave him $20, told him not to drink soft drinks, they would make it worse for him. I said if he needed help getting over being out in the sun all morning and the day before, to drink Gatorade. Othewise, water. I told him if he spent the money on booze, God would have at him. He said he was not going to buy booze.

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

There is a somewhat related post today at this link: Keys Coalition & Monroe County Coalition at goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

AFC meeting & troll bait

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Bash

The first thing that came up at the Audit & Finance Committee (AFC) meeting at Marathon High School yesterday was AFC member Larry Murray’s dogged effort to get minutes thown out which did not reflect what had actually happened, and replaced with accurate minutes. Turned out, Larry had it right. So the incorrect minutes were discarded and the correct minutes were approved.

Minutes which, unlike the incorrect minutes, spoke of School Board Member Andy Griffiiths trying to impose being a team player discipline on school district employees and AFC members, as a euphemism for them not being whistleblowers. I watched//heard Andy promote that policy for the AFC at the school board meeting in Key West about a month ago, when Andy and others unsuccessfully tried to stop the AFC from being independent of school board and school district oversight, and I raised bloody hell about it.

The next thing that came up yesterday was AFC member Roger McVeigh wanted AFC members to stop talking with each other, emailing each other, etc. about anything having to do with AFC business or inquiry, and restricting such conversation to publicly advertised meetings. Roger was concerned about ongoing violations of the Sunshine Law. About then, Assistant State Attorney Mark Wilson showed up to speak to sunshine law issues. So he weighed in on Roger’s proposal, which didnt’ seem well received by AFC Chairman Stuart Kessler or Larry Murray.

I said, then Mark Wilson said, there is no sunshine violation for sending emails to other AFC members, but if an AFC member replies to an email, that is a sunshine violation because now it is a conversation. Mark said, for example, sending an email to Internal Auditor Ken Gentile, copied to the other AFC members, as a means of speaking directly to and getting replies from other AFC members through Ken, is a sunshine violation. Mark said the prudent policy is simply not to have any conversations of any kind about school district or AFC matters, except at duly advertised public meetings.

I said this was a chance for AFC to be a role model for the School Board and School District, which still are in kindergarten re honoring the Sunshine Law. And a role model for the County Commission, and city commissions, and other goverment bodies re honoring the Sunshine Law. I said go even farther than the Sunshine Law, honor the spirit of the Sunshine Law. Avoid all appearance of impropriety (sunshine law violation). Be Christ-like re the Sunshine Law. Let AVC, by its model, show everyone how the Sunshine Law is supposed to work.

Larry Murray abstained from voting. Stuart Kessler, who is a lawyer, voted against it. Roger McVeigh and another AFC member voted for it. One AFC member was not there. It passed 2-1. Roger turned around and thanked me. I thanked him for bringing it up. Internal Auditor Ken Gentile crossed the room and shook my hand and thanked me. I thanked him for supporting it, although he could not vote, not being on the AFC. School Superintendent Jesus Jara thanked me. Mark Wilson thanked me. I thanked him for coming to the meeting.

It was the right thing for the AFC to do. Doubly so, given how much pressure Stuart Kessler, especially, and Larry Murray have put on the School Board and School District about sunshine law violations. If you are going to make sunshine law complaints, you need to be beyond reproach in your own relationship with the Sunshine Law.

Next on the AFC agenda was discussion of the School District violating the Sunshine Law in recent dealings with the Teacher’s Union. All school district-union bargaining, negotiating, etc. has to be done in the sunshine. Inconvenient, deadly for backroom dealing, it is the law of Florida. Stuart Kessler asked: Why should the AFC have to live by the Sunshine Law, if the School Board and School District didn’t? I said, because the AFC needs to live by a higher standard. It needs to show the way.

Then, Larry Murray and Stuart Kessler started pushing for the School District going to the public to let them know the .5 mil referendum to continue an existing tax for school operations will not solve the School District’s financial woes – no where close. They said the School Board should have asked for more millage on the referendum, to really get the School District in the black. I said if the AFC goes public and attacks the School Board and the referendum, they will queer the referendum. It will be defeated. Then, schools will be closed and there will be no need for an AFC. I said the School Board members knew they could not ask for more millage: the public would not stand for it given how poisoned the public is with the School District.

I’m going to use numbers I think I recollect. If I’m off a little, it’s not by much.

It was said school district revenues will fall next year and expenses will rise. A guesimated $4,000,000 budget deficit was put forth, IF THE JANUARY REFERENDUM PASSES. The referendum, if passed, will raise $9,000,000. So if the referendum fails, the budget deficit next year will be a guestimated $13,000,000. $77,000,000 in expenses, or more than that, against $64,000,000 in revenues next year. Yep, schools will be closed. Sports programs will be eliminated. Administrative staff, teachers, maintenance people will be let go. We thought it was bad this year, with an $11,000,000 budget shortfall, $77,000,000 revenues vs. $88,000,000 expenses. IF THE JANUARY REFERENDUM FAILS, 2012 will make 2001 look like the School District winning the state lottery.

After it was generally decided it was best not to do anything that would sour the public on the referendum, Larry Murray offered that the School Board and School District should be told they need to come up with a long range financial plan. After much discussion, this was agreed to. Among other things, the discussion concerned the unknowns. How much will the State of Florida chip in for next year? What kind of demands the Teacher’s Union will make? What the local ad valorem revenues will produce? Everyone there understood ad valorem revenues will be less next year than this year. Likely, the State will chip in less. Likely, the union will fight tooth and nail to keep what it has. How do you make a long range plan in the face of all of that?

Looks to me the long range plan is to deal with what is on the front burner. Take care of that, then deal with the next thing on the front burner. All along, being realistic, which was not done last year, planning for this year, about what school district revenues and expenses would be.

In planning for this year, the School District and the School Board ignored the county tax office’s estimate of ad valorem revenues, which Larry Murray had ascertained, and went with estimates of the county tax office’s revenues made by the State. The State over-estimated county ad valorem revenues by $9,000,000. The School District then negotiated a contract with the union based on that having that $9,000,000 revenue that did not exist. A contract the School District could not come anywhere close to affording, which the School Board approved, even as Larry Murray told them the money wasn’t there.

Stuart Kessler told the School Board of a later miscalculation, which the School Board ignored and that cost the School District $500,000.

All of those miscalculations we got to read all about in the local newspapers, but we did not get to read all about how it all should have been headed off at the pass by the School District and the School Board listening to Larry Murray and Stuart Kessler. If I were Larry and Stuart, if I’d had to put up with what they have had to put up with, I probably would be just as upset about how the School District and School Board have gone about things as they are.

I’m a firm believer in the public been fully informed. For years, I have pushed for everything to be in the sunshine, including stuff about me. In that regard are two recent comments on the Coconut Telegraph. My thoughts in CAPS.

[The white owl speaks - Zealots are not to be trusted]
Interesting is that you [white owl] do not see the zealot side of yourself, which we all see in all your posts. Don’t you realize all your Sloan hating does is garner him more attention.

Hey, Deer Ed, is it any way possible that white owl is really Sloan, and this is really just more gimmick to keep Sloan’s name on going? Naw, probably not, never mind. That’s just my suspicious meeting up with my silly.

THIS CRITIC PROBABLY COULD NOT HAVE THOUGHT UP ANYTHING MEANER TO DO TO WHITE OWL THAN TO WONDER ON THE CT IF I MADE HIM UP? I DID MY BEST TO EXPLAIN TO WHITE OWL, RAVEN, AND OTHER SLOAN-BASHERS ON THE CT THE VERY SAME THING: THE MORE THEY RANT AND RAVE ABOUT ME ON THE CT, THE MORE ATTENTION THEY DRAW TO ME, AND THE MORE THAT WILL COME TO THE ATTENTION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN, AND THE MORE LIKELY THEY WILL READ AND PASS AROUND WHAT I WRITE.

[Is it possible that whiteowl is really Sloan?] Funny you should say that. A while ago someone asked if Sloan and FTR were just creations of Deer Ed, something to foment controversy and drive readership up. That’s nonsense of course. There are a lot of voices in Sloan’s head but none of them are going to say anything that doesn’t support his narcissistic agenda.

I have begun to suspect that, at times, Sloan is just trolling the Coconut Telegraph. That whole bit about him running for the school board (the most controversial run in American history) and “exposing” children to things so soon on the heels of his revelation of child molestation just reeks of a troll in action. Just because he is mentally ill doesn’t me he isn’t capable of having a little joke at our expense. In fact, aren’t all his runs for office really just attempts to troll the public? He never really intended to take office, just stir things up with as much attention being as possible focused on himself. ~divethekeys@gmail.com

THE REAL JOKE IS SELFISH, NARCISSISTIC, MENTALLY-ILL PEOPLE ON THE CT DON’T GET IT EVEN YET THAT THEY MORE THEY SLAM ME, THE MORE SCHOOL CHILDREN WILL HEAR OF IT, BUT I REPEAT MYSELF. OF COURSE WHAT I POST TO THE CT AND MY WEBSITES AND MY RUNS FOR OFFICE ARE MEANT TO TROLL THE PUBLIC. WHAT ELSE COULD THEY BE MEANT TO DO? I’M THE ANGELS’ TROLL BAIT. BUT FOR THE ANGELS, YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE HEARD OF ME. I WOULD NOT HAVE MOVED TO THE KEYS. I WOULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN INVOLVED IN LOCAL POLITICS. I WOULD NOT HAVE RUN FOR OFFICE. I WOULD NOT HAVE PUT OUT EMAIL BLASTS. I WOULD NOT HAVE POSTED ANYTHING TO THE CT. I WOULD NOT HAVE STARTED THE GOOD MORNING WEBSITES. MY CRITICS COMPLAIN TO THE WRONG DEPARTMENTS. INSTEAD OF BASHING DEER ED FOR PUBLISHING WHAT I WRITE, INSTEAD OF BASHING ME FOR WRITING IT AND FOR RUNNING FOR OFFICE, THEY SHOULD BASH JESUS, MICHAEL AND MELCHIZEDEK, WHO RUN ME RAGGED.

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

Keys Coalition

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Bash

Dennis Ward

I called State Attorney Dennis Ward yesterday to lend sympathy for his being accused by the Pussy (Mayor) of Islamorada of having called in the Feds on him (the Pussy), which Dennis had flat denied doing, all as reported in The Citizen yesterday. While Dennis had me on the phone, he asked if I knew anything about Tim Gratz and Florida Coalition, which Dennis said is geared toward stopping sex-trafficking in children? I said I had not heard of Florida Coalition, but I’d had a lot of dealings with Gratz last year when he was Danny Coll’s campaign manager in his bid to unseat County Commissioner George Neugent in the Republican primary. I said Gratz had rubbed me the wrong way plenty. When Dennis asked if Gratz was a disbarred lawyer?, I said yes, Gratz told me it was for using client funds. I told Dennis that Gratz was the defendant in a reciprocal action last year, filed by his former wife for unpaid child support. I said Gratz had time to run Danny Coll’s campaign and write long articles re Cuba and related stuff for Solares Hill, but not time to work so he could pay child support. I said I’d heard Gratz pled poverty in the reciprocal action.

Dennis said he had agreed to be on Florida Coalition’s Board, and he named other Keys iluminaries who had done so, including Tom Tuell, Editor of The Citizen, which publishes Solares Hill, School Superintendent Jesus Jara, and Key West Mayor Craig Cates. Dennis said he had searched and had others in his office search, and there was no record of Keys Coalition in Tallahassee. No tax exemption had been obtained from the IRS. Yet Keys Coalition was raising money from private donors. Dennis said he had told Gratz he had the cart before the horse, and Gratz said he would take care of it. Dennis said on US 1 Radio, a minister tied into Keys Coalition had told Bill Becker there were five child-sex trafficking cases under investigation by the State Attorney. Dennis said that was news to him. He asked his prosecutors and it was news to them, too. Then, he sent me several chains of emails re Keys Coalition, from which I extrapolated what seemed most relevant. I do not include the emails from Gratz straightening out matters for Keys Coalition in Tallahassee.

The Keys Coalition booth was quite successful. Not only did we make over $100 selling pizza and sodas, many people signed the petition to the Village Voice urging it to stop advertising for sexual services its online classified ads.,

Here is a picture of three of our members at the booth.
Since some may not recognize all of them, they are (from left to right):
Christine Poist, President of the Monroe County Bar Association
Connie Gilbert, head of the Keys chapter of National Organization for Womeb; and
Robin Smith-Martin, member of the Monroe County Bar Association.

From: KEYS COALITION [mailto:keyscoalition@live.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 8:18 AM
To: Kathy Tuell; Kathy Tuell
Subject:URGENT–URGENTCan you respond to Bill Becker

During his interview with Rev Velasco Bill Becker expressed a strong interest in what happened to the five confirmed cases of sex trafficking.

He was interested in what happened with respect to the criminal justice system.

Can you supply me with asummary, as soon as possible, so I can get back to him?

Thanks!

From: kathy@tuell.net [Tom Tuell's wife]
To: keyscoalition@live.com
Subject: RE: URGENT–URGENTCan you respond to Bill Becker
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2011 08:28:47 -0500

Case 1:The FBI was already involved when the 15 year old female child was placed with us. The child was part of a child prostitution ring on the mainland.
Case 2: Local case. Mother discovered 12 year old female child was being “groomed” for prostitution and sought our help. Referrals made to law enforcement and abuse registry, which is what we are required to do. We do not track what happens once that referral is made, and have no influence in whether or not a case develops.
Case 3: Prostitution/survival sex by 13 year old. Placing agency (mainland) working with law enforcement.
Case 4: 15-year-old female, involved in prostitution on mainland. Ongoing FBI investigation on mainland.
Case 5: 14 year old male, trading sex for drugs, money. Situation known by placing agency (mainland) who is working with law enforcement.

From:keyscoalition@live.com
To: news@us1radio.com
CC: kathy@tuell.net; ktuell@fkcs.org
Subject: FW: URGENT–URGENTCan you respond to Bill Becker
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2011 05:44:42 -0800

Bill, thanks for the great interview. The 5 confirmed cases came from the Florida Keys Childrens Shelter. Here is the summary by Kathy Tuell re these cases.
Thanks again.
In some of the cases the victims came from mainland. [4 of the 5 cases were mainland and Cathy Tuell didnt know what had become of the local case.]
Sometimes law enforcement moves the children from the environment to keep them away from the pimps.
I have spoken with a group from the West Coast that runs a shelter that dealt with a traffic victiim from Monroe County. Again, the vixctim was no doubt rempved from Monroe County to get her away from her predator(s).
With respect to the victims, there are a number of organizations that run programs to help the victims heal. Obviously it can be a challenging multidisciplinary effort. Many of the private groups get federal funding (as does the Florida Keys Childrens Shelter).
Many of the children are runaways from troubled home environments. That is why the KKCS is so important in getting the runaways off the streets

From: KEYS COALITION <keyscoalition@live.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 9:31 AM
Subject: FW: URGENT–URGENTCan you respond to Bill Becker

To: “Dennis Ward, Esq.” <dward@keyssao.org>

See message from Kathy Tuell. I know the case of one child trafficking victim from Monroe County who was put in a shelter on the west coast of Florida. Of course I do not know the victim’s name. I am unaware of any federal prosecution of trafficking in the Keys.
I suspect there are cases of which we are not aware but certainly the main problem in Florida is in Miami, Orlando and tampa area.
TIM [Gratz]

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

I had lots of thoughts.

Heavy duty trolling, Gratz is plunking heart strings big time. I hope he is on the level. However, he has legal training and experience to know he was not supposed to start raising money before he had the not for profit corporation registered in Tallahassee and the 501(c) exemption from the IRS. Clearly, he is head-hunting people with curriculum vitae he can flash around: Christine Poist, County Bar Association President; Robin Smith-Martin, School Board member, with law degree; Connie Gilbert, head of the Keys chapter of the National Orgainzation of Women; Tom Tuell, Editor of Key West Citizen; School Superintendent Jesus Jara; Key West Mayor Craig Cates; and the plum pudding, State Attorney Dennis Ward. Voila! It has to be a good thing with those endorsements.

Gratz admits in an email that most of the child sex trafficking cases are on the mainland, and he knows of no federal prosecutions arising in the Keys. I read Cathy Tuell’s email to Todd German, who already was quite disturbed by this. He seemed even more disturbed to hear Cathy was dragged into it. Todd said it’s a lot easier to raise money in the Keys to try to stop child sex trafficking in the Keys, than it is to try to raise money in the Keys to stop child sex trafficking on the mainland. I said I see no indication of significant child sex trafficking in the Keys, so what’s Gratz raising money to combat? I said I hoped Keys Coalition is on the up and up, but so far it doesn’t pass the smell test. Todd agreed.

Yesterday afternoon, Dennis Ward told me by email that he had resigned from the Keys Coalition Board.

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

contrasts in homelessness …

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Bash

African gray parrot

re Jeanie and Scorpio and the Key West police, yesterday from one of my bum friends currenly hanging out in Key West, most likely living in his van – Vietnam vet, retired firefighter, retired businessman, a serious spy on the establishment, he has somehow developed the ability to be invisible when he is in plain view …

HI SLOAN……..HOPE ALL IS GOOD FOR YOU,,,,,,,SOME NEWS FROM OUR FRIEND JEANIE WITH THE BIRD SCORPIO,,,,,,SHE WAS SITTING IN BAY VIEW PARK THIS PAST SUNDAY AFTERNOON DOING HER CROSS WORD PUZZLES WITH SCORPIO WHOM SHE LOVES AND PROTECTS AND IT BEGAN TO RAIN A BIT SO SHE TOOK COVER AT THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB IN BAY VIEW PARK WHICH IS CLOSED SUNDAYS AND OFFICER MITCHELL PULLS IN WITH HIS CAR AND TELLS HER SHE HAS TO LEAVE BAY VIEW PARK AND SHE ASKED HIM WHY,,,,HIS REPLY WAS SHE CANT BE THERE BECAUSE OF THE CHILDREN AT THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB AND SHE TOLD HIM THE PLACE IS CLOSED AND SHE WOULD LIKE TO STAY THERE BECAUSE HER BIRD FREAKS OUT WHEN HE GETS WET.

MITCHELL TOLD HER HE’S A BIRD AND HE BELONGS IN THE RAIN AND SHE HAS TO LEAVE BAY VIEW PARK,,,,,,,,SHE ASKED MITCHELL WHY HE WAS BEING A PRICK AND HE SAID HE WASEN’T BEING A PRICK.

JEANIE TOLD MITCHELL THAT HE HAS HER SO UPSET AND WAS FEELING STRANGE AND THAT SHE HAD HEART SURGERY A YEAR AGO AND 2 STENTS PUT IN AND TOLD MITCHELL THAT HER HEART WAS JUMPING AND WOULD HE PLEASE CALL HER AN AMBULANCE, HE REFUSED BY SAYING A FLAT NO AND TOLD HER IF SHE WANTED AN ABULANCE SHE WOULD HAVE TO FOR ONE HER SELF.

JEANIE DOES NOT HAVE A CELL PHONE.

SHE GAVE ME THIS ACCOUNT WHILE STANDING IN FRONT OF THE CHEVRON GAS STATION AT WHITE AND TRUMAN AVE IN KEY WEST AND HER SKINNY FRAIL BODY WAS TREMBLING A BIT WAITING FOR HER ACCELERATED HEART BEAT TO SETTLE DOWN.

SLOAN, I PERSONALLY FEEL SAFER IN KEY WEST NOW THAT JEANIE IS NOT DOING CROSS WORD PUZZLES IN BAY VIEW PARK.

SHE IS A PROUD WOMAN AND WILL BE RECIEVING HER FIRST SOCIAL CHECK THIS MONTH OF NOVEMBER .

A GENTLMEN TENNIS PLAYER WHO FREQUENTS BAY VIEW PARK AND KNOWS JEANIE FILED FOR HER SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS ON LINE.

Hi, Bob.

I suggest you and I pray for Officer Mitchell’s soul, which assumes he has one. Mayor Cates gets my daily harangues, as do the city commissioners, city manager and city attorney, and Dennis Reeves Cooper recently resurrected from the dead as per today’s Citizen article, to the great shock and distress, I imagine, of the entire Key West Police Department. Apparently it was not nearly just Dennis who believed the men and women in blue were not always true blue to “Protect and Serve” and “conduct becoming.”

I’m sure the city officials will be reassured to know the seriously dangerous Jeanie and the her fearsome attack African gray parrot Scorpio were driven out of Bayview Park to save the boys and girls who were at church or in their homes watching television, or whatever, to stay out of the rain. I also imagine the city officials will be reassured to know the Gestapo division of the Police Department is still alive and doing quite well, protecting the city’s citizens from the likes of Jeanie and Scorpio, who as far as I know, have never done anything to bother anyone since I have known them.

We first met in late 2008 at Higgs Beach, just before I called in the Key West police to protect Jeanie from a homeless man she said had beaten her up before, and other homeless people, too. He was in my face, threatening to kill Jeanie later. I wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to kill me while I talked with the police dispatcher on my cell phone, after dialing 911. The dispatcher gave me the run around until I started naming all the city and county officials I knew personally, and the Chief of Police and the Sheriff. Three police cruisers then showed up. By then, the fellow threatening Jeanie had high-tailed on his bicycle.

That happened just after the Higgs Beach Committee formed, as it turned out, to drive all the homeless people away from Higgs Beach over to Bayview Park. County Commissioner Heather Carruthers led that charge after meeting Jeanie and Scorpio and identifying Scorpio as an African gray, which seriously impressed both Jeanie and Scorpio, who proceeded to go to Heather and spend a while walking up and down her arms and across her shoulders and back. I made those introductions personally. It was some time later before Scorpio would leave Jeanie to perch on my hand. I swan, Bob. What’s this world coming to? I sure don’t look good, do it?

Glad to hear Jeanie is going to get Social Security benefits. I started collecting in 2004, after turning 62. Figured if I waited to 65 to start collecting a little more per month, I might probably check out before I ever caught up with what I would have gotten if I had started collecting at 62. Went onto Medicare at 65, and elected to take Plan B, which covers doctor and hospital charges pretty good, which reduced my benefits but came in real handy lately with the cancer removal from my left forearm at Fisherman’s Hospital. Probably $15,000 lumping the doctor and hospital bills together. Well, I wandered away from why you wrote to me.

Hard to imagine how this mean thing that was done to Jeanie fits into Mayor Cates’ crusade to be firm but compassionate with the local “incorrigible” street people, of which Jeanie surely is one, given how long she has been living on the street. She was taken in for a while earlier this year by a Key West couple I knew somewhat. The man was all gung-ho about it. I told him I hoped it worked out and that he and his wife didn’t put any demands on Jeanie, as I didn’t figure that would work too good. Don’t know why it didn’t work out, other than I heard through the grapevine that it didn’t and Jeanie was back on the street, which really didn’t come as a surprise.

Am thinking Jeanie and Scorpio would make great poster homeless people, if a photo of them could be taken and it got onto the Web. Don’t know if Jeanie would like that, though; she’s reclusive, stays in the background as much as she can. Maybe you tell her I suggested it and see what she says. If she okays it and you have a cell phone, or know someone who does, take a few good snapshots and email them to me.

What’s the world coming to, Bob, when a he-man police officer does something mean like that to a tiny, peaceful woman like Jeanie? And to think you fought in Vietnam, it was advertised, to protect the freedom of Americans from tyranny and oppression. As I recall from some of our conversations over the years, you have been handicapped by that ever since. Still have flashback and nightmares. Maybe Officer Mitchell should be sent to the front lines in Afghanistan, so he can spew whatever he hates, besides himself obviously, onto men closer to his size and ability to dish back what he dishes out.

What’s this world coming to, Bob? Darn am I glad I don’t live in Key West any more. Darn am I glad. One Human Family Not. But then, you and I, and every street person and vehicle person in Key West knew that years ago, didn’t we?
Sloan

P.S.

Tell Jeanie I said I’ve had good face-to-face dealings with the Social Security office in the Federal Building on Simonton Street. She can get anything handled there, for free, but I doubt she can take Scorpio in there – national security threat. So perhaps that’s not such a good idea after all for her. It would work okay for others who don’t have computer access, or know how to use comupters and the Internet.

THANKS SLOAN, I WILL PRAY FOR OFFICER MITCHELL AND OTHERS LIKE HIM AND TRY TO CONVINCE JEANIE TO DO THE SAME. ILL TRY TO GET HER TO PHOTOGRAPH ALONG WITH SCORPIO. BOB

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Jesus Christ on the Coconut Telegraph

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Bash

nice article in The Key West Citizen today re resurrection of the blue paper, where journalism is a contact sport, due to massive public financial outpouring …

After putting up yesterday’s driveling, I took what has become a ritualistic morning siesta, during which some pretty interesting stuff happened.

In the first dream, I look at the surgical scar on my left forearm, remnants of the removal of a cancer lesion, and the normally white-ish small scar in the middle of where the stitches were taken to close the wound is a good bit larger and more white. I come slightly awake and wonder and hope it’s not about something I’m going to have to worry about. I fall back asleep.

Then, I’m with some fellow who is surf fishing, and he hooks into something monstrous that tears away from us like it’s headed for Cuba or somewhere distant, making a big wake, churning up the bottom. Then, whatever it is stops its run and turns around and an enormous great white shark a heck of a lot bigger than Jaws rises up out of the water with its mouth open and giant teeth bared and gnashing, and starts making awful growling and roaring noises.

It starts over, the surf fisherman and I are standing on the beach and the same thing happens, but this time the monster growling and roaring great white charges back in toward us. The surf fisherman turns to run to the left, toward some buildings and people. I’m trailing along, as the monster great white reaches shore and keeps on coming after the surf fisherman. Then, I see to my left, in an alleyway or side street between two low buildings, someone holding a sniper rifle getting ready to unload on the monster great white. The dream ends and I wake up wondering if the dreams are about what has been going on lately at the Coconut Telegraph of bigpinekey.com?

Although it is only a little after 10 a.m., too early usually for the current Coconut Telegraph to be up (usually closer to 12 a.m.), I go to the CT and see it is already up. So I scroll down looking for potential suspects for the surf fisherman and great whites in my dream. I find some possibilities and write tenative replies.

Then, it occurs to me that another possibility might have to do with my phone conversation before the siesta with the school district’s Independent Audit & Finance Committee (AFC) member Larry Murray about his inviting me day before yesterday to Thursday morning’s AFC meeting at Marathon High School. That led to a good bit of back and forth with Larry, which I thought I would post today, but my dream maker nixed it and pointed me back to yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph.

Three comments there seemed in play:

Jesus Christ Himself

could write in to the Coconut Telegraph and some of you would still bitch about it.

PROBABLY A LOT MORE THAN THEY BITCH ABOUT ME. FOR EXAMPLE, HE MIGHT TELL THEM SOMETHING LIKE: “AS YOU JUDGE OTHERS, SO ARE YOU JUDGED IN KIND. LET THE ONE AMONG YOU WHO HAS NOT SINNED CAST THE FIRST STONE. FIRST TAKE THE BEAM OUT OF YOUR OWN EYE, AND THEN YOU WILL SEE CLEARLY ENOUGH TO HELP YOUR BROTHER REMOVE THE BEAM FROM HIS EYE.”

[Sloan Bad] Who the hell cares? Attention raven and/or white and/or Jim – nobody cares. But we are tired of, bored with, exhausted by all of all raven, white, Jim posts. And please don’t bother to respond that we like Sloan, and then try to justify yourself. It’s merely that we don’t like your posts.

FOR ALL I KNOW, THEY DON’T LIKE ME, EITHER. HOWEVER, I RAN INTO A BUDDY LAST NIGHT NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND BIG PINE KEY KNOWS BECAUSE OF HIS WORK. HE TOLD ME, “DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO THOSE ASSHOLES ON THE COCONUT TELEGRAPH.” I SAID, “THEY MAKE ME STRONGER.” HE SMILED.

[Worldly View] A poster, yesterday, stated that President Obama is a “laughingstock” all over Europe. I really get angry when I hear that. It is repeated over and over by conservatives. It is evident that the writer dislikes Obama. He thinks he will go down as the worst president and I feel strongly that historians will rank him as one of the best. We are entitled to our opinions and could each back them up with facts from the Internet if we looked hard enough. FTR does this all the time. With the laptop on his lap, he can justify any opinion he has. We all can.

This is what I know from personal experience. I have visited 8 European countries in the past two years for long periods of time. Some of those were very recently. Everywhere I went people wanted to know about our president. That is the first question I was asked. They love him and support him. They had election parties when he won. They continue to see him as a great leader. Magazines and newspapers that I saw in newsstands all supported our president. What is a laughing stock to them is the CNN and BBC broadcasts about our Republican candidates. They see them as clowns and can’t believe that Americans are seriously considering any of them to be the leader of the free world. That is the truth. They follow our politics closely. Everyone I talked to wanted Obama to be the American president for another 4 years. The above is from my personal experience. I wonder if the poster has been out of the country — or the county lately.

I HAVE NOT LEFT EVEN THE COUNTY LATELY, BUT I TRAVELED OVERSEAS IN THE PAST AND OBSERVED AMERICA DID NOT ENJOY THE GLOW OVERSEAS AMERICANS LIVING IN AMERICA ASSIGNED TO AMERICA. THEN, THROUGH NEWS REPORTS, I WATCHED FOREIGN COUNTRIES FALL IN LOVE WITH BARACK OBAMA BECAUSE OF WHAT HE WAS SAYING AND THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN. I THEN WATCHED OBAMA DEMONSTRATE OVER AND OVER AGAIN THAT HE IS A CHAMELEON, THAT HE SAYS WHATEVER HE THINKS WORKS BEST FOR HIM IN THE MOMENT. I SAW OBAMA PROMISE CHANGE AND HOPE, AND I SAW HIM ON THE FRONT OF TIME MAGAZINE ARDENTLY PRAYING BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT. I SAW OBAMA GO INTO THE WHITE HOUSE AND CONTINUE THE WARS OF GEORGE W. BUSH. I SAW OBAMA ACCEPT THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WHILE HE WAGED BUSH’S WARS. I IMAGINE OBAMA AND BUSH BOTH WOULD BE MIGHTy UPSET TO HEAR WHAT JESUS CHRIST WOULD TELL THEM ABOUT THEIR ROLE IN THOSE WARS, AND FOR OBAMA ACCEPTING THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. LOOKS TO ME THE EUROPEANS WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH OBAMA BECAUSE OF WHAT HE WAS SAYING AND THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN ARE BLIND, DEAF AND DUMB, JUST LIKE THE AMERICANS WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH HIM FOR THE SAME REASONS. WHETHER CHRISTIANS LIKE IT OR NOT, THEY ARE HELD TO A FAR HIGHER STANDARD, THE JESUS STANDARD, THAN NON-CHRISTIANS. THAT IS THE PRICE THEY PAY FOR CLAIMING JESUS AS LORD AND SAVIOR. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME, ASK JESUS CHRIST, WHO IN THE GOSPELS SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES IN EXASPERATION SOMETHING LIKE: “WHY DO YOU CALL ME LORD BUT DO NOT DO WHAT I SAY TO DO? I SAY TO YOU THAT A MAN WHO HEARS MY WORDS AND DOES WHAT I SAY IS LIKE THE WISE MAN WHO BUILT HIS HOUSE ON A ROCK AND WHEN THE FLOOD CAME THE HOUSE STOOD FAST. BUT A MAN WHO HEARS MY WORDS AND DOES NOT DO THEM IS LIKE THE FOOLISH MAN WHO BUILT HIS HOUSE ON SAND AND WHEN THE FLOOD CAME THE HOUSE FELL DOWN AND HOW GREAT WAS THAT FALL!” IF YOU THINK JESUS WAS JOKING, YOU ARE GRAVELY MISTAKEN. YOU ALSO ARE GRAVELY MISTAKEN, IF YOU THINK JESUS’ SKIN WAS WHITE. EVERY BLACK CHRISTIAN KNOWS THE NEW TESTAMENT SAYS JESUS WAS NOT A WHITE MAN AND HIS HAIR WAS LIKE LAMB’S WOOL.

For all I know, the surf fisherman in my dreams yesterday is Jesus Christ, and the great white sharks are the two raving birds on the Coconut Telegraph, white owl and raven. Raving birds is what Deer Ed called them in an email to me yesterday, in which he said he deletes all email submissions to the CT after he posts them, and he did not remember editing anything out of what the raving birds had submitted. Perhaps Deer Ed is the sniper. If you don’t like reading about this, then stop reading about it. It’s Deer Ed’s website. If you don’t like what he publishes, quit reading the CT. LOL

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

my new “career”?

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Bash

More triage from the Coconut Telegraph of bigpinekey.com, Part 1, followed by something somewhat related, Part 2:Part 1:

1) I don’t care what Sloan writes about. I do get a chill up my spine when I read the posts of whiteowl and the ravenspeaks though, as there is so much hate coming through them that it’s downright frightening.

YOU WILL NEVER GET THEM TO ADMIT IT’S HATE.

2) [Sloan Bad] What you continuously fail to grasp is that nothing that I, Raven or any of the good folks on here that have had enough of the molester’s sick fantasies, have ever posted anything that could be considered hateful by any reasonable mind. Only you Sloan clones who rise to defend the indefensible have a problem with our well tempered objections.

CLONE SORT OF RHYMES WITH COPYCAT. THERE IS NO ONE IN THE KEYS KNOWN TO ME, WHO THINKS, TALKS, WRITES OR ACTS ANYTHING LIKE I THINK, TALK, WRITE OR ACT. NOR IS THERE ANYONE LIKE ME ON THE PLANET, AS FAR AS I KNOW.

Personal note to Sloan: I strongly object to you identifying the White Owl as Jim Hendricks. Just a few days ago you deduced that it was I who was secretly Jim. I demand to be reinstated as the secret Jim Hendricks.

MY AGEHEIMER’S MUST BE KICKING IN. I DON’T SEE YOUR “HANDLE” AND WILL ASS-U-ME YOU ARE RAVEN. I WONDERED IF RAVEN MIGHT BE JIM HENDRICK UNTIL RAVEN WENT ON A LONG RANT, WHICH IS NOT JIM HENDRICKS’ STYLE. YOU ARE, HOWEVER, WELCOME TO BE JIM HENDRICK, TOO.

3) Sloan, if Deer Ed had not removed my statement denying that White Owl is Mr. James Hendrick, you would have read that, and your theory over my ignoring it proving that I’m JH shot to hell. Damn, now I owe Big Jim an apology for him being dragged into this, or can I blame you and your sadly misinformed dreams and angels for that? I must admit I’m hugely flattered and smiling at your comments that I “think, argue, and write” like Jim H, even though I know I don’t hold a candle to him in language skills. Jim Hendrick is one of the most incredibly well-spoken people I’ve ever met. I have seldom seen someone in such command of words and language like him. He is every bit as commanding and eloquent as my childhood hero of attorneys, Perry Mason. I will say it again, I am not Jim Hendrick, but I am quite flattered to be compared to His Eloquence.

THE PROOF YOU ARE NOT JIM HENDRICK IS YOU TELL THE CT READERS YOUR HUMAN NAME, PHONE NUMBER AND STREET ADDRESS, SO THEY CAN VERIFY YOU ARE NOT JIM HENDRICK. IF DEER ED EDITED OUT YOUR DENIAL THAT YOU ARE JIM HENDRICK AND KNOWINGLY DID NOT DISCLOSE THAT TO THE CT, THEN DEER ED SERIOUSLY SCREWED UP. JIM HENDRICK INDEED IS ELOQUENT, EXCEPT WHEN HE’S HAD TOO MUCH TO DRINK AND THE REAL JIM COMES OUT. IT IS NOT JUST JIM’S ELOQUENCE THAT YOU RESEMBLE. I DON’T RECALL THAT PERRY MASON EVER WAS TRIED AND CONVICTED IN FEDERAL COURT AND SHACKELED BY US MARSHALLS AND TAKEN TO A FEDERAL DETENTION CENTER.

Sloan, you’ve done a poor job of reading and comprehension. I clearly stated “…if Raven had not focused attention on Sloan’s confession of molesting his five year old sister when he was fifteen, not one of the general readership of the CT would have called him on it and let it slip by.” That’s what I consider proper referencing the of fact that you outed yourself, what do you call it? Sloan, you must have been sputtering and slathering at the mouth while you hammered on the computer to have missed that, go back and read it. So now that I’ve debunked two of your most certain prophetic dreams as total crap, what are your dreams and angels really good for anyway? They quite obviously tell you untruths and cause you to come up with fabricated nonsense. ~thewhiteowlspeaks@yahoo.com

OKAY, LET ME SAY IT THIS WAY INSTEAD. DON’T YOU THINK YOU AND YOUR CONFEDERATES OWE ME AND THE ANGELS WHO PUT ME UP TO OUTING MYSELF A BIG THANK YOU FOR GIVING YOU THAT FODDER TO PLAY WITH?

4) [Sloan Bad, Deer Ed Almost as Bad] It’s become apparent that Deer Ed’s misinformed assumption that White Owl and I are the same person is confusing some people, particularly the Fool of Little Torch and his Sloan-a-bees who are obviously incapable of any independent thought processes. I don’t blame Deer Ed; I understand how he arrived at his conclusion. Again, we are not the same person and furthermore, neither one of us is Mr. Hendrick. However, this recent happenstance has fortuitously (once again…) given us the opportunity to see firsthand the veracity of Sloan’s claims. His deduction of his recent dream information is totally incorrect and way off target (as usual) and this fact should lead any cognizant person to reasonably wonder if anything he dreams up or hears from his “Board of Directors” is anything other than the flights of fancy of a self-delusional pretender. It is painfully obvious to any astute person that Sloan’s dreams are no more prophetic and spiritually inspired than the dribble of spittle he wiped off his chin this morning upon waking and his followers may as well be touting the spiritual powers of the garbage can outside his door as anything he professes to have or be. He is just a sad and angry man struggling to pretend that he is more than he was and is by feigning divine intervention and spiritual superiority.

AGAIN, I ASS-U-ME THIS IS RAVEN SPEAKING. WHITE OWL AND RAVEN NEVER STRUCK ME AS THE SAME PERSON – VERY DIFFERENT STYLES. MAYBE YOU ARE RIGHT. MAYBE I DREAMED UP THAT THE ANGELS TOLD ME TO OUT MYSELF SO YOU AND YOUR CONFEDERATES COULD HAVE AT ME.

I am curious about some things though. Sloan once stated that young Caylee Anthony was murdered because her soul wanted to be murdered. He also has stated that a particular rape victim would be spiritually saved by having sex with him. By using these two examples of “Sloan’s wisdom”, what may we therefore deduce by his recent admission of molesting his 5 year old sister? His statement that he “didn’t take her virginity” may lead any intelligent person to deduce by reading between the lines that the week long series of “events” were much more than simple “show and tell” but thankfully less than actual intercourse. Those that try to belittle his grotesque admission with excuses and comparisons to “pinching” are fooling themselves grandly as they themselves have been fooled. Thankfully, he obviously has not yet told the whole truth about that issue.

I DID NOT WRITE YOUNG CAYLEE ANTHONY WANTED TO BE MURDERED. I WROTE HER SOUL WANTED TO LEAVE. I ALSO WROTE THE ANGELS TOLD ME CAYLEE’S MOTHER DID NOT KILL CAYLEE.

That he is no longer going to run for election to the school board is as it should be. Mission accomplished.

Curiously, his “angels” haven’t told him who I am, and that infuriates him. More proof of the con.

I HAVE WONDERED IF RAVEN IS JOHN BARTUS? WHAT INFURIATES ME IS THE ANGELS KEEP ARRANGING THINGS FOR ME TO DO EXTERNALLY AND EXPERIENCE INTERNALLY, WHICH I DON’T WANT TO DO EXTERNALLY AND EXPERIENCE INTERNALLY. FOR ALL I KNOW, THE ANGELS WILL TELL ME TO RUN FOR THE SCHOOL BOARD NEXT YEAR BECAUSE IT WILL BE THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL CANDIDACY IN AMERICAN HISTORY. FOR ALL I KNOW, IT IS SCHOOL CHILDREN, NOT ADULTS, THE ANGELS ARE TRYING TO DRAW INTO THIS FRACAS BECAUSE THE ANGELS WANT THEM TO HEAR THINGS THEY OTHERWISE WON’T HEAR IN SCHOOL, AMONG THEIR FRIENDS, AT HOME OR IN CHURCH, OR READ IN BOOKS OR ON LINE, OR SEE ON TELEVISION AND IN MOVIES. WHAT BETTER WAY TO DO DRAW SCHOOL CHILDREN INTO THIS FRACAS THAN TO HAVE ME RUN FOR THE SCHOOL BOARD AND YOU AND YOUR CONFEDERATES KEEP ATTACKING ME AND I KEEP RESPONDING TO YOUR ATTACKS?

FOR ANYONE WHO WONDERS HOW RECOVERY FROM THE REMOVAL OF THE CANCER LESION ON MY LEFT FOREARM IS GOING, WHEN I SAW THE SURGEON LAST TUESDAY, HE SAID THE CANCER HAD NOT RETURNED AND IT LOOKED TO HIM THAT THE STITCHES PROBABLY WERE CAUSING THE INFECTION IN THE SURGICAL WOUND. HE REMOVED THE STITCHES, TOLD ME TO FINISH TAKING THE REMAINING TWO DAYS OF THE BATRIM PRESCRIPTION, AND TO SEE HIM AGAIN IN A WEEK. I FIGURED THE INFECTION ALSO HAD TO DO WITH MY CONTINUING TO DEAL WITH WHAT I HAD DONE TO MY SISTER. THE SURGICAL WOUND TODAY SEEMS MUCH BETTER, WHICH I HOPE MEANS I’M DOING OKAY WITH THE SPIRIT WORK RELATED TO IT. WHAT SEEMS TO HAVE HAPPENED AS THE RESULT OF OUTING MYSELF IS THE KARMA LOAD SEEMS TO HAVE TRANSFERRED FROM MY SOUL TO MY EGO WHERE IT CAN BE DEALT WITH MORE CONSCIOUSLY. YOU FOLKS WHO KEEP ATTACKING ME SEEM TO BE HELPING ME WORK THROUGH IT. FOR A LONG TIME, THE ANGELS’ METHOD OF DEVELOPING ME HAS BEEN TO PUT ME INTO DISAGREEABLE SITUATIONS. THE MORE DISAGREEABLE THE BETTER, AS FAR AS THEY ARE CONCERNED. THEY KEEP TELLING ME THERE IS NO FASTER WAY TO DEVELOP. THE SAME APPROACH WAS TAKEN BY JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES, AND BY WHAT TODAY ARE CALLED GRAIL KNIGHTS. READ ON.

Part 2:

Virginia of Jupiter Beach replied to the King David part of yesterday’s post:

History Channel did an interesting story on King David and his rise to power. All along the way, the person who was ahead of him in his rise to power would die, be killed…and David would grieve, and go on. He played a musical instrument, wrote poetry and sang but he was also a guerilla fighter as a teenager–forget who he angered but was forced to live in the countryside. It’s interesting how the full personality survived in the Bible when it was put together around the Niocene Creed period. VirginiaHi, Ginny.
My recollection, David was running from King Saul, his father-in-law according to Wikipedia.

What I have read about the Bible being put together is enough to convince me it was who had the most power and votes, who got what they wanted in the New Testament. I imagine the Hebrew scriptures were not altered much, as the Hebrews had their own copies and it would have looked kind of weird for the Christian version to disagree. Who today can possibly know what all was not included in the New Testament? Who today can possibly know how the early New Testament text might have been later altered by later leaders of the budding church? I often have heard the Vatican has a vault, for want of a better word, containing many ancient parchments which will never see the light of day, if the Vatican has any say over it.

For example, at one point, the early church decided to make belief in reincarnation heresy. Up to then, reincarnation was part of many Christians’ belief system. Jesus and his disciples spoke of reincarnation twice in the Gospels that I recall. How the early church censor board let that slip into the New Testament, I can’t imagine. One time came when the disciples asked Jesus if Elijah had returned? He said Elijah had returned but had not been recognized. They understood him to mean John the Baptist. The other time was after Jesus healed a blind man and a disciple asked Jesus, who had sinned, the man or his parents, that he was made to be born blind? Jesus said it was neither (in that case). The man was born blind so the glory of God could be made manifest through his being made able to see. Of course, another way to view that passage, the man was spiritually blind and Jesus gave him spiritual vision.

This is the lead into the first article on reincarnation in early Christianity, which I found using Google. Click on the link to see the longish commentary:

EDITOR’S CHOICE: Reincarnation in early Christianity

Reincarnation in early Christianity

“The doctrine of reincarnation was banished because it gives power and authority to the people. Reincarnation contradicted the aspirations of a few bishops and deacons who felt they alone should dispense the truth to the multitudes. This authoritarian strangle-hold is strengthened by the doctrine of “one chance-one life” because a person who wrongly chose to think for themselves, dismissing the authority of the hierarchy, would not get another chance to put things aright if they guessed wrongly. The position of the hierarchy is that eternal damnation without parole would be the irrevocable fate of those who dared to question the hierarchy’s authority.”

In the first five hundred years of Christianity, reincarnation was most certainly on the main stage. It was a prominent and well- respected merchant in the bazaar of Christian theology.

A significant number of early church pillars such as St. Augustine, Clement of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Justin Martyr, and St. Jerome believed in the doctrine of reincarnation. In his Confessions, St. Augustine ponders the common sense viability of reincarnation: Did my infancy succeed another age of mine that dies before it? Was it that which I spent within my mother’s womb? . . . And what before that life again, O God of my joy, was I anywhere or in any body? Confessions of St. Augustine, Edward Pusey, translator, Book I. There is one early church father who is the central figure in this complex story of intrigue and deception.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Origen (C.E. 185-254) was the most prominent, most distinguished and most influential of the early church fathers. We would do well to consider the enormity of this statement. The Encyclopedia Britannica also declares that he was the most prolific writer and theologian of early Christianity with works numbering around 6,000. St. Jerome asks, “Which of us can read all that he has written?” It is important to understand that Origen’s story, is not about the trials and tribulations of an obscure backwoods rogue theologian. How such an important and prominent luminary receded into the blackness of obscurity is a fascinating story and underscores the ego’s perennial effort to have its own way.

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

When I first read of the early church making reincarnation heresy, I thought to myself, said to others: If people were allowed to believe they would get another chance, even many more chances, why would they need the church? More poignant, why would they give money to the church? Against that, if people didn’t worry about the state of their souls because they knew they would get later chances, they were not motivated to do the best they could in their present life.

Very simply, the Vatican, the churches by their various names and sects, want to be in charge of God on this world. They want to be the vicars of God and Christ, and anyone who tries to bypass them is a heretic, devil worshipper. This was the way the Gnostics went in early Christendom. They maintained it was possible to have one-on-one communion with God, the Christ. For believing that, they were criminalized, even though that is precisely what Jesus did and taught his disciples to do, which is crystal clear in the Gospels.

Only very young and, alas, brainwashed children believe going to church and reading the Bible and believing what the churches say about Jesus will save them. Spiritual adults know there is far more to salvation than that. Spiritual adults know, as Jesus said and demonstrated over and over in the Gospels, how we live determines how we walk with God. As Jesus’ brother James says in his letter in the New Testament, do not ask him about his faith but observe his works which demonstrate his faith. Yet how many churches today ignore what Jesus’ own brother wrote, by preaching works will not save, you; only faith saves you. Truly, faith without works is dead.

Speaking of works, I read where the Vatican instigated through European nation allies the extermination of the Cathars in Southern France, a Christian sect who believed Mary Magdalene bore Jesus’ child and brought that child to Southern France. A book written about that, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, describes the upgraded bloodline of that child, how carriers of that bloodline were accelerated over everyone else, and many became prominent leaders and figures in developing Europe. That bloodline was described at the Holy Grail in the book. I was told that bloodline exists even today, and those who have it have a very hard time fitting into the ways of this world, even as some of them rise to the very top of whatever endeavor they engage.

I was taught the Holy Grail is an internal event, journey, which knowledge the Vatican would like even less to become mainstream. The internal realization of the Christ and the dove, and the marriage of the two in a man or in a woman. Who needs a church, if that is possible? It’s possible, as can be seen in the Englishman Trevor Ravenscroft’s cataclysmic book, The Spear of Destiny, which is still in print and also available in used bookstores online. I have recommended this book to many people, yet few wanted to deal with what it contains. I imagine the Vatican doesn’t care much for it, either, although the Vatican should advocate that everyone in Christendom read it.

Mostly, The Spear of Destiny is about Grail Knights, the genuine article, during the European WW I and WW II era. It is the definitive statement on the Holy Grail in modern times. It is eye-opening, it is jolting, it is heresy by any church’s measure. It also is rejected by the New Age, for that gathering of children deny the existence of Evil, which diaper notion The Spear of Destiny obliterates by laying out just how Adolph Hitler and his inner circle were taken over by Evil and developed into what they became, even as they knew what was behind it.

Hitler and his inner circle’s greatest human threat was Rudolph Steiner, who had the ability to travel in the spirit and eavesdrop their secret pow wows. Hitler and his inner circle had the psychic faculties to know when Steiner was present among them, spying on them. Twice they tried to kill him, and twice he was saved by what only could be viewed as divine intervention. They wanted Steiner dead because he was reporting to the Allied Command what he was learning when he spied on their Satanic pow wows.

That’s right, Churchill, Eisenhower and their kind knew what really was driving Hitler and his high command. It was decided after WW II not to make that knowledge known because it was felt the world was not ready for it. Ravenscroft wrote that great pressure was brought to bear on his Grail teacher not to publish what he knew. After he decided to publish it, he died, so Ravenscroft published it.

Reading about early church machinations with the truth is interesting, but reading about the British and American governments’ suppression of what the Allied Command knew about Hitler and his cronies is something else altogether. Chilling, perhaps best describes it.

After putting up today’s post, I took a nap and the last dream had me in England getting involved with tough-looking genetically-enhanced British soldiers. I awoke, wondered if I was going to write about Trevor Ravenscroft and the Spear of Destiny? Then, I went online and read your email. Then, this reply flopped out of me.

Sloan

In the Gospels, Jesus said his baptism was in fire. John the Baptist told people he baptised in water, but Jesus would baptise in fire. Jesus told people who asked him to be baptised in water to go to John the Baptist for that, then return to him and he would baptise them in fire.

Trevor Ranvenscroft described the baptism John the Baptist administered in this way. John held his “victims” under water until they were nearly dead because it was known that would produce a rapid spiritual leap in them, if they survived it. Jesus experienced that at John the Bapist’s hands, and then he began his ministry.

Jesus experienced it again on the cross, as Jesus understood would happen, as did Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Why else would those two secret disciples put their lives and social standing among the Jewish elite on the chopping block by going public as disciples of Jesus, to get him down from the cross quickly and salve him with 100-weight of aloes and myrrh, two very potent healing herbs? Aloe is for wound healing, myrrh is for inciting white cell count to fight infection. After doing that, the two no longer secret disciples wrapped Jesus in linen (bandaging) and put him in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb and rolled the rock over the entrance. It is not for nothing that the Koran says Jesus did not die on the cross but it was made to look that way, but he actually did die, although only barely, and like others who experience near-death experiences, he came back.

How the aloes and myrrh part of the story ended up in the Gospels, I cannot imagine, unless it was meant as a coded message for people who had eyes that saw, while the masses would continue in blind ignorance of what really had happened. I could not possibly recall how often my born-again mother said ignorance is bliss.

If I had my way, The Spear of Destiny, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the Bible, the Koran, and several other historically significant books would be in every school library in the Keys. If I had my way, Keys schools would offer mandatory comparative religion courses.

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

Sunday from Walden

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Bash

After putting up yesterday’s double posting, I took a nap and had this dream:

I am wade-fishing near some sort of platform, on which are some people. I explain to them about a shark that had gotten hooked, and then I have a shark on the line, perhaps 5-6 feet long. It fights hard in a wide circle to get away; then it makes a run away from me, as I say to the people on the platform that sharks sometimes try to get away and when that happens they have to be allowed to do that. Whereupon, a much bigger shark appears and takes the smaller shark in one big chomp. Not comfortable in the water with the much bigger shark, I wade to the rear of the platform without incident and use a ladder to climb out of the water onto the platform, as the dream ends.

Waking, I take the smaller shark to be white owl/Jim Hendrick. He came in and took the bait again, and then took off. I think the bigger shark might be Lucifer. Then, I think it might be God. Either way, it’s out of my hands.

Later yesterday, I was moved to write this:

God can take the worst piece of shit around and make him into something useful. Look at what God did with Saul of Tarsus, who was responsible for the deaths of many Christians before his road to Damascus and ensuing eye-opener. Yet what Christian today bashes Paul over what he did when he was Saul? What Christian today does not venerate Paul and quote him far more than Jesus in the Gospels?

Even later, I was moved to write this:

David in the Old Testament had one of his military officers killed in battle so he could have the man’s wife for himself. After being called on it by a trusted friend, David went into a dark night of the soul and wrote a lot of poetry which now is famous in the Old Testament, including the 23rd Psalm. In the Gospels, Jesus indicated he liked David best of the Old Testament men. You don’t hear Christians today, or Jews, beating up on David for having his officer killed so he could have the man’s wife for himself.

Waking before dawn this morning, not at all happy about that, I remember a joke about sharks giving lawyers professional courtesy. Perhaps the much bigger shark in my dream is the lawyer Jesus. Perhaps Jim Hendrick is going to have an experience with Jesus that will turn him as upside down and inside out as the experience Saul had with Jesus turned him upside down and inside out. Wouldn’t that be interesting? I wonder how many people then would say Jim Hendrick is a megalomaniac, a charlatan, delusional, schizophrenic?

The point is, God can turn anyone into a force for good. God does not think like people think. God never has thought and never will think like people think, although people will continue to try to make God think like people think.

Here’s something else that happened yesterday at Walden:

Received this email from a cruise ship user who lives in Jupiter Beach and has made port of call a number of times in Key West:

Hi, Sloan.

Re: CRUISE SHIP MARKETING COSTS

It is not worth the cost of environmental destruction to dredge the harbor to allow SUPER CRUISE SHIPS into the KEY WEST PORTS. First of all, be prepared for the fact that people are bored with Key West and it is being taken off the Itinerary of many cruise ships. Cruise Passengers want to get to foreign ports quickly and spendmore time in the Caribbean at exotic islands and Mayan ports, not a port they can reach by car or one they have visited several times.

2. The Super Cruise Ships might be a fiasco as there is going to be a double dip Recession and the huge demand for Cruises — cheap cruises– will begin to level off. Cruise shiips are charging an additional $10 per day per passenger if the price of OIL goes above $70 per gallon. So….one books a cruise and finds out they have to pay an additional $140.00 per cabin charge for oil charges in addition to the $10 per person per day for Cabin Charges [cabin crew/maids]. That adds about $280 to cabin charges that were originally sold as being, for example–$600 to $900 per person. That is a 30% to 50% increase.

And let’s be rational. Are Super Cruise Ships going to pull into Key West when they have options of other exotic ports in the Caribbean? Most cruises are 7 days and the best cruises are the ones that offer 4 exotic ports during the 7 days such as CARNIVAL VALOR: Cayman Islands, Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan.

The Mayor should be intelligent enough not to waste $1 million on marketing to see if they should enlarge the port. They might be able to get it done for free through the NAVY if it was to the Navy’s advantage. They should spend the money improving the infrastructure of Key West as downtown Key West is beginning to look a bit run down.

Virginia, Jupiter, Florida

Hi, Ginny. The mayor voted against it and previously had said he wasn’t in favor of the city spending money on a channel-widening study when there were so many obivous federal obstacles against widening the channel. I think the mayor might have invited private businesses to pay for the study, if it was really that important to them. It ain’t all the way dead yet, but it’s clear to the city commissioners and mayor that most of the people who keep up with things don’t want it. The Citizen online poll, with close to 1,000 respondents, showed 70 percent against it. That’s a lot of respondents for a newspaper poll in Key West and a pretty big statistical sample providing pretty good reliablity. Also, the commissioners and mayor were getting plenty of earfuls privately. I agree, Key West is not why most people take cruises to the Caribbean, but it’s hard for Key West people to comprehend that, or that cruise ships might some day stop laying over in Key West because of that, especially if Havana opens to cruise ships departing USA. Sloan

Sloan,

My thoughts exactly as Havana about 93 miles south as they say, which is about 5 hours at 20 knots an hour. — could take away those 6 hour stopovers by the cruise ships.

Virginia

Sure looks to me that Key West really does need to look at what life might be like without cruise ships. Who would miss cruise ships the most?

Ed Swift and his conch trains and trolleys.

CityView and its trolleys.

Sloppy Joe’s, Margaritaville, other bars and restaurants on Duval Street, the Duval Street dirty-T shirt shops, Mel Fisher Museum and Hemingway House.

Who would not miss cruise ships?

The local drivers on streets and the neighborhoods of Key West now clogged and bombarded with loud speakers on conch trains and trolleys hauling cruise ship passengers around Key West.

Just about everyone else in Key West.

The sea life in Key West harbor.

City Commissioner Jimmy Weekley, who served several terms as Mayor and has made quality of life his mantra, should be leading the charge to rid Key West of cruise ships. As should Last Stand and all enviornmentalists. A picture is worth a thousand words.

So what does Key West do to replace cruise ships?

A nude beach would attract an entirely new tourist, of which there are mucho millions in the US, Canada and Europe, Mexico and South America. A nude beach would cost the city nothing.

Did you read the article in yesterday’s Citizen about the new floating casino ship docked at Key West Yacht Harbor that loads up to 95 passengers and takes them beyond the 3-mile limit into federal waters where gaming is legal? Casino boats would cost the city nothing.

Closing Lower Duval Street to through traffic from a hour before sundown until until 2 a.m., and allowing street vendors, artists, artisans, musicians, performers, readers, body painters and food and beverage vendors to set up during that time would rejuvenate Lower Duval Street and cost the city nothing.

However, I doubt the city’s Puritans would be too terribly pleased with a nude beach, casino ships and body painters. What ever happened to separation of church and state? You’d think in kinky Key West, with sin businesses and dirty T-shirt shops lining Lower Duval Street, that question never would be asked.

This being Sunday, here is something amiga Sandy Downs forwarded a few days ago; I’m really starting to worry about her:

**** JOKES THAT CAN BE TOLD IN CHURCH****

Two boys were walking home from Sunday school

after hearing a strong preaching on the devil.

One said to the other, ‘What do you think about

all this Satan stuff?’

The other boy replied, ‘Well, you know how

Santa Claus turned out.

It’s probably just your Dad.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl

whispered to her mother,

‘Why is the bride dressed in white?”

The mother replied, ‘Because white is the color

of happiness,

and today is the happiest day of her life.’

The child thought about this for a moment then said,

‘So why is the groom wearing black?’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running

as fast as she could,

trying not to be late for Bible class.

As she ran she prayed,

‘Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late! Dear Lord,

please don’t let me be late!’

While she was running and praying, she tripped

on a curb and fell,

getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress.

She got up, brushed herself off, and started running

again!

As she ran she once again began to pray,

‘Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late…But please

don’t shove me either!’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three boys are in the school yard bragging about

their fathers.

The first boy says, ‘My Dad scribbles a few words

on a piece of paper, he calls it a poem,

they give him $50.’

The second boy says, ‘That’s nothing. My Dad

scribbles a few words on piece of paper,

he calls it a song, they give him $100.’

The third boy says, ‘I got you both beat. My Dad

scribbles a few words on a piece of paper,

he calls it a sermon, and it takes eight people to

collect all the money!’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

An elderly woman died last month.

Having never married, she requested no male

pallbearers.

In her handwritten instructions for her memorial

service, she wrote,

‘They wouldn’t take me out while I was alive,

I don’t want them to take me out when I’m dead.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A police recruit was asked during the exam,

‘What would you do if you had to arrest your own

mother?’

He answered, ‘Call for backup.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Sunday School teacher asked her class why

Joseph and Mary took Jesus with them toJerusalem..

A small child replied, ‘They couldn’t get a baby-sitter.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.

After explaining the commandment to ‘Honor thy

father and thy mother,’ she asked,

‘Is there a commandment that teaches us how to

treat our brothers and sisters?’

Without missing a beat, one little boy answered,

‘Thou shall not kill..’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Sunday School they were teaching how God

created everything, including human beings.

Little Johnny seemed especially intent when they

told him

how Eve was created out of one of Adam’s ribs.

Later in the week his mother noticed him lying

down as though he were ill,

and she said, ‘Johnny, what is the matter?’ Little

Johnny responded,

‘I have pain in my side. I think I’m going to have

a wife.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

You don’t stop laughing because you grow old..

You grow old because you stop laughing!

I thought you would enjoy this….times are tough

right now…for all of us…

so we need something to make the day a happy

place.

“They” haven’t found a way to tax you for

laughing yet.

No, but I bet they have a bunch of committees in Washington D.C. working on fixing that. I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com.

the leftist tea party

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Bash

Received an article recently from Dakotanomad. Here is the beginning, an excerpt from the middle, and the end of the most recent article. I cut out the psychobabble, which is about one-half of the article. You can see all of it by clicking on the TruthDig link.

Published on Monday, October 10, 2011 by TruthDig.com

Why the Elites Are in Trouble

by Chris Hedges

Ketchup, a petite 22-year-old from Chicago with wavy red hair and glasses with bright red frames, arrived in Zuccotti Park in New York on Sept. 17. She had a tent, a rolling suitcase, 40 dollars’ worth of food, the graphic version of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and a sleeping bag. She had no return ticket, no idea what she was undertaking, and no acquaintances among the stragglers who joined her that afternoon to begin the Wall Street occupation. She decided to go to New York after reading the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which called for the occupation, although she noted that when she got to the park Adbusters had no discernable presence.

The lords of finance in the looming towers surrounding the park, who toy with money and lives, who make the political class, the press and the judiciary jump at their demands, who destroy the ecosystem for profit and drain the U.S. Treasury to gamble and speculate, took little notice of Ketchup or any of the other scruffy activists on the street below them. The elites consider everyone outside their sphere marginal or invisible. And what significance could an artist who paid her bills by working as a waitress have for the powerful? What could she and the others in Zuccotti Park do to them? What threat can the weak pose to the strong? Those who worship money believe their buckets of cash, like the $4.6 million JPMorgan Chase gave a few days ago to the New York City Police Foundation, can buy them perpetual power and security. Masters all, kneeling before the idols of the marketplace, blinded by their self-importance, impervious to human suffering, bloated from unchecked greed and privilege, they were about to be taught a lesson in the folly of hubris.

Even now, three weeks later, elites, and their mouthpieces in the press, continue to puzzle over what people like Ketchup want. Where is the list of demands? Why don’t they present us with specific goals? Why can’t they articulate an agenda?

The goal to people like Ketchup is very, very clear. It can be articulated in one word—REBELLION. These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back.

This is a goal the power elite cannot comprehend. They cannot envision a day when they will not be in charge of our lives. The elites believe, and seek to make us believe, that globalization and unfettered capitalism are natural law, some kind of permanent and eternal dynamic that can never be altered. What the elites fail to realize is that rebellion will not stop until the corporate state is extinguished. It will not stop until there is an end to the corporate abuse of the poor, the working class, the elderly, the sick, children, those being slaughtered in our imperial wars and tortured in our black sites. It will not stop until foreclosures and bank repossessions stop. It will not stop until students no longer have to go into debt to be educated, and families no longer have to plunge into bankruptcy to pay medical bills. It will not stop until the corporate destruction of the ecosystem stops, and our relationships with each other and the planet are radically reconfigured. And that is why the elites, and the rotted and degenerate system of corporate power they sustain, are in trouble. That is why they keep asking what the demands are. They don’t understand what is happening. They are deaf, dumb and blind.

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

“People were worried we were going to get kicked out of the park at 10 p.m. This was a major concern. There were tons of cops. I’ve heard that it’s costing the city a ton of money to have constant surveillance on a bunch of peaceful protesters who aren’t hurting anyone. With the people’s mic, everything we do is completely transparent. We know there are undercover cops in the crowd. I think I was talking to one last night, but it’s like, what are you trying to accomplish? We don’t have any secrets.”

“The undercover cops are the only ones who ask, ‘Who’s the leader?’ ” she said. “Presumably, if they know who our leaders are they can take them out. The fact is we have no leader. There’s no leader, so there’s nothing they can do.

“There was a woman [in the medics unit]. This guy was pretending to be a reporter. The first question he asks is, ‘Who’s the leader?’ She goes, ‘I’m the leader.’ And he says, ‘Oh yeah, what are you in charge of?’ She says, ‘I’m in a charge of everything.’ He says, ‘Oh yeah? What’s your title?’ She says ‘God.’ ”

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

“People have been yelled out of the park,” she said. “Someone had a sign the other day that said ‘Kill the Jew Bankers.’ They got screamed out of the park. Someone else had a sign with the N-word on it. That person’s sign was ripped up, but that person is apparently still in the park.

“We’re trying to make this a space that everyone can join. This is something the caucuses are trying to really work on. We are having workshops to get people to understand their privilege.”

But perhaps the most important rule adopted by the protesters is nonviolence and nonaggression against the police, no matter how brutal the police become.

“The cops, I think, maced those women in the face and expected the men and women around them to start a riot,” Ketchup said. “They want a riot. They can deal with a riot. They cannot deal with nonviolent protesters with cameras.”

I tell Ketchup I will bring her my winter sleeping bag. It is getting cold. She will need it. I leave her in a light drizzle and walk down Broadway. I pass the barricades, uniformed officers on motorcycles, the rows of paddy wagons and lines of patrol cars that block the streets into the financial district and surround the park. These bankers, I think, have no idea what they are up against.

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com.

Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times.

He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning,

What Every Person Should Know About War,

and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.

His most recent book is

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Dakotanomad has sent me several commentaries by Chris Hedges, who appears to me to walk to a very different drumbeat than other political commentators I sometimes read and/or watch on television. So far, I mostly have liked what I’ve read of Hedges. He kind of reminds me of award-winning documentary film maker and author Michael Moore, about whom more is said further along. Here’s what I wrote the other day back to Dakotanomad:

Thanks, so far, I’ve not been moved to get involved in this other than casual conversation when someone else brings it up. My usual response, nuking Wall Street and Washington D.C. would be far more effective, although the ensuing growing pains would be a bit strenuous. I told one fellow, if I had my way, I would put a flat income tax on everyone making over a minimum income, say $15,000 a year, and I would get rid of all income tax deductions, except out of pocket business expenses and depreciation on business assets. No more interest deductions for anyone for any reason. Borrowing and debt must be seriously discouraged. No depletion allowances. No tax credits. This fellow had no clue what I would say when he lured me into the subject. He looked like he was seasick when I finished my spiel. I said I took a Masters in Economics at Vanderbilt and minored in business and had a tax law degree, and I can’t understand anything those fools are doing other than it’s insane. He said my cure would be too drastic. I said, but it would cure the problem. And kill the patient. Which returns to my original more effective solution: nuke Wall Street and Washington D.C.

After dreams suggesting I was going into something ne re “business”, I wrote this yesterday to Dakotanomad:

I watched a news program last night on which Michael Moore appeared for some time talking about this non-violent protest, which has spread like lightning throughout America into small communities even, and seems to still be gaining momentum rapidly without the usual fanfare provided by mass emailings, etc. Sort of reminds me of the grass roots ground swell reaction to Vietnam, as does some of the reactions by local governments and local law enforcement. An interesting letter on that in The Citizen today, see last below. When Michael Moore weighs in on something, it’s a good idea to take note has been my experience. Moore said he told the protestors to view anyone among them advocating violence as plants from Homeland Security, the FBI, etc., trying to give the goverment a reason to use force to get rid of them. Moore promoted a “transaction tax” of 1/2 to 1/4 penny on all securities transactions, and the ending of the two Bush wars, to turn the national government fiscal crisis around. Apparently, the transaction tax used to exist and was abolished, I imagine at the behest of Wall Street. So to reinstate it would be just dessert and historically precedented. I need to spend more time pondering this, but right now my sense is far more fundamental changes than a transaction tax are needed. Corporate bailouts need to stop altogether. I ain’t too big on simulus packages, either. Sarah Palin is quoted in a syndicated article in The Citizen today as saying these protesters want the same thing the corporate fat cats want – a government bailout. I still like my version of tax reform. I agree completely that the Bush wars should be ended – and no new wars engaged. I’m a bit more radical than that, though. I would cut off Israel entirely, and would bring back to America all American military personnel on foreign soil, including military advisers. I would prosecute George W. Bush for murder, re Iraq, and his accomplices Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice who happens to be from my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama. Now to ponder.

From The Citizen:

Coverage of ‘Occupy’ protest was inaccurate

I would like to address the interesting bias of an article in [the Oct. 26] edition of The Citizen on the “Occupy” demonstrations taking place in various cities throughout America. On Page 7A, The Associated Press devoted six columns of text and a large photo of the trash strewn across Frank H. Agawa plaza “left by the protesters” after they were evicted by the police.The writer, Meghan Barr, went on to describe the deteriorating conditions in several of the different Occupy locations. Citing drug and alcohol abuse, unsanitary living conditions, noise etc., leading up to the eviction of the Occupy Oakland people.Well-written and infuriating at first glance. These hippies have gotten out of control, right!? Wrong. The Oakland police got out of control.The bias of this article was FOX News worthy. Misleading is the nicest adjective I can come up with. No. 1 omitted fact: Two-time Iraq veteran, Marine and protester Scott Olsen was hit in the head with a police projectile and remains in critical condition in hospital.

After the police told the demonstrators to vacate the premises “for their safety” the police opened fire with tear gas, bean bag guns and flash bang grenades.

Safety being their main concern, the cops proceeded to overturn trash receptacles and create the mess we we’re all horrified to see in the morning paper with our coffee!

To see Oakland’s finest in action, go to

http://bit.ly/svfv8m. The Occupy movement is not a perfect well-oiled and well-funded machine. This is a new real grass-roots movement to peacefully assemble, petitioning for a government redress of grievances. Sure, it’s untidy, sort of like that original tea party in Boston Harbor 1773. “No taxation without representation” is a timeless slogan apropos today. Our Congress and Senate are owned and operated by the banks and corporate interests, their lobbyists literally are writing the laws and, we the people, no longer count. We the people are the 99 percent! That means you!
|

Alex Symington

Key West

Am reminded of the Kent State massacre, when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on Kent State students, one of whom I later would meet and marry, because they were sitting in a circle on the ground protesting US military infiltration beyond the Vietnamese border and would not disperse when ordered to do so. After it was all said and done, nothing was done to those National Guardsmen. After all was said and done, what was the difference between the Kent State massacre and what was done in Nazi Germany, Stalin Russia, Saddam Iraq, Gaddafi Lybia or Syria? It won’t surprise me if something similar to Kent State happens in New York City and elsewhere in America, and it won’t surprise me to see it get swept under the rug. Nor will it surprise me to see this what I heard called “liberal tea party” movement grow stronger thereby, just as Mohatma Ghandi’s movement grew stronger exponentially after English troops opened fire on peacefully-demonstrating Ghandi followers, which humiliation of the Crown triggered the ultimate withdrawal of England from India and the birth of a new nation. Just as Martin Luther King’s movement grew stronger after Birmingham redneck Nazis unleashed German police dogs and water cannons and skin-head police with billy sticks on peacefully demonstrating Negroes. Just as Christianity grew stronger after it was outlawed by Rome and being a Christian was made a capital offense. As for the Sarah Palin tea party, they clamor for slashing US Government spending everywhere, except in their home states, which they want to keep on the same dole they say the liberal tea party wants to enjoy. Meaning, Sarah Palin’s tea party is a joke.

However, I agree. We are back to the Boston Tea Party. Americans on the right, on the left, and in the middle are fed up. That is their consensus platform: FED UP. What I do not see is where it will go from here, other than I am confident if big changes are not made, the United States of America will follow the path of other other world-dominating nations: England, France, Germany, Russia, Mongol, Moor, Roman, Greek, Persian, etc. Eventually the wheels will fall off and the train will derail and a big bad wreck will happen. Term limits for all US, state and local elected offices would be a good start. Six years at most in office. And no running for another office while holding an elected office. Resign from the current office first, to run for another office. You want to get rid of the problem in Washington D.C., create six-year term limits. Or nuke it. But only when Congress is in session, my MIT PhD graduate duplicate bridge partner said the other day. As for Wall Street, nuking it still seems to be the only cure. But as I said, it would be a bit strenuous getting over it. My bridge partner and I both figure, and hope, we won’t be here when the big bad train wreck occurs. But we have no doubt it will happen.

Sloan

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com, but right now I’m not there, since I don’t want Homeland Security finding me because I used the nuke word in the same sentence with Wall Street and Congress. I’m sure plenty of idiots at Homeland Security, and probably plenty of the same idiots in the Keys, view my nuke remarks today as present intent to nuke and me as a terrorist and my body as kindling for waterboarding and God only knows what else at some secret facility who can say where. I don’t even know how to build an electric circuit. I am not aware of knowing anyone who can build, or who has, a nuclear device. I have never seen a nuclear device except in US Government films of same detonating over places like Japan, the Pacific Ocean and New Mexico. I might never have heard of nuclear devices, if the US Government had never built and detonated them. I’d much rather use the atom disasembling technology available to my space brothers and sisters: zap, the Wall Street crowd just vaporizes. No sound. No explosion. No fuss, no muss, no lingering radioactivity. No buildings or machines affected. Then, same for Congress in session and the oval orifice residents. Be kind to Mother Nature, for we sure as hell don’t want to piss her off any further by using nukes. Right, whatever the progressive tea party is about, I just don’t see them doing any more to fix America than the Vietnam protesters did to fix it. The only thing I know that can fix America is God, but I see no sign of God having any interest in taking on that project. Perhaps from Heaven’s perspective, watching Sitcom America is too entertaining to do without. Beyond that, if I were God, my first executive order would be that all American school children be taught Spanish and English from grades 1-12, so they will be able to cope with the future a little better. And my second executive order, well, you already read about that.

Ciao

There is a second post today at this link:

white owl slips up

On the Coconut Telegraph of bigpinekey.com yesterday:

Good Morning Birmingham

Monthly Archives: November 2011

Status Quo must go – School District

this man’s abc’s

homeless vets and non-vets

AFC meeting & troll bait

Keys Coalition

contrasts in homelessness …

Jesus Christ on the Coconut Telegraph

my new “career”?

Reincarnation in early Christianity

Sunday from Walden

the leftist tea party

Why the Elites Are in Trouble

white owl slips up