Monthly Archives: January 2012

the nuke solution? – national, state, local politics

Posted on by
Reply

Dropped by the Supervisor of Elections office in Marathon yesterday to vote early, and was escorted by an election worker into the office where School Board candidate Ed Davidson was filling out papers. The elections office people remembered and welcomed me. The election worker said something about my getting a ballot to vote for president, and I said I didn’t belong to the Republican party. The manager of the elections office pulled out a document and showed it to the election worker, to let her know I am registered as an Independent, and cannot vote in the Republican presidential primary.

I said the way I would deal with Washington D.C. would be to nuke it. Before I could say with Congress in session and the President in the White House, to show my lack of partisan bias, the manager of the elections office crawled all over me, said no political talk was allowed around voting booths. She was definitely not happy. I said it wasn’t political talk, it was terrorist talk. I did not say they had started and done most of the political talk, and maybe I said something about why they had not called Homeland Security? I voted YES for the .5 mil schools referendum, and left, glad I had not gone there to file to run for office.

More on the school referendum and other schools stuff later in this raving.

 

Meanwhile, that was the elections office where I filed to run for the county commission in 2010, the day before the filing deadline, which closed the Republican primary in that race, between incumbent George Neugent and first-time candidate Danny Coll, to registered Republican voters. Wasn’t why I filed, the angels told me to file, but that closing the primary was on of the effects of my filing, which got me blessed out at the first Hometown! PAC call to candidates that year, by somebody who sure must have wanted George Neugent beaten, be so upset with me as he was. I think he was a Republican, too, because later I saw him with several people at a candidate forum wearing Mario Di Ginnaro’s campaign buttons. I told the fellow I was doing all I could to get his candidate elected.

George Neugent got 55 percent of the vote, Danny Coll the other 45 percent. Danny is Cuban-American. I remain convinced Danny would have beaten George, if Cubans, Democrats and Independents all had been able to vote in that Republican primary. Non-Republicans could have switched parties and voted, if they really had wanted to get rid of George bad enough and put into office a buddy of US Congresswoman LLeana Ross-Leitman, both of whom are life-long members of the Cuban hate Fidel Castro and his brother, too, forever cabal. Hell will freeze over before the Bastista ex-pats agree to Americans freely traveling to Cuba, or on the US having any significant input re Cuban offshore oil drilling, a big ticket on the front page of The Citizen today (keysnews.com). I told the elections office manager yesterday that her and my conversation might make interesting reading on my websites today, but I didn’t have a clue where all it would end up going. I hope Democrats and Independents take the time and make the effort to head to the polls and vote YES for the .5 mil schools referendum, even though that’s the only thing on the ballot for which they can cast a vote. I hope Republicans do the same.

As for the Republican primary, I watched Democrat majority House Leader Nancy Pelosi on the evening news last night predict no way will Newt Gingrich will be the Republican candidate this year. Nancy had the most weird affected smile on her face, reminding me of someone about to have a total split from reality. Am hardly a reliable prognosticator of election outcomes, but it sure looks to me that Gingrich, despite all his not particularly pretty baggage, is the only Republican with horse sense and political savvy and stand up debating skills, thus the only Republican candidate with any chance of giving President Obama a scare in the presidential race this November.

I can’t imagine Republicans with half-wit sense even, thinking Mitt Romney or the other Republican hopeful, Rick Santorum, the far-right Christian fellow, or isolationist small-government Liberterian Ron Paul can cause President Obama to even break sweat leading up to the November elections. The Super PACS can throw billion$$$$ at Romney’s candidacy, the far-right Christians can throw Jesus, God, Christian nation and values and the American flag at Santorum, the Tea Partiers can minick the far-right Christians till hell freezes, but I can’t imagine them coming anywhere close to putting the kind of heat on President Obama that Newt Gingrich can stoke up. Not that I give a shit who wins the presidency in November, since the only solution I see is to nuke the entire national government while they are all in D.C. Including Nancy Pelosi.

I suppose some people who read my ravings will tell Todd German, Chairman of Hometown! PAC, that Sloan has again suggested acts of terrorism in one of his posts. Then, I suppose I will be expected to retract what I wrote, or at least to say it was a poor-tasting joke. In fact, it is not a joke. Not that I expect, or want, D.C. to be nuked, but I see no political cure to the mess Americans have made of America by putting politicians in charge of the national government, and state and local governments, too, for that matter. The only solution I see is to rid America of all politicians and political parties, and nuking Washington should be viewed as a metaphor for the only comprehensive solution I see.

I remain of the view that anyone who actually wants to be an elected official should be automatically disquaified as a candidate, and I remain of the view that political campaigns and parties should be outlawed and the only sane way to elect public officials is by voter initiative, the write-in method comes first to mind. Of course that would never work in America, because America is not a democracy where one person is one vote. The Founding Fathers never intended America to be a democracy, which should be obvious to any half-wit American who ever voted for president in any national election. Ron Paul, of all the presidential candidates, probably could explain that far better than I.

As for the local pig parlor, I see in The Citizen today a report of a street protest in front of Beachside yesterday, where the Chamber of Commerce entertained utterly non-committal (with their money) cruise ship officials, who came bearing dire warnings of Key West losing its cruise ship business, if it doesn’t dredge out and widen the channel so the new, larger cruise ships now becoming mod, like the one what sank over in the Mediterranean Sea recently, much to the glee of all Mediterranean countries, can call on Key West. Imagine one of those mothers running a ground on the only living coral reef in American, just a few miles off of Key West. Imagine one of those mothers running a ground in the channel. Look at what one of their smaller kin are doing right now every time they come into or leave Key West harbor.

It is said in The Citizen article that cruise ship revenues make up 8 percent of the city’s revenue. Hell, I bet if Key West had dedicated the upper end of Smathers Beach, or the nearly unused part of Rest Beach, as clothing optional, the city would have had such an increase in tourists who spent several nights in Key West, ate in Key West restaurants, drank in Key West bars, shopped in Key West stores, patronized Key West watersports busineses, attended Key West churches, etc., etc., that there would be no need to talk about spending $5,000,000 just on a study to see if the channel actually can be widened to accommodate super monster cruise ships like that one what went kaput in the Mediterranean. A $5 million study would not even touch all the state and federal environmental prohibitions against even widening the channel, not to mention letting super monster cruise ships actually use it.

Last in today’s raving is The Citizen article follow up on Tuesday’s School Board meeting. With School Board Vice-Chairman Andy Griffiths headed by car toward Tallahassee to lobby there for the School District, a tie vote occurred over continuing a project to fill a football field-size pit (lake), 13 feet deep in some places, at the great white elephant next to Marathon High School, the former now abandoned and locked up Marathon Manor nursing home Andy Griffiths, voted to purchase for more than $7 million six years ago during the Randy Acevedo heyday.

School Board Chairman John Dick argued at the recent Board meeting that the filling project should be completed, to fill in the lake, or lagoon, if you prefer, to make the great white elephant marketable – as in, to give the School District a chance to unload it. School Board members (Key West native) Robin Smith-Martin and Duncan Matthewson (of Little Torch Key), voted against continuing the fill-in. John Dick and Board member Ron Martin (of Key Largo) voted in favor. So it was a no-go to continue the fill-in. Andy Griffith’s (also of Key West) is reported as saying he would have voted to continue the fill-in, had he been there.

Especially interesting to me was this, verbatim from The Citizen:

When Smith-Martin mentioned that the Board must show frugality with the taxpayer’s money, Dick immediately responded, “Nobody is more concerned about the taxpayers’ dollars than I am.” The School Board needs to care about more of the Florida Keys than Key West, Dick said. “Who said anything about Key West?” Smith-Martin asked, getting no answer.

Well, earlier in the evening, before I left the meeting, the frugal Board had voted 5-0 to give Key West an old $5 million dollar school for a new city hall. The very least the Board could have done for Marathon, which has to suffer with the great white elephant and the water the unfilled lake collects, and the bejillions of disease carrying mosquitoes it surely breeds, would be to fill-in the lake for the health and welfare of the nearby high school and its students, and for that entire area of Marathon, don’t you think?

Maybe my the D.C. nuke solution should be expanded geographically, and I haven’t even told you yet about the bombshell that was decided at the Key West charter high school meeting the same night the School Board met. I promised Todd German, that school board’s chairman, that I would leave that nuke for him to unload on the public, since the press was not there that night to learn about it.

I usually can be reached at

keysmyhome@hotmail.com, meanwhile …

 
Just as I finished today’s raving, this came in from School Board candidate Larry Murray, re my comments on the referendum and serious budget cutting issues any way you slice it in yesterday’s public spanking – School Board, mostly post.
Sloan:
 
Thanks for reminding voters again that the District faces very difficult financial times even if the .5 mil referendum passes. Your figure of a $8 million deficit for next year is not far off the mark and will call for some very serious belt-tightening, most likely some sort of salary reductions as you indicate.
 
The proponents of the .5 mil referendum, other than yourself, have said precious little about the current state of financial affairs. I hope that those who vote for the referendum do not believe that in so voting, the District is out of the woods financially. As you well note, the District is very much in the middle of a financial forest.
 
I hope, come next week, that attention will be brought to the District’s shortfall for next year and that an intelligent process is begun to address it. Last year, everything was done in a chaotic, last-minute environment. There is no reason to repeat that. There is ample time for the District to make reasonable and intelligent plans as to how to balance the budget.
 
When I say “reasonable and intelligent plans”, the District needs to consider and evaluate a variety of approaches, as you suggest, to reducing salaries. The furlough approach used this year is a uniform, across the board, simplistic approach that affects those on the bottom much differently from those on the top. It would be nice to see the District address options before concluding and not imposing a single fix on a complicated matter.
 
Larry
 
I ain’t too sure putting reasonable and intelligent into the same sentence with the School Distirct is reasonable or intelligent.

enabing homelessness – The Key West Citizen

Posted on by
Reply

“The poor will always be with you.”

There has been a great deal of news lately in The Citizen on homelessness, and on not enabling homeless people to be homeless. The other day, The Citizen enabled a homeless man to exercise his First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of religion.

From The Citizen, January 18

Our nation is based on the Christian faith

Our country was founded and based on Christian principles that have served us well ever since. Now it seems that the so-called 15 percent of the non-Christians are leading the rest of us 85 percent around by the nose and trying to undermine those very same principles.

To be politically correct, we are no longer supposed to use the words God, Christ, Jesus, etc., or have the Bible or Nativity scenes displayed in any public buildings, including schools, courthouses, or any other federally funded buildings. They are trying to take prayer out of schools and the military, the word ‘God’ off of our money and out of our Pledge of Allegiance, and trying to take Christ out of Christmas, among other things. Well, I’m fed up with it all and I think I’ve come up with a solution.

Here it is. All those who oppose our Christian way of life can refuse to pay federal taxes. That’s right; they can refuse to pay federal taxes and not be penalized for it. All they have to do is register as an atheist, devil worshipper, voodoo practitioner, or whatever. That way they can no longer argue the fact that since they pay taxes they have the right to voice, or should I say “force,” their opinions on what can or cannot be done on federal properties. But, of course, by refusing to pay taxes they no longer will have access to our public schools, courthouses, etc., or programs such as welfare, Medicaid, or anything else subsidized by our federal tax dollars.

To make up for the shortfall in taxes, having the 15 percent off the federal dole would more than make up the difference. Plus, look at all the money we would save by not having to mitigate their inane demands.

Will this idea work? Probably not. Is it far-fetched? Of course it is. But I will say this to the 15 percent: If you don’t like what we do with your money, then keep it and shut the hell up!

Dave Scott

Marathon

Since then, I have seen four reply letters to the editor in The Citizen.

January 21

United States based on democracy, not religion

In a recent letter to the editor, Dave Scott made the persistent and untrue statement that the USA is based on the Christian faith. This intentional lie or ignorant fantasy shows a complete lack of knowledge or understanding of our nation’s history. It’s like saying that Rome is based on Catholicism, even though it existed long before Jesus was born.

Maybe this fantasy has its roots in the story of the Pilgrims, who were persecuted in England and parts of Europe and started to settle the colonies. They then adopted the worst traits of those they fled and started to persecute anyone who didn’t believe as they did. One thing all the Christians at one time or another seemed to share was the need to murder uppity women for being witches, murder homosexuals and anybody else they considered heretics to their one “true” faith.

The Founding Fathers rebelled not only against the tyranny of the English crown but also against the false theology of the divine right of kings promulgated by leaders of the Protestant and Catholic churches. The writer of “Common Sense,” which was read around the campfires at Valley Forge and kept the revolution alive in its darkest hour, was written by Founding Father and atheist Thomas Paine.

Mr. Scott and others seem to think that because the majority of Americans say they are Christian of some form or another, then he has the right to use the public square to proselytize using public funds they way they do in Iran. He has no right to do this; it is un-American.

This nation is founded on evolving concepts of Greek democracy, Roman republicanism and the rule of law. I’m sure Mr. Scott thinks I should “shut the hell up,” to use his term. I’m sure he doesn’t care one bit for what I have to say, so let’s end with this quote. “The United States of America are not founded upon the Christian religion or any other religion.” George Washington, 1789.

Michael Berzellini

Key West

Where did letter-writer get his information?

Wow! I have seen so many letters to the editor in so many newspapers throughout the USA, but the one in the Jan. 18 edition of The Citizen defies all explanation. First, why your newspaper would print such drivel with absolutely no basis of fact throughout is amazing. Next, if Mr. Dave Scott really believes his assertions, where did he get his information?

There is no study or report anywhere that indicates an 85 percent plurality of Christian believers in this country. Where in the Constitution is anything mentioned about Christianity?

Mr. Scott says he will relieve us nonbelievers of any tax responsibility if we agree to no services. That is fine with me, but all his so-called Christian folk must fight all future Bush wars based on lies and lack of compassion.

Mr. Scott says he is tired of nonbelievers “forcing” their beliefs on the Christian majority. Is he insane? The forcing of beliefs comes from the right-wing Republican defectives who want all to bow to their hypocritical agenda. No room for compromise. The same thing happens in other areas of the country, such as Brown City, Mich., where a very prominent sign says if you don’t believe in saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” then you should leave the U.S.

No, Mr. Scott, I am not going anywhere, but maybe you should go to a real church that practices what many say are the true tenets of Jesus Christ: tolerance, love and compassion. I believe people like Mr. Scott have none of these attributes, just hypocrisy.

Wendell Hamilton

Brown City, Mich.

From The Citizen, January 22

Christian letter-writer should check his facts

This is in response to a Jan. 18 letter on the subject of the United States being a Christian nation founded on Christian values.

I will start with the end of the writer’s letter. After pontificating on his Christian values, the last sentence reads: “If you don’t like what we do with your money, then keep it and shut the hell up!” Is that how Christ would say it?

This letter was so full of misinformation and made-up gibberish, I hesitated to dignify it with a response, but I just couldn’t help myself. For example, “In God We Trust” was minted on the two-cent coin for the first time in 1864 as a response to the horror of the Civil War — and not introduced in 1776. The phrase was on and off coins for decades, and was only introduced to paper bills in 1957.

The Pledge of Allegiance had the phrase “under God” added in 1954 after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus — again not an “ancient” Founding Father’s decree.

As for the Founding Fathers, they were for the most part of varying Christian faiths, but deism and Unitarians were in the mix along with the liberal-thinking of “enlightenment.” These far-thinking gentlemen purposely kept religion out of the Constitution to avoid the very Taliban-like behavior that some of the “Christian” community mimics. To listen to the writer, one would think Jesus wrote the Constitution!

As for the writer’s solution to this “problem” of nonChristians’ “inane demands,” all I can say is holy crap! I guess he is so ill-informed that he has inane demands confused with civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution — you know, the one written by the Founding Fathers. They left room for everyone on purpose. The Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and atheists, just to name a few. Apparently, in the writer’s world, if you’re not a Christian, you are a devil worshipper or a practitioner of voodoo.

Please sir, turn off the Fox News and question your sources of information before you write a letter to the editor.

Alex Symington

Key West

Founders were clear on religion, government

In response to Dave Scott’s angry diatribe and recommendation to completely disenfranchise all nonChristians in the U.S., let me quote the founder of that religion: “Whatsoever ye have done unto one of these, the least of my brethren, ye have done it also unto me.”

Let’s pretend (admittedly far-fetched) that the founders of this wonderful country did intend to found a theocracy, as Dave seems to believe. What kind of theocracy should it be? Catholic? Protestant? Quaker? Mormon? Or should we return to our roots and embrace the Puritan faith and all that implies?

Dave seems to believe that, because our currency and our Pledge of Allegiance make reference to God, that makes us a “Christian nation.” But “under God” was added to the pledge in 1954, and our original currency said nothing about trusting in God. Our founders were pretty clear on the subject. Adamant, even.

I am thankful that I live in a country that has, time after time, in her courts and in her legislation, reinforced one of the most critical founding principles of this nation — that of separation of church and state. And I am also thankful that we recognize that we are always in the process of “forming a more perfect union” by interpreting those principles and never sitting back and saying “there, we’ve done it.”

Imagine how shameful we would feel if this nation forced any particular religion on others. That is precisely what is happening when our tax-supported institutions display the Ten Commandments, etc. Imagine going to a public school and seeing only passages from the Quran posted on the wall. See how it works?

I think Dave is wrong about some fundamental founding principles of this glorious ongoing experiment in democracy, as well as the teachings of perhaps that greatest of all teachers, Jesus. I have read the red text many times and all I find are lessons of inclusion, compassion, gentleness, harmony, patience and love for all. I doubt seriously if He would endorse your instruction to “… keep it and shut the hell up!”

Roger Cunningham

Key West

My thoughts.

Maybe they didn’t teach American history in schools Dave Scott attended.

From all I have read, the Founding Fathers founded a nation based on white male supremacy.

I have read the Declaration of Independence was penned by a Deist named Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder known to have no respect for Christianity, and who later led the charge to keep Christianity from becoming the state religion of Virginia in its Constitution.

In the Declaration of Independence, which was the beginning of America as we know it, there is no mention of Christianity. There are four different mentions of God, none remotely resembling Bible or New Testament terminology. Some of the men who signed it were Christians, some were not.

I also have read the Founding Fathers did not want to see repeated in America what had happened in Europe at the hands countries allegient to only one sect of Christianity, and that’s why they passed the First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of the press, speech and religion, and prohibiting government estabishment of a religion. Even Christian congressmen voted for that Amendment. Because of that Amendment, every American can write letters to the editor and get them published, and every American can be a memmber of any or no relgion, or believe in or not believe God exists.

Consider other tenets of Jesus, as well: resist not one who does evil; forsake an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth; love your enemies and pray for and do good to those who persecute you; turn the other cheek; take no thought for your own life; fear not him who can take your life, but fear him who can take your life and your soul (God); if someone takes your goods, ask not for them back; if someone asks for your shirt, give also your coat; it is more blessed to give than to receive; love your neighbor as yourself, even if he is a hated Samaritan; the kingdom of God is not of this world …

I read somewhere the Republican bigwigs sizing up Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for president said to him something like, “It is said you do not attend church,” to which Lincoln replied, “That is true, but I would, if I could find one where God is in charge.”

I read somewhere else Lincoln said something like, “When the Lord wants me to do something, he finds a way to let me know, and when the Lord doesn’t want me tto do something, he finds a way to let me know that, too.”

I read somewhere else Lincoln was well-versed in the Bible.

My spirit controllers, one goes by the name of Jesus, told me a few years ago that Christianity is the Anti-Christ because it claims Jesus as Lord but does not do what he said to do and does what he said not to do. Often have I written, in God’s eyes, we all are homeless.

As for George W. Bush’s wars, I think Bush and all American Christians who supported his wars, including Barack Obama, should be on the front lines in Afghanistan. That Christians still wage human wars indicates they did not understand the kind of war Jesus waged and taught others to wage – within.

Sloan Bashinsky

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com

KILL ALL THE LAWYERS? – A Client’s Guide to Hiring, Firing, Using and Suing Lawyers flashback

Posted on by
Reply

This Key West bubba justice flashback to KILL ALL THE LAWYERS? – A Client’s Guide to Hiring, Firing, Using and Suing Lawyers, (Prentice-Hall, 1986), was posted today to the two Florida Keys websites.

Robert Krutko is Key West’s Christ?

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

Robert Krutko, Monroe County Jail photo

Lots of email back and forth yesterday, mostly, with Robert Krutko, into which I decided to drag State Attorney Dennis Ward, since Robert had dragged Cathy Vogel into it. Cathy announced last year that she will run against Dennis this year.

SLOAN,

WANTED TO DROP YOU AN E MAIL AND LET YOU KNOW ANOTHER PERSON ( CATHERINE VOGEL) HAS LOOKED INTO MY CASE,SPOKE TO MARK WILSON DIRECTLY AND CONFIRMS ACTIONS THE STATE ATTORNEYS OFFICE TOOK WAS CLEARLY WRONG.

ROBERT

Hi, Robert. Cathy Vogel does not like Dennis Ward because he told her when they bumped into each other on Plantation Key, when Dennis was still working for the Public Defender, that she would get a salary reduction once he was sworn in as State Attorney. Cathy went back to the State Attorney’s quit on the spot, threw a capital case file she was prosecuting on a young, green Assistant State Attorney’s desk, wished him luck, and walked out of the office. Later, maybe somebody talked to Cathy, she retracted her resignation, finished handing that case, then resigned, which was the right way to do it. All of which made front-page news, as I recall. Dennis had said in his campaign that he was going to cut salaries, if he was elected, because times were lean.

Cathy has announced her candidacy against Dennis this year. Your case gives her fodder for her campaign.

I found myself thinking the other day, after you asked again why the city isn’t talking settlement with you?, that it is viewed as weakness to offer to settle a damage suit, compounded in your situation, by the city knowing of your serious illness. I appreciate your predicament, but the city is not worried about it. They want to win the case, or get out lightly. I believe they are content for you to make offers of settlement in decreasing amounts. I would have advised you not to offer to settle, and, since you are your case’s star witness, I would have wanted to take your deposition to preserve your testimony, in case you did not survive through trial completion. And, I would have petitioned Judge Audlin to lift the probation violation, since it was adjudicated over something you could do nothing about. You need to be able to attend court in Miami, be deposed in this vicinity, without fear/threat of being apprehended and jailed again by local law enforcement.

Sloan

Sloan,

I understand Catherine Vogel is running against Dennis Ward. She took the time to look into the situation and even called and spoke to the Asst. State Attorney Mark Wilson herself. Mark Wilson confirmed he was there and even though he wasnt asking questions he was asking them through the attorney deposing me. She confirms in no way should he have been there and without my counsel present makes it worse. Mark Wilson told her he was there to see if I incriminated myself. She also confirms Extraditions should be used for more serious cases not from civil cases. She said she will be doing requests for paperwork to see just how much the taxpayer spent to extradite me on a civil case.

Like or dislike she at least can admit what was done was wrong. Thats way more than the current state attorney can do himself. They know what they did was wrong and not only continued to do it but never taken any responsibility for their actions. An ethical state attorney would have come forward and said WE MADE A MISTAKE IN OUR DECISION REGARDING THE ROBERT KRUTKO CASE AND OUR ASST STATE ATTORNEY MARK WILSON SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THERE. I spoke to the Florida Bar and the lady this morning said they would like a copy of the jail log and the attorneys name and number that was supposed to represent me and spoke to the deposing attorney the day of depositions telling him do not depose my client without me present.

She said they take forced depositions very serious. Im surprised though you can make comments on Catherine Vogel and still defend Dennis Wards and his office after doing some very unethical stuff.

Lets just see if the state attorney can admit wrong and apologise for the wrong doing they did in my case.

Robert

I did though listen to Dennis Ward a week or two ago on Konk am and am going to listen to Cathering Vogel today at 12 noon. Remember I was a big fan of Dennis Wards during his run for office and even made internet posting all over to vote for him. But whn a person who takes an oath knowingly allows his own people to take part in something very unethically and allows his office to send out a warrant for Fugative from Justice fleeing jurisdiction is wrong. He know i didnt live there and should have stopped it immediately and taken no part in it. You yourself said they should have not taken part also. They were wrong and even afterwords cannot admit their wrong doing as an officer of the court.

Robert

Hi again, Robert. In reply to both of your replies to mine a while ago, re Cathy Vogel …

The only defense I recall making of Dennis Ward re your case was I told you several times he should not be required to launch a criminal investigation just on your word from Ohio, without you coming down here and meeting him face to face, so he could size up what would be his star witness against people you claimed stole your tour boat and/or against city officials who, before that, would not give you the passengers you needed to make the tour boat work, but they soon gave Michael Halpern and his partners in the Fury 10 times, you said, more passengers at the same boat slip your boat had used. Otherwise, I have consistently criticized Dennis for his involvement your extradition from Ohio.

I explained Cathy Vogel’s history with Dennis to you, because of her historical unwarranted, in my opinion, prejudice against him, and because she is running against him this year. Even if you don’t want to see all sides, I tell all sides as I see them, including all sides about you.

If you had not launched your Internet war, if you had just stuck to pursuing legal remedies, you would not have been held in contempt, extradited, jailed, put on probation, had your probation revoked, be now at risk to being arrested and jailed if you show up at your own trial in Miami against the City of Key West, and maybe that trial would already be over and done with and you the victor.

I don’t know whether or not I will be told to publish this latest round of emails between you and me, but if I am told to publish it, people who read it will get a comprehensive view.

I told Dennis Ward your case would be used against him in this year’s State Attorney races. I told him he should not gotten involved in your extradition.

Mark Wilson handed the extradition, he told me himself, after he and Dennis both had told Judge David Audlin they had no dog in that fight, because it was a civil case.

Mark Wilson indeed was in jail to see if you would incriminate yourself in what had been converted by Judge Audlin into a criminal contempt case, over a civil dispute. Because it was a criminal proceeding, because Mark Wilson was the State Attorney in charge of it, he indeed should have objected to your deposition, if, as you claim, you said you did not want to be deposed because your lawyer was not there. I cannot imagine the Florida Bar Association will condone that, for the Alabama Bar would not have condoned it back when I practiced law there.

To make it more aggravated, you were held in criminal contempt over a civil dispute that was decided for the plaintiffs by default judgment, without you contesting or cross examining the plaintiffs, or offering proof that what you had posted online was true. Judge Audin appears to have taken Michael Halpern’s word that you libeled Michael and the other plaintiffs. I can name lawyers in Key West, which I will not do, who I imagine would say privately, if not publicly, that Michael Halpern cannot be libeled, because he has libeled himself beyond repair. I imagine I could find people in Key West, and in the Keys, who would say the same about me, and about you, Robert.

Also, you claim you were not in the Keys when you made the posts online, to which the plaintiffs had objected, but you made the posts from Ohio. So,I am having trouble seeing how that gave Judge Audlin jurisdiction over you, even if service of process was made on you in Ohio. I still await your explanation of how you were served with the plaintiffs’ civil lawsuit, which Michael Halpern filed against you for the Fury, himself and others as plaintiffs, several of whom attended your deposition, according to copy of the jail log you emailed to me.

Also, I am having trouble seeing you could be held in violation of your probation, on Michael Halpern’s motion, if, as you say, Halpern told Judge Audlin before he put you on probation that some of what you had posted online you had no way to get down, because the people who owned those websites would not take it down. Then, after you were unable to do what you say Halpern told Judge Audlin you could not do, Judge Audlin held you, who then were back in Ohio, in violation of your probation and ordered another warrant issued for your arrest, but no extradition was pursued that time.

It’s just my opinion, but Dennis Ward and Mark Wilson should have objected to all of the above in Judge Audlin’s court, for the same reasons that concern me.

It’s just my opinion, which I expressed to you before, and in a post, your lawyer in Miami, who is handling your lawsuit against the City of Key West, should have asked the FBI and US Department of Justice to investigate all that happened to you in Key West and in Ohio, starting with the City of Key West denying you enough passengers for your tour boat, and all that came afterward.

Your lawyer in Miami also should have reported the entire proceeding before Judge Audin to the Florida Bar Association, including your allegations against Michael Halpern and Alan Eckstein, as well as against Dennis Ward and Mark Wilson. Your lawyer in Miami also should have reported Judge Audlin to whatever Florida authority regulates and disciplines state judges. In my opinion, you lawyer in Miami should have done that months ago.

Lawyers have an affirmative duty to report wayward lawyers and wayward judges to the property authorities, and lawyers who breach that duty breach the legal canons of ethics. In my experience, though, in the main, lawyers tend to be reluctant to exercise that duty.

I recall in my conversation with Mark Wilson, by telephone, about your case, before I knew of the deposition, that Mark said you had posted awful things online about Alan Eckstein, who was a nice guy (or something along that line). I did not, still do not know Eckstein. I did not then know he was an attorney.

When I learned of that, I wondered if maybe the lawyer brotherhood was looking out for its own, which is something I have seen happen all too often, and even included a chapter on that in my book: KILL ALL THE LAWYERS? – A Client’s Guide to Hiring, Firing, Using and Suing Lawyers.

I also included a chapter on clients who wore out their lawyers and messed up their own case, to be comprehensive. And I included a chapter about filing grievances against and suing wayward lawyers. It was not a book well-received by lawyers generally, nor by some lay people.

A book reviewer at Kirkus Reviews, was especially put off, called it a “Red Rider pop-gun”. I figured he saw himmself in the chapter about clients who drove their lawyers nuts and screwed up their own cases. The Birmingham Post-Herald gave the book high praise, however. Said it was “the best” of its kind.

Please keep me in the loop with anything you receive re your Florida Bar Association complaint.

Sloan

Sloan, ive said this before to others and ive said this to you. Ive been a fan of yours for a while even though we dont always see eye to eye. I say alot of prayers and when finished your name always comes to the forefront. I believ its because you can loom at the evidence and the situation and call it like it is. I do though have a problem to the statement you made below. You keep saying my attorney needs to file complaints etc. Again I know Dennis Ward is a friend of your but doing wrong is doing wrong.

Why have you not publicaaly said that because of all thats gone on in my case and the wrong doings by the State Attorneys office and Mark Wilson why have you not said the State Attorneys office cannot clearly be impartial on my case AND THEY CAN CALL THE ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE IN FLORIDA AND ASK THAT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR BE ASSIGNED MY CASE TO REVIEW EVERYTHING THATS GONE ON?

The answer is simple… They are there to protect the locals and dont give a damn about victims and people they help victimize.

The State attorney has the power to ask for a SPECIAL PROSECUTOR to be assigned this case and ask for a full review from the warrant down. ????

I do not see you calling for this or the State Attorney doing it because it would clearly show wrong doing in my case, ITS SIMPLE LET A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR GET INVOLVED WHO HAS NOT SPECIAL INTERESTS and give his legal opinion? I believe it doesnt cost the taxpayer a dime, even if it did it would be far less that what the taxpayer has grossly spent already.

DO YOU AGREE THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?

Why not ask Dennis Ward if he would do this????

I think youll be surprised at the answer….

Robert

SLOAN,

JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH CATHERINE VOGEL. EVEN THOUGH SHE SAYS SHE WOULD HAVE NEVER HAVE HANDLED MY CASE THE WAY THE STATE ATTORNEY DID NOR WOULD SHE HAVE EVER ALLOWED HER ASST STATE ATTORNEY TO TAKE PART IN OR OBSERVE A DEPOSITION WITHOUT COUNSEL PRESENT AND I BELIEVE ALSO ONE STEMMING FROM A CIVIL CASE.

WHEN ASKED SHE ALSO SAID A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE/ OR THE GOVERNORS OFFICE WHICH EVER PROVIDED IT SHE WOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM HAVING ONE REVIEW HER CASES BECAUSE MY SITUATION WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED FROM THE FIRST PLACE.

I DO BELIEVE THOUGH TO GET A FIRM DEFINITIVE LEGAL OPINION WITHOUT ANY PREJUDICE A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR SHOULD BE BROUGHT IN TO REVIEW THE COMPLET FILE STARTING FROM THE CIVIL CASE FILING ON MYSELF TO CURRENT.?????

IF THERES NOTHING TO HIDE WHY NOT ????

Hi again, Robert.

All you want from Dennis Ward is an apology? An admission he did you wrong by getting involved in enforcing Judge Audlin’s criminal contempt order in the civil lawsuit Michael Halpern filed against you?

I may be rusty on the legalities of a special prosecutor, but I think that is usually ordered by the judiciary or by the state attorney general. I believe, although perhaps mistakenly, a special prosecutor can be requested by a licensed attorney in the state where the wrongdoing is alleged to have taken place. And, I think a state attorney, district attorney where I practiced law, can ask a court to appoint a special prosecutor, if the state attorney feels disqualified for some reason, or perhaps under-qualified. I recall Gerry Spence, a well-known trial lawyer, with whom I had some correspondence when I lived in Colorado, I think was asked by the local judiciary to prosecute an especially heinous local murder, the defendant was notorious, probably because Jerry was considered the best trial lawyer anywhere nearby and he was well-versed in criminal defense, thus in criminal prosecution.

I am not a licensed attorney in Florida and doubt any request I would make for a special prosecutor would carry much weight. Hard to imagine Dennis Ward asking for a special prosecutor to prosecute himself, Mark Wilson, Judge Audlin, Michael Halpern, and perhaps others. Dennis receives copies off all of my posts and says he reads them, however he has not spoken with me about any posts re your situation since the first one after you and others started banging me on the Coconut Telegraph at bigpinekey.com about not having done all I could to help you, it seemed because Dennis Ward and I are good friends. Those wingnuts were attacking anything I had anything to do with, and I imagine will do it again when the Coconut Telegraph comes off vacation at the end of this month, if Deer Ed decides to bring it off vacation. Won’t surprise me if he announces the vacation is permanent.

I told Dennis Ward back then that I wished he had not gotten involved in your case, which was before I even spoke with Mark Wilson, whom I know only somewhat. If you, or your lawyer in Miami, think a special prosecutor is needed, it’s on you and/or your lawyer to ask Dennis Ward, or the local judiciary, or the state attorney general, or perhaps even the Florida Supreme Court, for such an appointment, because only you and or your lawyer really have standing to do that, being the direct parties in interest.

However, Dennis Ward will receive a copy of this correspondence today, and he can take that as a request that he ask for a special prosecutor to investigate himself, Mark Wilson, Judge Audin, Michael Halpern, and perhaps others. Don’t know how Dennis will receive it. What I do know, which you should have considered, is if a special prosecutor is assigned, it probably will be a Florida attorney, and the proceeding will be in state court, probably in Key West. Your lawyer in Miami should have done all he could to get the Feds involved in your case, for the same reason he filed suit against Key West in Federal Court in Miami, instead of in state court in Key West. You lawyer also should have filed complaints with the Florida State Bar and the state authority which regulates and disciplines state court judges.

The Cochran Law Firm, who started your legal claim against the city, should have told you to lay off Internet attacks, and if you then persisted, they should have fired themselves as your lawyers. You caused yourself, and any lawyer who undertook to help you, a great deal of difficulty in the way you went about it. You are not someone I would care to represent, if I practiced law, not because of the merits of your case, but because of the way you go about things. I told you early on you were turning Dennis Ward against you, by the way you were behaving. You didn’t listen to me then, and as far as I can see, you have not gone with anything important I have recommended to you since you came back around a couple of months ago.

AGAIN, IN MY OPINION, YOUR LAWYER IN MIAMI DID NOT DO WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE TO TRY TO HELP YOU, IF I HAD BEEN YOUR LAWYER, OTHER THAN BRING YOUR CASE IN FEDERAL COURT. YOU CAN TELL HIM I SAID SO, AND YOU SHOULD BERATE HIM ABOUT IT, SINCE HE’S YOUR LAWYER AND I’M SOMETHING ELSE FOR YOU ENTIRELY.

Sloan

I see your point, Sloan, but feel you are stuck on defending folks by my internet whistle blowing not attacks. I believe you even stated by what you saw in the blogs were true. Theres a big difference. What you should also be saying and not defending is if the State Attorneys office and other law enforcement officers did their jobs to begin with krutko would never had had a reason to beg for help and expose individuals on the internet. I just got off the phone with the attorney generals office which said to call the governors office which i did. The Governors office said ” An attorney in Florida themselves cannot contact their office for a special prosecutor to review a case, This can only be done by a State Attorney. No private attorney can request one…..

Why would a State Attorney have a problem with asking for a special prosecutor to review a case if theres nothing to hide?

He cannot be impartial due to the fact he is upset i blogged about him a while ago.

I did poll numerous Florida State Attorneys offices and they all confirmed if someone is a victim with a financial hardship and files a sworn affadavit thats plenty to open an investigation. They also confirmed they would not need to see someone face to face especially when there was more than one victim which in this case there was and all begged dennis for his help. Never did he tell any of them they needed to meet him face to face thats an excuse……They said they would need the person there if the case went to trial.

AND FOR YOU TO JUSTIFY A CASE NOT BEING INVESTIGATED BECAUSE SOMEONE COULD NOT AFFORD TO BE THERE IS BEYOND ME.

SO WE HAVE OUR ANSWER SLOAN, ONLY THE STATE ATTORNEY CAN ASK FOR A CASE TO BE REVIEWED BY A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR.

CATHERINE VOGEL WOULDNT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT ?????? SHES NOT THE STATE ATTORNEY BUT AGREES WHY HAVE A PROBLEM IF THERES NOTHING TO HIDE ……

EVERYONE ELSE WHO KNOWS THE CASE AND REVIEWED IT THOROUGHLY AGREE ITS A GREAT IDEA…

Hi again, Robert.

Am also fowarding this of yours to Dennis Ward.

I wonder how Cathy would have liked the Florida Bar Association reviewing her quitting without notice and dumping a capital case on a greenhorn Assistant State Attorney?

SEE YOUR IN THE DEFENSE MODE FOR DENNIS. IF IMPARTIAL WHY NOT PUSH FOR A FULL REVIEW OF A CASE FILE YOURSELF ESPECIALLY SINCE YOUR DEFENDING THEM ???

EVEN THE FLORIDA BAR WHOS SENDING ME PAPERWORK TODAY IN THE MAIL SAID THEY WOULD DEFINATELY WANT THE JAIL LOG. THEY SAID DEPOSITIONS WITHOUT COUNSEL IS SOMETHING THEY LOOK AT VERY SERIOUSLY.

Hi again, Robert.

The Florida Bar should ask to look at Dennis Ward’s entire file, if you file a complaint against Dennis. By copying this email to Dennis, I am asking to see his entire file on your case, which you have asked me to do in your behalf. I have no authority over Dennis, though. The Florida Bar Association does have authority over him. And I imagine the Florida Attorney General does, too. These are things your Miami lawyer should have done some time ago. I find it interesting that you keep dodging everything I say he should have done that he didn’t do.

You still don’t get it, Robert. I did not defend, am not defending, the people you wrote about online. I simply say again, if you had not done it, it would have gone very differently for you and for your family, and you would not be exposed to being put back in jail, if you come back, to Florida for the trial against Key West.

I am not defending Dennis Ward or Mark Wilson. Nor Judge Audlin. Nor Michael Halpern and his plaintiffs. I am laying this entire case out as I see it. Dennis was has received your request that he ask for a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate. I have no problem also asking him to do that, by copying him with this email. I had not thought of a special prosecutor before you raised that today. Perhaps you will like Cathy Vogel’s advice better than mine. I don’t give a shit who I piss off, even when I’m running for public office, which I don’t imagine describe’s Cathy Vogel.

I see an apology from Dennis Ward is not what you want, and you should not have asked for it therefore. What I am to you, Robert, is something you may never comprehend. You could be so much more than you are, but you will not get there the way you are going at it. Not meaning to pick just on you, I can say the same thing about everyone involved in your case. And in other cases I am given to try in God’s court, yours us but one of a number currently in progress. In such trials, everyone is on trial, including me, by judges not of this world.

Sloan

Post-script:

I don’t think Robert has it completley right on who can ask for or appoint a special prosecutor, nor do I think it will cost the taxpayers nothing, for a special prosecutor usually is paid for what he/she does. Perhaps, though, there would be a way to get reimbursement from the targets of a special prosecutor’s investigation, if the evidence supported indictment, prosecution and conviction.

I stick to my position that Dennis Ward needed to meet Robert face to face. Robert was all over the place back then. I would not have wanted to represent him sight unseen.

I hope Robert shifts from nagging me, to nagging Cathy Vogel, since she opened mouth, inserted whatever. Maybe she should pay for the special prosecutor, since she seems gung-ho for it. Imagine the headlines during her race against Dennis Ward this year.

All of that said, in a nap dream day before yesterday, I twice told a man I did not recognize that he could be the Christ, and the second time I got choked up, then I told him matter of factly that I am something else.

During Robert’s and my back-and-forth yesterday, I googled him and found his county jail photo. I did that because I didn’t know what Robert looked like and I was trying to put the dream into context. Robert is the man I told in my dream he could be the Christ.

Arriving at that, I pondered what Robert being the Christ could mean. In the New Testament, Christ was the Son of God. Christ was crucified for no good reason by people who had it in for him. Christ rose from the dead. Christ will return to judge everyone. Perhaps that is Robert Krutko’s role re what all he says Key West and some of its people did to him and to his family. Maybe he will take the city and those people down.

I dreamt maybe ten nights ago of standing on Duval Street near Eaton or Caroline Street, and a very high tide came in and I had to retreat higher up Duval to get out of the way of the high tide. I opined in a post that the high tide came in where the Krutkos had kept their boat and perhaps the high tide was what the Krutkos were going to do to Key West. I mentioned the lady shaman who, along with her fellow, had Christmas dinner with me, told me that when she was in Key West, she had a strong sense of a big natural disaster befalling Key West, and my sense was her dream could be about the disaster the Krutkos might bring to Key West.

All along, I felt most of what Robert Krutko alledged happened to him and his family was true, and I wrote maybe a month ago that it was about as bad a case of bubba justice as could be. I still feel that way.

I still feel Robert’s lawyer in Miami, who is suing the City of Key West for the Krutkos, should have tried to bring the US Department of Justice and the FBI into this entire affair, for the same reasons Robert’s lawyer chose to file the suit against the city in Federal Court in Miami, instead of in state court in Key West.

I still feel the Krutkos case against the city could make the Duck Tours case’s $6.5 million settlement look like a twinkie.

I still feel the city thinks there is nothing to the Krutko case, and is waiting on Robert to die of cancer and will do all possible to stall the case from going to trial, and will try to have Robert arrested and jailed, if he returns to Florida to participate in the Federal Court trial.

Perhaps the City of Key West, Judge Audlin, Dennis Ward and Mark Wilson should consider how Robert dying of cancer before the case is tried, or being arrested and jailed again, might affect a Federal judge and jury’s mood toward the city.

I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Should school board candidates campaign on their war record?

Posted on by
Reply

Capt. Ed Davidson

Although I gave newly-announced School Board candidate Capt Ed Davidson kudos in yesterday’s post, last night my dream maker turned me every which away but loose over Capt. Ed. It was a night from hell.
 
In the last two dreams, I was about to get brain surgery, and then I was in a skiff in Hawk Channel, Key West, across from Truman Beach and the Navy base, fishing deep, alone. I awoke, clueless.
 
I crawled out of bed and went outside and fetched my delivered copy of The Citizen, to see if anything there shed light on the night from hell. When I saw the headline of the article about Captain Ed announcing he will run for Duncan Matthewson’s School Board seat, my thoughts returned to Hawk Channel. What was that about?
 
Then, I remembered my old Alabama lawyer buddy Hawkman, a Vietnam vet, artillery Captain, who came back from that fiasco and started demonstrating against it, and demonstrated against America at war ever since. Hawkman and I both feel Vietnam broke America’s spirit and fueled every American war since.
 
My thoughts in italics, in the body of the article.
Schools watchdog files for seat
 
BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com

A decorated Vietnam veteran fighter pilot and longtime dive shop owner who has become a fixture during the public comment portion of each Monroe County School Board meeting announced this week he will run for a seat.

Capt. Ed Davidson, 71, wants the District 3 seat, held by incumbent Duncan Mathewson since 2004.

“We don’t have academic problems in this district; we have fiscal management and transparency problems,” said Davidson, who has religiously attended School Board meetings for more than a decade as an ever-present critic and watchdog.

500 Key West High School students used online make up courses to pass classes they failed last year. My recollection, students are given five tries at online make up courses. Many Keys high school seniors who go off to a 2 or 4 year college have to take remedial courses. The School District teaches to the FCAT, using a state-mandated robotic teaching formula. The drop out rate, from 1st grade though 12th grade, is severe. Most 12th graders do not graduate “career or college ready”, the School District’s goal. Charter schools are springing up and all over the Keys, because students don’t do well in regular schools. The ACE programs are for students who don’t do well in regular schools. I don’t see how Capt. Ed can say, “We don’t have academic problems in this district.” Even if he had never attended one School Board meeting, just reading The Citizen would alert even the slowest Pearl Harbor Lookout to the severe academic problems in the School District.

Davidson said the School District’s current troubles began when former Superintendent Randy Acevedo took office in 2004.

“When Randy Acevedo took office, we had $12 million in reserves, and the incumbents on the board let him spend it all — squandered it all,” said Davidson.

Acevedo was removed from office and convicted amid an embezzlement scandal that sent his wife, Monique, the former head of Adult Education, to prison for eight years in 2010.

My recollection is, the embezzlement scandal was only a small fraction of the reserves squandering, and it was the embezzlement, not the much larger squandering, which caused Governor Crist to remove Randy Acevedo from office.

Davidson, who hasn’t yet filed paperwork with the elections supervisor, joins three candidates who have formally signed up for the Nov. 6 election: Mark Peterson, Michael Cunningham and Larry Murray.

Mathewson hasn’t announced his intentions for the fall election, saying that he is focusing only on the Jan. 31 election, when voters will be asked to allow the School Board to move about $9.5 million from the capital fund to the general operations fund.

“If it is not approved, we all are in deep trouble,” Mathewson said in an email. “Particularly my constituents, the students, who can’t vote.”

AMEN

Davidson agrees with the five-man board that the Jan. 31 referendum must come out with a “yes” vote to avoid financial disaster in the school system. Like the School Board members, Davidson wants to ensure that people disenchanted by grim economic times don’t simply vote “no” when they see the word “tax.”

AMEN

Davidson said he speaks to the retirees in the Florida Keys who haven’t had children or grandchildren in the islands’ public schools.

“I’m committed to try to get the referendum passed before I start talking politics,” said Davidson. “I have no personal agendas at all. I only care about good governance. I’m lucky to be on the planet after all I’ve been through. Public service should be the calling of anyone’s life.”

Hmmm, looks to me Capt. Ed started talking politics when he said, “We don’t have academic problems in this district.” And when he talked to The Citizen about his Vietnam war record. A war record is a favorite stump for politicians, John McCain for example. See below.

Born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., the youngest of two sons, Davidson’s father managed a car dealership and his mother taught public school kids.

Davidson graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1962 with a degree in history, the philosophy of science and the psychology of learning.

Davidson, who has 22 combat medals, became the 33rd aviator to survive more than 200 combat missions during Vietnam, moved to Key West in 1967 to teach Top Gun fighter pilots.

His combat career included watching then-fellow Navy pilot John McCain get shot down into Hanoi during a triple carrier strike with 150 planes in the air.

“I just happened to be right next to him when he went across the nose of my airplane shedding spare parts,” is how Davidson described the harrowing scene. McCain, a veteran U.S. senator and former presidential candidate, was captured, but Davidson survived the attack.

Davidson resigned from the Navy in 1970, after 12½ years and at the rank of lieutenant commander.

Certainly, Capt. Ed demonstrated valor and bravery in combat. Many Americans did that in Vietnam. Two of my college fraternity brothers died over there. Alas, for naught. The war was Evil, and I wish Capt. Ed had said that, and The Citizen had reported it. That Capt. Ed apparently views his experience in Vietnam as a commendation, that he moved to Key West to teach Top Gun fighter pilots, and this message is being sent to Keys school children, troubles me greatly, and apparently the angels, too. I would much rather see school chidren influenced by Capt. Ed’s fierce efforts to protect Mother Nature in the Keys and to root out corruptors in the School District.

While living in Key West, Davidson ran a Harley-Davidson repair shop before moving up to Sunshine Key to open a dive shop. He owns and runs Discount Divers Bed and Breakfast in Marathon.

Davidson, who hasn’t held public office, has served as president of the Florida Keys Citizens Coalition, an umbrella group of civic organizations. He likes the odds of running against a School Board incumbent.

I will be surprised to see Duncan Matthewson run again. He solicited Larry Murray to run for his seat, and solicited me to run for his seat. I am not aware that Duncan solicited Capt. Ed to run for his seat, even though he had seen and heard from Capt. Ed at many School Board meetings. Looks to me, Capt. Ed is running against Larry and two other candidates.

“I’m not concerned about other people running,” said Davidson, who two decades ago ran for county commissioner and spent two years as chairman of the Florida Keys Zoning Board.

Larry Murray, has two years on the Audit & Finance Committee under his belt and knows where most, if not all, of the bodies are buried, and is so vocal about full transparency that he has done the politically unthinkable; he has campaigned against the referendum. So far, Mark Peterson and Michael Cunningham strike me, who, except for Bicycle Joanie Nelson, probably has attended, as a candiate, more candidate forums than anyone in the Keys, as wannabes.

“Where were these people in the tough times?” Davidson mused. “I was the only one there with the guts to stand up when Acevedo had the power and authority.”

AMEN. However, a School District employee named Cathy Reitzel blew the whistle on the Acevedos, became the State Attorney’s star witness and got them both convicted, and thenwas fired by Acevedos’ replacement, who merely demoted Reitzel’s supervisor, Schools Chief Operating Officer Mike Henriquez, son of former Schools Superintendent Bookie Henriquez, one of the most influential conchs in Key West and the Keys. I got some earfuls a few months back about Bookie Henriquez feathering his own nest when he was Superintendent of Schools. I was told Mike Henriquez signed off on every embezzlement check Monique Acevedo wrote. I don’t know what Capt. Ed publicly said about all of that, but for me, what was done to Cathy Reitzel, which was not done to Mike Henriquez, was worse than what the Acevedos did, because it sent a seriously loud message throughout the School District, whistleblowers are not welcome here, and bubba conchs get preferential treatment. Back then, I opined on my websites that Cathy Reitzel should have been given a medal and a salary increase, and should have replaced Randy Acevedo as Superintendent of Schools.

Acevedo was suspended from office in 2009, and the governor has since appointed two men to finish out his term, which ends this year.

gfilosa@keysnews.com

LSU – Bama fix?

Posted on by
Reply

 LSU’s Les Miles

Received two comments from Ramsay High grads to yesterday’s LSU threw the BSC Championship game? post.

From Baker Smith:

I KNEW something was amiss!!! The game was FIXED !!!! I’m NOT surprised…The Saban Nation paid Miles off. Where’s the NCAA when we need ‘em. They’re in cahoots, too. BTW…I need to google the meaning of “CAHOOTS”. I’m just a D—
A– southern boy.

My reply:

Are you serious, Baker? You really think Saban and Miles and the NCAA were in cahoots, that Miles got paid off? If so, you for sure are a D-A, but I can’t say you are southern boy, because I don’t know any southern boys who would believe an LSU coach threw a game to any team, especially to Alabama :-) .

From Bobby Hewes:

Bama beat LSU so bad that it was embarrassing to some L fans. So this blogger would rather blame it on his own team and coaches rather than admit Bama was just much better. If LSU was not prepared and not motivated, they would have not stopped Bama 7 times in their territory and forced SEVEN field goal attempts. LSU was just outplayed in both games. Bama owes Iowa State! If they had not beaten OkSt, Bama would not have even been in the game!

My reply:

Thanks for writing in, Bobby. I agree re Oklahoma State – Iowa State game, it put Bama into BSC game. I read online that OS had serious tragedy in one of its sports programs, not football, a few days before the OS-IS game. Was opined OS might not have had their hearts in the IS game. Wonder how OS-LSU would have gone? Wonder how Bama-Stanford, Bama-Wisconsin, Bama Oregon State would have gone? As the Bham amigo, who sent me the New Orleans Rising link, said to me three weeks before the BSC game, those pair-ups would have provided lots more national interest and would have revealed, for the moment, the relative strength, or not, of the SEC re other conferences. Re what the LSU blogger posted, I have yet to see any news online or on TV re his allegations. I did see the Les Miles post-game press interview online yesterday, after googling “LSU threw the BSC” and I found one blog link re that topic by an LSU fan. In the post-game video, a New Orleans notable, had played QB for the Saints, was a sports journalist, or commentator, labored on for about two minutes about Miles not moving the ball down the field, instead of going laterally, passing, etc. Finally, Miles calmly asked, “What is your question?” The notable said that was his question, why didn’t Miles try to move the ball down the field? Miles said they did do that, but it didn’t work very well. Nothing worked very well for LSU, and if the reported pre-game fracas, or something close to it, happened just hours before the game, yeah, it could have affected the LSU players. However, Miles was head coach; the buck stopped with him. His players should have sucked it up, given they were 13-0 under him. His players knew what Miles knew: Lee had gotten mauled by Bama in the first tryst in Tuscaloosa, and Jefferson had played better than Lee after he went in to replace him. My Bham amigo told me that two years earlier, Lee had gotten mauled by Bama, which is how Jefferson came to replace him and was the fist team QB until he got in trouble with the law before last year’s season opened. Jefferson beat Bama last year, and in Tuscaloosa this past season – Jefferson, and the LSU defense beat Bama. As I told my Bham amigo before the BSC, Bama had nothing to lose in the BSC game but dignity, and LSU had everything to lose.

And let’s not forget, Coach Bryant, at the recommendation of Assistant Coach Gene Stallings, benched Joe Namath for curfew violation just before the Sugar Bowl against a highly-favored Old Miss team, and the Tide, led by backup sophomore QB Steve Sloan, went out and somehow won the game.

I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

 

 

LSU threw the BSC Championship game?

Posted on by
4
LSU Tigers head coach, Les Miles
 
Received this interesting New Orleans link yesterday re the recent Alabama-LSU game from an old Birmigham amigo who shares my fatal attraction to Crimson Tide football, although he has started to worry me some re his true allegiance following his daughter attending Auburn.
http://neworleansrising.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/is-there-smoke-is-there-another-reason-why-lsu-lost/

**************************************************************************************************
My reply to him and others he included in his email.
 
Hi, Mat.
 
Youse and meese and Charles Crabbe remembers when Coach Bryant benched Joe Namath just before the Sugar Bowl against Mississipppi, which we watched from snow-filled stands. The Tide won anyway, with sophomore QB Steve Sloan, staunch defense, 7 Old Miss turn-overs and 4 Tim Davis field goals from beyond 40 yards, one was 50-something yards, as I recall, and a hellish goal-line stand in the closing seconds – a big upset – 12-7.
 
So, is there any fire under the smoke? Will there be an investigation of the allegations re Miles? Have any of these allegations been aired in New Orleans or Baton Rouge press? I have seen nothing on television about any of it.
 
My recollection of the Alabama-LSU game in Tuscaloosa, the Tide beat up on Lee so bad that Jefferson was sent in to replace him, and from there Jefferson played out the season as the LSU starting QB, and Lee saw limited duty. Maybe Miles remembered that in betting on Jefferson, on whose watch LSU edged out Alabama in the first game.
 
I thought Alabama should have won the first game by two touchdowns, or by even more, and gave the game away due to lots of stupid penalties, some poor decisions by A.J. McCarren (spelling?), lousy punting, lousy place-kicking and kickoffs, lousy punt and kick-off defense, and some not particularly stellar play-calling by the Tide coaching staff. [And turnovers.]
 
A different Tide team and coaching staff showed up for the BSC Championship, with only one late non-consequential 5-yard penalty, over which Saban went ballistic, no poor decisions by McCarren, much better kicking and punting, stellar kick-off and punt return defense, and lots better play-calling. [No turnovers.]
 
Looked to me like about the same LSU team that was given the first game, except in the BSC game, the Tide defense wore out Jordon Jefferson, like they wore out Lee in the first game.
 
Also looked to me, LSU made no adjustments for the second game, while the Tide made lots of adjustments, but I already said that.
 
I never thought Miles was in Saban’s league, but Miles’ teams have proven he is a good coach, and his team this year beat up on every team but Alabama, generally worse than Alabama beat up on the same teams. His team last year whupped the Tide.
 
I cannot deny, though, LSU did not look like they came to play, and perhaps there is some fire beneath the smoke. If so, it had to affect the LSU team. If Miles indeed called the offensive plays, perhaps it would have turned out differently if he had let his offensive coach call the plays.
 
But then, the Tide had practiced against Jefferson-type offense for a month, having already learned how to defend against Lee. Jefferson didn’t look as sharp the second game, maybe because the Tide coaches and defenses had figured him out, too.
 
Sloan
 
I posted this above to the New Orleans Rising blog.
 
I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com
 

Tim Tebow, dreams, and other attractons

Posted on by
Reply
Yesterday, from an old Birmingham childhood friend, across-the-street Crestline Heights neighbor, mostly retired corporate lawyer I ran a bunch of rivers with, who married my first childhood love who was not so smitten by me …
 
Sloan: Our nephew, Jay Pfaffman, is heading to Key West for several weeks. He “lives in his van”, so accommodations are no problem, but I thought you might be willing to let him partake of your local wisdom (I have assured him that you are well informed in that regard). Jay is Jim Pfaffman’s son (Jim is an architect that you might have heard of during your B’ham. days), who was married to Terry Adams, Joyce’s sister. Jay’s Web-site is www.iliveinmyvan.com.
 
Good game this past Monday.
Jerry
 
Hi, Jerry. Sure, I remember Jim Pfaffman and Terry. Give Jay my home and cell numbers. I might be able to steer him to some areas where less odds of having to deal with the local fuzz. There is a youth hostel in Key West, if that interests him. About $35 a night these days, I think.

305-407-4285

305-872-1705

A curious as well as a good game, in this age of high scores. Might be a long time before LSU recovers. Best defense output from the Tide in a long time.

I dreamt of Tim Tebow just before dawn, he was smiling. Wonder if it was an omen about tonight’s game vs Patriots? Or if it meant something else? Will know soon enough.

Hope all going okay on your end, given age, gravity, and other general wear and tear.

Sloan

 
Sloan: Thanks. I am sure that Jay will give you a call.
 
All well here. Let me know the next time you are up this way.
Jerry
 
From first Bashinsky cousin Leo this morning:
 
Hope all is well with you?Hi, Leo. Can’t say. Might be, I ain’t doing so well physically, time will tell. Otherwise, I’m my usual cranky irreverent jovial self. Had nothing to post yesterday, perhaps I was too dim-sighted to see what it was. Today’s post is a tizzy. I’m working on the teaser after I send this to you, will forward later. Hope you and yours doing okay. Bash

Tim Tebow supports the school referendum


Today begins with a review of the Broncos season ending at the Patriots’ hands last night and inferences which might be drawn therefrom re God’s involvement in football games, and the use of public prayer in sporting events, schools, etc. Then today moves to another football game, in which is sure looks to me God is very interested in the outcome: the school district referendum down here in the Florida Keys. Starting with jabber from a referendum opponent, who has made it his life mission to attack anything I favor, as well as anyone who shares my point of view; moving from there to a little hoof-and-mouth from School Board candidate Mark Peterson re, according to him, no need to actually physically attend School Board meetings, since they are televised (not the last one, however); moving from there to raves for the referendum, starting with The Citizen Editorial Board today, followed by letters to the editor from the Keys Republican Party, the Southernmost Republican Club, and a career Keys school teacher; moving from there to what I would do to see to it the referendum passes: tell folks no more school sports if it doesn’t pass, which is where Tim Tebow chimed in AMEN in a dream night before last; closing out with an invitation to the Keys Democratic Party to write its own letter to the editor in support of the referendum, since that Party already has publicly stated their support for it. You can read all about it by clicking on this link: Tim Tebow supportsthe school referendum, which is supposed to take you to Today’s FlaKey Drivel at goodmorningfloridakeys.com. 


When I dream about someone, whether or not I know them personally, that’s a message to me about something currently going on in my life and how I am or should be dealing with it. When the Patriots walked away with the game last night, I figured Tim Tebow smiling joyously in my dream was not about that game. The roughest spirit work I do on this world is identified as football in my dreams. The roughest, longest-standing spirit work I have been doing lately is dealing with and writing about Florida Keys school system issues. I remain convinced the surest way to get the local tax referendum for school operations renewed by the voters at the end of this month is to make sure everyone down here knows the first thing to go will be school sports, starting with football. In that context, after the Broncos lost last night, the dream about Tim Tebow, a University of Florida Gator Heishman Trophy winner, smiling joyously was the angels’ way of letting me know just how important it is for the referendum to pass, and what needs to be cut first, if it fails.
 
Yes, I understand quite well that other people might interpret that dream differently. However, other people have not been schooled in my dreams for 25 years, and they cannot know my dream code, nor the ways of using the ciphers I have been given to make sense of my dreams. No more can they interpret my dreams, than the people in Daniel’s time (the Old Testament) could interpret his dreams. On the contrary, Daniel sometimes interpreted other people’s dreams, which sometimes I also am called to do. Learning dream code for me was, I imagine, like learning hieroglyphics would be like. Even now, I am still learning; for when I become comfortable with my dreams, they are changed around to push me to learn more dream code. This is nothing like interpreting dreams about the subconscious, in the genre of Sigmund Freud, nor even of Carl Jung. It is like interpreting coded messages from the CIA, perhaps; except in my case, my controllers are angels.
 
I seriously doubt there is much way to feel really okay, in a human sense, with angels running you ragged unceasing. A different kind rugged test than Tim Tebow and his team faced last night. Maybe as Tim grows older, he will be used in ways he cannot yet imagine. He has the love for God that could lead to unimaginable service to humanity. I have nowhere close to that love; my relationship with God is of respect and fear of not doing God’s will for me. Hard to imagine Tim Tebow ever fearing God, I hope he never has the experience.
 
I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com
 

Roll Tide!!!

Posted on by
Reply

 

 

From a distant North Carolina in-law, his grandson, I think it was, married one of my first Bashinsky cousin Leo’s daughters, I think it was, maybe a year an a half ago. Back some years, Ron and his wife fell in love with Key West and vacationed there frequently.
 
Something for you Mr. Sloan -
R O L L….
T I D E !!!RonK.

 

Hi, Ron.

Well, the Tide did take the Tigers to the woodshed this time. Only let the Tigers creep across the 50-yard line once. The Tide defense was pretty stiff in the first face-off, but much stiffer last night. Though the main difference seemed to be the Tide place kicker and punter and special teams did a lot better, and only one penalty. A much tighter, much more disciplined and determined Tide team last night, than the November game they sloppily won in every way but the final score. Last night’s Tide reminded me of the early great Bear Bryant teams. Stonewall defense, enough offense to win. To skunk the LSU team that ran away with every game in the second half, except against the Crimson Tide, well, I’m glad I’m a Tide and not a Tiger fan. LSU or Auburn variety.

About an hour before the game, I was able to catch an old Birmingham buddy, who with another buddy and me, had driven down to New Orleans for the January 1, 2004 Sugar Bowl, a Bear Bryant 8-2 Tide Team, which should have been 10-0, vs a 10-0, as I recall their record, Johnny Vaught Mississippi Rebel team. Bryant benched Joe Namath for curfew violation, and sophomore Steve Sloan led the Tide to a 12-7 win, thanks to 4 Tim Davis field goals and, as I recall, 7 Old Miss turnovers. The Tide held off a furious Rebel last-minute drive at the goal line, to cinch the win. My Vanderbilt KA fraternity brothers from Mississippi declined to discuss the game afterward, after all the pre-game boasting about it not even being a good match up, the Rebels should have played a team that would have decided the national championship.

I reminded my Birmingham buddy of that Sugar Bowl when I called him and left a voicemail this morning. Last night, he said the odds in Birmingham were the Tide were a 3-point favorite, and the odds in New Orleans were the Tigers were a 1-point favorite, and the odds in Las Vegas were you pick it. He said an Auburn buddy of his had run into a fellow wearing an LSU sweat shirt in Birmingham, and had approached him, only to learn the fellow was an Auburn fan but hated Alabama so much he was wearing the LSU banner. That’s how it is in Alabama, and Alabama fans are just as bad. They don’t get it that they should root for their cross-state rival to win every game, so if the two teams square off after Thanksgiving each year with no defeats, the winner is the National Champion, at least in Alabama.

Funny, all the extraneous things I felt were important but the angels didn’t see it that way and got rid of, they let me keep my fatal attraction to Crimson Tide football. Not infrequently, I dream of the Tide playing some other team, and who the other team is, who is on offense and who on defense, what play is being run, how the score is going, what position I am playing on the Tide team, or even on the other team, all give me information about a football game I am playing in my waking/walking life. Haven’t had one of those dreams in a while. Although a friend up in North George, maybe three months ago, dreamt of me being the Tide’s quarterback, and the Tide beat Florida 16 touchdowns to 15 touchdowns. Still wondering what that was about.

Sloan

It slipped my mind to tell Ron, I told my Alabama buddy last night that as far as I know, I’m the only Crimson Tide fan in the Florida Keys, and I know one Auburn Tigers fan. You can imagine, I’m nice and polite in sports bars, when Alabama plays Florida, and I have a few Gator fans down in Key West, who even let me sit with them during that and other Florida games. It also slipped my mind to mention that it snowed in New Orleans the night before that Sugar Bowl game, there was snow on the stadium seats and where your feet rested. And it was pretty darn cold.

 

some rummaging around above and below

Posted on by
Reply
Mother Nature 
Old and dear Birmingham amiga Linda’s rely to yesterday’s Why I write … post, my part in italics: 

Ah, strange things happen, and none of it surprises me. We’ll never know why the newspaper was there, but it got there somehow, for some reason. Perhaps just to encourage your ease with the magical.
 
I suppose I am maddeningly content, like Ferdinand the Bull.
 
It’s been years since I read The Old Man and the Sea, and I don’t remember much about it– Faulkner was my guy, not Hemingway– but I think you may be right about the suicide implications. It was Hemingway, I seem to remember, who pontificated about getting up every morning and sitting down and trying to write, even if he wasn’t inspired at the time. The discipline, the “work,” the seriousness of it all. He did become a bit of a creaking bore, in the end, and not a happy man.
 
Warm here, too, sort of foggy and muggy.
 
Later . . . L.
 
Hmm … I wager the newspaper was there in my living room by mechanics not recognized by rocket scientists, although from what all you’ve told me about your minister at Highland Presbyterian Church, he might have some ideas on how the newspaper magically got into my trailer in the pitch black before sunrise. I might hazard to say Miss Kitty brought it in, but my recollection is she was snuggled beside me and the front double doors were closed. Putting locks that work on those doors would be about as effective as telling the local raccoons not to eat the cat food I put out twice a day for Midnight, the feral female cat who has adopted me, I imagine because I feed her. So while I doubt Sherlock Holmes would go so far as to say a feral cat or raccoons could break and enter this trailer, maybe they are just something else in disguise?
 
One other possible suspect came into view yesterday, an email from the fellow with the lady shaman. They had left Key West, then were back. Very tricky, some shamans. They are known to be in two places at once. She could have come up here in a shaman journey, while her body was in Key West, or somewhere else, with or without knowing she had done it. The newspaper was on the chair in which her fellow sat the two times they were here. I never sit in that chair. They have a relationship that does not keep them together all the time; sometimes she takes up with other men, she told me. Seemed she was hinting at something I wasn’t ready to take on, given how hard she was pressing me to shape up, get a grip on my life, stop wishing I wasn’t on this planet any longer. I’m even more convinced the extra inside load I took on has to do with her in some way. I been known to take other people and/or situations inside of me, to carry some of their spirit load for them, when they can’t carry it all themselves. I felt the extra load coming on the day before Christmas, and they came over for fish dinner the next day. It’s been way too much inside load ever since. Maybe more on that later.
 
After reading Carlos Baker’s posthumous biography of Hemingway and Baker’s later publication of Hemingway’s letters, when I was in law school at Alabama, I told my wife, Dianne, momma of our three children to come, that Hemingway was an asshole. Baker shattered my hero image of Hemingway, but not my impression that he was a terrific writer. He started out writing early on, seemed to realize it was his calling, if that’s the write right word. But what seemed to make him a great writer, in my opinion, was his life experiences. He did not decide to be a novelist; he lived it, then he translated it to paper, which caused his writing to be alive. Of course, you have to be into macho, blood and guts, mano mano, grace under fire existentialism to pedestal Hemingway in that way. Had to give Hemingway credit, though; after the brain cancer had developed and he was going mad because of it, and because of life-long testosterone left-brain drive, all of which I postulated at the Birmingham Southern writer’s workshop had caused the brain cancer, he took himself out, rather than live out his remaining days growing even more insane in an institution.
 
In one letter Baker published, Hemingway ranted to his editor at Scribner & Sons, Maxwell Perkins, as I recall his and the pubolishing firm’s names, his ire that people were reading symbolism into The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway told Perkins something like,”There was no symbolism. The old man was an old man. The boy was a boy. The sea was the sea. The fish was the fish. Etc., Etc.” I remember thinking then, hmmm, he sure did protest a lot. It was maybe 22 years later that I saw what now looked crystal clear: the great marlin fish represented Hemingway’s manhood, which the sharks (the cancer) came up out of his soul/feminine/emotions to eat, because he had lost his soul and rejected his own feminine by trying to prove himself to his rejecting father, the old man in the fish story, who did not take the boy fishing that fated day.
 
By then, I was just completing the first part of a several-year crash course in standing before a mirror, projection, the subconscious, the language of the soul vs. the language of the mind (some might say ego). Writers tell a heap on themselves without even realizing it, imagine what all lurks inside of Stephen King! But the aspiring writers at the Birmingham Southern writers workshop were not interested in any of that, only in what I did about writer’s block, which Hemingway developed after writing The Old Man and the Sea - another clue he was headed out; that proved to be his last completed novel.
 
I read some Faulkner during my senior year at Vanderbilt, in an American novels course. Hemingway also, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea. Faulkner didn’t appeal to me, but he infuriated Hemingway, who wrote to Max Perkins that Bill Faulkner was getting too much acclaim as America’s premiere novelist in that period, at Hemingway’s expense. I remember some of Faulkner’s sentences were a page or longer, and I think I remember reading he slammed out his books, without rewrites, using a big rolled ream of paper that he fed through his typewriter, instead of individual sheets. Like it all just fell out of him, while for Hemingway, it was a bit more arduous. Every novel I wrote just fell out of me.
 
I read maybe ten years ago in some publication that early one Faulkner moved to Virginia, perhaps some place near there, to begin his writing career. But someone he must had respected told him to return to his roots, and to write about that while he marinated in it. That’s what Faulkner did, back in Mississippi he took off as a American novelist. His most memorable characters for me where the Snopes clan, especially Flym (spelling ?). Totally despicable human being. Put even the worst of the pirates to shame. Somewhere inside of Bill Faulkner was a Flym Snopes.

Hmm . . . After reading your post again: It isn’t that I love what’s going on on the world– as a matter of fact, it all makes me sad and furious, mostly. I just love the world, I love living. We’re starting a Sunday School class in emergent Christianity– do you know about it? One main idea is that the church is having a 500-year “rummage sale” and throwing out a lot of stuff, and beginning a new era with questions about authority. Very interesting and healthy, it seems to me.

 Anyhow– Just for record, I’m not happy with present events, at least those emphasized on our lovely media. I worry a lot about the actual world, the earth, the environment. That, I think, is my great sorrow– Bill McKibben says we’ve already ruined the earth as we knew it.
 
L

My feelings about this world, the planet, perhaps are subdued by my feelings about what it’s been like for me to live with the dominant parasite species on it. I agree, we the people ain’t treating our earth mother very well, and I suppose I’m just as guilty as anyone, driving car, burning gasoline, and other things I do that deplete her treasury. Decades ago, I quit dropping litter, but who can even imagine what incubates in landfills? Although driving downwind of one provides astringent olfactory clues. I had to google Bill McKibben, to find out who he is. I still say one of the greatest things we the people can do to reduce air pollution is outlaw tobacco smoking planet-wide – LOL! This planet has warmed and cooled many times, depending mostly on the controlling star’s metabolism. The seas have risen and fallen, ice ages have come and gone. Global warming ain’t all caused by the dominant parasites, but they exacerbate it.
 
Am more bothered by America the Beautiful’s apparent addiction to war and the industries war feeds. Most especially, I am bothered by American Christians apparent lust for war, evidenced by how many Americans vote for and back war Presidents. When I told the lady shaman Mother Earth can shake we the people off like fleas anytime she wishes, the lady shaman got a bit worked up. She is really committed to saving the planet. I said that was not given to me so much, as a shaman. I do some things for the environment, mostly around the Keys, but mostly I’m into trying to help save souls who seem helpless to save themselves. Many of whom attend church, in some form, Christian and other strains.
 
The rummage sale initiated in me by Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Michael and Melchizedek and my black mammy, after she was quite a while dearly-departed, went back a bit past 500 years. They rewrote a good bit of the New Testament for me, and some of the Old Testament, mostly the very start of it. They rewrote a lot of other things, too – actually, they pretty much gave me a brain transplant, since mine didn’t seem to be doing so good. Even now, they have to do ongoing brain surgery on me, evidenced by them correcting and redirecting me in dreams unceasing. With those five and their “friends” on my case 24-7, 365, I don’t feel drawn to attend any kind of church designed/run by people. My experience back when I did attend churches I had been sent to visit, it soon wasn’t a joyous outing for the congregants to have me there, nor for me to be there, after I opened my big mouth :-)  
Her reply:

Boy, what a ton of interesting things to talk about!


Let’s see if I can get them in order:

Yes, Dr. Edmonds might have had some ideas about your newspaper’s travels, or rather, he would probably have entertained less-than-usual explanations for its appearance in the chair. But it also sounds as if you might have been visited by your shaman lady, except that the newspaper hadn’t been read, had it? Still rolled up? Just in your friend’s customary chair.
Most interesting.

Mr. Faulkner once commented that an author’s writing is like building a bridge: They build it, and then stand back and are amazed at the traffic it will bear. That also fits with your sense that Hemingway was writing down all his symbols but didn’t know it, and then he got angry because people were trying to figure him out on the basis of his stories. I think he started out writing quite well, very clear and strong and effective, and then began to parody himself. He’s hilariously piloried– in a kind way– in the movie Woody Allen just did, “Midnights in Paris,” in which a young man goes through a time warp and meets all his heroes from the Lost Generation. It’s “grace under pressure” until you want to gag, from Hemingway.

Oh, it’s Flem Snopes, short for what I can’t remember. Truth to tell, I wasn’t interested in the Snopeses– too low class for me. Snotty I, I like the ones about the better class of folks, even including old Sutpen. “Sartoris” started me off, and I never got over it.

I think Faulkner attended UVa, which is why he was in Virginia, but I may be wrong. He didn’t finish, in any case, I don’t think. He went off to fight in the First World War. It’s been a long time since I was studyin’ him. My beautiful young English-teacher lover and I went to Oxford several years ago and saw his wonderful house, and I got a good spooky picture of his writing room– wouldn’t call it an office. Typewriter at the ready. He DID tend to lubricate the falling-out-of-him process with a good deal of booze, periodically, don’t you know. I know that Hemingway, from the other side, has had to deal with the fact that both Faulkner and Fitzgerald are now considered finer novelists than he. Poor chap.

The rummage sale isn’t so much about what REALLY happened as it is how the church behaves and how it chooses to govern. And, of course, what it teaches about God. As to your despair about human violence, I just read a very good book about that that you might like, if you don’t know it already: “God and Empire” by John Dominic Crossan. His basic lesson is that Jesus came to preach the Kingdom of God within us and love for all creatures (including this wonderful earth), and humans can’t get over needing what he calls “imperial violence” to meet their ends. Of course, we DO have to deal with occasional total bastards such as Nazis and jihadis who don’t care who they take with them when they blow themselves to kingdom come. But I’m completely on your side when it comes to the destructiveness of humans. And do you know what I learned many years ago from . . . hmm, who was it? . . . Erich Fromm, I think, in “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”? People become angry and destructive when they perceive of themselves as powerless. Like German children were. And, I guess, like the whole Arab world felt, under the domination of Euro-American oil lords.

I’m going to pour a bit of wine and take the last light on the porch. Talk to you later–

L.

 

Just as I thunked I had put together a new post based on our further recent rummaging, here you bring in a whole dump truck full of new morsels.

The newspaper was still rolled up, in the platic sleeve, with a half knot tied to close it. It was sitting there on the right arm of the easy chair, waiting for me to finally spot it. Newsaper, news. I emailed the lady shaman about that today, and outlined a bunch of dots I saw connecting, invited them back up for another palaver. But this time, I’m not going to open the bottle of wine, if they bring another one. She don’t handle it well.

Hemingway seriously liked the sauce, is famous in Key West for his imbibing when he lived here. I learned to spot the bad guy in Hemingway’s novels, because the bad guy didn’t drink. Wish I could, but, alas, it makes me feel seriously awful, and I was warned in a bunch of dreams to give it up. What a tragedy, when I wuz at Vanderbilt, me and some of my buddies kept Budweiser from going bankrupt. Or so we imagined.

Teaching about God ain’t all that difficult, Jesus lays it out straightforward in the Gospels. Problem there, what Jesus laid out was a bit too humongous for even his own disciples to swallow. He berated them plenty about acting like he had never told them how to behave, ie., be in the Kingdom of God. Way I see it, Jesus planted seeds, but it was the Holy Spirit what grew up the disciples after Jesus had boogied. Had he stuck around them, they never would have grow’d up, might have drove him insane, and certainly would have prevented him from getting on to the next adventure God had arranged for him, whatever that was, is.

Jesus gave the disciples the prescription, when he said a man can blaspheme the son, and still can be forgiven, but a man who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. I came to see that two ways. Jesus told them the Holy Spirit was more important that he was, and if they did to the Holy Spirit what they were doing to him, betraying him left and right by ignoring what he was teaching them, woe be unto them. It was to his disciples Jesus said that, about them. Most of what he taught them about the peril people faced, who had met and heard him, then ignored him, was directed at his disciples. I never heard that passage discussed in a Christian church – If a man blasphemes the son, he can be forgiven, but if a man blasphemes the Holy Spirit, he will not be forgiven. Versed as Jesus was in the Jewish scriptures, he knew the Spirit of God was Shekina, female gender. Yet the church insists the Holy Trinty is male through and through.

Perhaps all of that is something that could be straightened out in the church rummaging. And that George W. Bush was seriously crosswise with Jesus and the Holy Spirit when he took America into Iraq, then into Afghanistan. It ain’t the Nazis and jihadists overseas what worry me. It’s the Nazis and jihadists in America what worry me, and I saw them getting lots of support in American Christian churches when I worked that beat. Christians don’t see that Jesus said a much higher standard for them, than for people who did not claim him as Lord? Even President Obama fell for the war drum, as he holds forth once again he is a Christian and he waits on God to lead him. I do not, will never believe God told President Obama to continue George W. Bush’s wars. I do not, will never believe God told President Obama to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. I hardly shit for a month after he did that, because it was all inside of me, some sort of seriously weird shaman work I was given to do, for what good end? Darn, if can see it.

Way I look at it Linda, if the American churches who claim Jesus as Lord do not lead the charge back to living the way he taught his disciples to live in the Gospels, starting with giving up an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth, then those churches are what the angels who ride herd on me, one of whom is Jesus, another is Michael, call the Anti-Christ. Jesus told his disciples, many would call him Lord and he would say he never knew them. Never heard that passage mentioned in any church, either. Nor that Jesus told his disciples he had flocks about which they knew not. Who were those flocks? Where were they? Somewhere else on this world? Off this world? Where?

Screw the church and how it chooses to govern. Read the Gospels and Acts, and Peter and James, and even Paul, to see how followers of Jesus learned from him to live. You seem to live that way naturally, but you and I see plenty of Christians who do not. As for Mother Nature’s stake in all of this, I think I recall a passage in the Gospels, a parable about the good steward of a garden. Yeah, that was a spirit garden, Eden, some might say; but as above, so below, can not be tossed into the landfill with impunity.

Darn, if I didn’t open my big mouth again.

I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com, but today it seems I’m a hawk, or a cormorant, or a buzzard, or something …

Why I write …

Posted on by
Reply
An old and dear Birmingham amiga’s reply to yesterday’s some of my fellow travelers …post: 

Hmmm . . . Now I have a better idea of why, with all my literary skill and love of the language, I can’t write anything other than letters. I’m so at home in this world, bequeathed to me by my family and the church, and I love it so well, that writing is not a necessity.Plus, I don’t have much of a novelistic imagination.No need to remind me that I live in an American paradise and have never experienced horror. I know that very well.Thinking of you on this beautiful, spring-like evening.

Linda

 
I wrote back,
 
I remember when spring-like weather could arrive in Bham after a deep, hard freeze. It finally got to be t-shirt-sleeve weather here today, after three chilly nights. 

I have known you when you weren’t all that terribly in love with how it was going for you on this world, one night on Highland Golf Course comes to mind, an email some months back of you thinking you were moving back to where you started out in this life … But mostly, you seem infuriatingly content … Why write, if you are having fun living?I well remember a writer’s workshop in early September 1990, to which I was invited to present as an “expert” – someone from out of town who had been published. It was at Birmingham Southern. I was living in Colorado, a Birmingham woman, into the writings and work of G.I. Gurdjieff, who had written one book that got published, as I recall, was part of the steering committee for the workshop and was working with me as a editor on a book I was writing, my first spirit book (which came out just after the workshop). She got me invited. The only writer’s workshop at which I would be invited to present.

Anyway, the brilliant theme – “Writing as a mystical experience” – which had come to me out the blue and was the topic of my presentation, anchored in a radical take on The Old Man and the Sea being Hemingway’s unconscious suicide note, and why, made zip impression on anyone at the workshop. What got them engaged was when someone asked what I did about writer’s block? I said I didn’t get writer’s block, which created many looks of disbelief. So I said, if nothing is coming out of me, I should be doing something else. Maybe I am writing in my soul and something will come out of me later. Sneaky way of getting mystical into it, sneaked up on me, too.Most of them were applying the conventional writing wisdom, sitting at their writing station for a time certain each day, even if nothing came out of them. I said if I tried to write when nothing was there, it came out garbage. A few seemed to get it.

A few years later, this fell out of me in an especially rich several months of spontaneous poetic prose that mostly had me in tears:

Although he sometimes tries to write fiction, by the time the tale is done, every character is a character in himself, every plot a plot in himself; there are no surprises, only his to discover parts of himself he has lost, forgotten, thrown away, or never even knew were there. Perhaps in this way he and God are something alike, they both create to discover just who and what they really are.

Writing was what sustained me back then, and today. It’s a wretched life, to be honest, especially when you go at it the way I do. My internal load seems to have doubled since Christmas with the female shaman.

Something really interesting happened yesterday morning, after I had gotten this “comment” back to me in my writing journal the night before, in response to my moaning about the increased load:

YOU ARE GOING TO BE REALLY SURPRISED BY HOW THIS GOES. KEEP THE FAITH.

I don’t always know what to make of such feedback from wherever, but what happened the next morning was, when I walked outside at dawn to fetch The Citizen, which I have delivered daily, to see if there was anything in it I was to write about, it was not there. It usually comes about 5:30 a.m. So I went back inside and went online and went to The Citizen website and read yesterday’s issue online. My account showed I was paid up until April for my subscription. A car came down my country dirt road, so I went outside to see if it was The Citizen arriving late. No. It still wasn’t there. I wondered if something had happened to the newspaper deliverer? Back inside, still wondering what had happened, I looked over at the other easy chair in my living room and saw a copy of The Citizen in a cellophane wrapper sitting on the arm nearest to my chair. I took it out of the cellophane, it was yesterday’s issue. To my knowledge, I do not sleep walk, Linda. To my knowledge, I did not bring that newspaper into my trailer. It is hard to imagine another person brought it into my trailer in pitch dark without stumbling around and waking me up. How did the newspaper get into my trailer? Stephen King makes stuff like that up and makes a fortune at it.

And to think I once was your sometimes boyfriend and a lawyer just trying to get by. The just trying to get by didn’t change, but plenty else did.

Sloan

 
I was told at the end of my last dream a bit after 4 a.m. today, I might get better if I am more hopeful. So I’m trying to be more hopeful today, even though, as I told someone down here in the Keys yesterday, I feel like I’m running on one-half of one of eight cylinders.
 
I usually can be reached at sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com, but today I seem to be … hmmm, not sure where I seem to be today … maybe it will come to me later …

Oh, yes, I’m trying to be more hopeful … Meanwhile, one of the things I do usually enjoy is writing about something that feels important to me … Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, it doesn’t matter, as long as my heart and soul are into it … Some of my most enjoyable moments came when my Muse was gushing something trough me, onto paper, a typed page, my computer monitor … A lot like singing, that kind of writing is for me … and dancing … and making love …

 
Around the same time “Although he sometimes tries to write fiction” flowed out of me, this also came -
 
He feels deep beauty in the dark pool from which his writings flow, she clings to him like fine silk, precious oil, she feels solid, compressed … like a black pearl growing from inside out, ever larger with each stroke of his pen, pushing her precious waters over her banks into his dreams and life …

It was not until the fall of 2001, at a poetry workshop on Key Largo a poet amigo and I drove up from Key West to attend, that a woman there, I did not know her, said after I recited that verse, it was a beautiful description of making love, that I realized what had really flowed out of me over seven years before, making love with my own Muse …

 
All the many different kinds of writings she has moved through me since I turned 40 over 29 years ago, I wonder what else she might have in store?
 
My mother sometimes asked me if I ate to live, or if I lived to eat? I was a bit chubby and eating was really important to me back then. If she were here today and asked me if I write to live, or live to write, I would say it’s both. I probably would give the same answer to the other question, too, having grown a bit chubby again, after quite a few years of being skinny and not gaining weight no matter what I ate …