If Major Bashinsky’s alleged murderer really wanted to make a point, and other details Legal Schnauzer may not yet have considered, or published

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Bash

Major Bashinsky, deceased

This below is in legalschnauzer.blogspot.com today, August 31, 2012 - responding to yestrday’s Legal Schnauzer in Birmingham fabricates something else about my brother Major Bashinsky’s death: Schnauzer claims I hinted that I know who drove Major to kill himself post. My responses in CAPS, inside the body of the legalschnauzer article.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Is Sloan Bashinsky Jr. Intentionally Trying to Muddy the Water on Reporting About His Brother’s Death?

Sloan Bashinsky Jr.
(Updated at 9:35 a.m., CDT, on 7/30/12)

When someone consistently misstates facts, I figure one of two things is happening: (1) He is careless about gathering and stating facts; (2) He is intentionally trying to muddy the water on some issue.

I’ve read scores of lawyer-prepared documents over the past 12 years, so I am intimately acquainted with tactic No. 2. A lawyer spends three years of his life and tens of thousands of his dollars to receive formal education in tactic No. 2. In fact, I’ve come to realize that the presence of a law degree means that a person has an unusually high level of training in the art of deception–and it doesn’t mean much else. It certainly does not mean the person has an enhanced interest in justice (snort).

Sloan Y. Bashinsky Jr. has made it a habit to misstate facts about my reporting on the death of his younger brother, Alabama attorney Major Bashinsky. Writing on a variety of blogs from his base in Key West, Florida, the elder Bashinsky has repeatedly stated that he supports the official finding of suicide in his brother’s death. He even has provided a motive that apparently has escaped officials–that Major feared he was about to be outed as bisexual and was so traumatized that he took his own life.

This runs counter to my reporting, which has shown numerous reasons to doubt the suicide finding–and there is nothing wrong, of course, with Sloan Bashinsky taking issue with me. But in the process, he has consistently made misstatements about my reporting. I’ve written it off as falling under item No. 1; after all, Sloan is a guy who says he takes guidance from angels, his “board of directors,” who speak to him in dreams.

I figured that Sloan was too busy communicating with celestial beings to get a full grasp on earthly matters, such as my blog posts. But I’m starting to wonder if something else is going on. After all, Sloan Bashinsky has a legal education, practiced law for 12 years in Birmingham, and has written several books on legal issues. If he wanted to muddy the water on a certain topic, he probably would be pretty good at it.

Why would Sloan want to obscure matters related to his brother’s death? I don’t know, but he resorted to deceptive tactics again in a post dated July 29, 2012, at his blog Good Morning Birmingham. These most recent false statements about my reporting are not new; he’s made them a number of times. I haven’t responded until now because, as noted above, I figured Sloan was distracted by conversations with angels–and that might account for his confusion. But on the chance that there is a purpose behind these “mistakes,” I thought now might be a good time to clear the air.

First, Sloan’s most recent piece is a response to my post of last Thursday titled “Brother Suggests He Knows Who Caused the Death of Alabama Lawyer Major Bashinsky.” My post focused on a recent report from Sloan in which he went into details about his theory regarding the trauma that prompted Major’s suicide. In fact, Sloan gave enough specifics that, in my mind, it strongly suggested he knew who had tormented his brother–and why. Most revealing were these words:

The person who was about to out Major had it in for him. Something very nasty had happened between them. It was very personal. And it was very real.

Those four sentences hint that Sloan knows of a specific person who had a specific beef with Major. I don’t see any other way to read them. He even says it all was “very real.” How can that be, unless Sloan knows of a “very real” person acting in “very real” ways?

But Sloan says in his post from yesterday that I had it all wrong. In fact, he calls my piece on the subject “bizarre” and sent a comment to my post, wondering how I got such an idea. (A man who claims to talk with angels calls my work “bizarre”? I wonder if Sloan Bashinsky is capable of grasping the irony in that.)

I responded to Sloan’s comment by pointing out that my idea came from a serious reading of his own words. I added that perhaps I should not take a serious approach to reading his work in the future. (You can check out Sloan’s comment and my response

at this link.)

That’s what made me decide it was time to address Sloan’s misstatements about my reporting on his brother’s death. (Speaking of bizarre, isn’t it strange that I, who never met Major Bashinsky, have questioned the official findings and pushed for a legitimate investigation, while his brother has taken the stance of, “Move along, there’s nothing to see here”?)

Let’s consider three matters that Sloan consistently has gotten wrong about my work:

* Stippling Vs. A Contact Wound–This has become “old reliable” for Sloan; he uses it in just about every post on Major’s death. In so doing, he always misstates what I have written on the subject.

Sloan has written that I claimed in one of my posts that Major did not die of a contact wound. In fact, Sloan went down this path again yesterday:

I sent a comment down to Legal Schnauzer. Don’t know it (sic) Shuler will publish it. He declined to publish my reply to one of his previous articles, in which he invented that the gunshot wound to Major’s left temple was not a contact wound: muzzle presed (sic) against skin when the gun (pistol) was fired. Shuler wrote that the gun was fired from a foot or so way, contrary to the coroner’s finding that it was a contact wound.

That, unfortunately, is not what I wrote on the post in question, which ran on July 20, 2011, and was titled “

Suicide Finding in the Major Bashinsky Case Springs Major Leaks.”

What did I actually say about the possibility of a contact wound? I said the report from the medical examiner (ME) contradicts itself on the subject, making it impossible to know what really happened–and indicating that investigators were sloppy in their work.

I explained that stippling, a pattern of abrasions around an entrance wound, is a key factor in determining range of fire. I cited a scientific article titled “Practical Pathology of Gunshot Wounds” and quoted its finding that “the presence of stippling indicates that the muzzle of the gun was within 2 feet of the victim’s body when it was discharged.”

I proceeded to quote from the ME’s report on the wound in the Major Bashinsky case: “The gunshot wound does not have stippling.”

Those are the ME’s words, not mine. The words in the article are a pathologist’s, not mine. Taken together, they mean the shot that killed Major Bashinsky was fired from more than two feet. How does someone shoot himself in such a fashion?

IF THE MUZZLE OF THE PISTOL WAS PRESSED AGAINST MAJOR’S LEFT TEMPLE WHEN THE PISTOL WAS FIRED, THERE WOULD BE NO STIPLING; IT WOULD BE A CONTACT WOUND. IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I READ THE CORONER’S REPORT. MY RECOLLECTION IS, THE REPORT SAID MAJOR’S WRISTS WERE SOMEWHAT LOOSELY TIED BY A ROPE, AT THE FRONT OF HIS BODY, WHICH ROPE WAS TIED TO A ROPE TIED AROUND HIS WAIST. I DID NOT SEE THE BODY OR THE ROPES, BUT THE CORONER SAW THAT IN ORDER TO DESCRIBE IT. APPARENTLY THE CORONER THOUGHT THERE WAS ENOUGH RANGE OF MOTION IN THE ARMS AND WRISTS, FOR MAJOR TO PRESS THE PISTOL AGAINST THE SIDE OF HIS LEFT TEMPLE AND SHOOT HIMSELF AND LEAVE NO STIPPLING. YES, IF SOMEONE SHOT MAJOR FROM SOME DISTANCE AWAY, PROBABLY MORE THAN TWO FEET, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO STIPPLING, EITHER. STIPPLING IS THE RESULT OF A GUNSHOT AT PRETTY CLOSE RANGE.

Sloan Bashinsky repeatedly has attributed this finding to me, when it is based on the clear words of scientists. Sloan also conveniently ignores what I went on to write in my post of July 20, 2011:

In the case summary of the Bashinsky autopsy, the report states “the decedent had a perforating contact gunshot wound of the head with resultant skull fractures and perforation of the brain as described.”

Contrary to Sloan’s statements, I quote the ME saying it was a “contact gunshot wound.” In fact, Sloan probably knows about this reference to a contact wound only because I reported it. The problem, of course, is that this statement conflicts with the finding about the absence of stippling, which would mean it was not a contact wound.

WHEN YOU WROTE THE GUN WAS FIRED FROM MORE THAN TWO FEET AWAY, YOU DENIED IT WAS A CONTACT WOUND, WHICH OCCURS WHEN THE MUZZLE IS PRESSED AGAINST THE SKIN WHEN THE GUN IS FIRED. THE CORONER WROTE IT WAS A CONTACT WOUND AND THERE WAS NO STIPPLING, WHICH THERE WOULD NOT BE IF IT WAS A CONTACT WOUND.

Once and for all, let me be clear: I have never said that I know what kind of wound it was; obviously, I’m not trained in such matters. I’ve reported that the ME’s report says in one place that it was a contact wound–while saying in another place that it was not. That is a fact. Did the author of the ME report know what he was doing? It doesn’t look like it.

NO STIPPLING IS IN KEEPING WITH A CONTACT WOUND. THE M.E. WAS TRAINED IN SUCH MATERS, YOU WERE NOT.

* The Death of Suzanne (Pilkerton) Bashinsky-Ash–Ms. Bashinsky-Ash was the stepsister of Major and Sloan Jr., and I reported on her death

in a post dated September 20, 2010. Sloan has written several times that I had suggested foul play was involved in her death. As recently as yesterday, he wrote that I tried to make “something sinister” out of her death. Here is what I actually wrote on the subject:

Suzanne (Pilkerton) Bashinsky-Ash, age 57, died in mid June in Birmingham. She was Major Bashinsky’s stepsister and the biological daughter of Joann Bashinsky, who was Sloan Bashinsky Sr.’s second wife and now is director of Golden Enterprises. . . . The only reporting on Suzanne Bashinsky-Ash’s death has been a standard obituary, and we’ve seen nothing to indicate it was anything other than a natural death. But she was adopted by Sloan Bashinsky Sr., meaning two of his four children died between March and July of this year . . .

I stated that I saw nothing to indicate Ms. Bashinsky-Ash’s passing “was anything other than a natural death.” I stated that two of Sloan Bashinsky Sr.’s four children had died within roughly four months of each other–one at age 63 and one at 57. That is a fact. How is that “something sinister”? Beats me.

YOU KNOW, ROGER, THAT YOU MADE INNUENDO AROUND SUZANNE BASHINSKY-ASH’S DEATH, AND YOU LATER MADE INNUENDO AROUND MY FIRST-COUSIN BUBBA MAJOR’S SUICIDE, OF WHICH I DON’T SEE ANY MENTION IN THIS YOUR LATEST ARTICLE ON MAJOR’S DEATH. AFTER YOU WROTE ABOUT SUZANNE, I EMAILED YOU THAT I HAD LEARNED FROM MAJOR’S FIRST WIFE, AFTER MAJOR WENT MISSING, THAT SUZANNE WAS IN THE LAST STAGES OF TERMINAL CANCER. I TOLD YOU THEN, OR PERHAPS IN A LATER EMAIL, THAT MAJOR’S FIRST WIFE HAD CANCER, ALSO. I TOLD YOU THAT BECAUSE I HOPED YOU WOULD NOT ALSO DRAG HER INTO YOUR ARTICLES ABOUT THE BASHINSKY FAMILY, AFTER SHE PASSED AWAY. SHE DIED LAST YEAR AND, SO FAR, YOU HAVE NOT WRITTEN ABOUT HER.

* The layout of the Highland Park Golf Course, where Major Bashinsky’s body was found–Sloan has on a number of occasions cited the layout of the Highland Park Golf Course, and the adjoining neighborhood, to support his theory that it is an unlikely place for a murderer to dump a body. In fact, this might be the No. 1 reason Sloan has cited for his belief that Major walked into the pond and shot himself in the head, while tying himself up with rope and duct tape to make it look like murder.

Sloan undercuts himself, however, because his “facts” about the golf course layout are way off base. He admitted as much when I confronted him on this issue in an e-mail exchange back in March.

Sloan wrote to me after I had published a post about nationally known private investigator Paul Ciolino

and his interest in Major Bashinsky’s death. Ciolino had just appeared on a CBS News report about the death of boxer Arturo Gatti. Sloan wanted to get in contact with Ciolino, and in the course of the e-mail, wrote the following:

I remain convinced the crime scene was too improbable for murder site, or to dump a body in the middle of the hazard, after being hauled there from somewhere else and dragged from a vehicle over the low wall adjacent to the sidewalk, next to a busy road, across from a subdivision on a bluff. Then dragged up the incline, over a low chain link fence, across the cart path, into the hazard, and then pushed into the middle of it. I imagine the perp would have wanted to get caught, to choose that site for murder or body disposal.

I’ve been to Highland Park Golf Course many times, and I know how it, and the adjoining tennis center and neighborhood, are laid out. I could not let Sloan’s misstatement pass and sent this response:

For what it’s worth, your memories about the layout of the Highland Park Golf Course are off target. Anyone can pull a vehicle into the parking lot and then walk directly onto the hole that features the water hazard. I’ve done it myself. There is no wall or fence to cross, and it’s maybe 250-300 yards from the lot to the water, downhill all the way.

It would be extremely easy to put a body (or any number of other objects) into a cart and roll it on the paved path down to the water. The parking lot is open 24/7, so it would be no problem to accomplish this task after dark.

This doesn’t prove what happened, of course, one way or another. But I’ve read your comments before about this being an unlikely place to drop off a body because of the layout. In fact, it’s a very convenient place to do such a thing. Couldn’t be easier.

Here is Sloan’s reply:

What I described, Roger, was the short way to get to the pond, perhaps 20 yards from just below the pond on Highland Avenue. What you describe is the long way, from the parking lot area up the hill, above the first T. Either way you slice it, lousy choice of site to kill someone, or dump a body. The back side of Lake Purdy, off Grant’s Mill Road, much better site, for example. Many much better sites, thousands probably, than the golf course pond.

I wasn’t going to let that slide either. My response:

What I describe is the easy way, and it would be easy, any way you slice it. It’s a perfect place to kill someone, or dump a body, if you want the body to be found–to send a message.

Sloan said it would be “the easiest way to get caught.” So I replied:

Easiest way to get caught? Are you serious? Your vehicle is in a parking lot, off the street and out of the way. If you do it in the middle of the night, the chances of getting caught are almost nil. You admit, in your previous e-mail, that your scenario involves a vehicle parked “on a busy street.” Yours is the scenario that would be hard to pull off and easy to get caught. Anyone familiar with that golf course would know not to do it that way.

　

SO … WHOEVER KILLED MAJOR DID SO AT A DIFFERENT LOCATION, PUT HIS BODY IN A TRUCK, ALONG WITH A CART, AND DROVE THAT TRUCK TO THE PARKING LOT UP BY THE RACKET CLUB, AND TOOK THE BODY OUT OF THE TRUCK AND PUT IT INTO THE CART, AND HAULED THE CART AND BODY DOWN TO THE POND, AND TOOK THE BODY OUT OF THE CART AND WADED THE BODY OUT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE POND, AND GOT ALL WET AND DID NO TELLING WHAT DAMAGE TO THEIR SHOES IN THE MUCK ON THE BOTTOM OF THE POND, AND CREATED THE THEATER SCENE IN THE POND, OR WAS THAT DONE BACK WHERE HE WAS SHOT, BEORE HE WAS PUT INTO THE TRUCK? … THEN, THE PERP, OR PERPS, WADED BACK TO THE BANK AND PUSHED THE EMPTY CART BACK UP THE HILL TO THE TRUCK AND DROVE AWAY … ALL DONE IN NIGHTTIME VIEW OF THE HOMES SITTING ON THE BLUFF JUST ACROSS HIGHLAND AVENUE …

IS THAT HOW YOU WOULD HAVE DONE IT, ROGER, IF YOU HAD WANTED TO BE SURE YOU GOT A WAY WITH IT? IS THAT HOW YOU WOULD HAVE DONE IT, TO MAKE A SURE EVERYONE KNEW MAJOR WAS MURDERED? IS THAT HOW YOU WOULD HAVE DONE IT, TO MAKE A POINT? TO TERRIFY PEOPLE RELATED TO MAJOR BY BLOOD OR MARRIAGE? TO PUSH THEM TO COMPLY WITH THE DEMAND IN THE TYPED THREAT LETTER IN THE BOTTLE ATTACHED BY ROPE TO MAJOR’S BODY – THAT THE COMPANY STOP PAYING OUT GOLDEN ENTERPRISE DIVIDENDS TO THE GREEDY BASHINSKYS AND GREEDY MANAGEMENT, AND KEEP THE DIVIDENDS IN THE COMPANY FOR THE HEALTH OF THE COMPANY AND ITS EMPLOYEES?

IF YOU WANTED TO ACHIEVE ALL OF THAT, ROGER, WHY DID YOU DO THE DEED IN SUCH A WAY THAT IT CONFUSED THE CORONER AND THE BPD DETECTIVE, AND THE MOUNTAIN BROOK PD AND THE FBI, AND MAJOR’S CRAZY BROTHER? WHY DIDN’ T YOU DO IT IN A WAY THAT LEFT NO DOUBT WHATSOVER THAT IS WAS MURDER? WHY DIDN’T YOU TIE MAJOR’S WRISTS TIGHTLY BEHIND HIS BACK, AND TIE THAT ROPE TO HIS FEET, AND SHOOT HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD, AND DUMP HIS BODY OUT OF THE BACK OF YOUR TRUCK ONTO FRONT YARD OF HIS HOME IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING, ON IN THE BIRMINGHAM COUNTRY CLUB PARKING LOT, OR IN HIS SISTER’S FRONT YARD, ON IN THE DRIVEWAY OF HIS DECEASED FATHER’S HOME WHERE HIS FATHER’S WIDOW LIVED, WITH THE THREAT LETTER STUFFED IN HIS MOUTH AND ALSO STUFFED IN A BOTTLE TIED TO HIS BODY, TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE SAW THE THREAT LETTER AND GOT THE POINT?

AND, AFTER NOBODY DID WHAT THE TREAT LETTER DEMANDED BE DONE, WHY DIDN’T YOU KILL ANOTHER BASHINSKY, OR MY FATHER’S WIDOW, TO MAKE THE POINT AGAIN? AND WHY DIDN’T YOU KILL MY SISTER? AND WHY DIDN’T YOU KILL HER CHILDREN, AND WHY DIDN’T YOU KILL MAJOR’S CHILDREN? AND WHY DIDN’T YOU KILL MY CHILDREN? IF YOU REALLY MEANT BUSINESS, WHY DID YOU STOP WITH JUST ONE KILLING, UNLESS YOU WERE THE PERP – MAJOR?

ROGER, DID YOU EVER PUBLISH THAT A DRAFT OF THE THREAT LETTER WAS FOUND ON A FLASH DRIVE IN MAJOR’S CAR, AFTER IT WAS FOUND BY HIS OLDEST DAUGHTER ON THAT ROAD THAT RUNS PAST THE OLD PLAZA BELOW HIGHLAND AVENUE, HEADED DOWN TO FIVE POINTS SOUTH? DID YOU EVER PUBLISH THAT I PUBLISHED THAT A DRAFT OF THE LETTER WAS FOUND ON A FLASH DRIVE IN MAJOR’S CAR?

DID YOU EVER PUBLISH THAT AN APPARENTLY IDENTICAL PISTOL TO THE ONE FOUND IN THE WATER HAZARED WAS ON DISPLAY IN MY FATHER’S HOME? DID YOU EVER PUBLISH THAT I PUBLISHED THAT, AND THAT IT WOULD BE JUST LIKE MAJOR TO SEE THAT PISTOL IN HIS FATHER’S HOME, AND THEN GET HIMSELF ONE JUST LIKE IT? DO YOU KNOW HOW I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE SECOND APPARENTLY IDENTICAL PISTOL, ROGER? I PUBLISHED THAT I FOUND OUT ABOUT IT BY READING THE FBI FILE ON MAJOR’S DEATH, WHICH I OBTAINED BY FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST.

DID YOU EVER PUBLISH, ROGER, THAT THE DAY MAJOR WENT MISSING WAS TOPSY TURVY – HE WAS THOWN OFF HIS SCHEDULE BY RECEIVING LATE MORNING NEWS OF HIS OLDEST SON SENDING OUT TEXTS SUGGESTING HE WAS SUICIDAL? WHATEVER MAJOR HAD PLANNED FOR THAT DAY WAS INTERRUPTED. A HIT PLANNED FOR THAT DAY WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFICULT TO PULL OFF, WITH MAJOR OUT OF HIS USUAL ROUTINE. DID YOU EVER PUBLISH THAT I HAD PUBLISHED THAT? DID YOU EVER PUBISH THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT KNEW MAJOR’S SCHEDULE HAD BEEN THROWN OFF THAT DAY? THEY KNEW BECAUSE THEY WERE TOLD OF IT BY MAJOR’S FIRST WIFE, THE MOTHER OF THE SON WHO HAD SENT OUT THE TEXTS, AND WHO HAD THEIR DAUGHTER CALL MAJOR AND TELL HIM ABOUT IT, WHILE SHE WAS TRING TO RUN DOWN A MENTAL HEALTH COUNSEL SHE KNEW, TO GET ADVICE ON HOW SHE SHOULD TRY TO HELP HER SON. DID YOU EVER PUBLISH THAT, OR THAT I HAD PUBLISHED IT?

DID YOU PUBLISH, ROGER, THAT MAJOR AND HIS SON MET AT STARBUCKS IN FIVE POINTS SOUTH AROUND 4ISH THAT AFTERNOON? THAT’S WHAT THE CO-AUTHOR OF YOUR ARTICLE, LORI MOORE, TOLD ME IN AN EMAIL SHE HAD BEEN TOLD BY STARBUCKS EMPLOYEES WHO KNEW MAJOR, WHO WAS A REGULAR CUSTOMER. THAT STARBUCKS IS ABOUT A BLOCK THROUGH THE BACK WAY FROM THE HARDWARE STORE WHERE LAW ENFORCEMENT DETERMINED MAJOR WAS SEEN BUYING ROPE AND DUCT TAPE ON THE AFTERNOON HE WENT MISSING. I SAW THE NEGATIVE-LIKE PHOTO OF A MAN IN THE HARDWARE STORE, WHOSE PROFILE WAS IDENTICAL TO MAJOR’S. A PROFILE NEARLY IDENTIAL TO HIS FATHER’S AND MY PROFILE. DID YOU PUBLISH THAT I HAD PUBLISHED ALL OF THAT?

Did Sloan and Paul Ciolino ever wind up getting in touch with each other? I don’t know. I sent an e-mail to Ciolino on April 2, asking if he and Sloan had been in touch. Ciolino had always responded to my e-mails, but he did not respond to that one, and I’ve heard nothing more about his interest in the Major Bashinsky case.

I CALLED CIOLINO’S NUMBER AND GOT A VOICEMAIL. IT SAID I HAD REACHED PAUL CIOLINO & ASSOCIATES AND TO LEAVE A MESSAGE. I IDENTIFIED MYSELF AND ASKED HIM TO CALL ME BACK. I WONDERED IF THERE WERE ANY ASSOCIATES? I THINK I RECALL HE CALLED ME AND LEFT A VOICEMAIL THAT HE HAD TRIED TO RETURN MY CALL. I MAY HAVE TRIED TO CALL HIM BACK, I DO NOT RECALL THAT WE SPOKE. DO NOT RECALL RECEIVING AN EMAIL FROM HIM. I’M PRETTY SURE I EMAILED HIM A POST I WROTE, WHICH MENTIONED HIM AND LEGAL SCHNAUZER.

As for Sloan Bashinsky, his motives remain unknown to me. I have no prior experience in communicating with someone who talks to angels, so figuring out Sloan might be beyond my grasp.

FIGURING OUT ME IS BEYOND NEARLY EVERYONE’S GRASP, INCLUDING PEOPLE WHO CALL ME THEIR FRIEND. INCLUDING WOMEN WHO MARRIED ME. INCLUDING MY BLOOD RELATIVES. NOT EVEN CONVINCED I HAVE ME FIGURED OUT. BUT WHAT I KNOW, BECAUSE IT HAS HAPPENED MANY TIMES, IS THAT I GET INFOMATION FROM OUT OF THE BLUE, WHICH ENDS UP HAVING FACTUAL BASIS. I SENT IN A COMMENT YESTERDAY TO LEGAL SCHNAUZER ON THAT POINT, AND SAID IT HAD STARTED IN AUGUST 1988, AS IF A LIGHT SWITCH HAD BEEN THROWN. AND THAT INFORMATION I GET OUT OF THE BLUE OFTEN HAD LED TO MY EXPERIENCING A GREAT DEAL OF GRIEF WHEN I SHARED THE INFORMATION WITH PEOPLE ABOUT WHOM THE INFORMATION WAS.

IN MAJOR’S CASE, A BIRMINGHAM NEWS AWARD-WINNING BUSINESS JOURNALIST (DON’T REMEMBER HIS NAME) APPROACHED A MUTUAL FRIEND AND ASKED IF HE THOUGHT I WOULD LET HIM (THE JOURNALIST) INTERVIEW ME ABOUT THE FAMILY COMPANY AND MAJOR. THIS WAS MAYBE THREE DAYS AFTER MAJOR WENT MISSING, MAYBE A WEEK BEFORE HIS BODY WAS FOUND. I SAID SURE, HAVE THE JOURNALIST CONTACT ME.

THE JOURNALIST CALLED AND WE TALKED A WHILE ABOUT THE COMPANY AND ITS DIVIDENDS. WHEN HE THEN ASKED IF I HAD ANY THOUGHTS ON MAJOR, I SAID MAYBE HE SKIPPED THE COUNTRY. HE WAS A TAX LAWYER AND KNEW COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET AND TELEPHONE COMMUINCATIONS COLD – HE WAS AN EXPERT IN THOSE FIELDS. HE COULD HAVE SET UP AN OFFSHORE BANK ACCOUNT AND DISAPPEARED, IF HE WANTED TO DO THAT.

I PAUSED, TOLD THE JOURNALIST, JUST BEFORE HE CALLED, IT CAME TO ME OUT OF THE BLUE THAT MAYBE MAJOR HAD KILLED HIMSELF AND HAD TRIED TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MURDER. THE JOURNALIST SAID COLD CHILLS WERE RUNNING DOWN HIS SPINE, BECAUSE JUST BEFORE HE CALLED ME, HE HAD AN OUT OF THE BLUE SENSE THAT MAJOR HAD KILLED HIMSELF AND HAD TRIED TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE SOMEONE ELSE DID IT. THAT’S HOW THE ANGELS TOLD ME MAJOR HAD KILLED HIMSELF AND HAD TRIED TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MURDER.

I PUBLISHED THAT CONVERSATION WITH THE JOURNALIST. DID YOU PUBLISH WHAT I PUBLISHED ABOUT THAT CONVERSATION WITH THE JOURNALIST? DID YOU PUBLISH THAT I PUBLISHED IT WAS SUICIDE, BEFORE THE CORONER AND DETECTIVE DETERMINED IT WAS SUICIDE?

I do get the impression that he would like to tie a nice bow on his brother’s death and store it in a closet where no one will raise questions about it again. I also get the impression that he very much wants to discredit me, no matter how many misguided statements he has to make in the process.

That leaves me with this question: Why?

You’d think that Sloan Bashinsky Jr. would welcome inquiry into his brother’s mysterious death. After all, let’s consider Sloan’s own words from recent posts:

* “I had no proof Major was bisexual. He knew I had no proof . . . ”

* “I don’t know where Shuler got it that I hinted in the last post I wrote about Major, or in any prior posts to my websites, that I knew who was going to out Major. I don’t know who it was.”

So there you have it: Sloan Bashinsky Jr. has no proof that his brother was bisexual and he doesn’t know of any person who had reason to out Major for having a secret gay life.

IN A FAIRLY RECENT POST, I BRIEFLY DESCRIBED A PERSON (FEMALE/HETEROSEXUAL), WHOM I DID NOT KNOW, RECENTLY APPROACHING ME BY EMAIL, WHO DESCRIBED HAVING GOTTEN INVOLVED IN ATTENDING GATHERINGS OF A SECRET SOCIETY OF GAY/BISEXUAL BIRMINGHAM MEN, ONE OF WHOM WAS MAJOR, WHO WENT BY A PSEUDONYM. THE GAY MAN WHO BROUGHT HER TO THE GATHERINGS TOLD HER THE MAN WAS THE SON OF THE GOLDEN FLAKE OWNER, AND TOLD HER HIS NAME WAS MAJOR. I DESTROYED ALL OF HER AND MY EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE, BECAUSE I PROMISED I WOULD NOT PUBLISH ANY OF IT WITHOUT HER PERMISSION, AND SHE WOULD NOT GIVE ME HER PERMISSION. ROGER, DID YOU PUBISH THAT I PUBLISHED WHAT YOU JUST READ ABOVE?

It seems that Sloan’s theory about Major killing himself rests on . . . well, not much of anything. Unless, of course, angels told him that’s what happened. Now, that would be bizarre.

THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED: THE ANGELS TOLD ME MAJOR KILLED HIMSELF AND TRIED TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MURDER, AND THE REASON HE KILLED HIMSELF WAS BECAUSE SOMEONE WHO KNEW HE WAS BI-SEXUAL AND HAD IT IN FOR HIM WAS GOING TO OUT HIM, AND THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULD DO TO STOP IT. HE COULD NOT LIVE WITH THAT OUTCOME, AND HE TRIED TO LEAVE THE IMPRESSION HE WAS MURDERED, WHICH WOULD LOOK A LOT BETTER FOR HIM THAN SUICIDE WOULD LOOK.

AFTER MAJOR’S BODY WAS FOUND, HIS FIRST WIFE AND I TALKED ABOUT THE PRIME IMPORTANCE OF HIS IMAGE TO HIM. SHE FELT HE HAD KILLED HIMSELF AND HAD TRIED TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MURDER. A LAWYER BUDDY OF MINE IN TUSCALOOSA, A FORMER PUBLIC DEFENDER, WHO HAD HANDLED ALL OF THAT OFFICE’S CAPITAL DEFENSE CASES, FELT IT WAS SUICIDE MADE TO LOOK LIKE MURDER. I PUBLISHED ALL OF THAT. DID YOU PUBLISH THAT I HAD PUBLISHED THAT?

I ALSO PUBLISHED THAT ALL ALONG I FELT MAJOR MIGHT HAVE HAD AN ACCOMPLICE WHO HELPED HIM DO IT. IF THAT HAPPENED, IT WAS SUICIDE AND MURDER, BUT IT WAS NOT A HIT. A HIT WOULD HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT VERY DIFFERENTLY, IF A POINT WAS INTENDED. A HIT TO MAKE A POINT WOULD HAVE LEFT NO DOUBT IN ANYONE’S MIND THAT THAT MORE HITS WERE COMING, IF THE POINT WAS NOT TAKEN TO HEART.

SLOAN Y. BASHINSKY, JR.

MAJOR’S OLDER BROTHER BY 4 YEARS

P.S. I RESPOND TO INQUIRIES ON JUST ABOUT ANYTHING. IF I WRITE SOMETHING YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, OR DOESN’T SEEM TO MAKE SENSE, WRITE TO ME ABOUT IT AND I WILL DO MY BEST TO EXPLAIN IT. YOU MAY OR NOT AGREE WITH OR LIKE MY EXPLANATION, BUT YOU WILL GET MY BEST SHOT BASED ON WHAT I KNOW OR REMEMBER IN THE MOMENT. IF SOMETHING COMES TO ME LATER, I WILL LET YOU KNOW THAT, TOO.

I CAN BE REACHED AT:

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

Legal Schnauzer in Birmingham fabricates something else about my brother Major Bashinsky’s death: Schnauzer claims I hinted that I know who drove Major to kill himself

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Bash

Found this bizarre article on the Legal Schnauzer blog in Birmingham earlier today, after waking from a nap dream in which my old senior law partner told me I had some legal business to attend to today. Our law firm was just a couple of blocks, on the same side street below Highland Avenue, from where my brother Major’s car was found, before his body was found maybe a week later in a water hazard on Highland Golf Course, maybe 40-50 yards from Highland Avenue.

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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Brother Suggests He Knows Who Caused the Death of Alabama Lawyer Major Bashinsky

Sloan Bashinsky Jr.

Major Bashinsky’s older brother strongly hints in a recent blog post that he knows who caused the Alabama lawyer’s death in March 2010.

Sloan Y. Bashinsky Jr. has written several blogs from his base in Key West, Florida, and has consistently stated that he supports the official finding of suicide in his brother’s death. Here at Legal Schnauzer, meanwhile, we have written a series of posts showing numerous reasons to doubt the medical examiner’s findings.

Major Bashinsky, according to his brother, was bisexual and killed himself–trying to make it look like murder–because he was convinced someone was about to out him as having a secret gay life. Sloan Bashinsky has used his blogs to share different versions of this theory almost from the moment Major’s body was discovered in a water hazard at Birmingham’s Highland Park Golf Course on March 15, 2010.

But Sloan Bashinsky recently took it a step further on his blog Good Morning Birmingham. In a post with a lengthy, grammatically challenged title–”

theravenspeaks wanders into the deep end, accusing me of causing my younger brother Major to kill himself“–Bashinsky hints that he knows the identity of the person who drove Major to suicide.

That points to a possible crime and again raises a question that we addressed in a recent post: Has Sloan Bashinsky reported this information to authorities? And if not, why not?

For the purposes of this post, we will assume that Sloan Bashinsky is right, and I am wrong about the manner of death in the Major Bashinsky case; we will assume that Major Bashinsky killed himself. Under either scenario, however, it appears a crime was involved. The death clearly was not an accident, and my reporting raises questions about the suicide finding, so that brings murder into the equation. Sloan Bashinsky discounts murder, but he points to other possible crimes–especially extortion or, at the least, harassing communications.

What prompted Sloan’s recent revealing post? He received an e-mail from a reader who calls himself “theravenspeaks.” This gentleman, in eloquent but firm language, accused Sloan of threatening to out Major and causing his suicide.

Sloan, naturally, took exception to such accusations. But in the process of defending himself, he revealed an awful lot about someone else. That person’s identity remains unknown to the reader, but it sure appears to be known to Sloan. Consider this from the post:

When Major’s body was found, my father’s widow hired a body guard round the clock. My sister and Major’s wife and older children also probably wondered if they were next to be killed, if the anonymous letter writer’s demands were not met. It was a blessing the coroner and local police department ruled it suicide made to look like murder. They made that ruling about two weeks after I started posting it was suicide made to look like murder.

I caught hell for doing that. I caught hell for explaining even before the coroner and local pd came out with their suicide finding, that Major had done himself in because someone was going to out him for being bisexual, who could prove it, and there was nothing Major could do to stop it, and since his image was the most important thing to him, which everyone who knew him well, knew, he contrived his exit to look like murder.

This is a fascinating piece of writing. We learn how a wealthy family reacts–or at least how one wealthy family reacts–when a member dies under suspicious circumstances. We learn that the first instinct of certain family members was to think that Major had been murdered, and that they were in danger, too; they apparently saw no signs that he was a threat to kill himself. We learn that the family apparently had no confidence in the ability of law enforcement to protect them. Also, this scenario hints that the family felt under siege for some reason, that it was involved in controversy and had attracted the kind of enemies that might resort to lethal tactics.

The post then becomes even more fascinating:

I had no proof Major was bisexual. He knew I had no proof, and he knew I knew. He knew his first wife knew, and she had no proof. We were no threat to him. But the person who was going to out him was a very serious threat. Major was the toughest, meanest person I had known. No way he buckled to worrying what his brother and first wife knew, and to what others knew, for we were not the only straight people in Birmingham who knew.

The person who was about to out Major had it in for him. Something very nasty had happened between them. It was very personal. And it was very real.

Consider the first segment in bold above: Sloan tells us that Major had an enemy with a nasty disposition, someone who was a “very serious threat” to him.

Now, let’s consider the second segment in bold. Sloan knows why this person “had it in” for Major. Sloan knows of a specific event–something “very nasty” and “very personal” had happened between them. In his own words, Sloan Bashinsky seems to be saying that he knows who pushed his brother to commit suicide–and why.

Sloan has a law degree, so he has to know this involves possible criminal behavior–that it at least merits a thorough investigation. If there was communication between Major and his antagonist that involved the U.S. mails or wires, that probably would make it a federal matter.

Even if criminal issues were not involved, Sloan’s words suggest that someone has civil liability in the death of Major Bashinsky. Major had two children in their 20s or so from his first marriage, and he had two young children with Leslie Hewett Bashinsky, his second wife and widow.

Major’s children and his wife have been deprived of his presence and support, and they would stand to have powerful claims in a wrongful-death action.

Has Sloan Bashinsky spoken with law-enforcement authorities? At the very least, has he used his knowledge–both legal and factual–to help Major’s heirs seek justice against someone who intervened in their lives with tragic consequences?

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

I, Sloan Y. Bashinsky, Jr., have two law degrees, the regular one and a masters in taxation. I practiced law in Birmingham 1973-1985. Before that, I had clerked for the Hon. Clarence W. Allgood, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama. By agreement with the other two U.S. District Judges in the Northern District at that time, Judge Allgood presided over every federal criminal prosecution in the Northern District. I saw lots of federal criminal prosecutions. I knew every criminal trial lawyer in Birmingham and North Alabama. I knew the US Attorneys. I knew the Jefferson County District Attorney and his Assistant District Attorneys. I knew Sherriff Mel Bailey. I did not just go to law school, and I did not just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

Here, again, is the link to the post Roger Shuler, who publishes Legal Schnauzer, used to fabricate something else about this terrible tragedy:

theravenspeaks wanders into the deep end, accusing me of causing my younger brother Major to kill himself

I sent a comment down to Legal Schnauzer. Don’t know it Shuler will publish it. He declined to publish my reply to one of his previous articles, in which he invented that the gunshot wound to Major’s left temple was not a contact wound: muzzle presed against skin when the gun (pistol) was fired. Shuler wrote that the gun was fired from a foot or so way, contrary to the coroner’s finding that it was a contact wound. Shuler, and Dothan journalist Lori Moore, who co-authored that article with Shuler, invented it was not a contact wound. The article came out only a few days after Moore and I discussed in emails that it was a contact wound. Yeah, read that sentence again.

Here’s the comment I sent to Legal Schnauzer:

I don’t know where Shuler got it that I hinted in the last post I wrote about Major, or in any prior posts to my websites, that I knew who was going to out Major. I don’t know who it was. I’m convinced it was someone who knew Major well and was able to prove with hard evidence Major was bi-sexual, and there was nothing Major could do to prevent it from being made public. That has been my written and otherwise position all along. theravenspeaks lives down here in the Keys, has attacked me lots of times on a local blog, and on my websites, over matters having nothing to do with Major. I don’t know who theravenspeaks is, because he declines to identify himself, despite many challenges from me to put his name and face behind his words. Maybe three months ago, the ravenspeaks accused me of being the person who was going to out Major. I dealt with that in a post, and eventually theravenspeaks came at me again with an even more lame explanation of how I caused Major to kill himself, which led to the post Shuler used some of in this article in which he says I hinted that I know who threatened to out Major. I wish I did know. But I don’t. I was just a little while ago notified by a Birmingham acquaintance that my sister’s ex-husband, Eddie Krebs, passed away. I had heard years ago that Eddie was in a pretty bad way, Parkinson’s, as I recall. I hope Shuler doesn’t try to make something sinister out of Eddie’s passing, like he did out of my stepsister Suzanne Bashinsky’s passing from a horrible cancer a few months after Major’s death; and out of my cousin Bubba Major’s suicide maybe a year after Major killed himself. I was in constant email conversation Bubba, starting with Major going missing. Bubba was in a real bad way over his wife and him separating and his life not turning out the way he had hoped. I felt badly when I learned Bubba had killed himself, and had left a note in his own handwriting, I was told by someone in Birmingham I have known a really long time. I wondered if there was more that I could have done, which might have given Bubba hope, or swayed him to stick it out? I never doubted, though, that Bubba killed himself, and left a suicide note. And I don’t doubt that Major killed himself, and tried to make it look like someone else did it. Sloan Y. Bashinsky, Jr. Little Torch Key, keysmyhome@hotmail.com, goodmorningbirmingham.com, goodmorningfloridakeys.com

you’re a caution southern un-baptist redneck capitalist write-in candidates for President and Vice-President, and other godly endeavors not taught at Alabama and Auburn, and certainly not at Samford

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Bash

campaign advisers, Curtis and Leroy

This here wild hare today originated yesterday down here in The Asteroid Belt with Dist. 3 school board candidate Larry Murray’s response to yesterday’s tad wildish more never ending Florida Keys schools bedtime stories post:

Sloan:

As they used to say, “You’re a caution!”

Larry

Not recalling the phase, I used Google and found:

The phrase “you’re a caution” is a colloquialism (informal phrase), and may have different meanings in different parts of the country.

In my experience it usually means you are funny, clever or different in an interestingly way. It’s usually used in a positive, complimentary or fun way.

Googled again and found this:

Describes people who have no sense, do crazy things or get you into trouble by association.

Received a cautionary forward from a Montgomery, Alabama Roll, Tide, Roll!!! religious freak ex-pat living near Helen, Georgia, amongst a heap of Georgia How ‘Bout Dem Dawgs?!?! religious freaks:

ICE CREAM

THE COW AND THE ICE CREAM
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST THEORIES OF WHY OBAMA WON THE ELECTION

From a teacher in the Nashville area

We are worried about ‘the cow’ when it is all about the ‘Ice Cream.’ The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching 3rd grade. The last Presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class president. We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote. To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members. We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have. We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.

I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support.

I had never seen Olivia’s mother.

The day arrived when they were to make their speeches.
Jamie went first.

He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place.
He ended by promising to do his very best.

Everyone applauded and he sat down.

Now is was Olivia’s turn to speak.

Her speech was concise. She said, “If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream.” She sat down.

The class went wild. “Yes! Yes! We want ice cream.”

She surely would say more. She did not have to.

A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn’t sure. But no one pursued that question. They took her at her word.

Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it…She didn’t know.

The class really didn’t care. All they were thinking about was ice cream…

Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 51.4 % of the people reacted like nine year olds.

They want ice cream.

The other 48.6% percent know they’re going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess.”

This is the ice cream Obama promised us!

Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone that they have not first taken away from someone else.

Did you vote for the ice cream?

THAT, MY FRIEND, IS HOW OBAMA GOT ELECTED, BY THOSE WHO WANT EVERYTHING FOR FREE!

I, who did not vote for either side of the meltdown, or in that race at all, replied to ALL:

Looked to me Obama won because he was not George W.A.R. Bush.

Tricky, devil, Obama turned out to be a hawk disguised as a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Can’t say I like the chameleon Romney, either.

Was sorely disappointed Sarah P. dropped out – at least she would have been amusing.

My ex-pat Montgomery amigo replied:

I totally agree with you on all fronts. Wish we could have a REAL statesman running ! I LOVE Sarah P. but she like Mike Huckabee, would be crazy to give-up their new found wealth as FOX news commentators etc. etc.

You are getting SO many hits on your website, why don’t you sell local advertising spots – I know this capitalistic endeavour may not be congruent…however.

My best, Nga Redneck

[Nga stands for North Georgia]

I replied:

From time to time I have wondered if my web sites might some day be capitalistic enterprises, like more than from time to time I have wondered if writing books might some day be capitalistic enterprises. For flat out sure, I’m way over being jaded about the angels, or something, blocking me from being a capitalist, or just an author making a living off his ravings.

Maybe today’s amusing article in The Key West Citizen about the Big Pine Key candidate forum [that article leads of the post in the link provided to begin this post], in which goodmorningfloridakeys.com and I got some free exposure, bumped up a bit the travel to that web site. Maybe that will lead to it being a capitalist venture like bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph. Who can say what the sneaky angels might have stuffed up their sleeves? Already they slam-dunked three school board candidates: Dist. 2 incumbent Andy Griffiths, and Dist. 3 hopefuls Ed Davidson and Michael Cunningham, who don’t look to me like they ever had no dealings with angels before, and maybe that gang of three be hoping they don’t never have no dealings with angels again.

I told Dist. 3 candidate Larry Murray this morning that there could not have been better FREE PUBLICITY for his campaign and for the forum, than The Citizen article, after the sneaky angels put the notion of the forum into his noggin’ and then nursed it along pretty much knowing what each player was going to do, and not do, and who was going to get hung out to dry, and who wasn’t. Might still be some more interesting twists and turns before the forum even starts tomorrow night, 6 p.m., Methodist Church fellowship hall kiddicorner across Key Deer Blvd from Winn-Dixie shopping center.

Could prove right interesting in any event, but thanks to The Citizen article wagging tongues throughout the Keys, it might be the gang of three will be hearing some from their friends and neighbors, like maybe they got seriously out-foxed and out-flanked, like maybe the best way to save some of their own ass faces is to stop acting like 3-year-olds crapping and pissing their diapers and get their ass faces to the forum, which, I understand, will be covered by the journalist who wrote amusing The Citizen article, and by the journalist who writes schools articles for the Keynoter.

The forum is being moderated by the News Director of US 1 Radio, which owns the Keys listening market from Marathon down to Key West, and I kinda imagine old Bill Becker also might have a few illuminating words to say the morning after on his regular news broadcast, about a forum he was used by the angels to design, although it might be that Bill won’t tell his big listening audience that angels had anything to do with it, given how bad I done went and polluted the air and ground and water down here with talk of angels and God. As the circle goes, it was Bill Becker I first told on his morning show in 2003, when he asked why I was running for mayor of Key West, that it was God who told me in a dream to run. Took Bill a few seconds to move on from there.

Apologies, however, for taking you off into that smallish asteroid belt roadside attraction, after you raised such a big important Potus concern: “Wish we could have a REAL statesman running!”

Right after reading that, I started getting worried by this idea that what youse and meese need to do about that is you get three of your Nga redneck friends, don’t matter if it’s mens or wemmins, maybe best to have some boy-girl mixin’ up tho, and the four of yous on the next full moon goes down to the far end of that pasture on your spread with enough shine of the moon beverage to sharpen your wits for the occasion, and just before yous feel the werewolf change coming uponst yous, youse, the prime raiser of this big important concern, toss a silver dollar high in the air and let it land on the ground – you might need a flashlight to do this right. Iffens it lands on heads, you get to be the presidential candidate of the Southern UnBaptist Redneck Capitalistic Party, and I get to be the vice-presidential candidate. If it lands on tails, turn that around.

I bet you and your Nga redneck amigos and amigas won’t have no trouble getting that FOXY Alaska redneck commentator interested in promoting our REDNECK CAPITALIST WRITE-IN CANDIDACY, but if she at first seems shy, coy also comes to mind, just plain bitchy might apply, too, then you take her off to the side and show her this photo and tell her you have all the negatives, which she can have after she turns youse and meese into the FAMOUS REDNECK CAPITALIST ROCK STAR MUTHAS we always know’d we wuz supposed to be.

Now iffens that don’t turn Sari’s foxy head and tail, just shoot the bitch and claim the shining moon juice told you the NRA wanted you do it, to pay back the karma of all those wild wolves she hunted down and shot out of airplanes for sport.

I figure once we get installed in office, you can have the White House, I will stay down here in the trailer. After we get through signing all the autographs for $1000 a pop, and write our collaborate book about the stunt and sell it for a couple billions to some New Age celestine prophesy publisher like Time-Warner, less the Murdock, and make the national and international speakers tour circuit at $500,000 a pop, a piece … we will be told by the angels what to do next …

Maybe we can get Nick Saban to be our Secretary of War, or do you think he would like Secretary of State better? He has a pretty good golf swing, Secretary of State might be better. Maybe we can talk Jesus into coming back and being our Secretary of War. I bet Sari NRAsky would really like that. Time to jump in my hardened lightning-proof bunker and close the lid and lock it down for a spell, while I get instructions from the angels about how to make folks think I’m promising them ice cream instead of bonfires at tomorrow night’s school board forum.

LTK redneck

[LTK = Little Torch Key]

P.S. Maybe we can locate and use this little girl in our unAdministration – her divine presence of mind was just now alerted to me by a Birmingham childhood amigo, who turned out to be a terrific capitalist, but his golf game, like yours and mine, could use a bit of enhancement. He also suffers from being a life-long Crimson Tide fan, but one of his late-in-life daughters attends Auburn and that’s causing him a serious problem with serving two masters.

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

George, an atheist was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned to her and said, “Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”

The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger, “What would you want to talk about?”

Oh, I don’t know,” said the atheist. “How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?,” as he smiled smugly.

“OK,” she said. “Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?”

The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl’s intelligence, thinks about it and says, “Hmmm, I have no idea.”

To which the little girl replies, “Do you really feel qualified to discuss why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, and no life after death, when you don’t know shit?”

And then she went back to reading her book.

X-Ray of the soul – Major and Bash examination

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Bash

Major Bashinsky

Nashville J weighed in on yesterday’s theravenspeaks wanders into the deep end, accusing me of causing my younger brother Major to kill himself post:

On the other subject of Ravenspeaks – you are a far better man than me because I would not give him the time of day or pee on him if he was on fire. Just an observation from way up here in Tennessee.

Then, J sent several links to African-American outbreaks across America not being jumped on by President Obama, US Attorney General Holder, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc:

I replied:

I need more fun, huh?

That unforunate raven provides opportunities for other kinds of “fun” than the regular fare what wanders my way. It leaves a trail of drivel in cyberspace, sort like a public library. Maybe a last will and testament.Don’t know anyone now who’s been lots of places I was taken, maybe some tortured soul will stumble into something I puked that mades a difference for him, or her, or maybe I just went off and had experiences that just happened and were of no consequence.Right now, I’m up to the gills with “fun” down here, and a bit of it flowed from what I posted down here this morning re the Big Pine candidate forum coming together. Probably more about that tomorrow.

Am trying to get up the nerve to open your latest links into the fun house, but I’m not quite there yet.

Sloan

Although I didn’t open the links, yet, because I really am loaded to the gills, I generally engage what shows up on my plate, unless I’m told not to engage it. Related to playing each shot as it lies, in golf, which was my father’s game. An X-Ray of the soul, if ever there was one in sports. Might see plenty soul X-Raying at the British Open starting this Thursday. Lots of rain and wind forecasted. A typical Scotland golf outing on an ancient course easily mistaken for a sheep pasture. A good time will not be had by all.

Meanwhile, back to local soul X-Raying …

Sancho Panza weighed in on this part of yesterday’s post:

“My brother weaved a web, which left all who did not see with the impression he had been murdered because of a vendetta an anonymous letter sender (my brother) had spread around with suggestions even more action would be taken, if the anonymous letter writer’s demands re the dividend policy of our deceased father’s company was not changed, so that the dividends were retained in the company, instead of being paid out mostly to top management, the company directors and my father’s widow, a sentiment I had shared for a long time and had said and written a few times, but not since perhaps 2003“

It seems to me that your statement above adds to Raven’s basic argument that your Brother Major’s had you in the back of his mind when he decided to stage his abduction/ransom/murder farce! Is it possible that he wanted to subtly connect you to it in the minds of those who “knew” you? Was your brother envious of you, because he saw you as the one who “got away” while he had to stay around and play the game of respectability, propriety, etc.?Perhaps deep inside Major was as disgusted with living a meaningless life as you were and he hated you for reminding him of his inability to leave it all behind… perhaps he was planning to do just that… to disappear, but something went wrong… perhaps the other person that he was going to disappear with got cold feet and he had to change his plans in the middle of it so he cooked up this half baked plan of an extortion gone wrong and leaving veiled clues that might point to you as the crazy guy lashing back at the family and specially at your father’s wife because everyone knew you hated her? Maybe he was going to do her in but didn’t get a chance? Sure, it’s all speculation, but within the realm of possibility, I think… one thing’s for sure, rich people are not necessarily happy people, even though accumulation of wealth seems to be the most important motivating force these days…

Lucifer is the part of us that believes that one can have light without darkness, life without death… it has always lead people to discard our dual nature by mutilating ourselves… the mortification of the flesh… burning off the unwholesomeness to purify the soul! Terrible things are done in the name of God/Lucifer!

LOL!

I replied:

I suppose it’s possible Major tried to drag me into it, I felt from childhood that he envied me for reasons I could never figure out. Perhaps he felt our father favored me. Perhaps he felt whatever attention was given, most of it I got. My sister told me once, that our father had told her that he loved me, but Major was his favorite son, because Major was a second son, and he (our father) was a second son.

From conversations with Major in past years, I knew he had his own issues with how the company was run. I learned from Major’s first wife, after he went missing, as I recall, that he had wanted to be allowed to run the company.I never felt like I hated my father’s second wife, although there were several ugly situations I waded into, in which she was involved. The first one, Major waded into with me. After that one, it was just me.

From past conversations with Major, I knew he really did not like Joann. But it seemed he really didn’t like his father even more, dating back to when he married Joann. Major moved to California over that, but it was maybe 30 years later that he told me that was why he had moved out there.

I also knew from past conversations with Major that he really did not like his father, although he very much wanted to prove himself in the way his father had proven himself.

I wanted to prove myself in that way, too, but it never worked out and finally I gave up trying, although probably not the hope of it some day happening.

I find it hard to imagine Major was envious of my stepping off the edge of the world and going what seemed like most people to be crazy. My sense was, Major was aligned with our father with respect to me, based on some things he told me in 1998, not long before he decided he didn’t want to continue talking with me, because he knew he had not persuaded me that he was not bisexual, is how it looked to me.

I have wondered what his second wife knew. I watched a TV interview of her online, in her and Major’s home, I think after his body was found but before the cause of death was determined. She only referred to Major as “my husband”. She never called him Major. I wondered about that.

I find it hard to imagine Major would just up and kill himself over a bixexual relationship not working out.

They had two young children, maybe seven and five. The older child, a boy, had his own sports achievement page on Major’s business website. Clearly, Major doted on him. I cannot imagine he would abandon his son, and his daughter, and the life he had built in Birmingham, after a great deal of struggle; a life which had made his father proud before he had passed over, unless something monstrous had happened; something so overwhelming that Major felt his only way through it was to kill himself and try to make it look like he was murdered, and did not abandon his young children and their mother.

Nothing else makes sense to me. Perhaps I’m not seeing something, but I’ve been put to write about this tragedy many times now; my view has yet to change, and the angels seem in agreement, so far.

My personal experience is, Lucifer exists independently of me, independently of human beings, independently of other angels, in the sense anything is independent of God, or not. My experience also is, also many times stated, is Lucifer is a part of all of us, and however you wish to define Lucifer, it is unkind to the soul, but feeds the ego pretty well, and it is the hero’s journey, to use a cliche, to recognize and confront that side of us, and to move through it. Personally, I ain’t nearly smart or strong enough to do that on my own and need lots of help ongoing.

Sloan

Money never made me happy, but I sure missed it when I was homeless off and on for several years. I’d still be homeless, if my father had not left me an inheritance, and but for that, I would not have websites, I would not run for office in the Keys nearly every year, and I would not stir up nearly as much cyber commotion. In fact, I imagine that I would be dead by now, if I had not received that inheritance, and even with it, I often wonder how much longer this body is going to last?

Bash on Smather’s Beach in Key West, circa 2009, during his third attempt not to be elected Mayor of that city … his core campaign goal was to get Key West to have a nude beach, to go along will all the other weird attractions down there, and thus attract legions of nature lovers not currently visiting Key West with heaps of their own personal wampum, at no promotion cost to the city, the Internet would have spread the news and drawn the legions within days of news of the nude beach being open, alas, believe it or not, perhaps the raunchiest city in America actually is controlled by Puritans …

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

Post-Script:

Sancho replied:

“Personally, I ain’t nearly smart or strong enough to that on my own and need lots of help ongoing.”

Imagine the shock if you were to suddenly realize that everything you did and do was/is done by you and you alone!? No credit or blame to be spread around, but then again… what is it to be you… or me? Do things really exist by themselves? Are we not all the cause and effect of our communal compromise… of this World we’ve co-created and are co-creating?!

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

I replied:

I hear much the same from time to time down here, ranging from I invent the angels and demons, to avoid personal responsibility for what I do that other people don’t like; to I’m insane; to I’m demonically possessd; to everything is internconnected and the angels and demons and God and I are one. Lots of opinions, while I’m in an experience they are not having. I imagine at some level, my soul, some might say subconscious, is in cahoots with the drama, which is arranged beyond my mind’s knowing, and in that way I’m doing every bit of it. But to use you as a proxy for the collective whose view you generally represent, until you have lived in my skin, or had a parallel experence, I don’t see how you can know, or even honestly claim to know what is my experience. My sense is, I’m really no different from you or anyone else, but something was opened in me that does not seem open in most people, and because it is open, I see, hear, feel and sense differently. I wasn’t always like this, of course. The me 30 years ago probably would be in agreement with you and others re their views about this me. Ciao

theravenspeaks wanders into the deep end, accusing me of causing my younger brother Major to kill himself

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Bash

Major Bashinsky

This continues theravenspeaks’ efforts to convince himself that I threatended to out my younger brother Major, who was bixexual, and that caused him to kill himself and make it look like someone else did it.

theravenspeaks wrote:

Perhaps “threatening” in the simplest sense of the word as a verb was misunderstood, but in the sense that you were a source of threat to your brother’s inner peace, the idea is preserved. I stated that you were responsible for his fear of being exposed. And you were indeed responsible: you already wrote that your father was terrified of what you might write about him and the family in your blogs. It therefore stands to reason that your brother and father probably shared that fear, and hence your brother was afraid of what you would callously and selfishly expose about him.

In the end, it was you and only you who exposed his secret after his death. You knew, and Major knew that you knew. And you did exactly what he feared. He merely beat you to the punch-line.

If what you said about him after his demise is true, then deep shame on you for outing him against his will. If what you said about him is not true, then calamitous shame on you for that transgression on his character.

Any secret a man has to take to his grave is his own, and not his brother’s to spread like idle gossip. That is a patently evil thing to do. That you seek to elevate yourself in your own mind by the active denigration of your own family and community is utterly contemptible. You speak of my Karma, while your own continues to pile up around you like the dung you fling about.

PS; the word “lucifer” means literally “shining one”, and means “that which spreads light”, and was used to refer to the Morning Star, Venus, or Phosphorus, the “bringer of dawn”. Used in that sense, yes, I actively seek to light all slimy dark corners where I find them. Any other meaning attributed to the word “lucifer” as a name is merely the fictitious superstition of a religion seeking to strike fear in its adherents in order to control them, and is the direct result of misunderstood translations of biblical era texts over centuries of re-writings from the original Aramaic and Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English and subsequent countless re-wordings to appease the whims and egos of Kings and Popes.

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

I replied:

I seriously doubt my brother gave me any thought after his and my last brief telephone conversation after our father’s wake in 2006, when he declined to get together. Major was like that, as those who knew him, knew.
I no more wanted to write about Major after he went missing, than you wanted me to write about him. But there is no way you understand that, because you clearly operate in one dimension, despite your apparent considerable book learning.
My brother weaved a web, which left all who did not see with the impression he had been murdered because of a vendetta an anonymous letter sender (my brother) had spread around with suggestions even more action would be taken, if the anonymous letter writer’s demands re the dividend policy of our deceased father’s company was not changed, so that the dividends were retained in the company, instead of being paid out mostly to top management, the company directors and my father’s widow, a sentiment I had shared for a long time and had said and written a few times, but not since perhaps 2003.
The anonymous typed letter was written by an educated person who clearly knew the workings of the family company. A copy of the letter was found on a flash drive in Major’s car, after it was found, before his body was even found. A copy of the letter was found in his home mail box, in his and my sister’s mailbox, and in the company mailbox. And in a plastic bottle attached by a rope to his body, when it was found in a golf course pond.
That was in early March 2010. I had not been in Birmingham since late 2008.
When Major’s body was found, my father’s widow hired a body guard round the clock. My sister and Major’s wife and older children also probably wondered if they were next to be killed, if the anonymous letter writer’s demands were not met. It was a blessing the coroner and local police department ruled it suicide made to look like murder. They made that ruling about two weeks after I started posting it was suicide made to look like murder.
I caught hell for doing that. I caught hell for explaining even before the coroner and local pd came out with their suicide finding, that Major had done himself in because someone was going to out him for being bisexual, who could prove it, and there was nothing Major could do to stop it, and since his image was the most important thing to him, which everyone who knew him well, knew, he contrived his exit to look like murder.
I had no proof Major was bisexual. He knew I had no proof, and he knew I knew. He knew his first wife knew, and she had no proof. We were no threat to him. But the person who was going to out him was a very serious threat. Major was the toughest, meanest person I had known. No way he buckled to worrying what his brother and first wife knew, and to what others knew, for we were not the only straight people in Birmingham who knew.
The person who was about to out Major had in in for him. Something very nasty had happened between them. It was very personal. And it was very real.

From your one-dimension perspective, yes, my writings re Major’s death look reprehensible. However, from the soul perspective, Major’s actions were reprehensible. He did a great deal of harm to his wife and their two small children, and his older two children by his first wife, and his father’s widow. He could not be allowed to get away with it unchallenged, for their sakes, and for the sake of his own soul, which was in deep trouble after he killed himself.
Of course, what others did with what I published was their decision. Major’s oldest daughter accepted he had killed himself. Major’s first wife, with whom I was pretty close, accepted he had killed himself. I don’t know how Major’s second wife went with it, or what she told their small children or her family, whom I knew somewhat years before she and Major had their two children. At least his second wife and their children and his second wife’s family were given a different way of looking at it. As were my sister and her children, and our first cousins and their children given a different way of looking at it.
You assume about what you are not familiar and your outlook is very young in spirit, despite your having read much that many people don’t read. You sort of remind me of a few Masons I have known, versed in lots of non-mainstream information, but totally inexperienced with spirit workings. You also sort or remind me of St. Augustine, who was considered very learned in religious and other matters, until toward the end of his life on this planet he had an experience which caused him to announce all he had known before was but straw in the wind.
A person can memorize every word in the Bible, every word in the Buddhist and Hindu scriptures, every Rumi poem; a person can chase around after spiritual teachers/gurus, and still that person can be no closer to God than someone who has done none of that. God is something that is experienced, something that is felt, something that is tangible and palpable, and something that is unfathomable and cannot be explained to anyone by talking or writing, in a way that anyone who hears or reads it will appreciate it, who has not had a somewhat parallel experience.
Same is true for appreciating demonic forces.
It is said, who can say for sure, that Lucifer was the most beautiful Archangel in the Creation, a true light bringer, but pride brought an end to all of that.
I have had direct dealings with Lucifer and with lots of emissaries from same, spirit emissaries, human emissaries. Just as I have had direct dealings with Jesus, Michael, Melchizedek, and others they let loose on me, and their human emissaries.

My three main controllers let demonic forces have at me to some extent, which is rough on me internally, and sometimes externally. They let demonic forces have at me because I have been changed, and I have been taught to read the demonic forces’ effect on me like I have radar with sonar features. The reading also gives me a fix on the human component, which nearly always there is.
You could learn a great deal, if you were not so sure you already know a great deal, which makes you a sitting duck for Lucifer, who will pet you and stroke you and let you believe any good and wonderful thing about yourself you want to believe.

Whereas Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek are not like that, in my experience. They tell me, and others I have known, what we need to look at in ourselves and seek to change, usually with their ongoing counsel.
When Jesus was with his disciples, walking on this planet, he worked with them much in the same way I described how Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek work with me, and I have seen them work with others, although only one person did I see them lean on as much as they leaned on with me, a woman I was with for a while. I don’t know how it went with her and the three controllers after she and I were parted and I was sent from Maui to the Keys in late 2000.
I never met anyone else close to the level she and those three worked, other than myself. I see in the Gospels and Old Testament, and have read in Sufi writings of people who were at that and even higher levels. I read of a fellow in India Ram Dass (not his human name) knew a little, who seemed to be at a very elevated level. You seem to mistake religion for God and angels and demons. Religion is religion, a human creation. God and angels and demons are something else entirely.

I’m feeling prompted to ask you, if you would like to meet Jesus, Michael and Melchizedek on their playing field, and if you would be interested in being brought into the Melchizedek training? Don’t answer to me, answer to them directly. I must warn you, if you ask to be brought into the training and they accept your request, sooner or later the person you now are will no longer exist and it is likely no one who knew that person will know, or even like, the person you are changed to be.
Know also, the changes very likely will not be easy, they will not be quick, and you often will pray to die and fear you will live. You will die many times, in the ego sense. It will be horrible. And maybe you will be glad for it, and maybe you won’t.

Sandy, Sloan and angels, mostly

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Bash

theravenspeaks@aol.com sent this comment to goodmorningfloridakeys.com:

Anyone who actually “knows” you, knows that you are Ego-driven and ridden herd by your inner demons: the four Archangels have nothing whatsoever to do with it. What you did to your sister should disqualify you morally for running for any seat on the MCSD. No amount of claiming Angelic involvement can ever erase that horrendous act. We see through your charade.

I am curious about something else too, and have asked you before: do you feel any remorse for having a hand in your brother’s suicide by threatening to expose his sexual preferences? Have you told anyone that it was you who was going to drag him out of the closet against his will? Doesn’t sound like Angel’s work to me…

I replied:
What I did to my sister probably disqualifies me from just about everything but burning in hell forever, if you use human standards of measure. Fortunately for me, you are not my judge. Fortunately for you, I am not yours.

I never said four Archangels tell me what to do, not do. I said Jesus, Archangel Michael and Melchizedek do that.
You will find out sooner or later whether that is true, and I would not care to be you when that happens.

You are gravely mistaken in accusing me of threatening to out my younger brother Major, which led to him killing himself and trying to make it look like murder. For your crime, you will pay dearly and the chances are you will not connect the dots in this life. That is the law of karma, just as the law of karma has clobbered me since 1969 for what I did to my sister about 12 years before that.

For your information, I last spoke with Major shortly after our father’s death, which was late August 2006. As far as I know, Major knew nothing of my life long before that, or afterward. He killed himself in March 2010. It was the first I’d heard of him since the fall of 2006. I’d had no contact with his first wife, nor with her and his children, nor with anyone else who had dealings with him. I knew nothing of what he was doing. I hoped he was happy, prosperous, and a good father and a loving husband.

Your fixation on me reeks of Lucifer. A messenger from God would never hide his identity from the person for whom the message is intended. However, your fuck ups with me are the least of your problems, as you will experience in due course.

On angels, received this from a Florida Keys fellow :

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 19:35:15 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: in search of the lost feminine
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

I don’t envy your struggle with the angels.

Dr. Larry Murray
Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate
Candidate
Monroe County School Board
District 3
(305) 872-3087

On angels, I heard this one April 1994 morning at the breakfast table, eating alone, I thought:

Angels walk beside you
and call you their brother
even as you curse the heavens
for making you one
who wields the lighting;
Be kind to your brothers and sisters
but take no prisoners -
Kill them all in my name
as I have killed you.

I knew then the voice was Jesus. I had no clue how many times he would kill me. Michael looked after me, and Melchizedek taught me the mysteries. Sometimes they let others have at me. Doubt anyone I know would care to meet any of them up close and personal. theravenspeaks would shit all over himself to be paid a visit by just one of them.

Yeah, I know even lots of my friends think I make the angels up, but I’d have to have a hell of an imagination to make up even one percent of what a lot of people say I make up.

While the School Board candidates were at the Key West Chamber of Commerce forum for the School Board candidates, I was plugging away at an email I was given to write to the School Board explaining how the voting the next day for the new Superintendent of Schools could be gamed by using the selection method usually used by Keys governments to hire top management employees.

Later, Larry Murray and Todd German both told me my writing that email was more important than my attending that candidate forum. That email turned four of the School Board members against using the selection method I had described in the email, and led to Mark Porter being hired and Dr. Ed Shine coming in second and Jesus Jara coming in third. Sandy Downs told me last night, if I had not written that email, Jesus Jara would have been hired as our new Superintendent.

Sandy understood it was the angels who prompted Todd German to given me the information I needed to write that email, and it was the angels who kept Todd and Larry Murray both from reminding me of the candidate forum. While struggle with the angels is plenty rough, watching people who cannot see the hand of God plainly at work before their very eyes is plenty rough, too.

I included an homily re Sandy in yesterday’s post; theravenspeaks can’t stand her, either. She sent this early today:

Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:39:08 -0400
Subject: this and that
From: janesjunglework@gmail.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Hey Sloan,
Thanks for reminding me of my life experiences in the Keys in your post yesterday….ha, just kidding.
It was good to see that your mind is as cluttered with what has happened to me and my family, as mine is….again I say that with a smile.
Only a true friend would have bothered to remember all of that. It has been a long road. But it looks like it is not yet over for me here, nor for you.
If I could remember everything you have accomplished or tackled, I would write about it…but lucky for me, we have your posts so I don’t have to wear my fingers out typing. And you are far more active than I….and at least as, or more, relentless in your pursuits.
We are a good team, as our hecklers and haters say.
Some thoughts came to me digging through some Tree Commission hearing tapes and transcripts.
The Tree Commission and the City went after Radim Havlicek and fined him the amount of $105,000.00 for trimming St. Mary’s trees without a mere permit he came to find, they said, he required (but no ordinance supports that.) He neither took more than 1/3 of any tree, nor abused any tree…which they maintained he needed permits to do. The trees he trimmed look beautiful years later.
Radim later [April 2009] spoke at a hearing for a client [Paul Tripp] and testified he had taken samples that showed trees [on Tripp's property] were diseased; thus it negated the client’s requirement to replant anything or pay for the trees he was removing. The Tree Commission was faced for the first time with an informed person challenging them that they could not require money or replanting for diseased trees.
We know they charge and have charged for 20 years or so $150 per inch for removals, thus netting them millions in ill-gotten gains through this game they play with citizens and tree companies. Their ordinance doesn’t allow them to charge or require replanting for hazardous, diseased, insect infested or dangerous or dead trees.Radim exposed their extortion racket….which as you know they figured out a way to continue. They decided from then on, they would not mention why trees were removed in their written records so no one would know they were charging for trees that could not be charged for. Then they asked the checks be made to the city as a donation, and placed them in an account other than the proper Tree Commission account, so the money could not be traced. They quit video recording the hearings, and then quit putting any monetary amounts in the records. Most of the names are also missing. The account has none of the money in it for permit fees.
The new Urban Forester spoke with me, and said the city is redoing the ordinances. I told him the ordinances have to be approved by the State and the last go around took a few years for the State to approve. They were approved in 2003.
The State won’t approve permits costing more than $100 by any means, because it would burden citizens and not be in their best interest, which all laws must protect safety, health, and welfare of the citizens. If a poor person couldn’t afford a permit and so could not remove his hazardous tree, certainly that would not be in the interest of health, safety and welfare.
So I fail to see how the new Urban Forester thinks they are going to get the State to approve changes to their ordinance that will blow the wallets out of everyone’s pants. But the City seems hell bent on correcting the ordinances and changing them so they can legally do what they have been doing illegally for 20 years. Fat chance.
New ordinances have to be publicly vetted, get approval from the Tree Commission, then the City Commission, then the State, as a change to the City’s Comprehensive Plan.
Now, maybe the City thinks it will do what it did when the Virginia Street project went down. Notice the wrong date, have a secret hearing and come with police escort the following morning and take the trees out. Will they come with a police escort to enforce the new rules even if no one voted for them?
That is what they do now…only it is with their own code enforcement. Neither the State nor the City ever approved what the Tree Commission currently enforces.
But they depend on the Tree Commission lay volunteers to be lead like sheep by Chair Neils Weise and Assistant City Attorney Ron Ramsingh, and vote whatever the two tell them is proper. So they do. And they also depend on General Magistrate Jeff Overby to rule their way, if there is an appeal. Which brings up the State Attorney race.
Overby and Vogel were solid in the camp of Mark Kohl when he was the State Attorney. Did the bubbas stack the deck with a democrat and a republican so they can’t lose? Even if Vogel loses, Ward still has to beat Kohl. Is that why Kohl is so silent now? Will he step out of the race if Vogel wins? Is he only in the race in case Vogel loses, so there is still one more chance to beat Ward? And alas, I am sure Overby would be happy with either Vogel or Kohl.
I can’t help but wonder if Dennis Ward means what he says, and says what he means. I saw Vogel’s facebook video clip where she shows the whole forum between her and Ward which I missed and was out of town. So I watched it. Over and over, Dennis Ward almost pounds the table telling how he is going after everyone city or county employee or official who steals taxpayer dollars, and he is taking away their pension too!!!!!!!! So why does he not care that millions have been stolen from the taxpayers in Key West by the City of Key West attorneys, commissioners, and officials? Is this too hot to handle?? Why is it that I have called and called and receive no response from the new prosecutor now assigned the case? She just got back to work from her time off is what I was told. She has been off for 1 entire month,….as I was told she was gone last month. She just got back????
The last prosecutor was assigned the case on his way out the door….and now a new prosecutor with no experience who hasn’t worked in 1 month after having taken on the whole case load of the prosecutor who left. OK? No, it’s not OK.
We did all the work for the State Attorney’s office in this case. The work is done. Now there is just the stolen money that is still missing. This is no imaginary problem….we have documents and tapes and witnesses and victims and missing money and retaliation and threats and destroyed evidence and everything else that resembles the MOB run enterprises. It sort of reminds me of when I called [County Commissioner] George Neugent with the photos of the mangroves the Goodmans cut with their Phosphate mining permit, and he told you I was making it up. I went to his office to show him documents, and he hid from me….his secretary told me he wasn’t there. Then he refused to allow me to send the documents to him, or meet him, or speak with him. He went on a campaign to call me crazy and said the Goodman’s were good people. He refused to look at anything!! That is why I went out of Monroe County to get help. I had to go to the Senators and the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee to get the madness with the DEP stopped. [Later, I persuaded George to meet with Sandy, see her documentation, then he changed his mind and said he would not meet with her.]
Does Dennis Ward want to act like George Neugent and force me to go elsewhere? Maybe Dennis is just too busy to deal with the millions of dollars rich Key West citizens lost to the extortion racket? OR maybe Dennis thinks his office is too busy? Or maybe Dennis doesn’t believe any of his prosecutors have the skill to wrestle with the City attorneys? I don’t know what the problem is, but either Dennis needs to do something about this NOW, or STOP saying he is going to go after anyone stealing from the taxpayers and take away their pension after he gets them locked up. Do something Dennis!!! It is time.
I know Kohl won’t if he is elected…..and I am starting to doubt if Catherine Vogel is not too entrenched in Kohl politics, as I have heard nothing negative out of her mouth against Kohl should she win.
PS. IF you run for Key West Mayor again and win, you can appoint me and Radim to the Tree Commission…….hahahhahhaaha
Sandy Downs

If I run for Mayor of Key West again, it will be over my dead body, in the sense that I fought the angels on it until I died, and they resurrected me and, like Ed Cid, put me on a horse and tied me to the saddle and made it look like I was alive. I would be insane to want to be the Mayor of Key West. Feel the same about being on the County Commission and the School Board, and have written so many times.

Maybe it’s time for me to tell again how the angels arranged for me to meet Sandy.

I first heard of Sandy in 2006, while I was running against George Neugent, and was told I should meet her, but I was unable to find her in the telephone book. After George had whomped me, driving down to Key West one day, I passed maybe four people at a bus stop on Cudjoe Key and then the most awful caustic pain erupted in the right side of my neck. I drove on about another half mile hoping the pain would stop. When it didn’t, I turned around and drove back up to the bus stop and offered the people a ride. The awful caustic pain in my neck went away. As we talked heading down to Key West, I told them of a novel I’d only just had published and they took copies out of the box of books in the back of my SUV. They told me I should meet Sandy Downs. I said I had been told that before, but was unable to locate her. They said they worked for her. I said small world. Maybe six months passed, and I get an email out of nowhere from Sandy saying she’s been looking all over trying to find me, because she was told we needed to meet, and she’d read the novel and she loved it, and her father had read it, and he loved it, and could we meet? We met at Coco’s on Cudjoe and over about two hours Sandy told me a lot of stuff I could not begin to take in even the half of it, and I asked her why she was telling me all of that? I found out later, why. Every bit of it I eventually wrote about in posts to my websites. And then some. And then some more. I put Sandy in touch with Deer Ed of bigpinekey.com, for him to build her a campaign website when she ran for Sheriff in 2008. I devoted most of goodmorningfloridakeys.com to her campaign, while I ran for the Key West county commission seat mostly using goodmorningkeywest.com for that fool’s errand. I also used both sites to do all I could to get Dennis Ward elected. The day before the general election, I stood beside Dennis on Palm Avenue, first out facing traffic leaving Key West at rush hour – I knew where to be to get the most exposure. I held one of his campagn signs and kept pointing him out to the very slow moving traffic. I had coached Dennis at candidate forums. I did everything possible to get him elected and Mark Kohl out of office. As did Sandy. And Dennis really appreciated it.
Every bit of it was arranged by the angels. Everything I get into is arranged by angels. Sandy is the only person I know well, who seems to understand that. And I seem to be the only person who understands when Sandy is being driven by angels. She had a dream night before last, probably for my edification as much as hers, telling her not to move away from the Keys just yet. I told her she had to go with that dream. Might be some people down Key West way will end up wishing Sandy did not have that dream.

the fool on Little Torch

begged, borrowed, stolen and written by Sloan Bashinsky, District 3 write-in school board candidate and otherwise ne’re-do-well …

right-winger weighs in for George Zimmerman’s defense

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Bash

A spammer sent this comment to goodmorningbirmingham.com:

I’m still learning from you, as I’m making my way to the top as well. I absolutely love reading all that is written on your site. Keep the stories coming. I liked it!

I replied:

I hope if you get to the top you don’t still feel like I often do, on the bottom J

Paul, a right-wing fellow I know in Birmingham commented on theravenspeaks and my riposte in yesterday’s theravenspeaks weighs in for George Zimmerman acting in self defense post:

I recommend to you, Sloan, “Quote the raven nevermore.”

I replied:

Suits me, however I dreamt of quoting the raving bird today, before I had received his latest squawking. I have published close to 20 posts on Martin-Zimmerman, a mini-career, and so far, every person who sent me something on it has ended up in a post. I suppose even yellow-bellied ravens have freedom of squawk in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Paul replied:

true.

What I see on TZ is: It would have been just another 2 men in a scuffle, one kills the other one. No race involved. BUT Sharpton, Jackson showed up a MONTH AFTER the event. THEN the media gave notice. I see this not as an attack on Z but an attack on the Hold Your Own laws. Z is just an example of what you go through. Make people afraid to own aa gun, take your chances on never needing one. While I do not own a gun, I strongly support the right to own them.
The police did not charge Z until 4 months after the event. What happened between to change? Jackson/Sharpton & media pressure, racist pressure. 2 witnesses support Z story.

I heard the 911 tapes too. With several thefts in the area (that did not start until little Trayvon showed up), and Z being on the Neighborhood Watch team, T looked suspicions, and fit the PROFILE (oh, no, THAT word!) of the perpetrators ( young black male). Z followed. Dispatcher said, “We don’t need you to do that”. Z SAID OK. Then Z turned back to his car and abandoned the chase. Little Trayvon came up behind and attacked. The rest is as you described to the Raven.

Now, we all know the media 1) payed no interest until Sharpton and Jackson showed up a month later 2) They keep saying Z was the aggressor. I did not hear that, Z turned back to his car at request from dispatcher 3) The media showed OLD pictures of little Trayvon @ 13, in Jr high football jersey. Trayvon did not play in high school, too into drugs. Last played in Jr high (middle school). They did not show Trayvon as he was that night. Autopsy showed he weighed over 200 pounds, 6′ 2″ tall. I have seen more current pictures on the Internet and Fox, but MS-NBC still shows the13 year old version. Why don’t they be fair, and show Z in diapers, attacked by the 13 year old Trayvon? Just as ridiculous! 5) Obama should not butt in. Like with the prof Gates, MS-NBC is Still quoting Obama as saying. “The police mishandled the gates affair.” Not true. The police did exactly what they should. Gates was in the wrong, not showing an ID. Back to T/Z: Obama said, “If I had a son, he would look just like Trayvon.” 200#, tattoos, suspended from school 3 times for drugs, ? That Trayvon? Probably so Barack! Your son would be like that.

Medias milked for all it is worth. Following now just to show what happens to Z (if a gun, this could happen to you too) type story.

I replied:

Looks like you bought Zimmerman’s version hook, line and sinker – you ought to know better.

The lead detective, who is white, wanted to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter nearly right away, after the polygraph – didn’t believe Zimmerman told it all straight. The local State Attorney declined to prosecute.

Zimmerman killed a kid who did nothing wrong.

I agree, Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, Holder should have kept their mouths shut, but I am not convinced /Zimmerman is anywhere close to innocent. He should have stayed in his car. He was told to stand down, by a police officer.

You are seriously fucked up, Paul, in how you size this case up. There is no spirit redemption for Zimmerman.

What the jury does with it has nothing to do with what God does with it.

What Martin did in prior times has nothing to do with this case.

P.S. I agree, have written many times, the media seriously fucked up using much younger photos of Martin, instead of contemporary photos. Most of the contemporary photos of Martin I have seen were not fetching. Zimmerman doesn’t look too fetching in any of the photos of him I have seen.

First I’ve heard the autopsy said Martin weighed 200 pounds. Most I’d heard before that was 180 pounds. I felt that was light for 6’ 3” teen with any sort of musculature.

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

theravenspeaks weighs in for George Zimmerman acting in self defense

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Bash

There is a fellow, or maybe it’s a woman, whatever it is, it hides behind a email handle - Theravenspeaks@yahoo.com – which is fixated on doing battle with me. It started probably over a year ago on the Coconut Telegraph kudos and whiners page of bigpinekey.com, and after I quit advertising and posting regularly there, it switched over to goodmorningfloridakeys.com and sometimes to emails. It won’t show its real name and face, and makes up all sort of lame excuses for that. Here is its reply to yesterday’s theravenspeaks weighs in for George Zimmerman acting in self defense post, followed by my reply:

Does one really come at a man “in self defense” if that man has a gun drawn? Or is it more likely that one try to get away from a man with a gun drawn? If we assume the latter, we assume the gun was not drawn as testified. As for the question about the ability to draw ones weapon while an assailant is astraddle you, if you felt your life was in danger, and wished to live, your hand would find your weapon. Sandy is an idiot for assuming anyone would lie helplessly prone and pinned when faced with death. That only happens in movies. In real life, squirm like your life depends on it, lift your hip using some of the most powerful muscles in the human body, gain an inch or two and thrust your hand to where your gun is. Plausible, and doable…

I replied:

Tell you what. Let’s you and me meet. You come wearing a Glock or some other kind of automatic, locked and loaded, safety off, in a hip holster on the back side of your right hip. You lie down with your back on grass and the back of your head on a sidewalk (or bike path). I can think of many places on Big Pine Key this scene can be arranged. I sit on your stomach with my knees and shins and toes on the ground. My knees and inner thighs are tight against your body, because I don’t want you squirming away while I kill you. I proceed to rain down martial arts strikes on your face. Then, I grab both sides of your head and start banging the back of it into the pavement. You make you best effort to draw your pistol from the hip holster on the back side of your right hip, which holster and pistol are pinned against the ground and by my knees and thighs, and shoot me before I beat you to death.

When do you want to do this re-enactment? We can announce time and place on the Coconut Telegraph, so there will be plenty of eyewitnesses that you agreed to it and I killed you fair and square.

Zimmerman’s problem that night is, if you read the 911 transcript and watch the two videos (police station polygraph and the re-enactment at the scene), his story really doesn’t add up. I don’t know what happened there that night, nor do you, nor does anyone but Zimmerman, since he killed the other eye witness.

Zimmerman’s other problem is the judge found Zimmerman got his wife to perjure herself about their finances, now everything he says about this case is suspect. That probably cannot be gotten into evidence by the Special Prosecutor, but it already is in the judge’s mind and in the mind of every adult in Florida who watches television. It will be in the mind of every juror, if Zimmerman makes it to trial. Now that he’s out on bond again, and is wearing a tracker and cannot leave Seminole County, he is easier to find by someone who has already tired and convicted him, like he had already tried and convicted Trayvon Martin.

The idiot is Zimmerman.

He decided all by his lonesome that Martin was up to no good. That’s in the 911 transcript.

He told the 911 police officer that Martin was running away. They always get away.

He told the 911 police officer he would stop following Martin, but it appears he did not stop following Martin.

He shot and killed a 17-year-old kid who wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Indeed, why would Martin attack Zimmerman?

Only Zimmerman knows, because he killed the only other eye witness.

If I saw a man coming toward me with gun drawn, I’d probably run like hell, knowing a pistol is inaccurate beyond maybe 30 feet in the hands of most people. Or, if I did not feel I could get away, I’d submit and hoped it somehow got worked out. I would not attack because that is not my style. When I was 17, I might very well have attacked, especially if I was black, the white dude had a gun drawn on me, and I figured he was going to shoot me if I didn’t get the best of him, and maybe he wasn’t thinking I was going to attack him with his gun drawn.

Your problem is, you are too fixated on doing battle with me to think clearly about anything I have anything to do with. Your predudice against me colors your thinking and makes you and idiot.

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

George Zimmerman’s credibility

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Bash

George Zimmerman

I sent this to Nashville yesterday, who has sent me lots of news on this tragedy, which ended up prompting me to publish quite a few posts on it:

How’d you let this beauty slip by? Zimerman’s attorney says it was self-defense, no mention of stand your ground law. Maybe he intended both defenses. Wonder how much of Zimmerman’s bond shenanigans his lawyer knew. Wonder if any of the money was/is to go to the lawyer?

Zimmerman attorneys renew plea for donations

By NBC’s Jamie Novogrod

Follow @JamieNBCNews

SANFORD, Fla. – In a statement posted online Thursday, George Zimmerman’s legal defense team made a renewed plea for donations only hours after a Florida judge ruled to raise Zimmerman’s bond to $1 million.
The statement, posted online to the official website for Zimmerman’s legal defense, contains some of the most urgent language yet from a team whose regular, often restrained remarks over the Internet and social media have become part of the fabric of this case.
“We steadfastly maintain that George Zimmerman acted in self-defense and that he is not guilty of second degree murder,” the statement reads.
The website is run by the law firm of Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s attorney.
“For those that think Mr. Zimmerman has been treated unfairly by the media,” the statement adds later, “for those who feel Mr. Zimmerman has been falsely accused as a racist, for those who feel this case is an affront to their constitutional rights – now is the time to show your support.”
Earlier Thursday, Seminole County Circuit Judge Kenneth R. Lester Jr. ruled that Zimmerman’s bond would be raised to $1 million dollars in light of revelations that Zimmerman allowed his wife, Shellie Zimmerman, to mislead the court about the couple’s finances during an April 20 bond hearing.
Last month, Lester yanked Zimmerman’s original $150,000 bond and ordered him back to jail when prosecutors showed the couple didn’t disclose at least $130,000 in donations raised in a PayPal account.
“The evidence is clear that the Defendant and his wife acted in concert, but primarily at the Defendant’s direction, to conceal their cash holdings,” Lester wrote in his statement Thursday.
Zimmerman, 28, is accused of second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17, inside a gated community here. Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer.
Zimmerman, who pleaded not guilty, told police he had acted in self-defense after Martin punched him and knocked his head against the pavement.
The statement issued Thursday by Zimmerman’s lawyers says Zimmerman will have to pay a bail bond company $100,000 dollars – 10 percent of the $1 million dollar bail – plus demonstrate he has collateral worth $1 million.
“George Zimmerman and his family do not have anywhere near $1 million for collateral so even if we pay the $100,000 fee, the bail bond company will have to agree to work with us on how the collateral would be posted. We are encouraged we can work this out,” the statement says.
Zimmerman remains in solitary confinement at the jail in Seminole County.

J replied:

Sloan:

Kinda figured that everyone was tired of the story. Just heard a few minutes ago that Zimmerman made bond this afternoon and is out of jail but have not confirmed that yet.

Self defense might be the easier to win with the cuts on the head, broken nose, etc.

I replied:

Yeah, pulled this below off the Web just now.

Yeah, self-defense might be easier to win with the cuts on the head, broken nose, etc. While to get the stand your ground law defense to the jury, the Judge would have to first hear it and maybe he ain’t too inclined now to believe Zimmerman any more on issues like, who started it, was Zimmerman’s gun drawn before they got into it, that sort of squishy stuff only Zimmerman can testify to, since he killed the other eye witness, whom he seemed already to have decided was guilty based on what I read in the transcript of the 911 call.

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

(CBS/AP) ORLANDO, Fla. – George Zimmerman left a Florida jail today for the second time, less than 24 hours after a judge set his bond at $1 million for fatally shooting unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman left the Seminole County jail Friday afternoon wearing a white dress shirt and a jacket.

Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester granted Zimmerman bond for a second time on Thursday. The judge revoked Zimmerman’s $150,000 bond last month after prosecutors presented evidence that he misled the court about his finances.

Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting death of the 17-year-old Martin on the night of Feb. 26, 2012 in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. He claimed the shooting was self-defense under the state’s “stand your ground” law.

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

After watching the videos of Zimmerman being interviewed by detectives in the the Sanford jail and the reenactment of the altercation and shooting at the scene on the following day, and hearing Zimmerman say he had his pistol on in its holster on the back side of his right hip …

With Martin sitting astride Zimmerman lying on his back, striking Zimmerman with mix martial arts blows and banging the back of Zimmerman’s head on the sidewalk, how did Zimmerman reach through Martin’s right knee, thigh and leg and get his gun out of the holster and take the gun off of safety and fire the gun? Sandy Downs asked the same question maybe three months ago, which was long before the Zimmerman videos were released. Sandy was convinced Zimmerman had the pistol drawn and that was what provoked Martin to assault Zimmerman, and it was Martin, not Zimmerman, acting in self defense. Under that scenario, it indeed was Martin acting in self defense. That continues for me to be what the jury will have to decide, and the more Zimmerman’s story doesn’t add up, the more chance he has of being convicted of murder 2. Not manslaughter, but murder 2.

I doubt there is an adult in Florida who watches television who doesnt’ know the Judge decided Zimmerman and his wife misled the court at the first bond hearing, and Zimmerman was the moving force. I doubt a jury can be struck in Sanford with one juror who does not know that. It’s not evidence of murder, but it will not be erased from any juror’s mind when Zimmerman testifies how it went down that terrible night. Zimmerman has left a trail a mile wide, and if it doesn’t add up when he testifies, he is guilty as charged. What the actual jury will decide, though, I haven’t a clue. Nor does anyone else.

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

Major Bashinsky suicide redoubt

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Bash

Major Bashinsky

From Wikipedia:
A redoubt (historically redout)^[1]^[2] is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks, though others are constructed of stone or brick.^[3] It is meant to protect soldiers outside the main defensive line and can be a permanent structure or a hastily-constructed temporary fortification. The word means “a place of retreat”.[1] Redoubts were a component of the military strategies of most European empires during the colonial era, especially in the outer works of Vauban-style fortresses made popular during the 17th century, although the concept of redoubts has existed since medieval times. A redoubt differs from a redan in that the redan is open in the rear, whereas the redoubt was considered an enclosed work.

This photo of Major was often used by the Birmingham News and local television news programs after he went missing. I always used the photo at the top of this post. Perhaps, however, this photo told something about Major the other photo did not tell …

Recently, I received an email from out of the blue from someone who once had lived in Birmingham and who once had a gay friend who had invited her to a gay gathering in Birmingham. She was not gay, but went to the gathering for reasons she explained, which made sense to me but are not relevant to this telling. She said she learned after arriving at the gathering that it consisted of gay Birmingham men, some pretty well fixed in business and/or prominent Birmingham families, etc. One of the men she was told was so deep in the closet, that … She was told he was one of the Golden Flake owner’s sons … He had a nick name she thought might be a former US President’s … She wrote reams to me about her experiences with these men, fostered by her knowing one of them. She did not report getting to know Major, but her friend in the group told her a good bit about Major’s general and very involved relationship with that circle. It was all news to me, but it was not news to me that Major had a secret gay life. I had known that since around 1970. My first four wives also knew it. He did not tell us directly, but indirectly he told us without even realizing it.
My correspondent made me promise ahead of time not to write about what she was going to tell me, which I suspected was about Major being bi-sexual. That put me in a serious bind because her news was the first solid human evidence Major had a secret gay life in Birmingham. I had gone way out on a limb in numerous posts after Major went missing and his body was later found in the pond at the bottom of hole #1 on Highland Golf Course, writing Major killed himself and tried to make it look like someone else did it because he was bi-sexual and someone was going to out him and there was nothing he could do to stop it. I wrote there was no way Major could cope with that, given his professional, social and family circles, and his image being more important to him than anything. So he did the best he knew how to make it look like he had been murdered and did not run out on his second wife and their two small children, and on his older two children by his first wife. I knew Major’s first wife pretty well. She believed he killed himself. As did their daughter, who is named after me, come to believe that.

I published before: in the the FBI records furnished to me pursuant to my Freedom of Information Request was a report of an agent or agents speaking with my father’s widow, Joann Linder Bashinsky, about an oldish vintage .32 caliber Browning automatic pistol kept in either a glass or plastic display case in what had been Major and my father’s home. A collector’s item, the pistol was sealed in the case. Joann was shown a photo of, or perhaps the actual pistol, I don’t recall now, found on the bottom of the golf course pond near where Major’s body was found. She said the two pistols looked identical. The pistol found in the bottom of the pond was a oldish vintage .32 Browning automatic. Knowing Major as I knew him, it would be just like him to see that rare pistol in his father’s home and then find himself one just like it. The same pistol in my father’s home convinced me the pistol found in the pond was Major’s pistol.

The Birmingham Police Department and the Jefferson County Coroner were privy to the FBI investigation of Major going missing. The Coroner’s pathologist and the BPD’s detective ruled Major killed himself and tried to make it look like someone else did it. That was maybe two weeks after I first published Major had killed himself and had tried to make it look like someone else had done it. I knew that was what he had done because I was told it by angels. Angels also told me why he did it: he was going to be outed by some who could prove he was bisexual and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

I don’t feel I have broken my promise to the woman who told me about her experiences with Major’s secret gay community. I have provided no names other than Major’s. I never heard of the names she mentioned, other than Major’s name. I deleted the emails she wrote about that, so I cannot use them to get the other men’s names. I cannot prove any of it, but there was no reason for her to make it up, and there is no reason for me to make it up. This above, of course, is an entirely different account than you can read from time to time on the Legal Schnauzer blog in Birmingham. This is an account by someone who knew Major as well as anyone but Major knew Major. This is an account that backs up, yet preceded, the suicide finding by the Jefferson County Coroner’s pathologist and the Birmingham Police Department’s detective, which the FBI never challenged.

A very old friend in Birmingham told me he had a law enforcement contact connected somehow to the FBI, who told him after Major’s body was found in the golf course pond to not necessarily expect a murder finding. In articles, Legal Schnauzer has maligned the FBI in situations having nothing to do with Major’s death that I can see. Legal Schnauzer has maligned the Jefferson County Coroner and the Birmingham PD for not doing a “scientific” determination of suicide in Major’s case. Here’s how it is, folks. If someone wants to try to make his own suicide look like murder, it very likely might take more than science to get to the bottom of it. It very likely will take looking at the entire picture.

The very last thing I wanted was for it to be suicide. That was the worst possible thing Major’s second wife and their two young children and his older two children could hear, for it meant he had abandoned them without even giving them a reason or a chance to talk him out of it, or at least hear his reason for doing it. It left them wondering if, or believing, they were the reason he killed himself. Or it left them denying he killed himself and believing it was murder, and wondering, fearing, would they be killed next? It was the most selfish, mean and destructive thing Major could do.

Alas, for much longer than I care to remember, I have been the family postman, the bearer of unpleasant tidings. That is why my family steers clear of me as much as possible. A good argument can be made for keeping bad news secret, but the problem with that argument is bad news kept secret ends up causing so much destruction in the subconscious of the people involved, that airing out the bad news is the least destructive way to deal with it and offers the best chance for healing and transformation. It also stops the perp from getting away Scot-free.

More about Legal Schnauzer …

Major’s first wife, Gail, whom I knew pretty well, told me around the time Major went missing in March 2010 that she had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer maybe two years earlier. She told me Major’s and my stepsister, Suzanne, was dying of a very bad cancer, didn’t have long left. Suzanne was Joann’s daughter. Suzanne died later in the year Major killed himself – 2010. In middish 2011, Major’s and my first cousin, Charles “Bubba” Major killed himself with a pistol and left a suicide note in his own handwriting. I was in regular email dialogue with Bubba since Major first went missing. Bubba wrote a number of times of his having a very rough go in his life. I knew he probably was at risk and I tried to get him to come down to the Keys to live. But he never came down. I was not entirely suprised Bubba killed himself, and wished I had tried harder to intervene. Gail died late last year – 2011. We had a wonderful hour and a half telephone conversation maybe ten days before she passed over. I laughed until my sides split. She laughed plenty, too.

Despite my writing to and telling Schnauzer much of what you just read about those people passing over, Schnauzer from time to time has tried to make their deaths out to be mysterious and unresolved and somehow perhaps tied into Major’s death and other intrigues Schnauzer is promoting.

Two more things about Schnauzer bear mention.

First, Schnauzer keeps writing that before Major’s body was found, Chip Hazelrig traveled from Birmingham to Key West to see me. This is preposterous. Chip did not know me, I did not know him. He know of me because he had been partners in oil and gas deals with my father for around 20 years. I knew of Chip because I had heard his name mentioned in passing a few times by Birmingham people, but not by my father. I did not even know Chip and my father were in business together. I had no idea what Chip looked like before he called me and said he was in Key West with a friend, who really liked to fish. They had come down from above Miami, where his friend’s boat was kept. The friend had worn Chip out fishing, and he took a day off and decided to try to look me up, having heard I lived in Key West, which I then did live there. Chip did did not know how to reach me, I only had a cell phone. He said he went into a Duval Street bar and asked the first man he saw if he knew Sloan Bashinsky. The man said, yeah, he knew me. No, he did not know how to reach me, but maybe the man beside him, his drinking buddy knew. Yeah, the drinking buddy had my cell phone number. Chip called me, I answered, we met five minutes later. I knew then it was arranged by angels.

Mostly we talked about Chip’s business and friendship with my father, and only a little about Major, who had been missing a few days. I said did not yet have any sense of what had happened to Major. Chip clearly loved my father. We talked maybe an hour. Part of it was about the lawsuit my father’s widow and estate and business lawyer and trustees had filed against Chip and his partner’s oil & gas company for an accounting, H & W I think was the company’s name. Chip said the accounting was pretty loose, my father liked to operate on a handshake, and he liked to roll the dice on oil & gas bets. Over the years he won more bets than he lost, did pretty well if you aggregated the big tax write-offs with the royalties the good wells paid out. Sounded like my father, doing it on a handshake. Chip said he and my father once got dragged to a meeting by the future plaintiffs mentioned above, and they grilled Chip and my father until he told them to run the potato chip business and he would run the oil and gas business. That, too, sounded just like my father.

All of that I published and Legal Schnauzer read, but very little got reported by Schnauzer in that way. But for running into someone who had my cellphone number, Chip would not have found me. He did not come all the way down to Key West to see me, when he had no clue how or where to find me, nor did he know for sure I was even in Key West. Do you think Schnauzer would travel all the way to Key West to find me, not knowing for sure I even lived there, or how or where to find me, if I did live there? Not a chance.

Second, Schnauzer wrote an article saying the gunshot wound on the left side of Major’s head could not have been a contact wound because there was no stippling, which is a scattered pattern found on the skin after a gunshot is fired 18-to-6 or perhaps less inches from the skin. A contact wound is caused by the muzzle of a gun pressed against the skin when the shot is fired. There is no stippling with a contact wound. In the autopsy report, the coroner’s pathologist said there was no stippling. The Coroner said it was a contact wound, the very opposite of what Schnauzer reported in his article.

According to the Coroner’s report, Major’s wrists were somewhat loosely tied by a rope to a rope somewhat loosely tied around his waist. There was some range of motion of his wrists and hands. Enough range of motion, apparently, for the Coroner to conclude Major could have pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the side of his head and pulled the trigger, a contact wound with no stippling; the antique pistol identical to the antique pistol in his father’s home. Maybe Schnauzer got mixed up when he wrote it was not a contact wound because there was no stippling. Or maybe Schnauzer mixed it up on purpose because he wanted his readers to believe the shot was fired from a distance Major could not have pulled off with his wrists tied the way they were tied. Maybe Schnauzer wanted to eliminate any possibility that Major shot himself, even though he never saw the body or the ropes or the contact wound or the absence of stippling.

Adding to the intrigue, Schnauzer published the misinformation just a few days after the co-author of the Schnauzer article, Lori Moore, had told me in an email that there was no stippling, it was a contact wound. I jumped Lori’s bones about her and Schnauzer saying it was not a contact wound because there was no stippling. I told her she was in deep shit. Before that, Lori was writing to me a lot, calling me her good buddy, etc. That would be Lori Moore of Dothan, Alabama, another self-styled investigative journalist.

I took Schnauzer to task in a reply I sent in as a comment to his inventing it was not a contact wound and to other parts of the article I did not agree with. Schnauzer wrote back that he would not publish my reply because it was not well written and did not meet journalistic standards. I wrote back that real journalists allow fair reply to their articles and do not hold their critics to journalistic or even well-written standards. And real journalists don’t twist the facts to get the result they want to get.

If anyone is interested, United States District Judge Clarence W. Allgood — see the first portrait in A Few Remarkable (Birmingham) People I Have Known in the right-hand menu of the home page of goodmorningbirmingham.com — came to me in a dream around dawn one morning and said there was a federal court case being tried by some people who were not trying it well. He said I was not doing anything wrong and would be getting leads. For me, federal court in dreams meant God’s Court. I try lots of cases there. I wondered what God’s Court case this was? Later same day, the woman told me about Major and the secret gay society in which he ran. Same day, I found a new Legal Schnauzer article about Major. If you google Legal Schnauzer, that should take you to his website.

This “article” is the Judge Allgood dream playing out. I never know when any God’s Court case is over. This one has had many phases. I imagine I will post this phase to goodmorningbirmingham.com. Beyond that, I am clueless, other than Schnauzer and Lori Moore both are on trial in God’s Court and I am glad I am not standing in their shoes.

Sloan Bashinsky, Major’s older brother

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com