Key West Diary

Who Killed Kennedy

2009-11-27T13:20:00.003-05:00

Solares Hill, the free weekly paper subsumed into the Key West Citizen's empire has not been my favorite paper for a while. I used to enjoy the Thursday read when Nancy Klingener used to edit the paper. She was the best to come after David Ethridge got tired of running the paper and faded away to retire someplace Up North. These days I feel the paper is being edited by a reporter, and to me that's not a great thing. A good reporter isn't necessarily a good editor and it shows in the weak articles Solares Hill seems to be ready to settle for. there are those who will tell it was only great decades ago when everything in key west was great and it has all been polluted mercilessly by outsiders and people of low morals from elsewhere.Be that as it may Solares Hill has been off on a bizarre tangent all it's own lately, reporting sporadically on the Key west links to the John F Kennedy assassination in Dallas lo those many years ago. This past week (Solares Hill appears nowadays as a supplement to the Sunday Citizen)the paper offered a solution to the enduring mystery of who killed the President in 1963. In various articles over the past couple of years the paper has woven an incredibly complex tale drawing in various Cuban exiles and anti-Castro personalities in South Florida and the Keys, including the training on No Name Key of the potential Bay of Pigs invaders and it talked at some length about the CIA front company operating on Stock Island to monitor Cuba and infiltrate agents onto the island. The articles are numerous and the links are incredibly complex.

If I have it right Solares Hill suggests that Cuban exiles posing as Communist sympathizers of Castro hoodwinked Lee Harvey Oswald to murder the President, and they were planning in spiriting him away after the assassination, a plan thwarted by Oswald's early arrest. Apparently the murder involved Cuban exiles who were angry about Kennedy's lack of enthusiasm for an invasion of Cuba and hoped to pin the murder on Castro, thus prompting an all out retaliation by the US. They were apparently backed up (this is a complicated long drawn out story and I may be missing some key points here) by members of the mob who were also keen to get back to Cuba to pick up where they had been forced to leave off by the fall of the Batista government.

One can well imagine the Mob doing the deed and saying nothing, but it's harder to imagine the Cuban exile keeping their mouths shut about such a monumental thing. It appears word did leak out, but I suppose the Anglo press in the US isn't going to pick up the hints and rumors that Solares Hill's correspondents have managed. I find the story fascinating, I confess, even as I wish Solares Hill would give this sort of coverage to the daily dramas of the Keys, more consistently and more forthrightly than they have lately. Nevertheless I also hope they get recognition for this crazy plausible tale of who it actually might have been that organized the unsolved mystery of who killed Kennedy.

Mailboxes Etcetera

2009-11-27T00:01:00.001-05:00

This post is along overdue promise for Celia who wanted mailboxes on my blog. I now know where to find a vast assortment to spice up my blog when I feel like it.

I used to think the idea of a mail box project was overwhelming until I ended up on Caribbean Drive on Summerland Key. Every other mailbox was personalized:

This one was one of those East Coast style lighthouses built on land. Not the metal screw type used in the Florida Keys rock:

I liked the mermaid with her rouged cheeks and lips in a permanent pout:

I hope I can get closer than this to a manatee this winter, above, or this grouper (?) below.

While I grant you this stand pipe isn't technically a mail box I have never previously seen such a thing do double duty as a house number marker:

And to close out this series of tropical mail boxes here is mine on Indies Road on Ramrod Key. In the picture I managed to mask the fact that I recently dropped a coconut on it when pruning the tree above it, giving it a large, unsightly dent. My wife, who warned me of potential missile damage as I pruned the fruit had not a harsh word to say to me after I bombed our own mailbox. It is thanks to such forbearance that our marriage survives.

Mind you it took a fair bit of work on my part to bury this bugger in a bed of cement. We may tire of the decorated box but I promise you, that post is there to stay, come hell or high water.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T00:01:00.009-05:00

Im Abendrot- Evening's Glow

Through want and joy we have walked hand in hand;
We are both resting from our travels now, in the quiet countryside

Around us the valleys fold up, already the air grows dark,
Only two larks still soar wistfully into the balmy sky

Come here and let them fly about; soon it is time for sleep
We must not go astray in this solitude

O spacious, tranquil peace, so profound in the gloaming.
How tired we are of travelling – is this perchance death?

( Joseph Eichendorff )

In Im Abendrot, at the line “can this then be death,” Richard Strauss quotes the Transfiguration motif from one of the tone poems that made him famous, Tod und Verklärung (“Death and Transfiguration”). Strauss wrote in 1894 about Tod und Verklärung: “The hour of death approaches, the soul leaves the body in order to find gloriously achieved in everlasting space those things which could not be fulfilled here below.” On his deathbed, Strauss said: “Dying is just as I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.”

Thanks to my wife for learning to understand me and the patience to put up with me and the promise to be there at the end. It's been an excellent trip. Long may it last.

Dry Tortugas Thankfully

2009-11-25T13:14:00.001-05:00

As you read this I hope to be with half a dozen or so friends settling into a campsite at the Dry Tortugas National Park. The house, the vegetable garden and the Bonneville (without the ignition key!), are in the care of a house sitter and for four glorious days and three cool nights we will be under canvas somewhere here.
The blog will have to soldier on without me, as will Key West PD until I get back on the Saturday afternoon ferry and rush off to my uniform waiting for me in my locker when I take up the reins of civilized life once again. I am very happy to be escaping the bonds of civilization for a few days, and I very much appreciate this ideal wilderness we have just 70 miles (110 kilometers) from Key West. At Fort Jefferson there is no food, no water, no cell phones, no nothing very much unless we load it on the ferry.
The weather forecast advises us a cold front is about ready to hit the Keys and we can expect rain in squalls with wind and cooling temperatures, possibly into the mid 60s at night (17C). We have a supply of extra blankets and red wine to fight off frost bite. As you might imagine, with half a dozen women in the party we will leave nothing to chance. Last May I was a pack mule getting our modest heap of stuff from the ferry to the campground.To those that wish it, I hope you get all the snow, yellow leaves and changes of season you can stand. To those forced to stand in line in airports, or in traffic jams on freeways, felicitations, I'm sure your families appreciate the sacrifice. To riepe, I apologize in advance for the posts the next few days which will look exactly like normal but I won't be available to be your whipping boy. Tell your bud in Alaska that if God and I were on speaking terms I'd be asking for a Government Writer's Program like the WPA had, for Christmas. Failing that perhaps we can ask China to annex us to Hong Kong and send us Cuban doctors to take care of our health needs. Remember: They may have a perfect welfare safety net in Norway but they don't have seascapes like these: Till next time then, I'm off to find a campsite and eat turkey on my very own, more-or-less private, desert island. Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! (Even Canadians who've hogged the turkey and had theirs in October, greedy guts).

Cudjoe Stumble

2009-11-25T00:01:00.010-05:00

Last spring my colleague Noel told me of some adventures he had with friends on all terrain vehicles on Cudjoe Key. (Cudjoe is pronounced Anglo style: Kud-joe, not Coo-joe or even Coo-hoe, just so you know).It had been my ambition to check out the trails, but summer intervened, season of heat humidity mosquitoes and standing water. I decided November was a good time to check this place out, as the rains have dried up and one has to hope the mangrove bogs have too. The trail looked promising at the start, with a nice big red diamond marking the end of navigable pavement.
I paused to allow the ibis to do their foraging... ...and took off down what promised to be a simple enough exploration. The trail was hard packed, quite possibly an old planned development that never happened, and left behind a usable roadway. The bicycle coped just fine though I was tempted to ditch it. The problem with cycling the backwoods is that you are essentially using a vehicle and it demands your attention. The benefit is that you get where you are going faster, which, as benefits go, isn't much good if you are just out for a ramble. Pink Crocs haul you along just fine if you are walking.I have heard some people marvel at my audacity wandering the woods of the Lower Keys, as they fear rattlesnakes, and my defense that I have never met a rattler therefore they don't exist cuts no ice for them. Too bad because these areas are a great place to go for a walk, especially mid week at midday when no one else is around.
Besides, I am not out to chase, kill or harass snakes so I figure they will mind their own business if I walk with my eyes open. So far so good.

And then naturally we met our first impediment, standing water. This particular trail is pretty close to tidal waters on the edge of the island so I guess it is more prone to flooding. At first I planned to ride on through ( and wash the bicycle at home with copious amounts of fresh water), but a glance up the trail revealed the awful truth.This wasn't just a puddle, this was a state of mind. All I could see was a trail of water disappearing into the horizon. I surrendered. It wasn't the ride I had intended, but I got to enjoy a morning out, and as it's only five miles from my house I will have to come back later in the winter, deeper into the dry season, to see what other trails may poke their heads above water.

Going Rouge

2009-11-24T23:23:00.000-05:00

I found this video on Huff Post. I do not believe it is a Saturday Night Live spoof, though perhaps it should be. On the one hand it is funny, and perhaps people who watch television have been exposed to this kind of stuff more than I have, and it may well be old hat to them. On the other hand it rather freaks me out. These are people who believe without evidence, and the same kind of conspiracy theory nonsense came from my side of the aisle as George Bush came down to the end of his second term- that stuff about martial law and an end to elections and all that. The endless lack of faith in the US Constitution and that binds us all together.

But beyond the general, unanswerable malaise expressed by these inarticulate Sarah Palin supporters, what we hear in this video is the voice of belief over empiricsm, the certainty of knowing without knowledge, the yearning for an America that never was, that has been promoted by the banksters and the traders and the clever operators who have traded these people's real work in factories, in sweat shops and mills and sold them a fantasy instead and sent their labor to the cheaper markets of the Far East. And now they lose their hold on reality because if they look reality in the face their America was taken from them by Americans and replaced by a bunch of false idols. What a nightmare. And the President isn't going to toss these yeast people (see J H Kunstler) a life belt. They drown in the rust belt of their dreams.

Call me a dreamer but this video summarises for me why I am ashamed of what our leaders, all of them, are doing to this country. Look into the eyes of these true believers and ask yourself if anyone really gives a shit about what they want or care about or believe in, be it nonsense or not. I don't think Sarah Palin cares anymore than President Barack Obama has shown any sign of giving a toss about them. I wouldn't have a clue how to reassure them that they can ever have America back, because as I go off for yet one more overtime shift at my secure job, I have no idea what the future holds for any of us, except that Goldman Sachs doesn't have anything good planned for us, that is for sure. And what do you suppose Sarah Palin's relationship to Wall Street might be?

800 Emma

2009-11-24T00:01:00.008-05:00

Now there's a startling building to come across as you walk around Bahama Village:

And next door the equally massive structure that houses the VFW hall in the Village and apparently an American Legion hall next door:

A few of the usual suspects caught in the act:

Across the street another over-sized building, this one with porches and overhangs in proper ante-bellum style:

The colors in this next picture struck me in the eye:

As they did here, it was only as I studied the composition of the picture I realized the door handles were actually Art:

I have absolutely no idea how this place has a door with the name of a prominent hotel inscribed on it. Surplus to needs, no doubt.

I liked the chairs lined up on the porch in the afternoon sunlight:

It is sad but true that I always have to explain to new dispatchers that the Douglass Gym is not a misspelling. Not one of the ones I have trained had ever heard of the abolitionist.

Emma Street looking north toward Truman Annex.

This block is also home to an apartment complex that is supposed to be considered affordable housing.

It's actually not bad housing here. I stayed here a few weeks while our house was getting refurbished. I stayed in a friend's apartment sleeping while he was at work, and it was surprisingly quiet and peaceful.

Back on Emma at Olivia a more conventional Conch cottage under a bright blue sky.

Bahama Village, hardly the den of iniquity one sometimes hears about from ill-informed voices.

Stark Poverty

2009-11-23T18:33:00.000-05:00

Try this on for size: fifty million Americans in the last year have struggled to get enough food. Half the children in the United States during the course of the next year are expected to need food stamps to eat. Last year Goldman Sachs paid corporate taxes at the rate of one percent and this year is on track to show a record profit, and of that, nearly 17 billion dollars has been set aside to pay bonuses.

Do I sound like an old line Marxist if I suggest this gross inequality is unacceptable? I can assure you I am not a Marxist, but I am convinced no possible good can come of this state of affairs. Our President is doing nothing to rein in the banksters, we have spent tens of trillions of dollars, more than double the amount needed to pay off every primary home mortgage in this country, and we have a growing population of desperate, permanently unemployed workers. The number of unemployed is bound to increase.

In the third quarter of this year home foreclosures hit almost one million. More and more of us average joes are losing our homes, our jobs and with them our health insurance. meanwhile our Senators are debating how to screw us out of affordable decent health care coverage. The sort of coverage they enjoy as a matter of course. How is this possible?

Well, I suppose it's possible because too many of us still hope that everything will work out, that the American Dream will get back on track, that things will start improving soon. There are ten state sin the US that are considered to be on the verge of bankruptcy and it gives me no joy to note that Florida is one of them. This is a state that has no personal income tax and relies on sales taxes and property taxes, both of which are in precipitous decline. It is no wonder then, that the Sunshine State is on the verge of imploding. This is a state with a part-time legislature (!) that meets for a few months at the beginning of the year. In the legislature's absence the Governor and his elected cabinet run the state. From them we have had no peep that there is trouble on the horizon. Come on down! The winter sunshine is lovely!

So what are we to do? Well, gun stores are reporting massive sales and ammunition is flying off the shelves. I don't count that as an encouraging sign of the things to come. I keep thinking about that TV show called Dark Angel, in which the creators depicted a United States laid low and devastated by a mysterious electronic pulse. People lived shambolic Third World lives scraping a living under the watchful eye of jackbooted security police and robot guards. The lucky ones fled to Canada...

Happy Thanksgiving, is the phrase of the day and I suppose it means something for those of us with jobs, homes and health insurance. Everyone else? Good luck.

Watson Lane

2009-11-23T00:01:00.011-05:00

This is another of those lanes that lead north off Truman Avenue toward the cemetery, and it's not really a lane because Watson cuts right across the middle of Key West for several blocks. However this small chunk between Truman and the cemetery fits my description of a lane...

The lane is peppered with signs of Awful Warnings thanks in part to the presence of the gruesome strip club nearby. They use the red cage sometimes to stick a scantily clad woman inside to prance around as a form of advertising.

No parking for lechers around here apparently. Aside from all the parking issues Watson Lane has some quite evocative little homes in this stretch. They reminded me of mountain cabins I have seen in Northern California or the Pacific Northwest:

With some fairly large multi unit dwellings in the key West style:

It was while I was standing in the middle of the lane pondering my next picture a woman walked up to me and, were this the fantasy of a humor writer she would have lifted her shirt and ordered me to take a peak. Instead this was real life and she asked if she could help me.

"Do what?" I replied, puzzled. Then she nodded her head and asked if I had come from the property.

"No," I said, "I'm not overly fond of Teasers." No, she clarified, asking me if I had come from the house. Which I found to be a weird question as I was obviously standing in the street holding a camera, albeit a small one. I had no burglar bag or any place to hide the loot.

"I'm taking pictures," I said as though the camera wasn't self explanatory. "I like to take pictures of my home town recording it as it changes." Humph she grunted, "I haven't seen you around." Probably I wanted to say, because I don't attend many of the tea parties you do, it's not that I don't exist! But she wandered off and I got back to the business at hand, which I may add was not burglary. Not in the middle of the day, with a camera in my hand in a photogenic town littered with tourists taking pictures. One has to respect people's right to be paranoid I suppose.

And here we have a fine example of that rare species the Honda Ruckus 250 scooter. They achieved cult status in the brief period they were imported. Personally I've never seen the attraction of the Big Ruckus or the 50cc version, lacking as they do, even the most rudimentary storage or weather protection.

I found the "lane" to be quite delightful, all trees and wood and shafts of sunlight.
This was some sort of outdoor garage or carport tucked in under the trees.

This was the source of the mid street controversy, a picture taken from well outside the boundaries of the house.And here across the street another cabin covered by greenery:

I thought the arrow pointed in the right direction for all of us, in the end:

And just to cheer you up here's a nice tree:

I enjoyed Watson.

Georgia in the Meadows

2009-11-22T00:01:00.010-05:00

I like the meadows neighborhood, as I have mentioned previously, though Georgia Street is a little different, for some reason most of Georgia is a very wide street cutting across the neighborhood to Truman Avenue.

They call it The Meadows because apparently it was a field after World war Two when a developer decided to turn it into housing. Perhaps it was a style choice, or perhaps it was all they knew in Key West but the bulk of the housing here imitates the preferred type of construction characteristic of Old Town. here the strictures of the Historic Architectural Review Commission don't necessarily apply. Just as well:

It's a mish mash sort of area, a vast collection of garbage cans,

And Halloween still celebrated by a ghoul hanging off the balcony.

Old style louvered windows and a concrete block house:

It was a bright sunny afternoon which brought out the colors, especially through the autumnal absence of leaves.

I find myself surprised to see busy construction work going on. This used to be a common sight around town, but these days it's much more rare to see cement being poured:

This is one of the proper wooden Key West homes, with Bahama shutter sand picket fence:

This is at the corner of Petronia Street where Georgia becomes uncharacteristically wide:

And around the corner I saw a sight I expect to see a lot more of, in the future. Actually I'm surprised more city residents don't drive electric cars, these egg cars and the more conventional-looking Zenn ("zero emission, zero noise") cars are still fairly rare on the streets:

And here I've included a few random street views:

I was out on my wife's Vespa ET4 to give it an airing.

Which, when I think about it, this is an unexceptional street in the middle of an exceptionally pretty neighborhood.

Not Good Prospects

2009-11-21T15:22:00.002-05:00

Societe Generale is not a company name many of us had heard of but it is making the rounds now as it's crystal ball gazers are predicting a high likelihood of "economic collapse" in the next couple of years. That kind of prediction by Europe's answer to Goldman Sachs gets people's attention. The fact that their primary language is French may lead one to dismiss their predictions as fanciful empire building, but happily the Bush Era is over for the moment and perhaps it might be worth paying attention. Besides Societe Generale was founded in 1864 and has survived a few scandals and other problems (like societal collapse and war) since then.

( Societe Generale HQ at 29 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris, Wikipedia Photo)

When an investment bank worries out loud about possible economic collapse the idea is to turn their investors on to alternative investments that will allow them to continue making money. Ain't capitalism grand? They make money, we lose everything; and they're French! Not to worry Goldman Sachs is doing the same thing over here but they are being a tad more circumspect in predicting the end of the the world as we know it, as they still have their hands held out for socialist support from you and me.

Against this backdrop our Fearless Leader has called a jobs summit for early December and all the kings horses and all the king's men will gather in Washington to put Humpty back on his economic engine again and start dishing out jobs. The bad news is benefits start to run out in January and those who are unemployed will face actual starvation, so perhaps Societe Generale's dim view of the future isn't so far off. Even if the jobs summit puts a rocket up Congress's collective backside (expect Republican whining about the deficit as Americans go hungry) help for the unemployed would be months away. Not a penny of Federal money has gone to "shovel ready" public works jobs and none seems to be in the pipeline. Where the hell is FDR when you need him?

As mind boggling as it seems we appear headed back to the land of soup kitchens and malnourished (white) infants in America. Already millions of mostly minority kids (not all) are not eating properly and soup kitchens are overwhelmed and things won't most likely get better. Even the President has rather coyly admitted we may be headed toward a second dip in the economy. That is if you believe the economy really came out of Recession in the first place last summer.

So we sit here and ask ourselves why? Our leaders managed to avoid a Depression by flinging money at the banks and sustaining an unsustainable economic system to avoid catastrophe. Now the banks are as safe as possible in this chaos, and catastrophe stalks the poor and crawls up the legs of the middle class as the rich look down from their publicly funded lifeboats and tut unsympathetically at our lack of financial foresight. Does President Obama really not understand the misery of we the people? Is re-election imperiled by public works and a WPA funded employment program? Faced with implosion is this not time to admit FDR was right in putting people to work? The next time you cross an old cement bridge ask yourself if you have ever really thought about the suffering of the people put to work by the Works progress Administration that built that bridge. You and I may soon be following their example; if we're lucky. "Bonne chance!" as Societe Generale might put it.

Wandering BPK

2009-11-21T00:01:00.008-05:00

The only goal I had when I set off from the house was to drop a Netflix disc off at the Big Pine Key Post Office and get some exercise along the way, so I rode my bicycle.

I like to ride against the traffic on the highway which gives me a chance to see who might be losing control of their vehicle and about to run me down. Which put me in the path of a broken down Mitsubishi Montero on the shoulder. I got the chance to discover just how complex changing a tire on one of these SUVs can be, but luckily she was an organized woman and she had the manual. Which didn't stop me putting the tire on inside out (erg!) and squirting myself with hydraulic fluid when I released the valve on the jack. Which made it impossible to raise the car a second time and put the spare on a second time, right-side-in. Well, at least she got to drive home to Marathon to get her wheel done right by a pro. I can change the tire on the Maxima in ten minutes flat but that Mitsubishi was some kind of Chinese puzzle. I'll do better next time.I decided to ignore my crotch full of hydraulic fluid and pressed on with the program. I dropped off the disc and took a circuit through the neighborhood behind the post office. I wasn't planning on taking any pictures, but then I passed a couple of abandoned mattresses and I thought: look at this lovely little street... and some ass couldn't be bothered to pay five bucks to drop these off at the dump on Blimp Road? Grrr.
This gravel pit got red tagged. It looked weird. The permit was on the telephone pole and underneath it, a month ago, it got red tagged saying it didn't look right to the inspector. Wow, I thought, nice neighbors! Such a peaceful backwater, so much drama!
So I took another picture. Then I remembered a rather pretty little bench sitting under a tree further back on Sandy Circle. I turned around; my wanderings had a purpose. I passed a man walking his beer can, and we exchanged a cheery remark about the pleasant temperatures. I looked over my shoulder and he, and his beer can, stepped into the bushes and vanished, like Alice in Wonderland's White Rabbit. I photographed what I think is a giant magnolia, instead.
Guarded by an elderly, weather worn, pale pink flamingo.

It was my day off so clouds were piled up, making for hazy light and what looked like the distinct chance of rain though none materialized. And, at last the bench.
Further up I found this odd looking house, long past it's sell-by date judging by the dilapidated state of the jungle garden and the real estate sign lying on the ground.
The suburban idyll (picture riepe setting fire to Big Pine Key with a cigar)is not quite so idyllic as the state road prison is just across the street, and no doubt this minimum security prison is enough to worry home buyers. Aside from a very loud, buzzy generator I would imagine the prison to be an ideal neighbor, like a cemetery, only the inmates are still alive:The sign said nothing about pictures, only that introducing contraband is against some obscure state law. So obscure they felt the need to enumerate it on the sign. Prison, for the haute bourgeoisie like us, is a fearsome place, the repository of tales of bugger and shanks and murder in the showers, but the inmates from this place are serving less literary time and can off be seen by the side of the road paying back their debt to society riding lawn mowers and gently propping up shovels as they dram of a return to a life of Budweiser and fishing.
There but for the grace of God goes any one of us, I suppose, though properly bourgeois readers will tut-tut and imagine they are, like the memorable lady once arrested for disorderly conduct at the Bull, who shouted "We're too middle class to be arrested!" The officer was having none of it and off she went to the Stock Island Hilton.
The state of Florida doesn't seem to be spending much money maintaining this place. It looks ratty and run down, and rather depressing, despite the best efforts:
Across the street a homeowner boxed in by a stout wooden fence left no doubt as to whys/he lives in the deep mysterious woods of Big Pine Key. In case there were any doubt a sign, backed up by a dog house large enough for a mastiff on the proportions of the Hound of the Baskervilles:
The sign demanding a banning of the bomb reminds us of the cultural diversity of Big Pine Key. Personally I think the mizzen on the ketch is a little over sized, but I could be accused of just being picky.
Then I found a dirt road heading off through the wilderness so naturally, like Yogi Berra I took the fork in the road and it led me to a piece of string, more signage and a cat, though unlike the Cheshire cat that disappeared intro it's own grin, this one sat impassively in the grass looking at me making a fool of myself with my photographic apparatus:
It may very well be private property, but it wasn't that interesting anyway, I convinced myself as i pedaled back through the public property to the paved road.

When you least expect it, you come across a reminder of Canada, land of drizzle, piney islands and people who collect Corvettes. Where Corvettes cannot go, I breezed through on my bicycle, past the cement barricades into a fresh new neighborhood. This house struck me as the residence of an optimist, if s/he builds it just high enough the view across the mangroves will be exhilarating, even if to see it you have to life flat on your stomach under the eaves in the attic:
And the final picture in the series I took from a bridge on the highway headed home, the sun still annoyingly shrouded by clouds, the waters in Newfound Harbor flat, the hovel craft planted firmly in the quicksilver and all color washed out by leaden sky. It still looked good to me.

It did occur to me that were I one of those "one photo a day" merchants, this essay about nothing much at all could have taken me through the next three weeks.

Paying Through The Nose

2009-11-20T18:03:00.004-05:00

Call it a bizarre coincidence but I recently received word that three women are struggling with breast cancer payments for treatment.

It happened that my wife and I met some friends at Salute Restaurant on the beach for some shared appetizers and glasses of wine. For me it was a night off work, for them it was an after work gathering and it was delightful. The wine gave me an excuse to sit for a good long time to eat and dissipate the alcohol before the ride home. We shared plates of appetizers, clams, salami, cheese, salads and vegetables and talked.

The conversation turned to a mutual friend who was forced to return to work facing the threat of being fired even as she started treatment for breast cancer. Were she to lose her job she would lose her health insurance, the delightful double whammy of crap health coverage and employment woes in the US at the moment. However it soon became clear that we had to pass round the hat because she is having trouble meeting the co-payment requirement for her treatment.

Then later my wife received word that a friend of hers got two e-mails requesting financial help for two more women also diagnosed with breast cancer, with jobs and insurance and massive co-payments they cannot manage. I was listening to my wife talk about these personal disasters and I couldn't help but wonder what it was that prompted our Republican Congressional Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to shout "No!" on the recent health care vote in the House of Representatives. I couldn't help but wonder if her Congressional Health Care Plan ever sent her a sharply worded letter telling her a treatment was not covered.

Meanwhile the new report that women under 50 should or should not have mammograms is becoming fodder for the health care debate. Is it the start of "government rationing" or insurance companies scamming women for higher profits? Who cares? It seems even if you have insurance you might very well not be able to afford the treatment or the preventative care. How many read the news that even private funding of abortions may be outlawed by the health care bill? The Catholic Church toiling as usual to do God's most obscure work, insisted that a back door abortion prevention tool be inserted into the bill and never mind if health care reform is derailed. It's just unbelievable to me how many people get their oars in and stir the pot up. Residents of other industrialized nations, secure in their own versions of "socialized medicine" must think we are in collective delirium. We, the "Leaders Of The Free World."

Is it possible we live in a world between the 49th parallel and the Rio Grande, where only personal experience moves us anymore? What more can these women do, they have jobs, they have insurance and they are in a jam. And Ros-Lehtinen's answer is what exactly? More of the same. Surely we, collectively, can do better than that. Even brainstorming over appetizers I can come up with a half dozen alternatives that are better than facing either dying bankrupt or of breast cancer. Hell, I can even figure a solution to the abortion thing, a subject that leaves me cold. No public funding of abortions and insurers and women decide whether or not to cover it in the privacy of their contracts. Done. You'd think our dear leaders could manage it too, instead they continue to push us down the rat holes of their lobbyists' pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Better not get cancer in the meantime if you don't want another reason to go bankrupt. Or die.

Simonton and Petronia

2009-11-20T00:01:00.002-05:00

The request for a "quiet" zone on the 700 block of Simonton Street seems rather quaint in light of all that goes on a block away. The sign seems old enough and worn to hint at another era.The church has a hall attached and they have given it a blinding white paint job, a Caribbean look under the bright white winter sun:And they have barbecue and outdoor seating area for those winter gatherings when it's cool enough. At least that's what I do at home, use the outdoors in winter rather than summer. Across the street another of those bizarre looking cement jobs. It had a Porsche with an Illinois tag in the off street parking spot, so perhaps a little lake shore eccentricity in the land of funky wooden homes is permissible. Apparently the Historic Architecture Review commission thought so... Now this is more like it, boring dependable old Key West, porches planks and picket fences:Simonton Street is by far the best route to cross from north to south and back again, avoiding the cruising on Duval and the sight seeing on Whitehead. And thanks to trees it is scenic enough. Here looking north toward, ultimately, Simonton Beach:

This place has gone through a few iterations of the fast food take out menu. It never seems to last. I suspect lack of easy parking combined with an off the main track location don't help. Probably the rent is too high because the food at the Bottega though good was on the expensive side as I recall. More like a sit down place for me, than a take out. Besides it's hard tot take out when you live 28 miles away. When this was the Bottega there was a silver ET2 (battered and dented) parked outside. My wife's ET4 fills the spot:

Gary the Carpenter is one of my wife's favorite entrepreneurs. He has had a storied life with near misses he talks about quite openly and he favors my wife's class filled with difficult students with stories of how he found his way and made a successful company for himself. He has made a habit of hiring at risk youngsters to give them a chance to avoid the pitfalls he fell into in his younger life.I don't suppose the tourists clambering up the hill on Petronia Street noticed just another construction company. And one likes to think this is a refreshing cola product in her hand at three thirty of a week day afternoon.
Not for long I hope will there be vacancies around town.
This massive affair struck me as two-in-one proposition, the lumpy square utilitarian construction below and gingerbread porch on top.
Off street parking for bicycles is as necessary as any car parking. A stout lock is a useful thing too as bicycles have been known to have been lifted from gated yards, such is their worth in a cycling town (check the pawnshops...). The police department has computerized bicycle registry these days so registering the bicycle by serial number is a very useful thing.I mentioned the trees on Simonton Street:
I would be remiss if I closed this essay without a nod to J. Wills Burke and his The Streets of Key West wherein he tells the story of how John Whitehead told his buddy John Simonton of New Jersey of new business possibilities in the Island annexed with the rest of Florida to the United States in 1821. Simonton, who had interests in Alabama added to his business empire by paying Juan Salas (everyone except Pardon Greene among the early owners of Cayo Hueso were called John for some reason) two thousand dollars for the Island in early 1822. He then quartered the island and sold shares to John Whitehead, John Fleeming (sic), John Mountain and Consul John Warner. The last two sold their shares to the Pardon Green aforementioned. Salas meanwhile made a second sale to John Strong who sold his share to John Geddes, but in 1825 the Johns who have streets named after them (and Greene) won out their claims before the US Land Claims Board.

And there you have it, Whitehead, Greene, Fleming (sic) and Simonton. And not one street named Geddes.

Fog of Peace

2009-11-19T20:48:00.003-05:00

I feel an overwhelming sense of gloom as the holiday season gears up and we all ready ourselves for whatever Thanksgiving and Christmas are likely to bring. It seems churlish but I see many lumps of coal ahead, and I wish to goodness I were wrong. They tell us the economy is on the mend but I wonder how that can be as unemployment worsens, the health care bill weakens and Peak Oil bears down upon us all. Through it tourism in Key West still seems to be strong, albeit with lower prices for rooms. And yet, and yet this nagging feeling of all not being well won't leave me.

The recent revelation by the International Energy Agency that it's numbers for projected oil output are rubbish, at the behest of the US government, gives weight to forecasters of doom like J H Kunstler and his ilk who have long predicted a steadily declining standard of living as oil gets harder and harder to find, and thus more expensive. Cheap oil has under pinned everything about modern first world living and the end of cheap oil means...? Well, it doesn't seem like it has to mean an end to civilization as we know it but we have lost the art of the sensible debate in this country so we seemed to have doomed ourselves to march up to the edge of the cliff and will have to fall over it just on principle.

The national health care debate, that is supposed to move onto the Senate floor this weekend is just the latest and nastiest example of our need to ignore the glaringly obvious. Heath care coverage is deficient and expensive in the US, but instead of debating how best to make meaningful changes available to our citizens in need, half the debating team crossed their arms, shouted insults and left the sand box.

The war in Afghanistan that was needed a decade ago to respond forcefully to the 9-11 attacks got diluted by a crazy scheme to invade Iraq at vast expense on the flimsiest of excuses and lies and now the word quagmire rears it's ugly head. And we can't debate our way out of this one because no one knows why we are there in the first place. Are we bringing corruption and democracy to Afghanistan as an alternative to the Taliban whack jobs? At our expense? Why?

Climate change, now there's a subject that needs intelligent debate and all we get is denial on one side and no coherent plan from the other. If the climate is changing and scientists tell us it is we need to plan. If the climate is changing because of human actions we need to figure out how to change and what to change about how we live. instead we get people getting angry over the very possibility that anything may be wrong with the climate that gives us life.

I have no children and I see no point in my worrying about the next generation's problems if the parents of that generation are sticking their own heads in the sand. I just can't for the life of me escape the sense of unease that keeps prodding me. The economy is an immediate issue and while it acknowledges the unemployment problem the White House shows no plans to start a Works Progress Administration, preferring to keep on funding banks over people. State budgets are imploding all over the country, Florida is facing a 20% deficit and heaven knows where that will lead us.

And as we make our holiday plans a sense of unreality fills my active mind. Cheap oil is running out, unemployment is up. Wells Fargo Bank keeps retreating from refinancing my home, even though I have yet to be late with a payment, and they have calmly pocketed 25 billion in public funds. And one looks out of the window and life rolls on, apparently without a glitch. Am I dreaming or is there a giant glitch over the horizon?

Summerland Caribbean

2009-11-19T00:01:00.011-05:00

If I had to see this cheery billboard every time I came home "...love for life!" I'd barf, but saccharine sentiments have never been my strong suit. Summerland Cove, despite it's arch "leave-it-to-Beaver" public sentiment is quite the neighborhood in the Lower Keys. It's rather hidden away from the Overseas Highway but the old Bahama Jack's restaurant is a landmark on the other side of the road. Slice of Paradise Pizza (the best in the Lower Keys in my opinion) is also found next to the bridge entrance to the subdivision whose street is marked thus:

The little bridge crosses the canal that separates Summerland Cove from the rest of the island:

I've been down this canal system in my boat, looking for fuel at the Chevron dock next to Highway One, but it's a bit of a chore threading your way back and forth through the maze of waterways at walking speed. Much better to cruise the neighborhood by bicycle, all the better to admire the architecture:

One could easily imagine oneself perched out here on the open water view on this glorious November afternoon:This enormous pile is available for seasonal rental, though I have to say it looked rather shabby and even unfinished.

It felt like every other house was for sale or for rent up and down the street.

It's a shame but this seems like a neighborhood falling on hard times. Not surprising really, considering the state of the economy, but this is a place where the modern McMansions were thriving during the housing bubble.

Everyone wanted their stilt home in the sun.

With attendant vessel of course:

And for some a whole island is barely enough:
For everybody else there is cheek-by-jowl island living:

Sometimes one dish just isn't enough.This next home had a "Beware of the Dog" sign tacked to the front, just to make the place look homely. I figured a "Beware of the Steps" might have been apposite, especially for a visitor with a heart condition.

I tried repeatedly with various exposures to get the proper shade of turquoise to shine through in this next picture. Had my wife come home to our slightly shabby house painted with the exquisite care of this one, but in this startling shade of teal I think she might kill me. For somebody this bright paintwork spells (winter) home:For somebody else lemon yellow is the right shade of house paint. This is apparently a year round resident, one of those charming people who like to inflict their very loud radios on the neighborhood. I got the weather forecast from US1 Radio (107.1FM) from this canal side residence. "For you boaters..." the woman's voice bawled across the water as she gave the marine forecast with all the expert knowledge of someone who wouldn't know a rudder from a prop shaft. Glorious noise pollution; come the revolution all transistors will be short circuited.

This Mediterranean-style home will do nicely until strong winds pick up hurling terra cotta tiles acorss the neighborhood. Metal roofs do best in hurricane country.

"But by all means dump across the street at my neighbor's..."

I'll bet this concrete block structure was one of the original homes built in this subdivision. they cost twice as much to insure as stilt homes, as they are subject to flooding in storms, but they are the typical Florida dwellings of the 50s and 60s, and as such worth noting:

This is modern Florida; an empty lot, a seawall and a giant pile struggling for an ocean glimpse from the top floor. Nearer to God and further from good taste.Old boats don't decompose, they just sink into the shrubbery:

And modern homes surrender to the weeds as banks foreclose and mortgage holders flee and entropy takes back the former American Dream of a home in the sun:

Florida, for the first time ever, saw more people leave the state, than move in, last year. Should we be glad, finally, or worried?

The Constant Gardener

2009-11-18T00:01:00.009-05:00

My first Earthbox has sprouted nicely. One of two plants is a ginormous creation. I think it's an eggplant but I can't honestly remember what my wife was germinating originally. Barely visible to the left is a second small green plant doing okay next to it's massive neighbor. For some reason iguana action has abated a bit around here. I hope it's the cooler weather. When the guy with the plants shows up at the Big Pine Key flea market, it's time to plant. So we pulled out our Topsy Turvy planters and got to work filling them after months of keeping them ready for action in the shed.The Topsy Turvy is available by mail for monstrous mailing fees or from Target if you happen to be in Miami among the big shops. Basically it's a plastic tube with a sponge at the south end and an opening at the north end. The plant of your choice hangs from the south end while the contraption is suspended from the north end after you fill it with a plant and some dirt:The beauty of the Topsy Turvy is that it doesn't need weeding, it's iguana-proof and by hanging the plant it takes up not much room if that's a concern for an apartment dweller. I figure one could make a planter with a bucket, a sponge, a drill, some wire and so forth but this works for me:A quick slosh with some water (tomatoes can't get enough water I'm told):Such that when I asked my wife to hold the camera she used her initative to take a picture of the hanging in progress:And presto! As unlikely as it may seem the tomato will thrive hanging upside down. I will water it frequently from the deck when I am watering the other plants and the tomatoes will taste splendid:We have been growing some seedlings for planting in one of the beds left over from last winter, and I think we will see some lettuce if the iguanas can be induced to stay away. We also planted a few herbs in our other Earthbox along with a tomato and we shall see what we shall see:Our fruit trees are doing nicely into this their second season and with my experiences from last year I hope this winter will see a more productive growing season. All I've got to do is keep the iguanas away. By any means necessary.

Money Like Water

2009-11-17T15:03:00.002-05:00

There is so much weird stuff going on locally it's hard to know where to begin, or what to think about it all. Money it seems is no object for a few select people and institutions, and where it is an object, the sources of supply are most unlikely. Take the rather nice little hospital in Marathon, described thusly on a rather expensive billboard advertisement in Summerland Key:Fisherman's Hospital has made the rather startling suggestion that it should raise money by creating a tax district in Marathon and charge residents $70 per $100,000 of assessed property value. The idea is to raise money to buy modern equipment to make the facility more attractive for a proposed sale to an interested corporation. At a time when the federal government is being critiqued for being "socialist" for wanting universal health care, such a proposal from a private facility is rather breathtaking! I like Fisherman's and hope it continues to exist but if that can only be accomplished with a district tax I fear for it's future.

The Florida keys Community College on Stock island has a new (interim) leader. The new president announced in the Citizen that his top priority are the students, a rather rash course of action if the fate of his immediate predecessor is taken into consideration. Jill Landesberg Boyle was unceremoniously dumped after she made a raft of changes at the school that put "students first." She is now on leave, drawing her full salary until June when her term in office will come to a contractual close. For the remainder of this year the college burns up two presidential salaries at public expense, to no visible purpose.

The Monroe County School District meanwhile is doing it's own inimitable waste-of-money dance in public. The School Board majority of Pribamsky, Dick and Mathewson who have loudly proclaimed their aversion to administrative spending are planning on increasing the staffing of upper level staff in the financial department by a factor of three. John Dick, a man of little visible intelligence is telling the newspaper that a staffing report allegedly dumbing down requirements for administrative jobs is the work of the ousted former superintendent Randy Acevedo, he of the three felony convictions. According to Dick the consulting firm responsible for the reduced job requirements"probably" did so at the implied request of the former superintendent who is no longer available to refute the charge. This baseless accusation conveniently exonerates the board from any oversight responsibility. Board Chair Andy Griffith's plan to reduce administrative costs is to fire all Vice Principals. That'll show 'em.

The city of Key west meanwhile is working on it's own quality-of-life-improvement plans, which one can only view with a jaundiced eye. The city manager wants to widen the harbor channel to get bigger than ever cruise ships to dock in the next decade. 1,000 foot long ships are apparently passe. The city commission is looking to add more trolley tours to city streets to keep competition alive and well with Historic Tours of America. By supporting CityView Tours' application the city hopes I suppose to avoid an anti-trust lawsuit. I'm sure we all await the arrival of even more trolleys on city streets with bated breath. There was however a lovely moment at a recent city Commission meeting I wish I had seen in person. The paper says a discussion about monies owed from Historic Tours shows the city has lost all control of it's accounts. When one commissioner wanted to know how much HTA pays the city, all the Manager's well paid assistants were unable to provide the numbers. No one has a clue how much HTA pays the city for it's exclusive franchise, and thus no one knows if their accounts are up to date. This helps explain our lack of raises this year! It is comforting in our upside down world to know that we the city workers are helping subsidize the very wealthy Ed Swift and Chris Belland's corporation. Not enough that we the people fund banks and insurance companies!

Winter Commute

2009-11-17T00:01:00.004-05:00

"Did you see the sunset?" my wife asked with excitement in her voice, after she drove in to have dinner in Key West Saturday evening. (She went to the Colombian Restaurant on Petronia Street: excellent food, disorganized service was the verdict.) I have been noticing the spectacular shades of red and orange and purple for some weeks, ever since we switched to winter time at the end of October. Before the change the ride home after work in the morning looked like this:Now with the return of winter time it looks like this at 6:15 am:The wind is continuing to blow out of the north bringing clear blue skies, bright sunshine and cool dry temperatures. This is a spectacular state of affairs to wake up to at lunch time, but it does tend to wash out a little of the violent, moisture laden mornings of summer. Still, the rich orange glow across the flat waters and the mangrove islands has it's own beauty:I was standing on the bridge near Mile Marker 18 between North Harris Channel and Park key and in the distance, to the east, I could see the traffic light at Sugarloaf School, the one they installed a few years ago to help school buses get on the Highway. It's the green disc seen below:Commuting is supposed to be a penance in the modern world but in the Keys it's not so bad at all. Traffic tends to get a bit heavy between seven and nine going in to Key West and between five and seven in the evening coming out, but for a wild card like me, commuting is just a pleasant motorcycle ride. Working at night puts me against the traffic flow, and the scenery is always spectacular. I love my commute.Even when the traffic is heavy there is rarely any stop and go on the commute, it's mostly a matter of sitting in a line of cars traveling a little less than the speed limit. For me, the ride is mostly an open road.

By the time I got to Summerland Key, a couple of miles from my house the dawn was well underway. I liked the contrast between gas station sign and the orange of the rapidly brightening sky:The one lane road leading to my house was in the shadow of the houses and the trees but to the south I could see the big puffy clouds of moisture gathered over the warm waters of the gulf Stream, on the horizon:

And finally, forty minutes after leaving Key West Police station I could see the shaded window of my bedroom. The ride home in 73 degrees (20C) should have been enough to wake me, but in a few minutes I know I will be fast asleep, like a vampire, before the sun hits my eyes.

The ride home is a great way to slough off the dramas of a night at work.

End Of Duval

2009-11-16T00:01:00.006-05:00

Let me say it straight up: this is not my environment. I wanted to check out the end of Duval Street nearest the harbor but try as I might I didn't enjoy this block of the street.There is nothing residential down here, there isn't much greenery and of beauty, the eye of this beholder sees not much at all. There is a pharmacy though, if you need pharmaceutical thing while busy getting drunk.This is dust catcher heaven and I watched these visitors poring over various knick knacks, doubtless imported from the Mysterious Orient for their pleasure.Every fifth male of my generation is called Michael, so I am ready to bet good money there is one with my name on it......so if I ever feel the need to have a sea shell with my name on it catching motes of dust in my small home, this is where I will be sure to come to pump up the Key West economy:Duval Street is labelled in a potentially confusing way. This is the North end of the street, called Lower Duval because the numbers are lower here than they are at the south end of the street which is called Upper Duval.On the left there we see the imposing bulk of Zero Duval, Ocean Key House:This isn't actually a recreation of Check Point Charlie in the Berlin Wall. This is the entrance to the parking lot at the Pier House, Number One Duval Street:

You might come here to park a car on your way to the spa, or the beach bar and that's what you'd tell the attendant. You would also pass these old cement structures, left over from the days when the Key West Harbor waterfront was devoted to sailing ships and the movement of goods as well as people.Nowadays it's all about moving people which is probably a much easier way to make a living than sailing cargo around the coast. It's a lot less romantic to someone who earns his living in the air conditioned comfort of the police station. I don't actually miss my former job as boat captain.I was hoping for enlightenment and a point of view, about how the city makes it's money, but I could stand here and snap pictures till the cows come home and I would be no closer to a conclusion. A few years ago everyone was up in arms about Key West selling it's heritage to cruise ships and tour buses and developers and I wondered how it would be if the money spigot dried up. Now it has, for a lot of people, and the chance for the rest to make small fortune is evaporating fast. Yet the city still depends totally on tourism to supplement the steady income from the military, which fortunately shows no signs of disappearing. The last time the military pulled back left the city in ruins.I don't really understand mass tourism. I love to travel but my idea of making a journey is to see things, learn things and expand my comfort zone. I find it astonishing people keep coming back to Key West, and I am grateful for their constancy. Working for the city isn't as close to the tourist cash as working as a boat captain but the net result is the same. Without the visitor there is no salary. Beyond that rather base motive there is also the curiosity of trying to understand the phenomenon of repeat tourism, and the pleasure of living in a place that is a mirage of a pleasure palace that can be experienced only for a few short days each year.Of course Key West as pleasure palace wears a bit thin for people paying through the nose to live in the city, and that "island time" fantasy makes no sense to people rushing between multiple jobs and family obligations. Key West has always been trapped between fantasy and reality, ever since the Works Progress Administration decided to try tourism to revive the bankrupt city. The plan worked fabulously but Key West has had to reconcile being a romantic island with being in the business of being in business. Tourism always seems to provoke this dichotomy, but Key West's geographic isolation makes the situation that much more complex. When I lived in a mainland tourist town I had almost no contact with visitors. They had their routes to the beach and I had my tourist-free destinations in and around town. In Key West not only is that difficult to accomplish in such a small space, it is made more complex because being a local is a desired status. Most visitors desire contact with locals to go where locals go and eat where they eat.I asked once on a forum why people fascinated with key West don't just move here and the responses were the predictable mixture of family and job obligations, low pay, high cost of living and so forth. I was forced to the conclusion that Key west is better as a dream and a fantasy escape from real life than as real life itself. For some people this is the end of the road, and if they land up here with no money and no prospects, that's okay too. They take a seat, cadge spare change and watch the world go by. My mid-year resolution was to help struggling tourists trying to find their way on the streets, and to keep my impatience in check with the erratic winter driving and keep reminding myself that living here is a choice, not a dream killer. I would probably never visit Key West if I stopped living here. The tourist destinations bore me, and the fault lies, I believe, in me not in them. Lower Duval is for visitors and they certainly seem to enjoy it.

BPK Flea Market

2009-11-15T00:01:00.006-05:00

There is a large open space on Big Pine Key, and it's not really all that open. That's because every Saturday during the winter people operate stalls here selling dust catchers, foods, plants, clothes, sunglasses and all sorts of stuff. It's quite the place to be of a Saturday morning in the Lower Keys:This is the place to be find all that stuff you think you need and lug it back to the car in one of the many packed parking lots that surround the selling ground in the middle. My wife loves this dude who sells vegetable plants that seem to be properly adapted to Florida's climate.
His flourished last year where Home Depot's plants were rather hit or miss. He comes down Friday night, sets up, sleeps under the stars as he puts it, and has all his stock sold well before noon on Staurday. But there is a ton of stuff to be found at the flea market. I took these pictures as we wandered yesterday:

I wanted to tell this woman to keep her hands off the pink ones, but then I remembered my own rubber shoes are at home doing fine for the time being. Perhaps her husband needed a pair. My wife took me home to a nourishing curried chicken salad. I'm sure these were quite horrid:

More plants. We got Cuban oregano here and normal basil.

Cars were jammed in on all sides around the selling area.

In between the selling frenzy on weekends it looks somewhat desolate:And, in some respects rather forbidding. The place is owned by a rather repulsive reverend I had the misfortune to meet once. He claims the rights to the roadway around here and has put up signs to that effect.Before jack riepe gets on my case about being a low life socialist, let me just say private property is a fine and noble thing, and one has the right to barricade one's private roads. My questions about this place come in two parts. One: Is this really a private road?And if it is, in the second place, is this sufficient to close it?

I don't want to get tragic here but if some dude (like me) comes by here on a bicycle or a scooter or even on a Triumph Bonneville could he (or she) not run the risk of decapitation? And think about what it looks like at night: The flea market is not well lit at night and these so called "private roads" connect public roads, places where people have every right to travel, and if I were to tell you intoxicated people sometimes ride bicycles on Big Pine Key would you be surprised? Someone not aware of the "reverend's" penchant for closing roads with pieces of string might easily run into these dangers.

There had been talk that the Flea Market might get sold to a retail developer, my wife hoped Target might move in (she's only half joking!) and I wouldn't mind a Whole Foods just because I'm a yuppie. But back in the real world (where I don't much like flea markets anyway, though people sell excellent plants here) I wonder about this ability to just say "This road is mine!" and get away with it.

If this really is private a proper gate needs to be installed if the owner wants to close it off. Guillotining trespassers just seems a little much, even for a reverend.

Pinder Lane

2009-11-14T00:01:00.001-05:00

J Wills Burke in his book Streets of Key West says the Pinder family was active in the Methodist Church in Key West which may, or may not account for the lane named after one of their number......finding itself so close to this lot:Which is not only an attractive brick pile, it is also a landmark on William Street:Pinder Lane is close by the church just off Fleming Street which is marked by the Island House for Men on the corner of William and Fleming:And there, between these two landmarks, is a modest gap in the picket fences and greenery:It's a pretty little alley as we shall see, but a realtor's sign brings a harsh note of reality to the alley. A complex of homes down this lane is being offered for $3.3 million. Even now.It's still free to park the Bonneville a moment and take a stroll:Old fashioned louvered windows, always my favorites:

An ultra-modern hurricane shutter made of translucent plastic. You can leave this new-fangled shutter up all summer and it won't turn your home into a rattly dark cave as the aluminum ones do.

These are the old- fangled wooden shutters, by way of contrast:Pinder Lane is the home of tropical greenery as one would expect in such a wealth- generating place:It had just finished showering when I arrived:J Burke Wills suggests this lane perhaps was named for William Pinder a member of the city council in 1911 and descendant of a hail-fellow-well-met Pinder who rejoiced in the name of Sylvanus and was nicknamed "King of Wreckers" for his abilities in that field.

All shuttered up with shutters and plywood and of course the obligatory "No Trespassing" sign just to make it clear.

A tin roof, not yet painted white even if the owners wanted to:

More No Trespassing. Don't they suppose the gate carries the message by clear implication?

A TV dish antenna to remind us Key West is Very Modern:And a final look back at William Street...

...where the Bonneville awaits out of sight where I parked it, more or less legally, not blocking delightful Pinder Lane.

Winds of Change

2009-11-13T14:03:00.003-05:00

It's been windy lately in the Keys and it would seem apposite if one were to notice that for the first time the Citizen newspaper carried the name "Veolia" in it's pages. Veolia was reported to be asking the City of Key West to please publish a request for proposals for a new waste contract after Waste Management's contract runs out soon. The city, in it's wisdom is brushing aside the suggestion it seek bids and is planning on continuing the current two million dollar contract with Waste Management. Oh dear, I smell trouble and I hope I'm wrong.

I like Waste Management just fine at my home in the county. They pick up trash twice a week (which I don't need as I compost and recycle but we are a wasteful society in the Keys. Recycling is less than 7% of trash flow in the Keys which is pathetic but that's because people can't be bothered. Waste Management offers all the facilities and makes it easy to get educated and do the job). Anyway back to the City of Key West and Requests For Proposals.

The city says it is too late to put out a Request For Proposals, city staff is overworked already and the budget is tight and so on and so forth. All of which sounds like fluff to me, but anyway... I wonder if Veolia might construe a prolongation of Waste Management's contract ("a year maybe" they quote the mayor as saying. He's the one who wants to run the city like a business) as unfair. What would you do if you were one of the world's largest corporations and loved to manage waste. Would you consider Key West as being a teensy weensy bit unfair? Might you unleash the hounds of hell from your legal department? The city is currently paying off an eight million dollar settlement from it's failed defense in a monopoly lawsuit from a tour operator, and a monopoly lawsuit over garbage might be a bit rough to deal with

Here's where it gets a bit sticky. Veolia was spun off from number 256 in the Fortune 500 parade of corporations, which is Vivendi, which used to be Compagnie Generale des Eaux when it was formed in France in 1853. After some corporate scandals blemished the Vivendi name they spun themselves off in all sorts of directions, one being Veolia which deals with water and trash. I have to say it rather freaks me out that Veolia is eying Key West's modest little garbage contract. Islamorada apparently deals with them but the Village of Islands (pompous name- what else would they be in the Keys? Village of Volcanic Cones?) loves it's corporations seeing as how so many CEOs have retired there. But Key West ought to think about going through the hassle of a Request For Proposals, gear it toward Waste Management, keep Veolia happy and keep garbage removal right where it is. Next thing we know Veolia will promise us the Earth and want to overrun Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, our affordable, efficient publicly run utility. Veolia has an appalling reputation in the evironmental community when it comes to it's rapacious desire to monopolize drinking water around the world.

Oh and the name Veolia is apparently a jumble of the word Aeolus, the Greek God of Wind. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping Veolia doesn't start blowing south of the seven mile bridge.

1100 White

2009-11-13T00:01:00.010-05:00

I got a request to take a picture of a mural on White Street. I am nothing if not obliging but Page's Paints was rather less so. On arrival I found the mural was covered by an advertising banner that was screwed into the wood. I wondered what to do and thought perhaps I might pull the banner aside for a quick picture, but closer inspection showed it was screwed firmly into the wood frame of the wall.Life is just a series of ironies, so I figured I'll have to come back when the banner has been taken down.The 1100 block of White is a busy place, with busy business taking up almost all the block. Matheessen's is a reincarnation of a diner that was popular in Key West with the previous generation of Conchs ("konks"= native Key Westers). They have three locations in Key West two outlets on Duval, a candy store and a grill, andthier flagship diner here on White Street:We had a hamburger in dispatch a couple of weeks ago on a colleague's insistence and it was really quite good. They also deliver:Of course I was attracted to the pristine Vespa 150 ET4 parked in front of this building. The new 1680 talk radio station that calls itself KONK am broadcasts from here, as well as online. Which is just as well as this is a true community station and the signal does not transmit very far at all. I've always felt Key West needed it's own community radio station and perhaps this will last long enough to become that voice:It put me in mind of my own decade working in radio; I hope they are having as much fun as I had. Next door to KONK am was Maribel's beauty parlor, but more interesting to me was the campaign poster still flying bravely, right across the street from Jimmy Weekly's own business, Fausto's Food Palace. Lest he forget these people threw their support behind him...That would be Fausto's grocery store across the street:Back on the other side of the street is Mo's Restaurant which has quite a following. It started out as a French-Canadian place, but they sold up and left. Now, continuing the Gallic connection it is run as a Haitian restaurant:And across the street one can see the Mo's truck parked as it's own form of on street advertising. The Canadian Maple Leaf symbol is hard to miss:I'm told Mo's French Onion soup is outstanding. Close by I found a minuscule store closed but available to rent for $875, a space perhaps ten feet wide and twice as deep. It looked small to me:Next door the antique shop called In One Era makes the most of it's space by filling every nook and cranny with an astonishing collection of dust catchers:And across the street here we see the severely efficient yellow block of a building that used to house a place called Island Bagels. I seem to recall them as quite good but not cheap and rather unfriendly. Perhaps my opinion was catching because they were replaced by this gym which seems to do a lot of business:Further south on the east side of White there is a landmark in local real estate:Back on the west side of White more small stores doing their thing:For twenty grand this store offers integrated electronics, alarms, computing and I don't know what all. Terribly modern I'm sure:This delightful nook looks like a home, and a small one even by Key West standards.And beyond the green house ( if that is what it is) there is a car wash on the corner of Catherine Street:And for no particular reason I close with this picture of a Dad walking his kid down White Street:I just thought the kid with his out-sized Fantasy Fest beads looked happy. Silly me, he's probably worried about the Federal deficit too.

Noblesse Oblige

2009-11-12T20:20:00.002-05:00

The rough translation means the "obligations of nobility" and if you don't like the French telling you what to do consider this verse from Chapter Twelve of the Gospel according to Saint Luke: "From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded." It's a principle that has been handed down through the centuries and has always ended up on the back burner in times of crisis.This phrase came to mind when I read this week on Huff Post that the man in charge of American International Group was complaining loudly that government restrictions on pay were crippling his company. The company has taken 180 billion dollars in loans from US taxpayers who now have the privilege of owning 80% of the company. AIG is the company that insured the credit default swaps issued by banks on the crap home loans they sold to hopeless borrowers in the US. They were deemed "too big to fail" and their reward for destroying the world economy almost single handed, was to get a ginormous taxpayer bail out. Lucky them.

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You'd think that requiring these crooks to pay themselves no more than I can earn in a decade would be a reasonable demand after giving them eight times the Gross Domestic Product of the Republic of Ireland, but their boss, hired by the government after the fiasco became public was reported to be pretty upset by the restrictions. He is apparently enjoying a break at his opulent villa on the Adriatic Coast of Italy and has said he will lose all his good people thanks to the pay restrictions, when he gets back from vacation.
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Noblesse oblige is a feudal concept that requires the lord of the manor to take care of his (always his in the medieval world) people. In modern times the idea is that loyalty to a corporation is repaid by the corporation. That theory has fallen apart, as has been obvious since the economic crisis imploded. They used to sell us a bill of goods saying a rising tide lifts all boats, even though they were riding in luxury yachts and we were in row boats, but still we swallowed the story. Now though with enormous unemployment racking the country, and more to come the question becomes: what have they done for us? The answer is not much.
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The President, the one his enemies are pleased to call a socialist, is promising to move mountains to reduce unemployment but instead of a new Works Progress Administration we get cooked books and hand wringing. The administration is lying about the statistics and is promising an improved future. With no evidence at all that the lobbyists for the corporate interest are losing their grip. We see no signs of fresh financial regulations to prevent future bubbles, no demands for improved credit terms, no hiring binges by our corporate leaders. Noblesse, in our case feels like no obligation at all. And so I ask why do we owe them anything at all in turn?