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2017 January

Friday, January 6, 2017

The-Coconut-Telegraph-w-CoconutsSince 2002. Published Tuesdays and Fridays
Letters to the Editor with pictures

water-bill[Sewers From Hell] Something is very wrong here. My water bill went from $40 a month to what you see. I have no leaks. And why is the water base facility charge on there twice? $91.50 for the septic and I’m still waiting for Salazar Plumbing to show up and I paid him 6 months ago.

I don’t mind being screwed but at least id like a kiss first.

Isaksen-2.2016
[“Term limits”] Finally, something I can agree with FTR on. People have been clamoring for term limits as long as I can remember. We will never see that happen because the only ones who can make that change are the politicians — who are the only ones benefiting. It’s like expecting Congress to reject a raise or other benefits to themselves. It just doesn’t happen. People go into politics as a career and for what they can get out of it. If along the way, they do some good, then we benefit. That’s the only time. That much power attracts that much money. With that much money all around them (bribes, gifts, favors) the people don’t have a chance. The longer a politician is in office, the more he is beholden to his controlling interests and stops doing the people’s business. He just does favors for an influential few. Term limits solve that problem, at least.
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Snowbirds heading south.

[Sewers From Hell] My long awaited grinder pump was set to finally arrive Wednesday and I would be done with all this sewer madness. The crew brought all their heavy equipment, we cleared the tree branches from the area, laid-out the location and got STOPPED! It seems there is a question with the Feds about crossing refuge land with sewer pipe even though we already crossed Fed land with city water lines and utility poles. Something’s fishy. FKAA’s construction manager came to my house with FKAA’s electrician, did the paperwork and scheduled the installation. When I complained about him scheduling the install after he revealed that he knew about the Fed’s objection for a year and a half, he tried to shift the blame to someone else. Typical bureaucrat bs.
[Questions] I am getting closer to 70 now and I have so many unanswered questions. I still haven’t found out who let the dogs out? where’s the beef? how to get to Sesame Street? why Dora the Explorer doesn’t just use Google Maps? Why do all flavors of Fruit Loops taste exactly the same? how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? why eggs are packaged in a flimsy paper carton, but batteries are secured in plastic that’s tough as nails? yet light bulbs too are in a flimsy carton? Ever buy scissors? You need scissors to cut into the packaging of scissors. I still don’t understand why there is braille on drive-up ATM’s or why “abbreviated” is such a long word; or why is there a D in ‘fridge’ but not in refrigerator? why lemon juice is made with artificial flavor yet dish-washing liquid is made with real lemons? why they sterilize the needle for lethal injections? and, why do you have to “put your two cents in” but it’s only a “penny for your thoughts”? where’s that extra penny going? why does the Alphabet Song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star have the same tune? why did you just try to sing those two previous songs? and just what is Victoria’s secret? what would you do for a Klondike Bar when you know as soon as you bite into it, it falls apart? and why do we drive on Parkways and park on driveways?  ~Joe/ Coconuts Bar & Liquor Store
I just learned that my bride had received phone calls and flowers from Premier Putin in an attempt to influence the election. Will the Russian agents steal her for him? What is going on? Oh well, the dog will miss her. We are looking forward to another winter on Ramrod Key being over-served and over tipping.
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‘Cold-stunned’ sea turtles are flown from Cape Cod to Florida. Link
traffic-light4[Traffic] According to the local news, a survey is going to be done on the timing of the traffic light on Big Pine. Come on, Einstein already solved the time thing and there is only 60 seconds to a minute. If traffic congestion is going to be solved, we need for the local politicians to get off their butt, and get an access road across the north side of US1. And that is across from Sands sub-division on the east to past the Post Office on the west. And if the usual excuse about speeding vehicles comes up, check out the speed-bumps at the new and improved Winn-Dixie Plaza. I double-dare anyone to speed across those. Get the specs on those and file it for future reference. Let’s quit taking silly surveys, and get some action!
To the Snowbird that was insulted about the “stupidity of the key deer droppings” remarks.  I posted it in response to someone who asked which animal has droppings that looked like large caviar (Dec 27th Coconut Telegraph). I was being polite to someone that was obviously new to our area. This is not a “has been paradise to me”. I came from the North, I own properties in the Keys and I am happy here. If you are not, sell what you own in the Florida Keys and take your negative remarks with you.
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[Sloan’s Restraining Order] Judith Haney, of Leeds, Alabama, approaches Sloan Bashinsky, homeless in Key West, about moving to and living in Birmingham for 7 months, on Judith’s dime, which Sloan does, and then Judith quickly decides she’s made a huge mistake, and Sloan moves back to Key West on his dime, and Judith sues Sloan in Key West for cyber-stalking and libel.

Below is a link to the lawsuit Judith Haney filed against me, I intend to put all of that into my e-filed Answer to Judith’s Complaint, and I intend to deny the allegations and ask that the case be adjudicated on the merits. Judge Bonnie Helms was assigned the case. And, the Clerk’s Office told me yesterday, this is case no. 1 for 2017, even though it was filed December 31. Link

blind-monkey-cup-cane[FTR Chooses to be Blind] The blind defender of the Republican Party is FTR. He’s relentlessly defended everything they do, no matter how wrong, until Trump. Now FTR is silent. Now he’s only interested in mosquitoes. How can a rabid defender of Republican values like FTR turn a blind eye to Trump’s infatuation with Putin? Trump’s goals are always questionable, especially when he plays kissy-face with Russia, a very dangerous Communist, nuclear, country, and rails against Cuba, a weak and harmless island nation? FTR needs to grow a set of balls and start examining his Party. It would be the first time he’s ever done that. Loyalty is one thing, closing ones’ eyes to what’s going on is another. I’ve been interested in reading FTR’s convoluted defense of Republican mistakes in the past, but that was all before FTR became aware of the turmoil Trump is causing, the turmoil he chooses to close his eyes to at the sacrifice of American values. What American values? Our elections are fixed? The CIA doesn’t know anything? Putin isn’t dangerous? Julian Assange as a trusted source? Repeal Obamacare with no replacement?
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[Sewer Plumbers] Several local plumbers are charging about as low as they can go and still pay themselves and their help or subs a living wage. If the plumbing contractor is paying taxes, the Feds are taking almost half of his net income plus he is paying another 20+% on top of what his employees gross before they pay their own personal taxes. If he pays a subcontractor for, say, excavation or tank pump-outs or grinder pump electrical circuits, then those people pay big taxes. But if another contractor has all or some illegal immigrants working for cash, he saves all those costs except the $7/hr cash to the worker. He may have an unlicensed electrician wiring your circuit and signed off by a dead contractor whose widow is getting paid to keep the license active. (I worked for a mafia contractor who built multi-million dollar buildings who was qualified by a dead GC. They did his continuing ed, paid his renewals, insurance, etc. and paid the widow $1500/week to keep quiet) A contractor like that can bid your job cheaper and clear the same money or more. Every licensed contractor is also paying for continuing education courses, multiple insurances, licensing, and business fees, too. Multiple inspections require that the job cannot be done in a day.

toilet-bucketAbout the lowest honest local plumbing quotes that I have heard are from Bluewater (296-2583), 3rd Generation (743-4245), and Oceanair Diversified (735-7072) and they have all been about the same price, exceeding $2,000. I see signs from another few local plumbers tacked to a pole just off US1 on Newfound Harbor Rd across from the Big Pine Shell station, but do not know anything about their work or prices yet. They are probably all small-time and all probably okay choices. Shop local plumbers for sewer connections and Marathon for fuel is my advice. Another thing: the quality of your sewer connection may vary widely depending on whose hands actually do the work. If a plumber has several crews working, even if your neighbor had a good job, “your results may vary” (as the disclaimer often says). Some plumbers are willing to do just some of the work for you (maybe by the hour) if you want to do just some of it yourself. I talked to a few neighbors who pooled resources to do their own. Neighbors can often get a better price from a contractor by pledging they will all select the same plumber. He does not need to move equipment around and can work on one while awaiting inspection on another. He can probably arrange a better pump-out price for several in close proximity too.

Remember that so long as FKAA is getting their payment every month, they don’t really care if you ever hook up, and hope you never do. The County has thousands not connected for years after notice, so it will be years before they can realistically do anything about forcing your connection. So lose the stress, calm down and carefully make your decisions without feeling pressured. The day your drain field plugs up is the day to panic, but no worse than the day central sewer fails. Buy a “camp bucket” to have available for either certainty. Here’s an example. Link

The Bucktooth Rooster has a bottomless cup of coffee with free refills until you go home!

[KW Commission Waste] I find it frustrating that some commissioners continue to spend valuable time on topics that do not directly affect a significant portion of our community. First debating sanctuary city and now criminalizing conversion therapy. The proposal’s author even admitted no conversion therapy cases have been reported here. We elected you to tackle real problems like workforce housing, not trying to send messages or tilting at windmills.
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Join United Way of the Florida Keys for a Valentine’s Day Brunch! Sunday, February 12th from 11:30-2:00pm at Lobster Crawl Bar and Grill MM 70, Bayside, Fiesta Key RV Resort. Tickets are $65/person or $25/child and include a brunch buffet and unlimited mimosas and bloody marys! To buy tickets, click here. Hope to see you there! For more information or to sponsor this event, please contact Ann Sandlin at asandlin@keysunitedway.org or Link
psychiatrist-logoConversion therapy is the practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation through psychiatry. The ordinance, proposed by Commissioner Jimmy Weekley, is focused on the youth of Key West, he said. “

Beyond that, conversion therapy is done by religious fanatics, who believe they are smarter than God, who do not seem to have any problem with “thorn in the flesh” of Saul of Tarsus, who was remade into the same “thorn in the flesh” apostle Paul, whom those religious fanatics worship more than Jesus, if you spend time listening to them like I have done for decades. I imagine any psychiatrists worth their salt would say “conversion therapy” practitioners, and its supporters, are in denial of their own homosexuality. What a pity Paul did not simply state in his writings what his thorn in the flesh actually was. That would have changed the course of human history. For starts, if Paul had done that, we perhaps would not today know he had existed. Then, Christendom would have to rely solely on the horse’s mouth – Jesus, whom many Christians and Christian sects today quote far less than they quote Paul, the homosexual Apostle.

Come on, Christendom. Saul/Paul was a Pharisee. As such, he had a Sacred Covenant to marry and sire children and propagate God’s chosen people. There is no mention in any of Paul’s writings that he ever married or sired children. He said in his writings that he wished his followers would be like him, celibate. He said in his writings that women could only know Christ through their husbands. He said homosexuality was an abomination, parroting Leviticus. Any psychiatrist today worth his or her salt would say Paul was screaming that he was homosexual and wished he was not; that he disliked being homosexual so much, that he was celibate. Paul wrote that he had asked God to remove his thorn in the flesh, and God had not removed it.

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[FTR on Language] I had a conversation with one of my daughters the other day where she was mildly torqued at the now common use of “no problem, no problemo, and yada yada yada.

I agree with her.  I’ve just got to rant, can’t help myself.  Our language, our idiom is always changing, but now its changing for the worse. How many times a day do you say, “Thank you?”  Then, how many times a day do you hear “No problem.” in response?  Certainly, the response is given with the intent of being polite.  “No problem” with that!  But … words have meaning. Uttering “No problem” actually does not mean “You’re welcome.”  It means that whatever I did to warrant a “Thank you” was of so little effort or consequence that it didn’t warrant a “Thank you.”  Even worse, it tends to suggest that I might not have done it had it been difficult to do–i.e. a “problem.”

O.K., no problem. No problem with the fact that I’m an olde fart.  But if you really want to be polite, please give the following a chance.   A) You’re welcome. B) My pleasure. C) Any time. D) You bet. E) Don’t mention it.

Thank you for reading these maunderings.  Yeah, I know, ”No problem

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Is it just me or do others have US1 radio intermittently cutting out for a second or two?  I’ve had this happen at home and in the car on multiple radios.
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Product of evolution.

[“Claim: Amazon.com better service than Post Office”] It took over an hour to get Amazon to allow me to return a gift from the giver and have the giver’s account credited. They would send a return label to the gift-giver who, in turn, had to fax the label to me so I could affix it to the return. We did that and I dropped it off at a United Parcel Service store and got a receipt that it would be delivered to Amazon by Thurs 12/31. When I tracked it, the info said it had been “Left at dock” on Fri 12/31. Today, Wed 1/4, tracking info still has it sitting at a dock with anticipated delivery by today. Amazon is not the easiest company to do business with. Luckily, I was able to get hold of a live person who was extremely helpful.
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[FWC Report] Officers Lopez and Foell were on vehicle patrol in Key West and were advised by FWC Dispatch that USCG sector Key West received a call via VHS stating that a man reported a woman battering him in the Marquses Key, 20 miles west of Key West. Officers responded by water on board a USCG vessel to the Marquses Key. Upon arrival, there was a woman sitting in a small dingy tied off the main sailing vessel. She told officers that she was making beans when a glass broke on the stove and her boyfriend got upset at her and she threw a plastic bottle at him. A scuffle occurred and then he then tried to kiss and hug her to apologize. She told him no go away, and bit him on his nose. The female was arrested for battery. Officers brought her back to land and was transported to the Monroe County Detention Center without any incident. The female still remains in jail on a $75,000 bond. Link (scroll to bottom for Monroe County)
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Snowbird heading for the Keys.

5 years since the BP Horizon oil spill. Oil platform in Gulf of Mexico burns off Louisiana coast. The Coast Guard was responding to a pre-dawn fire on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Link
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[“Post Office Empty Guarantee”] I agree that 2d day delivery isn’t going to happen out of BPK and third day delivery for Priority Mail is very unlikely also, even though that is their promise. That is what Priority Mail is intended and advertised to be- 2-3 day delivery in the US.

My receipt very clearly states “2 Day PM” and then after stating this,  it says “estimated delivery on Thursday,” which would be the third day after Monday, not the 2nd day delivery for the package I sent to Oklahoma that took over a week with no tracking info available from USPS for the majority of that time.  So right at the point of sale they are selling me 2 day delivery and the receipt is stating 3 day.

The main point I am making is that a shipping company, regardless of a holiday season, should be able to deliver a routine package from BP to Oklahoma, mailed early on a Monday morning, giving it the entire work week to get there; and they couldn’t even do it after robbing me with additional “expedited “ – non guaranteed delivery– shipping fees which they are dishonestly selling over the counter.

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Free marijuana to be handed out Inauguration Day. Thousands of joints will be handed out — for free — by the DC Cannabis Coalition. We’re going to need it. Link

Genius is talent set on fire by courage.
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[“Complaining about the Big Pine Post Office”]
Statement: “I have lost 4 customers at $150 a month for 12 months which totals a lot of money because these morons cannot match a five-digit number on an envelope to the corresponding box number”.
Reply: Maybe you have lost 4 customers because you don’t know there are 6 numbers in a PO Box not 5.
Statement: “Look folks, its a five-digit number. You could train a 5-year old to do it”.
Reply: And again its 6 numbers not 5.Before you start talking bad about people, make sure you know your own PO Box number
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Some products just don’t work.

Deer Ed edits people’s posts without telling readers that he has done so. He has done it to me several times in the past. His recent post of 11/3/17 shows his lack of understanding about his meddling with posts that are sent to this site. When someone complained about it, he responded, “What does it matter? No one knows who posts are from.”
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Glass Fusion Class at the Art Studio. Video
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This sign needs to be everywhere.

[Stock Island Desal Plant] Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot — roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year.
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[“Big ugly DOT sign”] I totally agree with the poster about the worthless highway signs. I laugh at the one that says “put it down, don’t text and drive.”  What governmental committee figured that would stop people from texting in their cars?  Many, if not all, of these governmental agencies have two basic goals. First get all the taxpayer money they can each year; and then make sure they spend all of that money. Remember that, when they keep wanting to raise taxes.
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The Kiddies’ Motor Wheel 1927. Video

I am looking forward to the BPK Nautical Flea Market on Jan 14-15.  I’ve been collecting lots of gently used marine and nautical treasures and will be selling them at huge discounts.  Let’s hope for favorable weather.
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Now suicides are being committed in Grassy Key?
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[Health Fair] Join UM and Keys AHEC for the 46th Annual Florida Keys Health Fair! January, Saturday the 28th from 9-2 No Cost & Low Cost Health Services in Marathon, Big Pine & Key West Pre-Registration on Saturday, January 7th.

[Free Food] Grant applications will be available online from January 5th to March 5th on our. Our funding supports programs that meet a critical need for working families in Monroe County by providing services in one of our community impact areas:
Access to nutritious food for people in critical need
School-aged, early childhood, or after-care support with an educational or positive behavioral component
Safety net services providing referral and short-term emergency assistance to residents of Monroe County Link
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