Letters to the editor with pictures since 0202. Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.
[Discourteous Neighbors and Loud Music] There has been a lot of talk around the internet lately about discourteous neighbors and loud music. There is a remedy for loud music. This County has a very strict noise ordinance. It is not always easy to get it enforced, but it is there. Friday and Saturday you have until 11 pm to go silent.Sunday through Thursday from 7 am until 10 pm, you may not produce noise at a level above 60 decibels measured at your own property line. After 10:00 pm you may have no sound escaping your property line. 60 decibels are approximately the level of normal conversation. Code enforcement is responsible for enforcing this ordnance. After 5 pm the police become code enforcement. After this time is when most of us are tired of the noise and the police seem to dislike enforcing these rules. I suffered through a bad neighbor for years and complained regularly to both Code and Cop. It took a while but when they did enforce the ordinance, it had teeth and the fines were huge. Before anyone suggests that I am an asshole for calling the police about a “little noise”, let me say that it was so loud that I could not drown it out with my TV at full volume! I also tried many times to talk to the neighbor who said “tough shit” and he knew it was illegal but no one would enforce it against him because he thought he was so important. |
[Homeless] Hungry has solved the homeless problem that all places share–they made it against the law to be homeless! Link |
[Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua] China cloned the first primates last year and the monkeys are now 1 year old. What’s next? Video |
[Unsolved Murders] Her nude body was found 30 years ago on No Name Key, slashed and heartless. Who killed Lisa Sanders? Police have not ruled out the possibility that whoever killed Sanders also is also responsible for the rape-murder of 4-year-old Patty Lanza on July 2 in nearby Little Torch Key. Link |
[Six Dimensions] What big questions are you tackling now? One problem that we still don’t know the answer to in string theory is this idea that there’s an extra six dimensions to the universe which have a special shape known as a Calabi-Yau manifold. These extra six dimensions are so smooth that you’re not supposed to be able to perceive them, even with the most sophisticated experiment. They’re higher-dimension analogs of a doughnut. But they could potentially have infinite shapes. ~Cambridge U’s Caucher Birkar |
[“Tickets for 2 miles over the speed limit”] False. Cops need to be sure the ticket will stand up in court. 2 miles over the limit is impossible to prove. That’s why people routinely drive 5 miles over the limit in the lower Keys. A cop down here told me they only ticket those driving 10 miles over the limit. |
[Holiday Spirit] After cheerful young Walmart cashier pays for stranger’s $110 grocery bill, community repays him ten-fold. Link |
[Too Many People] Fans of a popular grove of redwood trees in far Northern California are racing to fund a project that would help protect the area from hordes of visitors.
Park officials and nature lovers are trying to raise $500,000 for a dollar-for-dollar matching grant to help pay for an elevated walkway to the Grove of Titans in Del Norte County. Link |
Sick of turkey yet? Recipes > Main Course > Bean, Tuna, Egg, Tomato and Basil Salad 2 cans Cannellini beans, 15.5 ounce each, rinsed well 1/2 cup red onion, diced 1 package grape tomatoes or other small tomatoes, sliced in half 1 bunch basil leaves, torn apart 1 can tuna in oil, solid, drained and broken into large chunks 1 or 2 eggs, hard boiled, cooled and quartered lengthwise 1/2 teaspoon sweetener Salt Pepper Olive oil & Vinegar, equal partsAdd ingredients to bowl, add oil and vinegar last and toss gently so as not to break apart the egg quarters and tuna chunks. This salad uses so much vinegar because beans love acid so it improves the taste. |
[“Deer rubbing antlers and licking tree sap”] The deer, a buck, is marking his territory and letting females know he is around and ready to mate! |
How to cook bacon. |
Remember Adam 12? Kent McCord is 76 & still handsome. His son looks just like him, but heavier. Adam 12 is on Hulu and the olden days were so sweet. Funny how they wore their guns back then. Video |
The Dalai Lama’s pep talk for young peacekeepers. The 14th Dalai Lama, a Tibetan spiritual leader, was self-deprecating and even playful to put his guests at ease, but peacemaking is serious business. Link |
[“Running water makes people happy”] It also makes men have to pee. Why’s that? |
You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk. |
[Year End Movie Review] This years’s breakthrough feature was the appearance of penises. Another breakthrough is the killing of babies and children–very popular. All couples are mixed race or same sex and all action movie leading men have scars on their backs. |
[Friday Joke] A man asked his wife, “What would you do if I won the lottery?” She replied, “I’d take half, and then I’d leave you.” “Great!” he said. “I won $12 yesterday, here’s six. See ya.” |
[Survivor] After his televised stint in the Fiji Islands, Chris Noble last week made a quick return to his home islands in the Florida Keys. Noble became one of the most-discussed contestants on “Survivor: Ghost Island,” the 36th season of the popular CBS reality show broadcast earlier this year. Link |
[1687 Parliament] No parties could live under such labels as “Petitioners” and “Abhorrers”. Instead of naming themselves they named each other. The term “Whig” had described a sour, bigoted, canting, money- grubbing Scots Presbyterian. Irish Papist bandits ravaging estates and manor-houses had been called “Tories.” Neither side was lacking in power of abuse. “A Tory is a monster with an English face, a French heart, and an Irish conscience. A creature of a large forehead, prodigious mouth, supple hams, and no brains. They are a sort of wild boar, that would root out the Constitution. ~W. Churchill’s History of Great Britain |
[Clorox Saves the Reef] Cleaning scuba equipment between each dive could help slow down the rapid spread of white blotch-like lesions that attack and eventually kill coral colonies. Link |
Missing man found dead in crackhead’s car trunk in Homestead. Link |
[Parenting] I feel that some people need to stop parenting like their own parents parented. Far too many of them did not have a thread of a clue as to how to parent. Stop the continuation of incompetency and realize that making a baby does not make you a parent, at least in the figurative sense. Happy New Year! |
[Fire at Tavernier Mangrove Marina] Fire destroys marina boats, and injures one man. Link |
[Everyone Must Pay in Everglades] Anglers joining a fishing guide on a trip into Florida Bay waters of Everglades National Park need their own park pass, starting Jan. 10. The same rule applies to visitors on eco-boat tours and kayakers who venture north of the Intracoastal Waterway off Key Largo. Visitors to all areas of the park, including patrons of commercial use authorization permit holders, will be required to have an entrance pass. Link |
[Triple Lot for Sale] In Palm Villa subdivision. Each lot is 50’x125′ for a total of 18,750 feet (150′ on Pine Way and 125′ deep on Ave B). 1 ROGO letter in hand for 30430 Pine Way. Sewer is installed and fees fully paid prior to Irma. Contact Guy at 413.245.3375. |
If a man tried to take his time on earth, and proved before he died, what one man’s life could be worth, I wonder what would happen in this world. ~Harry Chapin |
Colonel Sanders was a freak. |