Since 2002. Published Tuesdays and Fridays
Letters to the Editor with pictures
| Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (https) is the secure version of http, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The ‘s’ at the end of https stands for ‘secure’. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted.
(Ed: I changed the Coconut Telegraph’s address from http://bigpinekey.com to the more secure https://bigpinekey.com. So you existing shortcuts, saved links, bookmarks, or favorites may no longer work. You have to tell the internet the new address by typing, one time only, the new secure address of https://bigpinekey.com into your browser’s little address window near the very top and don’t forget the s.) |
[Spy Blimps] Two lonely Aerostat blimp tethers sit longing for Fat Albert’s return. “Soon come”, they say. |
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| [Good Neighbor] Does anyone else notice that whenever someone needs help, Coconuts always come through with a benefit for that person or family? They’ve been doing it since I can remember and I commend them for doing so. |
My Rolodex is mighty thin. It’s mostly filled with doctor’s numbers because, by now, most of my family and friends are dead. But with money and a lot of doctors, I feel pretty good and have a good life and still have the occasional fun. |
| [Flipper Eddy] Does anybody on Big Pine remember Flipper Eddy? He was a child of Thalidomide. God Bless him, he had flippers and no arms, but drove a big ‘66 Chrysler tuna boat that had special apparatus for his reach up real close to the wheel. He moved to Costa Rica last I ever heard and got killed riding a special bicycle that got going too fast downhill where he lost control. I heard the lady’s up here in Big Pine liked him a lot when he had them little flippers just a going. He was real handy. He could fix stuff up real close-like. |
What kind of hawk is this sitting on my wires? |
| [Crook] Terrence Oliver Dickinson, 44, of Key West robbed the CVS Pharmacy at Overseas Market of nearly $5,000 in prescription painkillers Tuesday night with a toy gun. He got caught. |
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| The Visigoths, displacing or subduing the Suevi and other rude German tribes, established themselves in the Roman province of Iberia (Spain) in the fifth century after Christ. They found the country in the same condition of effeminate luxury and degeneracy that had proved the ruin of other parts of the empire. Like many warlike peoples, the Romans, when their work was accomplished and the world was at their feet, had rested contentedly from their labors, and abandoned themselves to the pleasures that wealth and security permit. They were no longer the brave stern men who lived simple lives and left the plowshare to wield the sword when a Scipio or a Caesar summoned them to defend their country or to conquer a continent. In Spain the richer classes were given over to luxury and sensuality; they lived only for eating and drinking, gambling and all kinds of excitement. The mass of the people were either slaves, or, what was much the same thing, laborers without pay. |
 [Commissioner Weekley Wants Taller Buildings In Old Town] Just about every affordable housing unit permitted in the last thirty years is no longer affordable. The additional height you recommend is forever, even when those units revert to market based units they will always be there. We are constantly fighting the height limits and have been since the early ‘70s. The people have spoken time and time again on this issue. Don’t mess with building heights. We have limitations for a good reason.
Although your intentions are always good, increasing building heights further erodes the charm of Key West and that erosion has to stop somewhere. A problem with increased height limits is that they will always be there. You can’t ever go back. |
| [Health Clinic] City of Key West is to enter into negotiations with the Monroe County Health Department (MCHD) to relocate to the Douglass band room property. The Black area residents want the band room to be a Black history museum, but only have the vaguest idea of how or what they want. What would benefit the community more, a health department close by where it’s the most needed or a Black history room? |
 [“Minimum wage”] People who work at fast food places do not get near 40 hours or even 30 hour weeks because then they would be eligible for healthcare.They do not receive “free room and board for their entire family”. They also do not get free uniforms. They do not get healthcare like the VA gives for life. They would not receive a pension even if they stayed at the job for more than 20 years. They do not receive a free burial and plot. The $15 an hour minimum wage would not go into effect at once. It would have built in increases over time up to the maximum of $15 per hour. The problem is there are no decent jobs available due to them all being outsourced by corporations who hide their enormous profits in offshore accounts (see: Panama Papers), leaving the service industry as one of the major employers in this country which are known as being some of the lowest paying jobs. Unfortunately, most job growth in this country is in the tourism and food service industries. Check out the executive salaries and benefits of these companies and their percentage of salary increases over the last 20 years. What manual skills do they actually have? Put them out there in the real world and I bet they could not do the job they expect their low wage employees to do?Get the facts and look at the big picture before you criticize the increase. A lot of people who join the military do so because there aren’t any good jobs they are qualified to do and only join to be taken care of or stay out of prison and hope not to get killed. |
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| [The Movies] How come no one ever wipes after sex in the movies or takes a shower? They have sex, put on a suit or dress, and go off to work. |
[Green Turtles No Longer Endangered] The National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish Wildlife Service’s decision to change the listing for green sea turtles, which nest in the Keys, from endangered to threatened. Can we have turtle soup again? |
| [“Why swimming pools in the Keys”] A few reasons to have a pool. They (generally) don’t have Portuguese Man Of Wars, they can be heated in the winter months when the ocean temp dips into the 70s, and you can take a siesta without fearing drifting off to Ft Lauderdale. |
Merle Haggard dies at 79 of pneumonia. He did always look haggard. A masterful guitarist, fiddler and songwriter as well as singer, the Country Music Hall of Famer with the firm, direct baritone recorded for more than 40 years, releasing dozens of albums and No. 1 hits. Okie From Muskogee |
| [Sewers] Later this summer, home and businesses on Big Pine Key will be able to connect to the new sewers. |
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| Great post on the living wage and “Betty Burgerflipper”. I also agree that mandating a minimum wage is wrong in a number of dimensions. Another factor is that it will likely reduce the number of jobs and it’s a logical conclusion. If you’re in business, you know it’s all about finances – budget and ROI[?]. In the past, robotics was limited in its penetration by the up-front costs required. But the business case/ROI gets tilted a lot when you take the cost of labor up 50% (from $20k to $30k) and now robotics is going to be a lot easier to implement. When activities get automated, the amount of labor required goes down. So the folks who will get paid may be the single person left at Burgerworld when the robots are making and packing the meals, and the off shore call center is taking the orders and entering them into the burgerware that directs the robots. Like many other government ‘feel good’ initiatives – the result can become almost the exact opposite of what’s desired. The bottom line is you can’t outplay market forces. If you don’t have skills don’t expect to be compensated as much as those who do. |
Feel your heart beat unto the universe and understand it is constantly changing everything. |
| [“The wedding ceremony”] One minor correction for that post. The honeymoon is in the Catskills (aka the Jewish alps) not the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks are a little too uncivilized for those sorts. |
Not only does the word “avocado” come from the ancient Aztec word for testicle, but the word guacamole quite literally translates to testicle sauce. |
| Aerosmith may do a farewell tour next year. Please …! If you didn’t see them in the 70s when they were all drugged out, you didn’t see them. Since Steven Tyler got sober they are a shell of their former rockdom and the band hates him. |
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| [“Melting Arctic ice cap, glaciers, raising sea level discussion”] I give up, I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain it to you. |
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| [Scam] There’s a new advertising system making the big guys nervous. It’s making people rich for just looking at (10) 20 second ads per day. It’s so easy, I could teach a 12 year old to earn with it. My company gets thousands of free website visitors daily and we bring in over $3,000 per day as a bonus. I’m not joking – this is real! You can do it whether you have a website or not in fact. Watch the 3 minute video |
 Marathon’s street numbering system is not for ordinary people. I went looking for 20th Street. I just got off the 7 Mile Bridge and started looking for street names. The first one I noticed was 12th Street. The second one was 50th Street, or something like that, and the next 51st. I thought I screwed up so I turned around back towards the bridge to see what I missed. I saw a fellow on the side whom I asked what the story was with the crazy numbered streets. He said, “It gets worse. At the other end of Marathon, the street numbers change again to include the missing 1st through 11th streets. He, laughingly, tried to explain the history of the oddity, but I was too confused to understand. It’s a good thing not many tourists go through the Keys (sarcasm) or they’d really have a hard time trying to find this or that place they read about in the brochures. |
| [World Boat Speed Record] In 2009 Daryl Ehrlich set a record of 260.98 mph in the prop-driven Problem Child at Firebird Raceway near Phoenix, Arizona. Video of the 2011 one minute race. |
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| The next meeting of our Big Pine Computer Club is coming up this Saturday, April 9, 10 am at the senior center. Hope to see you there! Full Menu > Ongoing Events |
FKAA admits they lose 23% of our water (so that probably means a lot more). Do you think there’s even a remote possibility they will lose zero per cent of our sewage? Follow Nancy’s advice, just say no! |
| Do you know the name of a scrap metal dealer? I just called Paradise in BPK & they only buy non-ferrous metals. They suggested Waste Management as my only option. WM is scheduled to be here on Monday, but I thought I might get paid for it. My nephew was here last week & cleaned the place until it almost sparkled. He created a huge pile of junk at the curb. WM came by yesterday & said they’d take the metal free, but charge me $180 for the wood. Link |
They call it a “selfie” because narcissist is too hard to spell. |
| [Fat America] In 1980 there were 108 million Americans with diabetes. In 2014 there were 442 million.
Make America great, lose weight! |
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| [Bring Dog To Work] I immigrated to the U.S. (Tampa) in February and started looking for a job. Found you under dog-friendly employers. Do you have any vacancies? I am flexible and can relocate anywhere, but want my dog to be with me, though. |
 Huey Lewis & The News concert this past weekend was great! The band rocked, all enjoyed the electric performance, however could someone please tell me why this year no chairs were allowed to be brought in? This was the third concert I’ve attended in support of homes for veterans at the park. I was dumbfounded at the gate when told no chairs were allowed and had to return them to the car (as were many, many others). This insane adjustment to attendance should have been made public long before the gate. Our group ranged in age from 55 to 69 and probably would not have attended knowing 4 hours on the ground would be part of the show. If anyone knows why this ‘no chairs allowed’ provision was added, please post it. We would love to know. |
| [The Movies] To the person who noticed no foaming toothpaste in movies, you remind me of my wife who analyzes every movie we watch. I have to reminder her to please just enjoy the story in movie format and relax and to try to be quiet during the movie so I can enjoy it. |
Will new research into psychedelic drugs lead to them being accepted as mainstream medical treatment – or whether their controversial history will prove insuperable. Audio |
| [“Minimum wage”] Many minimum wage people are not smart enough, nor have the ambition or skill necessary to advance their position, yet they have to eat, pay rent, gas, insurance, utilities and most other expenses just like the rest of us do. Begrudging them a living wage just so your hamburger doesn’t cost an extra dollar is wrong. There are dumb people and they have to live too! |
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| The only thing the minimum wage poster left out about military personnel was they have no health insurance to pay, no food bills, no clothing bills, if you live on base, no rent either. I was stationed in Connecticut for 2 years where the cost-of-living is quite high so I got VHA or (variable housing allotment) money for rent. I do agree though that the government should have no say in what I pay my employees. Once the bastards start controlling what private enterprise pay their work force we are absolutely f**ked. (Ed: They already control wages through the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Link) |
 [Porcupine Sex] Now there’s a prickly subject! You think you got a tough time getting laid? An old-timer farmer told me a story about that. He said: I was out one night with my flashlight and 30.30 jacking deer on an old woods road. All of a sudden, I hear this banshee scream just behind my head! Scared the crap outa me! Well, I spun around with my light and saw there were two porcupines going at it in a tree. They were each hanging by their front feet on opposite sides of a branch, belly to belly, and the female was just a-wailing! |
| [“Living wage”] I’ve got to believe that the person that wrote that has got to be trolling. No one can make the argument they did believable. Surely he must know that the military gives a rather generous housing allowance, free medical care, etc, etc. Ever heard of the G.I. Bill? This is not at all to denigrate our men and women of the armed sources. There are better defenders of their values than that post. |
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| [Panama Papers] The news this week has been filled with the so called “Panama Papers” which have resulted in the resignation of at least one world leader, the Icelandic Prime Minister, and have caused controversy to surround others including Russian President Putin and British prime minister Cameron. Two of Mossack Fonseca’s top executives are already in the calaboose.
The data involved was taken from a Panamanian Law Firm called Mossack Fonseca (MF) by a hacker and reveals secret financial structures used by the powerful and wealthy to hide their assets around the world. |
 [Bertram 31 Moppie] Dick Bertram was a yacht broker in 1960 and learned about the naval designer Ray Hunt’s revolutionary design for the deep-V hull whose benefits are minimal pounding in a seaway, sure steering in displacement and planning modes, ample buoyancy in the forward sections to prevent burying, a high chine, and lower spray strips to knock down spray. The rest is history. |
| I got a happy birthday ‘card’ from AARP’s United Healthcare telling me my rate is going up. Thank you AARP you a**holes! |
 “What’s neem leaf?” I ask Sana when I’m sure Keenan can’t hear. I’ve never heard of it, and I know most herbs from working with Pop. “It’s an opiate. It’ll make you forget the last few hours.” At my widening eyes, she shakes her head. “I won’t give it to you. Not yet, anyway.” I read this in a book and wondered if I could get high from chewing the leaf like coca leaves. I have two neem trees. Has anyone ever tried getting high from the neem tree? What part of the tree is an opiate? Neem Uses |
| When I die please don’t say I’m in a better place. I’m not, no matter what you think. |
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| [Battleship Iowa Scandal] I watched a film the other night about the 1989 tragedy aboard the battleship Iowa (James Caan thing) because I read the book an I like to see what Hollywood does to a true story. It was a pretty accurate account over all. You may remember the horror from that year in April when turret number two exploded during an “experimental” shoot. A very dark time for the Navy and the proverbial death knell for battleships. It makes me a lot less proud of my enlistment in the Navy to know about the coercion, cronyism, general ass-covering and incompetence of the NIS that went on during the investigation of the blast that killed 47 in turret two. There were at least two agents that interrogated two sailors’ families that should have gone to jail for the stuff they came up with to fabricate a fake story about homosexuality and insurance fraud. It seems the Navy did not want what truly happened to be known because “higher-ups” wanted the keep the battleships operational. It didn’t work. It really makes me wonder how much sleazy doings are going on right now. Video (in Japanese for a little variety) |
[Scum] I asked a bar employee why they covered the stainless steel table tops on their liquor tables with old, yellowing cutting boards? She said she thought they were there to make for easy cleaning. I pointed out the mildew and disease between the cutting boards and the table. She said it’s always been like that. |
| [Gracie Allen Moment] Wifey: “Why isn’t the iPhone named the aPhone? It’s made by Apple isn’t it?” |
 [First Charter Containing Freedom of Religion in American Colonies] “Noe person within the sayd colonye, at any tyme hereafter, shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any difference of opinion in matters of religion which doe not actually disturb the civill peace of our sayd colonye; but that all and everye person may, from tyme to tyme and at all tymes hereafter, freelye and fullye have and enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, through the tract of lande hereafter mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceablie and quietlie, and not using this libertye to licentiousness, and profaneness, nor to the civill injurye or outward disturbance of others.” There was much work for the new Assembly to do, and it addressed itself promptly to the task. The statute book contained laws which, arising from circumstances no longer existing, were “inconsistent with the present government.”
1663 Rhode Island and Providence Plantations |
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| [Deep Well] Crews will begin assembling a large drill next week on Cudjoe Key to dig the deep sewer injection well for the Cudjoe Regional Wastewater Treatment plant — the last piece of construction for the facility. Crews will use nearly 15 trucks to bring the pieces of the 180-foot-tall drill down to the Keys. The towering drill will easily be visible from U.S. 1. Once assembled, the drill will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week for roughly five months to dig 3,000 feet deep for the well. |
Kemp Channel’s new foot bridge looks real nice. |
| JFK didn’t kiss the Pope’s ring as is customary to show the American voters that he was not under the thumb of the pontiff. The last bigwig to do something like that was Napoleon when he snatched the crown from the Pope and crowned himself Emperor. |
 [Diet Sodas And Junk Drinks] “Depression, psychosis, suicide, bi-polar, serotonin suppression, panic attacks, schizophrenia, cerebral hemorrhages, and more verified brain destruction.” Wow! I knew the artificial sweetener aspartame was bad news, but I had no idea how bad until I read this article. Don’t panic at the medical terms and chemical names, just keep on reading as you possibly stumble over these and you will soon understand how dangerous this stuff is and why so many of the people you know are on head meds. The FDA is just a big waste of tax dollars. Other studies have proven that you will gain rather than lose weight by drinking diet sodas; so why bother? Stick with beer! Link |
| [High Maintenance Cows] Dairy cows eat a hundred pounds of cow food a day and can drink about a bathtub’s worth of water a day. I changed my mind, I’m not going to get a cow. |
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[Wampum] When the colonists first began to trade with the natives, they found them already advanced in their buyings and sellings from the primitive barter of product for product to the use of a fixed medium of exchange. This medium, indeed, was of a purely conventional character. There were neither mines of gold, nor mines of silver, nor mines of copper to perform the office of money. But the waters of their rivers and bays yielded an abundant supply of shells, and these they wrought with much ingenuity into beads; the periwinkle furnishing the material for the lower values, six of its white shells being held at an English penny, while the dark eye of the quahog or round clam, smoothed by grinding, and polished and drilled, was rated at twice the value of the white shell. Both were known as wampum or peage. As money belts of wampum were counted by the fathom, three hundred and sixty of the white passing for five shillings sterling, and a fathom of the black being worth twice as much as a fathom of the white. Like the metallic medium of other countries they served also for personal  decoration, supplying the Indian belles and beaux with their necklaces and bracelets, and princes with the most valued ornaments of their regalia. When used for this purpose they were wrought into girdles, or worn as a scarf about the shoulders, great pains being taken and not a little skill displayed in arranging the colors in various figures. The mints in which this primitive money was coined were on the sea-shore, where shells were found in great abundance, and so well was this simple article adapted to the wants and the tastes of the aborigines that it passed current six hundred miles from the coast, and was used by the colonists in all their bargains with the natives. But shells like metals and paper are subject to the same inexorable laws of trade. When beaver skins became plenty in the colonial market and wampum was made in larger quantities, it fell from ten shillings a fathom to five, and the Indian hunter thought it hard that an equal number of furs should bring him but half as much wampum as before. Like all money, also, wampum was liable to be counterfeited, and even in that rude commerce there were men who preferred the ill-gotten gain of the counterfeiter to the fruit of honest industry. |
| Corruption is legal in America. Video |
[Birds] How come some mangrove islands are loaded with birds and others, nary a peep? |
| NOAA’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council to meet in Marathon. Link |
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