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2016 July

Friday, July 1, 2016

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

debbie-Right now, we are experiencing an unbelievable level of hate, anger, and vitriol. So I have a story that will restore your faith in humanity. I am a bartender at Coconuts Package and Lounge in Big Pine Key. The other day I witnessed something that was one of the most unbelievable things I have ever seen in my 20 years of bartending.

I had a group of motorcyclists come in to the bar. Really, really nice people.   I noticed that they had been hanging around for longer than they should have. So I asked them what was going on. They told me that they had just driven their motorcycles all the way here from Indiana. I have been a bartender for a long time and I know a good person when I see one.

One of the bikers, told me that he had broken his rim on the way here. And I immediately jumped into action. I called every single biker, and biker parts store, that I knew.  From Key West, all the way up to Petersons in Miami. With no luck.

And I even called Mary, from the Brass Monkey in Marathon. And Mary, left her dinner that she was at, and went to go see this man’s broken down motorcycle. To see if she could help. And she couldn’t.

We tried everything we could to help this man.

I had a local couple come in the bar. Debbie and Steve, from Marathon.  She has a badass pink 1993 Heritage Softail. Just like the bike that was broken down. What happened next, was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my entire life.

Debbie made arrangements to meet this tourist, a total stranger, at her house the next day. She took the wheel, literally, off her motorcycle, and gave it to a stranger. Her pretty, pink Harley! Her baby. So that these tourists from Indiana could enjoy themselves on vacation, and return home safely.

I was in tears. I have never ever seen such a beautiful act of kindness. They were so grateful. I know that Debbie will get this back tenfold. So now we have some happy bikers from Indiana, enjoying their vacation and returning home safely. Thanks to Debbie. She is the blonde in the photo. If you ever see her buy this woman a drink. She did an act of kindness that restored my faith in humanity. Coconuts in BPK fosters that kind of action. We have some of the finest Piners.  I have never been so proud to be a part of this unbelievable act of kindness. Thanks to all that helped.

Springers-2.2016
zika-mosquito[FTR] The anti Oxitec crowd is playing with fire……big time. While they bitch and piss and moan about how horrible they believe the Oxitec project will be, people are being infected with Zika.

Zika is not a local problem, it is a global health crisis. Not my words, the words of tbe World Health Organization in February 2016. Athletes are bailing on the Olympics because of Zika. The New York Times reported: “Zika is spreading explosively in the Americas.” Florida Democrat Senator, Bill Nelson, reported that Florida has been hardest hit by Zika, and decried his Democrat colleagues refusal to fund a $1.1b Republican emergency funding bill to mount a nationwide program to combat spread of the the disease. Nelson said that the crisis will deepen if the Senate does not act soon.

USA TODAY, on 6/28 reported that Florida has 223 Zika cases. About 40 involve pregnant women. More than half of the victims are in Dade and Broward. Most of our drive in tourists are from Dade or Broward.

The Oxitec project is nothing new..it started in 2009. It was well received. The FDA has decided that the risk is very minimal, acceptable. It’s incredible, but the naysayers use Jurasic Park as a talking point to demonize the project.

There is a FaceBook group called Never again which is devoting much effort to whip up a frenzy in opposition to the project. This group has but a few hundred members, yet they claim the power of tens of thousands. The the people who run the group do not have the courage of their convictions, and it is unlikely that they are local persons. They hide behind the invisibility cloak of anonymity while they rant that those who disagree with them are “sociopaths”…”liars.” The group leaders are petrified of anyone who voices an opinion that is contrary to their narrative. They fear fact. They block those who disagree.

Shamefully, certain Board members who were staunch supporters of the project and by extension, public health, have become shaky in the knees, worried more about their “position” than about following their oath.

The power behind the “anti” forces is big money real estate interests in our community who worry about their own profits and wealth rather than public health. Power broker fat cats. It is well known and well established that these persons have objected to the project because they believe it will harm their property values. One can only scratch their head in wonderment at this notion.

Just imagine what will happen to property values when it is publicly released that Zika is alive and well Key West, Monroe County, Florida. It is a near certainty that we will see that headline soon.

We must also consider that this “elite” crowd has clearly stated that they give not a damn about where the project goes, just so long as it does not go in their ‘hood.” If I lived in a trailer park on Stock Island or in Bahamas Village, I would understand their code and I would be furious.

The evidence is clear, credible, and convincing that the Oxitec project will be a safe and effective weapon in the war against Zika. We must use it.

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Happy 4th of July weekend. I love my country. God bless America. Party on! 20 best 4th of July songs in the history of rock & roll. Bruce Springsteen tops our list of best rock-and-roll 4th of July songs with Meat Puppets, X, CCR, Martina McBride, the Beach Boys and Paul McCartney. Link

[Laugh Of The Day] Welcome to the official homepage of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Florida has been a leader among the states in establishing ethics standards for public officials. We recognize in our Constitution that a public office is a public trust and the people have the right to protect that public trust against abuse. Right. Link
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It’s bad enough that much of this country’s water utilities, including FKAA, poison the water with fluoride with the alleged intent to make our tooth enamel hard (but brittle). Fluoride has the well-established side effects of hypothyroidism, reduced IQ in kids, diabetes, hip fractures and cancer. But now, much of the fluoride is coming from China, and as we have come to expect from Chinese imports, the quality is diminished. Testing has found that Chinese fluoride can contain lead, arsenic, aluminum, and even uranium. A charcoal filter will not remove fluoride from your water, although it can certainly help with other contaminants and toxins like the chloramine disinfectant. FKAA sends out heavily disinfected water, often well over the non-mandatory 4.0 ppm total chlorine maximum. As the water travels down the Keys, it loses disinfectant and forms harmful “disinfection byproducts” instead. You want a good filter for all that, but if you want to clear out fluoride too, you need reverse osmosis. eBay vendors sell rather slow countertop RO filters for about $80, delivered to your door, and no installation is required. That will soon pay for itself compared to bottled water and will yield cleaner than bottled water. About twice the price gets you a faster under-sink RO filter with storage tank, but installation is required. If you can mount it under the house or outside, it is easier to change the filter cartridges and will not take up under-sink space
champagn wine confetti[Good news, Winos!] According to an article in Alert Diver by Dr. Petar Denoble, researchers proved that the resveratrol in red wine had the “effects on skeltal and cardiac muscle functions similar to the effects of endurance exercise training.”

Wow! Sounds great, eh? Screw the gym membership- pour me another glass!

Then you read on, “but the amount of resveratrol used in these studies would require drinking 50 to 3,000 liters of wine per day. In studies of whole wine, benefits could not be determined in light of the confounding effects of alcohol consumption.”

Really? “confounding effects”? Is that a new term for unconsciousness? I wonder what that study cost.

You can plant herbs and flowers to repel bugs, including mosquitoes, and help keep the Zika virus at bay. Link
Johnsons-ad 4.12.2016
The Gulf coast could be ground zero for Zika. It has an ideal mix for a Zika outbreak: mosquitoes, steamy climate, pockets of poverty. Link
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[Pedophile Ring Busted in 2002] 11,000 sexual allegations had been made against 4,392 priests in the USA. Under an extraordinary cloak of secrecy, the Archdiocese of Boston in the last 10 years has quietly settled child molestation claims against at least 70 priests, according to an investigation by the Boston Globe Spotlight Team. Boston’s Cardinal Law knew all about it, but just moved the perverts around instead of castrating them. He continued to support them and quietly paid off their victims.

I met a middle age woman last night, at a bar, named Michelle, and she told me that she likes being on top because her husband excels at “f**king” up!
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Why researchers are releasing millions of mosquitoes to combat the Zika virus. Link
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[A Lighthouse Is Not Land–Duh!] The 21 migrants who climbed American Shoal Light last month are likely headed back to Cuba. A federal judge ruled Tuesday the Coast Guard and U.S. Homeland Security did not err in detaining those who reached the 109-foot iron light on May 20 that is about 6.5 miles south of Sugarloaf Key, according to the 35-page ruling.

[Marathon Journal] The last two weeks found me on vacation visiting grown children and loads of grandchildren. I got a new car and thought it would be fun to drive it up to Nebraska and Ohio.

The first part of the trip was in Nebraska where I visited a number of family members. Son and grandsons made the trip a lot of fun. Fun that would be short lived.

After the first week, it was time to drive to Cleveland. During my vacation time, I watched the NBA playoffs. The Cleveland Cavs won the championship coming back from a 3 – 1 deficit to the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors broke the regular season record for most wins during a season. They won 79 times, and still they lost to the Cleveland Cavs. I write about this because we had the pleasure of watching the victory parade.

But I get ahead of myself. We drove from Nebraska to Ohio. On a bridge between Illinois and Indiana at Joliet, we got into a ten-car crash. I only had the new car two weeks, before the car was involved in a crash. It got towed to a towing company secure lot. My USAA insurance got to work immediately finding a repair shop. They got me a rental car, but did not cover hotels and airline flights. Having a wrecked car in one state and living in another state so far away sucks.

My son and I and a friend was supposed to visit my grandson. We drove the rental car to Cleveland. We got a room in the downtown historic Cleveland Holiday Inn Express. We picked up the grandson and proceeded to enjoy ourselves in historic down town. The restaurants were fantastic along with the food. I particularly liked the pizzas.

We then had the pleasure to watch the world NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers celebrate their championship. We thought that we would watch the parade from the streets. Boy, we were wrong. Over 1.5 million fans showed up on the streets. We had to retire to our hotel room and watch the parade on television. That was a lot of fun, but the highlight was the MVP Lebron James making his speech to an adoring crowd.

Then that part of the vacation was over. We drove back together to Nebraska to let my son, grandson, and friend return home. I spent a night in the hotel room. I flew out of Omaha to Fort Lauderdale. I drove a rental car, a Ford Fusion, back to Marathon. I was exhausted, but the ordeal is not over. When my new car is ready for pickup, I got to fly up there to get my car. I will drive back to Marathon over three days to prevent exhaustion.

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The State of Florida is pushing these central sewers down our throats with a mandate, and on top of it we have to beg permission to be forced to use it and have to pay for begging permission. Sounds like a lot of smoke & mirrors to me. Here we have a government with employees that are paid to do a job with our taxes and what they’re telling us is that if we want those same employees to do their jobs that we’re paying them to do, we’ll have to pay extra. What’s wrong here? Am I missing something? Is this another con job?

Government. What is it good for? Absolute nothing. Say it again!

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People movers. Make you own. Video
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Why, and who, is pushing to merge the races? All the TV ads and newspaper ads are showing mixed marriages, mixed kids and castrated manhoods. What happened to Black is beautiful, white is right, yellow is mellow, red is head, and brown is down?
rifleman[Rifleman] I just read that the USMC has caved to political correctness. Capitulated to the WTF am I movement. Back in ’58 when I enlisted in the old brown shoe Marine Corps every Marine carried an 0311 MOS-Rifleman. Now what will they call the basic grunts? A rifleperson? What will be issued to these non-men? Stilettos and Gucchi
LBE, pink M-4s. What the hell, off to JP’s Tattoo shop on Stock Island and have my buzzard on a fishhook pooping on the earth tattoo burned off. America has died.
I’m glad I did not buy an Apple laptop. They want $65.00 just to take a look at what’s wrong with my old unit. Screw that. I’ll buy a new Windows PC and get work done cheaper.
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I was riding my bike on the bike path on Big Pine when a couple of really loud Harleys road by, disturbing everyone around them. The question I have is that a 400 HP Corvette is whisper quite yet those 60-70 HP Harleys sound like a prop plane taking off. How do they get away with this?  Are the cops lenient because they have Harleys? And the loud pipes save lives concept has been shown to be false, check out the second part of this article written by motorcycle people. Link
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Great Britain voted to leave the EU, the sky is falling. No it’s not. Everything is just fine, and will be just fine. Heck don’t you remember when we, America decided to leave Great Britan. We did OK. Ironic don’t you think?
Isaksen-2.2016
Whenever I have a panic attack I put a brown paper bag over my mouth and drink all the bourbon inside, it seems to help
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Please do not litter our lands or waters with your sky lanterns. what goes up must come down! Link

Scientists around the world have noticed that the spots on the sun have been blanked over. Check it out for yourself. What do does that mean you ask. It means Get ready for a mini ice age just like the one that occurred in the 1700’s. The blanking of the sun indicates the sun is approaching the Solar Minimum where less activity means less radiated solar energy, which controls weather. The named Maunder Minimum which began in 1645, lasted 70 years and got so cold the Thames River froze over completely. The scientists are estimating noticeable weather changes beginning in 2019-2020. Sorry I threw out my snow shovel.
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[Kids] Join our special guests from the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges on Saturday on July 16 from 10:00 am to 11:00 am. Kids in kindergarten through fifth grade are invited to the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center (35 East Quay Road, Key West) to learn how to read animal footprints and how to protect Key deer. May and June is peak spawning season for Key deer. There will be a game of “What Made Those Tracks?” and other hands on activities. For more information contact 305-809-4750. Space is limited, so please call to register.

Learn more about the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center. Link

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Ever wonder why people complain about Miami? It’s rated worse than Detroit. Link

[“’Hurricane” Dave achieved the goal we all pursue”] I don’t know if “achieved” is the right word. More like “Don’t do anything, and that’s what you get.” I know people that did him a solid when he had a hernia the size of a melon, he wasn’t very nice.
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