Since 2002. Published Tuesdays and Fridays
Letters to the Editor with pictures
| (Ed: Sorry folks, I’m out of town and time zones and stuff and I forgot what day it was to publish the CT. So the CT didn’t get published on Tuesday like it was supposed to.) |
 [R.I.P. ReStore] Sadly, come mid-January the convenience, ease and savings many of us have experience while shopping at the Habitat’s ReStore will be coming to an end. Renewing or extending their lease was denied by the County and they have not been able to secure another property. Their contribution to many, be it providing a valuable resource for affordable household shopping, or a trustworthy entity for disposal of personal belongings, will be missed by many. I am thankful for the numerous bargains I’ve obtained over the years and hope they succeed in finding another suitable and affordable location to continue the valuable service they’ve provided to many. |
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| [FKAA] A judge agreed Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit against Monroe County and the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, but she will allow the case to continue. Circuit Court Judge Bonnie Helms said she will write an order dismissing the case, but will allow the attorney for the two plaintiffs to rewrite and resubmit their complaint. Big Pine Key residents Louise Delany and Gail Kulikowsky charge the two government agencies have no legal basis to place grinder pump sewage collection systems on their properties. Their lawsuit demanded the two government agencies use their own right-of-way to place the grinder pumps and use their own electricity to run the pumps. Several Big Pine Key residents have argued that the FKAA and the county should install a gravity sewage collection system in their community, not a low-pressure system that uses grinder pumps. The residents say the low-pressure system and the grinder pumps are not adequate and will be more expensive to maintain in the long term. |
Since when is sitting on the beach and smiling at manatees a bad thing? |
| In touchy America today, if you aren’t offending someone, you just aren’t trying hard enough. |
 Chili Cookoff coming up on Sunday,18th Mangrove Mama’s. 1-5 pm for the Key West Collegiate Academy. Many students that attend this school live on Big Pine Key as well as the Lower and Middle Keys.
1:00 Register Chili -no fee |
| [“R.I.P. Ann Young”] She must be in the running to be canonized for putting up with “the Reverend Grab-it-all” She’s a saint and he is pure evil and a charlatan. |
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| I doubt people would spend time and money on family Christmas card pictures if they knew exactly what people said when they opened them up. |
The Dave Clark Five and beyond Glad All Over 2014. Video |
| “With my wife having been diagnosed with cancer recently” Watch the entire thing please especially the CBD stuff. Video |
Our bird has escaped! Reward offered for his return. Young male African Grey parrot that will respond to his name “Bogey”. He escaped from the Eden Pines area on Big Pine Key. |
| [Lame Buck] We’re renting a house on Long beach Drive. A key deer buck just walked behind our house along the water and appeared to be lame in the right front leg. He was having a lot of trouble walking. Otherwise, he looked healthy. |
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| Keys housing prices rise faster than incomes. Middle class folks can’t afford to live in many Keys communities any more. Developers have to make more affordable homes in the $1000 range. |
[“A few tacos, a few beers, tipping the server & band – $40 bucks”] So you spent $40 on food, entertainment and tips. Tell me where you can go out anywhere and get food, beer and live music for $40? This isn’t S**thole, WI. It’s Florida and sunshine don’t pay the bills |
| [“If it was not for the Yankees bringing culture to the southern states and the Keys, you would still be living on the beach smiling at manatees”] What culture did Yankees bring us? Your crap culture? The South had a culture all its own and in the 60s and 70s, Florida was still a paradise. Tell me please what you fixed on the mainland? Boca? Parkland? Weston? Puh-lease! Was it your chain restaurants? Your charming attitudes? We enjoyed the manatees and dolphin that used to be prevalent here. They were much friendlier.
Yankees are everything that’s wring down here. No more laid back, it’s loud mouth. No more quiet money. It’s all “look at me” gold and sports cars driving thru puddles of salt water. You came, you ruined, and you believe it’s better now. Fughedaboutit |
 Forgotten Felines of the Florida Keys wishes to publicly thank all those individuals who were kind enough to contribute to its recent fundraising drive. A special debt of gratitude is owed to Marathon businessman Richie Moretti who pledged to match any and all donations up to a total of $5,000. President Karen Liskey indicates that, “We are very pleased to report that our fundraising goal was reached, allowing us to continue our work with abandoned and feral cats in the Middle and Lower Keys, an effort which requires expenditures of upwards of more than $30,000 per year.”
If you are interested in becoming a Forgotten Felines volunteer please call (305) 743-2520. |
| I must own a car to transport the tools of my trade; so do many of my neighbors. Everyone knows that Key West has a serious parking shortage that our so-called leaders must address, whereas the idea of a Key West without cars is nice in principle, it cannot and will not happen. The ‘formidable’ bicycle lobby should shut up, share the road, and obey its laws especially those governing lights, one-way streets, stop signs, and turn signals. |
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| I’m a plumber and as I looked down the cleanout of a grinder pump sewer connection today while preparing a quote. It is just as installed by FKAA. It had water and stones laying in it. I am finding this to be a common situation and one I don’t want to be blamed for. I can vacuum out the stones to get my test plug to seal, but how many stones are in the pump pit with the special tamper-proof screws on the cover? How much water is already in this new unused pump station that is not even connected that I can see it in the cleanout of the connection stubout? How did the water get in there? |
 [Key West Police Station] About 12:30 a.m. this morning, several Spanish-speaking people came to the police station with something bothering them. It was hard for me to make out, because only one of them seemed to have any English, and not all that much. The first police officer only spoke English, but he soon was joined by a female officer who was fluent in Spanish. That’s when things started moving, as the people told their story, which seemed to have originated with something to do with sheriff deputies, outside Key West’s jurisdiction, and it seemed to have to do with one of the people’s medicine for some kind of medical condition being taken, or the prescription taken. The people needed to talk a lot, and the Spanish-speaking officer was super patient, beyond my range of patience, I thought to myself, as I lay there on a bench like I was asleep, listening to all of it, trying to understand what was bothering the people, who finally seemed to feel they needed to leave, and they left. They were respectful, did not yell, or even talk loud. They were just trying to get help. The officers were professional. Caring |
| After completing Officer Training School in Boston, I have learned to disrespect all uniformed police for two simple reasons–their lack of common sense and that some idiot gave them a gun. |
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| [Big Pine] Port Pine Heights Property Owners Association fall newsletter. pphoapost-fall-2016-finalr |
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| [Sloan Vanquished From Homeless Shelter] Mr Bashinsky, Due to your repeated fabrications and outright Lies and willingness to believe the word of people that were removed from KOTS for the Exact behavior That you yourself have complained about. And Your unwillingness to abide by simple rules such as Going behind a dorm to urinate instead of the shower bathroom stalls. And your repeated calls in writing which If you have forgotten you can go back and read that 90% of the homeless you have met should be dead. And you stating again in writing that Strangling your friend Kari would be better than her Living. I personally feel you are a clear and present danger to the clients we have at KOTS and you are not welcome back at the shelter under any circumstances. We are Actively trying to better the quality of life for both our clients and the City of Key west. Having you continually undermining that effort for your Self Promotion will no longer be tolerated. So I strongly suggest you Make other living arrangements before you current living arrangements end! ~Mike Tolbert, Shelter Director |
[Magic Mushrooms Lifts Cancer Patients Distress] Psychedelic medicine, long taboo, moves toward the mainstream with two new studies. It’s a brave new world. Video |
| [Sewers] A Big Torch resident expressed appreciation for the Coconut Telegraph publishing sewer postings and asked questions of CudjoeFail@mail.com including about keeping his on-site aerobic system for back-up. He says that FKAA has had expensive heavy equipment sitting idle for weeks along the road. An FKAA employee reported that the crew is off trying to fix problems with the new sewer. Why? That should be the contractor’s problem, except that the troubled portions may have been accepted a full year ago, so now the contractor is in the clear and it is FKAA’s (our) problem. Below is text from the reply to the Big Torcher.
“If you have not given an easement yet, I would discourage it. It could not be much more illegal for FKAA to demand one without just financial compensation. What they are actually doing is extending their sewer collection system into your yard and providing the gravity connection guaranteed by Ordinance there instead of at the street. |
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| [Deer Eating Snake] Ravenous 14-foot python caught with 3 deer in its gut. Link |
Pass the Cheese and Cracker House ” is a lot better with wine than gingerbread. Cheers! |
| [“Support local business”] Having recently purchased several car parts, this is my story. I called NAPA and Advanced Auto for starters, the prices I will quote are the cheapest of the two stores. Ignition coil $41, ignition part $106, distributor rotor $9.95, set of wires (5 in total} $66, four spark plugs (on sale) $15.80.
Online, and not the cheapest prices, the parts I bought were the same brands with the same specs. Example: wire set NAPA brand with the same gauge wires, only difference instead of $66 it cost $16. $238.75 buying local total without sales tax. Online: $101.80. The difference in price would save about $10 in sales tax, exactly the cost of the shipping. This was on a Thursday, I received the order the next day. NAPA said they could have it by Tuesday. I am not mad at the local stores, they have a large overhead. If people are dumb enough to pay those prices you can’t blame the store. |
 It’s that most wonderful time of the year, Christmas! Coconuts has for many years bought big trees from the M.A.R.C. House. It’s one of the many local charities that the “NUT” supports. We put the tree up and our customers pin money on it. Every night the money is removed & we start again the next day. After the first of the year we count it all and Coconuts matches it. The funds then go to the Methodist Church Food Bank. It’s a win/win. The food bank does well & our customers get a good feeling, knowing that they made a difference. You don’t have to be a customer to help, you don’t even have to come into the bar, just drop off your donation in our Drive-Thru & we will take care of it. If you like, you can write a check payable to the Methodist Food Bank. We can’t thank you Piners enough for making Coconuts happen. Without you it just wouldn’t work. 33 years of Rockin’ ya Right at the Light! Have a very Merry & Blessed Christmas. ~The “NUT” |
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| [Doesn’t Want Free Country] Is it possible to sue a real estate company for letting undesirables rent or buy in to my neighborhood? If not, why not? |
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| [Discount Gas] Don’t get too excited about your Winn Dixie Rewards discount, since the gas at Shell is about 15 cents a gallon more than Tom Thumb. |
 [Alien Rapture] Your tin foil hat may not spare you! You are going to need a full suit of armor.I found this on a Christian-oriented site warning about possibly fake alien invasions coinciding with the real Rapture (as in “Beam me up, Scotty! Oh s**t! You’re not Scotty!”) Link “I would warn against anything foreign in the body like an RFID chip. The total number of cell phone towers in the US, 190,000 and rising. These towers can be configured into an array creating greater transmission power. If the human nerve system ever grows around the RFID chip radio signals could traverse to the brain. Every human thought has an exact frequency signature; and cell towers send out frequency signals using microwave burst. We can be made to see, hear, and feel things in this manner. Most things born of technology appear to have negative side effects and the RFID chip is no different. Again, we are dealing with the manipulation of energy merged with the human body. We would essentially become receivers and anything from the cell towers to these [chips] would have the potential to control what we perceive. Placing nanotechnology into the human body with an antenna because of the promise of better record management is a ruse. It obviously has more applications which are not being promoted. We are being asked to trust government and big business. This combination has a poor track record with integrity and transparency.” Yeah, Isn’t that last part the truth? |
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| Given that the new sewer plant is not big enough and that they’re attempting to use the shallow wells in addition to the incomplete deep well , I think it will turn out that FKAA will not be able to legally hook up BPK since it will not be able to treat the wastewater properly. I would advise folks not to destroy their septic systems. |
 [Movie Review] Ben Hur. Why? Why remake a great film with two unknown actors? The story was the same, everything was the same, but without the great Charlton Heston. I don’t get it.
[Movie Review] Jason Bourn. The latest installment of Robert Ludlum’s cold war spy thriller is basically one long chase scene. The plot eluded me, something about his father. Between chases there were far too many close-ups of the movie stars’ faces. Tommy lee Jones’ stereotypical five or six word answers are distracting. I think they must have put him in a separate studio, had him utter his few lines in his stoic, authoritarian voice, and let him go home. |
| [Healthy Diet] Today marks 6 months without drinking a drop of Pepsi, or any kind of fizzy pop. 6 months without eating bread, cake, chocolate or anything sweet. The change in my body has been fantastic, I feel great, I lost weight and my way of thinking is very positive. I’m looking to keep this up and go for more. Because I choose to. No alcohol, eating healthy and above all, an hour of exercise every day. |
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| [Sewers] I looked at a neighbor’s sewer connection today and discovered that not only did Layne install a standard “sanitary tee” instead of a ” two-way cleanout tee” as required by contract, but they used a gasketed tee instead of being glued. That tells me the lateral was probably not properly leak tested, because over 100 pounds of pressure would be trying to make a rocket of the cleanout. Those are two violations of FKAA standards included in the contract. Another neighbor on the other side of the road was present when his gravity lateral to the property line was installed by Layne, and he says they glued everything. On both cleanouts, the much cheaper tee was used than was paid for, saving Layne about $100 on each.
Who was inspecting you ask? It was the FKAA Deputy Executive Director & Manager of Engineering and Operations and every contractor’s best friend (because anything is acceptable). Why bother? Just pay him to stay home since he is seldom around during construction anyway. Meanwhile, if you are making a sewer connection, you don’t know what fittings are required until you dig it up and look. Your tax dollars at work. Again. |
 [U.S. S.Grant’s Biography] A few days out from Corpus Christi, the immense herd of wild horses that ranged at that time between the Nueces and the Rio Grande was seen directly in advance of the head of the column and but a few miles off. It was the very band from which the horse I was riding had been captured but a few weeks before. The column was halted for a rest, and a number of officers, myself among them, rode out two or three miles to the right to see the extent of the herd. The country was a rolling prairie, and, from the higher ground, the vision was obstructed only by the earth’s curvature. As far as the eye could reach to our right, the herd extended. To the left, it extended equally. There was no estimating the number of animals in it; I have no idea that they could all have been corralled in the State of Rhode Island, or Delaware, at one time. If they had been, they would have been so thick that the pasturage would have given out the first day. People who saw the Southern herd of buffalo, fifteen or twenty years ago, can appreciate the size of the Texas band of wild horses in 1846 |
| [bigpinekey.com] Thank you for maintaining such a wonderful locals’ website for so many years. I enjoy the comments and Keys trivia our Piner family post. |
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| Retired Marine Destroys NFL Players Who Disrespect Veterans. Link |
[National Anthem Singer Paints Patriotic Portrait] Awesome! What a talent. Video |
| Courtney Pine talks to jazz trombonist Chris Barber about his life’s work and how his initiative and enthusiasm for American blues music helped provide inspiration for a new generation of British musicians. Link |
How Santa got his job. Warning some adult language. Video |
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| [Canals] The government in India encourages their citizens to route rainwater runoff into gutters directed into their drinking-water wells. The object is to displace the heavier sewer water that encroaches from below in overcrowded conditions.
While I hate to suggest a third-world solution, the routing of rainwater into the dead-ends of Big Pine Key’s canals could serve the same purpose against odoriferous canal conditions. Routing rainwater into existing Keys’ wells would also displace saltwater intrusion, and enlarge—perhaps permanently—a diminishing fresh water lens. It seems that would help—if it ever rains |
 I was scarfing down a pound of steamed mussels, partly because I really like the taste, and partly because I really like that they look like little, well you know… Anyway, I noticed that the mussel’s muscle stays attached to the shell. How weird is it that? With a scallop, you eat the muscle and throw the rest away, but with a mussel you throw the muscle and shell away and eat the rest. Why don’t people eat the whole scallop? Especially Bay scallops since the muscle is so puny. I looked it up. Apparently, no damn reason to throw the rest of the scallop away:
“Further, it’s really only in Western restaurants that the abductor muscle is the only part eaten. Asians often utilize the entire scallop. Those westerners who have been lucky enough to eat the roe (the coloured part of the scallop) have fallen in love with it and even like it better than the muscle itself. The roe and liver of the scallop are excellent in sauces as well. I can’t help but laugh/cry watching western scallop farmers/fishermen shuck scallops and throw away the rest of it knowing that they could get some money in Asian supermarkets.” |
| Joe: I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring back human sacrifice for these religious cults. Mo: Why not, most waitresses in the Keys do it now if you don’t tip them enough! |
| DEF: Ignorance n. to demand you’re idea is right when you know you are wrong DEF: Guessing n. the ability to contrive ideas though lack of logical understanding as in politics DEF: Voting n, a misguided action to display ones illogical egotism DEF: Candy n. that which buys a politico when wrapped in money! DEF: Media n, a communication system geared for profiteering from cotton candy. DEF: President n, a person appointed to rule nothing but what he is told to rule! DEF: World Rulers n. old people who live in castles in Luxembourg. |
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