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2020 June

Tuesday, June 2, 2020


Letters to the editor with pictures since 2002. Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.

 

 

[Bambi] Here’s the first deer of the 2020 season. We saw it on June 1.

[They’re B-a-a-a-c-k!] Keys Re-open. How Florida Keys Aims to Keep Travelers Safe Upon Reopening in June. Link
[Dogwood] Piscidia piscipula. The scientific name means fish-killer or fish-poison. The Seminole Indians would ground its leaves, bark and branches to make a poison fishing device. This “fish-fuddle,” when thrown into the water, inhibited coldblooded animals’ nervous systems so that they could be picked from the water by hand. The effect on warm blooded animals is minimal.

Scientists have found some useful bits of information about the tree. The active ingredient is rotenone, which is used in insecticides and pesticides. Commercial fish nurseries use this mixture so that they can cull unwanted exotic fish from their nurseries.

Dogwood is named because the very hard, boomerang-shaped bow of heartwood is used for the prow on a boat and is placed where a mermaid would go. This very strong-wood was highly prized. The tree can be used as a sedative, to reduce muscle spasms, reduce inflammation and to induce sleep. It relieves pain. The roots twigs and bark purportedly make a narcotic similar to morphine.

If the branches are left in the ground in zone 11 or higher, they will grow roots and start a new tree

 

 

The Fireworks bush is what we call this beautiful bush. This year’s bloom, along with everything else is super, better than any year we can remember

Money isn’t everything, but at least since WWII it has been the measure of success. Google how the country is doing, and you will get back economic data. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is our national measure of success. But money and GPD did not prepare us for Covid 19. Nor has the focus on GPD reduced growing income inequality. GDP doesn’t capture our national health, our environment, our freedom, or our overall happiness. What a rising GPD does capture, among other things, is if we have more jails and jailers, more logging and drilling, more tourists and chaotic sprawl, more gun sales, more expensive health care and education, more cars on the road etc.
Yes a focus on national GDP has given us an overall higher standard of living, but perhaps it is time to have new measures of success. The narrow pursuit of wealth and GPD, with little incentive for public and private entities to focus on anything but money, no longer serves us well. Pursuit of GDP is failing our best interests. Today we want to give our children more than just money. We want to give them happiness, and for that we should change the way we measure success.

 

 

[Protest vs Crime] In case some of our Black brothers forgot: Protest: good, Crime: bad.

[Hurricane season 2020] Coronavirus may be a cataclysmic scenario! Video
[“Fart penetration] Let’s get one thing straight. If you can smell it, it’s atomized shit. If it leaves the hideous crusty brown stain in your shorts, it’s leakage. What I was trying to say was if atomized shit can pass through shorts and blue jeans, then wouldn’t a microscopic virus be able to pass through a cloth face mask? Get serious, masks are mostly a placebo for people who are trying to do something!

 

 

 

[Name That Mushroom] I don’t know what this mushroom is called. It is most unusual and the corpse-like order it gives off draws flies. It really stinks and only lasts a day or two.

[New World Order] There are people who do not believe that there is an international push for a one world dictatorial government, dubbed New World Order. Well here is their official feel-good website. From their site: “In 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals (officially known as the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs). These goals have the power to create a better world by 2030″ The UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development have a stated goal of maintaining a world population of under 500 million. That requires the elimination of 90% of the current world population. Pretend you are in charge: How will you eliminate that 90%, and how will you select the losers? This is going to require worldwide mass participation, ideally willingly. But never fear because “we are all in this together.” Link
The AARP activities calendar for June is here. Full Menu > Ongoing Events
Truth is what you believe in, though I wish that wasn’t so.

 

 

Fortune is the only god whom every one invokes; she alone is spoken of, she alone is accused and is supposed to be guilty; she alone is in our thoughts, is praised and blamed, and is loaded with reproaches; wavering as she is, conceived by the generality of mankind to be blind, wandering, inconstant, uncertain, variable, and often favoring the unworthy. To her are referred all our losses and all our gains, and in casting up the accounts of mortals she alone balances the two pages of our sheet. We are so much in the power of chance, that chance itself is considered as a God, and the existence of God becomes doubtful. ~Pliney 79 AD

[Looters] These low-lifes only reinforce the stereotype of negroes who want everything for free; and that drives many whites to madness. They, nor I, can equate a brutal murder of a Black man to getting a free TV. Negroes had better clean up their act before the police will stop hating them. Oh, you don’t want to talk about that?

 

[For Rent] 2 bedrooms. One bath. Unfurnished Duplex on clean boating canal w/seawall going to Pine Channel and coral reef. Tiled floors throughout. Stainless steel appliances. Ceiling fans in living room, kitchen and bath. Laundry room. Small screened porch. Very clean. A/C., large brick patio. Parking for 2 vehicles. Ground level. Port Pine heights subdivision. Quiet neighborhood. 750 square feet. No smokers or dogs. $1800 a month. First, last and $1000 security ($4600 total to move in) Utilities not included. 3970 No Name Road. Email for further info. b33043@outlook.com. More pictures on Craigslist. Link

[Lax Protection] Yesterday in Winn Dixie three woman were behind the Deli counter. Two of them wore masks that didn’t cover their noses and the third lady wore the mask on top of her head.

In a democracy the majority rules. That’s it. That’s what democracy means. We think we live in a Democracy. The United States cannot be a democracy until it rids itself of the Electoral College. We have the popular vote already, but that doesn’t matter because the Electoral College’s vote overrides it. That’s the law. The majority of Americans can vote for Candidate A, but the Electoral College can choose Candidate B if they wish. They’ve done it twice so far. The majority votes for Candidate A, but they choose Candidate B. That’s not a democracy.

Rioters torch Minneapolis police precinct during third night of violence after George Floyd’s death. Link
[Model Makers] I used to design submarines in Connecticut in the late 60s. You can only imagine how intricate and tight fitting every part of the interior is. Because of that constraint hey had a building for models. There were no computers then so they made everything from wood. Every new submarine design had a quarter scale model of its interior made before building commenced. These models were complete down to every little detail of every valve, pipe or elbow. The pipes were made of wooden dowels. The valves were hand carved and shaped and everything was color coded according to its intended use. You could almost walk upright in it. It was over 8’ in diameter and about 150’ long. It didn’t have an outer skin or conning tower, but it did have miles and miles of tiny painted wooded pipes. It was so accurate that when draftsman or engineers had a problem fitting something inside the boat we could go down to the model building and actually measure from the tiny pipes, it was so precise. That was one of the most fascinating and intricate things I’ve ever seen craftsman make. Computers replaced them.
It’s a fact, women love shoes.  If she throws one at you, she’s really upset.

 

 

 

[Lax Protection] I work at the BMW plant in South Carolina. BMW has required that all employees wear mask, unfortunately this is pretty much the result I see every day.

Saving Private Ryan influences trauma room doctor. Link
[Looters] A woman and her husband were brutally attacked for trying to protect their business from looters.

 

 

 

Charlie Chan say, when Peking duck fly into mouth, don’t complain—eat it!