Since 2002. Published Tuesdays and Fridays
Letters to the Editor with pictures
 [Missing!] The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office wants the public to help in the search for a missing Big Pine Key man who hasn’t been heard from since Wednesday morning. No Name Pub General Manager Jeffery Dunn, 56, was last seen by his girlfriend at 6:30 a.m. when he left her apartment on Witters Lane to get cigarettes while wearing only pajama-style pants and a T-shirt. Law enforcement descended on No Name Key near Paradise Drive and Watson Boulevard Thursday after Dunn’s Mercury SUV was found by a No Name Pub bartender. A witness told deputies the SUV had been there since at least 9 a.m. Wednesday. The vehicle was unlocked with the keys in the ignition with Dunn’s wallet inside without his debit card and cellphone. If you can help call Detective Dawn Agusto at 305-289-2410. |
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| [FTR] Zika is on the march. Just the other day the New York Times reported that it is an absolute certainty that Zika infected mosquitoes have been captured in three different locations in Miami. These are the first.
According the NYT, combating the Zika carrier mosquito is notoriously difficult, and that only capturing infected mosquitoes provides proof that eradication efforts, i.e. spraying, are not working. But, we do know that the spraying is killing millions of beneficial insects, and is exposing humans to health hazards. Public officials on the Gulf Coast have been pressuring the FDA to permit them to use GMM in their fight to keep Zika away from their population. Here in the Keys? We dither. A very vocal but small choir financed by Real Estate interests is fighting tooth and claw to prevent the use of GMM designed to keep Zika the hell away from us. Why? Because they believe that GMM will cut into their profits. Very recently a dear friend who is pregnant visited the health department for a Zika screening. Rightfully so, she is scared. She was only one of the approximately 40 women waiting for the test. At any given moment between 4 and 10% of women are pregnant. And still we dither. At the instant that we learn of the first local Zika case in our community, the political lives of any public official who is not busting butt to use every available method to keep Zika out of our community, will be ended. Maybe it would be appropriate to begin publicizing the names of the leaders of the anti GMM crowd, and name(s) of the businesses they own or are associated with. You’ve got to wonder how much that might affect their profit. |
 [Revolutionary Guitar!] Yamaha’s new TransAcoustic guitar with reverb and chorus. No batteries. No wires. No amp. The acoustic guitar rarely gets a makeover. There’s just no need. The intimate distance between good wood and an appreciative ear is all that’s required. But for the polished effects we hear out of the studio, like reverb and chorus, acoustic guitarists have to route their sound through effects pedals, Yamaha’s TransAcoustic is the first to naturally re-create those effects. no wires required. An actuator—seated in the base of the guitar’s body- vibrates due to the movement of the strings, delicately disrupting the sound naturally carried out of the guitar. Let your “Wonderwall” wail. $1600. |
| [“Navy drone base”] Can they make mosquito sprayers out of those drones? |
[“TV encourages the chemicals we are consuming to make us dumb-down”] It’s called a “program” for a reason. Your television is nothing more than an electronic mind altering device it has been designed to psychologically change the ways you view reality. |
| [Navy Housing] The U.S. Navy is considering moving some 400 military families to Key West. They would be supporting the Navy’s new Triton surveillance drone program. According to the Navy, the deployment shouldn’t be a problem in terms of housing for new personnel since the preliminary impact study drafted by the US Fleet Force Command shows that the Lower Keys area has a 43% housing vacancy rate. Key West, they claim, is a little bit tighter with only a 34% vacancy rate. The draft impact study concludes that ample vacant housing near NAS Key West will make “affordable rental opportunities available for all personnel to live off station.” |
 [Vote Hacking] This is the hack that proved America’s elections can be stolen using a few lines of computer code. The ‘Hursti Hack’ in this video is an excerpt from the feature length Emmy nominated documentary ‘Hacking Democracy’. The hack of the Diebold voting system in Leon County, Florida. |
| [Sharing Ideas & Opinions] One of the many reasons why CT is so vital to our community is because it allows us as locals and snowbirds to share ideas & opinions and when the topic is as crucial as housing for locals, it’s imperative.
The locals, native to the area, sometime work in lower level tourism jobs, often in jobs just above those held by the new immigrants (whoever they are). Some have come seeking recreation and leisure and they become employed in the tourism business as a means of economic support for their leisure activities. The rents are getting out of control. Do we want everyone bused down from the mainland? |
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| Wow, what a day! Wetstock 12 Music Festival was a smashing success! It dawned on me this morning that two of the people I forgot to thank live Sunday have helped from the beginning! One being Deer ol’ Ed of the Coconut Telegraph and Mr. Steve Estes of the News Barometer. These guys have helped from the first Wetstock and trying to thank all the folks that helped out this year, it just went over my head. Thank you everyone that helped make this a beautiful day! Your friend, Flip Flop Bob |
 [Limited News] Thursday about a million people took to the street in Venezuela, only the BBC covered the story. All our morning news was filed with Trump’s hate and Hillary’s scandals—every channel, no hint of a million people in the street of Caracas.Wearing white and waving flags as they marched, demonstrators blamed Maduro’s government for food shortages and major economic problems.
“There is no food. There is no paper. There is no medicine. We are dying,” Maria Alvarez told CNN en Español. “Please, help Venezuela. This has to end. Maduro, you have to understand that your time is up.” Opposition leaders dubbed the massive demonstration “The Takeover of Caracas” and said they hoped the peaceful protest would have a historic turnout.” |
| [Big Pine Gun Shop Sentence Postponed] Thomas Joseph Willi, 52, of Summerland Key, and federal courthouse security officer Jarvis Nelson Osorio, 36, of Key West. The pair pleaded guilty to receiving and selling a .38-caliber cane gun — the sort of concealed gun one might see in a James Bond film — to a man in Las Vegas, Nevada last year that was not registered to them as per the National Firearms Act, the plea agreement states. Sentencing has been delayed for bureaucratic purposes. |
[Benefit for Storm Rockett] Music by “Glen Harman”, “Terry Cassidy & the Key Lime Pie Band” along with the “Ray West Band”. Piners tak’in care of Piners. ~The NUT |
| I’ve had two gallons of Winn Dixie non-fat milk go bad about a week before the expiration date. Is it them or my refrigerator? |
 [Wetstock 12] That was the best ever! Good vibes and good music all day. The show stopper was the The Funkin’ Conchs. The lead signer, Karen Weber, knocked it out of the ocean! She really put on a show and performed songs that no other band has ever done. It was refreshing. The bass player beat the hell out of that old Fender, boy was he good. At the end of their fantastic set Karen Weber dove off the boat into the water in time with the last refrain without missing a beat. She and the talented guitar play were tightest in Bowie’s Under Pressure |
| [Doctors on Zika] A group of about 30 local doctors have called for further review of the chance of an increase in the resistance to antibiotics in humans as a result of a release of genetically modified mosquitoes in Key Haven. Dr. John Norris is calling on the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District board to not approve its agreement with the biotech firm Oxitec until there is a proper review of how genetically modified mosquitoes could lead to an increase in resistance to the drug tetracycline — a medical antibiotic. |
Springer’s Bar & Grill’s Tuesday Special is Swordfish Dinner or Swordfish Skewer over rice with choice of vegetable. |
| [Dead Diver Panicked] 67-year old Louisiana man died while diving in the Dry Tortugas Saturday. Paul Wimberly of Natchitoches, Louisiana, was in the Dry Tortugas snorkeling from the commercial vessel Playmate, operated by Sea-Clusive Charters. Wimberly’s dive partner said it appeared Wimberly panicked while underwater. She said he grabbed her and pulled her to the bottom with him. She was able to shed her dive equipment and do an emergency ascent to the surface. |
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| [William Hackley’s 1855 Key West Diary] Read the papers. Walked to the Fort with Matilda and children. The men stationed there killed a Blackfish 11 feet 6 inches long and are trying it out. The fish is tied to the old wharf near the walls and I went to see it and broke through a rotten plank just at the edge and went through to the knee which I bruised considerably. One of the men was close by caught me as I was falling or I should have gone down head foremost if my leg had not caught in the hole and been broken. (Ed: What is a blackfish?) |
If West Virginia had sharks. |
| [Gene Wilder Before He Was Dead] On stage or in the movies I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free. ~Gene Wilder Video |
 [“Great pool tables”] Coconuts Bar spends a lot of money on the best cloth (Simonis), but allows customers to put their drinks on the rails, invariably resulting in spilled drinks.” You’re right about the cloth and about the cost. It’s the best cloth and it’s the costliest. You’re wrong about “letting” customers put their drinks on the rails, we just don’t have a full time person to police that travesty. Most customers are good about helping us keep the very best Brunswick tables in the Florida Keys up to snuff, but some folks just don’t get it. The “NUT” rocks around the clock, all in all we do the very best we can. Thanks for the plug. ~The “NUT” |
| [Leaky Pipes] It seems an easy fix, just pipe the crude to a location where it can be shipped to China to refine, then they ship it back to us at a higher price. However, these pipelines are already leaking. They are not flexible; they have no outer protection for when the alkaline soil eats through the metal. They can not flex when the ground shifts. The pipelines of crude will eventually pollute all of our water. We need refineries, not pipelines!
The Texas-based company Dakota Access LLC, a division of the ecocidal corporation Energy Transfer Partners LP, moved methodically ahead with its plan to build the Bakken pipeline. This $3.8 billion, 1,134-mile project would carry 540,000 barrels a day, of primarily fracked crude oil from North Dakota’s “Bakken oil patch” Link |
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| [Cistern?] Is the FKAA going to charge people extra if the sewer system inspector sees rain gutters and a water collection tank on your property? |
[GMO mosquitoes] “Martins eating mosquitoes” Dragon flies eat their body weight in mosquitoes every hour. Unfortunately the chemicals Mosquito Control sprays killed most of them, but there would never be enough dragon flies to put a dent in the mosquito population. |
| [“Crawley things cover boards”] Good God, thank you for defining what these are. For a second there, we thought they were lids for Habitat Underground Housing test sites! |
 [Round-the-world flight powered by sunlight] Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg from Switzerland have flown around the world without using a single drop of fuel in a solar-powered aircraft. During the journey of 25,000 miles, the plane was in the air for nearly 500 hours and the trip was carried out in a series of legs which altogether took 17 months. Bertrand described what it was like to touch down for the final time. Audio |
| The wages of the working class in the Keys are not any lower than anywhere else, in fact, they are a bit higher. Why? Because these tourist businesses over-price everything. They try to make a full year’s income in a short season so they stick it to everyone. The worker has to live 365 days, but the business owner can shut down on off times. Remember JAWS? |
 [Bad Driver Foiled] I was returning to Big Pine from Marathon a few days ago. There was a black car right before the Bahia Honda Bridge recklessly passing everyone on the two lane section. Well this clown kicked it real hard on the Bahia Honda Bridge. Guess what was waiting for him at the other end? Flashing lights! Sometimes there is justice out there. |
| [Employee Housing] Places like Hawks Cay and Centennial Bank house some of their employees. I am thinking that they have realized that a vibrant tourism economy requires many classes of workers, including many who are paid relatively low wages. Ask the teller the next time you drive up how much they make? Chances are it’s less than $15 hr.
We all know that Hawks Cay is notorious for being one of the worst employers in the Middle Keys, but they stay in business because of the housing they offer. When the market fails to provide this housing, the community must intervene to provide it. The availability of affordable housing for low wage (those under $20 per hour) & entry level workers remains a key factor in attracting & retaining them. So why don’t the big real estate companies as well as restaurants house some of their key employees? |
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| Cuba takes care if its people, unlike the USA where a whole political class continually fights against healthcare for all citizens. You can say what you will about Cuba, but no one is hungry, no one is in need of medical care, there is no one living below the poverty level like the USA. There is 100% education and every neighborhood has its own doctor and treatment is always free. There is no neighborhood you can’t go to out of fear. There are no drive-by shootings of children. There are no gangs. Cuba takes care of its own. We should learn from them instead of complaining about them. |
When did toilet paper come on a roll? I think that is one of the world’s greatest inventions. During the Depression my mother and the other children were in charge of cutting newspaper to size and sewing the squares together at two corners with thread and then roll it up. |
| [Forest Not Going to Burn] Federal wildlife officials on Thursday backed away from plans to start prescribed burns this week and into the weekend in the National Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key due to high winds and a lack of moisture. Wheeeew! |
 [Big Pine Liquor Closes] Wednesday will be the last day for Big Pine Liquors after serving our community for many, many years. After Walgreens and now Winn-Dixie getting into the beer, wine and liquor business I guess they just couldn’t compete with the big corporate stores. Best wishes for Smiling Steve Miller and the rest of the friendly staff who will be missed. Maybe, since the building already has a drive thru, we could finally have a fast food burger place. It shouldn’t take more than 8 or 10 years for the person to get through the County permitting process. |
| [Plutonium in Beer] Eventually some realize that whenever some big concern is pushed hard by mainstream media, there is always a hidden agenda. Sometimes, it is simply that somebody has something to sell- like unwanted stockpiles of heavily restricted pesticides or a genetically created new species of mosquito that fluoresces under certain light frequencies (Oxitec’s Oxi-513A now being peddled to Monroe County). Often enough, it is to gain public support for something that would be unpopular. For example, how many people want to live near a nuclear power plant? Knowing that very tasty Titan Indian Pale Ale (Looe Key Tiki has it) comes from Denver, and that the Rocky Flats plutonium trigger factory (Rockwell for atomic bombs) contaminated ground water in the vicinity by illegally disposing of nuclear waste, I wondered if there might be any radioactive waste constituent in this fine brew.
I came upon the following in an article about how the feds are pushing nuclear power (even though they don’t have a safe place for the waste yet) that might explain part of the global warming induced panic: “U.S. officials are acting as China and other nations construct nuclear plants as a cleaner source of energy to meet obligations under the International Climate Change Treaty. Nuclear plants don’t emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that scientists blame for global warming. A new U.S. plant is nearly complete in Tennessee. Four more are planned in Georgia and South Carolina.” Link |
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| [Socialized Medicine] EpiPen in the US $300 or $600, Canada $77 or $144. End of comment. |
Middle-aged parents are now more likely to smoke weed than their teenaged kids. Link |
| [No Name Key] How come someone fights tooth and nail against No Name Key getting electric and then they turn around and get electric ? Ann Press did just this, why would she fight for people not to be able to get electric? I don’t understand. Someone please explain. |
China’s record-breaking glass bridge closes due to ‘overwhelming demand. They said there’s too many damned Chinamen! Link |
| [Solar] Some information for people considering photovoltaic panels for their home. The energy information was calculated from a program call PVWatts available for free online. This program was developed by NREL (National Renewable Labs), a very reputable source. I ran the numbers for a 4 kW system for a house in Key West. The savings per year was calculated to be $737. With an installed cost of $20,000-$30,000 without government incentives, the simple paybacks range from 27 years to over 40 years-longer than the panel and inverter life. The price of these panels is coming down, but still results in a long payback. This is the primary reason PV is not used everywhere. It may make you feel good by putting in a system, but at this time from an economic view if makes no sense. It would be better and cheaper to buy a more efficient air conditioner. |
[Light Pollution] More than one-third of the world can’t see the Milky Way any more. Sad. Link |
| Coconuts presents Ukulele Wednesday. Join usat 7 pm. Join the band, we have extra ukuleles! Video |
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| [Group Rate for Sewer Connections] Has anyone started to investigate the group effort with pricing the septic system hookups into each of our homes? We have had property in Eden Pines for almost 40 years and we have watched it grow to a wonderful community. Let’s see what we can do to help all of our neighbors. |
Does the Internet dream of itself? |
| Please remove Grassy Painting from the Home listing in the Business Directory. He committed suicide last year. |
[Attack of the Bees] Los Angeles County Fire Department says a swarm of bees at a suburban park attacked, stinging more than 20 people and sending three to the hospital. Link |
| [Wetstock 12] It doesn’t get any better than 12. The sound system was the best yet. What a great time!
My only negative observation was the singer/guitarist of the Bubba System. What an awful voice. It was in such a low and rough register that it offended the ears. The drummer had the best voice. The guitar player should stick to the guitar. If he was trying for that gravely blues voice, he missed. |
 [Bully Netters] Never before have I wanted to see Coast Guard blue lights then last night. What’s with these night time bully netters tearing ass up & down the channels with no running lights, and their obnoxious noise on the radio and blinding white lights on. They ruined my snook fishing last night & the next one that goes by me the way one of them did about 10 PM is going to get a 10-ounce sinker right up side their melon |
| [Hospitals] This was in The Blue Paper under their Harry Bethel article about his letter to the governor:
I’d be more than glad to help you with the horrible medical practice of Dr. Attila. The guy nearly killed me prescribing heart medication over the ones cardiologist Dr. Michael McIvor had tediously prescribed and adjusted over years. Despite my reason for being their in a hospital room for 11 days while getting intravenous super powerful antibiotics to try to stem a really bad MRSA infection in my legs, Attila showed up suddenly out of the blue, said he was writing me new prescriptions, and that I had to leave. I informed him that the emergency room doctors are the ones who had been attending to me, and McIvor visited a few times too. He was adamant I had to leave. I then said I was on full coverage Medicaid who was paying the entire bill, and had paid that god damn hospital over $2,000,000 for me already. Why was he kicking me out I asked? He just huffed and puffed, and said I had to go as he left the room. I didn’t know at the time that he and the emergency room doctors worked on different contracts apparently and didn’t get along. I do now. And a fully disabled heart patient with a deadly infection was booted to appease this jack ass and his way out of control ego. He is a smelly piece of shit and I don’t have a problem telling him that to his face. Now, it has also come down to any time I am in the cafeteria or entrance his “security” guards are in my face kicking me off the property. For waiting on a bus that stops there 25 feet away. The same me that medicaid has paid over $2,000,000 to that god damn hospital isn’t allowed to get something from the cafeteria or stand by the doors waiting for a damn bus. But, they will let me call an ambulance, get placed in the emergency room, assigned a stay upstairs, be subject to numerous tests and drugs, and wait for Attila to come around and boot my ass right out. That didn’t stop Attila or that for profit company running the administration from collecting over $100,000 for that stay and treatment. Maybe those city/county folks that let the “for profit” hospital administration lease property that restricts them from being allowed to do so should boot their ass because I am about to shut them down for not taking care of me, just treating me, a public person, like I am in a private clinic that they alone decide who can or cannot enter. Boy, when you enter with a Medicaid platinum card and whatever injury they roll out a $2,000,000+ red carpet. They need to be cut loose and sued |
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| [Pomegranates Cure Malaria] So unhealthy was the air in Rome in 1567 that when Martin Luther made the mistake of sleeping beside an open window, he suffered an attack of what he diagnosed, erroneously, as malaria. He cured himself of the affliction by eating pomegranates. Luther learned that syphilis and homosexuality were rife among the clergy, and that even the pope suffered from the French pox. Luther had therefore seen quite enough of Holy Rome by the time finally returned to Germany |
 [Hurray For The Home Team] That use to be true. Now the home team is from different cities, states and even countries. It’s no longer what local athletes the area can be proud of but what athletes the big corporation can buy. Yet still fans go crazy for their “home” team never realizing that rooting for them is the same as rooting for Microsoft or Apple or any other big corporation whose only prupose tis to make more money. I’m always amazed at soccer fans rooting for their mega corporation and even fighting for the athletes the board of directors purchased. Who cares, but sportsheeple. |
| The Miami Blue Butterfly, once found throughout Florida, now found only in the Lower Keys. It looks more like a moth than a butterfly. Link |
 [Key Deer Refuge Beach Cleanup] Saturday, Sept. 17th, 2016 is International Coastal Cleanup Day; in honor of that, the National Key Deer Refuge is hosting a beach cleanup at Long Beach on Big Pine Key from 9:00 am-12:00 pm. We are looking for volunteers to help clean this magnificent public beach area so it’ll be a beautiful place to walk, and safer for the Key deer, sea turtles, birds and other wildlife. The Refuge will supply gloves and trash bags, and have water available. Please bring your own refillable water bottle and appropriate clothes. We’ll meet out on Long Beach Rd, near the Refuge gate (approx. half mile south of US1, on left side) at 9 a.m. In years past, our local community and visitors have made this event a huge success, we hope to see you all again this year. For more information call Kristie Killam 305-304-9625 or kristie_killam@fws.gov |
| [Off The Grid] So let me get this straight. If I have the knowledge to build a home with totally independent systems for water, sewage, electric, food production and never need outside input or products, the local junta will charge me the same taxes, sewer fees and water bill? Time to buy a freaking island somewhere else! |
 [Labor Day Cheats] I wonder if the lifetime welfare slugs celebrated Labor Day with the food they bought with food stamps that the rest of us paid for? |
| The International Climate Change Treaty is another scam. The US military is exempt, but according to the Union of Concerned Scientists: “The U.S. military is the largest institutional consumer of oil in the world. Every year, our armed forces consume more than 100 million barrels of oil to power ships, vehicles, aircraft, and ground operations” Nuclear is sure no solution. A guy I knew well on the mainland used to work in a USN nuclear sub, and he said they tossed the spent fuel rods overboard as soon as they were in international waters 12 miles from shore. |
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| [Wetstock 12] Oh no, the local drunks are having another drunk fest weekend. |
 The Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce will hold its Installation & Awards Celebration on Wednesday, Sept. 28 from 6-9pm at FISH restaurant. The new Board of Directors will be officially sworn in and Officers will share their thoughts on the Chamber’s progress and mission as they take the reins for the coming year. FISH is preparing a fantastic dinner, the Directors’ Auction will be full of great prizes, member businesses will be recognized for their support and the networking will be outstanding. This is open to the public; reservations are $49/pp and must be made no later than Sept. 23. Call the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce at 305-872-2411 to make reservations. |
| [Captain Doom and Gloom’s Brother] I was asked the other day if I could describe the human species in the shortest possible terms and I came up with “morons”. Guess that pretty much sums it up. Humans couldn’t organize a one car funeral without screwing it up. |
 [Downstairs Enclosures] Those who want to make a few dollars renting the underneath of their shacks have no class. What kind of dignity does a person have to want to live in someone’s storage area? As said many times, if you cannot afford to live in an area, don’t move there. Can you imagine Shark Key with affordable crawl spaces (except for the butlers and maids of course) or the Pier House parking lot with trailer trash? Move to Cuba where you belong! |
| I’ve gained 15 pounds and my blood sugar and cholesterol are off the charts. It’s all the fault of my dentist telling me that bacon and soda are just as good as toothpaste. |
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