All The News

The Key West Citizen continues to delight and confound and today we had three stories of note that did just that. The first is about the airport terminal under construction. Had you read Madding's Musings lately you would know that some visitors to Key West find the current modest little terminal a bit cramped. There are no loos beyond the security barrier and the security checkpoint itself is outdoors under the overhang. Some travelers find this state of affairs less charming and more crappy. The county decided to build a new Taj Mahal, I mean terminal and in the process so far the 28 million dollar upgrade has cost one (Guatemalan) construction worker his life in a ramp collapse and now apparently $40 million dollars won't be enough to finish the job. An audit has uncovered irregularities. And we are shocked, shocked I tell you. The McCoy/Saenz new terminal is being named for the living and dead members of the McCoy family, movers and shakers of course. I prefer the terminal be named for the dead nobody who was under the parking lot ramp when it fell on him. His family had to pay to have his body flown back to Guatemala. Irony, where is thy sting?).
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One point seven billion dollars is the sweet deal for the Keys, with the demise of US Sugar Corporation over the next few years as the State of Florida takes over it's 300 square miles of sugarcane land south of lake Okeechobee and returns it to its natural state. The idea is that the swamps of the Everglades will return to their natural function of not spewing phosphate laden water into Florida Bay thus screwing up the waters covering the delicate and dying coral reefs along the Keys. This change and the introduction of proper sewage treatment facilities in the keys after 20 years of dithering gives us hope that our coral reefs may be preserved in some degree. By then only people with endless fuel tanks and billion dollar homes will be here to enjoy them.

When I was a radio reporter years ago for a station in Tampa (WMNF) we all got a burr up our butts about the sugar industry after a superb book, aptly titled Big Sugar exposed the sugar industry for the extraordinary waste of public money it has always been. I was astonished to learn back then, in 1990, that every US candy bar had 5 cents of tax payer subsidy to the sugar industry contained within its wrapper. God knows what the subsidy is today, 11 billion dollars overall I believe. The beauty of this settlement with US Sugar (one of the more decent and humane employers in the industry) is that few people will get laid off as most cane workers come from the Caribbean and live in atrocious conditions for a few months doing a job no US citizen would dream of doing. I figured back then it made more sense to shut down the sugar industry and let the Caribbean islands develop their own agricultural industry and keep their workers at home with their families. I guess I was just a couple of decades ahead of my time.

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As of today Florida requires new motorcyclists, people applying for their first motorcycle endorsement, to take a two-day motorcycle instruction course. This is news to warm the cockles of any one's heart that likes the idea of training for riders. Irondad leaps to mind, of course. Great news even though the number of last minute applicants for endorsements before the new law doubled in June 2008 over the numbers for June 2007 (14,000 vs 6,000!). However the Citizen points out that the new course will only be available in Homestead, 120 miles from Key West and will require an overnight stay. Two big moped dealers in Key West are quoted in the story wringing their hands at government "intervention" saying the courses should be voluntary and that they used to "steer" new riders to training courses when they bought motorcycles. A plunge in motorcycle sales is predicted in Key West. The sky falleth precipitously.