I was struck by the notion that Key west as a walking/cycling/scootering town might be hard to believe looking at the photograph below, snapped in front of the Green parrot Bar at a peak motoring moment.
In many respects Key West is the city of paradox, heavily regulated, yet frequently lax in enforcement, a city filled with people who know each other far too intimately, yet leavened by hordes of total strangers who descend on the city every winter and who claim residence based on four months of fresh air seasonal life in the little city. I have no idea what tarot skin care is but I did like the bold unconventional approach to city signage: 
Across town the school district has sneakily built a new school more than twice the height permitted by city regulations. Judging by the furore you'd think they threw up the building overnight when no one was looking. City engineers checking the plan for safety failed to notice the projected building was 56 feet tall. The school district simpered disarmingly and said they thought they were exempt from city zoning regulations. The city manager shrugged and said, oh well, spilled milk and all that, moving on...
The county accused a private group of bilking them in their contract to take care of stray animals in mid county. An audit tried to prove Stand Up For Animals used county money inappropriately. All it seemed to prove was that the woman who ran the organization is a rotten book keeper, but nothing worse. Speaking as one such myself (my wife won't let me near a check book) I sympathize with the accidentally mingling of private donations with public funds. A friend said SUFA was found guilty before the trail was even scheduled. The fact remains that dismissed in disgrace, a replacement agency for Stand Up For Animals at the same cost is proving hard to locate. And bidders are crying Foul! and Rigged! about the new bidding process. 
We are entering a new phase of Empire it seems, the part Edward Gibbon, writing about the Romans, called Decline and Fall. There is a belief among our leaders, eagerly adopted by their followers that the principle of something for nothing can continue to be adopted even after it was proved disastrously, to be untrue in 2008. We used to enjoy living on credit, nowadays we believe the debt can be paid off by cutting expenses, maintaining services at the same level even though fees are cut, and continuing to live well all the while. 
In Florida, where public indebtedness is a very small proportion of the state budget, 4 billion of 70 billion, the Governor is moving ahead with plans to cut programs he doesn't like while expanding unregulated giveaways of public monies to the private for profit sector as a way of "cutting expenses." It seems odd to me that private corporations that have to pay stock holders can do anything for less money than publicly operated agencies. Until one remembers that cutting wages and benefits is how they do it.
Key West has weathered the financial storm quite well so far, but I wonder what the future will bring as we spiral down into an unequal world of lower wages, fewer benefits and even less paid vacations. You can't sustain a consumer economy on unemployment and wage cuts.
I feel fortunate to have a good job in a great place to live and even though my wife faces major wage cuts we know how to live with less, having spent years enjoying living on a boat. many of our neighbors, even in the Keys, are far more rigid and I see signs of social stress all around me.
My dog doesn't mind. I was at The Pines park on South Roosevelt enjoying the warmth and the glow of sunset over the Straits of Florida. Cheyenne, who is living retirement as it should be lived, was making new friends. That they had a roast chicken and a loaf of bread was purely coincidental to her interest in their well being.
She was quite cheerful about the intruder, he less so, but it took me grabbing my pig in a fur coat by the collar and dragging her back to the car to separate her from her dreams of roast chicken. Stress for Cheyenne has a whole different meaning.
In many respects Key West is the city of paradox, heavily regulated, yet frequently lax in enforcement, a city filled with people who know each other far too intimately, yet leavened by hordes of total strangers who descend on the city every winter and who claim residence based on four months of fresh air seasonal life in the little city. I have no idea what tarot skin care is but I did like the bold unconventional approach to city signage: 
Across town the school district has sneakily built a new school more than twice the height permitted by city regulations. Judging by the furore you'd think they threw up the building overnight when no one was looking. City engineers checking the plan for safety failed to notice the projected building was 56 feet tall. The school district simpered disarmingly and said they thought they were exempt from city zoning regulations. The city manager shrugged and said, oh well, spilled milk and all that, moving on...
The county accused a private group of bilking them in their contract to take care of stray animals in mid county. An audit tried to prove Stand Up For Animals used county money inappropriately. All it seemed to prove was that the woman who ran the organization is a rotten book keeper, but nothing worse. Speaking as one such myself (my wife won't let me near a check book) I sympathize with the accidentally mingling of private donations with public funds. A friend said SUFA was found guilty before the trail was even scheduled. The fact remains that dismissed in disgrace, a replacement agency for Stand Up For Animals at the same cost is proving hard to locate. And bidders are crying Foul! and Rigged! about the new bidding process. 
We are entering a new phase of Empire it seems, the part Edward Gibbon, writing about the Romans, called Decline and Fall. There is a belief among our leaders, eagerly adopted by their followers that the principle of something for nothing can continue to be adopted even after it was proved disastrously, to be untrue in 2008. We used to enjoy living on credit, nowadays we believe the debt can be paid off by cutting expenses, maintaining services at the same level even though fees are cut, and continuing to live well all the while. 
In Florida, where public indebtedness is a very small proportion of the state budget, 4 billion of 70 billion, the Governor is moving ahead with plans to cut programs he doesn't like while expanding unregulated giveaways of public monies to the private for profit sector as a way of "cutting expenses." It seems odd to me that private corporations that have to pay stock holders can do anything for less money than publicly operated agencies. Until one remembers that cutting wages and benefits is how they do it.
Key West has weathered the financial storm quite well so far, but I wonder what the future will bring as we spiral down into an unequal world of lower wages, fewer benefits and even less paid vacations. You can't sustain a consumer economy on unemployment and wage cuts.
I feel fortunate to have a good job in a great place to live and even though my wife faces major wage cuts we know how to live with less, having spent years enjoying living on a boat. many of our neighbors, even in the Keys, are far more rigid and I see signs of social stress all around me.
My dog doesn't mind. I was at The Pines park on South Roosevelt enjoying the warmth and the glow of sunset over the Straits of Florida. Cheyenne, who is living retirement as it should be lived, was making new friends. That they had a roast chicken and a loaf of bread was purely coincidental to her interest in their well being.
She was quite cheerful about the intruder, he less so, but it took me grabbing my pig in a fur coat by the collar and dragging her back to the car to separate her from her dreams of roast chicken. Stress for Cheyenne has a whole different meaning. 
6 comments:
Dear Conchscooter:
I am going to cut you some slack with this blog today... Primarily because I feel like hanging out in a place like Key West. Even though 50% of the people I'd like to ride with went to fucking Guam for some reason.
The chalked sidewalk sign was cool, as long as it is a rare and occasional thing. Or unless they bring in a real sidewalk artist and pay the guy a decent wage.
The vintge BMW R80 is a gem. I wonder if it is owned by a fireman, considered the type of stereo speakers installed in the fairing.
The woman in the gray dress has a face that is unbelievably beautiful. I know about these things. She is walking like a woman who is accustomed to stopping traffic. The guy in the green shirt is pretending to take in the view of the empty ocean so he can check out her ass as she sashays past. And she knows it too.
The guy eating chicken, accompanied by the late middle-aged woman (who is thinking she should have poisoned him years ago) has an expression that says he wishes he had a water pistol filled with ammonia, is quite right. Leash the puppy in public places. Atticus would had the chicken off the table and out of their mouthes in 20 seconds flat. Then he'd have taken the squirt of ammonia in the kisser and decided he liked that too. (Atticus is our 140-lb German Shephered Intimidator.) Come to thnk od it, Atticus could have laid his head on that table without stretching.
Atticus would have run right up to the woman in the gray dress and buried his nose in her crotch. Then he would have turned around to look at me, and laugh in the dog way. There are days when I would change places with him in a minute.
It is Saturday, and aganst all odds, it appears this will be the nicer part of the weekend. I am going to have to saddle up this afternoon, for the first ride of the season.The excitement is so overwhelming, that I am about to piss myself.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Dear Mr. Conchscooter:
It's me... Shirley Steinblatt! Your friend in the nursing home that smells like red cabbage and old people sitting in their own shit.
I read something of interest yesterday, that made me think of you. It was a few paragraphs in a financial daily (some socialist rag like the Wall Street Journal). It said that Corporate America was rolling in dough — fucking huge profits to the tune of a trillion and a half dollars generated in the last months of 2010. The article said these companies were now looking to reinvest this cash, but that the 9% (plus) of the US labor force holding their hands on their collective asses looking for work shouldn't get their hopes up.
Know why? This cash was generated by massive layoffs as surviving workers, motivated by fucking fear, pushed productivity up 3.9 percent. The resulting profits are now rotting in banks as major corporations are floating on the cold sweat of a desperate nation. And the article further stated that this cash is likely to be reinvested in mergers, that will undoubtedly result in further layoffs.
Isn't that fucking swell? Corporate America is now a vampirish whore feeding on itself. But these stupid corporate bloatocrats fail to realize they are spawning a new interest in creating superunions.
Once a company has established it has no respect for the working person, but regards them as cattle to be dismissed at will, it will create two labor-related subcultures — the union and the informer/corporate butt sniffer.
What Corporate America needs today is a worker-led reign of terror in which CEO's are dragged out of their limousines and beaten to death in the street. And next to go should be the investment specialists who are plinking huge funds into corporations who are draining the tit of even more desperate Chinese workers, who breathe poisoned air, drink poisoned water, and work hours that would discourage slaves rowing Roman galleys — to bring Americans $12 sneakers and $3 dish towels at WallMart.
Corporate America has become a two-word phrase meaning "Fuck Everybody." And the Democrats, who used to represent real labor interests are first in line to pay lip service to the dicks of companies like General Electric, who was instrumental in getting a law passed that requires US citizens to buy mercury-laden light bulbs exclusively from China, where they are made for wages far below US standard, in a GE plant.
The law takes effect in 2014. I'll be dead by then... Probably trampled to death by that dancing GE elephant in those stupid commercials. By the way, President Transparent Opportunist is out to raise a billion bucks. Let's see what GE kicks in, now that the Supreme Court says it's okay.
I have to go... The attendant is here pushing the pillow into my face now. I'd have sent this to your political blog, but no one willingly reads that well-written shit.
Your pal,
Shirley Steinblatt
Imlaystown, NJ
Home of the World's Largest Dildo
Dear Jac: Have a nice ride, may you stick your nose in many crotchers and come home feeling better.
Dear Shirley: You forgott to mention the judicial race in Wisconsin where there was a chance for a moment that a pro union candidate might win and the Repubs dug up not one but 14,000 fresh votes to make sure they win. Tammanay Hall and the Cook County machines of yore would be proud! No doubt Wisc democrats will now roll over and play dead, but the 214 vote lead was nice while it lasted.
PS I hear we are going to balance the federal budget deficit by cutting off medicare to children and denying funding to Planned Parenthood. That should do it nicely!
Buy gold and dried food and keep hunkering!
Dear Mr. Conchscooter:
I've told my broker to buy more GE stock. Why should I be the only one not fucking everyone else in America?
Shirley Steinblatt,
Face Of Death Nursing Home
Imlaystown, NJ
Home Of THhe World's Largest Dildo
Dear Shirley,
I heartily approve as I don't have the money or the guts but I will be happy to exploit the masses in your name when you die and leave me the shares.
your loving grandson by proxy.
Shirley you jest!
It's nice here, BTW.
From the ninth floor of a high rise overlooking Tumon Bay,
Chuck on Fleming.
PS - Jack - I bought a pair of 49cc scoots and hung a pair of BMW roundels on one so's you'd feel at home on it. Top speed is 32 MPH, so it's quite similar to your three-cylinder appliance in comportment.
imagine - in just 30 hours, you can be amidst Asian hotties on a tropical beach astride a machine which you may grind the centerstand at will!
Post a Comment