The House Of No

I like Florida summers. I used to be able to stand up and say that publicly, but 2020 seems to be on track to ruin that happy memory along with so many others. This summer has been so hot I was actually panting to see cooler temperatures on my driving vacation Up North. Daily "feel like" temperatures reported by the National Weather Service put the Keys this summer in the over 100 degree club, day after day. If a temperature doesn't "feel like" then what is it? I ask myself in my perpetual pursuit of the pointless question.  Weather wording confuses me but the suffocating heat is even more surprising, and not welcome and among islands where summers are supposed to be tempered by wind and water this is also confusing.

So it is then that I would normally try to get out early in the morning with the ever energetic hound but right after vacation we both were tired enough to feel the need to sleep in. so by the time we left home to look for a welcome back walk I thought of where we might find some shade. 

It was nice to be back for me and for poor Rusty who has had I am pretty sure a giant headache for three weeks waking up every day to unfamiliar surroundings and weird woods and cold temperatures such as no Miami raised dog would ever expect to feel. At last he was on familiar ground though I suspect some cool Michigan morning dew might have come as a relief for him too.

When you've been away for three weeks it can feel when you get back as though you have been gone for months, or lifetimes. That things remain familiar is slightly surprising. I was home.

Later this month the City of Key West is scheduled to go through a mayoral election that has the potential to become in hindsight a turning point. Three candidates and they are all hinging their campaigns on Key West's future. I am relieved to be a county resident with the ability to stand on the sidelines and watch what happens. The incumbent Teri Johnston is  Florida's first lesbian mayor, at least the first such acknowledged, but that happily is no longer a talking point in town though it has an interesting historical parallel as Richard Heyman broke new ground in 1983 when he was elected mayor and caused gasps of consternation which as you can tell with hindsight were vastly overblown. Hands up anyone who has heard of Heyman the pioneer gay elected official? See, it really never has  mattered despite the previous chorus of disapproval.

Johnston is suffering as all incumbents currently are, from multilateral criticism of her handling of a world wide pandemic as though she is supposed to know how to deal with a new virus when even the CDC has struggled. Aside from cheap shots Johnston has taken a cruise ship position that is coalescing into the Big Issue this summer. Early in the campaign the Spottswood development family threw out the notion of changing the way the city attracts tourists. They want to redirect tourism toward a more thoughtful, history oriented type of tourist, one with money and time and an interest in the town and its past. Which could sound alluring unless you happen to own the epicenter of the crass loud t-shirt wearing heavy beer drinking tourist economy currently powering the city's allure. Mark Rossi who owns Rick's complex on Lower Duval has stepped up to take on Mayor Johnston and his campaign calls for more of the same, full steam ahead and no changes.

It is without doubt a classic contest, the tall spare elegant mayor, understated and thoughtful against the loud sweaty angry bar owner who looks like a caricature of himself yet by virtue of longevity has proven himself to be every bit as capable of managing his life as has the mayor. Their positions are as obvious and clear and as different as their public perceptions of themselves. Which is the point at which the joker slips out of the pack and lands directly in their laps. This has become a three way race. Rick Haskins who runs a very successful property management and sales empire has entered the race making a total mess of the simplicity of the previously clearly defined two way race.

I should point out I know Rick Haskins and he was incredibly helpful and kind to me after my accident and I felt nothing but exceedingly grateful for his help and thoughtfulness. I have contributed to his campaign and could I wave a magic wand, I would make him mayor and hope to have charmed him and not cursed him To be mayor is I think, an awful thankless job in a town where gratitude and self reflection are in short supply. Having said all that I have no idea how he would do as mayor and neither does anyone else I suspect. He is the candidate of the native born and disaffected others.

Haskins grew up in Key West and I dare say he will corner the Conch vote though there must be some Conchs (native born residents) he has annoyed over his life, but I dare say his candidacy will draw off lots of votes.  Interestingly Haskins has only one official position if you can call it that: I was born here and I want to make Key West the nirvana it was when I was a child. On cruise ships and their size, he simply says he will abide by the results of the referendum which basically asks residents to limit the size of ships and numbers of passengers. Whatever might be Haskins' opinion on this divisive issue ...only Haskins knows. That could very well be a winning strategy in opinionated Key West. Nirvana cometh...vote for me and all will be explained. Vote by trust.

I am drawing to the end of my time in Key West so in the long term the outcome of this race affects me  not too much at all. My pension is managed by an outside organization and unlike many states Florida's pensions pay out relatively modest sums but they are funded to a blue chip level. Certainly compared to some state pension plans on the verge of bankruptcy. Nevertheless after I have gone walkabout for a few years I would like to come back to this city not as an employee but like so many of you as a permanent vacationer and I should like to find it in good health. Which of these candidates is the best for securing such a future I couldn't say. Who can?

I am not a fan of the Spottswood empire, an organization that from time to time appears in public and offers self serving plans in the spirit of public munificence so I am leery of the ideas proposed by the current Mayor.  Candidate Rossi presents himself as a bumbling residentially challenged mess, a facade which hides a shrewd businessman who understands the contra-conventionally inclined self image of the pirate city, and has made a solid living from pandering to it. He wants, understandably, more of the same and there is a lot to be said for not rocking the apple cart, especially at a  time when every other thing in life seems poised to tip into disaster. Rick Haskins? He has succeeded at every single thing he's done in a life that has included military service, tight family connections and a charming easy going personable manner. He could very well be the revolution that Key West doesn't yet know it wants. It's a Trumpian moment as the city sits poised to say we need change, lets go with the unknown quantity.

I was thinking these thoughts as I walked with Rusty in the thick oppressive heat of a day clearly not produced by global climate change, walking in social isolation because I enjoy it not because its mandated by a global pandemic (I am being a bit sarcastic here)...Passing this multi million dollar house which sits alone on a  side road I saw all the lovely signs proclaiming the new owner's mastery of his domain. No this, no that, no to the other. Early on they lined the public roadway with their rocks and tree limbs to keep people from parking at the end of the road. Apparently they have been educated as to the notion of a public right of way.  One day I was standing with my camera endeavoring to grasp an Edward Weston moment by turning the cactus into an abstract object when an expensive car with an older expensive woman inside pulled up angrily sounding her horn. "Why are you photographing my mailbox?" she screeched looking like Nancy Reagan with none of the grace, manners or poise. I calmed her down but that foul encounter put me in mind of the mayoral race. Just because they come down with money and an interest in history doesn't mean they are kind or generous or easy going. Some people think island time means acting slow or sleepy. Island time I have come to discover  over the decades means doing your thing and pulling over to let others do theirs. It is a concept harder and harder to grasp the more detached and paranoid we become.

I hope Key West makes the right choice for the future, and in their own way the thousands of voters in the city will be hoping the same hope whoever they vote for. I don't envy them because whoever wins the supporters of the losing candidates will stamp their feet and grumble and undermine whatever hope for civility there is in a world where local politics are infected by national dissent. We need a civics lesson: the real meaning of  1) Island Time. 2) One Human Family 3) Why The Keys Were Different.

It all hinges on a  vote. Key West I mean, Not Washington. That comes later. I hope Key West figures our how to cherish diversity, eccentricity and non conformity. A future filled with gentrified complaining retirees is not a future I would wish to participate in even if it were possible.

Local Elections

A strange thing happened on the way from the elections last week in Monroe County. Everyone voted Republican. It was almost like a straight party-line ticket across the county. A friend of mine asked rhetorically where the progressive Keys had gone...and I wondered if this most recent vote was just another facet of gentrification.

My wife  thought President Elect Trump had coattails because not only did he  win Monroe County just about every other vote went Republican as well. I don't know quite how to explain it all, and in the end most of these votes don't really matter as a winner has won and everyone else lost: so what?  Yet there are a couple fo races that I think had outcomes which may portend change of a a deeper sort across the county.

In Key West as elsewhere across the nation people were talking about Trump's victory, a revolutionary that took the chattering classes by surprise. In Key West that sort of chatter took place at a  Cuban coffee shop or two, and I heard the talk because I was awake unusually early on the morning after the election.

The statewide race that puzzled me was the win by State Attorney Dennis Ward who defeated Catherine Vogel one more time for the top prosecutor's job in Monroe County. Dennis Ward  defeated Vogel's former boss Mark Kohl; two elections ago and as a result Vogel, the chief deputy prosecutor left the county without a job and moved to Ocala. But the rivalry didn't end there. Dennis Ward ended up prosecuting the Schools' Superintendent Randy Acevedo as an accessory to his wife's kleptomania for which she was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing funds from the school district. In the photo below a picture I took during the trial, the taller older Ward withhis chief deputy rosecutor Mark Wilson who defeated...

...Dennis Ward's rival who was defending Randy Acevedo, Catherine Vogel:

It was a long and sordid case but I was not at all convinced Acevedo was guilty- of his wife's guilt there was no doubt. Frankly I still miss Acevedo as superintendent today, but things went the way they did and I don't blame Ward for prosecuting Acevedo as he did. Ward ran on an anti-corruption platform so he left himself no room to maneuver.

The odd part of that long complex story is that the reverberations from that trial led to Vogel running against Ward and defeating him. He was suddenly back in private practice and Vogel had the top prosecutor's job. Which you would think should have been the end of it. Instead they had a rematch this year and Ward, to my astonishment won! Ward was nominally a Republican (he used to be a Democrat), so was that why he beat the women supported most intensely by the Conch voter base in Key West? Were hey outgunned by the rest of the Keys?  Apparently they were and maybe the rest of the Keys turned out in large numbers fired up by their passion for Trump at the top of the ticket.

The Blue Paper  published a devastating story about Vogel's loudest supporter in this story:

Is Local Politics Getting In The Way of  Public Safety? LINK and here's an excerpt:

When the previous State Attorney, Denis Ward, prosecuted another one of Harry’s sons for lobster trap poaching, the father declared war. Harry Bethel, Jr. was out on bond for arson at the time. He was sentenced to three years in prison.  Dennis Ward lost his job.

“Karma always wins and payback is a bitch,” wrote Harry Bethel in a diatribe published in the Key West Citizen at the time. He had championed Catherine Vogel’s 2012 campaign against Ward: “I worked as hard as I worked in my own campaigns just for the satisfaction of being a part of your DEFEAT,” he wrote in the email to Ward, “I hope that you and your family have as much misery in your life [as] you have put in my family’s] life.” The email was signed, “A loving father.”

So now Ward is back and rumor has it he is warning there will be a clean sweep through the office. There is no love lost apparently between the office factions. 

The other race that puzzled me a bit was the County Clerk's race where the incumbent, elected in the last race when the long time incumbent retired, was knocked out of the primary. With Amy Heavilin reduced to lame duck status the race closed in on Kevin Madok an experienced employee of the office versus Ron Saunders a local favorite who has held statewide elected office and seemed far too over qualified for the Clerk of the Court position which has been badly mismanaged lately. Madok Profile LINK .Luckily Madok won which was a vote for experience and qualifications. Too bad Saunders has been made redundant by term limits but clearly this wasn't the job for him.

One other surprise locally was  a win by Robert Lockwood in the Public Defender's  race. Again this was a Republican beating a much more qualified Democrat for a more or less non partisan job. Trish Docherty Gibson had worked in the office for twenty two years, was the chief assistant and was anointed by the outgoing, well respected Public Defender when she retired at the end of this term. It seemed like a non contest considering Lockwood has only two years experience and outside of an election he would never have been chosen over the much more experienced utterly scandal free Docherty Gibson. So why did she lose? Who knows whether Trump had coattails and more Republicans turned out or if Conchs in Key West are losing their grip on a county who demographics are changing with the influx of money.

One should I suppose be glad the whole cycle is over but it seems at every level repercussions will continue to jar our consciousness if we are paying attention. 

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Corporate Democrat

From The Intercept the political investigative magazine always worth reading this article by David Dayen who looks at the campaign of the chair of the Democratic National Committee who happens to be based in South Florida and whose Congressional campaign is coming under fire. She faces a particularly tough opponent and for that I am glad as Wasserman Schultz has been guilty of anti-Sanders dirty tricks this year worthy of a Republican campaign. 

Tim Canova the challenger

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the incumbent

PRESIDENT OBAMA on Monday endorsed Debbie Wasserman Schultz, his handpicked Democratic National Committee chair, in her congressional race. What’s stunning about that is that Obama felt the need to endorse a six-term congresswoman running in a heavily Democratic district at all.

Tim Canova, a law professor and Federal Reserve expert, jumped into the Democratic primary in January, challenging Wasserman Schultz from the left. At that time, my Intercept colleague Glenn Greenwald interviewed Canova, revealing multiple contrasts between his opposition to bank bailouts, corporate-written free trade agreements, and the Patriot Act and Wasserman Schultz’s support of those policies.

Populist primaries of entrenched incumbents don’t usually get the attention of the White House, because success for the challenger is so remote. Obama very rarely involves himself in House primaries. That he felt the need to endorse Wasserman Schultz suggests that Canova’s message is gaining traction in her district.

The endorsement comes fully five months before the primary — and days before the end-of-the-quarter deadline for Federal Election Commission reporting. While Wasserman Schultz has never needed help solicitingcampaign contributions from wealthy donors, the presidential endorsement has the appearance of a vote of confidence to ensure the continued flow of money.

“Debbie has been a strong, progressive leader in Congress and a hardworking, committed chair of our national party since I proudly nominated her to the role in 2011,” Obama said in his endorsement statement. “She always stands up and fights for what is right for her district while passionately supporting middle-class families.”

But Wasserman Schultz is more than anything a creature of the pro-corporate Democratic Party establishment. She has been accused of using her position as DNC chair to favor Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary, including by scheduling low-profile debates on weekend nights. Her opposition to a medical marijuana initiative in Florida and sponsorshipof a failed internet censorship bill in Congress have angered progressives, as have her ties to corporate money.

More recently, Wasserman Schultz sponsored a bill that would severely hamper the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed regulations for payday lenders. The bill would pre-empt the CFPB rule in favor of state laws like Florida’s, an industry-backed model that permits borrowers to take out an average of nine payday loans a year at an interest rate of 278 percent.

Payday lenders have cost Floridians $2.5 billion in fees over the last decade,according to a recent report, which has fallen disproportionately on African-Americans and Latinos. Wasserman Schultz also voted for a bill that would have gutted CFPB rules prohibiting racial discrimination by auto lenders.

Activist groups in Florida have run ads against Wasserman Schultz over her support for payday lenders. Canova has made the payday lending legislation a key talking point of his campaign, noting that Wasserman Schultz has taken over $68,000 in contributions from the industry.

The Florida Democratic Party initially denied Canova access to the party’s voter information file, but after pressure from the state’s progressive caucus, it reversed course, allowing Canova to use the data. The situation was reminiscent of Wasserman Schultz’s DNC temporarily denying voter-file access to Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign after Sanders staffers improperly accessed Clinton campaign data.

Canova, who recently announced support from the National Nurses United union, reacted to Obama endorsing his opponent on Twitter, saying, “Our grassroots movement is undeterred and this is our best fundraising day yet. Thank you @DWStweets,” referring to Wasserman Schultz’s Twitter handle.

David Dayen

David Dayen is a contributor to The Intercept, and also writes for Salon, 

the Fiscal Times, the New Republic, and more. 

His first book, Chain of Title, about three ordinary Americans who uncover 

Wall Street’s foreclosure fraud, will be released in May 2016.

A New City Commission

They held elections in the city of Key West on Tuesday, and though not many people bothered to show up, things have changed. I saw quite a few of these signs on my way to work, misspelling and all, which I thought was quite goofy. McPherson was mayor of the city for a while and was making a comeback this time around. He did not comeback losing badly to well know local attorney and political newcomer Sam Kaufman. Kaufmangot 62% of the vote which amounts to 271 votes of the 436 votes cast in his district. District 2 was held by the retiring Mark Rossi, no loss, and covers North Roosevelt Boulevard from Garrison Bight almost to the Beachside including Stadium Trailer Park and Sigsbee. Weird shaped district of indifference but there are hopes Kaufman will be modern and open and bring some useful change. He noted dryly in the newspaper the race was not even close so  perhaps there is a hunger for change in the district. 

District Five runs from North Roosevelt at Fifth in a bizarre diagonal slice across the city mid town area to approximately Higgs Beach.  District Five was held by Teri Johnston who also came in promising change and she managed to shuffle the deck chairs moderately in a town mired in stasis but she decided to give up the struggle and is replaced by a fire cracker who has taken on runs for the mayor's job twice and in failing to win garnered a surprising number of votes. Margaret Romero who cites her past as an IBM executive promised the Keynoter she will not let the citizens down. That should be interesting. The 1000 voters in the district who showed up had an interesting choice between Romero and Mike Mongo another local activist with his own record of afflicting the comfortable. They seemed to appreciate the choices because Romero beat Mongo by just 65 votes. 

The best race of the lot was the ouster of the sole incumbent who decided to run for a second term. Fats Yaniz has been the most colorful member of the Commission, speaking his mind ignoring decorum and not always presenting himself in the most judicious light in public. We can draw a veil over his stint because he has been replaced by a recently retired Judge who apparently found retirement tedious. Judge Payne, now Commissioner Payne was elected to his New Town District 4 with 712 votes out of 1080 cast. Yaniz had a habit of tangling with the mayor even challenging the mayor to leave the commission chambers once to settle a dispute with their fists in the street. I kid you not. I think this wild west attitude will be replaced by a rather more pompous note, probably much to the relief of the always even tempered Mayor. Judge Payne dropped this brilliant line to the paper, as though it was a presidential race perhaps rather than a city commission race with a dismal 29.77 percent turnout:

"We never got negative, we just [focused on] the positive and that resonated with the people," Payne said Tuesday night.

There are real issues facing the Commission which has six members and three of them are new. Truman Waterfront needs to be planned after a decade of doing nothing, the three new Commissioners had better figure out some way to appoint people to the Historic Preservation shambles that actually care about preserving Old Town because there are a lot of people in Key West who are annoyed at several recent decisions. Luckily the Mayor got the new city hall approved and I say luckily because I really like the location on White Street and the former school which may well look splendid. 

I live in the county so I don't vote in the city and with the pathetic turn out for a critical election I am sorry because my one vote could have made a difference! From my perspective Key West needs a vision and I remain skeptical that this new wave of commissioners will provide that but I hope for the best. Pedestrian zones anyone? Bicycle paths? Effective recycling? Solar power? Anything new and modern and forward looking...?  

Scotland And Independence

From the archives, a reprint to mark Scotland's historic vote tomorrow:

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Yes Scotland And One Human Family

So the question is: what do a passel of no account little lumps of subtropical rock and mangrove stalks have in common with the bleak peat bogs of frigid rainy Scotland? Not much on the face of it but there is the little matter of independence that is coming over the horizon. 31 years ago the Florida Keys asserted their right to independence and now, trailing along behind the Fabulous Florida Keys by a matter of decades, the residents of Scotland, be they English, Scottish or citizens of the European Union actually in Scotland get to vote tomorrow on whether or not they want to secede from the overbearing English.

Every nation state has its own flag and Conch Claude Valdez came up with the design seen above. The Scottish flag, a banner associated with a nation but not with a state since 1707, is the cross of St Andrew shown below. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

I figure the story of the creation of the Conch Republic is pretty well known but it has given rise to a mythology and an industry including passports and identity cards, bumper stickers and the notion that the Conch (pronounced konk please) Republic is a "state of mind" all in great good humor. But it wasn't always so, the good humor.

April 23rd 1982 the Prime Minister of the Conch Republic, promoted for the day from his day job of Mayor of Key West, having argued for the removal of a Border Patrol checkpoint at the Last Chance Saloon in Florida City, came out of court and spontaneously announced that if the United States, in an effort to stop illegal immigration, wanted to treat the Keys as a foreign nation with an ID check on Highway One, then so be it. And Dennis Wardlow announced the Free Florida Keys were seceding from the US.

The crowd gathered at Mallory Square to hear the announcement and the Prime Minister attacked the United States by breaking a loaf of Cuban bread over the head of a representative of the US Navy. The mouse that roared promptly surrendered and demanded a billion dollars in foreign aid from the US to compensate for the interruption to the tourist trade caused by the Overseas Highway roadblock. The money never came but notoriety did.

So now every Spring for a week there is a rather cheerful celebration of Conch Republic Days in Key West when drinks are drunk and they race transvestities down Duval Street and the whole thing wraps up with a sea battle between the Conch Republic Navy and the US Navy in which Cuban bread is still the ammunition of choice. The US always loses and everyone drinks their sorrows or their joys away.

Personally I have a different vision for an independent Conch Republic. I'd like to see a place like Andorra or Monaco in the Keys, a city state with no army and only enough navy to protect its fisheries, an economy based on all those items one sees banned in the US, so busy morality posturing, that could be had openly and cheerfully and guilt free in the shining new capital of unbridled capitalism that would be my Conch Republic. How much would you pay to sit on a beach in the Conch Republic smoking legal genuine Cuban cigars, drinking Cuban rum with a new and expensive friend then gambling in one of our world class casinos? Banking secrecy laws would be paramount, every law firm in the city would be the international low-tax headquarters of some corporation or another and every citizen of the Conch Republic would grow fat and content earning ridiculous tax free wages pandering to every American desire impermissible at home. "One (Stinking Rich) Human Family" indeed, my Conch Republic would have the motto of rectitude for citizens, lassitude for visitors, with health care, marriage, and the rule of law for all. I have a dream...of the gates to Paradise built as a frontier post in the middle of the Seven Mile Bridge. But let's be practical...

The US would never let it happen - and see Boca Chica Naval Air Station converted to civilian use, for a foreign country at that? Never! Besides I have a feeling a real Conch Republic would pretty soon descend into an extended impotent lament in the anonymous Citizen's Voice column in the newspaper followed by fratricidal urges and riots at Little League International games against the Americans from Marathon as parents take on the battles only hinted at by their sporting offspring. True independence would never work. Too bad as I could use a substantial raise, and though I do not smoke I have heard Havana Club is a decent rum. For Scotland though it's another matter, far more serious than stale Cuban ammunition bread and illegal rum toddys...

700 Years ago near the city of Stirling, Scottish soldiers handed an invading English army their lunch on a platter at the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314. The Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh has called a vote by all residents 16 years and older on the very simple question: Should Scotland be an independent country? Scotland's First Minister in the semi autonomous Scottish Parliament Alex Salmond (shown below just to prove that telegenic politicians are a US obsession) is leading the Yes Scotland campaign on a leftist plank of affordable housing and jobs though how Yes Scotland will follow through on those promises in these arduous economic times... A group of right wingers has come out with a libertarian position supporting independence called Wealthy Nation, so everyone is climbing aboard the change bandwagon it would seem at first sight in Scotland.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, shown above, whose name keeps up the fishy link in Scotland's march to freedom, is also promoting the Scottish National Party's "National Conversation" about independence. However as you might imagine not everyone is delighted about this separatist path. Lately the European Union has said it's not clear Scotland would gain admission to the EU, and suggestions that an independent Scotland might continue to use the English pound have been rejected by ministers in London. The message seems clear: if Scotland decides to set a bad example to independence minded Catalonia and Corsica they will get no help from the Big Boys in Europe. This sort of bullying seems to be having an effect, even as England plans to offer increased autonomy to the Scottish parliament if the people vote No. It's all carrot and stick...

England fought Ireland horribly when they wanted independence, and union was forced on Scotland with a brutality that would give modern sensibilities the vapors. Over the past decade the English who constitute about 53 million of the United Kingdom's 63 million people have given autonomy to Wales and Scotland in hopes of fending off this day. North Sea Oil, Scotland's great economic hope is drying up so England's delaying tactics worked on that front, and losing Scotland won't mean the huge cheap energy loss of even a decade ago. But Scotland's five million residents, like the Conch Republic's notional 40,000 in the Lower Keys, have a lot of scenery to sell. We smaller states end up selling ourselves to visitors with our history and pretty views.

There is in me a streak of silly escapism, a desire for change for the sake of change and the chance to see what happens when one leaps where angels fear to tread, which to some extent is what prompts people to move here. I have no idea what's best for Scotland, or the Lower Keys come to that. But I do have a mad desire to see what happens if the Scots do take that leap of faith. Who knows, perhaps they could lead the way to independence for Wales, Catalonia, Corsica and perhaps even these distant lumps of rock where endless debates about abortion and gay rights and evolution and guns all the rest of the mad mainland political posturing mean so little. One Human Family: is that a philosophy strong enough to build real human freedom upon, instead of using it as an excuse for bed races, fake battles and drunken public partying? Would the real Conch Republic, a place of tolerance and belief in the res publica as originally envisioned find space to live and breathe and prosper? Lead the way Scotland and perhaps Sassenachs everywhere can learn from your example.

Habemus Papam!

The white smoke this morning came in the form of a headline splashed across the top of the Citizen newspaper:

And that means Jimmy Weekly, Democrat, a long time commission member and three time mayor ran a terrible campaign, took lots of money from the wrong people and couldn't get past the fact that in his time he hired and backed the most oily, corrupt city manager that could ever be inflicted on a city. And the voters, 7,117 of the 13,000 eligible to vote in the city (I'm not one of them), declined to forget his abysmal record to avoid inflicting a buffoon on themselves again.

The hulking McPherson was"almost" speechless according to the paper when it was announced he's doubled his lead this time by winning with 56 spare votes. Yet it is well known that the mayor is in a permanent state of speechlessness, he is so inarticulate he'd be better off speaking publicly in pig Latin in Pidgin English. Furthermore his "good friend" the county Mayor came out of the shadows to greet his winning mayoral mate. The county Mayor is an uneducated neo-Fascist with about as much grasp of democratic lawmaking as a toad might have. Plus he supports a goat for county Adminstrator, a man with a record of shadowy dealings in his last job "up North" who has shown he can't administer a sock drawer without causing controversy division and massive budget deficits. What a crowd!

Arrgh! Fidel is right when he mocks our democracy and points out that elections are hopeless when the quality of candidates is so horribly low you'd rather vote for the man in the moon than either of these bozos. Oh well, I have a beard already, perhaps I'd better take up smoking cigars.

On a happier note hurricane season is over, I accidentally dipped a toe in the canal and the water is freezing, which is not surprising as a proper cold front has been basting the keys with north to northeast winds, bringing daytime highs down around 80 under crisp sunny skies and night time lows are below 75, all accompanied by fresh cooling winds. Its utterly delightful.

As long as you forget the politics.