700 William

William Street does a weird jog around Charlie's Groceries, one among a gadzillion inconvenience stores in Key West though this one has been around a while.

The white concrete block building marks one of the more tortured intersections in a city that struggles with right angles in streets and in construction generally. The 19th century cemetery was designed to sit on the edge of town when it was built in the middle of the island. It seemed like a good idea at the time owing to a hurricane that blew open the beach side cemetery scattering corpses and coffins. In those far off days this area was on the very limits of the urban development of Florida's wealthiest city. So they put the dead people out here and then, over time, the living caught up to them and now the dead are surrounded by a maze of awkwardly shunted streets. The seven hundred block of William is marked by this magnificent structure, the add-on to the original shown by the completely different roof line.:
Vehicles clutter the street as they always do in Key West especially in winter.

Though some few lucky souls enjoy the benefit of Off Street Parking. On an island 2 miles by four (3km x 6km Canadian) a structure this size could easily be rented for living space. I doubt the owners need to violate zoning laws to pay the mortgage.

Once you get behind the palisade of parked cars you can frequently find some lovely homes: Did I say parked cars? I should have included parked boats. This one is technically off the street but it makes for a nice botany experiment to amuse passers by. Who needs a daggerboard on dry land anyway? "We seceded where others failed" is the theme of the well worn mutiny against the Border Patrol in 1982. Conch Republic Days will be upon us soon to mark the end of snowbird season when all the unoccupied homes will be rolled up for the summer and some sort of somnolence will sink over the city until schools get out and the next wave of visitors shows up to save our city budget by spending money.

Yes indeed we could use blue skies this winter. There has been far too much rain and cold temperatures. A friend was looking wistfully out at the storm clouds mumbling about how in winter we used to be able to sit with the doors and windows open enjoying sunshine and a cooling breeze. Oh happy, lost, days!

This next picture reminds me of a saying they used to have in Marin County north of San Francisco, the county where Mercedes are as common as dirt and half the price. Conch cruisers will rule the streets again soon. Summer has to be coming.
The 700 block ends at Bill Butler Park, the open space with no benches to prevent vagrants hanging out in it. A Kermit chair would do nicely here as Cheyenne roots around in the shade.

Several months ago I noted in an essay that a stray pair of women's knickers were dangling mysteriously from a bush. Well. I am glad to report they are still there, a little sun bleached but hanging defiantly. Rubber gloves anyone?

One last view up William Street from the park.

It's Greek To Americans

The Greeks are among a select few people who use an alphabet created for them by a Christian saint and such is the oddness of the alphabet compared to our "proper Roman" letters, it has been customary to describe any problem too complex to unravel as being "greek." St Cyril's transliteration of sounds made by Greeks, Bulgars and Russians isn't that hard to understand if you are forced to study it for a little while, and when, many years ago I took a very long train ride across the Soviet Union, a place that exists no more, I devoted some time in my carriage to trying to learn the spelling.I shocked my wife when I was able to translate place names on our road trip through the Balkans, driving in the Republica Srpska, a bastard pseudo-state in Bosnia-Herzegovina whose fascist leaders yearn to be part of the Cyrillic world of Serbia and Russia. Of course languages are alive and to be remembered they have to be used and nowadays I find my ability to remember the difference between a D and an L, or a YI and an N to be fading away...

The language of bankers is, unhappily international and a crisis of epic proportions is brewing in Europe, thanks in part to the meddling of Goldman Sachs- the Slobodan Milosevic of the current conflagration. In the same way the last President of Yugoslavia tore apart that confederation it seems US bankers are standing by to tear apart the Euro world of the civilized, industrialized nations of the European Union. The story, as it becomes public is complex enough to be defined as "greek" yet in some ways is as simple as a second mortgage on a US home. In order to join the European Monetary Union, abolish the drachma and replace it with the common currency called the Euro, participating nations had to keep public debt levels within 3% of their budgets. Germany met this arbitrary goal easily France managed it and Britain decided to opt out of the whole mess (which was a decision I found annoying at the time, though perhaps I was wrong as we shall see). In some manner not specified the weaker members of the European "snake" which then became the European Monetary Union, managed to meet these goals too prior to economic unification. Greece Italy and Portugal got in under the wire and abolished their currencies in favor of the European Central Bank (ECB) gaining total control over their money supply. Now they all use the Euro, with scudos, lire, pesetas, schillings, marks, and francs all gone into the rubbish bin of history, poor things.

Unhappily for all concerned there was no mechanism written into the new currency to allow for countries that essentially over borrowed and went belly up, which is what has happened in all but name in Greece. That was because the framers of the Union didn't think about secret deals that might be made between governments and bankers and Goldman Sach's deal with Greece, it turns out, was a doozie. After much reading I think I have figured out in plain terms what they did. Goldman Sachs lent enough money to Greece to allow the country to write off sufficient debt to allow it to meet the threshold for entry into the Euro-zone. The loan was masked as a currency trade and the Greek government used future income (!!) as collateral for the loan. Does this sound like a crazy mortgage as sold to "home owners" in the US? What makes this even worse is that it seems Goldman Sachs bought and sold Credit Default Swaps on this loan giving the bank an incentive to drive Greece into bankruptcy.

There has been much discussion in the US about the moral legitimacy of walking away from "underwater" home loans and in the ordinary course of things one can understand a certain moral repugnance at people who abandon loans that cover properties that have simply lost value. However it is really important to understand that the institutions that underwrote those loans weighed the odds against them. Not only did they happily make loans to people clearly not able to handle them, they then bet the loans would fail, by using Credit Default Swaps. They then cut up the loan packages, mixed them in with solid performing loans and sold them around the world as Grade A US loans backed by the burgeoning real estate market. In this way they made it extremely complex for people to renegotiate their loan terms as the paper was held by thousands of people and institutions around the world (literally!) and besides that they had no interest in getting these loans to conform or pay off! They wanted these fragmented investment papers to fail because their insurance- the Credit Default Swaps- then paid off and paid off big time. And even then the banks caught in the trap pleaded with the US government that promptly shoveled some twelve trillion dollars of YOUR DEBT to them to cover their losses. This is exactly what is happening with Greece. It profits Goldman Sachs if Greece implodes! Are you scared yet? It gets worse.

Strikes and protests are building in Greece with workers demanding to know (unlike American sheeple) why the bail out has to come on their backs, and their indignation is spreading across Europe as the realisation sinks in that bankers have duped their governments. The Greek Government has no answer to this fundamental question of human justice, the Germans don't want to know about Greece's problems and the European Central Bank has no mechanism to bail Greece out except to pay off it's debts. It's as though the US Federal Government were to pay off Illinois and California's debts knowing full well both states will go back down the path of overspending and racking up more debts. Besides there isn't any money left! From here on out the Fed has to print dollars because foreigners, seeing the coming crisis, have figured they better not buy any more American debt. China and Japan principally have cut back hugely on US sales of Treasuries.

To close out this excessively long and unpleasant essay let me say that I believe we are in the equivalent of 1931 of our own 21st century Great Depression. I have no idea what to do to prepare for whatever comes next, except to keep on keeping on. I don't believe there is any recovery coming soon and we are starting to hear publicly expressed doubts by people who usually are in the cheerleading section of mainstream news. There is no jobs program and health care reform will run up against God knows what economic crisis. Even if what happens in Greece looks Greek and alien to us, it might be worth while paying attention because the next phase of economic collapse may take the same shape here in the US and it would be nice if it didn't come as a surprise.

Our bankers have already baked the first layer of our cake with the housing collapse, unemployment was the next layer, and to top that we will soon see public employment attacked as parasitic and then the icing will be the failure of our currency. Just like them Greeks are seeing right now.

Beach Walk

There are still people who think long sandy beaches are one of the draws of the Florida Keys. Poor deluded fools, even Cheyenne knows better.Low tide produces exposed limestone rock and dead seaweed:
It can be quite scenic if you keep your eyes on the horizon:

From the south shore of Big Pine Key we see the old Bahia Honda Bridge shimmering in the haze: Only if we are looking for it, of course.
Classic red mangrove in water.
Equally classic washed up beer can:
There is more sand around here at the top of the low ridge that backs the beach itself.
And the views can, paradoxically, be more scenic if you clip the beach itself out of the picture:

A discarded fishing trap and a rocky foreshore.

Visitors can get awfully fussy about seaweed on the beach. Mainland Florida is made of sand, but the Keys are definitely not.

Why would anyone bother to go for a walk here on a sunny February afternoon? Much better to stay indoors in the bars and make friends. Have at it, I like my solitude.

Looters Galore

I recall that after Hurricane Wilma drowned a large part of key west in 2005 there were no reports of looting. Even after K Mart flooded with three feet of water homeless people in Key Plaza gathered up the floating merchandise and stacked on the window ledges at the store. On the other hand help wasn't long in showing up. Hurricane Katrina had hit New Orleans a few weeks earlier and Florida Governor Jeb Bush had the National Guard in the Keys as soon as the storm blew by. We had truckloads of water, food and ice available by the next day. Chef Boyardee never tasted so good! In New Orleans it was another story and the entire city was left to it's own devices for days. People starved, drowned and dehydrated in the submerged city. Then we heard stories of "looters."

From the AP archives.

What I wonder were people to do, abandoned and impoverished anyway in a city that had literally drowned. I wonder how many of us would have resisted the temptation to take food and water (and beer) off the surviving shelves? Reports of widespread shooting and violence were apparently greatly exaggerated though who was to know at the time? Now in Chile people are being accused to "looting" in the city of Concepción that has been flattened by an earthquake, I'm not sure toilet paper would be my first priority were I destitute but to each her own:

From Reuters.

And so it is one has to wonder what the protocol is when civilization has broken down all around you and the normal transactions of daily living have ceased. I suppose everyone wanted to believe that Haiti would end up a cesspit of violence after their earthquake, and this picture from a survivalist blog would reinforce that prejudice:
Yet we hear from rescue services that despite the horror, people in Haiti have behaved with admirable fortitude, restraint and self reliance. I guess people will steal given the opportunity, God knows our bankers have managed a grand theft of historic proportions right under our noses. About that I could do nothing but protest. I hope that when disaster strikes my hurricane supplies will survive intact and I will be able to hold out relatively comfortably until help arrives. I would hate to be labeled a "looter" were I forced out to hunt and gather supplies after a disaster.

Hawk Missiles

Little Hamaca city park has grown a bit recently and I never noticed until this week. The park is a small area of open space between the Riviera Canal to the north and the airport to the south and one enters off Flagler Avenue right the Urgent Care Clinic, The road into the park is called Government Road and it is long and straight and it feels endless at the mandated 15 miles per hour (25kph).It is used by cars and scooters but it is also a pedestrian path and a bicycle route as well and fifteen miles an hour is a good speed to stick to as you never quite know what you might meet on the roadway in the park:A hammock (hamaca in Spanish) in South Florida botanical talk is a small rise of high ground above the flood plain that allows hardwood trees to take root. You'll see clumps of tall trees among the mangroves all over the Everglades and in the Keys and Little Hamaca in Key West has been preserved as open space for city residents. A good job too. In 1962 this place was a key component in the front line defenses against Cuba during the missile crisis. (As an aside the film Matinée starring John Goodman is set in that period and worth a view). The US military set up mobile missile launchers around key West and also erected towers who purpose I am not sure of. In this period picture from the State Library archives it appears the towers were used to house tracking devices or radar of some sort for the hawk missiles which would be launched from their trailers:The towers and the buildings and the protective berms are still there as we shall see in a moment. Before we return to the present there was one other Hawk Missile picture from the Cuban missile crisis that I really like. It was featured in the Citizen newspaper a while back and I've never forgotten it. It shows three women and a baby walking past the missile batteries on Smathers Beach apparently unsupervised and without a care in the world. I wonder if these days with all the terrorist paranoia we will ever learn to trust each other again like this:

For the longest time the old Hawk Missile base at Little Hamaca was closed to the public.I first came out here on a ride along when I joined the police department. The K9 officer putting up with me in his patrol car brought his dog out here for training, teaching the animal to hunt for contraband hidden among the ruins. These days my more pacific dog likes to stump around sniffing on her account.There are tons of these platforms all over the place: This side of the island (the southeast corner) is rather lower lying and wetter than other parts of the city. The airport runway is built out across the salt ponds, very conveniently pointing right at the center of town to make sure flights in and out pass over the heart of the city at low altitude. Happily they don't seem to have forgotten any ordinance or left any spare missiles behind but these old oil tanks reminded me of epic industrial struggles to break up monopolies in the early 20th century, lessons forgotten today.Chevron is a common enough logo. Anyone remember Standard Oil? Don't worry, Esso (S.O.) became Exxon, Chevron, Mobil, Marathon, Conoco, Amoco and Mobil were all originally part of Rockefeller and Flagler's Standard Oil Company. Makes Goldman Sachs look like a piker!I expect that sooner or later this area will be organized and become defined by what one can and cannot do. For now it is pretty much open to anyone that wants to wander.Check out the picture of the Hawk Missile launcher above, for a resemblance.

These creatures are absolutely everywhere these days even where tourists rarely tread!

I did meet a few wanderers on scooters and bicycles looking for an exit, of which there are none here.

It never ceases to amaze me how a city as small and constrained as Key West manages to find space for so many activities. There are tennis courts all over town, a skate park on Flagler Avenue, the PAL program in Bahama Village and now a paint ball field out here:There used to be people complaining about paint ballers in the salt ponds so instead of getting all legislative they built them a place to enjoy their sport in peace. This is Key West though and we do need a fair amount of signage to get through the day. My dog is a daredevil.Views are hard to find in the Keys so when presented with a berm rising up above the mangroves, Cheyenne and I were nothing loathe. The Missile Farm in all it's abandoned glory, looking west:Looking east towards Las Salinas, Oceanview and South Roosevelt Boulevard:And south at the airport:

To the north across Little Hamaca Park are the canal side homes on Riviera Drive:

And more antennae to the northwest. It's an absolute forest of them around here.

This old monument looks like the southernmost buoy that predated the one currently in use. Perhaps they had nowhere else to put it.

In 1981 when I first rode into Key West the point was marked with a sign but I guess that wasn't good enough as time went by and the city "upgraded" to a buoy. Another reminder to take pictures because things are always changing.

Governing By Myth

I want to understand a paradox that makes me crazy. Modern Republican policy makers talk total nonsense and they are believed and yet when Democrats try to put across some reasonable and not terribly far fetched ideas they are scorned. Yet the people doing the scorning are the very beneficiaries of the Democrat proposals. There are so many examples in recent history of this maddening paradox I hardly know where to start.

For instance Republicans have announced forcefully there is no need for health insurance reform, that everything is pretty much okay as it stands and the President's plans are going to bring Communism to our shores. It is obvious to any human being that our insurance system is a total rip-off designed to squeeze profits out of sickness, a technique that involves denying coverage, refusing to pay, forcing patients to struggle with mounds of paperwork to get what should be theirs by virtue of premiums paid. Yet when Democrats offer a reform people without insurance shout them down. I recall early on in the campaign a protester injured at an anti reform event had no insurance to cover the costs of the injury!

Consider the campaign of presidential candidate John Kerry, a decorated war veteran running on the Democrat ticket against President George Bush the Younger, a man who evaded military service by joining the Alabama National Guard and failed to report for duty there as required. yet Kerry's war record was wrecked and he lost horribly and the draft dodger (not forgetting the Vice President who famously advised he had "more important things to do" when asked why he was deferred five times) got re-elected by people who loudly proclaim their loyalty to the military and to some brand of patriotism known only to them.

Consider the budget deficit, run up to astronomical heights by a consistent policy of cutting taxes and increasing spending. This craziness took off under President Reagan and has continued to this day. When it is pointed out to conservatives that President Clinton left office with a budget surplus, this achievement, unique is decades of governance, is simply shrugged off. And those famously loud crass "patriots" bay for the blood of socialist "democrats." Do we recall how the right wing nutters warned us ominously of President Obama's plans to take away people's guns? These are the "patriots" who cheered President Bush on as he claimed the right of the President to be above the law, to allow any surveillance of US citizens, to permit torture and to hold suspects indefinitely without trial or even access to lawyers? we still have our guns but our civil liberties are more eroded than ever.

I wish I understood why Democrats can't confront these Republican myths and put them where they deserve to be, out of sight under some moldy militia rock somewhere. But there again, expecting Democrats in leadership positions to stand up for anything to anyone is asking a bit too much. Perhaps I should join the tea baggers and demand to see a Presidential birth certificate. that would show those Dems!