There is a little park at the south end of the Seven Mile Bridge I like to visit from time to time. It's place with covered picnic tables overlooking the water, a small sandy beach and easy access for people to go swimming, which visitors do in large numbers even in the winter. At dawn though, Veterans Memorial Park is place I can have almost entirely to myself.
A cold front is ravaging Florida and temperatures this weekend are scheduled to hover in the mid 70's by day and lower 60's by night, the kinds of temperatures that cool the ocean waters given enough time and make the threat of hurricanes fade into insignificance even though the season doesn't officially end until the end of the month.
The election is behind us at last and what I called National Irrelevance Day saw the wife and I out voting at the Scout's Camp on Summerland Key. I like going out to vote on Election Day, perhaps because I'm a traditionalist, perhaps because I don't like to have my vote decided before the last minute surprises in the campaigns have made themselves known. This year Florida distinguished itself by electing one of the only millionaires to get voter approval around the nation. Governor Elect Rick Scott distinguishes himself by having spent 73 million to win the job (that pays less than the Director of Monroe County's Mosquito Control Board). He is also distinguished by having headed up Columbia/HCA medical insurance ripoff artists who defrauded Medicare of God knows how much, fessed up to fourteen felonies and paid hundreds of millions in fines. Now he's going to running the state next year. I hope he knows how to rip people off to benefit the state. I doubt we are going to get any health insurance reform down here with him in charge.
Cheyenne found something disgusting to eat. Key West city voters (not me!) agreed to buy Glynn Archer School to build a new city hall, if the School Board agrees to sell it. They also voted to sell off a piece of the Pier House Resort that got hung up and is actually rented to the resort by the city owing to some past oversight. Everyone hopes the city will rip the resort a new one and get some money to pay for the new city hall. The favorites won election to the Monroe County Board of Commissioners though I voted in favor of Sloan Bashinsky instead of George Neugent. Generally I like Neugent but he pissed me off at the last minute by saying he opposed Amendment Four which would have required vote approval for land use designation changes to general plans across the State. It was viewed with scepticism by developers and there were all sorts of threats of unintended consequences so the Amendment went down to defeat. Anyway I voted for Bashinsky, a dude who actually makes a lot of sense on his positions but keeps qualifying them by saying angels tell him what to do in his dreams which rather lessens his effectiveness. Still, he got almost 30% of the vote so you can tell there is some dissatisfaction floating around.
Essentially every single vote I cast, except for Ron Saunders for State Legislature, a solid Democrat who will head up the party in Tallahassee's lower chamber, went to the losing side. I have a feeling that considering how ineffective voting is and how effective lobbying by corporations with money is, I will be able to look back and say, at least they didn't get my vote. I have a feeling Florida, like the rest of country, will keep charging down the path of lies, prevarications, posturing and economic stagnation for the next few years. 
I don't think I would much like to be a Republican in Washington these days. They are now hedged in by rabid Tea Partiers behind them demanding fiscal accountability and Democrats in the Senate and White House holding the line on doing anything at all. The weird thing is you'd think it would be obvious that if cutting the federal budget were possible someone would have figured out how to do it by now. God knows the people have been clamoring for such cuts. Until reality takes hold. Cut the military? Social Security? Medicare? Debt Payments? No one actually has a clue how to cut the Federal Budget because whatever anyone does will piss off a large segment of the voting public. Faced with this impossibility our politicians lie to us and keep on printing money and hoping for the best.
It seems to me the US, faced with a debt of 15 trillion or more has only two choices, one is to default and simply not pay it off. That would be interesting and I'll bet the Chinese would have a conniption fit, followed by every single nation in the world right after them. Or we have to knuckle under, pay more taxes and pay the bill for the last few decades of wild spending. That idea isn't going to go over well at all at home. More conniption fits would follow. So, instead of having a grown up debate about what to do we keep on deficit spending, selling bonds to ourselves and hoping something will turn up to remove our fiscal chestnuts from the fire. Perhaps a nice conflagration with Iran? As if blowing up Afghanistan weren't enough...
I feel like we are living through some sort of phony financial war. We all pretend that there is some hope somewhere down the line that things will get better but in reality things are stagnating and our leaders, corporate and political either don't care or are fresh out of ideas about what to do. So we vote, and throw one lot out expecting the new lot to do something positive in the next couple of years or we'll give them the heave ho. I'm guessing the Tea Party wackos will really get to feel their oats in 2012. A bunch of not witches, fascist thugs and know nothing anti-constitutionalists ("No such thing as separation of Church and State!" will be the rallying cry) running for office will be very interesting to watch as they turf out traditional Republicans and scythe down feebly protesting Democrats. Either that or the Republican Representatives really do have a secret weapon to jump start jobs and get it all done in the next year and a half...
A cold front is ravaging Florida and temperatures this weekend are scheduled to hover in the mid 70's by day and lower 60's by night, the kinds of temperatures that cool the ocean waters given enough time and make the threat of hurricanes fade into insignificance even though the season doesn't officially end until the end of the month.The election is behind us at last and what I called National Irrelevance Day saw the wife and I out voting at the Scout's Camp on Summerland Key. I like going out to vote on Election Day, perhaps because I'm a traditionalist, perhaps because I don't like to have my vote decided before the last minute surprises in the campaigns have made themselves known. This year Florida distinguished itself by electing one of the only millionaires to get voter approval around the nation. Governor Elect Rick Scott distinguishes himself by having spent 73 million to win the job (that pays less than the Director of Monroe County's Mosquito Control Board). He is also distinguished by having headed up Columbia/HCA medical insurance ripoff artists who defrauded Medicare of God knows how much, fessed up to fourteen felonies and paid hundreds of millions in fines. Now he's going to running the state next year. I hope he knows how to rip people off to benefit the state. I doubt we are going to get any health insurance reform down here with him in charge.Cheyenne found something disgusting to eat. Key West city voters (not me!) agreed to buy Glynn Archer School to build a new city hall, if the School Board agrees to sell it. They also voted to sell off a piece of the Pier House Resort that got hung up and is actually rented to the resort by the city owing to some past oversight. Everyone hopes the city will rip the resort a new one and get some money to pay for the new city hall. The favorites won election to the Monroe County Board of Commissioners though I voted in favor of Sloan Bashinsky instead of George Neugent. Generally I like Neugent but he pissed me off at the last minute by saying he opposed Amendment Four which would have required vote approval for land use designation changes to general plans across the State. It was viewed with scepticism by developers and there were all sorts of threats of unintended consequences so the Amendment went down to defeat. Anyway I voted for Bashinsky, a dude who actually makes a lot of sense on his positions but keeps qualifying them by saying angels tell him what to do in his dreams which rather lessens his effectiveness. Still, he got almost 30% of the vote so you can tell there is some dissatisfaction floating around.
Essentially every single vote I cast, except for Ron Saunders for State Legislature, a solid Democrat who will head up the party in Tallahassee's lower chamber, went to the losing side. I have a feeling that considering how ineffective voting is and how effective lobbying by corporations with money is, I will be able to look back and say, at least they didn't get my vote. I have a feeling Florida, like the rest of country, will keep charging down the path of lies, prevarications, posturing and economic stagnation for the next few years. I don't think I would much like to be a Republican in Washington these days. They are now hedged in by rabid Tea Partiers behind them demanding fiscal accountability and Democrats in the Senate and White House holding the line on doing anything at all. The weird thing is you'd think it would be obvious that if cutting the federal budget were possible someone would have figured out how to do it by now. God knows the people have been clamoring for such cuts. Until reality takes hold. Cut the military? Social Security? Medicare? Debt Payments? No one actually has a clue how to cut the Federal Budget because whatever anyone does will piss off a large segment of the voting public. Faced with this impossibility our politicians lie to us and keep on printing money and hoping for the best.It seems to me the US, faced with a debt of 15 trillion or more has only two choices, one is to default and simply not pay it off. That would be interesting and I'll bet the Chinese would have a conniption fit, followed by every single nation in the world right after them. Or we have to knuckle under, pay more taxes and pay the bill for the last few decades of wild spending. That idea isn't going to go over well at all at home. More conniption fits would follow. So, instead of having a grown up debate about what to do we keep on deficit spending, selling bonds to ourselves and hoping something will turn up to remove our fiscal chestnuts from the fire. Perhaps a nice conflagration with Iran? As if blowing up Afghanistan weren't enough...I feel like we are living through some sort of phony financial war. We all pretend that there is some hope somewhere down the line that things will get better but in reality things are stagnating and our leaders, corporate and political either don't care or are fresh out of ideas about what to do. So we vote, and throw one lot out expecting the new lot to do something positive in the next couple of years or we'll give them the heave ho. I'm guessing the Tea Party wackos will really get to feel their oats in 2012. A bunch of not witches, fascist thugs and know nothing anti-constitutionalists ("No such thing as separation of Church and State!" will be the rallying cry) running for office will be very interesting to watch as they turf out traditional Republicans and scythe down feebly protesting Democrats. Either that or the Republican Representatives really do have a secret weapon to jump start jobs and get it all done in the next year and a half...So while all this madness plays out Up North down here we go to work, if we have jobs, we swim, watch the sunrise and ignore the price of heating oil. 
Cheyenne is my consolation in a world that can't give me sensible answers to pressing economic problems that don't lend themselves to sound bite political posturing. She smells cooking on the grill and she checks it out. Across the water the sun comes up, the sky lightens and the air is still warm on the skin even though it is November and a cold front threatens.
I have no idea where we are headed as a country and as an economy. The eternal non issue of abortion rights and gay rights are back on the radar as Republicans flex their muscles to interfere in people's lives, but what to do with 15 million unemployed is too hard a question to answer. Government they tell us doesn't create jobs, but no one else seems to want to either.
I thank my lucky stars I have a job I enjoy and that seems, so far, to have security and future prospects. What I will do when gas reaches 5 dollars a gallon, or worse I don't know. Keep on keeping on I guess. At least I live in the Keys, is my answer.
And these guys cleaning the toilets at Veterans Park have jobs too, presumably contract work for Monroe County, but a job it is. We are the lucky ones, in this employment massacre that is the USA. Unlike Ireland and Greece we normally have a resilient flexible economy so we can hope that things will get better for us. If you have low expectations you are less likely to be disappointed I suppose. 
With the sun finally trying to make an appearance from behind the clouds it was time for me to go home and sleep, like a vampire, not like the night worker that I am.
Watching the President prevaricate and the Congress shout "No!" in unison from behind a snow drift would be too much for me. From the vantage point of the Fabulous Florida Keys anything is bearable, just about.
Cheyenne is my consolation in a world that can't give me sensible answers to pressing economic problems that don't lend themselves to sound bite political posturing. She smells cooking on the grill and she checks it out. Across the water the sun comes up, the sky lightens and the air is still warm on the skin even though it is November and a cold front threatens.I have no idea where we are headed as a country and as an economy. The eternal non issue of abortion rights and gay rights are back on the radar as Republicans flex their muscles to interfere in people's lives, but what to do with 15 million unemployed is too hard a question to answer. Government they tell us doesn't create jobs, but no one else seems to want to either.
I thank my lucky stars I have a job I enjoy and that seems, so far, to have security and future prospects. What I will do when gas reaches 5 dollars a gallon, or worse I don't know. Keep on keeping on I guess. At least I live in the Keys, is my answer.And these guys cleaning the toilets at Veterans Park have jobs too, presumably contract work for Monroe County, but a job it is. We are the lucky ones, in this employment massacre that is the USA. Unlike Ireland and Greece we normally have a resilient flexible economy so we can hope that things will get better for us. If you have low expectations you are less likely to be disappointed I suppose. 
With the sun finally trying to make an appearance from behind the clouds it was time for me to go home and sleep, like a vampire, not like the night worker that I am.Watching the President prevaricate and the Congress shout "No!" in unison from behind a snow drift would be too much for me. From the vantage point of the Fabulous Florida Keys anything is bearable, just about. 
Jeeps are popular vehicles in Key West which seems odd to me as of off roading there is not much, not any to speak of. A 14 mile-per-gallon vehicle will bring tears to your eyes on a round trip to Miami if you like to visit Costco or South Beach or the opera or something.
There is more than one of these parking signs in the city. Always appropriate. 
On the other hand the absence of agriculutre doesn't mean Thanksgiving should go by the board...not if it involves food. This mailbox below might, or might not have outgoing mail in it. Depending on whether or not you consider the flag to be up or down. With any luck they will have incoming mail and the mystery will be solved by a firm postal hand.
You'd think that with so many people riding bikes and scooters, and walking around, there would be fewer cars around. Yet they seem to proliferate in the rain like mushrooms.
On a more grand scale:
The note about the well water on the left refers to last years watering restrictions. Watering from wells wasn't allowed either on the grounds that wasted water was wasted and everyone would I suppose claim well water if they were caught watering.
Key West, land of the excessively massive bushes, above, and some large houses below:
In addition to the doric columns this mansionette also boasts a chimney.
Which we hope will see little use this winter. A repeat of last winter's prolonged cold spell, which chilled Key West quite effectively, is something I do not look forward to.
The tower actually makes for a good bird sanctuary too. 
There is an actual bird sanctuary, a rather informal one in a way, right there in the park.
Higgs also offers a sanctuary to some other birds that lack thew wings to fly or the ambition to move on. 
I was rather grumpy a few years ago when they sliced out a piece of the park to make a dog run. I used to enjoy wandering here with my last dog, alike in all respects to Cheyenne, but Emma lost her mobility by the time the park was built. She never saw it. Cheyenne likes it, if there aren't too many dogs hanging around.
From some angles Higgs is kind of a dump, but I like the lack of structure. 
After Cheyenne finished sniffing where strange dogs had been (her favorite activity) she pulled me across the street to the West Martello Tower, home of the Garden Club. How is it I keep seeing human detritus everywhere I go?
The redevelopment plan would move this stretch of Atlantic Avenue back from the beach, behind the dog park and through the antenna. It seems ambitious and not very likely, but what do I know. 
They have finished the African Cemetery next to the Martello Tower. It's believed to be home to the remains of some slaves who washed up in Key West when their slave ship took a wrong turn from Cuba, courtesy of the 19th century US Navy.
Afternoon winter sun in Key West gives the place a certain glow, never more than in this past of the city. 
The White Street Pier is where people go to chase fish. Rather them than me. 
