A Strange Lurch

It grew upon me Tuesday night as I watched the results roll in, no one, I thought, remembers their predictions and their discussions after the election is over. Tuesday night I was in a hotel room watching the returns with my best bud but she gradually lost interest and passed out in the glare of the television. I was still convinced President Obama would win a second term, as I had bee throughout the two billion dollar election campaign farce. Cheyenne snored.

Generally I find the Key West Citizen's editorials to my taste, on local issues at least. On national matters they suck, witness this endorsement.

Aside from the fact that The Candidate Who Believes In Magic Underwear never found a position or political plank he could believe in for longer than five minutes consecutively, Romney announced to the world at large hat he doesn't give a fog about the poorest half of our nation. That doomed his candidacy, whether or not the Citizen was paying attention. Anyone who was paying the least bit of attention noticed there was a massive and coordinated and extremely well funded bid to oust President Obama. The Grand Old Party announced its sole purpose in life was to get rid of the African American President, the one they labeled a socialist. It mattered not too them what they did to the economy or the country, or what lies they propagated as long as the black man was removed from the White Man's House. Not because he's black but because he's a socialist. Except he isn't (a socialist, he is still black!)

Reading the rubbish in the Citizen editorial I despair of anyone ever understanding what the hell is going on. How could anyone believe Romney could reduce our dependence on foreign oil? To reduce dependence on foreign oil we would have to nationalize oil production. If we keep the current system of free market capitalism the oil brokers will always buy the cheapest oil and sell it to the highest bidder and they don't give a toss whose oil it is or how foreign it might be. Try convincing a Republican loyalist the only way to reduce consumption of foreign oil is to undermine the spot market by "socializing" it! Their heads would explode. And the notion that "strengthening the military" is consonant with reducing the deficit is ludicrous on its face. Try telling a Republican the source of our annual deficits is a bloated military fighting two unnecessary wars with 700 worldwide bases and their heads will...explode! Public Broadcasting subsidies consume two minutes worth of federal military spending! Facts are stubborn things and privatization requires paying stockholders dividends out of profits instead of plowing profits back into the enterprise as employees soon discover when wages are cut and benefits annihilated by Romneys free market economy. Privatization does nothing for innovation! It just feeds the one percent.

To further muddy the waters the mainstream press is avaricious enough to ignore the illegal nature of the advertising begging us to vote (state) in support of Biblical Values (church) a conjunction expressly forbidden by the constitution. Never mind, the value-free followers of the Magic Sky Wizard lost on all fronts and were roundly ignored by deadly humanist values voters who supported affordable health care, living wages, freedom of choice and in favor of allowing poofs wreck traditional marriages by allowing them to marry too. The Republic is dead. Actually no, the republic is more alive than it has been ever since Ronald Regan proclaimed a new day in America and since Richard Nixon declared a War On Drugs. The fact is though that President Obama is no socialist.

He has pissed off the Evangelical voters easily enough even though our Affordable Health Care is operated through and by insurance racketeers, the banksters who robbed us and wrecked our economy remain at large and even though his Department of Homeland Insecurity is putting out a bid for 30,000 drones to monitor our beleaguered Homeland, President Obama remains our best hope for a better future. Oh dear, I voted for him though I am no fan. I can only hope the other believer in magic underwear, the Redoubtable Harry Reid, leader of the Senate, will do as he promises and stands up to the bullies of the Right.

Every time I feel ready to give up on this experimental representative government some small thing keeps feeding me the hope that things will get better that a brighter future awaits. I honestly expect more of the same, a gradually declining economy, restricted civil rights, more work for less pay for those of us at work, and diminished expectations all round. How can it be otherwise when one percent of the US population, under President Obama's socialist leadership, rakes in 93 percent of the income in the land of the free and home of the brave. I know what a real socialist would do with that statistic, and that ain't part of President Obama's plan to make things better for the majority of us.

 

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Bahama Village Mural "Saturday Afternoon"

I have long wanted to take a few pictures of this mural on Petronia. It used to be the Lemonade Stand Art Studio and now it is a rather attractive store selling used stuff.

I could have taken a dozen pictures of all the details in this painting but I tried to not overdo it for some reason I cannot recall. I think my wife was hungry for lunch.

A nice self portrait of the People's Artist.

The Key West Fantasy, living the dream on the porch.

A real slice of Old Key West. Good contemplation for a day when, unusually for me, I don't have much tO say.

 

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Odd Shopping

I am the world's worst shopper which is a handicap sometimes at work when I get a 911 call from a person outside a store I've never heard of. Luckily they storesnare all listed in the computer (!) but I like to know where these shops are which makes it easier to visualize locations on emergency calls so I'm always wandering around looking at places that are new to me.

How does a store owner survive off Duval Street selling plastic mugs, I just don't know. But here they are, tumblers for sale by the dozen in all sorts of shapes and sizes and decorations.

It's a quiet time of year downtown so my wife and I had The Tervis store to ourselves. It was Halloween so we got some costumed attention as we looked around. "Got it from Fast Buck's," she said with a sad smile, remembering the store that was. So we had something in common, we both had worked in the famous department store on Duval.

They sell these mugs for about ten bucks apiece and I am not a particular fan of walking around with a drink but throw an ice cube in these things and the contents stay cold for ages. They work remarkably well.

Tervis customizes designs to order and the mugs are made in the US, amazing to relate, and Even more amazing is that their American factory workers produce pink accessories. A pink lid costs $4 if you want one, and you can't have mine.

It's silly but sometimes you just have to go out and see what it's about shopping that turns people on. Tervis is good stuff but the next store was one of those places I've known about forever and just don't go to shop in ever. Millie's sells English stuff which strikes me as almost as weird as Tervis renting space just off Duval and paying the rent by selling plastic cups.

Inside Millie's I found all sorts of strangely familiar packaged foods from my misspent youth, foods filled with processing and calories and sugar and all that stuff not on the food pyramid, not at the top nor the bottom. Spotted Dick in a tin, custard in a can, Aero bars and Crunchie all the foods that one imagines would sustain a fairly substantial British sub culture. How this place makes a living in Key West I cannot imagine. I flew the flag by buying a box of the world's best cookies (biscuits) which are milk chocolate Hob Nobs, a little known fact.

Branson Pickle and Piccalilli and of course Marmite which has made a small impression on American culinary consciousness. Hot buttered toast and thinly spread Marmite is a foodstuff to rival ambrosia. another little known fact.

The odd thing in Key West supermarkets is how seasonal some foods are. For instance in winter Canadian foods show up on the shelves and our socialist neighbors tend to eat foods and brands I recognize from my youth spent suffering in English boarding schools. Canadians apparently like Crosse and Blackwell tinned products and lo-and-behold suddenly Publix carries them as Christmas approaches. Thats when the town is filled with je me souviens tags and yours to discover tags and mincemeat on the shelves and mulligatawny in cans and ethnic food no longer means Cuban. I wonder why Canadians make the trek to Key West only to eat canned food from home but there are no easy explanations for peculiar human behavior.

Clutching Hob Nobs I turned out of Millie's on Front Street only to find a store called Coco Nuts with...coconuts in the window advertising...coffee. I scratched my head and kept moving.

 

Now here's a store I understand, a tour booth selling tickets! As I used to work as a sailboat Captain (my USCG 50 ton ticket has long since expired). It's absolutely amazing how people line up to torture themselves dangling from parachutes over the water and wrecking their kidneys on jet skis.

 

I made a gross simplification last week suggesting visitors come to Key West to enjoy the weather. I suppose it's entirely possible they come to enjoy shopping too. More power to them but for me shopping is an alien concept unless its for motorcycle parts or for food. Which reminds me, it's winter so organics will start being plentiful again at Winn Dixie on Big Pine. Thats because winter residents will be back soon and they seem to deserve a higher grade of foodstuffs than us year round hangers on. It's a tough life living all year long in the Lower Florida Keys.

 

 

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Democrat Monroe County

While the Presidential drama gets drawn out on the mainstream press, which ignores the substantial number of votes to be counted in heavily Democrat Dade and Broward, little Monroe County at the bottom of the state has gone blue. Which is odd considering registered Republicans number 19,000 and Democrats are at 18,000 and declined to state are around 15,000. Yet the returns show our Congressional Representative will be Joe Garcia who beat his Republican rival handily. No surprise as David Rivera the Republican has a politica past mired in scandal and Garcia is a solid uninspired citizen, I will be delighted to be represented by a Democrat in Congress though I expcthe won't be radical enough to suit my New Deal tastes.

State Attorney Catherine Vogel will be back in town in January, no longer second-in-command of the state prosecutor's office but in charge of prosecuting crime in Monroe County. She left town after she lost the last election when she was number two in the office. Earlier this year she beat incumbent Dennis Ward in the primary because he prosecuted corruption and didn't flinch when facing down Conch notables in court. The locals proved their power and ousted Ward. It will be interesting to see how hard core Vogel will be when faced with prosecuting the offspring of local power brokers.

Dwight Bullard won the State Senate seat which like the congressional seat is only partly in Monroe County and thus is in the sway of Dade County which has so many more voters. Bullard is the scion of a powerful African American family in South Florida and his win was a given. Like so many who come to power by inheritance he may be a Democrat but he will be no great shakes in the energy or dedication departments when it comes to taking care of the Florida Keys. It's sucks to be a small County sometimes.

Holly Raschein, she of the shiny blonde forehead has restored the State Representative's seat to the Republican party kicking the bearded young Ian Whitney in the goulies. Seat 120 was held by Republican Ken Sorensen for years as he slowly fossilized in office. Then when he was timed out local hero Ron Saunders won office once again and represented the Keys in Tallahassee rising to be minority leader in the gerrymandered Republican state house. Saunders timed out this election and he appears to be headed toward lobbying for gambling for Indians which seems like a morally elastic life choice for the good old boy.

The mainstream press is waving around a big excited woody about the close Florida race for the Electoral College at ten pm Eastern time. I'm sticking my unimportant neck out and predicting an unarguable win for the President when the blue heavily populated counties across the state finish counting their votes.

I have long since argued the one percent like Obama, he has given them everything they want and despite the pathetic accusations of communism thrown at the First Black President by the uneducated sheeple, the President will win reelection. If he will subsequently survive assassination attempts a la E Howard Hunt, remains to be seen. As long as he gives the one percent what they want he will be fine, and he knows it.

 

 

 

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Power To No Name Key

To look at this scene you wouldn't necessarily see anything out of place, a just a few visitors enjoying an early winter day in the lower Florida Keys. However the power poles are completely out of place when you consider this is No Name Key.

When I bring Cheyenne out here for a walk I am not used to pulling off the road and finding a big cement pole sticking out of the hood. I guess tags changed and I had better get used to it now.

I don't come to No Name much in the summer as its hot and Cheyenne doesn't enjoy the backwoods in the summer heat. But this summer I have been following the trials and tribulations of bringing commercial electricity to this island.

What is profoundly weird is that the public utility Keys Energy has planted poles and strung wires and the courts and the count haven't yet decided if commercial lecture city should be supplied goths island for the first time.

To see the poles in place like this you'd think the matter was settled but it isn't. It's a long and. Arduous story as you might imagine, especially because the courts are involved.

On the front lines there are two sets of home owners, one lot that oppose bringing power to the island, and the other lot that forcefully demanded it be brought. It has long since struck me as odd that you'd buy an expensive home out here off the grid and then decide you really want electricity and go to court to get it.

Opponents of electrification say supporters are speculators hoping to increase the value of their holdings by bringing power to No Name where homes currently live with diesel generators and solar panels. This is not an alternative society of eco-warriors, oddly enough. No Name is a suburban community like any other with all modern conveniences except the power lines. They have underground phone and cable TV (!) lines already hooked up.

Then there is the Federal government which operates a nature preserve on the island to give free rein to the protected Key Deer and that supposedly is another reason to not have electrical development on the island. Or at least it's another reason for all interested parties to show up in court and argue about this stuff.

Meanwhile the utility company has blundered ahead for some reason and wired up everything as though the electrification of No Name Key is a done deal. All they have to do now is hook the island's new infrastructure to the grid at Neighboring Big Pine Key.

What they will do with all these poles if the courts rule against electrification I have no idea. Meanwhile life goes on in the usual uncomfortable way on No Name Key. Personally I like electricity and I will miss the grid when our civilization founders under the weight of greed and abuse we inflict upon it daily. I don't envy homeowners here who have to maintain loud smelly expensive generators and organize costly solar panels to do what I do at the flick of a switch.

And a nice off the grid hippy home here doesn't come cheap in case you were wondering. 2008 did some damage to prices of course but it's still pricey.

It is only an asking price and maybe if electricity comes prices will go up but that's only a maybe.

And the cause of all the trouble? They don't seem to care one way or the other.

 

As far as I am concerned electrification is ugly and I don't like the poles and wires, even though I do like the final product! People bought homes on the island knowing there was no electricity and yet some of them now expect everything to change. Change is good I remind myself daily. Perhaps but No Name doesn't look better.

 

 

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Power Boat Races

I have never been much of a fan of the power boat races in Key West but after last year's fatal wreck and the grieving widow's lawsuit I am less enamored than ever of this lame excuse to show off one's penis extender. I mean, if you choose to take part in a massively expensive, inordinately pointless dangerous sport, and you die while doing it, your heirs should have the good grace to go home and lick their self inflicted wounds in private. But no, this is America where self reliance modesty and good manners have been sold down the river of avarice so now we have another chance to watch these bluebottles racing dangerously up and down the Key West Harbor.

 

Enjoy if you can. But remember, if anything goes wrong this year, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Not the participants, never in life should we hold the "sportsmen" who power these preposterous excuses for boats, never could we hold them accountable for their own folly. That would be unAmerican.

 

 

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