Letters to the editor with pictures since 0202. Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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 [Air head Girl] I was replacing a water heater yesterday for a young mother, but I needed a couple of wire nuts to finish the connection, so I went back to the shop for them. When I returned I went to connect the wires and they arced to the metal housing of the heater, welding the wire ends to the heater housing and scaring the hell out of me. I asked her what happened, and she said she thought I’d left so she turned the power back on. I told her she almost killed me. She didn’t say a thing. What an air head. How can people be so careless? My tools were all still there. How could I be finished? When I first started to replace the heater, I told her I wanted to check the panel myself to be sure that the 220 volts was turned off. I told her the reason I wanted to visually check the breaker was because its 220 volts could kill me (but I didn’t say it was because she was an air head and I didn’t trust her). She wasn’t trying to kill me, she is just stupid. |
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| [“Marathon International Airport”] “International”? what a joke. How can you have an international airport when they don’t even have an airline flying out of there? The only thing they have is a multi-million-dollar car rental desk. The airport is a flop and was since the day it was built. It’ll probably another 75 years until Marathon becomes a resort destination and has its own airlines. |
 [“Sewer lawsuit”] The judge might not enforce the law because FKAA’s lawyers have said the woman “waited too long” to sue. What? She sued 5 years ago and that was after complaining since she was told FKAA wasn’t complying with its sewer contract with the people, probably for another five years. It takes a lot of nerve to “fight City Hall” and a lot more money. She didn’t just jump into this mess without exhausting all her options first. That takes time. She didn’t want to sue. She’s spent $40,000 so far trying to make FKAA abide by the rules. “Waited too long”, give me a break. |
| [Keys Population] There are only 74,000 residents left in the Keys. Twenty years ago there were 82,000. I think what is happening is the working class is being replaced by affluent snowbirds who don’t live here and thus aren’t counted as residents. The gentrification of the Keys is what’s happening. |
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| [Foreign Caravan] When 7000 foreign nationals attempt to overrun our border defenses, in my mind it is an invasion, not a caravan. |
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| [Failed Airport] Marathon may have 1000 more tourist rooms and a sewer system and two County Commissioners who vote for anything that they want. But what they don’t have and never will have is a nationally recognized airline operating out of their “Marathon International Airport”. No matter how hard they try they’ll never be a major tourist destination. The joke is that Marathon is the biggest loser. |
Will Fernandez’s paper mâché and paintings range from classically Key West to satirical comments of the human predicament. |
| What happened to Friday’s edition? (Ed: Oh, you caught me. I mis-named it Tuesday instead of Friday. I corrected it. Thanks for letting me know.) |
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| [“Sick woman arrested at burger joint”] “Keys Strong” left when the pikers found the Keys. They didn’t wait a year to fahghedaboutit either. They came, they fixed, they left. I gathered from the story the car she hit was owned by a tourist who went ballistic. And I’ll just take a wild guess, the owner of Paradise Burger isn’t a local either. May the ghost of Rob’s be with him. ~ Bumfarto@rocketmail.com |
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| [Candidate Q & A] Pick up this week’s edition of the News-Barometer, there is a good candidate Q & A in there regarding our new Lower Keys Seat on the Utility Board.
About the candidates: Beth Ramsay-Vickrey: Lives in Big Pine/No Name Key -&- is a current Keys Energy Advisory Board Member. Top three “must do” things to represent the community: Beth Ramsay-Vickrey: Lower customer costs, be an involved part of the community, advance conservation. Remember, early voting started yesterday. |
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| [Win in Sight for Grinder Pump Rebellion] In a declaratory judgement, Judge Koenig ruled that under Monroe County Code 20-105(e) homeowners have a legal right to be provided with a gravity feed connection to the central sewage system, at their property line.
In other words, the government is obligated to provide a sewer connection to which a property owner can connect through a simple gravity pipe sloping down from their home to a connection located in the public right-of-way. Judge Koenig, in his order, describes the law itself as “clear and unambiguous.” Link |
Vote wisely my friends. |
| [3,000 Residents Moved After Irma] The county estimated that more than 4,000 homes in the unincorporated Monroe County alone were destroyed or severely damaged by Irma. Total population of the Keys dropped by 2,949, going from in 76,889 2017 to 73,940 in 2018. |
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| [Patriotic Music] Joyce Shaffer is what’s best in the USA. In case you have not seen this, Joyce lives on a small horse ranch in Western Colorado & is married to a former US Marine. Her son was a US Marine & there are other US Marines and one USAF grandson in her family tree, but evidently, she is the only singer. This lady has a really good voice, and she’s using it–and a really good idea! This is her latest Colorado country song. I love this country song and hope it becomes #1! Takin’ Back Our Country — Joyce Shaffer |
[“Terrible Key West rum”] To the guy who can’t choke down $63 Key West seawater rum. try Old Camp Pecan Whisky. I was never a bourbon drinker until I saw Joe Roman and Elon Musk passing the bottle. Musk said it was tasty, Rogan called it delicious. It is. Back in the day, we drank enough Atocha Gold to make our livers valuable. It has 24K gold flakes in it! |
| [News] The only trustworthy news I’ve enjoyed since they all went political is BBC America and the former Al Jazeera America. I think Al Jazeera was afraid of being branded an arm of Islam so they always had reliable news. They didn’t want to offend. I don’t know why the BBC isn’t slanted in their reporting on American politics, but they aren’t. I’d like to see more news channels with world reporting. I’ve had enough of opinions. |
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| Outdoor recreation, including boating, contributes nearly $673 billion toward the nation’s gross domestic product — more than agriculture, mining, or utilities. |
 Vote for Robert Barrios for Seat D, on the Key West Utility Board! I have over 28 years of experience with the daily operations, the infrastructure and our customer needs. While at KEYS, I was a Meter Reader, worked in Generation, Customer Service, Engineering and Purchasing. I finished my last four years as the Safety & Risk Officer. Knowledge is power!With your vote, I will put my knowledge to work for you on the Key West Utility Board. • Lifelong resident of The Lower Keys • Have lived in Big Coppitt Key since 1995 • My goals are to promote and improve: Employee and Public Safety, System Hardening, which ties into our Reliability, Explore other sources of renewable energy.Please vote for Robert Barrios on November 6th. I am ready to go to work for you! ~barriosforutilityboard@gmail.com 305-304-2652 |
| [Energy] California now gets a third of its energy from renewable sources. I wonder if the naysayers and those who made fun of alternative energy are changing their tunes. |
[Zombies] Wouldn’t it be better if, instead of trying to mess with our genes and create super humans, we tried to go in the other direction and breed super-dumb people to be our slaves. I’d always wanted a servant. We could even use their organs to repair regular humans. Everyone wins but the mutants, and they don’t care. |
| [Climate Change] Those two words and a big threat are missing from our 2018 National Defense Strategy. Our military must prepare for climate change if we are to compete with Russia and China. Omitting it from new US defense strategy is a critical error. Suppose they staged an invasion and the location was under water, but their maps showed dry lowlands? The hard liners better overcome their denial of climate change and start planning for future battles based on science. Our security is at stake. I love climate change arguments. Link |
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| [“Where is Glen Reber”] Glen Reber rode out Irma (the first part) in his mobile home on Big Pine. His place was destroyed by the storm. He rode out he second part of the storm in his van outside of where he lived. He lost pretty much everything. I saw him the day after the storm and he told me that he was leaving. That he was to old to start here again. I believe he said that it was now a young man’s game. I always liked Glen and I was bummed to see him and his bird drive off North. I hope that he finds a place that he likes. |
[16d Nails] What does the d stand for when buying nails? The d stands for penny but is derived from denarius, a Roman coin used in the British isles. It came to be the abbreviation for a penny unit of measurement to price a “long hundred” (120 nails) centuries ago. |
| The practice of hiring morons to work in influential positions of government in America continues unbroken to date. |
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| How can we get people to vote? Us old-timers never miss an election, but everyone else doesn’t seem to think voting is important. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to vote. It made me proud. I’ve never missed an election. They should teach Civics in high school again. I think there are only three or four states that still teach it. |
[Honduran migrants take part in a caravan heading to the US] Who orchestrated this assault on our country? No tattered clothing in any of the pictures. Mostly young men marching by the thousands to flood our country. And then what? |
| [Sewers] For those of you who have been coerced into surrendering an easement and forced to supply an electrical service for a Couunty-owned, FKAA-repaired grinder pump in your yard, I hope you read the article about the Circuit Court decision that declared that government activity is unlawful. I know people who are on their third grinder pump in about two years instead of the 24-36 years claimed by FKAA. FKAA claimed they were flood proof. That claim was also proved false, although substituting the cheapest possible pit for the most expensive as specified (with no credit to the contract) made flooding in Irma a sure thing. Link |
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| [Headless Chicken Monster] Researchers just found a bizarre ‘headless chicken monster’ swimming deep in the Antarctic Ocean. Yes, this is a real creature that was spotted in the Antarctic Ocean. It’s apparently a type of sea cucumber. Video |
I don’t bank at Fifth Third Bank because I like my bank to understand fractions better than that. |
| Regarding the lady with medical issues who was falsely arrested for DUI outside Paradise Burgers on Big Pine Key at the urging of the owner and waitstaff because she was unsteadily walking on swollen feet: She was at the Big Pine Flea Market this last weekend on bail while she awaits Court about the DUI charges and overheard some people talking about the incident as reported on the Coconut Telegraph. She was unaware that her experience had been posted on the Coconut Telegraph, but her heart was warmed by the community support of people she has never met, saying they would put up donation cans if they only knew who she was, and vowing to boycott Paradise BSB. Thank you Piners, Keys community sympathizers, and Deer Ed! (Ed: Let’s not pillory that restaurant without knowing the full story from both sides.) |
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| After two divers went missing last month during a dive on the RJ Thompson, near Tarpon Springs, FL, local law enforcement and the Coast Guard searched more than 1,700 nautical miles of the Gulf of Mexico before finding them. Michael Pavlich spent seven hours in the water, five miles southeast of the wreck. Terry Hayes was spotted nearly a day later, 12 miles farther away. Hayes kept his buoyancy compensation vest on and drank rainwater he collected with his mask. Rescuers spotted his surface marker buoy |
Canada legalizes recreational pot and gets a new flag! |
| I played the Mega Millions and hit the jacksquat. |
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| [Governor Debate] ‘Corrupt’ vs. ‘stooge’. Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum spent much of their hourlong gubernatorial debate taking jabs at each other on national TV. Video |
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| [“Sewers Increase Development”] You people are such fools. Why the hell do you think the sewers were pushed down your throats like they were? To allow more development — just like it was planned for way back in the 1950’s. It is all about the money and always has been. You idiots deserve the next batch of over-crowded wall to wall shacks that will bury these islands just like the Bahamas and the Caribbean’s. It’s all over folks! |
Planes flying to the Marathon Airport‘s 75 anniversary. |
| [Convicts] New Keys business? The person giving you official travel advice may be a prison inmate. A unique program in North Carolina trains female inmates to dispense travel advice and handle roadside assistance for official state toll-free numbers. Link |
[Climate Change = Dramatic Beer Shortages] There’s trouble brewing. Of course people will continue to ignore the writing on the wall. This is getting serious. Link |
| [Friday Not Tuesday] Deer Ed, When I opened CT, and read, “Tuesday…” I thought Oh, no!. Then I read October 19, which was Friday. Yeah! You might want to correct it. Thanks (Ed: Yea, I blew time travel. Thanks.) |
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| Natural gas processing plant that will help reduce the wasteful flaring of excess natural gas in North Dakota’s Bakken oil patch. The $150 million Oasis Wild Basin II plant near Watford City will add 200 million cubic feet per day of natural gas processing capacity. The first major plant completed in recent years in the Bakken is to begin operating in November. Oasis built the plant to support its own gas production, but it also plans to process gas from other companies. The new plant will increase the state’s processing capacity by about 10 percent. |
World’s first guitar-shaped hotel being built in Florida. Video |
| The Keys 1980s: Mel Fisher & the Atocha, Looe Key, KD’s, the Island, Monte’s Seafood–All you could eat dolphin on Friday nights.
The Keys 2017: A review about a corned beef sandwich, A restaurant named Paradise BURGER, Mel who Atockawha?, assembly line Key Lime Pie after a dinner of trucked-in food. |
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