Letters to the editor with pictures since 0202. Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.
 [Removing Dead Mangroves] The mangroves behind our house (and our neighbors both sides, multiple houses each way) got totally trashed by Irma. They are nothing but a mangled mess of brown broken limbs. In reading about the Mangrove laws, it was noted that the legislation does not differentiate between alive or dead mangroves and so the rules of cutting and permitting apply to both equally. Also, they do not extend out 50 feet from land into the ocean so the RMI Zone exemption seems to apply, though I’m not sure what the hell that truly is. That being said, I want to remove the broken branches. Any stumps or branches still intact (though dead) will be left alone. It looks like hell, compromises our property value, and the entangled Irma debris could be removed at the same time.
Anybody have any experience with this sort of thing? I’m looking for experienced advice. |
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| [Virtue Signaling] I read about a new term called virtue signaling. It is used to show you are a more virtuous person than others. And usually these people do not practice what they preach. If you want examples listen to any politician. Virtue signaling is the popular modern habit of indicating that one has virtue merely by expressing disgust or favor for certain political ideas, cultural happenings, or even the weather. Link |
 [Crook] John Zadresky (aka John Z) has been a issue here on Big Pine Key for over 15 years. He has been arrested 18 times, those are just the times he’s been caught! My personal experience with John is not very good. I have a trespass order on him. He’s not allowed in our business or on our property. My question is, how much damage has this man really done? How many folks has he hurt & robbed? How much has he cost the tax payers of Monroe county? When is enough, enough? Must a person die, has a person already died? I didn’t share with you that our man John likes to start fires. Just a good old white boy, “burnin’ down the house”. |
| [Motown] A live seven-piece band, CK Band, will cover Motown favorites during the event between live performances by Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson impersonators. The Magic of Motown will begin at 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 12, at Playa Largo Resort & Spa, 97450 Overseas Highway in Key Largo. General admission tickets are $150 per person. VIP admission is $200 per person and tables of 10 are available. Seating is limited to 300, so early registration is recommended. For more information, contact Weeks at 305-394-1680 and follow “The Magic of Motown” on Facebook. |
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| [How Our Post Office Works] Any outgoing mail from the Keys goes to either Homestead or Miami, goes through scanning equipment that reads the addresses and then returns the mail back to the Keys and delivery points after assigning a bar code. Apartment numbers are even incorporated into those bar codes. Actual humans do not get to sort the mail anymore. When it comes back to your local post office, the mail is already in the sequence of the specific mail route, eliminating the need for clerks who used to break down the incoming mail to individual routes, then the letter carrier would rack this mail into the sequence in which the route is delivered. This system is called DPS which was created years ago to eliminate clerk positions. If there isn’t a physical street number on the envelope, the scanning equipment cannot assign a bar code (the bars you see printed on bottom face of envelope) that routes the mail to the delivery point post office. In the older days, mail used to stay local and any from BPK would be driven to Key West where either the clerk or letter carrier would be able to figure out who the mail should go to. This why we need more actual people and less computers. |
 [Noise Pollution] The helicopter that is bothering you (and me, tremendously) is a Sikorsky H 60 Sea Hawk variant. And it is not Navy. No. It is flown, maintained-funded by taxpayers by, get this, the South Florida Water Management District. What the hell this thing is doing down here over the last few years was a question I had myself. Flying so low. Buzzing houses. It has absolutely no markings to boot. Well it turns out it shuttles self important government people back and forth from Key West; and while they are down here they are spying on you. Satellite imagery is not enough for them. Trim a mangrove? Busted. A little pea rocks too close to the water? Get a visit from the EPA or Army Corps of Engineers |
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| [Crook] A scammer tried to score on me from a Craigslist ad this week. He claimed to be in Delaware and was willing to buy my item sight unseen. He offered to send a cashier’s check for the full amount and then have his “private shipper” pick up the item. I told him that considering the proliferation of bogus cashier’s checks, he should send the check to his shipper and have them pay cash on pickup. That’s the last I heard from him. |
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| Deer Ed, The post about spelling and grammar got me thinking. When posts are sent to you do you have to retype every one or can you cut and paste if the post looks passable? I imagine you go batty now and then and waste time. (Have you been looking over my shoulder? You got it right, but I do have software that aids me in sorting out this quest for sense.) |
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| [Poison] Once popular sunscreen ingredient has been poisoning corals for decades, peer reviewed science is in and it is time to ban oxybenzone and octinoxate in the Florida Keys. Link |
 Bowl games have become like buying in bulk at Costco — the volume is more than you really need or want to consume. Playing in a college football bowl game these days is about as notable as having an e-mail address.
There are 40 bowl games, not counting the College Football Playoff National Championship Game and counting the Celebration Bowl, which features historically black colleges and universities playing at the Football Championship Subdivision level. Salvation from this corporate name game of gridiron gluttony could be coming from the college football labor force. This bowl season, nearly two dozen college players with designs on being selected in the 2019 NFL Draft have skipped their teams’ bowl games to preserve their health for the NFL. If some of the most talented players in college football believe that many of the bowl games outside of the College Football Playoff aren’t worth their time, then why are they worth playing |
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Tutu Tuesday in Key West. City says no. Aawww! Link |
| [The Wall] Fixed fortifications are monuments to man’s stupidity. If mountain ranges and oceans can be overcome, anything made by man can be overcome. ~General George Patton |
[Winn Dixie] Weekly ad. Link |
| [Charles Manson Follower Recommended for Parole] A California parole panel on Thursday recommended for the first time that Charles Manson follower Robert Beausoleil be freed after serving nearly a half-century in prison for murder. Link |
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| [Free Books] For the first time in 21 years, copyrighted works enter the public domain. In an unprecedented victory for cultural appreciation, people will now have free access to thousands of beloved published works thanks to a mass copyright expiration. Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley, Khalil Gibran, Edith Wharton, Agatha Christie, D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf. Link |
 Barking dogs are easy to take care of. Just stick a small speaker out of your window and play the ultra high pitch sound humans cannot hear but drives dogs nuts. In a few days they come and get the bastards! |
| [A Man’s Worth] 17th century feudal England. For theft an elaborate tariff prescribed in shillings the exact value or worth of every man. A prince, was worth 1500 shillings, a shilling being the value of a cow in Kent, or of a sheep elsewhere; an earl, or noble- man, 300 shillings; a yeoman farmer, was worth 100 shillings; an agricultural serf, 40-80 shillings, and a slave nothing. All these laws were logically and mathematically pushed to their extremes. If a farmer killed an earl he had to pay three times as much in compensation as if the earl were the murderer. And these laws were applied to the families of all.
The penalty for slander was the tearing out of the tongue. If a prince were guilty of this offence his tongue was worth five times that of an earl and fifteen times as much as that of a common serf, and he could ransom it only on these terms. Thus the abuse of a humble tongue was cheap. This system, at least, as Alfred said long afterwards, was better than the blood feud. ~W. Churchill’s History of Great Britain |
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| [Opposing Opinion] Captain Bligh said Christian and the crew’s decision to mutiny may have been influenced by the sexual mores and lifestyle in the S. Pacific |
Coconuts Bar & Liquor Store , down town Big Pine Key |
| Every single corpse on Mt. Everest was once a highly motivated person. Think about it. Stay lazy my friends! |
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| The Florida Keys Concert Association‘s season is kicking off with shows in Islamorada & Marathon. Video |
[Road to Hell] Annual traffic advisory: Due to the influx of good intentions from New Year’s resolutions, the road to Hell is, once again, closed for repaving. I trust all of you will find an alternative route. |
| [“Postal service”] Perhaps the lawyer who posted receives his mail at a PO Box and has no box on the street or maybe the letter was missing a suite number or maybe it was misdirected in Miami or maybe it was an actual mistake – they do happen. Gee, it must be hard living in an imperfect world where you never make a mistake. Happy New Year anyway |
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| [Unedited] Nice, Happy new years. I am licensed now. Mfd5453220. I will be in front of big pine motel, where Jimmy snowcone was. Open teusday and Wednesday for breakfast, real strong Cuban espressos, and breakfast sandwich. Lunch menu being developed. Cold drinks and ice cream bars. Will have special items soon and regularly. Thursday thru Monday, open Only after Florida Keys cafe closes at 2pm. Until 6am for dinner . Morning Cuban coffee may be offered these days, as to not impede diner sales in any manner. The owners of the motel, are instrumental in the allowance to operate there, Thank you to them. ~Rich Tabacco |
More than 20 Cuban migrants land in the Keys. A makeshift vessel sits grounded in the shallow water off Little Duck Key, on the south end of the Seven Mile Bridge, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2018. Twenty-three Cuban men arrived on the boat earlier that morning. They’ll be sent back. Link |
| [Florida interstate crash kills at least 7, injures 7 more] At least seven people were killed and seven others were injured Thursday in a multivehicle crash on Interstate 75 near Gainesville, Florida. Link |
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