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Since 2002. Anonymous Letters to the Editor with pictures. Published Monday through Friday by Noon.
 [Monday] I knew it was going to be a blue Monday when I didn’t get 3 of the newspaper’s funnies. |
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 [“Odd house”] After reading about the round house on Colson Drive in Cudjoe we took a ride and this photo. I agree with all the negative comments I’ve read. It shaping up to look more like the Parthenon than a home in a residential neighborhood. I’m glad I don’t live next door, I’ll bet the guy who does wishes he didn’t either. |
| [“Waiting for his master”] The photo of Nathan Cirillo’s dog waiting for him to come home tearfully reminded me of a much shorter but similar vigil some years ago. My wife was in the hospital for 6 days. At day two our big Labrador started pacing the house. Day three and four he stopped eating and spent most of the time in our bedroom next to my wife’s side of the bed. Day five he slept in the bed on her side. When she returned home with me on the evening of day six “Kona” nearly knocked her down and lavished her with dog kisses and attention. From that day forward he rarely left her side, even being underfoot in the kitchen and bathroom. Faithful companions like that have been known to starve and mourn to death waiting for their master or mistress to return. Our Kona has been gone for 14 years and we still miss him every day. |
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| [Poor Taste Award] Funny Ebola song. Video |
 We voted Sunday at the back door of the BP library. It seemed odd to vote on a Sunday instead of Election Day. |
| [Marathon journal] The Journal interviewed Marathon’s Parks & Recreation Department head Jimmy Schmidt at Leigh Ann’s Coffee House for lunch. He moved to the Keys in 2001. Starting May 2003, Jimmy worked with Boys and Girls Club until hired by the city. He was hired in 2003. That makes him one of the longest hires; he is at eleven and a half years with the City of Marathon. He lives in Cudjoe Key with his wife. He likes the area. The long drive doesn’t bother him. Distance is all relative. In Ohio no one thinks twice driving 50 miles there and 50 miles back. He saw the job advertised in the newspapers. Jimmy got the city job by an interview with City Manager Mike Puto and Susie Thomas. Jimmy doesn’t have any regrets. The job is more than rewarding. He is proud of the departmental growth. He serves the Park & Rec committee having a good long-term relationship. Residents come first. Jimmy has served four years on the Florida Keys Disability Council.What are your best programs and the like? He and his department are proud of their growth and looking forward to future programs and park projects. Programs are year around and very popular. He is proud that Parks & Rec Department never over budget. He appreciates residents’ joy and pride about Parks & Rec. Tourists have much more to do and are pleased too.
He has outstanding staff. Generally speaking, successes have included Jesse Hobbs Park, basketball courts see a lot of use with tournaments scheduled year around, and the Community Park courts are used a lot as well. Resurfacing the courts turned out great. MLK day is celebrated each year using these facilities. At Jesse Hobbs Park new sand was applied on the playground area. How does the field survive Seafood Festival? Parks & Rec takes good care of the field. All activity stresses the field. The most impact is from vendors turning the wheels on their cars tearing up sod. Placement of vendor tents and other event facilities are managed well. Also, the number of cars allowed on the field is kept to a minimum. There are carts to help vendors and keep the field under less stress |
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 This is a photo of the sushi I had Friday. The old Japanese man, Tako, at Winn Dixie is short and hidden behind the sushi refrigerator next to the seafood department. He has prepared sushi in the case, but if you ask he’ll be glad to make it fresh for you. Fresh is the Japanese way. While I waited he gave me a free bowl of seafood soup that was thick and delicious and spicey. He makes it from scraps he gets from the seafood department. Last week he gave me a bowl of very thick noodles he gets from Miami while I waited. When I got my order he even filled my bowl again. |
| [Teen School Murderers] It’s no wonder teens go on rampages. Look at the posters on their bedroom walls and drawings in their notebooks. Death heads, skulls, weapons, anything to do with death and violence is popular with kids. I was looking at the mods kids made at a computer show and every one had some sort of violence or death depicted on its case. The cartoons they draw are mostly violent or of monsters, guns and explosions. |
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| [“Deep wells”] Dear Mayor and Commissioners: Please consider this email my electronic signature requesting that you vote to direct FKAA to immediately begin the design, permitting, and construction of a deep well for the Cudjoe Wastewater Treatment Plant. As constituents, we support a deep well and ask that you get it in place as soon as possible. Thank you. |
 [“We need to look in the mirror and take the blame upon ourselves”] I happen to agree. However as a “sheep” who follows my savior Jesus, he has his sheep look into the mirror everyday, probably more than most. Just because I believe in God and you do not doesn’t make me above the laws of right and wrong, in fact I am held up to a higher standard when I make a mistake. It is His love that leads me there. Ask for forgiveness, and I am loved beyond what this world thinks love truly is. I feel sorry for you, sir, and I am praying for your very soul as we speak because you do not have a clue what God and following Him is truly all about. God bless you. |
| I voted for the Libertarian for governor. I was told I was throwing my vote away, but that was the way I felt about giving it to the other two crooks. I figured that I would give a different crook a chance. If a politician is talking he’s lying! |
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| Contact Us. Click this link to post any opinion, ad, changes to an ad, complaint, kudos, or anything else. One link fits all. We read them all. Contact Us |
 [3 Thing are inevitable: Death, Taxes, and a Hard Drive Crash] The horror, oh the horror of a hard drive crash when you forgot to back up all your data and pictures. Gone forever if the HD is burned up. Sure you can spend a small fortune and send the HD to a lab to take it apart and hopefully read what is left, but that is big money per megabyte. What’s this tell you? It tells me if my medical records, banking records, SS records, and anything that says I am a citizen of planet Earth goes poof and is not backed up on good old paper, I am a dead man. The Big Click and we are history! Back up your HDD to external HDD, disk, or to the cloud. |
| [“Architecture”] I laughed about the monstrosity being built in Cudjoe Garden. There is a “Quonset” house on Big Pine that somehow long ago got zoning approval and has no place being in a residential neighborhood. I know it is far-fetched, but maybe someone has improperly influenced the zoning department for these unusual structures |
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| [Big Mess] I had my pants around my ankles while I applied Preparation H to, you know where, and I stumbled. I dropped the tube while trying to regain balance and stepped on the tube, squirting Preparation H all over the bathroom carpet. What a mess. |
 [“Raising building height limit”] If you fall for all the developer-driven talking points about raising building heights in the Keys you and future generations are going to regret it. Give the developers an inch in height increases, and they will eventually turn the Keys into a high rise nightmare. Look at Miami Beach, Gault Ocean Mile and Clearwater Beach for what it will become. |
| [Sewers] We continue to support the efforts of citizen groups which, like us, are pressing for a proper sewer system in the Lower Keys. Our political leaders continue to divert sewer funds to other projects. We think you will be concerned about FKAA’s plans to inject partially treated sewage effluent into shallow wells at Cudjoe, instead of using the deep well the law requires for plants of this size. FKAA’s own documents show that the Plant will be receiving over 1 million gallons a day of sewage. The law states that plants of this size cannot use shallow wells, even after the sewage is treated. Our porous limestone environment allows the partially treated effluent to reach the surface waters, carrying nitrogen and phosphates which can cause algal blooms and create “dead zones” around Cudjoe Basin.The money is already available from taxes, federal monies, and grants. The BOCC simply has to vote to use it for the deep well for Cudjoe. They need to hear from their constituents. |
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 [“Round House on Colson”] There is no accounting for taste. There is no historic district outside Key West so anything you’d like to build you may. It is all legal as long as you comply with the building codes. If you don’t care about your neighbors or neighborhood you may build any odd-ball structure you’d like. Almost all of these new, concrete, odd-ball houses are built by city people who only use the building part time. In the past the A-frames, geodesic domes and Quonset huts were mostly built by people looking for a cheaper way to build. |
| [“Heart Attack Wine Drinker”] What you are describing is called anecdotal evidence. I doubt anything conclusive can be made as it’s like doing an experimental drug trial with just one person participating. And anyone who responds is just giving his/her anecdotal experience as well, so there’s really no meaningful information to be had soliciting others’ habits/results. Your post about drinking the wine wasn’t totally clear, but if you’ve been drinking one bottle a day for the past ten years I’d say you’re headed for either liver problems or a DUI. Good luck! |
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| When I worked for Mosquito Control and Phil Goodman had just been appointed to the board by Gov. Scott I took him around to show him what field inspectors deal with. First he used a can of off in 2 hours and the mosquitoes were not that bad. The temperature was in the 80s. It’s a shame he never came back in the summer when the temp was in the 90s along with 90% humidity. Point being, he had no idea what the employees deal with and that not very many people would go in the swamps to do their job. He has voted to cut jobs leaving the district short handed so when it rains or there is high tides, areas without mosquito larva must be treated because there was not enough time to inspect all areas and that is a big reason why so much product is being used, not the reason Director Mike gives. I no longer have a dog in the fight thanks to the TDC and local government[?]. I left after 35 years, but people need to stop the dismantling of a great organization. If Governor Scott and his appointee Mr Goodman have there way then Mosquito Control will be handed over to the BOCC who will then use the reserves for parks, bridges, restaurants or other special interests. If you don’t want to see a lot more mosquitoes and the possibly of the return dengue, etc. vote for Roger and Geoff. My name is Gary Schwartz. ~gls33@aol.com |
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| Contact Us. Click this link to post any opinion, ads, changes to an ad, complaint, kudos, or anything else. One link fits all. We read them all. Contact Us |
 [“Raising building heights”] The adaptation Commissioner Heather envisions will be more rich people owing homes in Key West. Now imagine this scenario, Heather.The referendum passes. Homes in low areas, which are capable of being raised, become more valuable because they can be raised. A mini-real estate boom hatches in Key West, as these homes become more attractive to rich people who want to live in Key West. The referendum gives the present property owners a windfall profit, as well as an escape from flood insurance premiums, rising water and hurricane threats, if they sell their home. Then, where do those ex-homeowners live? They move to the mainland, where housing is heaps cheaper, and there is no threat of rising water or hurricanes, is my bet. Another scenario, Heather. The homes in low areas, which cannot be raised without being destroyed, become targeted by rich people wanting to tear those homes down and built new and bigger homes on the same lot, and by developers, who want to tear down those homes and build new, far more expensive homes, for resale. The present homeowners sell out, then where do they live? Same as above, they move to the mainland. You didn’t address at all, Heather, Key West buildings which are not homes, such as your guest house, Pearl’s, other guest houses and lodges, motels, hotels, commercial buildings, office buildings, buildings in shopping centers, convenience stores, drug stores, service stations, etc. What about developers using the referendum, if it passes, to get permits to tear down those building and built higher buildings? Key West might start looking a bit like Jack’s beanstalk? There also is talk of this referendum allowing the city to permit new and higher affordable housing apartments in places like Poinciana. Higher affordable rental apartments should not be a byproduct of the height referendum ordinance, but should be dealt with by a separate city ordinance. |
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| To the poster who wants the Monarch Butterfly to flourish. Please provide free native milkweed. Post your address and people will come and get it. |
 Ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a snake eating it’s tail and symbolizes man’s indomitable force to survive. |
| Can you eat the Asian Carp that is terrorizing the Midwest’s rivers and lakes? They look like snapper to me and soon they’ll infest the Great Lakes. |
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| Contact Us. Click this link to post any opinion, ads, changes to an ad, complaint, kudos, or anything else. One link fits all. We read them all. Contact Us |
 A Glad Bag commercial claims that bargain bag buyers use 60 more bags a year so you should pay more for their bags. How do they know that? No one knows how many bags they use. I have no idea. When they run out, I buy more. That’s the extent of my involvement with garbage bags! |
| [The Movies] The tattooed, fat, slut warned, “Never go into an orgy ass first.” Wise words from a slut. |
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| Xerox was asleep at the wheel and let the coping market go to Epson, Canon, Brother and others. In the past if you wanted something copied you Xeroxed it. Not any more. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a Xerox machine. |
 [Auto Lumber] Americans bought one million Model T Fords in 1919, and in between the frame, wheel spokes, dashboard and running boards, each car contained about 100 board feet of hardwood so Ford bought a forest, built a lumber mill, and made charcoal briquettes from the waste. That’s ol’ Henry for you! |
| Before Obamacare there was never an Oct 26th 2015 calendar day either[?]. I don’t get the Ebola post? The outbreak is in Africa, first major outbreak in recorded history. What the heck does this have to do with Obamacare? Oh, wait, I get it – it’s that black thing again. |
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| Contact Us. Click this link to post any opinion, ads, changes to an ad, complaint, kudos, or anything else. One link fits all. We read them all. Contact Us |
 [“Heart attack 10 years ago”] As an armchair doctor I think if you’re feeling fine and tests come out on the plus side and you’re not being seen on the sheriff’s website for DUI, you’re drinking just enough wine. Take two gulps and call me in the morning. |
| [“Raising building heights”] Speculative? This entire referendum is speculative and loaded with unanswered questions. What about thousands of homes in Key West, which are not wood frame, such as the Mid-Town home where I rent a room. This home sits flat on a concrete slab. Any attempt to elevate this home would destroy it. City Commissioner Billy Wardlow said at a city commission meeting, after I spoke to this referendum during citizen comments, that his New Town home could not be raised without being destroyed. During citizen comments, I asked if a study had been done to determine how many homes in Key West actually could be raised and benefit from the referendum? And to determine how many of those homes’ owners would be able to afford to raise their homes? And how many owners of homes, which could not be raised, would be able to afford to have their homes torn down and then rebuilt four feet higher? No such study was done, was the answer from the stony looks on the faces of the mayor and county commissioners. I figured I knew the answer before I asked the rhetorical question |
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| [“The last Sunday edition of the Coconut Telegraph”] Good for you, Monday thru Friday, I can dig it. |
 When will architectural details again be in vogue? For the last forty years the architecture itself has been the vogue. The Chrysler building is a good example of architectural detail as enhancement. The Disney Center in L.A. is an example of the architecture itself being the thing! |
| [“The last Sunday edition of the Coconut Telegraph”] Good for you Ed, you deserve it. Now make room for the pissing and moaning. |
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 [Boiled Coke] You will never want to drink cola again after seeing it boiled. Be prepared to cringe. Video |
| Don’t ever believe anything put out by the American Bird Conservancy. There is no group in the world better at manipulating statistics and misinterpreting scientific research to prove their positions. |
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| [China Vacation] I was talking to a man who just returned from China. He went to a major city, I think it was Sichuan. He said he had the worst time of his life. The food was awful, nothing resembling the Chinese food in the States. People would openly stare at him and when he smiled or nodded hello they would just continue to stare like statues. It was unsettling. No signs were in English at transportation hubs and no one would lend a traveler assistance–they’d just stare. He now knows why tourists only go to Bejiing, the rest of the country is not ready for prime time yet. |
 Some people are upset that many of us kill iguana. They say they have a right to live even though they are exotic pests. Do those same animal lovers think it’s wrong to kill rats and mice that are native to the Keys or is that different? |
| Movie subtitle: [overlapping yelling] |
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| Contact Us. Click this link to post any opinion, ads, changes to an ad, complaint, kudos, or anything else. One link fits all. We read them all. Contact Us |
 Until the 1990s or so drinking booze was a sign of manhood. It still is in high school. |
| A week on the road in North Korea. Link |
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| The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion and have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even be made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense. |
 Pirate Radio is the new official radio station of bigpinekey.com. Although we really like Bill Becker and Ezrus Marcus, US1 Radio’s music sucks. |
| It appears our good friends on the left are working on a restricted agenda on these sites. I haven’t heard a call from them yet for wholesale censoring only for F.T.R. and the accursed channel 8 with its list of demonic anchor heads. However I see they now have a new tactic, the villainous supposition appears to be that they are proclaiming that their opposition is suffering from some form of mental disorder when not approving of their ideology. It’s kind of like the lady watching her son march and complaining that every one was out of step but her son |
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| Contact Us. Click this link to post any opinion, ad, changes to an ad, complaint, kudos, or anything else. One link fits all. We read them all. Contact Us |
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 “Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs…” ~Hillary Clinton.“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” ~Barak Obama
“Don’t let anybody tell you that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs.” ~Hillary Clinton “Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would cost 500,000 jobs” ~The Congressional Budget office. “You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.” ~William John Henry Boetcker “Poor people have been voting for Democrats for 50 years, and they’re still poor” ~Charles Barkley Part 2) YESTERDAY A CRITIC WROTE: “But over the years the swelling of his (FTR’s) ego, his “humbleness”, coupled with his love of guns leads me to believe we have a very deranged individual that is sounding capable of something very bad. Friday’s post was beyond delusional. Be careful Ed and friends. He needs serious help.” FTR’S RESPONSE: BOO!…but a humble boo. And, I must gather that the critic shares my opinion that if my concerns are found to be correct, if Obama permits a flood of immigrants by executive order, that act will indeed “wreak havoc on our nation.” The critic asked for sourcing Link
Part 3) Three reasons to live in a warm climate Link (thanks Jack) |
