Since 2002. Published Wednesdays and Saturdays
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 [A Pirate Looks At Cleveland] Since I left my life of a pirate in Islamorada and moved to Cleveland, I moved into a building with lots of Indians. I call them the ‘Cleveland Indians’. I studied ISKCON (Hare Krishna) for many years. As a hippie I indulged in the pleasures of our earthly existence. I now live next to a Sikh. The Sikhs are from the Punjab. A northwestern state which the Silk Road flows. Punjab means land of the 5 rivers from the Himalayas. The Sikh people were marginalized and the moguls gave the 5th guru a Muslim bath where he boiled alive in a cauldron and scalped–only because Islamists are f**ked up.The Sikhs believe that no matter who you are. You understand God through your language. Your food. Your earth beneath your feet. They don’t care. All are welcome. Their teaching are based on the 10 gurus. Granth sahib. The harmandir sahib or the golden temple in the Punjab is made of gold and is their holiest Gurdwara, or temple. It has four doors. Like the Moody Blues’ house of four doors. It means all are welcome.The Sikhs hail from the Punjab and make up 2% of the Indian population. Yet, more than 50% of the Indian military are Sikh. Those who wear the turban and don’t cut their hair or shave their beard are called Sardars. To assimilate into European, Canadian and USA culture they often don’t conform to Sikh tradition. However. Only 2% of Indian Diaspora whom are Sikh serve over 6.7 free meals from their Gurdwaras on a daily basis around the world. They are a proud culture considered rednecks of the Indian subcontinent. Their music is gritty rap with visions of Ford tractors and semi trucks. All Punjab songs talk about Sardars as the protector. And don’t f**k with the Sardars.At Gurdwara today. My son and I and my Hindu friend enjoyed kirtan and landar or the gree lunch of Indian vegetarian food. My Hindu brother, the Punjab, Rhishab, took our plates up to be washed and a huge badass Sardar came to us asking if he could get something for us. The Gurdwara is in an old Masonic temple in Bedford, Ohio. The architecture and symbolism is right. I saw a picture of Sardars serving Muslims after the fast of Ramadan. A few years ago. An idiot gringo shot up a Sikh Gurdwara in Minnesota killing six. He thought they were terrorists. Not big news, right? The most peaceful, open and giving and the 5th largest religion in the world form only 2% of the Indian population. And they want to take ol’ Dixie down? Open your eyes America. The Union Jack is the original flag of hatred.
All Sikh men take the last name Singh which means lion. |
 American Shoals lighthouse, lightkeeper’s quarters. |
 [Confederate Flag] Some say it is a disgrace to have to remove the Confederate Flag and others fly it as a smack in the face to Americans and civil rights. It is. That war has been over many years, so why not grow up and stop fighting it? The rednecks that fly the CF are the one’s that want the Mexican and Cuban flags taken down and any other non-American flags (excluding the redneck militia’s flags). You can’t get more anti-American than the CF which represents the horror of a country divided; and with over 250,000 deaths of brothers fighting each other over money made by slavery. That is what the Civil War was all about.Bring back honor and thinking to America before we all go nuts and get our heads cut off by you-know-who. |
| Sweden took more refugees from Iran than the US and Canada combined. Italy expects over one million refugees to pass through this year. |
  Bartram’s Hairstreak Butterfly] Federal wildlife officials armed with a $200,000 grant are preparing more controlled burns in Big Pine Key this summer in an effort to save a critically endangered butterfly and the plant it’s dependent upon for its survival. (Make sure your fire insurance is paid up). Last spring, the Bartram’s hairstreak butterfly was placed on the critically endangered list and is facing extinction. The insect depends on healthy Pineland Croton plants, also called granny-bush, where they lay their eggs. Bartram’s hairstreak larvae eat Pineland Croton leaves as well. The plants are commonly found on Big Pine Key and No Name Key, but are in decline. Crotons were historically abundant, but have been in decline due to suppression of fire. We need to do prescribed burns that remove the shrubbery that competes for light and space. That has to happen for this butterfly to survive.The targeted areas include lands to the immediate north of the Winn-Dixie shopping center as well as acreage east of Key Deer Boulevard and just to the north and south of Big Pine Street. Those areas are the same locations where crews did a prescribed burn last August.In the past, the burns were primarily done to preserve pine rockland habitat, which if not burned regularly, will transition to hardwood hammocks. The butterflies, as well as five other plant species, are dependent on open habitat. Scientists speculate there are only about 150 to 200 Bartram’s hairstreak butterflies left in the world. They are only found in pine rockland habitats, which are only found in the Middle Keys and the Everglades. Once the Crotons disappear, then there’s nowhere for the butterflies to lay their eggs and then the butterflies disappear |
| [“14 freaking miles away”] You do have 3 drug stores on Pine Key. Computers go down, parking spaces get taken, Winn Dixie runs out of some items. What we seem to never run out of is whiners. Growing up on Big Pine Key gives some of us a special insight to how much we have here. You live in one of the most beautiful spots on this earth, get happy friend!Judy Garland — Get Happy |
 My kind of politician! |
| [Threat Against The ‘Rackets’] I gave the wife the task of getting several estimates for the FKAA hook up and she called a dozen or more contractor plumbers. Only 2 got back to her and they did not even come to the house, but gave her a price estimate 3 times what I estimate the job is worth. So if FKAA tries to tell me they are going to fine me for not getting the pipe benders ready, I will sue everybody, then dig my own installation with or without a stinking permit. Enough is enough! |
 [Fireworks] I was visited relatives on Big Pine Key and before we came down my cousin said you do things differently down there. I didn’t think he meant changing Independence Day to the 3d! I hope they don’t mess with New Year’s Day because we’re planning on returning for that holiday and would hate to miss the shoe drop on Duval St. |
| [“14 freaking miles away”] I want to share with the poster that I was also at CVS the day their system went down, they were unable to fill my Rx also. |
 [“Oval BPK Stickers”] You can find that sticker, and all the other island stickers, at the Flea Market at Cheryl’s In Paradise. Open Sat and Sun 8-2 until the last weekend in July. Link |
| [“Sea Probe”] Take it apart and see if it belongs to the US Navy or has a sub’s name in it. Be careful of trip wires! |
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| I looked at the crowd at a save the rebel flag protest in South Carolina and they frightened me. I’d never seen so many rednecks in one place before. I was thinking that rednecks are probably the most violence prone segment of our population. They compose most of the militias out west. |
 Who’s more interesting Napoleon or Lincoln? Napoleon, because there have been over 300,000 books written about him and only 15,000 written about Abe. |
| [Big Pot Holes] It would be great if the city of Marathon officials would fill the pot holes at the public free boat ramp on US1 near the Island restaurant in Marathon. Do you think any of them read this site? |
 The City of Key West is proposing to go back to twice weekly garbage pickup because of the smell. Duh! How could they not know that garbage sitting in the Sun for a week would stink to high heaven? |
| [Doing My Part] I accidentally ran over a large iguana on US1. So I am now an official member of the iguana killers club (IKC). |
 Please send one free souvenir token for me. Age 12. Please send one free beer token for my Grandmother and Dad.Thank you, Jocelynn Lindgren, BPK (Hi Jocelynn, Thank you for your stamped, self-addressed envelope. I sent your tokens, but the free beer token is only good if I’m at the bar too. I wasn’t trying to fool you about the beer, I wrote something like that on the Tokens page. hic!) Full Menu > Tokens |
| [Ranking of All 50 States] 50. Florida. When putting together a list such as this, there can be some temptation to defy popular expectations, and go against the grain. However, Florida’s awfulness resume is so staggeringly impressive that it couldn’t go any other way. You were born for this. Embrace it. Link |
 Greeks are all happy and celebratory after thumbing their noses at the Euro community. Just wait until they need a wheelbarrow full of Drachmas to buy an Ouzo. |
| I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different. ~Kurt Vonnegut |
 Man shoots off firework from top of his head, dies instantly. don’t try this at home kids. The latest nominee for the Darwin Award. Video |
| [Boats] For those who live year round in the Keys, do you think you could get through summers without a boat? Does anyone suffer through the hot summers without benefit of getting on the water? Is it possible? I don’t mean to sound insensitive to those who may not be able to afford it, but it’s pretty easy to get into boating with a small runabout with a 40hp motor for not a lot of money. Even a kayak gets you water bound. I’m just wondering how many need or have a boat to get through the long hot summers. |
 When’s Wetstock this year? Tell Flip-Flop Bob that there’s the perfect houseboat to stage the event already parked at Picnic Island. |
We are in need of good homes for Buddy, Cherie, and Sox. The PURR-FECT Thrift Store is closing and we need to find homes for the kitties who live there. You can follow us at: Link. Forgotten Felines of the Florida Keys has announced that the Purr-Fect Thrift Store, located on Overseas Highway in Marathon, will be closing its doors on Thursday, July 30 and will not be reopening. Consequently, effective immediately they will no longer be accepting donations of books and other household items.”We want to thank the people of the Middle and Lower Keys for their support of the store and of Forgotten Felines,” said Karen Liskey, President of the organization. “Without their help, the organization would not be not be able to continue its mission of helping homeless and abandoned cats to lead happy, healthy lives.”
Forgotten Felines is an all volunteer organization which provides food and veterinary care to homeless and abandoned cats in the Middle and Lower Keys. They also place adoptable cats in loving homes and strive to educate the public about the importance of proper care and spay/neuter of pets. In the nearly two decades of its existence, Forgotten Felines has spayed/neutered more than 3,000 cats. They also maintain a number of daily feeding stations which service several hundred homeless cats. Anyone interested in becoming a Forgotten Felines volunteer or who wishes to make a donation should call (305) 743-2520 |
 41,000,000 chickens were infected with avain influenza in the last seven months in the worst U.S. outbreak ever |
| Society has become so fake that the truth actually bothers people. |
 Dr Feelgood’s Wilko Johnson demonstrates his guitar technique. I wish the video had subtitles. Video |
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 [Iguana Sausage] Who knows, maybe that’s not really Sausage In that sausage and mushroom pizza but ground up reptile. Do you know for sure? Unless you bought that pizza frozen at the WD with the ingredients on the box, you really don’t know what they put on it. If you like Gator Bites you’ll like iguana bites. |
| [Laughter Really Is The Best Medicine] It has recently been proven laughter increases the activity of antibodies in the body by 20%, helping destroy viruses and tumor cells. |
 Bill Cosby admitted under oath to buy 7 prescriptions of Quaaludes in order to have sex with women. Up until now he’s denied the accusations of over two dozen women |
| Watch Beyoncé bounce. It’s even more fun with the sound turned off. Video |
 [Fire Safety] Habitat for Humanity partner homeowners at Bayside Landing, Big Coppitt Key attended a Fire Safety presentation given by LT Ryan Johnson, and firefighters Wesley Berry, Jessee Hubman, and Paul Altamuro from the Big Coppitt Key Fire Station. The presentation was given as part of Habitat’s series of home-buyer preparation classes. Some of the topics discussed were the importance of strategically placed smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, family emergency escape plans, and keeping the dryer lint-vents cleaned out. While these 18 new homes at Bayside Landing have hard-wired smoke detectors, there was much discussion about making sure the back-up batteries are changed every six months. LT Johnson’s advice: “When you move your clocks forward or backward – it’s time to change the smoke detector batteries!” Another fire safety class is being scheduled for the Habitat for Humanity homeowners in Big Pine and Ramrod Keys. |
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| [Marathon City Hall] The new city hall looks like a joke. Thin metal studs for the roof and plywood. Are you kidding? They should look at the tiki huts that are better. Take a look at Tarpon Creek or Sunset Grill. Where are the code officials? The walls were blown over once already. Does anyone care?] The new city hall looks like a joke. Thin metal studs for the roof and plywood. Are you kidding? They should look at the tiki huts that are better. Take a look at Tarpon Creek or Sunset Grill. Where are the code officials? The walls were blown over once already. Does anyone care? |
| [False Alarm] Reports of an armed man holding a hostage inside a Duval Street bed and breakfast appear to be false — or at least Key West police never found a caller who phoned them saying he stabbed a woman and was holding his teenage niece captive. |
 [“Hanging City of Shanix”] Seeing that video reminds me of how the Chinese will rule the world by over population. They will not need guns or bombs, just a few more billion people to walk over everybody else. |
| I went to Fat Camp once. Me and 100 other sweaty people in line with bags of cookies and chips and beer and … wait …Walmart. I was at Walmart! |
 Professor Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend. He is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. “Faust was a conjurer and buried in the ground facing up, but then when some troublemakers dug up the body, the body had turned itself facedown, for better entry to Hell.” |
| Six boats were burglarized between Sunday and Monday on Big Pine Key. Numerous GPS units were stolen, as well as lower units from two engines. Most of the boats were docked in canals or on boat lifts behind homes. |
 [Evening Nature Walks] Each program begins at the National Key Deer Refuge Visitor Center, 28950 Watson Blvd., in the Winn-Dixie Plaza on Big Pine Key. Participants should wear sturdy footwear and bring bug spray. The schedule is as follows: Tonight — Marsh Rabbit Scramble, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.; July 14 — Epic Evening Star Program at Nature Trails, 8:30 to 10 p.m.; and July 21 — The Secret Lives of Moths (Butterflies of the Night); 8:30-10 p.m. For information call 305-304-9625. |
| John Wayne in a clip from 1970 on the TV variety show. Video |
 The number of U.S. heroin users has grown by nearly 300,000 over a decade, with the bulk of the increase among whites, according to a new government report. There’s been a 100% increase among woman users. Experts think the increase was driven by people switching from opioid painkillers to cheaper heroin. We can thank the US for protecting poppy growers in Afghanistan. They’ve had bountiful harvests lately.
Heroin — Velvet Underground |
| [Search] According to Google’s own research into our “eye movements,” 53 percent of us don’t go beyond the first two search results, and 89 percent don’t look down past the first page. |
| [Cruise to Cuba] Starting in May, Carnival Corp. plans to offer trips from Miami to the Caribbean island nation, the company announced Tuesday. Carnival says it would become the first American cruise company to visit Cuba since the 1960 trade embargo. The trips will be through its new brand, Fathom, which focuses on trips where passengers sail to a destination in order to volunteer there |
 New from Ronco, the “Urban Selfie Stick“ |
| [Don’t Allow Living Wage] $30,000 a year for flipping burgers? And what will follow? How about $10 loaf of bread, $20 gallon of milk. You think it can’t happen here? Guess again. The owner that had to pay a checkout clerk $15 per hour is going to jack up prices to make a profit. It’s happening now. I commented on the price of skirt steak $9/lb. How about hamburger $4.95/lb, butter $5/lb; and who’s the looser here? It’s the middle class working stiff that’s got two jobs and wife working trying to make ends meet. What about the 52% of Americans on welfare? No problem, the Gov just keeps passing out the free stuff, while the incumbents we keep on reelecting are living it up at our expense. What about the people on fixed incomes? |
 Public shaming had once been a process. A book of Delaware laws revealed that if someone had been found guilty of “lying or publishing false news” in the 1800s, he would have been “fined, placed in the stocks for a period not exceeding four hours, or publicly whipped with not more than forty stripes.” If the judge had chosen a whipping, local newspapers would have published a digest detailing the amount of squirming that had occurred.
” … and Hayden squirmed considerably during the performance, and his back was well-scarred,” wrote the Delawarean of an 1876 whipping. If the whipper had been deemed to have not whipped hard enough, the reviews would have been scathing. “Suppressed remarks were expressed by large numbers. Many were heard to say that the punishment was a farce. Drunken fights and rows followed in rapid succession,” reported Delaware’s Wilmington Daily Commercial after a disappointing 1873 whipping. |
| [Frisked] In 2011 the New York Police Department released figures on how many times their officers had stopped and frisked New Yorkers during the previous year. It was 684,330 times. That was 1,800 stop and frisks each day. Of those 1,800 people according to the New York Civil Liberties Union nearly nine out of ten “have been completely innocent.” |
 [Economic Freedom] In all the years I flew rescue, I never found gringos leaving the US, instead I found gutsy Cubans, who were willing to risk all for their children and families to come here. Not all that tired to come here made it, I have horrid pix to prove it. What I saw changed me, changed my life and it’s direction. No matter how bad you think it is here, the U.S.A. is still a beacon of light and freedom to the world! |
| What the Keys need is either a blog or newspaper called Conch Crap that exposes the truth that is the covered up BS. It is about time the bubbas pay their just dues! |
 [Captain Doom and Gloom] It looks like Trump might be our next President simply because he is a man with enough balls to tell it like it is. The ignorant immigrants don’t like it, because the truth hurts So don’t come here to suck our country dry, go fix your own shithole you lazy mutants!”Minimum Wage” It does not matter how much you pay a drone to flip burgers because their landlords will just jack up the rent and the local ghetto markets will increase prices and the pimps and drugs will go up too! It is all about redistribution on capital and real estate maneuvering.
“Travel” My wife and I have been taking trips to foreign countries by flying, cruising and rail. We just about gave up doing any more of this because there is very little to see that is not over-crowded or not maintained. Most of the people on this planet do not care about anything any more. Then there are the places too scary or dangerous to even think about touring. This list of no-goes is getting bigger every day. It is a sad thing to see your over-populated rock turn into a garbage dump of useless eaters and debris, and I fear it is too late to fix it. Some things about being old are good! |
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| Submit anything of a positive nature, unless it’s breakthrough stuff to island@bigpinekey.com |