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2018 May

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

The-Coconut-Telegraph-w-CoconutsLetters to the editor with pictures since 0202. Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.​​​

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[Woods Fires & Homeless] Do the go together? Big Pine has changed much over the last 50 years. Most in the last 10 or so. What has not changed is the homeless. Big Pine Key has more that its share of woods and people living off the land (I guess I should say off Winn Dixie’s dumpster). Inadvertently W/D feeds many homeless on out of date everything. The camp sites are all within walking distance of W/D. Some are more like compounds with groups of homeless. Hence the issue of cooking fires. Without prescribed burns & enforcing laws that are on the books regarding camping, vagrancy & trespass, it’s just a matter of time before something very bad happens. Big Pine is a very special Key, we have local, state & federal officers here. I think it’s time we all had a very hard look at what can be done before it’s too late.
Johnsons-7.7.16

 

[Canal Sweeper] The catamaran powerboat slowly maneuvered into the oceanside Tavernier basin, its twin hulls swallowing a swath of floating seagrass. The main focus of the sweep was to keep seagrass and seaweed from clogging canals. Floating marine vegetation pushed by wind and tides into Florida Keys canal systems often stays there, eventually degrading into a threat to water quality. The rotting vegetation also can stink up a neighborhood. Link

[Two People You Should Never Trust] A religious leader who tells you how to vote, and a politician who tells you how to pray.

 

 

[Aging Gracefully] Tango anyone? Video

[Aging Gracelessly] You’re only as old as you feel, which would make me crappy years old.
Crime Stoppers of Miami-Dade and the Florida Keys has received 1,686 tips leading to the arrest of 52 criminals so far this year.

The nonprofit is based on the concept of giving residents an opportunity to be involved anonymously in the fight against crime, and to earn money should their tip lead to an arrest. The group recently received the Monroe County Commission’s blessing to apply for grants to be used within the Keys. Link

 

[Stamp Out Hunger] Please donate a bag of non-perishable groceries (at your mailbox) for the letter carriers Stamp Out Hunger campaign, Saturday, May 12. It’s always on the 2nd Saturday in May.

(Ed: The CT will be published a few hours later because I’m in a different time zone – not by choice – for a while.)
[Who Am I] If what other people think of you, what you think of yourself, and who you actually are ever met, the three of you wouldn’t recognize each other.
[Canal Obstructed] Residents along a Lower Matecumbe Key canal worry it could be a long time before they can safely navigate into the Atlantic Ocean. “We need help,” Robert Moser, president of the Lower Matecumbe Beach Property Owners Association, said last Friday. Hurricane Irma, which struck the Florida Keys nearly eight months ago, pushed “sand, gravel and soil” into the only entrance of a dog-leg canal near mile marker 74, Moser said. Link
SPAM was born on July 5, 1937, in Austin, Minnesota, the home of Hormel headquarters and the SPAM museum. Eight pounds of SPAM die in every Chamorro (Guam) stomach each year, which is more per capita than any other ethno-intestinal tract in the world. Motto: “Guam is Where the Impure Pork Products of America Begin! Link

[Safe Walking] Please follow these simple rules for your safety and the safety of drivers. Walk facing oncoming traffic – on the left side of the road. This gives the best chance to see traffic approaching and allows you to take evasive action when needed. Cycle with traffic – on the right side of the road, in the same direction of traffic flow. Please folks, it’s not like the rules have just gone into play.  Adults especially should already know the rules.  It always amazes me when I see parents with young children doing this wrong, all the while teaching their kids nothing about bike safety.

[Big Pine Fire] As most of us suspected, it appears one of our local bums (excuse me, I mean homeless persons) started the fire that burned nearly a hundred acres of our island.  This is becoming a regular thing having occurred a number of times over the last several years.  The earlier fires were a nuisance, but this one destroyed someone’s house.  It could just as easily have killed someone.  It’s past time for something to be done about this problem before it’s too late.

 

 

 

[Tricycles] Isn’t she too old to be riding a tricycle? Link

[Fair Housing] What Ben Carson gets wrong about fair housing. Housing policy that emphasizes “self-sufficiency” creates the illusion that where people live is solely their choice. Link
[What country does country music come from] A country where skinny guys all wear big hats, affect an accent, play guitar, and whine through their noses to three chord melodies. And where the women all have big hair, smoke and are always pregnant. The late-great drummer Buddy Rich summed it up nicely in the following clip. Video

 

 

[Water] There is nothing more important than water. Humanity lived for thousands of years before the wheel, electricity, gun powder, oil, gas, and politicians, but cut our water and we only last three to five days! Think about that. Now run out and buy a hand filter pump. Video

[Marketplace] I can sell my Lower Keys property for $550,000 to Snowbirds, but $800,000 or more to invaders. Guess who your new neighbor will be?
[Key Deer Herd] Please find attached a response from the US Fish and Wildlife Service South Florida Ecological Services Office and Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges to your recent inquiry to us about Key deer. Thank you for your response and concern for the Key Deer.  ~Clark, Daniel Key Deer Inquiries
A big thanks to Jack Watson and the other bubbas who back in the ‘50s went up to the ‘Glades to capture and relocate the small deer to build up the diminishing herd on Big Pine Key. If it wasn’t for the ‘horned puppies’, the bunnies and the butterflies, Big Pine Key would look just like that massive project on Knights Key. Pritam Singh vowed to turn the Keys into another Cape Cod and he has slowly succeeded one project after another. The only thing keeping him and his County Commission is those cute Bambis tearing up the yard.
[Pretty Cold Night] -33° when we turned out at 8 a.m. Getting our gear and dogs more or less into order was cold work, and we started in the minus thirties and a head wind. The dogs were mad–stark, staring lunatics! All we could do was hang on to the sledge and let them go. There wasn’t a chance to get them to go back, turn them, or steer them. Once I was dragged with my foot pinned under my driving-stick, which was itself jammed in the grummet. Several times I only managed to catch on anywhere to the sled. This went on for six or seven miles, and then they got better.”    ~The Worst Journey in the World
Don’t like illegal immigrants taking American jobs in the Keys? Know of an establishment who hires them under the table? Are you aware of a trailer full of illegals in your neighborhood? The question is at the heart of the furious debate over immigration that has divided the country and polarized the presidential race. Many American workers, struggling to recover from the recession, have said they feel squeezed out by immigrants. Fill out this form and let’s help American jobs go to Americans. Link

Making the best use of small spaces.

[Tracking Us] Today’s spam emails are encouraging me to buy either a screw driver set or a marine diesel engine. How do these advertising companies so accurately assess what I need? It’s like they’re inside my head.
A waterspout damaged floating and permanent docks and three catamarans at the Key West Community Sailing Center in Garrison Bight and did minor damage to three other vessels this weekend
Isaksen-2.2016
The new 40 foot height building rule will make it easier for the developers to stack the factory built junk housing 3 high plus the stilts, and let all the new low renters enjoy the views we once had.

[Winn Dixie] Oscar Meyer Jumbo hot dogs 98 cents. Weekly ad. Link

Watch diver perform expressive 6-minute dance in one breath at world’s deepest pool. Video
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