I met yesterday with Phil Shannon, founder of Citizens Not Serfs, and Law Fellow John November, at Phil’s home on Summerland Key. I’m glad we met there, instead of at a local restaurant, because we were able to speak freely about a variety of subjects, not all of which would have been appropriate (in my estimation) in a pubic place. The meeting was amicable for the most part, and we covered a lot of territory during the two hours.
I was disappointed to learn from Phil that he does not own a home with an “illegal downstairs enclosure.” I had hoped he would lead the charge in federal court on behalf of all owners of Keys homes with illegal downstairs enclosures, but he has no legal standing to do that. The upside of that is that, not owning a a home with an “illegal downstairs enclosure” frees Phil from any conflict of interest on that issue, when he goes before bodies such as the Monroe County Commission to speak in behalf of owners of homes with “illegal downstairs enclosures.” Phil and I, and John, are in agreement that previous county commissions and code enforcement caused this problem, by not enforcing code rules, and we are in agreement that the currenty county commission is perpetuating the problem, instead of solving it.
I told Phil and John that this county commission ought to file its on federal lawsuit, bringing Monroe County, FEMA and owners of homes with “illegal downstairs enclosures” into the case as interested parties. I said the commissioners ought to confess the county government’s previous sins to the judge, and ask the judge to do what is best for all parties. I said this is what I would try to get the county commission to do, if I was on it. I also said I doubted this county commission would do that, because it was afraid of the county’s liability costs, and because it would rather dodge the issue altogether. Phil and John seemed to like the idea of that kind of lawsuit, and seemed to agree with my assessment of this county commission.
I told them, in order for any real change to occur in our county government, we first need commissioners who are not in any way swayed by outside interests or other people. They have to be willing to make a lot of people unhappy and kill their chances of being reelected, to be the commissioners we need to turn this county government around. I said, so far, it looks to me that we have one such commissioner, Kim Wigington. We need four more like her, I said.
I gave an example of a candidate for the District 4 county commission seat now held by incumbent commissioner Mario Di Gennaro. Candidate Mike Forster served a term on the Islamorada City Council. He did not run for reelection because stances he had taken on city issues how cost him a lot of local business at his restaurant in Islamorada. I learned of this from one of Mike’s best friends, who agreed with me that it made no sense for Mike to run for the county commission, if he was vulnerable to such outside pressure.
When I spoke to Mike about this at the recent Hometown PAC call to candidates in Key West, he admitted this had been a problem for him, but he said it would not be a problem in the future. I said I was not persuaded; he had already demonstrated it was a problem, and I was not willing to take his word against what he had already proven. We simply do not need anyone in an elected office who is vulnerable to outside pressure, whether it’s a private business, whether it’s a political party, whether it’s family or friends or business interests. What we need on the county commission are commissioners who are bullet proof, who owe nobody anything, and who are not trying to get themselves reelected.
I told Phil and John that I watched commissioners George Neugent and Heather Carruthers give him and Citizens Not Serfs and Commissioner Di Gennaro hell at the Key Largo County commission meeting about two months ago, when Mario put forward a resolution asking the commission to respectfully ask FEMA to lift its pilot which applies only to the Florida Keys, and henceforth for FEMA to treat the Keys the same as it treats all other parts of the United States. I told Phil and John that George and Heather fought Mario’s resolution throughout the discussion, but in the end they voted Yes. I said it was clearly political. George and Heather only voted yes because they didn’t want to lose popularity. They did not support Mario’s resolution, not even when they voted Yes. Phil and John seemed to agree.
I also said Danny Coll is Citizens Not Serfs candidate in that race, because he is the only candidate in the two county commission races (District 2 and District 4) who owns and home with an “illegal downstairs enclosure.” Phil and John did not agree with me, and we did not agree about other things yesterday. But who else would Citizens Not Serfs want to see replace George Neugent in the District 2 race, but someone who owns a home with an “illegal downstairs enclosure.” Especially, after CNS received what appeared to be a favorable indication from a Florida Ethics Commission staff attorney, that Danny would not have a conflict of interest on downstairs enclosure items that came before the county commission, because of the huge number of people (7,000-plus) who own such homes in the Keys. About Ten percent of the Keys population.
I told Phil and John, unless something happens to George Nugent, like a heart attack or getting caught in bed with his neighbor’s wife, he will have no trouble defeating Danny in the Republican primary, if I run as an independent candidate. For if I run, the Republican primary will be closed only to registered Republicans, and George has huge support in the local Republican party. Meaning, if I file, and I see no way that isn’t going to happen, if I’m still breathing, it will be another George & Sloan show in the general election. George the Republican, who is blind in his allegiance to the Republican Party, who is blind in his allegiance to Ocean Reef Club, I said yesterday. George, who does not want Keys people to know which fat cats are buying him lunch and dinner and drinks. George vs. the lunatic and liar.
I wonder if George is fully behind Florida Hometown Democracy’s Amendment 4 on this year’s ballot? An amendment which, if passed, will put final say-so for any changes to any Florida county’s Comprehensive Plan into the hands of the voters at the next general election. An amendment which will strip all county commissions in Florida of the ability to change their county’s Comprehensive Plan with the approval of the Florida Department of Community Affairs, or, if DCA is disbanded by lack of state funding, without DCA’s approval. I wonder if George will come out in public support of Amendment 4? I wonder if any candidate for the county commission in the Keys, other than this lunatic and liar, will do that? I already did it. I did it because I know Amendment 4 is the only real way to stop our and any Florida county commission from giving developers what they want.
I did not talk about Amendment 4 with Phil and John yesterday. My oversight. I hope Citzens Not Serfs will lobby hard for its passage in this year’s general election. It will strip our county commissions and developers of their ability to rule over Keys citizens like they are serfs.
On an entirely different front are three Alabama readers’ comments to recent drivels:
No advice, but can you read Psalm One, and make it mesh with your last paragraph (not the p.s.)?
Psalm 1: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
I replied that I felt more like an irreverent and disrepectful Job.
Sloan,
Someone on the Montgomery Advertiser online posted a link to your site in a response to the story about your brother’s death. I was intrigued by the story, so I went to your website and began reading your posts. I have been completely hooked ever since, and was annoyed when your website went down for a few days. Your writing about your current and past life fascinate me. I would appreciate you writing about how your “abduction” occurred, or point me to a page if you have already written about it. I would also like to obtain a copy of Heavy Wait, but I get the impression they are hard to come by. Could you telll me where I might find one? Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy reading your posts.
Nathan
I wrote back to Nathan that I saw online day before yesterday where “Heavy Wait” can be ordered from the online print-to-order publisher: PublishAmerica.com, and that I had tried what I’m about to suggest, and it seemed to work.
Go to PublishAmerica.com; then go to the online bookstore page in the upper horizontal menu and click on it; then type “Heavy Wait” into the “search” space further down that page; and then complete the order. It’s a trade paperback, about 222 pages. $19.95, plus shipping and handling, coming in just under $28 total, if I figured the shopping cart correctly.
I just received a reply back from Nathan saying he had ordered Heavy Wait using that method.
In reply to an earlier post, about a friend of mine dreaming of seeing angels put me into a very hot fire, looked like a volcano, was this comment:
“The point” (and don’t stop fighting) is that you have pure intentions, written by Carolyn Black ~ the fire dream can mean purifying. It could be illumination, transformation or revelation. It could also mean your ‘pure intentions’ are coming through to others. You strip off the layers of political jargon and jump into the fire about every week in Key West. I don’t usually get into other people’s dream interpretations, however, before I read today’s post I was aware of and thinking the same things Carolyn wrote in her e-mail and decided to respond to not only what she wrote, but also what you posted about the dream your friend had about you and the fire. And I agree with Carolyn about the beach trips, the memories of the past. Grayton Beach, Destin, Gulf Shores and the others.
My asleep dreams about other people are not usually about those people and what they do in the dream. Those asleep dreams for me are about the things of action in the dream. My awake dreams about people are highly accurate and sometimes make me unhappy or uneasy. But those are about the people or the people around them, in their family, etc.
I think you are being purified and not punished. Or the pure part of your intentions are being revealed or are about to be revealed. OK, purification can be painful. But it’s not about the pain. You know that. And remember, not everyone is being awakened now. You are. Parts of the awakening are painful, feels like punishment, but are not only for our own good, but also for the good of others.
Also, I want to let you know I had ordered ‘Heavy Wait’ about a month ago and it arrived in the mail Friday. I finished it last night. Could hardly put it down and if my eyes had cooperated a little longer I could have gotten through it in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday.
I enjoyed it very much, laughed out loud (heartily) many times and enjoyed the twists and turns and surprises. I think you should write another novel soon. And I can say, I would look forward to reading it. For now I think I will read, ‘Kill All The Lawyers.’
Thanks, Louise.
My asleep dreams about other people usually are representational, symbolic, bearing information for me about something I’m dealing with when I’m awake. Yet sometimes my asleep dreams are about the people in the dreams, and bear messages for me about my dealings with those people. Stuff that just comes to me out of the blue about other people, when I’m awake, is always accurate, although sometimes I might put a different spin on it than was intended by the provider of the revelation, and that has to be adjusted. That happens seldom, but it sometimes does happen.
Purification is horrible and often does feel like punishment. This is what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews was trying to tell her audience. Right before I learned of my brother going missing, our father came to me in a dream and told me I would spend a year in Australia. (I wrote about that twice before, as I recall.) I awoke very unhappy. In my dreams, Austrialia means down under, that is, in the subconscious, the basement, the downstairs enclosure, the skeleton closet, the blocked out, the denial — mine and other people’s. No way do I want to spend a solid year down under, but so far, it’s playing out and the physical rigor accompanying it has been awful. It looks outwardly like I’m coasting, loafing, enjoying stirring up trouble with what I write most days. Inwardly, I’m gasping for breath, wishing I was dead.
I’m glad you enjoyed “Heavy Wait.” You must be crazy. I wrote about that tale today, not yet knowing of your comment to which I am now responding. I usually get a notice in my email account of a new comment but had not received notice of yours. Something “told” me a little while ago to check the comments, and voila, I found yours.
I already wrote a book once, entiled “Kill All the Lawyers? – A Client’s Guide to Hiring, Firing, Using and Suing Lawyers.” That was before I was shanghaied in 1987, my farewell to the practice of law. Nothing like “Heavy Wait,” which was from the spiritual dimension. More like something Ralph Nader might have written in 1985, “Kill All the Lawers?” was. “Heavy Wait” killed a few lawyers, though, and I imagine it would kill a lot more, if lawyers were to read it. A different kind of killing, of course . . .
What I sometimes wondered was, would I wrote a sequel to it? I started something last year that was so bizarre it was just creeping out of me, instead of flowing like “Heavy Wait” had. Meaning, because of the creeping, it was really bizarre. Even so, my dreams were supporting it, and then someone stole my backpack with my laptop in it out of the Internet Cafe where I was playing chess, and that was the end of the sequel, because the back up disk was in the laptop. I had part of of the frolic backed up on one of my websites, but I don’t think I could have reconstructed the parts that were not there, and it went by the wayside.
Maybe I should write a novel entilted “Kill all the Humans.” Not necessarily in the gun and bullet sense exactly, but probably some of them might be better off to be taken out that way. A few names come to mind. One is our current president, whom I sent through the Star Gate to parts unknown, in the lost novel, after I somehow ended up becoming president; but not through any constitutional process, as by then most of the New England and the northern border states had been annexed by Canada, after terrorist dirty bomb attacks in various strategic financial centers and Washington D.C. had destroyed the American financial system and its government, except for Nancy Pelosi and President-elect Obama, who were not in D.C. when the Chinese did the deed and disguised it to look like Osama bin had done it.
20,000,000 Americans in the northern states froze do death or died of starvation the first year following the attack, while a mass migration south saved many more Americans. Those survivors who stayed up north were happy to become Canadians.
Like I said, it was a bizarre sequel, and I didn’t even tell any of the bizarre parts here. What I told were the normal parts .
I wonder how long the Board of Directors will let me keep this reply up on this website?
No, I have no plans to shoot President Obama, or hire someone else to shoot him. Not in a human way, anyway. I shoot him plenty with my pen, though. Not to be accused of racial discrimination, or political party discrimination, I did the same thing with his unworthy predecessor on the Offal Office. And with that one’s father, “Read My Lips.” Maybe if I wasn’t on this planet any more, this would be a lot funnier. The angels surely must keep wondering what we humans are going to do next, to screw everything up.
Sloan
Postscript: I corrected my residence yesterday on the home page of goodmorningkeywest.com. It was still showing I lived in Key West. Six weeks ago, the Board of Directors moved me back to Little Torch Key, so I could loon and lie in George Neugent’s voting district, again.