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A new correspondent replied to yesterday’s uplifting Guess who came to dinner in the Key West channel-widening “study” referendum yesterday? MRSA in the ocean throughout the Florida Keys post:
This is REALLY good to know Sloan. I plan to go snorkeling on Saturday the 8th on the Fury. Do you think it’s a bad risk for me too?
GYVEL BERKLEY
Printing, Signs & Designs
305-295-2896
www.psandd.net
I wrote back:
Swimming in most places around Key West probably is okay, if you don’t have a nick or a scratch, such as shaving can cause. Back around 2005, or so, an older friend of mine caught MRSA on his face while swimming in the channel in front of his home on Summerland Key, after shaving that morning. He seemed to get over it with antibiotics, which I felt was fortunate for him. I would take a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide with me on the Fury trip, to apply immediately to any new nick or scratch gotten while in the water. And I would not then go back into the water during that trip, nor later, until the nick or scratch was healed over. Until the scratch was healed over, I would apply the iodine/Vaseline home remedy 3 times a day. To make the remedy, buy a bottle of the red iodine tincture, not the white iodine. You need to be able to see it, to know when it is mixed into the Vaseline well. Buy a small jar of Vaseline, generic also okay. Scoop out a small amount of the Vaseline with a spoon, and fill the hole with the red iodine. Then, use a steak knife or a tooth pick to jab around in the iodine and Vaseline, until it the two are mixed well, and the concoction is pinkish. Applying undiluted iodine is too caustic, will eat the skin. The Vaseline provides a buffer and works in a time release way, and it keeps the iodine over the nick or scratch, which allows the iodine to be absorbed into the nick or scratch. Same procedure for a progressed open MRSA sore, but do not apply hydrogen peroxide, as it is too caustic for an open MRSA wound. The hydrogen peroxide and iodine and Vaseline altogether might run $10 +- at CVS or Wallgreen’s. I have heard old timers use regular table vinegar on new cuts and scrapes, to head off MRSA infection. Maybe Fury and other dive-snorkel boats give this advice above to their clients. I don’t know. I have never dived or snorkeled in Key West. I have been in the water at Higgs Beach, at Ft. Zachary Taylor State Park, and at Truman Beach on Truman Waterfront. That was many years ago. I do not go in the water now in the Keys, and I do not want to go into the water. If you ever had MRSA, you would know just how truly terrifying it is, and you would not want to do anything to give it another shot at you.
Gyvel replied:
Very good to know! You’re a wealth of information, thanks.
I wrote back:
Hope it helped, hope you have a good day on Fury and no problems afterward. Share with others what I wrote at goodmorningkeywest.com today, and later to you, if you feel inclined. People should know about MRSA down here, even if they don’t want to worry about it. When I wrote of MRSA maybe a year ago on bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph, which gets more visitors than any blog in the Keys except the who’s been arrested lately page of the Sheriff’s website, I caught a lot of flack and guffaws … until a professional diver wrote into the CT and told the know it alls, or nots, that I had told the truth about the risk of contracting MRSA in Keys waters; it was well known to divers down here. One fellow had written in to the CT about his horror with MRSA, it was all over him, he didn’t have money for antibiotics, he didn’t know what he was going to do. That’s what caused me to chime in there. I had written about MRSA on the CT some years before that, as well. And, I have written about it a few times on my websites, from time to time. Maybe the pretty pictures I used today, starting with the young woman with MRSA on her mouth and chin,
and then the young woman with MRSA over her right eye,
was more attention getting, prelude to the really awful MRSA photos later in the post.
Rick Boettger, of Key West, replied to yesterday’s Guess who came to dinner in the Key West channel-widening “study” referendum yesterday? MRSA in the ocean throughout the Florida Keys post.
Important writing, Sloan. Keep it coming.-Rick
I wrote back:
Hi, Rick -
Important might be in the eye of the beholder.
The person who does civilian contract work at the Navy base, who told me retiring Navy base commander Patrick Lefere hates whistleblowers and unions, and ought to make a great addition to the school district administration therefore, asked me this morning if I was trying to end tourism in Key West and the Keys? I said, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Laughter.
This person had sent me this email before we talked on the phone. This person ain’t big on government being real smart, as you can see.
Senior Living project
Dearest Sloan,
While getting to senior status, in a few years, (i’m 62) at times i thought of living at the senior hi-rise on Kennedy, here in Key West, I would have to jettison my piles of junk/trash to fit in the smaller units that they have. What i’m for tho is many more similar high rises on Stock Island for the over age crowd. (plus a place to park the boat) Not real deluxe and financed with tax free bonds!!!! Can it happen??? Hope so.. soon too. When can I vote…
When I had dinner last night with that person, he told me the city has senior housing for rent, I should get on the list since I’m moving back down to Key West. I said I heard the list had a pretty long wait. He said maybe not. He said they didn’t need a senior living facility on Truman Waterfront. I said yes they did, because the senior living they already have is not upscale and isn’t on the waterfront. He said, that was his point.
He moved out of Truman Annex because they didn’t like his dog and his pickup truck. When he lived in Truman Annex, he saw repair vehicles all the time in front of other residences. He figured out it was the Truman Waterfront residents’ pastime to remodel their homes, having nothing better to do. More about him later in this post, where he is known as GS 11.
Moving over to the school district, Larry Murray sent an attachment, with this note:
The latest and greatest in strategic planning.
I opened the attachment, which began:
Monroe County Schools – Strategic Plan
Motto:
“Charting the Course to Change”
· Next Generation Sunshine State Standards to Common Core
· FCAT to PARCC
· Textbooks to Digital
· Hard wired to B.Y.O.D.
· Local to Global
· College to College and Career Ready
· One size fits all to Individualized Instruction
· Grade and subjects to Standards-based
· Financial setbacks to Financial solvency
· Mistrust to Trust
· Elected to Appointed
· Management to Leadership
· Teaching to Learning
Mission:
Charting the Course for Change
An ever-changing and diverse world will require students to adapt, to learn new skills, to analyze challenges, and to overcome obstacles.
I didn’t have the heart to put the whole thing up here; I don’t expect readers to read what I don’t read.
I wrote back to Larry:
I gave up shortly into it; blah, blah, blah.
The motto, “Charting the Course to Change”, sounds sort of like Obama’s “Change, Hope”; blah, blah, blah.
Action speaks heap louder that words; I wonder how much taxpayer money that noise cost? blah, blah, blah.
Actually, Larry, I really don’t give a shit. I quit really giving a shit when I realized over a year ago that the school district was terminally dysfunctionally insane and needed to be taken over by the state and each school needed to go charter and get out from under the yoke of the inmates running that wing of The State Mental. blah, blah, blah.
Darn was I disappointed when I woke up this morning and was still here, surrounded by oceans of shit. blah, blah, blah. Only way I know to cope is to make as big a joke out of it as possible.
a bleah, and a bleah, and a bheah, and that’s all for now ….
Daffy
Larry replied:
I consider such things as cliché ridden “Strategic Plans” as so much mental masturbation, a lot of fun but not very profitable. Blah, blah, blah….
——————————-
My recollection is, school board member Robin Smith-Martin made heap rumpus about the school district needing a strategic plan.
My recollection also is, Larry made heap rumpus about the school district needing a long term financial plan.
My take on long term was, and is, the school district needs to raise taxes for operations, and until that happens,the number one problem in the schools, low teacher morale, will not improve. The number one problem in the school district away from the schools - dysfunctionally terminally insane - is defined in various ways above and below, and in past comic strips about the school district.
Also from Larry yesterday, it came kind of jumbled, so jumbled it remains. Fishandy is school board chairman Andy Griffiths, now in his 7th term, I believe, on the school board. 4 years per term.
Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 15:28:17 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Very Interesting Contract-Something Else
To: andy@fishandy.com
It occurs to me if the intention all along was to offer a two year contract so that the new COO and superintendent would have the same tenure, why was that not included in the advertising? More importantly, according to your argument that multi-year contracts are necessary to attract people, I again ask why was the contract length not included in the employment advertisement? It appears that the decision to offer a two year contract was an after the fact decision.
Can you explain to me why a two year contract is acceptable, but a three year contract is not?
Dr. Larry Murray
Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate
From: Lawrence Murray <citizenlarry007@yahoo.com>
To: “andy@fishandy.com” <andy@fishandy.com>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: Very Interesting Contract
“I did hear Porter say that at the meeting.” Say what? That the two year contract was intended to synchronize with his?
I think that you know that I do not believe that the District need offer multi-year contracts to attract people to move to Key West. Hell, Key West is paradise and people move here every day, many with no prospect of employment when they arrive. To the contrary, I would argue that the opportunity for a job in Key West is an attraction in itself.
IMHO-? What does that mean-I do not know text-speak?
Dr. Larry Murray
Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate
From: “andy@fishandy.com” <andy@fishandy.com>
To: Lawrence Murray <citizenlarry007@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 5:00 PM
Subject: Re: Very Interesting Contract
Larry:
I did hear Porter say that at the meeting. That was one of the first things he said. You know I have an ear for the “reasonable” and an aversion for the unreasonable. After Ed’s speech (and my reaction) everything was sucked out of the air and when it came time for the vote Porter did not offer anything further. That is what stuck with me. I was very close to voting with John (which would have become a 3:2 nay) but after Ed’s speech I just couldn’t do it. Then unexpectedly Ed voted with me. This 2 year contract does not legally set any precedent that I am aware but I believe to get people to move here (and I know this is not true in Lafere’s case) it may take a 2 year contract which I find more palatable than a 3 year contract. I do not think current staff needs to have a multiple year contract. They serve at the pleasure of the superintendent. So I don’t agree that a pandora’s box has been opened. Much ado about nothing IMHO.
Andy
On 5/31/2013 3:24 PM, Lawrence Murray wrote:
Andy:
I listened to your interview today with Ezra Marcus on “Morning Magazine”. When you got around to discussing the appointment of Capt. Pat Lefere, I thought you made a very interesting comment. When Ezra asked you about the reasoning for a two year appointment, something that John Dick opposed and voted accordingly, you said that that was done so that Lefere’s tenure would be the same as the superintendent.
While I do not necessarily agree, I found your explanation to be reasonable. What confuses me is why Superintendent Porter did not make that point when questioned by John. He is reported in the press as simply saying that he thought a two year appointment was “appropriate” with no further explanation.
If Superintendent Porter thought that parallel terms were “appropriate”, why did he not simply say so? Or, do we have an after the fact explanation/justification for a contract term that drew some criticism? So, is it the chicken or the egg?
Pursuing your comment further, should we expect that the appointments of a new HR Director and a new Executive Director of Finance will also be two year terms? Logic suggests such. If that is the case, I think that both the candidates and the public should be so informed.
Again, following the same logic, will other members of the “Executive Leadership Team” also be given two year contracts?
Seems like the Lefere appointment may have opened something of a Pandora’s Box of expected or unexpected consequences.
Larry
Dr. Larry Murray
I wrote to Andy and Larry:
I am far more concerned about what I was told by a civilian contract employee at the Navy base [GS 11] - that Lefere ain’t no friend of whistleblowers or union officials or employees. I am wondering why that was not discussed in plain view at the last school board meeting, where Lefere got the green light from the school board. I am wondering why I still am unaware of US 1 Radio, The Citizen and the Keynoter not going into that more good news “rumor” about Lefere. Still looks to me like it was rigged.
I received this invitation from you today, Andy:
book
|
I might start clicking “like”, Andy, if you get rid of The Griffiths Rule and that river in Egypt.
Sloan
The Griffiths Rule is, “Praise in public, criticize in private.” The river in Egypt is, de Nile.
Andy replied to me only:
My apologies Sloan,
The invite was sent in error. I invited my local friends on Facebook to like/join my page and did not realize you were on of my Facebook friends.
Andy
I wrote back to Andy:
The invite was not sent in error, Andy; I was supposed to receive it. Connect the dots to the rest of what I received about you today. Nice job of totally dodging, again, what I was told about Lefere by someone who knows. In my line of work, dodges are admissions against interest; verification of the truth of the “allegations”.
——————————-
I bet Andy is doing joyous backflips over the editorial cartoon in The Key West Citizen today - www.keysnews.com, which I cannot reproduce, but the gist is: a high school grad is flipping burgers in a McDonalds, Burger King, or whatever, and an old amiga from high school comes in, who has just graduated from college, looking for work flipping burgers.
————————————————-
I had dinner last night with the someone who knows, GS 11. Kinda up there. Not counting his government salary, he’s pulling down over $400,000 a year from interests predating his move to the Keys. You’d never know it, if he didn’t tell you. He told me last night, in high school, he was the nerd who always had a radio in his shirt pocket. I have a feeling he knows where all the bodies are buried on the Navy base, and they know he knows where all the bodies are buried, and they leave him alone.
Over dinner at the Moose Lodge on Big Pine Key, GS 11 regaled me with stories, as he always does, of his life before he moved to Key West.
How he got tied up with the US Military started when he was 18 and had a job driving a soft drink manufacturer’s truck, and he received an induction notice. He went in to see what that was about, and was given the option of fixing radios or shooting Vietnamese. Being a nerd, he chose fixing radios, which he’s being doing ever since, and more than radios, which has something to do with him knowing where all the bodies are buried at the Navy base.
GS 11 has about the same opinion I do of the school district, an opinion I am learning is held by other people.
Last night, GS 11 persuaded me to fill out an application to be a moose, which I did, albeit reluctantly, after he had told me the stuffed moosehead on the wall is like the stuffed moosehead on the wall of the other 4 Moose Lodges in the Keys, and like the stuffed moosehead in maybe 2000 Moose Lodges throughout Florida. When I roughly calculated how many mooseheads were in all the 50 states Moose Lodges, and GS 11 assured me there are still lots of mooses in Canada and Alaska. I felt good hearing that.
GS 11 said mooses, not moose - he had lived in Alaska, so I figured he knew how to say it properly.
When GS 11 looked over my application and remarked that I had answered No to the question, Are you a terrorist? I said, I didn’t figure I should tell them about goodmorningkeywest.com and goodmorningfloridakeys.com. GS 11 nodded approval, although the fellow running the mooses show last night said he knew me from my websites, and from my knowing Sandy Downs, whom he said he had known a long time.
When GS-11 saw I had written down for my employer, God, and for my job description, slave, he said I would fit right in with the mooses . On the application, a requirement to be a moose is you believe in a Supreme Being.
I forgot to ask if they served Moose Drool. I learned about that beer hitchhiking through Montana in late August 1999. I will have to speak to the Mooses about that first out, if they admit me. No self-respecting Moose Club should not be well-supplied with Moose Drool, which I like better than Moosehead, which is that foreign beer made in Canada where lots of mooses still roam.
Dinner with GS 1, along with my having totally spaced it out, foreclosed my attendance at this event reported in The Key West Citizen this morning, my interjected thoughts in italics, photos also my contribution:
Anti-dredging party thrown
BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com
Key West’s organized, well-funded effort to defeat the Oct. 1 voter referendum on whether to ask for a study on widening the main ship channel — to better accommodate cruise ships — threw itself a bash Friday to kick off an anti-dredging campaign.
“We’re going to have a long summer in front of us,” said Jolly Benson, chairman of the Key West Committee for Responsible Tourism, an anti-study political action committee that recently formed. “You’re going to hear it at the coffee shops, the bars.”
The PAC opened with about $27,000 in personal donations; on Friday it signed up dozens of supporters, asked for $10 donations in exchange for T-shirts pleading, “Vote No. Protect the sanctuary. Keep dredging illegal,” and rallied the troops.
If you really want to rally the troops, add these to the front and back of the next T-shirt run.
“We’re going to say we’ve had enough and we’re not going to let you rip up our ecosystem to benefit six people,” said Benson, 31, a native Key Wester who runs a stage lighting company and writes plays.
The pro-study movement in Key West has its own PAC, named after the Chamber of Commerce but run independently from the nonprofit chamber, organizers say.
Yeah, right, run independently.
At stake is the island’s economic vitality that requires a steady stream of cruise ship passengers, the pro-study crowd says, while the opposition says the study is the next step to sending in the dredging crews.
The island’s economic vitality failed years ago, with the pollution of the neighboring ocean and the dying off of the reef.
While pro-study business owners promise a financial disaster if cruise ship passenger numbers continue to decline, the group at Friday’s gathering says dredging the channel would amount to nothing less than an environmental disaster.
The environmental disaster happened when the first cruise ship was allowed to call on Key West. Widening the channel will allow even more and bigger cruise ships to call on Key West.
Friday’s party drew heavily from Key West’s art community, including native Debra Yates, gallery owners Helen and Ben Harrison, poet Arlo Haskell, shop owner Lois Songer and writer and bird-watching expert Mark Hedden. But it also attracted City Commissioner Jimmy Weekley and former County Commissioner Shirley Freeman, who was asked to say a few words at the makeshift stage.
“We’re going to beat the cruise ship dredging!” Freeman said. “Good for us. Let’s give ourselves a big cheer.”
I wonder if Shirley and Jimmy opposed the first cruise ship being allowed to call on Key West?
They did, in between sips of beer and bites of free appetizers, which included a version of the Reuben sandwich deep-fried and also a vegetarian one, in which beets made up the meaty part.
Conch fritters also made an appearance.
The friendly partygoers bobbed and weaved with familiarity.
The fact that Key West includes families who depend on tourism wasn’t discounted by attendees.
“Key West needs to diversify its economy,” said Tom Milone, a political watchdog who serves on the volunteer-appointed Citizen Review Board, created to look into reports of police misconduct.
“We need to aggressively lobby the Navy to expand down here, with more military and more civilian jobs,” said Milone.
Yeah, we need lots more thunderous F-18s flying overhead driving the poor folks living on the Atlantic side of Key West insane, and lots more warships, generally known as the worst water polluters around, except for cruise ships, making port of calls. And, what about Sandy Downs allegations that the Navy seeds the atmosphere over the Keys with aluminium compound, to try to control the weather? Tom, you get all of my posts. I am pretty sure you read most of them. You know
what would seriously boost Key West’s economy, with zero negative environmental fallout, and no advertising costs, word of mouth would promote it, would be to for the city to designate the upper half of Smathers Beach clothing-optional. You know nudists from the American mainland, Canada, and beyond, would make Key West a favored port of call, and you know they would spend heaps more money in Key West than half-day cruise ship passengers.
A few minutes later, activist Erika Biddle captured Milone’s attention by asking him to dip her as if embraced in a waltz. Milone complied.
Preaching to the choir is only the start, Benson told the crowd, urging them to seek out those who say they don’t care and start a real conversation about the island’s natural resources.
“We need to make them care,” Benson said, wrapping up his brief speech with a final plea comparing his charges to what he called a “stodgy” pro-study contingent:
Stop uttering platitudes and show them the cruise ship tearing up the channel bottom photo and the editorial cartoon and the MRSA photos above.
“And let’s have more fun then they do!”
Fun? You are doing this to have fun? You’d better be doing it as if your very life depends on it. This is a dirty mean war, and you better get over that bubbly political correct one human family nonsense. What you label stodgy love growing greener every day
and you are trying to take that away from them. What you label stodgy view you as enemies of the state, and will treat you like a school of barracuda treat a school of mullet.
Probably a good thing I dined with GS 11 and the mooses last night. No darn telling what I might have upped and said, and did, if I had been at that fun anti-dredging party, although I wouldn’t have minded dipping Erika Biddle and Shirley Freeman.
Sloan Bashinsky
keysmyhome@hotmail.com