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Let’s begin today’s feast and famine with this hilarious drop dead on the money cartoon in today’s every Friday online edition of Key West the Newspaper (www.thebluepaper.com), the artist is blue paper co-publisher Arnaud Girard:
Today’s blue paper contains a documentary prepared by Arnaud and his wife Naja:
The White, the Black, the Blue and His Dog
This week Blue Paper reporters stumbled across a very secretive drug interdiction operation in the Florida Keys.
And what we discovered is a trove of information that brings us closer to understanding the issue of racial profiling in the Keys.
The operation was called, “Blue Lightening Strike Force.”
It took place on March 19, 2015 on US 1 just outside of Key West.
Now let’s drift over to a homeless frolic forward from our previous State Attorney Dennis Ward, now in the private practice of law:
News Feed
Slidell, Louisiana Police say they get complaints about panhandlers all the time, but when they arrested 59-year-old Franklin Jones, there was more to the story.
They posted a photo of Jones on Facebook, along with a caption which reads, in part:
Transients, also known as beggars or homeless, are often a hot topic of debate for Slidell residents. There are people who feel these individuals all need to be arrested. Some feel they should offer help. Literally, every day, someone either calls Slidell police or sends us a message on Facebook asking us to do something about this problem.
While begging isn’t against the law, police say they arrested Jones for stealing a shopping cart and urinating in front of a mom and her little girl.
Once he was taken into custody, officers just had to share what was in his pockets on the department’s Facebook page, which has since been blocked or removed:
Image Credit: Facebook
Officers found $800 in Jones’ pockets from less than a week on a corner begging.
Slidell Police used the two posts to talk about homelessness and the difficult decision the department faces in such situations:
We continue to offer help, but when you can make $800 in less than a week by “begging,” some people say, “Why get a real job?” We’ve found jobs for people. We’ve offered assistance by bringing some of these individuals to rehab facilities. Bottom line is, it’s up to the individual person if they want help or not.
They continued:
What do you expect us to do? Just ignore it? If we did that you would have some people outraged that the police “aren’t doing their job”. If we do arrest someone for this we have people claiming we are “harassing” them, or “wasting tax payers dollars by putting them in jail for such a minor offense”, or “humiliating them by posting this on Facebook”. No matter what action we take, some will agree and some will disagree. It is what it is.
Jones’ money, by the way, is his to keep.
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Sloan Bashinsky I need to go study under this guy.
Now let’s migrate to a Facebook thread started yesterday by a Birmingham, Alabama fellow, Birmingham is my home town:
A research group conducted an international study among college students, asking them to rank 40 historical figures positively or negatively. The study is called “‘Heroes’ and ‘Villains’ of World History Across Cultures.” In the final ranking, former US President George W. Bush was ranked as the 4th most evil, more villainous than Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong.
The top of the list, ranked as most heroic were unsurprising. Such heroes included Albert Einstein, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther Kind Jr., and Isaac Newton.
The study’s authors concluded that “the impact of time could clearly be seen.”
“For example, the very recent figure of George W. Bush was rated as more negative than Stalin, who was responsible for innumerably more deaths. The effects of temporal distance can also be seen from the almost neutral rating received by Genghis Khan, which is not the result one might have expected given the amount of human suffering and cultural destruction he unleashed on the 13th century.”
Now, however one may feel about Bush Jr., the claim that he was more evil than Stalin or Mao seems a bit of a stretch.
On average, sources say anywhere between 30-55 million deaths were directly linked to the policies of Stalin during his time as leader in the Soviet Union. His biggest offensives include Gulag camps, the Great Terror initiative, and his agreement to a non-aggression pact with the nazis.
One step more heroic than Stalin, according to the study, is Mao, former leader of the People’s Republic of. Mao, undisputedly, is responsible for more civilian deaths than any political leader in history. But dammit, he’s still better than Bush, says the world.
Studies link 50-80 million deaths to Mao’s time as dictator. Mao’s cult of personality included social programs like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in famine, social unrest, mass civilian murder, and all the other rainbows and unicorns that come along with a communist regime.
So, debate the Iraq and Afghanistan wars all you want, but give the poor guy some credit for lowering taxes on the middle class and leading a tireless, personal effort to combat HIV/AIDS and Malaria in Africa.
But I mean, if you think he’s worse than 75 million dead… whatever, so does everyone else.
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Sloan Bashinsky
So, let’s consider a reply from born again Christian Tim Gratz, of Key West, to the Mark Twain nuclear bomb, dropped before anyone ever knew nuclear bombs were even possible:
The Mark Twain prayer was certainly interesting. I had not heard of it before. It certainly makes a good point. But violence is sometimes moral if done to protect others. Think about what the SS was doing to Jerws in the death camps. Had I the opportunity I would have been happy to personally kill every single one of them and I would not have lost a minute’s sleep over it.. And a great theologian and Lutheran minister Dietrich Bonhoffer participated in a plot to kill Hitler, and was executed for his participation.
There are indeed “just wars” but the sad thing is that even in a just war the soldiers fighting for the evil side are often not personally evil and are either forced to fight or are misguided. It would certainly trouble me to have to participate in the killing or maiming of such “innocent” soldiers.The necessity of doing so is what makes war so horrible. Now I do not want to or have time to debate the war in Iraq, Suffice it to say that 43 sincerely believed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them. And in the end the destruction of Hussein was apporpriate justice since he was a mass murderer, as bad as Hitler in numbers of innocents killed.
But all that being said, the Twain piece was very good and thanks for finding it.
Tim Gratz
I replied:
Hi, Tim - the philosophy of war spins on who’s spinning it, but your Lord and Savior said to give up an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and to resist not one who does evil, and to turn the other cheek, and to do good to and pray for those who persecute you, so, if he’s truly your Lord and Savior, do you follow his advice? - a question I have asked many Christians about war, and I can’t say I recall any responses in keeping with what Jesus advised.
That aside, since Christians historically have not held themselves to that higher standard, even Mark Twain’s piece was rejected by what I imagine was his Christian publisher, this I found curious in what you wrote:
“Now I do not want to or have time to debate the war in Iraq, Suffice it to say that 43 sincerely believed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them. And in the end the destruction of Hussein was appropriate justice since he was a mass murderer, as bad as Hitler in numbers of innocents killed.”
Use the alleged weapons of mass destruction against whom? America? That would twist the history books into pig speak.
More to the point, assuming G.W. actually believed that, which I don’t believe, but if he did actually believe it, how is that different from Adolph Hitler actually believing he was right to exterminate as many Jews and Gypsies as he could? How is that different from Klansmen believing it was right to do the atrocities they did? How is that different from ISIS and al Qaeda believing they are right, so what they do is okay?
As for the argument that it was a good war, to take Saddam out, because he was a mass murderer, well, now that argument can be used against G.W. and Barack Obama, by the peoples whose relatives and friends were killed by G.W. and Barack Obama.
Saying this another way, Tim, how the Iraq war turned out for America is the proof that it never should have been started. Ditto, the war in Afghanistan. The karma those two wars earned for America, not nice karma, is huge, comparable to the karma the Vietnam war earned for America.
All three of those wars were for natural resources and US corporate profits. The arguments in favor of those wars are diversions, or delusions, or lies.
Sloan
Frolic intermission, from Frankie Zeh, of Key West:
Sloan, I am impressed with the new “you”. In spite of what we may think………a clean shaven man is an acceptable fact amongst the majority. What’s next, Frankie
I replied:
Well, Frankie -
My girlfriend Kari in the county jail was not happy to learn I had cut off the beard, and she didn’t even know I had done it, or was going to do it. She said she likes beards, not the stubby, scratchy kind, but grown out and soft, and she wouldn’t have recognized me without it, if I were in a suit and tie walking by, or driving by in a car, but she’s just a minority report, and since she’s in jail for probation violation, she might not even be able to cast a vote, in the majority’s view.
As for what’s next, Kari says she’s got to finish JIP program in the jail, and stay out of trouble in there, which will probably require mucho biting of the tongue, hers, or just have it cut out, she says. Frontal lobotomy also would help her put up better with what goes on in there. And her fingers cut off so she can’t write. And her eyes poked out so she can’t see, and her ears plugged up so she can’t hear.
Great V.P. running mate, she said she would make in that condition. A typical vice president, just there, God forbid, she would be put in if the president, me, not available. That’s right, Jackie, my felonious lady, who did shoot a frog with a Colt Python .357, with a hollow point bullet, because that frog was seriously disturbing the peace, is my running mate for President of the United States of America. Maybe that’s why the angels had me cut off the beard: so the majority won’t have my beard as an excuse not to write my and Kari’s names on their ballots in 2016.
And, Kari said, I look younger without the beard; maybe I will appeal to the younger crowd.
P.S.
Kari is going after the National Rifle Association votes. The alcoholic votes. The rodeo votes, she was a state champion cowgirl in Missouri. And other splinter groups. She said I’m a shoe-in for the Mormon votes: 8 wives, counting her; I don’t drink booze, or smoke tobacco, or ingest other drugs; I say latter day saints are for real, although rare; I know a bit about the Melchizedek priesthood, which is a very big deal in the Mormon pecking order. Also a very big deal in the Episcopalian and Lutheran pecking orders. And in the Roman Catholic pecking order. Read the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, about the Melchizedek Priesthood.
I doubt I will pull any atheist votes, but then, perhaps they will vote for me, because I say all religions are Satanic cults. So maybe the Mormons, Episcopalians, Lutherans and Catholics won’t vote for me. Maybe they will vote for Kari, and she will end up being President of the United States of America. The first woman President. You’d rather have Sarah Palin? Or Hillary? They are part of the problem. By way of comparison, Kari is Mary Magdalene, by way of Joan of Arc.
“cross pollination” -
that’s a sword fish, not a shark
Wrapping up today’s fun, let’s mosey back to what Arnaud Girard started, when he nailed Key West in his fabulous cartoon - from the Key West Citizen (www.keysnews.com) Crime Report section:
Man accuses strip
club of overcharging
KEY WEST — A 26-year old man claims an Upper Duval Street adult club overcharged
more than $7,000 to his credit card early Wednesday morning, the latest in a long string of complaints against the business. There were no reported arrests in the case.
The Key West man told police that he went to Gold Diggers, 1221 Duval St., at 4 a.m. and agreed to pay $600 for a lap dance, reports say. He noticed three extra charges to his account later that day, one for $3,000.01, one for $3,000 and another for $1,200, reports say.
The officer went to the business, but was told by a female employee that the manager was out of town as well as all the paperwork regarding the incident, reports say. “I explained to the female that someone’s credit card being charged $7,000 was a big deal and that I need to speak with the manager,” the officer wrote. “After explaining to the female that
my supervisors and the city of Key West would not be happy with the type of practices
that possibly occurred here, the manager was contacted (by phone) by the
female.”
The manager faxed the paperwork, but the alleged victim did not recognize the money amounts being present on the paperwork, though he did say the signature was his, reports say. The officer explained that because he signed for the services, but didn’t recall the exact amounts, the case would be a civil issue, reports say.
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
