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I think it was Friday before last, the water fountain in the county library on Fleming Street was broken and closed off for repairs. About last Thursday, I asked a fellow behind the front desk about the water fountain still being closed off, and he said they had put in three work orders. Today, Monday, ten or so days later, the water fountain still is closed off. I didn’t ask about it. But I wonder if it was the water fountain outside county county commissioners Heather Carruthers or Danny Kolhage’s offices, or outside county administrator Roman Gastesi’s office, it would still be down and closed off? Lots of homeless people use the library. They use the water fountain to fill their water bottles. I wonder if that is in play? No water fountain, maybe less homeless people will hang out at the library?
The other day, I cruised Higgs Beach, just because.
A deputy sheriff and her supervisor were at the kiosks homeless people once used, but no longer, after the kiosks were fenced in and turned into a kiddie play park, no adults allowed, who are not accompanied by a child. Not even Heather Carruthers, Danny Kolhage or Roman Gastesi, or Key West mayor Craig Cates, can go in there unaccompanied by a child.
I asked the deputy if she patrolled Higgs Beach? Yes, she and other deputies, randomly, several hours each day. I said I’d had something to do with that. I was on the Friends of Higgs Beach Committee, run by Heather Carruthers and city commissioner Teri Johnston. I said simply put a deputy sheriff back on station there a few hours a day, and there would be no problems there with homeless people; the committee fought me hard about doing that, but finally they went with it. The deputy and her supervisor seemed pleased to hear that.
I then told the deputy and her supervisor that I had told the county commission how they could rid themselves of Higgs Beach, a redheaded stepchild of the county, which is remote for deputies to patrol, and is mostly patrolled by KW city police. Here’s how. The county commission tells the city it is closing Higgs and the bathrooms there, and is not cleaning the beach up any more, and very soon the city will be begging for a deed to the park. The deputy and her supervisor then seemed to lose interest in what I was saying.
Instead, the county is going to shell out millions to “terraform” Higgs Beach, to make that Friends of Higgs Beach Committee happy, by redesigning the entire park, including moving the road dividing it over so that more of the park is on the ocean side of the road than is there today. The impetus for all of that was the committee wanting to remake Higgs so no homeless person could ever be there again. I felt like I was in a den of Nazis and sometimes said so at committee meetings, until I resigned from the committee in 2009, because, I said at my last committee meeting, I knew I was going to run for mayor of Key West, and running for mayor and being on the committee probably would be a conflict of interest for me.
Two days ago, and before that, the beach at Higgs stunk from a large of amount of sea grass in the shallow water next to the beach emitting hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells to me like raw sewage. I pedaled my bicycle over to White Street Pier, and the stink was just as strong there. And as strong along Rest Beach, up to Smathers Beach, where the stench was strong. At Smathers, I told a young couple from Argentina about Fort Zachary Taylor State Park, said the water was a little better there, and the park was much nicer than Smathers Beach. The man asked for the street to Fort Zach, he said he had GPS in his car. I wrote down Southard Street on a card he gave me. They thanked me and left Smathers.
I don’t know how people were on those foul-smelling beaches. What do I know? Maybe the angel who looks after homeless people blew the seagrass from the sea into those beaches, knowing a state law prohibits the county and the city from removing the seagrass from the water. When the seagrass gets stacked up in shallow water, it starts stinking something awful.
The day before yesterday, Arnaud and Naja Girard
came out to the soup kitchen and interviewed Jeremy Gerome,
who has made allegations of pedophilia going on in a number of local churches. Arnaud video-recorded most of the interview. Don’t know what will become of that.
Arnaud and Naja publish Key West the Newspaper (www.keysnews.com) online each Friday morning. They have broken a number of rough stories about local wrongdoing, which otherwise would have slipped silently into the night.
I bet Arnaud and Naja have some fun thoughts about an article in today’s Key West Citizen (www.keysnews.com), I added the pic:
Citizen Review Board to discuss policies
BY ADAM LINHARDT Citizen Staff
alinhardt@keysnews.com
The volunteer board that investigates allegations made against Key West police officers is holding a special workshop to discuss a key aspect of its policy over how cases are selected for review.
The Citizen Review Board generally reviews complaints made by residents against officers, but the board has more recently opened investigations into police, absent direct citizen involvement.
Two examples of such cases include the in-custody death of Charles Eimers, 61, in Key West, in 2013. Eimers died six days after police held him facedown on the sand after he blew off a traffic stop. The city later settled a lawsuit by the Eimers family for $900,000. The U.S. Department of Justice is currently investigating the incident, but death was ruled an accident by the medical examiner’s office,
A Monroe County grand jury, the Key West police department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement each cleared all officers involved of any wrongdoing last year.
The CRB opened its own investigation into the Eimers’ case under its own direction without a complaint filed by a resident and it is awaiting the DOJ’s conclusion regarding the matter.
The board most recently decided to investigate the April 30 arrest of Troy Shane Carswell, 45, after CRB member Joe Pais told his fellow board members he witnessed the incident himself and he believed Officer Nicholas Galbo’s report contained inaccuracies that warranted further review even though Carswell himself has not filed a complaint with the board.
That CRB investigation, like the Eimers’ matter, remains ongoing.
Board member Arthur Dennison has expressed concern over such board-led investigations given the CRB typically does not take up cases without a complaint filed by a resident, though board attorney Robert Cintron mentioned at its most recent meeting that wasn’t always the case in the early days of the board’s existence.
“Typically, our cases are citizen driven and I believe there’s been discussion by the board regarding the need to clarify the language (in its policies and procedures),” said CRB Executive Director Larry Beaver.
Beaver is not a board member, but he has been in the past. The executive director’s job is administrative, meaning he collects facts, reports and statements for the board to review.
“I expect that issue will be a main topic of discussion at the workshop,” Beaver said.
The meeting is open to the public and CRB encourages the public to attend all of its meetings. The special workshop will begin at 6 p.m. Monday at Old City Hall, 510 Greene St.
alinhardt@keysnews.com
I was in on getting the referendum passed, which gave birth to the CRB; a referendum the mayor and city commissioners and police department and police benevolent union fought tooth and nail.
From the get go, the CRB had the power to launch its own investigations without a citizen complaint having been filed.
I know from talking with Arnaud and Naja, that they are not pleased with the current makeup of the CRB. I see two members who definitely ought to be on it: Joe Pais and Tom Milone. I hear much the same around town.
The CRB was formed to protect citizen from KWPD, not to protect KWPD from citizens. KWPD has plenty of protection: besides itself, it has the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the State Attorney, the police benevolent union, the city attorney office, the city manager, and the mayor and city commissioners, in whose eyes KWPD is not capable of doing any wrong.
They all proved that last year, after Arnaud and Naja broke the Charles Eimers case; these drawing by Arnaud provide an artistic recount:
One city cop, Gary Lee Lovette,
was caught on his own taser video recorder saying they killed Eimers, they murdered him, and what did the KWPD protectors do? They decided Lovette was lying when he said that; he was boasting, exaggerating, and for that he got a 5 day suspension without pay. Not long after that, pretty darn quick, actually, the city’s insurance carrier’s lawyers settled the lawsuit brought by the Eimers family for $900,000, $100,000 shy of the policy limits. The insurance company wanted nothing to do with a jury hearing what was on Gary Lee Lovette’s taser video recorder.
Oh yeah, the benevolent cops thought Eimers was homeless, living in his vehicle. That, folks, is why he was killed. Er, murdered. After he drove a way from a traffic stop, after muttering that he was here working for God. He had only just arrived, with a hope of making Key West his home. God works in mysterious ways indeed.
Now Gary Lee Lovette is Key West’s model cop; the standard to which all Key West cops aspire. So much is Gary Lee loved, that a citywide bumper sticker campaign began, after the city’s insurance company bailed, to support KWPD.
Re what I wrote the other day about Frisbee Dave being kicked out of KOTS permanently, KOTS is the city’s homeless shelter on Stock Island, just above Key West …
Christine Russell, now a part time resident of Key West, wrote to me last night:
Hello Sloan!
So much or your writings about the homeless and many of their issues, and now this shocking article about the many recent suicides in the Keys. Very sad. Very scary. What’s going on and why now, are these rates escalating? And why is the Citizen not reporting them??? Seems the Citizen may unknowingly be adding to the stigmatizing and shame some associate with mental illness (see #5 below). Maybe instead we should all be made aware and talking about these cases in an effort to reach out to those suffering and needing help - rather than sweeping them under the rug and not even acknowledge them.
I ran across this (below) in an e-newsletter I receive and thought it was certainly a timely topic. I was thinking about what you’ve been writing about Frisbee Dave and problems he is having. Mental illness - this article says nearly a quarter of the population has suffered at one time or another. Got me to thinking about mental health - is it an all or nothing thing. You either have mental health issues or you don’t. Aren’t there varying degrees? And maybe are we all a little ‘crazy’ or mentally ill in one way or another? I still buy into Steve Jobs definition of The Crazy Ones - the ones who believe they can change the world 
I hope you are doing well. Remember the glass is always half full. I am glad you have Kari to keep your days interesting and give you a future to look forward to. Please give her my best. I think of you both, and your well being and future often.
Christine
8 Biggest Myths About Mental Health
- Katie Waldeck
- August 8, 2015
Read on for some of the biggest myths about mental illness.
1. People with Mental Illnesses Can’t Hold Jobs.
Mental illness doesn’t have to mean that your life has to be over as you know it. People with mental illness, even the most life-altering types like schizophrenia, can live fully productive, normal lives—especially if they get, and continue, treatment. But that doesn’t mean they always do—unfortunately, the unemployment rate among people receiving public benefits for their mental illness is extremely high in the United States, averaging about 80 percent nationwide. Though, of course, not everyone with a mental illness receives public benefits. For those that do, this statistic is quite alarming, because having a job is a key step in the process to recovery.
2. Mental Healthcare is Easily Accessible.
Unfortunately, in much of the United States, mental health treatment can be alarmingly difficult to access. Many parts of the country, especially outside of major metropolitan areas, have disproportionately fewer psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health practitioners than needed. The federal government has designated Mental Health Professional Shortage areas, which you can explore here.
And it’s not just the number of doctors that can make it difficult to access treatment: federal and state budgets for mental health care have been slashed in recent years, the number of beds at mental health hospitals has dwindled exponentially in the past few decades (currently at its lowest since the mid-19th-century), the cost of treatment has proven to be a barrier for many individuals… The list of hurdles to mental health care treatment goes on and on.
3. Distant Mothers Cause Mental Illness.
It was once thought that anything from schizophrenia to autism was caused by a cold, distant mother. Known as “refrigerator mothers,” this theory was popular in the 1950s and 60?s and has been discredited for decades, yet it’s still a myth that just won’t die in popular culture. Though life experiences certainly play a part in the development—or lack thereof—of mental health issues, it’s not your mother’s cold nature that’s to blame for mental health issues.
4. You Can’t Help It.
There’s plenty you can do to help your own mental illness. Talk therapy and medication are obvious avenues, but mindfulness, getting regular sleep, eating well and exercise can all be used as tools for people with a mental illness.
It’s not just the person with the disorder that can play a role in it, though: their friends and loved ones can help, too. Learning about their mental illness is an excellent first step. It’ll help identify how, exactly, it is impacting their life, and how their behaviors and thoughts are affected. Another step is to make sure that the person with the mental illness understands that they’re loved, supported and cared about. Because mental illness is so stigmatized, many people suffering from these disorders feel alone in their struggles. Other ways to help include assisting with basic tasks, making sure to include them in activities and making sure that they’re getting the professional help that they need.
For more tips on how to help someone with a mental illness, read this helpful guide here.
5. Mental Illness is Shameful.
Mental illness is not something to be ashamed of, though society certainly makes it seem that way. Mental illness is an illness just like any other. One of the most important steps we as a society can take to help those suffering from mental illness is to de-stigmatize it. Having depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or whatever, doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t make you a loser, it doesn’t make you crazy—it merely means you have a brain that works differently.
6. People With Mental Illnesses are Violent.
Much of the perception of the connection between violence and mental health issues can be linkedto the media—between the 1950s and the 1990s, people’s ideas that the two are connected more than doubled, with over half of the depictions of people with mental illness in the media showing some sort of violent act.
Just like the general population, most people with a mental illness are non-violent. In fact, people with mental illnesses are far MORE likely to be the victims of crimes than those without a mental health issue, and are statistically less likely to commit crimes than you might think. Though people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder commit crimes at slightly higher rates than those without, when comparing people with these disorders to their siblings without them, the rates are negligible at best. So what does that mean? Well, people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder aren’t necessarily committing crimes at higher rates, it’s the socioeconomic factors, stress and other things—not necessarily the mental illness on its own.
7. Don’t Have Kids if You Have Mental Health Issues.
It’s true that mental health issues can be genetic. But that doesn’t mean that simply having genes that cause mental health issues will automatically mean you’ll develop a disorder. It’s important to remember that just because you carry a gene doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll develop a disorder from it. Think of it this way: your grandmother has red hair, you have blond and your daughter has red. She got that gene for red hair from you, even though you yourself have blond hair.
Though scientists haven’t pinned down a particular gene that increases an individual’s risk for depression, research has shown that depression runs in families. But other factors pay a role in developing a mental illness, too, LIKELY even more than your genes alone.
So what does that mean? Well, if you and/or your partner have a family history of mental illness, that doesn’t mean that your children will, too. Don’t let that history prevent you from having biological children.
8. Children Can’t Have Mental Illness.
Unfortunately, children can develop a mental illness much like adults. Though more difficult mental health disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are far less common in children than in adults, they can still happen. Disorders like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder are certainly found in children, as well. And, no, it’s not always “just” a phase.
I replied:
Hi, Christine -
I dreamt of your email last night, before getting up this morning and leaving KOTS and going to the hospital to have a cheap breakfast in the Cafe, then pedaling my bicycle back over to visit Kari in the jail, then going back the other way again, to Florida Keys Community College and getting on one of its online computers and checking my emails.
In the dream last night, one of my old college fraternity brothers said to me, “Statistics”. I had no clue what he meant until I read your email. His wife, after reading the manuscript of my most recent novel, HEAVY WAIT: A Strange Tale, had tried to persuade me to get psychiatric help. I chuckled back to her, that psychiatry had darn near killed me, and then angels had rescued and healed me.
The novel has psychiatric and psychotic episodes, and body, emotions, mind and soul healing psychiatry cannot fathom. Healing of awful soul trauma I see in lots of people, some are homeless, some are not.
I’m afraid what you have raised generally, and suicide specifically, are just some of the signs of the sad state of humanity in America and elsewhere.
I once had steady, intimate dialogue with quite a few mentally ill people under psychiatric care, who were living in mainstream, but at times had been hospitalized, institutionalized or jailed. I was not impressed with how it was going for them, nor with their psychiatrists, who seemed little more than well-paid mechanical pill pushers. The chemical side effects were awful. The patients didn’t like the pills and only took them because they didn’t like what happened when they didn’t take the pills. It was a Catch-22 from Hell, was my impression, as one who himself was taking and became addicted to the pills and was doomed until, as said above, he was rescued from the chemicals, and from psychiatry, by angels.
Indeed schizophrenia can be the result of a cold mother, or a brutal father, or rigid, Puritan religions training, and a variety of different jolting soul traumas at an early age, which later bloom, usually by the early 20s, I think, into schizophrenia or some other psychosis. Also, the onset of schizophrenia and other psychoses actually can be a spiritual awakening, which is taking a person on a very new and very different journey, which treatment by regular psychiatric methods will bend, twist, warp and even make the person a whole lot worse. Also, we are seeing American military personnel return from combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they are mentally ill, sometimes suicidal; it’s called post traumatic stress. And, well, people who were abducted by aliens and sent back have developed mental illness and suicide tendencies. And, yes, sometimes mental illness is genetic, passed down bloodlines. Oh, I left out demonic possession, which likes to hide behind mental disorders, addictions, religious fanaticism, etc.
My view of Frisbee Dave’s psychosis, which I published several times in the past, is it is rooted in his having been good in high school sports, it was his “identity”. When he went off to college, he told me this, he got onto that school’s baseball team. He said he was maybe the best player they had, but he was cut from the team, his coach told him, because of his small size. Thereafter, as I heard Dave tell it, he started drifting, getting into things, and it went from there to where he is today. His bipolar disorder bloomed sometime along the way, after he was cut from the team.
There is no fixing that by psychiatry, which can only attempt to regulate it. A spiritual disorder cannot be fixed by secular methods, and what Dave has is a spiritual disorder, soul trauma complicated now by demonic possession.
In the jail this morning, after Kari described feeling spiritually attacked in there, unable to sleep, mostly coming out of one woman inmate at Kari. I did something internally I don’t do much any more, and Kari said she was feeling warm, better. I told her it is good she has Archangel Michael with her, inside of her. That angel demons don’t care for at all.
Back to Frisbee Dave. He can be regulated somewhat, if he says on his meds. But he doesn’t like his neds. He likes cigarettes, and coffee, and booze, and, of late, spice, I keep hearing. Spice makes people insane squared.
Dave also has a hernia, which is giving him hell in his abdomen, and he refuses, out of pride, to go to the hospital, as an indigent, and get it fixed.
Out of pride, Dave refused the offers of his childhood friends to take him home, get him a place to stay, get him work he can do.
Dave is off in his own world, and he’s been that way a long time. Of late, though, he has become mean, and, in my opinion, dangerous to other people, and perhaps to himself.
I imagine Dave is a proxy for a large segment of American society, whether American society cares to admit that or not.
I know there are people who have much the same view of me. Just yesterday, Nick Anderson wrote to me, he’s such a cheerful guy:
“With a Law Degree,, at least 40 years experance, at least apply for a high paying job…?
Why not…?? you like living in the shelter…?? at least you could have a motor car…
Wake up////apply dumb ass”
Then Nick sent:
“Sloan: Farts for brains….?”
Until recently, the US Navy paid Nick a salary not to come to work and to keep to himself what he knew about stuff he had seen that was awry when he worked at Naval Air Station Key West repairing their radars and, I suppose, doing other electronic work for them.
I am thinking I should send Nick a bill for, say, $50,000 a year, for which high pay I will take him off my daily fart for brains email blast list, and he will be relieved of the awful stress it obviously causes him by knowing me and how I live and what I do for work, which, frankly, I don’t see or hear of any other human being on this planet doing, although it looks to me that Kari is being fast brought into it in a way compatible with her soul makeup.
You might be interested, Christine, in what Jerry Weinstock, M.D., Psychiatry, retired (sometimes), wrote to me yesterday about Donald Trump:
“SLOAN:_____trump is totally an egoist—lacking a functional brain.”
A Key West business man, Ed Russo, is, I understand from Todd German, a business partner of some kind with Trump. Ed is engaged to local attorney Jennifer Hulse, who led the Chamber of Commerce’s prevaricating charge in 2013, to get the channel widened so bigger sea and reef killing cruise ships could call on Key West, and also so more of the smaller dirtiest worst possible cruise ships could call on Key West. Give me Frisbee Dave any day, over that.
A seriously right-winged Republican, who used to have a big following of supporters and hecklers on bigpinekey.com’s Coconut Telegraph blog, posted on Facebook yesterday:
Mr. Trump has made much noise and bluster that has been very well received. But I fear that his noise and bluster are but shiny objects to divert attention from his lack of any real proposals concerning our economy, and the host of other critical situations that our current ego maniacal President has wreaked on us.
There can be no doubt but that Mr. Trump is a bully who is unwilling or incapable of admitting error. Once again a trait that he shares with our current President. I believe that Trump does not respect the ethos of America.
All of our best Presidents have been persons of quiet strength, conviction, love of our Constitution, and of our nation. All have been capable of acknowledging error and moving on. Mr. Trump has none of those character traits. Mr. Trump is very nearly a comedic character, larger than life, full of hot air, bluster, braggadocios, and packed to the rim full of self-aggrandizement. He’s not this Conservative voter’s choice.
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7 people like this.
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Evonne Swenson well said -
Evonne Swenson he is an egomaniac
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Sloan Bashinsky I agree, Walt, but, as of yet, he is not a mass murderer, which his predecessor Republican president remains and still on the loose. Maybe the best thing for America, because it would be so radical, and perhaps have such a quick result, is for Trump topick Sarah Palin as his V.P. running mate, and they win the Offal Orifice, and maybe that would lead to a transformation, albeit horrible and painful, of not only the Republican Party, but also the Democrats and the smaller parties. Perhaps they would all kiss and make up and hold hands and carry rifles and sabers into battle to save themselves and America from the I imagine quite a few people who would vote for a Trump-Palin ticket. If you were from Alabama, I am, you would not think that scenario preposterous.
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Stephen Bainton hubris (arrogance, over-confidence) the downfall of kings…this is what concerns me…is he going to call Putin ‘sta..sta..stupid!’ -
Terry Sullivan We have one narcissist in office now and we don’t need another to follow.
An American Vietnam combat veteran (survivor), who later became a shaman, and now lives in Norway, posted on Facebook yesterday:
TRUTH! (Evil is not a word I generally use, but in the case of war - well, how else can it be described? Perhaps war is the definition of evil. I’ve seen it -too much)
Jimmy Carter turns 90 today.
So, Christine, it looks to me insanity and suicide are rampant just about everywhere in America and elsewhere. I live with the homeless variety up close and personal these days, but you could take every insane and dangerous homeless person I have known and lump them all together, and they are microbes compared to just one of these: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, the various other Republican presidential hopefuls.
I told Jeremy Jerome yesterday at the soup kitchen that his being banned from many churches in Key West probably was the best thing that ever happened to him. He asked why I said that? Because Christianity and its churches are possessed by Lucifer, I said.
When Jeremy asked me if Arnaud and Naja know and are close to God?, I said they are closer to God than any church person I know in Key West. Naja and Arnaud do not attend church. As far as I know, they don’t pray. Closeness to God is not determined by going to church, or by reading the Bible, or by what you say about your closeness to God. Closeness to God is determined by how you live. There is no other way to measure it.
Ciao,
Sloan
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
