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In an early dream last night, I was asked if I wanted to practice law? I awoke, wondering if that meant really practice law, which would require me to return to Alabama, to get my law license out of the delinquent continuing legal education credits dog house and reactivated, and to live? Or did it mean something going on right now in my life here in Key West of Weird?
When I went online later this morning searching for clues which might explain the dream, I found this breaking news beauty in Key West the Newspaper (thebluepaper.com), to which the ex-lawyer in me just had to hold forth - click on link to access the video, which is lively, about 19 minutes:
SHOWDOWN AT FKAA [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]
Key West the Newspaper (The Blue Paper)
Who would have thought a utility board meeting could be so exciting?
Special thanks to Colby Fisher for all his great work in un-covering this story!
2 Responses to “SHOWDOWN AT FKAA [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]”
Also today, in the Key West Citizen (keysnews.com), my interjected thoughts in bold italics, I add the pics:
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Board bickers over Bahama Village letter
BY Michael Quirk Key West Citizen
When the Monroe County School Board met Sept. 15 at Coral Shores High School, board member Andy Griffiths suggested to the board and district representatives that a letter be sent to the parents of Gerald Adams students who hail from Bahama Village.
The idea, which was supported by fellow board member Bobby Highsmith, would allow for a letter written by Griffiths and the district administrators to ask the parents if their children being bused to school on Stock Island negatively impacts their lives. For now, it appears as though the letter is on hold.
Come on, Key West Citizen, how come you didn’t tell your readers most of the Bahama Village elementary school children being bussed to school on Stock Island (Gerald Adams Elementary) are black, and they are being bussed past two inner city elementary schools, one of which is predominantly white (Horace O’Bryant K-9), and the other is nearly all white (Poincina Elementary School).
“I’ve been speaking with the Superintendent to brainstorm some futuristic ideas so we can get together and do some dreaming,” said Griffiths. “It’s about hashing out solutions for the best outcome for Key West kids.”
Griffiths said he wants to input from the Bahama Village parents before the process for a new Gerald Adams school advances any further. Board chairman John Dick said one contingency he has on the proposed letter is that he would like for it to provide alternatives as well.
What B.S. Griffiths has been on the School Board over 20 years. For all that time he has known black kids were being bussed from Bahama Village all the way out to Gerald Adams. He has to ask the black kids’ parents how they feel about that? No. He knows how he would feel about it, if he was a black parent in Bahama Village, whose child was being bussed all the way out to Gerald Adams, even if the bussing was not racially motivated. What parents would want their children bussed, if there is a decent school which is closer and does not require bussing? Well, maybe white parents, who want their kids bussed to a white school.
“One point I mentioned to (Griffiths) is you have to put alternatives out there,” Dick said. “‘Do you want to do this? No? Then what about this? What’re the options out there? If you’re telling them you don’t want to bus, what are the alternatives?”
Come on, Dick. Just fix the problem, which is lying in plain view. A problem you not long ago claimed you knew nothing about, even though this is your 3rd 4-year term on the School Board.
Another concern of Dick’s is setting a precedent of sending a letter to individual local stakeholders, possibly setting off a chain reaction in the future.
“Once you send a letter to (Bahama Village parents), and you say hypothetically that you might put a school on the Poinciana soccer fields, do we send letters to all those who play soccer out there? It’s bizarre; it’s not something we’ve done.”
Well, certainly, soccer is more important than racially segregated schools. Or, Dick, do we send letters to all those white parents whose white kids attend Poincina, including white parents who drive their white kids from as far away as, what?, Big Pine Key, mile marker 30, past Sugarloaf Elementary, about mile marker 20, and past Gerald Adams Elementary, about mile marker 5, to Poinciana Elementary, about mile marker 3?
Superintendent Mark Porter has spoken with Griffiths on the matter and if a letter is constructed, he would be involved before the letter is mailed. Porter shared some of the same sentiment as Dick in regard to singling out one segment of the island.
“We’ve suspended that effort for the moment,” Porter said about the letter. “Are we really ready to reach out to just a single stakeholder group or do we need the school board to better decide how they want to dive into this? We’re trying to think about this thing in a kind of different way.”
How about just stop the racial segregation, Porter? You came here from Minnesota, where you had been a school superintendent in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. This kind of situation did not exist there, and would not have been allowed to exist there, by you, by your school board, by the citizens.
Griffiths said he believes that school boards are a last resort and not a first resort. He said that he wants the district and board to consider other options than rebuilding Gerald Adams as the same school in the same location.
For crying out loud, Griffiths! When you see racial segretation going on in the school district on whose board you have sat for over 20 years, you wait even longer for who to be the first resort? You should have been hollering about this since the day you were elected the first time to the School Board.
“North of Mile Marker 19 there are four elementary schools, and on the single island of Key West we have three, not including the charters and that doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “I think I’m just trying to get (board and district officials) to think about the future. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Yeah, a once in a lifetime opportunity that’s been staring you in the face for over 20 years, Griffiths.
Bahama Village students are currently districted for Gerald Adams and are the only elementary students on the island that ride the bus. Of the three schools alluded to by Griffiths, Horace O’Bryant is 1.6 miles from the heart of Bahama Village, Poinciana is 3.1 miles, and Gerald Adams is 4.9 miles.
According to a July timeline draft constructed by MCSD executive director of operations and planning Patrick Lefere, the process for building the new Gerald Adams is slated to begin in January with the architect selection. The construction would start in July 2017 with completion slated for August 2019. One thing that isn’t debated among the members of the board is the need for a new Gerald Adams, the oldest operating school in the Lower Keys.
“They’d like to see a new school as soon as possible,” Dick said. “And so would I.”
And pray tell, Dick, who will attend the new Gerald Adams, if you and the other 4 members of the School Board stop the racial segregation? You better make that clear to everyone concerned before you build a new Gerald Adams.
mquirk@keysnews.com
On the personal front, Jerry Weinstock, M.D., psychiatry, retired, sometimes, replied to yesterday’s public health, safety and welfare – Key West comedy theater post at goodmorningkeywest.com:
Sloan; you have some many facets of problematic issues hard to address any one of them.. Dietary changes should not be difficult, as a diabetic needs a certain type of diet, cardiovascular problems also need a certain diet;
otherwise the jail becomes liable for intentionally disregarding clear medical conditions and diagnoses and even can lead to death which is a huge liability—is this a concentration camp or a jail ????
the doctor should be willing to speak with you -no excuse for that—not understandable…
of course you must stick with Kari as you know —she can vent her frustration onto you — project it on you
you are in a difficult ——Stressful period of life right now —crisis even;-treasure your mind-hold to your reason and hold to your inner purposes -no one should be able to change your inner convictions—-don’t give anyone that kind of influence—-you are a ship in a storm—treasure any restful moments —the sky, the sea -the breeze —-nature a healer.—you have my strong empathy and kind wishes-
yes money would help -as well…….sincerely Jerry.
I replied:
This is standard fare in the angels’ program for me. How can Dr. Chan decline my intervention, if she doesn’t even know of my request that she call me, because her receptionist played god and didn’t pass my message along? I am hoping someone who has an in with Dr. Chan will share with her what I wrote about all of that and about Kari today. It might be tomorrow before my gyroscope is settled down pretty okay, after the clobbering yesterday and this morning, I didn’t tell today all of the fun that happened yesterday. It’s clear there is nothing I can do to really help Kari, if I don’t have the money it’s going to take to help her get off the street, which is imperative. Not sure, but it keeps coming up, if I paid the county justice system, it calls itself, all the money it says Kari owes it, that might grease the way for her getting turned loose without being on probation; not for sure about that, but it might be so. That would hardly be the end of the test. Out of jail, what would it be like for us, if we even had money? Would she stay sober? Would the angels put us into the paradise energies, or leave us in the hell energies? No way to know at this time. More later, I imagine.
I wrote to Jerry this morning:
For years, sometimes I have a vision as I’m falling asleep, or waking up. That’s increasing, of late. The visions are paintings of something I’m engaging in this world, sometimes more easy to read, less abstract, than dreams.
Just as I was waking this morning, there was a vision of a lot of women being released from a jail.
There is something I commented the other day under a poem from a woman inmate in the county jail, which was emailed to me from WRITE ON, to which I subscribe. My comment was intended to gently as possible, probably not all that gentle, crush the poet’s ego impression of herself and her perceived spiritual path, and offer her something perhaps more likely to help her.
The other day, I wrote to a Key West woman, who was corresponding by email with me, and told her she might wish to Google the White Knight/Rescue Syndrome, perhaps she might find it interesting. She seems consumed with rescuing, or being consumed by it, more accurate.
Generally, recovery counselors advise people caught in the rescue syndrome, to rescue themselves from habitually/addictively rescuing other people. When I try to help a rescuer, I say what’s really going on is the rescuer identifies and merges with the perceived victim, and what’s really going on, usually subconsciously, is the rescuer is trying to save the rescuer, by trying to save the perceived victim. This is a HUGE psychic addiction: rescuing.
Right, I have to be really careful not to fall into that with Kari. I cannot fix her. She has to stop drinking, or she is doomed.
Kari told me of a woman in the JIP program, who was on meds, and she was swapping her meds with other inmates in exchange for commissary products bought by those inmates, and she was faking taking the meds and throwing them away. Kari told her JIP counselor about it. Her JIP counselor told the other inmate’s JIP counselor. The woman was removed from the JIP classes, but she was allowed to have private JIP sessions with her counselor, to enable her to complete the JIP program. What should have happened, she should have been kicked out of JIP and put into lockdown. This is the same woman who led the charge to get Kari in as much trouble as possible in the jail. She didn’t care for Kari’s comments in the JIP classes, and she especially didn’t care for Kari reporting what she was doing with her meds. My point here, the JIP counselors rescued this inmate, when what they should have done was let her sink.
I wrote the other day of having a good friend, whose wife is very close friends with April Thomason, who was deep in cold turkey Xanax withdrawal, and insane, when she ran over and killed a local dental hygienist a few days ago, here in Key West. Yesterday, my friend added a few more pieces of information.
Thomason was being treated by a local M.D., who previously had his licence to prescribe narcotics suspended, he also may have been prosecuted? My friend said it was splashed in the local newspaper. Thomason was beside herself, having lost her Xanax supplier. Then, the doctor got his license back, to prescribe narcotics. He started Thomason out on a small, or regular, daily dose of Xanax. As time passed, he increased the size of the dose. By the time Thomason tried to quit the Xanax cold turkey, which led to her going insane and killing the dental hygienist, Thomason was taking what my friend said on the street is called “a french fry”, which is 4 Xanax tablets with 3 grooves, so there are 4 doses, which can be broken off one at a time and taken - except Thomason was taking 4 Xanax tablets at once, when she tried to stop cold turkey.
I said that doctor should be prosecuted for murder, and if I knew his name, I would publish it. If you know his name, Jerry, or if you can find out his name, please tell me who he is, so I can publish his name.
Onward and downward,
Sloan
Just as I was sending that, this arrived from Jerry re what I replied to his of yesterday:
SLOAN:—you are being eminently realistic —you can only do what your inner self
figures out——(a life of serenity doesn’t exist) —-but you can overcome roadblocks
and have some patches of blue. Kari needs the help of the Doctor who should have no
reason not to listen to you -you know precisely what she needs to improve her health
so that you and she can cooperate in figuring out her dilemmas.—assuming she is feeling well enough
so you two can have a meaningful dialogue..——I hope for some of these issues and PROBLEMS
to begin to unravel for you—-some solutions—- at least for some lessening in intensity-a recess -Jerry.
Here’s the WRITE ON item:
This was the writing prompt: All that I had left of my wings was a single solitary feather:
This was the writing prompt: All that I had left of my wings was a single solitary feather:
Hurt, pain, brokenness – No matter what I do or how hard I try it never fails, I mess up. I’m a failure. Fear anger, lowliness. My emotions control me. Lost, dazed, confused. How do I take my life back? I know I’m not a bad person. I can be loved… Right? I was born innocent and over y life span I look demonic. I seem to be attracted to deadly, dangerous and destructive people, places and things. I know this is not the life I was destined for. I can do such amazing things if I put my mind to it. I have to change my perception on life. I have to think about what I am thinking about I cannot start the race and give up again. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me; I am more than a conqueror. There is nothing I can’t achieve BELIEVE THIS! I’m stuck in the middle of a spiritual struggle. It’s a tug of war, Angels vs. Demons. I know I can live a righteous life but I am prone to the evil side. What’s wrong with me? Some say it’s my nature, I was born a sinner. So what do I do? I pray and transform my mind to think like Christ. I have tried time in and time out. I continuously fail. Why try anymore? I know I can do it for a short time only to fall back into the same routine. I am doomed… not this time. I got this. The only stopping me is self. Dust yourself off. Pick up your cross and follow me, he says. So I start studying and storing away scripture in my heart. Now I can quote verses. This is not so bad. It feels good this peace and a sound mind are real. Damn I am getting attacked, everyone is against me, and I am shunned. Could it be because I am changing? Is it me or is it them? Am I faking this? This sucks maybe my mom was right, she should have aborted me, and I will never amount to anything. I need medicine to be normal. Forget that, God can heal me, I am unique, and I am a born leader. I was made tot set an example. I love and forgive. I deserve love and forgiveness. I am finally learning that I get attacked when I do well. One by one the devil is plucking my feathers. I am an angel just misguided Damn it, I am down to one final feather. I have to hold on to it! If I lose it I am never going to have my chance at winning this fight! I want to spread my wings and FLY… You’ll never get to that point… It is OVER… No way I am going to win! SILENCE! Now I have 2 feathers. Stop negativity the moment it comes courage to be me alone and when someone is looking. Now I have 3 feathers. Hope I will make it to the end of this race even if one of the hurdles knocks me down I will make it over the next one with ease. Now I have 5 feathers. Trust, yeah you hurt me but we all make mistakes. I love you more because you are still here. Now I have 7 feathers. I love myself no matter if I always get things right or not there is no such thing as perfection. My wings are complete. My feathers may have fallen off but they grew back. Even when it looks as if there is now way out God always makes a way. Thank you Jesus.
Megan Burrell
Megan, because of you speak of the Christ, I will share this with you, which i posted just the other day on goodmorningkeywest.com:
“I figured God existed, since the two angels who paid me a visit in early January 1987, and woke me up in the wee hours, told me, “This will push you to your limits, but you asked for it and we are going to give it to you.” I knew they meant the desperate prayer I had made maybe ten days prior: at the end of my rope, out of bright ideas, feeling I had failed in every way a man could failed, I bowed my head and said: “Dear God, I do not wish to die like this, failed. Please help me.” Perhaps as an afterthought, or as an ego thought, I then added, “I offer my life to human service.” Pondering that remembering prompted by the angels’ words, I then was stuck three times by what I understood was spiritual lighting. It was electrical. I saw bright light flashes. It jolted my body. I lurched with each strike. I was left shaking, sweating, as the two angels, whom I later came to know as Jesus and Archangel Michael, faded into nothing. I saw no wings. Just two whitish ethereal beings, in plain view, above me in the darkness, as I lay under them, on my back, in my then girlfriend’s bed, who by then was awake, but she said she saw and heard nothing but my body lurching.”
Megan, sometimes I feel the angels lied; I was pushed beyond any limits I had, and pushed, and pushed, and pushed, in my life experiences, in spirit dimensions, and in my dreams – the angels never let up, regardless of how hard I work and how I do what they arrange for me to engage on this world; or me, they lean on me, as if I’m Superman, but I feel like plenty of Kryptonite is ever close, not to mention earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, black holes, frozen ice caps, going through wood chippers backward and frontward, having my heart ripped out and stomped and shredded, seldom getting way, having my ego mashed and hammered to the point I’m terrified of pissing the angels’ off, well, they did a lot more than all of that, which convinced me they can do anything they want with me, whenever they want to do it, and there’s nothing I can to do prevent it. But then, in the Gospels Jesus did say his way was rugged, steep, the gate narrow, few entered there in, many were called but few were chosen, the harvest was great but the workers were few. I don’t think Christianity knows the Jesus his disciples knew, nor the Jesus I know.
I was nearly killed by psychiatry, which I concluded was so far out of its depth trying to treat me, that it was back in the stone ages. Of course, psychiatry viewed me as in dire need of its help, and I viewed it as in dire need of the Christ’s help, and perhaps even more help than that. It’s a lot about perspective, but the bottom line, I was taught, am still held to, is how I respond to what life serves up to me moment to moment; that’s where the rubber meets the road, the grist for the millstone, which is grinding me into what I do not yet know, but I don’t imagine the me when this all began back in early 1987 would recognized me even today, so little chance of recognizing me whenever my star finishes running its course in this life, I’m 72.
The angels, or my wearing out body, took me off of all addictive chemicals some time ago. I never smoked cigarettes, so that never was something I had to stop. I do better when I restrict sugar intake. I do not tolerate any artificial sweeteners. Diet can really affect brain chemistry.
I conclude with a poem that came out of me the morning after I was told in my sleep the night before, “You will fail, but you might enter the Kingdom of God,” in April 2001, as I slept on a flattened cardboard box in a doorway on Fleming Street in Key West:
I know what it is to love fully,
have my heart broken by death
and by loved ones’ rejections,
Over and over again,
So I can love even more.
I know what it is to be engulfed in pain,
Awash in evil,
Terrified, enraged, despaired,
Believing God has again forsaken me,
Then be given the truth
that again makes me free.
I know what it is to doubt,
Be lost and wandering
time and time again,
Then be rescued yet again
and my faith grows deeper.
I know what it is to blindly trust,
Then be destroyed by betrayal
time and time again,
Until I trust only God.
I know what it is to have much
and be completely of this world,
Then have it all taken away
and be in the world but not of it.
I know what it is to fail in this world,
And fail and fail and fail:
The world’s greatest failure,
I can serve only God.
I know what it is to give
and give and give and give;
I cannot stop giving
because giving is receiving.
I know what it is to explain God
time after time after time again.
Something demands I keep explaining:
Maybe someone will listen,
Maybe me.
Best wishes,
Sloan Bashinsky
“Ignition”
sloanbashinsky@outlook.com
Mr. Dean’s attorney should be reported to the bar. His unfounded personal attack was ridiculous and a last ditch effort to intimidate the board.
Well, shucks, spank me for doing something else yesterday. If I had attended, during citizen comments I would have asked Chairman Dean where he sleeps nights now, last year, the year before, the year before, going back to before his being appointed by a governor to the FKAA board for the Key West FKAA district. I would have wanted that in the FKAA board meeting record, out of Chairman Dean’s own mouth, for Governor Scott and the Florida Attorney General to see when they reviewed Chairman Dean’s qualification to hold the Key West district seat on the FKAA board.
Attorney Michael Halpern is a very smart, clever lawyer, I wonder, therefore, how come he did not accuse FKAA board member Cara Higgins, who brought the “inquisition”, of trying to get FKAA to use her law firm as FKAA’s law firm, which a fellow I have referred to as Deep Throat told me is the real backstory in her attempt to get Dean removed from the FKAA board? Deep Throat, however, seemed a bit on Dean’s side; defending him voting in Key West because that’s where his business is located. Well, thousands of people, I suppose, work in Key West, but live up US 1 outside the city limits, who do not vote in Key West. If Dean can vote in Key West, because that’s where his business is located, then so should they be able to vote in Key West. Ed Swift and Higgins’ law partner, David Paul Horan, live in Key Haven and vote in that district and not in Key West. Dean knows where he is supposed to vote, but he votes in Key West.
Dean should be prosecuted by State Attorney Catherine Vogel, for falsifying where he lived, so he could get appointed to the FKAA board, and for falsifying where he lived, so he could vote in Key West. Vogel should not let Governor Scott decide this for the people of the Florida Keys. Governor Scott does not live here. He does not vote here. He is not involved in what goes on here. He should remove Dean, but whether he does that, or doesn’t, Dean should be prosecuted by Vogel.