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While The Donald terrorizes the Republican Party, The Hillary is having some fun:

Washington (CNN) Bryan Pagliano, a former Clinton staffer who helped set up her private …

Down here on Asteroid Weird,

A Roman Catholic woman who feeds the homeless in Key West performed a foot-washing yesterday while she fed them. When she washed my feet, I said, you know, Mary Magdalene washed Jesus’ feet before he washed his disciples’ feet; maybe he learned that from her? When I was on the British Virgin Island Tortola, Good Friday, 1996, I went into the Anglican Church in Old Town on Good Friday, and the black Anglican priest washed the entire congregation’s feet. Then, on Easter, he started his homily with a recount of when Jesus spoke to the three women outside the tomb, and he told Magdalene to go to the men disciples and tell them she had seen him and he would soon be with them. The priest looked at his congregation, said, “If that was not the ordination of a female minister of the Gospel, then what was it?”

After the service, my lady Kari asked me how I go about the part of the Lord’s Prayer, “and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”? I said, well, I don’t go about it that way. I just get over what people do bad to me, I can’t explain how, and I spend a good bit of time looking at what I did wrong, which isn’t much fun, but it cools me off when I’m mad at someone else.

Last night in dreams, I was shown to revisit that, and I then around dawn, I spent maybe a hour in semi-trance, as different scenarios past and present in my life came before me, and I basically moved in each scenario to the place of feeling the other people involved were doing their best, given who they were and what they had to work with, about like me, in that regard, but they had not had the ongoing instruction and correcting from angels I have had, and still have.

The Key West Anti-Cigarette Butt Flipping League sallied forth yesterday …

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25Susie Rodnon, Haig Born and 23 others

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Molly Brown HELLS YEAH!

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Lindsay Reinhold Poetz We’re trending! #Goldstandard #kickbutts

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Michael Shields Overwhelmingly, people, smokers and non-smokers support this! Enforcement will indeed be the challenge and requires advocates keep their support strong so the City (code enforcement and police, alike) knows the public considers this a positive measure.

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Markham McGill Excellent!

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Sloan Bashinsky I attended all 3 city commission meetings, the last one this past Tuesday, during which this new ordinance was on the commission printed agenda. My sense was the elected officials were not very excited about this ordinance being vigorously enforced. Commissioners Payne and Lopez said this past Tuesday night that they voted in favor very reluctantly. Payne wanted the fine reduced to $10, because he doubted anyone would pay the $100 fine. Lopez said he use to be a smoker, so … There was talk Tuesday night of the first offense only being a warning, not a fine, which might have been a signal to the police chief sitting in the back of the meeting chamber, to do it that way. At each of the three commission meetings, i asked, pointedly, is this a real ordinance, or is it for show? Even as I said I had pushed for something like this for years, and I hoped the ordinance would be vigorously enforced across the board, it would generate a lot of revenue for the city. However, I asked, who will enforce the ordinance? Code enforcement. City police? Only this past Tuesday night did it seem the police chief was told his officers would also enforce the ordinance, along with code enforcement - but does code enforcement have people patrolling city streets even now, looking for litterbugs, for which there already are state, county and city laws not being enforced? It seemed like pulling eye teeth this past Tuesday night, to get anyone on the dais to say the ordinance will not just be enforced against homeless people, like the open container ordinance is enforced. I kept pushing,and finally Mayor Cates said, of course the ordinance will not be enforced only against homeless people. During the prior city commission meeting, Commissioner Sam Kaufman had assured me the ordinance would not be enforced only against homeless people, although I had asked each commissioner to make that assurance - Mayor Cates was not present due to illness. This past Tuesday, Commissioner Wardlow said he agreed with me, the ordinance should be enforced by city police. He said cars today don’t have ashtrays and motorists flip cigarette butts out the window ongoing. Pedestrians do the same. All over Key West. During the two prior commission meetings, I suggested the city offer homeless people jobs, paying a living wage, to be litter cops, enforcing both the litter laws and the new cigarette butt ordinance. Dress them up like pirates, give them fake swords, daggers, pistols. Patrolling on foot high-pedestrian traffic areas, uttering pirate oaths at litterbugs, giving them a chance to pick up what they dropped, and if they don’t pick it up, threatening them with pirate remedies - being stabbed, shot, made to walk the plank, be keel-hauled; and if that doesn’t get them to do right, then whip out a citation pad and write them a fine and hand it to them. Imagine, I said, the publicity that would create for Key West in America and internationally. Imagine our visitors wanting to see our pirate litter cops in action. I’ve been promoting that since I ran for mayor in 2007. Back then, a nationally syndicated live radio show in NY City called and interviewed me about it. The DJ loved the idea. Other radio stations in America then called and interviewed me, they loved the idea. But the Key West city commission wasn’t interested back then, nor since, so far.

Amiga Christine Russell chimed in opposition to cruise ship rock concerts in Key West harbor, last reported in yesterday’s Grumpy Cat loves politics, The Key West Morning After Show post at goodmorningkeywest.com:

The Moody Blues Cruise III Announced

One of the greatest rock bands of all time, The Moody Blues, have announced the initial line-up for their third fan cruise experience–THE MOODY BLUES CRUISE III–departing from Miami, FL. on February 26, 2016 for four days and nights, visiting tropical ports including Key West, Florida and Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas on the spectacular cruise ship, NCL Pearl. The band is very pleased to announce that they will be reunited with Moodies Cruise Alumni, The Zombies, The Orchestra, Ambrosia, Randy Hansen and Mellow Yellow. As in past years, fans can expect multiple sets from these fan favorites as well as photo ops during the cruise.
The Moody Blues have also announced three new special guests aboard the 2016 sailing, Christopher Cross, Renaissance & Rare Earth. Christopher Cross made history in 1981, winning 5 Grammy Awards and became one of the decades’ most successful performers. Renaissance, led by iconic vocalist Annie Haslam, brings their unique sound to the cruise with a fusion of folk, jazz, rock and classical influences. Finally, Rare Earth will rock the Moodies Cruise with their top 40 hits from the 70s, including Get Ready, I Just Want To Celebrate and many more.
Other classic performers confirmed include: John Waite, The Ides of March, Randy Hansen with the Music of Jimi Hendrix plus Matthew and Gunnar Nelson performing Ricky Nelson Remembered, a special tribute to their legendary father. Fans will be treated to special performances at multiple venues aboard the NCL Pearl, showcasing these special guest artists with more artists to be announced.
Fans will have access to private concerts, Q&A sessions, Fan Jam and Karaoke Bar, special events and activities, while interacting with musical guests that influenced the music of the 70s/80s and beyond. This is not just a “concert cruise.” It is a fan experience celebrating years of incredible music by one of the world’s most beloved bands, The Moody Blues. THE MOODY BLUES CRUISE IIIprovides a playground for the serious fan where music and luxury cruising hook up for a vacation of a lifetime. Tickets will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis and will only be available at www.MoodiesCruise.com.

I replied:

Back to the intergalactic sphere …

At the home of friends last night, I watched the movie “Contact”, which came out in 1997. I’d seen but had forgotten most of it. The heroine, an astrophysicist, has spent her entire life searching the heavens for intelligent life, which she says has to exist. Her counterpart, a noted theologian, has had a direct life-changing experience with God, but he cannot explain or prove it. The heroine and her star-searching associates go through great opposition, and just as they are about to be shut down altogether, a message comes through from the beyond, which unquestionably is from the star Vega solar system, and is from intelligent life there. Then the US Government version of homeland security gets involved, Bill Clinton is president, and, by then, the noted theologian is Clinton’s spiritual adviser. A great commotion ensues after the heroine is slipped by a “mad scientist mega-businessman” the primer for decoding all the many diagrams and formulas the Vegans sent to Earth, which were for building a device that would allow one human to be sent back to Vega. Will that person be the heroine, who is a non-believer scientists, or her boss, who had tried to shut her down and claims to be a believer? The boss gets chosen because 95 percent of humanity are believers, and a representative of most of humanity must be sent to Vega. But, a believer who doesn’t like any of this, blows up the device and kills the heroin’s boss, and then - viola!- the mad scientist mega businessman ,who secretly has been the heroine’s benefactor and technical adviser, tells her a duplicate device was secretly built in Japan and she is going to Vega. And she is sent through the device, which might be compared to a very elaborate star gate. She goes through worm holes. Sees astounding sights. Arrives at Vega, is met by a Vegan made to look like her deceased father, has all of his memories. She is told the Vegans don’t know who built the worm holes billions of years prior. There are many races in the stars, and humanity is interesting because it is capable of great beauty and just as great ugly. She is told she is being sent back, and it will be a while before there is further contact from Vega, that’s how it has been done for billions of years. She ends up in the travel pod in the ocean under the device. On site, it seemed she and the pod went right through the device, nothing else happened. She says she was gone 18 hours, and plenty happened. But she can prove none of it. Big congressional inquiry, she admits she can prove none of it, but she can’t say it didn’t happen. The tapes and audios she made during the trip are just static. She’s in the same dilemma her counterpart theologian is in - he knows God exists, but he can’t prove it. But she has created a mass of believers, in her. And the theologian believes her. And then, the homeland security honcho, who now has resigned to allegedly get to the bottom of it, but actually to run for Congress, is cornered by President Clinton’s black female national security adviser. Please explain, she says, how come there is 18 hours of static on the videos and audios the heroine took while she was gone only a few seconds.

I turned in last night thinking I know just how the theologian and the scientist felt, not myself being able to prove what I know exists, because I have seen it, and heard it, and felt it, ongoing for a very long time.

sloanbashinsky@outlook.com