A NUMBER OF ITEMS…..

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Busy morning ahead. Doctor visit, hair cut appointment, etc. Ergo, I am briefly hitting on some items I think  or would like to think need mentioning. No special order involved.

Fifteen thousand U.S. Army personnel now on the way to the southwest border. The number ha gone from 800 to 15,000 in a week. Fifteen thousand as many troops as we have in Afghanistan.

Watched Beto O’Rourke being interviewed for an hour monday night. Reminded me of Robert Kennedy.

Economy doing good? General Electric has a crack in its wall. Under financial stress. Dividend 119 years old. This year reduced to a penny a share.

Staying with the economy, General Motors experiencing tariff and market pressures. Eighteen thousand jobs to be eliminated. Salaried employees going via buyouts.

Harry Dent an economist. Called the financial bust of 2008. Says the DOW will experience a catastrophic plunge. As low as 6,500. Hard to believe that low. Claims it could happen as soon as the next few months. An economist I am not. However, I have been predicting a recession since last year. Thought it would occur late this year or early next year.

China’s President Xi has ordered his military to “prepare for war.” Diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing have hit rock bottom.

Chart Room first last night. Tammy bartending. Parrotheads in town. Took over the Chart Room. I only stayed for one drink. All seniors, they were not talking to each other or to me. Merely staring ahead.

Drove over to Blue Macaw. Better. People communicating. Terri singing. Chatted with Lynda and Bob Frechette, John and Fiona, and Mary.

Syracuse football doing well this year. So far, 6-2. Saturday, Wake Forest at noon. Hopefully Syracuse will continue its winning ways.

Syracuse basketball has arrived. Thrilled I am! Played Le Moyne in a practice game last night. Syracuse won by 37 points. Don’t laugh that it was Le Moyne. Le Moyne made it to the Elite Eight last year. Season officially opens tuesday when Syracuse plays East Washington.

Beware! Big Brother increasingly looking over our shoulders. His presence has greatly increased since Trump became President. The U.S. is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests. Social media posts of American citizens who don’t like Trump are the force promoting latest U.S. military funded research.

Think of all that is happening involving the U.S. Question: Is the U.S. on the verge of a nervous breakdown?

On this day in 1512, the Sistine Chapel was exhibited to the public for the first time. One of Michelangelo’s greatest works. Thirty five years ago, I was in Rome and had the good fortune to see it. Magnificent!

Fantasy Fest over. I am waiting for the Citizen to print its analysis of the event. Business volume and number of participants. Up or down? I have been asking around what locals think. Generally, more risqué and fewer people.

This has been fun!

Enjoy your day!

 

 

 

 

JENNY BEAMING POST MASTECTOMY

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The Chart Room last night.

John back from his Mexican vacation. Good to see him. He was missed.

Met Scott and Jenny. Fortyish. From northern Florida. Honeymooned in Key West. Visit 3-4 times a year.

Contract soft ware engineers.

Staying at the Pier House.

Jenny a cheery personality. She had a story to tell. Told me. Gave me permission to share it.

Jenny was diagnosed with breast cancer during the summer. A fast moving 2. Opted for the mastectomy. The breast was rebuilt during the surgical procedure.

The woman is alive! A personality. She had to be the same prior to the cancer. Her attitude clear. Meet the enemy and knock it down. She did.

Gumption the only way to describe her.

She requested no nipple. Strange, I thought. She plans on having the nipple area tattooed. With the Key West setting sun.

She still has to undergo chemotherapy. Six chemos. Each three weeks apart. The first scheduled for next week.

Heidi Schrammer back. Met her a few nights ago at the Chart Room. She is the Marathon bartender who was in Key West for a few days.

Finally figured out why she was here several nights in a row rather than back in Marathon. Her home was wiped out. FEMA agreed to provide a roof over her head. The only available rooms left were in Key West.

Heidi has a problem. The FEMA program ends monday. Four hundred hotel rooms FEMA occupied. Where the occupants will go, I know not.

A moving force is requiring what amounts to a FEMA eviction. Fantasy Fest begins this weekend. The hotel rooms are needed.

David came in. Spent a while enjoying his company.

Left for home. Stopped at Denny’s on the way home for a bite to eat.

Parrot Heads are a nationwide, perhaps worldwide, Jimmy Buffett fan club. They meet once a year in Key West. They are here this week. Easy to recognize. They wear large crazy hats. Always laughing. Enjoying themselves.

Fantasy Fest begins tomorrow. Goombay. A Bahamian/Cuban street festival. Petronia Street.

A crocodile here. An alligator there. Such has been the story the past few years.

This morning’s Citizens Voice reports a snorkeler off the White Street Pier ran into a six foot crocodile. In three feet of water.

Crocs and alligators have been popping up in greater frequency. Still small in number, however. Ten years from now may not be the case. Crocs and alligators may be here in larger numbers. I do not recall croc or alligator sightings ten years ago.

Still waiting for my new book Irma and Me to hit the stands. Any day now.

I keep several book writings going at one time. Several months already invested in Key West prostitutes. The history of prostitution in Key West.

The prostitution business was healthy and thriving in the 1880’s. As was the liquor business. Seventeen liquor saloons.

Key West’s population was just under 20,000. A thriving city. Key West was the largest and wealthiest city in Florida. Miami and Miami Beach not yet in the picture.

One third of the residents were Cuban born. The cigar factories induced them to come to Key West. Excellent employment. The cigar factories were turning out 62 million cigars a year.

Education had a bi-ness to it. The students were taught in Spanish in the morning and English in the afternoon.

Big Brother is watching us! 1984 just around the corner!

I have been mentioning the armed masked mercenaries in Puerto Rico. An unknown force all of a sudden appearing on the streets of San Juan.

Could happen in a U.S. city tomorrow. With the same suddenness.

Los Angeles is playing with Big Brother/1984.

Los Angeles has 110,000 street lights. A company manufacturing SmartNodes and SmartPoles is on the verge of doing business with Los Angeles. Street pole lights that provide a surveillance network.

Each street light equipped with cameras, microphones, speakers, etc. Microphones sensitive enough to pick up a conversation between two people.

Los Angeles and many other American cities will jump at the chance to install these street lights that spy. There is an inducement. The manufacturer will pay $1,200 to a city per year for every SmartNode installed. Note, per year. For Los Angeles, the pay back amounts to $13.2 million a year.

Politics has not changed in the United States in more than 200 years. Defame your opponent! Exhibit the evilness in him!

In 1796, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were opposing each other for President. Alexander Hamilton supported Adams and personally hated Jefferson.

Under the phony name of Phocion, Hamilton wrote an editorial published in the newspaper Gazette of the United States stating Jefferson was having an adulterous affair with one of his slaves. Later established to be Sally Hemings.

Big night tonight! Dinner with my benefactor and dear friend Jean Thornton. Stone crabs at the Conch Republic!

Enjoy your day!