Mark Howell's - "Soundings"
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Soundings

Eric Holowacz regrets to report that the village in the South Pacific in which he enjoined the chief and villagers into the Conch Republic and then wrote about it in Solares Hill ("The Great Pacific Continental Drift," Aug. 30) was utterly destroyed by last week's earthquake and tsunami in American Samoa.

Lalomanu, which Eric, director of The Studios of Key West, described in these pages as "particularly charming," has been wiped out. "The fales [huts] are all destroyed. Sina, who ran the beach resort, had her three children swept to sea. Hundreds are missing or dead."

"All Three of Them Gone! Mother Sees Children Swept Away" was Thursday's headline in the New Zealand Herald, the story describing the loss of Jesasa, 7, and his sisters Uena, 4, and E.J., 3.

"My God," exclaimed Eric, "we were just there in June, enjoying five days in a beach hut, getting to know the locals and their chief.... I'm trying to find a way to rally the Conch Republic Navy, so stay tuned."

• • • • •

The death last week of William Safire, former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon who spent his later years writing a column on language and the etymology of phrases, reminds Soundings that it was 50 years ago when he famously photographed what became known as the "kitchen debate."

At an exhibition in Moscow featuring an American model home, a visiting Vice President Nixon argued with the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, over the virtues of American capitalism. Safire, who was in Moscow as the publicity agent for the manufacturer of the home on display, helped set up the Nixon-Khrushchev confrontation to gain favorable coverage of his client's product.

Safire took the photograph of the two leaders in the model kitchen, including a Soviet bureaucrat who'd pushed his way behind Nixon and whom Safire was unable to crop from the photo because it would have deleted the kitchen's new dishwasher. Safire later discovered that this was Leonid Brezhnev (with eyes closed in the photo), who would come to mastermind the coup that toppled Khrushchev from power in 1964.

The 1959 Nixon-Khrushchev confrontation also led to Khrushchev's endorsement of the flavor of Pepsi Cola. It was Nixon's role in introducing Khrushchev to Pepsi Cola at a taste station in the exhibition that earned Nixon the undying loyalty of Pepsi executives.

It was while working for Pepsi that Nixon attended a bottlers' convention in Dallas, Texas that ended on Nov. 22, 1963. He left for New York shortly after President Kennedy and his wife arrived in Dallas on that deadly Friday.

• • • • •

From 1750 to 1900 (150 years), all human knowledge doubled.

From 1900 to 1950 (50 years), it doubled again.

From 1950 to 1965 (15 years), it doubled again.

Estimates have the sum of all human knowledge now doubling at the rate of every 24 months.

-- University of Houston, "Brief History of Training & Human Resource Development."

• • • • •

There will be no cost-of- living increase in Social Security payments for 2010. The government's reasoning is that the formula for determining the annual cost-of-living-increases overestimates the cost of some items like fuel and underestimates the impact of health care costs, leading to a determination that, regardless of what your grocery receipts and checkbook may be telling you, there is no inflation.

• • • • •

Signs of the Times:

René-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, who lost more than $1.4 billion of his family's and clients' money in the Madoff rip-off, has died from cutting his wrists.

German industrialist Adolph Merkle, 74, and British financier Kirk Stephenson, 47, have both died from jumping in front of trains.

• • • • •

There's a new adult costume store in Key West, located in Searstown between Outback and Imagination Station.

Now on sale at Fantasy Costumes are wigs, masks, hosiery, fishnets, make-up, costumes and accessories. "We'll vamp your vixen" is the pledge.

• • • • •

Today's 11 a.m. service at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 801 Georgia St., is about swearing, damn it. Rev. Randy Becker reconsiders what it means to take God's name in vain. Is it about cussing and cursing or is it about something much more essential to our psychological and spiritual well-being?

In fact, does it have anything to do with the notion of a God at all?

• • • • •

"At Last Light" by Kathy Cafferty has been chosen as the first full-scale production for The People's Theater of Key West.

At a scene-study presentation at Kelly's Restaurant, the audience was asked to choose which of four locally written plays would be produced in the spring of 2010.

Playwright Cafferty had developed her play with the help of other workshop participants earlier in the year, after which the People's Theater presented a staged reading of four plays from within the group and showcased them at Kelly's.

• • • • •

A memorial service for Leslie Leonelli, co-owner of Pearl's Rainbow Resort who died of lung cancer at the age of 62, will be held on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 11 a.m. on South Beach at the foot of Duval Street, followed by a reception two blocks away at Pearl's Rainbow.

Leslie died on Sept. 24 surrounded by friends and with her cat Dottie by her side.

• • • • •

Richard T. Chiroff, who died in August and whose obituary quoted him as saying "Key West was the best place I ever lived," resided here with his wife Sally for a number of years. Says Solares Hill columnist Joanna Schmida, they were "two of those amazing people who really make a difference to a community."

Dick had a career as one of the country's most distinguished orthopedic surgeons, "yet in Key West he did not even refer to himself as doctor," recalls Schmida. "I loved him -- he made friends with everyone he met. We were born on exactly the same day and, until he moved away four years ago, we used to celebrate our birthdays together, complete with balloons, presents and a party."

He was originally from Milwaukee and lived in several places, including Germany and Poughkeepsie. A heart attack at 51 forced him into retirement and he moved to Key West, immediately getting involved in AIDS Help, Meals on Wheels and St. Mary's program for feeding the homeless (despite two or three subsequent minor heart attacks and a bout with cancer).

Dick touched the lives of many people in Key West, some of whom might want to offer their tributes to Sally Chiroff, 7329 Kerry Hill Court, Columbia, MD 21045.

• • • • •

Parrots can solve certain linguistic processing tasks as deftly as 4- to 6-year-old children. Parrots appear to grasp concepts like "same" and "different," "bigger" and "smaller," "none" and numbers. They can also combine labels and phrases in novel ways.

A January 2007 study in language sciences suggests using patterns of parrot speech learning to develop artificial speech skills in robots.

• • • • •

Everglades National Park is using thermal imagery to detect the invasive Burmese python. More than 900 pythons have already been captured in the park and the snakes may now number more than 100,000 in south Florida as a whole.

Thermographic cameras detect radiation in living creatures based on their body temperatures, making it possible to see animals and people not visible to the human eye.

Burmese pythons lay about 50 eggs in a clutch. When born, the hatchling pythons are roughly 20 inches long, ensuring a survival rate much better than most indigenous species.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 17,000 of the snakes were imported into the United States between 1970 and 1995. Between 1996 and 2006, approximately 99,000 more pythons were imported. Today the cost of a python ranges from $20 to $80.

Burms can reach lengths of more than 20 feet; one measuring 18 feet was recently captured in Apopka. Stomach examinations reveal they eat rabbits, mice and rats plus native bird species including limpkins, egrets and herons.

• • • • •

A surprise announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency last week has halted 79 pending mountaintop removal mining permits.

This is good news for those following Solares Hill's coverage of an issue brought to worldwide attention in July when actress Daryl Hannah and Key West visitor Ken Hechler (once President Truman's personal assistant) were arrested for protesting the destruction of mountains to get at coal.

• • • • •

We enjoy this definition from the Urban Dictionary:

"'Wackadoodle:' An eccentric person, generally good-natured. Not to be confused with a 'wackjob,' who can be nasty."

• • • • •

The Keys Community School of the Arts begins classes on Oct. 17 in the rectory at St. Paul's Church.

Bringing their dream to fruition are co-founders and directors Robin Kaplan and Libby Curtis, longtime Key West residents and musicians. "Libby and I planned for years to open a school in the Keys community," said Kaplan. As a member of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, the new school proposes that involvement in the arts is essential to individual fulfillment and community life.

The grand opening is on Saturday, Oct. 10 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the church at 415 Duval St. All are invited to ask questions and visit the new facility. A free music-demonstration class for infants to 5-year-olds will be held at 2:30 p.m., followed by a musical presentation from the cast of this summer's Camp Bravo theater group.

• • • • •

Rarely was a city so aptly named. Italy's City of Water, Venice, is facing dangerously high tides almost every day and costly flood barriers now being built might not be able to protect it.

The barriers are due for completion in 2014. Climatologist Vivien Gornitz at NASA says sea levels are already rising faster than previously forecast and the barriers may be insufficient to save the city.

• • • • •

A former D.C. lobbyist turned rock 'n roll pundit, the writer called Dickfish has reached the following conclusions:

Life is random. Shun sacraments. Tempt fate. Pack lotion.

All you need is love. Sex is magic, but true love will take your breath away.

Don't get lazy -- get a clue. Travel, explore and revel in the wider world.

Pump up the volume. Life is best lived at its fullest.

Wine is good. The right wine with the right mate makes all the difference.

• • • • •

Quote for the Week:

"Every day is a caper and most reporters are attention-deprived adrenaline junkies who care only for the next story. Journalists are like cops, hugging the job close and savoring the rest of their life as they can."

-- David Carr,

media columnist,

The New York Times