Sunday, November 1, 2009

'When the sun first assembles itself over the broken skyline of Key West, a thunderous light fills the city and everyone moves in stately flotation through streets that are conduits of something empyrean. Also, things can get sweaty."

-- Thomas McGuane, author of "92 In the Shade" and "Panama"

(both novels set in Key West in the 1970s).

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If carbon dioxide in the world's skies is not quickly reduced to 350 parts per billion, warns the Center for Biological Diversity, at least 350 species will soon be threatened with extinction. Peer-reviewed studies show that 35 percent of the world's species could be "committed to extinction" by 2050 if the current emissions trajectory does not dramatically change.

Among Florida's likely losses to extinction over the next 40 years would be, in alphabetical order, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow; the Choctawatchee beach mouse; the Florida manatee; the Florida panther; Florida prairie clover; the frosted flatwoods salamander; the green sea turtle; the hawksbill sea turtle; Kemps Ridley sea turtle; Key deer; the leatherback and loggerback sea turtles; Lower Keys marsh rabbit; Miami blue butterfly; piping plover; Schaus swallowtail butterfly; the swalltooth sawfish; the three-toed box turtle; the whooping crane (North America's tallest bird) and the yellow-billed cuckoo.

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Seventy-one years ago, on Oct. 27, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the second National Wildlife Refuge in the Florida Keys, the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge, which is more than 111,000 acres of lands and waters in the Gulf from Key West to the middle of the Seven Mile Bridge.

The north end of Mud Key and Snipe Point are the only land areas open to the general public. Other refuge islands, which contain Key deer, are open to public access with a free special use permit. Those islands are Little Pine, Johnson, Water (off Little Pine), Mayo, Annette, Howell, Water (west of Howell) and Knockemdown Keys.

(Refuge hours for accessing the islands are ¬½ hour before sunrise to ¬½ hour after sunset.)

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Should we boil Maine-style lobsters alive when we prepare them for the table?

No! is the cry of a growing group of lobster liberationists. Doing so, insists the Lobster Liberation Front, is cruel. Ethical eaters all over the world are up in arms about it. One Italian town calls boiling lobsters alive "useless torture."

In 2003, the Canadian government almost passed an animal-welfare law that would have made cooking a live lobster a crime punishable by up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine. This year, the British government is considering animal welfare laws that will include crustaceans, as are the governments of Australia and New Zealand.

The problem, says Boston Magazine in a story called "Lobsterpalooza: Boiling Point" by Trevor Corson, is that "lobster is one of the few foods that most Americans can still purchase alive and kicking, the last link between our kitchens and the great outdoors ... Lobster is one of the last true free-range meats and it can survive out of water long enough to make it to the kitchen still kicking."

But we have to find other ways to dispatch them, says Karin Robertson of the Fish Empathy Project. "We would never consider boiling a dog alive."

In response to the tightening of animal welfare laws in England, scientists have come up with a machine to kill lobster with minimum pain prior to cooking. The CrustaStun is a stainless-steel coffin in which the creatures are jolted with 110 volts of electricity.

In the United States we have the Shucks Maine Lobster, a vertical cylinder that can carry up to 200 pounds of lobster at the same time. Water pressure inside the cylinder is compressed to a pressure greater than five times that of the deepest ocean trenches; the lobsters die instantly and the meat separates from the shell. The meat is then vacuum sealed and the packages repressurized to kill pathogens. Supermarkets are currently considering the product for retail sale.

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"My husband Terry," writes Blondie Gindele, "had a part in the original 'Night of the Living Dead' movie."

A festival honoring this cult movie and all the original cast is to be held in Edco Park, Pittsburg on Halloween night. "Terry had the weird honor of being the first zombie to die on film. There are a lot of people who are into horror trivia and love this kind of thing."

A short film premiering that night features Terry as a zombie "married to a clueless woman (played by me)," continues Blondie, "who has no idea that her husband has been undead for all of their married life."

Terry, says his wife, has lived and worked in Key West for 35 years or more and is known for his artwork and his house-painting skills.

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In a memoir released last Monday, Fidel Castro's sister Juanita states that a top-level CIA agent named Tony Sforza recruited her to provide intelligence for the United States.

This is from the UK newspaper, The Guardian:

"Her cooperation was a rare cold war success for spymasters tasked with toppling the Soviet Union's tropical ally. The Kennedy White House authorized many CIA assassination attempts -- 638 efforts, according to one estimate -- as well as the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by exiles.

"[Juanita's] enlistment by the U.S. dents the reputation of Cuba's formidable intelligence service.

"Raúl, the then-defence minister and now president in place of the ailing Fidel, knew of their sister's wayward political views in 1964 but still approved her trip to Mexico, where she defected."

The revelation is likely to annoy Cuba's government, even though the events were so long ago, said one western diplomat in Havana. "Under Obama, relations between the U.S. and Cuba are going in a slightly better direction. This won't help that process."

The name Tony Sforza is well-known to students of the Kennedy assassination (which is not to suggest his involvement in it). In the book "Ultimate Sacrifice," which cites Solares Hill's own research into the assassination, Lamar Waldron argues there was going to be a coup in Cuba in early December 1963, supported and encouraged by Jack Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.

The plans were so secret, very few members of the administration were aware of them. The coup, Waldron argues, was being organized by a close associate of Castro, Juan Almeida, who recently died. The Kennedys were working through a Cuban exile named Harry Williams, who years later discussed these plans with the author.

Waldron proposes that elements of the Mafia, aware of the planned coup, used it as a cover for the Kennedy assassination. Larry Hancock, author of "Someone Would Have Talked," does not support all of Waldron's Mafia theory but he does agree that the Kennedys were indeed working with Williams to encourage the internal coup.

His book reports on a CIA document discussing plans involving Sforza (named only by his CIA cryptonym) to exfiltrate from Cuba in late November a high profile CIA headquarters "asset."

Hancock, who has contributed to Solares Hill's research into the Keys connections to the Kennedy assassination, speculates that the person to be removed prior to the planned coup may have been Castro's sister, Juanita.

• • • • •

The Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918, established the nation's time zones as law (U.S. and Canadian railroad companies had already instituted standard time into zones in 1883). The act also established daylight saving time, which didn't go down too well at the time and was repealed the next year, although the time zones remained in the law books.

Daylight time became a local matter until it was re-established nationally early in World War II and was continuously observed from Feb. 9, 1942 to Sept. 30, 1945. After the war, its use varied among states and localities again.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 provided standardization in the beginning and ending dates of daylight time but still allowed for local exemptions. Daylight time would officially begin on the last Sunday in April and end on the last Sunday in October, with the changeover to occur at 2 a.m. local time.

During the Carter years, Congress enacted earlier starting dates for daylight time. In 1974, daylight time began on Jan. 6, and in 1975 it began on Feb. 23. After those two years the starting date reverted back to the last Sunday in April.

In 1986, a law was passed that shifted the starting date of daylight time to the first Sunday in April, beginning in 1987. The ending date of daylight time was not subject to such changes, and remained the last Sunday in October.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed both the starting and ending dates. Beginning in 2007, daylight time now starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.

• • • • •

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Life Expectancy:

Andorra; San Marino; Japan; Singapore; Australia; Switzerland; Sweden; Hong Kong; Canada; Iceland.

(From U.S. Census Bureau's International database.)

• • • • •

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living.

• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

• The right of every family to a decent home.

• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health

• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

• The right to a good education.

(Announced 1944 in film footage believed lost until uncovered in 2008 in South Carolina by Michael Moore while researching "Capitalism: A Love Story.")

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Quote for the Week:

"I refuse to live in a country like this -- and I'm not leaving."

-- Michael Moore

in "Capitalism:

A Love Story"