sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
anomalous (unusual, quirky, strange, weird) musing and reporting of diverse human and non-human affairs
Saturday, August 31, 2019
How is Jim Hendrick, of Key West, fairing in the afterlife?
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
Friday, August 30, 2019
on the passing of Jim Hendrick in Key West
Jim Hendrick recently
died in Key West, of cancer, which had started in his brain, was arrested for a
while by medical interventions, but finally prevailed. Jim was a follower of
the esteemed Buddhist monk Thich
Nhat Hanh. Over time, I came to think Jim was a reincarnated lama doing
something different in this lifetime.
The other day, Jim's and my mutual good Florida Keys friend Todd German said Jim's widow had asked that everyone who knew Jim write something about him and send it to her. I told Todd that I would have to rest on it, because my views were not in line with what he was telling me about what he and other people were saying about Jim in the wake of his passing.
The other day, Jim's and my mutual good Florida Keys friend Todd German said Jim's widow had asked that everyone who knew Jim write something about him and send it to her. I told Todd that I would have to rest on it, because my views were not in line with what he was telling me about what he and other people were saying about Jim in the wake of his passing.
The next morning, my Key West homeless girlfriend Kari Dangler suggested I simply write, "I'll see you in greener pastures on the other side, Jim." I told her that reminded me of a poem that fell out of me when I lived in Boulder, Colorado, in the early 1990s:
The Tree of Life grows not on the battleground of good and evil, but in a quiet meadow, beside a gentle stream, under a beautiful rainbow that knows not right or wrong.
Then came texts from me to Todd over the next two days:
Sloan to Jim:
Godspeed, Jim. I’ll see you in greener pastures on the other side.
My favorite Jim quote:
“A special place in hell is reserved for developers who buy trailer parks and evict the tenants.”
Jim said that to the Monroe County Commission in Marathon. As Jim was leaving that meeting, I left my chair and walked over and introduced myself. Late fall, 2006.
My favorite moments with Jim were over a chess board, trying to (emphasis trying) to beat him, and watching him trying (even more emphasis) to beat the inebriated reincarnated high lama chess dervish Patrick McEvoy.
The most mystical moment came while riding with Todd German over Garrison Bight Bridge [in Key West] en route to Ft. Lauderdale for Jim’s second federal probation hearing. Spying a pretty naked lady on a barge being towed by two men in a runabout, Todd said he hoped it was a sign the judge would leave Jim on probation. I had written the judge a letter unlike any I doubted he had ever before received, encouraging him to leave Jim on probation. Perhaps that letter can be found elsewhere. Perhaps it had no effect. Perhaps the judge being devout Roman Catholic and Father Tony being Jim’s character witness mysticalized the judge to leave Jim on probation.
But then, perhaps what reached the judge was Jim’s contrite confession that he had dishonored his family and friends and profession and himself.
I wrote many times on my blogs about Jim's and my "hit and miss" personal relationship.
When we met in late 2006, Jim's trial in federal court was in progress. Jim represented real estate developers. I viewed real estate developers and their lawyers and captured public officials as lethal threats to the Florida Keys.
Jim's federal prosecution was rooted in his allegedly, when he was the county attorney, facilitating the bribe of a county commissioner by real estate developers. The statute of limitations had run on bribery, and Jim was prosecuted by the US Attorney for conspiracy, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
A federal jury convicted Jim in 2007. The federal trial judge put Jim on probation, because he was the only person the US Attorney had prosecuted. The county commissioner had died. One of the co-defendants had died. The other had made a deal with the US Attorney to wear a wire while talking with Jim.
Jim was disbarred by the State of Florida. He continued representing developers as a private consultant.
The US Attorney appealed Jim's probation for failure to follow federal sentencing guidelines. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the US Attorney and remanded the case to the trial court for a new probation hearing. The trial judge had retired and a new judge was assigned.
I was a former law clerk to a federal trial judge, who had presided over every criminal prosecution in the Northern District of Alabama. Behind the scenes, he had run the Democratic Party in Alabama.
I then became a practicing attorney in Birmingham, who later wrote consumer protection books about the residential real estate industry and the lawyer client relationship.
I quit the practice of law in late 1985, and, with angel help, became a mystic. A sometimes beautiful but mostly gruesome life change, about which I wrote a number of books, and later I wrote about it on my blogs.
In late 2000, angels sent me to live in the Florida Keys, to become involved in politics there as a citizen activist. I learned about that future in a dream, in which the federal trial judge, for whom I had clerked, told me he was thinking about getting into politics. I told him I didn't think that was a good idea, but knowing him, he was going to do it.
My father had kept a second home in the middle Florida Keys for decades. I had fished the flats around Islamorada hundreds of times. I had fantasized moving to Islamorada and becoming a flats guide.
Angels had told me in early January 1995, on No Name Key Bridge, which connects Big Pine Key and No Name Key, that because I loved the keys so much, I would be used to try to protect them.
I felt my soul lived in the Florida Keys. It greeted me when I returned, and I wept, and it stayed behind when I left, and I wept.
I never dreamed I would write a letter to a federal trial judge on behalf of a Florida Keys real estate developer lawyer, saying the federal trial judge, for whom I once had clerked, had told me many years later that the goddamned 11th Circuit Court of Appeals' sentencing guidelines had taken the humanity out of being a judge, but he had figured a way around it, and he wasn't going to tell me how he did it!
Meanwhile, the most poetic moment in my relationship with Jim Hendrick requires going back to the beginning, when Jim told the county commissioners a special place in hell is reserved for developers who buy trailer parks and evict the tenants. Jim was representing a mega-real estate developer, who had bought a trailer park and then submitted an application to redevelop it for high-end residences. Jim convinced the commissioners that his client was not making the trailer park tenants leave, and that the development was grandfathered under a Florida statute, which had been repealed by the state legislature. (Eventually, all the trailer tenants would leave.)
As a registered Independent, by a 3/1 margin, I had recently lost my first county commission race to the Republican incumbent commissioner. My mantra during the race was: "No more new development, period, the end. The Florida Keys already are way over developed, and there is not a person living here who can look in a mirror and honestly argue otherwise." I introduced myself to Jim as he was leaving the commission meeting. He knew of me from the commission race. We exchanged email addresses. Our friendship began.
As time passed and things happened, I came to think the mega-developer was possessed by Lucifer, and I published that on my blogs a number of times. Then one day, Jim said he would prove to me that his client was not possessed by Lucifer. I invited Jim to put on his case. Jim said his client was the best salesman he ever met. He got people to look at what he wanted them to see, and not at what he didn't want them to see. I said, "That's how Lucifer sells. I rest my case."
Also at that poetry
reading were Jim’s wife, Todd German, and Jim’s future wife, who one day would
ask Todd to invited people who had known Jim to write about him.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Seems Sloan's going through a transition ...
Seems Sloan's going through a transition. No, still stuck with being a fool. Change seems to be in writing for publication. New theme is healing. A book started itself, and stalled after the first two chapters. All sorts of stuff percolating in my thoughts, emotions, dreams and physical body, and in what close friends dream and hear from the Spirit World about me, but nothing else demands - yet - that it be seen and heard on my laptop monitor screen.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Will the truth about Jerry Epstein's death ever be told?
My friend said he had heard through a grapevine that the Aryan Brotherhood, headquartered in the Atlanta federal prison, had put a several hundred thousand dollar bounty on Epstein’s life, which news had gotten into the prison grapevine and the major prison gangs were vying to claim the bounty. The grapevine said the bounty had been offered to the Aryan Brotherhood by a secret source.
My friend said he sent an email to the federal prison HQ and to New York's Rikers Island jail, where he thought Epstein had been transferred by the feds to better protect him, stating what my friend had heard, and of his concern that Epstein would not live to see his trial, and they needed to keep a very close watch on him.
My friend said he received back an email from a man representing the feds, saying they had Epstein on suicide watch, in a suicide hood, and were checking him every 15 minutes, and there was no way he was going to die by suicide or foul play. The federal prison official representative said they had received 4,500 similar emails from citizens, who wanted Epstein to stay alive and go to trial, and they were receiving thousands of phone calls a day. The fed rep said they did not need the public’s help. They had it covered.
My friend said he did not wish to share those emails with me and the public, and him and/or me then maybe end up dead or worse.
The plot further thickened, as reported in the "fake" news New York Times article below, in which it appeared, Epstein was in a federal facility in New York City (not at Rikers Island), and Epstein was not being watched even every 30 minutes, and he was supposed to have a cell mate to help him remain stable, but his cell mate was moved out and he was alone. The Times article reported the authorities said it absolutely was suicide, and I wondered if the George Washington Bridge was for sale again?

Before Jail Suicide, Jeffrey Epstein Was Left Alone and Not Closely Monitored
The plot thickened again, when it was reported in various online news media that Epstein had hanged himself with a bed sheet tied to the top bunk in his cell. He had tied the other end of the sheet around his neck and had leaned forward and broken several small bones in his neck, including the hyoid bone, and had strangled himself:
From Wikipedia:
The hyoid bone (lingual bone or tongue-bone)
(/ˈhaɪɔɪd/[2][3]) is a horseshoe-shaped bone situated
in the anterior midline of the neckbetween the chin and
the thyroid cartilage.
At rest, it lies at the level of the base of the mandible in the front and the third cervical vertebra (C3)
behind.
Unlike
other bones, the hyoid is only distantly articulated to
other bones by muscles or ligaments. The hyoid is anchored by muscles from the
anterior, posterior and inferior directions, and aids in tongue movement and
swallowing. The hyoid bone provides attachment to the muscles of the floor of the mouth and
the tongue above, the larynx below, and
the epiglottis and pharynx behind.
I told my friend that the odds of someone or someones else strangling the unguarded, unwatched Epstein in that fashion were exponentially greater than him doing it to himself. My friend agreed.
I said I could imagine there are high profile people, who might have secretly funded a bounty to have Epstein killed. For hypothetical examples, the Clintons. President Trump. Prince Andrew. MI5 or MI6. The CIA. Etc. My friend agreed.
I asked my friend, why would Khamael have come to him and asked if Epstein would be bumped off or killed, if something fishy was not coming down? My friend agreed.
The next plot thickening came when my friend reported that Google had removed from his email account his email to the federal prison headquarters, and the email back to him from the federal prison official, with a note from Google, that any unauthorized reuse of those emails could constitute perjury and obstruction of justice. My friend said a draft of his email to the feds also was removed from his email account by Google.
I said it l didn't see how perjury came into play, and spreading the federal prison official's email around would be prevention of obstruction of justice.
I said perhaps that email had been sent out many times, and hopefully Attorney General William Barr had obtained a copy, but whether that email will ever see the light of day might be another matter altogether.
I can imagine it will be a cold day in hell before Barr learns what really happened to Epstein, and if Barr ever does learn, will he tell the American public?
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
nationally-syndicated conservative talk show host Tea Party member and former U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh rips President Trump to shreds.
A bombshell New York Times "fake" news op-ed from the ultra right, blasting President Trump, showed up in my online news feed this morning:
Joe Walsh: Trump Needs a Primary Challenge
The case for a contender from the right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/joe-walsh-trump-primary.html?fbclid=IwAR00PF7KHxKWMJ11tYgIlygH3cv2SP7dPvfUDH2PDfpGAkHtTn1JLziAbZcIn his repentance, nationally-syndicated conservative talk show host Tea Party member and former U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh rips President Trump to shreds.
Excerpts:
There’s a strong case for President Trump to face a Republican
primary challenger. I know a thing or two about insurgencies. I entered
Congress in 2011 as an insurgent Tea Party Republican. My goals were
conservative and clear: restrain executive power and reduce the debt. Barack
Obama was president then, and it was easy for us to rail against runaway
spending and executive overreach.
Eight years later, Mr. Trump has increased
the deficit more than $100 billion year over year — it’s now nearing $1
trillion — and we hear not a word of protest from my former Republican
colleagues. He abuses the Constitution for his narcissistic trade war. In
private, most congressional Republicans oppose the trade war, but they don’t
say anything publicly. But think about this: Mr. Trump’s tariffs are a tax
increase on middle-class Americans and are devastating to our farmers. That’s
not a smart electoral strategy.
Fiscal matters are only part of it. At the
most basic level, Mr. Trump is unfit for office. His lies are so numerous —
from his absurd claim that tariffs are “paid for mostly by China, by the way, not by us,” to
his prevarication about his crowd sizes, he can’t be trusted.
In Mr. Trump, I see the worst and ugliest
iteration of views I expressed for the better part of a decade. To be sure,
I’ve had my share of controversy. On more than one occasion, I questioned Mr.
Obama’s truthfulness about his religion. At times, I expressed hate for my
political opponents. We now see where this can lead. There’s no place in our
politics for personal attacks like that, and I regret making them.
I didn’t vote for Mr. Trump in 2016 because
I liked him. I voted for him because he wasn’t Hillary Clinton. Once he was
elected, I gave him a fair hearing, and tried to give him the benefit of the
doubt. But I soon realized that I couldn’t support him because of the danger he
poses to the country, especially the division he sows at every chance,
culminating a few weeks ago in his ugly, racist attack on four minority
congresswomen.
The fact is, Mr. Trump is a racial arsonist
who encourages bigotry and xenophobia to rouse his base and advance his
electoral prospects. In this, he inspires imitators.
Republicans should view Mr. Trump as the
liability that he is: No matter his flag-hugging,
or his military parades, he’s no patriot. In front of the world, he sides with
Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence community. That’s dangerous. He
encouraged Russian interference in the 2016 election, and he refuses to take
foreign threats seriously as we enter the 2020 election. That’s reckless. For
three years, he has been at war with our federal law enforcement and
intelligence agencies, as he embraces tyrants abroad and embarrasses our
allies. That’s un-American.
And despite what his enablers claim, Mr.
Trump isn’t a conservative. He’s reckless on fiscal issues; he’s incompetent on
the border; he’s clueless on trade; he misunderstands executive power; and he
subverts the rule of law. It’s his poor record that makes him most worthy of a
primary challenge.
Mr. Trump has taken the legitimate
differences that Americans have on policy and turned them into personal
division. He’s caused me to change my tone and to reflect upon where I went
over the line and to focus on policy differences moving forward.
We now have a president who retweets
conspiracy theories implicating his political opponents in Jeffrey Epstein’s
death. We now have a president who does his level best to avoid condemning
white supremacy and white nationalism.
Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman, is a nationally
syndicated conservative talk radio host.
The
Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like
to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email:letters@nytimes.com.
Just my own ignorant delusional personal opinion ...
Thank you, Mr. Walsh, for taking your own personal inventory, as well as President Trump's. I wonder, though, if you are an excellent example of what happens when you are so opposed to something (Hillary Clinton) that you cannot see the massive armada of red flags waving over, around, beneath, before and behind the candidate you vote for instead?
By the way, given how much President Trump detests the New York Times, and given how far right politically you are, Mr. Walsh, I can only imagine you presented your op-ed to the Times, or God somehow managed to get it to the Times, to make a point.
By the way, given how much President Trump detests the New York Times, and given how far right politically you are, Mr. Walsh, I can only imagine you presented your op-ed to the Times, or God somehow managed to get it to the Times, to make a point.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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