Y'all come to The Not So Sweet Home Alabama Podcast and some of its distant and near kin houses of mirrors

    A while back, my tech friend Bob created ad free, no soliciting The Not So Sweet Home Alabama Podcast to accompany The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast at YouTube and Torrent platforms. 

    Since then, we did 5 episodes, links provided down below.

    The podcasts are in English and about 50 other languages. Parental Guidance advised. 

    The podcasts tend to run about an hour or more. We have some topics in mind, but we do not follow a written script or teleprompter.

    We wander sometimes, and we quote sages from the past, and we quote stuff Jesus said that does not sit well with Christianity today, especially first taking the many beams out of its own eyes.

    We belong to no religion, political party or herd, after angels known in the Bible conscripted us and turned use upside down and inside out and every which way but loose, and stood up before endless mirrors looking at our own stupid selves, which changed our ways thinking about pretty much everything.

    We tell lots of stories about things that really happened, which some people don’t or maybe never will believe happened-until they reach the afterlife and see very differently.

    According to Bob, the viewing audience for the three podcasts is predominantly outside of America, and episodes average around 500,000 complete watches at Torrent Platforms.

    Because we do not allow YouTube to run ads, we do not have access to YouTube/Google viewer numbers.

    In the time order produced:

Angel Michael Defends Native American with terminal cancer, US Politicians Prove to be Poison To All

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJxbv8G1PIw

Dreams, Soul, & Self Know Our Body Best & Other Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq8Sqyntv-Y&t=2280s

America's woke, unwoke, egghead, politically correct, Project 2025 diseases

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOx4mVt_VOs

Two Patriots Say What Politicians and Fake Patriots Won't Say

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSAIXKjBnPk&t=1787s

No Ears America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEa_WcqKiyA

    Meanwhile, Roy, who grew up near me in the upscale white Mountain Brook aka The Tiny Kingdom suburb, but we did not know each other, replied to conversations with an old dyed in the true blue Democrat wool Key West ex-pat, author, retired RN nurse about life in the slow lane.

    

Sloan, 

Incredible as usual. Fantastic it is that I connected with you, and I can not leave, nor should you anytime soon. Health wise, as my father lived until he was 95 and my mother until one week short of 98, with healthcare of today and life being so fascinating, active and interesting why should I not try to live well past 100??  After all, I am keeping up to my daily goal of walking on average over 10,000 steps a day without difficulty after two robotic-assisted  knee replacements, two laser cataract lens replacements, and two carpal-cubital tunnel clean outs. Next comes the cancer killing step and diabetes avoidance. Both are expected to stay on the good track toward success.  Life is just too wonderful to let it go too soon!  You are most certainly adding yourself to my list of people who interest me. Keep going! Let's keep sharing thoughts, even though my writing skills seem less than your lawyer  trained ones. So I am not likely to be as prolific. Both of us clearly enjoy imagining. Let's keep this going. Let's keep enjoying learning    

Roy  

 

    I replied:

Thanks, Roy

I get up each morning and deal with what the rest of the day brings. I have some fun, and I have the opposite. 

Be grateful you didn’t live in my body since 1969 :-). 

I’m grateful the angels trained me to do work that causes my soul to feel engaged. Their primary training was standing me before endless mirrors, looking a me.

I’m grateful I play a lot of chess and duplicate bridge, and sometimes get to visit with my friends and my children and their families, and I’m grateful that I'm not homeless and that I really like my apartment and this area of Birmingham.

I am sickened by what has become of America, which seems headed much deeper into the shitter, and the Democrats and the Republicans and Trump and Biden and Harris and their congregations don’t see how they and their forebearers are the reason. 

The angels changed my perspective of everything. Being homeless 5 years, and then 2 years, changed my perspective of everything again. But nothing prepared me for Donald Trump and his Aryan Christian armies.

Nothing in me wants to live in an America choking on such rat poison. If I were younger and felt better and had a valid passport, I would rather live somewhere else.

Sloan 

    At the beginning of the second half of last night's Alabama v. Western Kentucky football season opener, I posted this at the BAMA NATION Facebook group, which has 64.3K members. I later saw some typos, which I repaired for this post.

Sloan Bashinsky 

I’m writing on my laptop and watching Alabama play Western Kentucky. With a minute to go, Bama just went ahead 42-0 with another long play, a pass this time. Should Bama fans be jubilant? No. In the first half, this Bama team had close to 100 yards in penalties, a sure sign, as in previous years, of something seriously awry. Already, the Bama center snapped a ball over his quarterback Jalen Milroe’s head, which happened many times last year with a different center. Jalen raced backwards and as he reached for the ball and grasped it with both hands, instead of tucking the ball in, he turned his head to see where the defenders were and he lost this grasp and a defender recovered the ball deep in Bama territory. Bama’s defense held again.

That kind of undisciplined football may not matter against Western Kentucky, but it will matter against several teams Alabama will play this year, who won’t be so likely to give up 4 long running and passing TDs Bama got in the first half of this game. Not one long first half drive did this Bama team sustain. Two interceptions led to two Bama touchdowns, but against better teams it will be different. What was Bama’s new head coach thinking by keeping his star quarterback in the game after Bama went up 35-0? Remember what happened to Tua Tragovailoa against Mississippi State when Bama was practicing its plays with a big lead? Don’t Bama’s backup quarterbacks need lots of reps in a full contact game?

The second half just began. On fourth and very short, Bama got another 5 yard penalty and had to punt.

    Milroe ran the Bama offense on the next drive into the end zone, and he was taken out of the game and did not return.  

    As of now this morning after, there are 75  likes or wows of my post, a few people commented they agreed with me, and I was flogged, tarred and feathered, keel-hauled backward, clubbed, stabbed, shot and crucified by around 150 people who commented. 

    I made a mistake, which someone pointed out: the Bama penalties were only 60 yards, when I published the post. I apologized for that in my reply. I had tried to find the penalty yardage online and did not find it. I ought to have known better than to guess. I should have said Alabama’s offense racked up a bunch of stupid penalties. 

    There were a few comments that the moderators should take down my comment and block me from the group, and one person asked why that had not happened? I replied, “A miracle? How would Bama folks feel if Milroe was knocked out for the season?” I put the same question to several of my critics.

    There was one long comment thread.

Allen

Sloan Bashinsky You do realize this is the first half of the first game with a new coach coaching his first game.here......and Bama is leading 42 to 0......and you are pointing out everything that will improve greatly over the next two to three games? What is your coaching resume?

Sloan Bashinsky

Am a very very experienced armchair quarterback 😃 since Coach Bryant came to Alabama and started promoting Golden Flake potato chips and Coca Cola on his Sunday after the game TV show. My father owned Golden Flake. I watched Bama last year get heavily penalized the entire season under the GOAT Nick Saban. I see the new coach inherited what the old coach left behind. 

Milroe ran several times in the first series of plays in the second quarter, and he scored on a long quarterback run. I do truly hope the new coach wakes up and takes Milroe out of the game. You made no mention of that.

Jim

Sloan Bashinsky I’ve seen every Bama game since the sorry years of the 50’s (‘55. ‘56, ‘57) when Bama won a total of 4 games in those 3 seasons. My armchair QBing says “chill!!!!!”

Sloan Bashinsky

I watched Bama be heavily penalized all of last season, and I’m wondering why it’s still happening, and I’m glad the new coach finally took Milroe out of the game. Imagine him being knocked out for the season, because Bama fans want him to run up the score more.

Robert

Sloan Bashinsky No coach takes out his starting QB in the 1st half of the 1st game of the season unless they are losing. The score could be 99-0 and that QB is still getting at least a full half of work. Are you sure you've watched football before?

Sloan Bashinsky

How would you feel if Milroe got knocked out for the season? 

 

David

Sloan Bashinsky Like stuff happens but my quarterback needs to get in some snaps with the offense. Sorry but the guy getting paid to do it made the right decision

Michael

Sloan Bashinsky Bama only ran 20 plays the first half. That's why he started the 2nd half. 

Anne

Sloan Bashinsky You need to go to bed! Roll Tide!

Ginger

Sloan Bashinsky so in other words you're a grumpy old man!!

Sloan Bashinsky

Definitely, and been a tide fan since Coach Bryant time.

    And there was this:

Edward

I can't wait to see the posts after the UGA game.

Sloan Bashinsky

Georgia was bunged up when it lost to Bama last year. Georgia beat up on Clemson today. Clemson Coach, Dabo Swinney's reluctance to use the transfer portal is a hot-button issue — and has been for years. Clemson is just one of four FBS schools that did not use the portal this offseason, joining Army, Navy and Air Force. Dabo played for Alabama, and I admired him for not using the transfer portable, because, coupled with NIL, the portal has made college football the largest house of ill repute in America, in my opinion, if I ignore politics. I think the portal is why Saban retired. Won’t surprise me if Dabo is dismissed from Clemson.

    And this.

Porter
Do we have a lot to work on absolutely but i thought it looked very promising, work on the things we need to and we'll get better, support the kids and we'll see  

 

Sloan Bashinsky

It looked to me during this game that this BAMA team is strong and deep at all positions. I hope they come together and stay that way, which last year’s team had trouble doing at times.

    And this:

 

Sloan Bashinsky

Apologies to all for some typos and for my saying nearly 100 yards in penalties. I tried to look that up online, as I was typing the post with 81+ year old eyes that don’t see so good anymore, and I was not able to find the game stats. Right after I posted it and it went into moderation, Coach De Boer pulled Milroe from the game, and the team settled down regarding penalties. This Bama team looks to me to be strong and deep in all positions, and I hope it is more disciplined than last year’s Bama team.

    Y’all come!!!

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

conversations with an old dyed in the true blue Democrat wool Key West ex-pat, author, retired RN nurse about life in the slow lane

    The other day, I wished a Peggy in Birmingham, Alabama a happy birthday on Facebook, and somehow it also went to a Peggy I knew in Key West, Florida, who wrote novels and non-fiction books. A retired RN nurse and devoted Democratic, she lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, which she can afford- a hop, skip and jump from Mar-a-Lago, which I seriously doubt even one MAGA can afford.

Peggy in West Palm Beach

Somehow this ended up on my page, Sloan. I hope whomever Peggy M is that she received it, too. FB I guess. I know you wouldn't have done that. Take good care, my friend.

Sloan Bashinsky

I tried to send It to her instead of you, so maybe we needed to say “Hi”, hope you are doing okay.

Peggy

Yes, I am, thank you. Hope the same with you. Are you happy beng back in Birmingham? At least, I think that's where you are.

Sloan Bashinsky

Yes, I have been in Birmingham since June 2019. Five years, hard to believe. Moving much slower now, headed toward creeping. But I can still type and I found google docs, which helps me catch typing flubs when I think to use it, but even then I don’t catch them all. Great eye doctor keeps telling me I don’t need cataract surgery, same advice he gave my father 20 years and more ago. I knew him somewhat when I was a kid.

Peggy

We're all headed toward creeping, Sloan. Sometimes I think I'm not going to be walking at all by tomorrow, but then tomorrow comes and I'm still on my feet! There's a sweet little park a few miles from me built around a lake and it has a nice walking path all around the lake. I want to try to start walking it, with the walker, of course, as if I stop walking, my life as I know it will be over and I'm not ready to concede that at this point. I think it's great that you're back home. It's good to be on familiar ground when we get into our sunset years. Every now and then, as you found in the great eye doctor, we run into someone so familiar and it feels good to know we can trust that person. Take good care of yourself, Sloan. Keep getting up in the morning! That's the key I've come to believe! 

 

Sloan Bashinsky

The city park across the street from this old apartment building where I now have lived three times after running away from home has lots of very old large trees and the city has let the shrubs and bushes grow wild and brambly, and there is an earth energy vortex in the park, and I have sat in it on a park bench many times with any eyes closed, my glasses hanging on restraints from my neck and a baseball cap, and let whatever was there speak to and show me what ever it wanted, and I go off into someplace else entirely and return feeling as if I should have stayed wherever I was. A pair of very large owls set up home in the park 3 years ago, and raised a baby owl, but I have not seen or heard the big owls in a few months. 

I wake up each morning wondering why I’m still here, and then I crawl out of bed and get on my laptop and into some kind of new sport the Internet and/or its predecessor has put on my plate, and I post it to my afoolsworkneverends.blogspot.com and to other internet not entirely secret hideouts. I am resigned to knowing many great social, religious and capitalist industries require I live a long as possible, whereas, if I were a beloved ailing dog or cat, they would mercifully put me down. 
You kindly wrote a great review of A Southern Lawyer Who Became a Mystic, which now is a free read at the internet library, archive.org, along with maybe 6 new digitized books and some of my earlier not entirely of this world stranger than fiction now digitized books and novels, and 2 pesky law school exam questions about (a) Amendment 14, Section 3 and (b) Colonial America Women’s unalienable right to use Mother Nature and God’s herbs to regulate their fertility as they see fit, as described in Ben Franklin’s The American Instructor. 
A Colorado radio station interviewed a federal judge about the Amendment 14, 3 law school exam question, and the station with inundated with MAGA death threats, and the station’s bonding insurance carrier canceled it coverage and the station went out of business. After a Canadian Public radio station interviewed Wavy Gravy and he touted a friend of mines and my The Redneck Mystics Lawyer Podcast, we were banned for a while in Canada and other places. We were banned for a while in Russia, Belarus, Red China, North Korea, India, Islalmic countries, and Australia. 
The free internet library is run by American colleges, which specialize in out of print books and books donated by authors not seeking to make $$$ off their books. My books combined get several thousand complete reads per month and 4-5 star reviews. 

Are you still writing books, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy? 

 

Peggy

That's too bad about the Colorado radio station. And yes, I'm still writing but haven't published in a while. I need to call Amazon about my short story book. A very talented nursing student put it together per their specs but I'm so un-nerdy that I'm afraid to try to upload it, so need to call them and ask if I can just send them her email with the covers and paperback and ebook pdfs in it. I've written another Bone Island Maggie, two actually, but didn't like the first one which is book three so I think the last one will be book three. It's the best of the series, I think, but haven't done anything about it, yet. You take good care of yourself, Sloan. I haven't read your blog for a while, but I'll get back to it one of these days.

Sloan Bashinsky

I thought you might like to know about the free Internet library, because its digital books that have gone out of print or were donated by authors can by “checked out” by multiple readers, whereas that library’s books, which still have copyright protection and have been digitized, can only be checked out if no one else is reading them. 

I came to view my writings as my “last will and testament”, and my books since A Southern Lawyer Became a Mystic were first published serially at various blogs and my tech buddy made them into a new digitized book at arlchive.org. Some of the books have sequels and are set up as Volume I, II, II. Thanks to the free libraries and The Redneck Mystics Lawyer Podcast, I have the internet/cyber space version of “eternal life” :-) 

Lots of my writings are about American politics and religion, which pretty much merged in the America red spectrum. Although I ain’t happy with how the blue spectrum did some things, they don’t remind of Adolph Hither and Nazi Germany leading up to World War II. There will be hell to pay if Trump wins in November, and there will be hell to pay if he loses. 

It came to me from out of the blue recently that President Joe Biden needs to resign and let Kamala Harris be sworn in as president. That will strengthen Harris politically, and if she wins in November, it will be more difficult for Trump, his lawyers, Republicans, MAGAS and the US Supreme Court to steal the election from Harris. I have gotten zero traction with Democrats about Biden resigning and Harris becoming president. I think by not resigning already, Biden is asleep or not thinking straight, or he doesn’t have confidence in Harris.

Here’s a link for the day before yesterday’s blog post, in which LBGTQ and Key West get mucho exposure.

'LBGTQ haters should blame God for making LBGQT people"

https://afoolsworkneverends.blogspot.com/2024/08/lbgqt-haters-should-complain-to-god-for.html

a southern lawyer who became a mystic talks about ordinary, unusual, quirky, strange, weird, etc. human and non-human affairs... 

Peggy 

I've always felt sad about your brother Major, Sloan. It was a very sad ending of his life. As for the gay haters, all I can say is they're going to be very surprised, I think, when they enter Heaven, to see so many gay people there, because as you know and I know, they are some of the best people on this earth. And I wholeheartedly agree about Heather and Teri, and that Teri was probably the best city commissioner I knew and even though I left the island before she became Mayor, from all indications I've seen and heard about, she'll go down as the best mayor Key West ever had. Take good care, Sloan.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

earless nation: America

 

      Golf was my father’s game. He was good enough to be a professional golfer, but he preferred his father’s world of business. I only beat my father once, when I didn’t count all of my strokes.

    Played the old way, golf is a splendid metaphor for a spiritual life in which you don’t get mulligans, you play each shot as it lies, and you count all of your strokes. 

    My friend Bob, who does the tech work for my books in the free internet libraries and for The Redneck Mystics Lawyer Podcast, reported a dream in which Archangel Michael said, “There are 554,000 ears.” 

    I said. “That’s how many ears can hear God." I did not think to say, divide that by 2, and that’s how many people can hear God.

    Yet how many people just in America claim they are saved by Jesus? I’ll do a Google search and see if I can find that number.

    From Wikipedia:

Christianity is the most prevalent religion in the United States. Estimates from 2021 suggest that of the entire U.S. population(332 million) about 63% is Christian (210 million).[1] The majority of Christian Americans are Protestant Christians (140 million; 42%), though there are also significant numbers of American Roman Catholics (70 million; 21%) and other Christian denominations such as Latter Day Saints, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Oriental Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses (about 13 million in total; 4%).[2] The United States has the largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest Protestant population in the world, with nearly 210 million Christians and, as of 2021, over 140 million people affiliated with Protestant churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations.

    I lost count of how many times Christians told me that God quit talking to people after the Bible was written, and I lost count of how many times Christians told me that only Christians get into heaven after they die and everyone else dies and burns in hell forever.

    None of those Christians seemed to have ears that worked properly, nor eyes that saw properly, nor brains that worked properly. I assigned that to their internal feminine, yin, anima, Eve, being damaged or dead.

    Their God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost Trinity was all male. How does such a God reproduce? By cloning Itself.

    In Judaism, the Spirit of God is called “Shekinah”, female gender.

    In the Old Testament Wisdom is assigned the female gender.

    In the Old testament is said, The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

    Yet the Christians I deal with today in Alabama and online don’t seem to fear God at all, because Jesus saved them and there’s nothing for them to fear. Yet, they fear many things on this world, which are far less dangerous than God.

Matthew 10:28

New International Version

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

    More comic relief.

    

    I recently received three letters from the IRS, letting me know it needs my original signatures on my 2021, 2022, 2023 federal tax returns. My accountant lives in Tuscaloosa and he had sent the IRS scanned copies of my signature.

    In 2021, I paid the IRSA and the State of Alabama $$$$$$$ in taxes after the main part of my father’s estate was settled and distributed to his heirs in 2020.

    I gave 2/3s of what was left to my children and their families and to three friends in need. I invested the rest in US Treasury Bills and CDs backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

    In 2021 and 2022, I paid the IRS and the State of Alabama taxes on what my remaining inheritance earned during those years.

    I told my accountant the IRS has my money and they bother me about an original signature? I bet I paid the IRS far more money in 2021 2022 and 2023, than Donald Trump paid them.

    My accountant laughed, 

    I said I wonder if Trump paid any taxes in 2021, 2022, 2023?

    My accountant laughed.

    In 2016, Trump said he could not share his tax returns with the public, because he was being audited by the IRS. I had a lax law degree and a regular law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law, and I knew for a fact the IRS could care less if Trump shared his tax returns with the public. Trump didn’t want the pubic to know he paid no taxes for 2017.

    How can any American vote for a presidential candidate who does not pay income taxes and tells his lemmings that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are communists?

    Here’s something from the New Testament about some well known communists:

NIV Acts 4:

32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all

34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales

35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

    More comic relief arrived when Stevicus replied to Do Donald Trump, Republicans, MAGAS and the Christian right really want America to be a Jesus nation?

It would seem so, although there have been those who have wanted America to be that from the very beginning. Reagan and the Moral Majority also wanted that back in the 1980s. Of course, I don't think they ever practiced what they preached. Unless they were preaching "make war not love," "screw the poor," "starve the hungry," "evict the homeless," "throw the sick into an alley to suffer and die." These became the tenets of Christianity as practiced by its American adherents under Reagan and his followers (which would include Trump and the MAGAs).  

 

Me

I expect if Jesus showed up in churches today talking like he did in the Gospels, he would be crucified again :-).  

    Then came a reply to this part of college football schizophrenia cure, Facebook madness, and suspended sentences for gullible voters?

    Bob said, in his dream, a federal judge said he saw George Santos was removed from office by the US Congress, and the judge was treating the matter as buyer beware, and if New York Republicans were gullible enough to vote for Santos, all Santos deserves is a suspended sentence.

    I wonder if the gullible New York Republicans who voted for Santos and will vote for Donald Trump, think God will give them a suspended sentence?

    I wonder if Trump and his gullible lemmings think God will give them a suspended sentence?

    I wonder if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their gullible lemmings think God will give them a suspended sentence? 

D wrote:

Interesting.  Wonder if there is anywhere we can flee to if the lady gets elected.

Me

What does it say about America that the organizer and commander of the Jan 6 coup attempt is not in a max security prison for the rest of his life, or executed? 

D

How can you have a coup without weapons?

Me

The Capitol Police, Secret Service Agents, Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence and every member of the U.S. House of Representatives believed their lives were at risk, as would you have believed your life was at risk, if you were one of them that day.

When President Trump finally told his mob to stand down and leave, they followed that order, too, proving he had control of them all along. 

Voila!

    Yahoo, y’all come now, ya heeah!!!

sloanbashinsky@yiahoo.com

LBGTQ haters should blame God for making LBGQT people

    Golf was my father’s game. He was good enough to be a professional golfer, but he preferred his father’s world of business. I only beat my father once, when I didn’t count all of my strokes.

    Played the old way, golf is a splendid metaphor for a spiritual life in which you don’t get mulligans, you play each shot as it lies, and you count all of your strokes. 

    I recently dreamt of my younger brother Major. He was in Key West and had a very

close-cropped full beard, which is in vogue with some men today. 

    When Major was a young man, he drove to San Francisco, California to start a new life. His traveling companion was a somewhat older, very talented gay artist and musician friend. I had introduced them to each other. The gay man returned to Birmingham, and Major lived and worked in California for a while.

    Then, Major lived in the Alta, Utah ski resort for a while.

    Then, Major came back to Birmingham for a while.

    Then, Major worked for T.G.I. Friday’s in Nashville for a while. 

    Then, Major moved to Key West, where he waited tables in a well known seafood restaurant for a while.

    Then, Major moved to St. Petersburg, where he found business backers and he built and opened a T.G.I. Friday’s knock off called Boneshakers. 

    After a while, Major moved back to Birmingham and enrolled in Samford University’s Cumberland Law School and met, dated and married the Alabama Women’s State Tennis Champion, who was a good friend of mine. Gail ran the Highland Racquet Club at the Highland Golf Course in Birmingham.

    Before Gail married Major, she asked me if there was anything she should know that she needed to know? I told her that she knew Major had deep struggles. I did not tell her that he was bisexual. She would learn of that many years later, after they’d had two children and were divorced. 

    Gail called me one day and said she was told at a party the night before by a Birmingham lawyer I knew, Charles Robinson, that Major’s problem was he was gay. I said now she knew what she had not known.

    My first and second wives knew Major was bisexual and it didn’t bother us, we only hoped he would be happy. 

    Maybe close to 25 percent of Key West’s adult population is LBGTQ. Key West is a safe haven for LBGTQ people, who contribute greatly to the city in many ways. 

    Lesbian Teri Johnston was Key West’s best city commissioner and then she was Key West’s best mayor, in my opinion. Teri did not seek reelection this year. 

    Another Key West lesbian Heather Carruthers was a very good county commissioner.

    Teri and Heather were married and they adopted babies and were raising them.

    I knew Teri and Heather pretty well. They were good people. They were dang close to saints compared to some people I knew in Key West and elsewhere.

    Yet, America’s Christian right legions view LBGTQ people as sinners, evil, doing the devil’s work. They advocate regression therapy to cure LBGTQ people. God help their LBGTQ children. 

    In early 2010, I received a phone call in Key West from a friend in Birmingham who had worked for Golden Flake, my father’s company. He said it was on the TV and radio news in Birmingham that Major had gone missing, and there was a typed letter going around, which criticized Golden Flake's management and directors for taking money for themselves instead of keeping it in the company for the employees, and more would happen if that was not resolved.

    About 15 minutes later, a childhood friend called me from Birmingham with the same news. I told him who had already called me with the news.

    A few minutes later, my childhood friend called me to say an award-winning business journalist at the Birmingham News had called him to see if I might let him interview me? I said okay, but I want to see the typed letter, it can be FAXED to the coffee shop where I write each morning on my blogs.

    As I walked from my apartment to the coffee shop, it came to me from out of the blue that Major killed himself and tried to make it look like murder.

    The journalist called and we talked maybe an hour about Major and his and my relationship, and our father who died in 2005, and Golden Flake, and the typed letter, which I said was written by someone who knew the company well and I agreed with it. 

    As we wrapped it up, the journalist asked me again if I had any thoughts about what had become of Major? 

    I said, since you asked again, I will say I have a lot of unusual experiences, and just  before you called me, it came to me from out of the blue that Major killed himself and tried to make it look like murder. 

    The journalist said cold chills were running up and down his spine, because the same thought came to him from out of the blue before he called me.

    That was not in the article he wrote and sent to me to review, which the Birmingham News never published, perhaps because I told it all at my blogs that day, goodmorningkeywest.com and goodmoringfloridakeys.com, which were discovered by many people in Alabama and some of them starting email discussion with me about Major.

    Maybe a week later, Major’s body was spotted by golfers in the pond on the Highland Golf Course hole beside Highland Avenue, below the clubhouse where Major had met Gail, and his second wife, who also was the Alabama Women’s Tennis Champion.

    I wrote at my blogs that Major was bisexual in the closet, and someone knew it and was going to out him and he could not prevent it, so he tried to make it look like he had been murdered.

    Major’s daughter by Gail found Major’s car parked in 5 Points, and city police found a thumb drive in the car on which was a draft of the letter criticizing Golden Flake’s management and directors. That was reported by the Birmingham News.

    I was catching lot of flack online, mainly from Alabama, and now I caught a lot more flack from Alabama people who never even knew Major, or only barely knew him.

    My childhood friend, who had arranged the interview with the Birmingham News journalist, told me that someone he knew in the FBI had said not to expect a happy ending.

    Maybe two weeks after Major’s body was found in the pond, the Birmingham News published an article. in which it quoted the Birmingham City Police detective, who investigated the case, and the Jefferson County Medical Examiner, who performed the autopsy [and was a close friend of Major’s first wife’s husband, who also was a pathologist], said Major killed himself and tried to make it look like murder. 

    Gail and her and Major’s daughter told me they thought Major had killed himself.

    On Facebook, there was a great wave of disbelief and disagreement in Alabama with the detective and medical examiner’s finding.

    A year later, I was told in a dream to obtain the FBI report on Major, which I did. Many names were redacted, but the facts were not. 

    The rare Browning .32 automatic pistol found in the golf course pond under Major’s body was the same make and model of a Browning .32 automatic in a plastic display case in the den of our mother and father’s home. It would be just like Major to see his father’s gun and get one just like it for himself.

    The negative surveillance video of someone at the checkout counter in Five Points Hardware, buying rope and duct tape, was Major’s profile. 

    When Major’s body was found in the pond, his mouth had a Golden Flake plastic wrapper in it. His mouth and head had duct tape wrapped around them. His torso, arms and wrists were tied with rope, but there was enough slack so that he could shoot himself in the left temple using his left hand, even though he was right-handed.

    The medical examiner’s report said there was stippling at the wound, which is a powder burn pattern caused by being shot at very close range or the end of the barrel pressed against the skin. 

    The Birmingham News did not report stippling at the wound, the two rare Browning .32 automatics, and the 5 Points Hardware Store surveillance photo.

    In 2011, and woman emailed me that she had worked at UAB in Birmingham, and she went to a private gay men club party with a gay man who worked in her department, and he pointed Major out to her.

    In 2017, a man emailed me that angels told him to get in touch with me. He helped me greatly with something gnarly I was up to my eyeballs in.

    He eventually told me that he started reading my blogs when Major went missing, and he talked to several gay men in Birmingham who said Major’s brother Sloan was spot on about what he was writing at his blogs. The man said he found the gun dealer in Birmingham who sold Major the Browning .32 automatic, who said Major wanted that gun very badly and he charged Major a lot of money for it.

    That man is Bob, who does the tech work for my books at the free internet libraries and The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast at YouTube and Torrent platforms.

    I spoke hundreds of times during citizen comments at Key West City Commission meetings. 

    I think the last time I spoke at a city commission meeting was in 2017, when local religious right people were complaining about LBGTQ people.

    I told the mayor and commissioners, the city manager and the city attorney, who knew me well, and the live TV audience, that every woman around St. Paul knew his thorn in the flesh was he was gay. 

    I told them that Paul was a Jewish Pharisee. As such, and as a Jewish man, his sacred duty to God was to marry and produce children. Yet there is nothing in Paul's letters saying he married and had children.

    I told them that LBGTQ people cannot change how God made them, and people who don’t like LBGTQ people should complain to God.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com