Mysterious and Fascinating Florida

Since 1979 when I first set foot in Florida, I have been in love with its beaches and historical sites. To say that Florida is mysterious, fascinating, weird, intriguing, historical, beautiful, dangerous, colorful, sunny, and magnetic, is an understatement.

One of my favorite comedic reel digital creators is “#OnlyInFlorida.” He finds hilarious videos highlighting Florida’s fauna and flora and sometimes the bizarre quirks of the human species. He is “Floridaing” every day and is glad that “I’ve got it on my flip phone.” The said phone often matches the color of his t-shirt.

Florida’s fun in the sun residents do not stop at displaying trash cans and mailboxes that are elaborate and beautiful works of art; they decorate with giant concrete or fiberglass creatures of the sea, dotting the landscape in the most unusual places.

Where else can you find more gators and pythons than you can shake a stick at while stepping on shifting wet grass and trying to capture that perfect photo of a white crane balancing on top of a dead tree, surrounded by murky water?

There are 1.3 million gators in all 67 counties in Florida. The estimated population of Burmese pythons across more than 1,000 square miles of the Everglades is 30,000-300,000. The invasive species of snakes have caused significant ecological destruction.

Driving on the Tamiami Trail across the Everglades, a sign pops up now and then indicating a panther crossing. I have never seen such a creature cross the highway but its existence in the surrounding swamps with thick and lush vegetation and palm tree forests is fascinating.

Florida may hide the famous fountain of youth and its burial grounds in St. Augustine. La Florida was the magical land where Ponce de Leon and his Spanish conquistadors landed in their search for eternal youth. The place where Ponce de Leon and his crew first arrived a thousand years ago is now the Fountain of Youth Park.

There is a coral rock castle and garden in Homestead, Florida, built out of 1,100 tons of rock for a mysterious purpose that only the Latvian American eccentric builder, Edward Leedskalnin, understood. He had hoped that his labor of love work of oolite limestone would eventually attract his beloved who had spurned his marriage proposal previously in Latvia. Sadly, he died alone in his castle.

Where else can you come in contact with invisible and stingy no-see-ums, with sharks, manatees, sting rays, man-o-war jelly fishes, see-through moon jellies the size of UFOs that sting even when dead, and other dangerous creatures right at the water’s edge?

Where else can you visit the opulent mansion of the Barnum and Bailey Circus Museum with its gorgeous grounds, flora, and statuary, but in Sarasota, Florida?

Only in Florida, between Arcadia and Bradenton, you find in the middle of nowhere, passing by swamps, more swamps, and pastures, Howard Solomon’s medieval residence. The sculptor built a 12,000 square foot castle from refuse. Resplendent with a moat, towers, and eighty stained-glass windows, his castle is silver in color because it is covered with aluminum printing plates from a local newspaper.

His shiny castle, which has a real, full-sized Spanish galleon, was built by necessity as his property flooded during the rainy season and he did not factor that in when he bought the land. A real gator is “guarding” the tenth century galleon.

Sadly, Floridian Horse Creek would never rise high enough to float the galleon out to the emerald, green ocean. Howard not only turned recyclable trash into a local curiosity, but he also became the “Rembrandt of Reclamation.”  Nobody knows the effect that so much aluminum has on the surrounding swampy environment.

Only in Florida can you sit on the sugary white sand, watching the green waves crash against the pristine shore and suddenly you start coughing with hundreds of other beach goers surrounding you in a giant coughing unison.

It is the unpleasant and dangerous side-effect of red tide, an algae bloom, being blown from far out at sea. This toxic red tide bloom constantly affects Tampa Bay and its vicinity, and it is caused by poor water quality and pollution from fertilizer plants and other sources. It increases if the Gulf water happens to be warmer than usual. The east coast has an equally toxic algae bloom called the blue-green algae, sometimes affecting the St. Lucie River estuary.

Caren Schnur Neile wrote about the online headline of February 14, 2019, news story from WBGO public radio from Newark, “After 16 months of Dead Fish, Manatees and Dolphins, Florida’s Red Tide Ebbs.” How much it ebbed is revealed in the photo underneath with a row of dead fish on the pristine white beach.

Only in Florida you can find an apple tree that can kill you and gators love its fruits when they fall in the swamp. The Tree of Death, Hippomane mancinella or manchineel grows in South Florida’s coastal areas, South America, and the Caribbean.

Growing in brackish water, the manchineel thrive in mangroves. The name comes from the Spanish word manzanilla, “little apple” or manzanilla de la muerte, “little apple of death.” Touching it causes severe blistering and allergic reactions that could lead to death in some people.

There are many areas in Florida that claim the existence of ghosts, no one more famous than Henry Flagler, the tycoon who built the railroad between Jacksonville and Key West. Although he died in 1913 in Palm Beach, his body was shipped to St. Augustine by train and laid out in the rotunda of his beloved Ponce de Leon hotel. He vowed never to leave his hotel. A janitor found a mysterious tile with his portrait on it. To this day tourists are enthralled to search for this tiny tile that is alleged to have Henry Flagler’s face on it.

People would be surprised to know that Florida has an 800-year-old building, built 300 years before Columbus discovered the New World. Located on the Dixie Highway in North Miami, known as the “Old Spanish Monastery,” this building is part of St. Bernard de Clairvaux Episcopal Church. How did it make its way to Florida?

William Randolph Hearst purchased the monastery in 1925 and had it dismantled and packaged with hay in 11,000 shipping crates, carefully numbered. Two sawmills were built to make the crates.

Because of the outbreak in Spain of the hoof-and-mouth disease which could have been spread by hay, the shipment was quarantined by Customs. The crates were opened, the hay was burned, and the blocks were repackaged randomly. The crates were stored for 26 years in a warehouse in New York. Hearst sold the shipment of crates, and two men moved it in 1952 to Florida with the idea to make it a tourist attraction. Unfortunately, the entire now misnumbered shipment became a giant and expensive jigsaw puzzle.

According to the Archives, twenty-three men spent 90 days to open all the heavy crates, some weighing more than a ton. The wooden crates were then burned, and 7 tons of nails were salvaged from the ashes.

The 800-years old monastery was reconstructed in 19 months at a cost of $1.5 million. The bankrupt investors sold the building to the St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church. The baptismal font and the original iron bell are still part of the former monastery. Each stone block has the mark of the stonemason who cut it 8 centuries ago.

Florida has a true medieval structure which the Spanish began building in 1672. It is the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, a fort built out of coquina, a bonded composition with seashells that can resist cannon balls. It took 23 years to complete.

La Florida is beautiful beyond description, a remarkable place to explore.

 

 

 

Shark Biting Odds

The odds of being bitten twice by a shark is one in 9 trillion, yet one Oregon man named Seth, according to Nat Geo, was bitten twice by a great white shark, six years apart.

The first time it happened in Florence, Oregon. Seth was surfing alone.  The second time happened in the same place, while surfing with his friend Gus.

The first time a great white, attacking from below with great force, wedged Seth’s surfboard in his mouth, with Seth balancing on top. The pressure from the shark’s jaw, crushed the board with Seth’s foot inside of it. Eventually, after some thrashing, the shark let go, and Seth swam to shore. Bleeding heavily, he was taken to the hospital by a nearby cop and treated for his lacerations with 25 stitches. He was lucky to escape with his life. The marks on the fiberglass board tell the horrific fate he barely escaped.

The second time a great white knocked him off his board, and ripped into his board, which was still tethered to his ankle too close for comfort. The shark dragged him a bit, and then released the board. Seth and Gus paddled to the shore unscathed, as fast as they could.

That day Seth escaped the shark’s menu. Again. And so did his friend Gus.

The adrenaline draw of big waves and surfing drowns out any fear of sharks who also love big waves and opportunistic meals even in murky water when they cannot see well.

Brian, on the New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County, Florida, the capital of shark bites in the United States, was the second double casualty of a shark attack, a black tip this time. His two encounters happened within the same year. Both times the shark bit his leg above his foot, and the second time bit his foot almost off.  Doctors managed to repair the damage, and he is lucky to have escaped alive. He continues his relentless obsession with surfing.

 

The Train Wreck of Democrat Socialism

“Communism was never conclusively destroyed, and it was never condemned in some kind of court.”   Vladimir Bukovsky

Without brakes, a train will eventually derail and cause an unimaginable disaster and suffering. Similarly, a free society like the United States which tolerates divergent opinions and groups, will be unable to stop the existence or the activism of communist organizations, groups, and individuals who rebrand themselves as Democrat Socialists who want to fundamentally change America from a constitutional republic to a socialist republic.

Socialist appears to be a much less threatening term than communist, and it is very appealing to half of the country who has slept soundly through American history classes or has been indoctrinated since the 1980s by Howard Zinn’s manufactured version of American history.

Socialism, Democratic Socialism, and Communism are incomprehensible terms and notions to most Americans because they did not study specific details about socialism or communism and how many millions have been killed by the Communists under the ruling of the Communist Party.

Democratic Socialism is a term invented by Democrats who love euphemisms and rebrand old and dangerous ideologies that would benefit their plans for total control of the population that would become dependent on them.

Most Americans adopt the exact words and phrases of the daily MSM broadcast and regurgitate them ad nauseam without really understanding what they are saying, and what they are asking for. Such blatant useful idiot ignorance inevitably leads to New Yorkers voting for a Muslim communist as their Democrat mayoral candidate.

A train that derails causes immediate reaction and alarm. But, once people vote for the pie in sky promises of socialism, communism, Democrat Socialism, the results take years before the oppression of what they voted for rears its ugly head. By then, the possibility of reversal is farfetched. It may take decades to reverse the damage. It is easy to vote for a communist, all you need is a ballot and a ballot box. But you need a revolution to reverse course and undo the damages caused by the Communist Party or the Democrat Party rule.

The Bolshevik activists of the Soviet Union, Germany, England, and America of the 20^th century had fanned across the world to indoctrinate poor farmers, factory workers, and all the useful idiots they found into the wonders and freedoms of the promised land of socialism. The Communist Party was going to give them anything free they desired. When the activists were met with pointed questions and resistance by the populace, those farmers and workers were beaten up and disappeared. It was indoctrination by force and by the promise of murderous violence.

Once the Communist Party was successful in eliminating several monarchies, the socialist republics that replaced those monarchies began to build walls, prisons, and gulags (forced labor camps) to keep their populations in, restricting most of their freedoms.

Sadly today, the new generations of indoctrinated Americans have not been taught about the major failures of Marxist economics and the murder of 100 million innocents at the altar of communism.

Vladimir Bukovsky wrote about the absurd theories of Marx and about his predictions that never came true. The numbers of the “proletariat” actually decreased significantly in the developed capitalist countries. Their living standards have increased and not fallen. Marx was wrong about “super-monopolization.”  Small producers have grown and still do. The “market economy” improved the “means of production.” Socialism destroyed their centralized economies. And who are the “proletarians” of today? Marx wrote about “the crises of over-production every ten years.” It never happened because supply and demand controlled that possibility.

The reality is that the socialist regime and their central planning under the guidance of the Communist Party have never been successful at anything except oppressing the masses, paying them the lowest wages possible, and making their lives a continuous misery for most of the twentieth century. They never supplied enough goods to keep their citizens well fed, happy, warm in winter, with a plentiful supply of water, medications, and other necessities for a decent life. The only ones who lived well were the Communist Party members, their apparatchiks, their informers, the standing army, and the security police.

Despite the constant semantics and euphemisms rebranding communism in a positive light by the Democrat Party and the left, we do not have a proletariat in America, nor workers, we have employees. And we are not a democracy; we are a Constitutional Republic. If we are smart enough, we can keep it, but if we keep following the Democrat Party’s direction, we might all be “Democratic Socialists,” whatever that means.

Final note from RevealedEye: 

"Accepting Socialism is basically admitting you can't compete in the real world. You are saying, 'I'm willing to give up my liberty, my religion, and my dreams as long as the state will take care of me.' Accepting Socialism is accepting failure."

 

Rainmaker CEO Defends Cloud Seeding

In a second interview published recently, Rainmaker CEO, Augustus Doricko, defends to Shwan Ryan his company’s recent cloud seeding with silver iodide to make rain, two days before the massive flood in Texas which killed over 120 people and caused unimaginable destruction to property and terrain. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/217-augustus-doricko-did-cloud-seeding-cause-the/id1492492083?i=1000716870097

Silver iodide (AgI), a chemical made up of silver and iodine, has been used in various industries, in agriculture as pesticide, photography, disinfection, and in cloud seeding to create rain.

The compound can be toxic, can cause reproductive problems, and even cancer. Some of the toxicity symptoms are coughing, wheezing, and difficulty breathing. If contacted by skin directly, it can result in severe burns and cause death if inhaled.

The potential for accumulation of silver iodide particles in soil, water, and organisms through repeated use could disrupt the ecological balance, could pose risks to wildlife and humans via the food chain.

Texas Hill Country was overwhelmed by tropical rain which dumped a lot of precipitation within a brief period of time. Did Rainmaker’s cloud seeding two days prior contribute to the disaster?

The CEO claims that their actions had nothing to do with the massive flood because they suspended operations. His company “seeded two clouds with 70 g of silver iodide” [via airplanes]. Doricko stated that they flew one twenty-minute mission. “The clouds dissipated two hours after the mission,” Doricko added. “Did we seed the storm itself,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

Doricko told Shawn Ryan that the most successful missions ever conducted by Rainmaker have produced tens of millions of gallons of precipitation; but “they got hundreds of millions of gallons of precipitation, trillions cumulatively.”

Who were Rainmaker’s cloud seeding customers in Texas?

According to Doricko, “We have customers throughout Texas, the South Texas Weather Modification Association, the West Texas Weather Modification Association, groups of counties and individual farms, which pay us for cloud seeding that have historically needed more water.”

Doricko said that the dispersed silver iodide did not remain in the clouds, it was precipitated by the rain. The aerosol dissipated, he said. There were “twenty plus hours between the [Rainmaker’s] mission and when the flooding ensued, and the winds were blowing north-west.” He claimed that any remaining aerosol would have blown out of the direction of the storm.

Ryan asked Doricko, who hired them specifically to create this precipitation. Rainmaker was hired by the South Texas Weather Modification Association, counties, and farms who needed more water, Doricko replied. They suspended operations on the afternoon of July 2 when their meteorologist determined that there was an inflow of moisture from the Gulf.

Shawn Ryan asked directly, who is regulating Rainmaker. Permits are given by the state, Doricko said, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Suspension criteria require Rainmaker to stop operations if the National Weather Service issues a flash flood warning. The warning was issued at 1 a.m. on July 3”, Doricko said.