Farewell to Paws

A few of you very kindly e-mailed me to ask if I had perhaps developed a small drinking problem during my stay in Miami.

The short answer is "No".

However, I was certainly inspired to throw back a few when I recently visited the home of the infamous writer and drinker, Earnest Hemingway.




I rented a candy apple red convertible from Avis, and drove the 164 miles down to Key West to visit the small dive shop where I was PADI certified. While there, I went on a short tour of Earnest's famous Key West home.




Hemingway often drank to mask the many ailments he suffered from. These conditions ranged from WWI shrapnel in his legs, to liver and kidney failure, to major bouts with chemical depression.

In the end however, it was "prescribed treatment" that brought about his shotgun suicide.




A fact not widely known is that Ernest Hemingway was a major cat-lover. He admired their spirit and independence, and often wrote about them in his books. Hemingway was given a special six-toed cat named snowball from a ship's captain. Snowball had extra toes (technically known as polydactyl, or Latin for "many digits").

Today, approximately 50 cats, half of them polydactyl, make their home in the Ernest Hemingway Museum and Home, in Key West, protected and taken care of by the terms of his will. The cats have full run of the place, and like most cats they go where and when they please.




The cats are taken care of by the staff and a full time vet. They are oblivious to the many tourists, and ignored us while we were there, preferring to just cat nap wherever they found a cool quiet spot to sleep.

I snapped a few shots of some of the more interesting ones.
(*Note the extra toe on some of them)
















In the 1920s, Hemingway bet his colleagues $10 that he could write a complete story in just six words. They paid up.

His story: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."

I wish that I had half of his talent.

Bum Rap (No pun intended)

Far be it for me to stand up for a Republican Senator, but I really think that Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is being treated extremely unfairly.

For those of you who do not already know what happened, Senator Larry Craig (Mug shot below) was arrested on June 11th by a plainclothes police officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.




A Capitol Hill newspaper reported Monday that Senator Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis airport after the undercover police officer noticed a man in a restroom stall tapping his foot, which the officer called a "known signal to engage in lewd conduct".

I HAVE THREE THOUGHTS ON THIS MATTER.

1) There is no way I am going to listen to my ipod video in the men’s bathroom ever again.

2)There is NO WAY that Senator Craig is gay.

Senator Craig ...

* Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
* Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
* Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include all sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
* Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
* Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

If he was ... he would be a hypocrite.

3) I think they should ask the arresting officer (Pictured below) how he knows about the secret signal to engage in gay sex.

The mercury hits 90 degrees

Last week the temperature in Miami Beach went over the 90-degree mark.

Luckily, Hofbrau Munchen on Lincoln Road was there to save the day with their half liter glasses of traditional German wheat beer.



However, there seemed to be a problem with their glassware.

All the beer kept mysteriously escaping.



This was trouble indeed.

Fortunately I was able to make puppy dog eyes with the waitress who looked a little like the St. Pauli girl



... And the cycle of life continues.

Getting what you deserve

One of the BBC’s star journalists, Michael Buerk, said this:




"A flawed media, I suggest, leads to a flawed democracy," he warned us. "Ill informed citizens cannot make proper judgments about their leaders' actions, about the actions that take place in their names, about the laws that govern them. The media matter."

-We find a president in the White House who sends our country into an unnecessary war and into massive economic debt, and we ask ourselves, “Why didn’t someone warn us?”

-We are shocked when we find out that an FDA approved drug has potentially caused death, birth defects or illness and we ask ourselves, “Why didn’t someone alert us?”

-We act completely surprised when we eventually learn that widespread genocide is occurring in several African countries, and we heatedly ask, “Why was I not informed of this?”

Where are today’s Journalists?

Where are the Mike Wallaces or the Edward R. Murrows of today?

The short answer is that they are going the way of the dinosaur, and they are becoming completely obsolete.




Today's corporate media sources are not interested in serious and significant news. Instead, they're churning out childish news, dumbed down for numbed out audiences.




CBS will bring in Katie Couric because she will be more than happy to read the latest Paris Hilton story straight off the teleprompter.

We can even find another good example of this sensationalistic sell out journalism in this month’s Glamour Magazine.




Hidden deep in the magazine is a very serious article about the growing problem of young women buying very dangerous drugs off the Internet. Do you find mention of this article on the cover?

No … You won’t.

What you do find is:

“YOUR TOP 10 SEX QUESTIONS ANSWERED AT LAST”

or

“LOOK & FEEL YOUR SEXIEST AT 20,30,40 YEARS OLD.”

In fact if you look at cover after cover after cover of Glamour you not only find the same crap pieces, but you will find them in the very same position of the cover. The same goes for the British version.

Now … you say … Peter … What do you expect from Glamour Magazine?
If you want a serious news story you might want to look to a more respected magazine in the Condé Nast portfolio. If you want intelligently written articles, perhaps you should be reading The New Yorker?




Well … Conventional wisdom tells us that The New Yorker has been losing money for years. It is kept alive only because of its strong reputation and its ability to live off of the cash cow Condé Nast magazines like Glamour and Vogue.

This begs the question … Who is to blame for the downfall of serious reporting and investigatory journalism?

THE CONSUMER IS TO BLAME.

The only thing that matters in this country is ...

MONEY. A.K.A. “The almighty dollar.”

If you buy it, you will see more of it.

The sole reason why Glamour, and other magazines like it, continue their time-tested formulas is because people keep buying them.









The American public buys these superficial magazines because they like their reporting like their fast food. Full of crap and easy to digest.

There is so much crap in magazines these days that intellectuals actually started to turn to blogs to get intelligent viewpoints and honest reporting.

However … no place is safe for long.




So the next time you are in the supermarket line with your two pints of Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream and your fridge friendly twelve pack of Diet Coke, try not to reach for the garbage rags. Save your hard earned money and do us all a favor ... send it to PBS.

Three From David Horsey

HBT

Greetings From Miami

I have gotten tired of listening to the news and trying to find some humor in it these days.

-500 dead from Iraqi car bombs in just one day.
-All the miners and their rescuers dead.
-Karl Rove walking away scott free to the lecture circuit.

When that happens, there is only one thing to do.

GO ON A LONG VACATION!



Blogger Peter Matthes in Miami August 19th, 2007

Confucius say ... "The things you own, end up owning you" ... in bed.

U.S. toy-making giant Mattel Inc. said this Wednesday it was recalling some models of Polly Pocket, Batman, Barbie and other Chinese-made toys from Asian markets as part of a major worldwide exercise to remove the toys from shelves because of lead paint and tiny magnets that could be potentially swallowed by kids.




Chinese-made toothpaste recalled in June was found to contain a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze.




Union, N.J.-based Foreign Tire Sales recalled 255,000 Chinese-made tires on August 9 because they could suffer tread separation, about half the number originally thought to be defective.




A recall of pet food made with tainted China-made wheat gluten sparked panic in North America after dozens of confirmed dog and cat deaths in late 2006 and early 2007.




There really seems to be some very dangerous products on the market right now.

If we could only find the common denominator, we might be able to protect ourselves.

It's just so hard to find a connection.

What is it dammit?

What ... I ask you!




When you have a population of 1.3 Billion people, I guess survival of the fittest can be a good thing.

What really is the true cost of low prices?

Happy Ending

As more and more news comes in from the scene of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, a 20-year old named Jeremy Hernandez has been thrust into the spotlight.




He was trapped in the tipping school bus (Pictured below) with 50 children. Using quick thinking, he kicked open the back door and began helping them one by one to safety.




Later, it came out that Mr. Hernandez had recently been forced to drop out of an automotive repair program because he could not afford the $15,000 tuition.

However, on Saturday, Mr. Hernandez learned that Dunwoody College of Technology had offered him a full scholarship toward a degree in applied science.

He has also received offers of help from dozens of strangers across the country.

When President Bush’s staff heard about this young man’s bravery, they contacted him to request a photo opportunity.

His answer: “Nope”.

He certainly is my hero.

Oh Henry

Barry Bonds entered the record books with his 755th career home run, tying Hank Aaron for the most celebrated record in sports with a solo shot in the second inning against the San Diego Padres tonight.




Many critics of Bonds claim that his long time use of steroids gives him an unfair advantage, and that Henry Aaron's record is a better example of true baseball greatness.

To this day, Barry Bonds does not admit to the use of any kind of performance enhancing steroid.

When the sore subject has been brought up by reporters, Barry has exhibited unexplained fits of rage and has threatened to sick his dog (Pictured below) on anyone that says differently.