Mark Howell's - "Soundings"
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Soundings

One thing that did not arise during the recent war waged in our local papers over appropriate word usage and proper grammar is a particular blunder that really should've, given the pickiness of some of the combatants.

But we also feel it mightn't've, even mustn't've, indeed wouldn't've if cooler heads had prevailed from the start. We refer to a usage we'ven't ever used and won't've even if they'd've done so themselves -- and that'll've actually been the case whether cooler heads prevailed or not.

The usage, of course, is the English "double contraction," whereby words contain two contractional clitics (such as n't and 've), both contractions being marked with apostrophes.

Definitely a usage no-no. But Rafe Howell dared us to come up with a paragraph full of them and we have obliged.

We really shouldn't've.

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Jupiter-based Thomas Saporito, a former control technician and safety whistleblower at nuclear power plants in Florida, Arizona and Texas, now works as a consultant and nuclear-power watchdog. He spent three years at Turkey Point (see our front-page story this week).

We asked for his Top Five big-picture problems still presenting at Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station in Homestead, Fla.

1) It's old. When it was built in 1972, it was licensed for 40 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rubber-stamped another 20 years, until 2033. This is uncharted territory. No one knows what can happen to concrete that's been bombarded with high-level radiation for 60 years.

2) Employees are afraid to report safety concerns. Saporito himself was fired twice by FPL for whistleblowing.

3) Extremely susceptible to a meltdown following natural disaster. A tidal surge off Biscayne Bay caused by a hurricane could duplicate last year's conditions at Fukushima.

4) Spent fuel pools are a catastrophe waiting to happen. Last June, Turkey Point was fined $70,000 for violations regarding spent fuel pools. Fukushima's spent fuel pools are now filled with radioactive liquids.

5) If Turkey Point were to melt down, Miami would become uninhabitable for 50,000 years. Period.

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"Our Fooled Ya' event on April Fool's Day will showcase delicious foods you won't believe are also good for you," declares Heidi Golightly.

A certified corporate wellness coach and author of "Healthy Choices for a Healthy Life," Heidi has entered Team Golightly in the Relay for Life fundraiser on Sunday, April 1.

"There are so many things we can control through good nutrition that greatly reduce the odds of getting cancer," she says, challenging all relay captains to serve only healthy foods at this event, which raises awareness on prevention of the disease.

Her team will host a healthy food cook-off at the Bottle Cap Lounge, 1128 Simonton St. from 5 to 7 p.m. on April 1. Cooks may register now to bring a tray with 50 bite-size servings of healthy appetizers or main dishes or desserts to become eligible for a best-dish grand prize in each category. Fee is $10 per entry and the deadline is March 20. Judges pay $10 in advance or $15 at the event to sample all dishes and vote for their favorites. Only 50 tickets will be sold.

Dishes must be prepared in advance and delivered to the BottleCap by 4:45 p.m. the day of the event. Entries should include enough "tastes" for at least 50 judges. Participants should register by Tuesday, March 20, to compete.

Contact Heidi at 294-2326 or Heidi_golightly@yahoo.com to register. Advance judging tickets are on sale at White Street Healing Arts, 1217 White St.

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A lovely little paperback arrives on our desk from SeaStory Press this week.

"Haunts and Homes: a tour of Key West writers' history" by Gail Duerfeldt Hinand is the latest walking/biking guide to our literary landscape. Having been a once-a-year visitor from Boston, Dr. Hinand, a retired psychologist, is now a "legal resident" of town, she says. (Gail and her husband Allen also have homes in Deer Lake, Washington, and Claremont, Calif.)

The 72-page paperback has 50 short chapters on each particular location and the author(s) associated with it. Solares Hill makes an appearance as one of the publication homes ofjournalist Dorothy Raymer of Peacon Lane, whose Conch Chowder column was the Soundings of its time. Tennessee Williams modeled his character Polly in "The Gnagdiges Fraulein" on Dorothy, describing her as the "southermost gossip columnist and society editor of the southernmost news organ in the Disunited Mistakes." ($9.95)

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Another beautifully designed softcover from a local publisher is "The Last Books of Héctor Viel Temperley," collected and introduced by translator Stuart Krimko, and published by Sand Paper Press out of Love Lane, Key West. Héctor Temperley (1933-1987) lived all his life in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Writes publisher Arlo Haskell (whose Sand Paper Press also published poet Harry Mathews' remarkable "The New Tourism"), "I first read Temperley 12 years ago, in early translations by Krimko, my longtime partner in bookish crime. His searing poetry -- surreal, sun-blasted, fecund, haunting and uplifting -- has been a part of my life since."

Arlo and Stuart are "thrilled," he tells us, "to bring this work into the English-speaking world for the very first time ... Please, give 'The Last Books of Héctor Viel Temperley' a moment of your time. You won't regret it."

We have no regrets.

Rosetto Pavilion, long corner of summer, armor of butterflies: My mother came to heaven to visit me ...

Here she kisses my peace, sees her son changed, prepares herself -- in

Your crying -- to start all over again.

(from "Hospital Britanico," $15.)

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Keys Cuisine columnist Joanna Brady Schmida, author of "The Woman at the Light" forthcoming in hardcover from St. Martin's, is joining with her friend, artist Joan Hodis, who has painted the Key West Lighthouse, in an event at the Lighthouse itself, 938 Whitehead St., on Saturday, March 17, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Joan will be selling prints, Joanna signing books.

• • • • •

Ila Sutton represented Key West Toastmasters at the Area 54 International Speech Contest and Table Topics Contest in Miami. An employee of JIATFS , Sutton won first place in both contests and will now compete in the division contests in Miami in April.

There are two Keys clubs and three South Dade clubs in the area. Key West Toastmasters meets at noon on the second and fourth Tuesday at Keys Federal Credit Union in Key Plaza. For more information, call 295-7501.

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Some of the first German army soldiers captured during the Normandy landings in 1945 were in fact Korean. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German army until they were captured by the U. S. army.

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States of being, states of mind:

New York is home to the nation's oldest cattle ranch, started in 1747 at Montauk.

Rugby, North Dakota, is the exact geographic center of North America.

Oregon has the most ghost towns in the country.

Rhode Island has the nation's oldest bar, the White Horse Tavern, which opened in 1673.

South Dakota is the only state that's never had an earthquake.

Montpelier, Vermont, is the only state capital without a McDonald's.

Virginia is home of the world's largest office building, the Pentagon.

Seattle, Washington, has twice as many college graduates as any other state.

Washington, D.C., was the first planned capital in the world.

Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote.

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Applications are available for the 2012 Anne McKee Artists Fund grants, awarded each year in amounts up to $1,000 apiece to individual visual, performance and literary artists who live in Monroe County. Two of the grants are awarded to young people for development of their talent in the arts. Applications may be made online at www.mc keefund.org or picked up at The Studios of Key West and Stone Soup Gallery on White Street, also at the Florida Keys Council of the Arts office on Simonton Street, at Blue Heaven Restaurant in Bahama Village and at Sugarloaf Lodge on Sugarloaf Key.

Completed applications must be returned by March 31. Grant recipients will be notified on or before May 15.

The grant monies are generated by an annual fine-art auction.

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Quote for the Week:

"One of the interesting things we've learned in the primary campaign is how many really loopy billionaires this country has. How could somebody who had enough judgment to make more than $20 billion come to feel that what this country needs is President Newt Gingrich?"

-- Gail Collins

New York Times