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Stiltsville in the Bay

I love StumbleUpon because I constantly run across sites that I would probably never find otherwise. Save Old Stiltsville is one of them.

Located near Miami and about one mile south of Cape, Florida, Stiltsville is a (now) small group of seven houses that are situated on the shallow waters of the bay. Many of the original houses were destroyed by hurricanes, over the years.

At one time, a total of 27 buildings (houses and a business or two) were constructed there. In their heyday, some of the dwellings were popular enough to be printed on the face of postcards.

No one is completely certain when the first Stiltsville shack was constructed. The estimated date is sometime between 1922 and the early 1930s.

The owner of the original building on stilts was Eddie "Crawfish" Walker. He made his living selling beer, bait and crawfish chowder, out of the shack. What a combination!

Built in 1940, the Quarterdeck Club was a "membership only" club that was featured in LIFE Magazine in 1941. It featured a dining room, a bar, a lounge and slips large enough to accommodate a yacht.

Stiltsville was the backdrop in several episodes of Miami Vice. Part of the movie Absence of Malice was filmed there, as well. Last but not least, Stiltsville has been mentioned in numerous books.

Up until 2000, there was great interest in saving Stiltsville. Unfortunately, efforts were ineffective and fundraising came to an abrupt halt.

I hope you take the time to find out more about Stiltsville. I really enjoyed learning about this shrinking little ghost town IN the bay.

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No Sex with Animals in Florida—Anymore

A new law went into effect in Florida on Saturday that’s going to make literal animal lovers sad pandas. Having sex with animals is now against the law in Florida, a state that that had written off creating such a law several times not because they condone it—there are Miami animal cops, after all—but because they really thought it was something that didn’t happen, and therefore unworthy of legislation prohibiting it.

My first reaction to this was one of dark irony—we used to have laws in the country that legally forbade gay sex, which was an outrage, but Florida is only just now instituting a law to protect animals from sexual assault by humans. Oh, the cleverness of us!

I have a hard time believing that these legislators didn’t think there was a problem with people assaulting animals sexually. Growing up, I knew of several people who did such things and bragged about it—I am from the Midwest, but I doubt it’s unique to my region—and I witnessed a couple of instances of it myself, believe it or not. If people are going to commit acts of cruelty against other people—especially children, the elderly, and the mentally handicapped, who are all such easy targets—do you really think they’re going to leave pets, an even easier target without a voice, alone? Hell, Louis CK even copped to it on a live video recording. Don’t you think that any legislation that essentially protects beings from being harmed by others is good to implement?

Frankly, I’m shocked that all states don’t have laws against sex with animals. Bestiality and crush videos and whatever else you want to call them are not erotic art or fetishes I can accept—they are acts of cruelty against animals and should not be taken lightly. People like to joke about it, and I’ve even heard of people marrying their pets, but it is neither funny nor worthy of marital status. (Though if a person marries his or her pet and doesn’t become sexually involved, who am I to say he or she can’t do that?)

Of course, just because we can’t speak the same language doesn’t mean that animals are beneath us or witless; dolphins, after all, may be given non-human person status someday due to their complex level of intelligence. But until an animal can provide his or her complete consent in a language we can all understand—and I know how silly that sounds, but that’s the way it’s going to have to be!—sexual activities with them should be outlawed, period.