Linda Grist Cunningham | Columns and news analysis
Linda Grist Cunningham | Columns and news analysisKey West Island News editor Linda Grist Cunningham has written more than 4,000 columns — in print and on the web — since 1968. She hates writing and is compelled to do it anyway.
Are visitors welcome in Key West? We might need to tweak the message
Key West residents have a love-hate affair with the visitors whose pocketbooks fund much of what gets spent on the island. Without visitors and all the trappings of a vacation destination city, Key West's economy staggers to a halt. With too many, Key West residents...
Key West cruise ships: Shorthand for we are drowning in visitors
Cruise ships are the target of Key West ire. And the packed-house audience at Monday's city commission meeting was having none of that accusation. They grumbled -- respectfully it should be noted -- in opposition when a pro-ship speaker accused them of unfairly...
Key West hurricane prep: 4 lessons learned from Tropical Storm Elsa
https://youtu.be/JcxNFlB4aEU Well, that was fun. Perhaps Key West should have a hurricane prep drill every year like Tuesday's Tropical Storm Elsa. Because let's be honest, we don't expect a hurricane until, say, September, even though the season officially...
Key West waters: Will sea level rise shut down the Keys?
Sometime in the next 50 years, I say only partially in jest, my Key West house will need a dock and a boat during King Tides. By the turn of the century, the house will be waterfront and pretty much useless. I mean, how many times can one repair after yet another...
Key West stinks. Record-setting 2021 seaweed turns waters’ edges to sludge
How about we go down the shore for the afternoon, asks a house guest eager to explore Key West beaches. (Clearly a Jersey girl if she's using that down the shore thing.) So, we pack the chairs, towels, sunscreen (zinc; reef safe); a couple of adult beverages...
Key West parking, sidewalks, sargassum and e-transportation | We are back to normal
The official start of summer is 11:32 p.m., Sunday, June 20. The unofficial start in Key West was 7:45 a.m., Monday, June 14, when I walked out on the front porch, sniffed and said to Ranger Ed: "The sargassum is back." When I can smell mounds of decaying seagrass,...
Dear Connor
Dear Connor is a collection of columns Linda writes for her grandson, Connor. Though he may never read them, they help her make sense of the world.
Dear Connor | The day the young ones took charge
History will remember the march as the coming-to-power of Xers and Millennials. Though there were aging baby boomers aplenty in the crowd and at the microphones, the marches around the world saw these elders step aside to open the way for younger women.
Dear Connor: Breaking the loop of endless despair
The 2016 presidential election will, on hindsight, be recognized as the precursor to the catalyst that ignites the transformation of America from fragmented, angry and disillusioned into cohesive, collaborative and powerful. America will move away from six decades of tearing down to four decades of building up and then we'll start the process over.
Hurricane Irma
In September 2017, Linda Grist Cunningham created and launched a Facebook Page that aggregated news coverage during Hurricane Irma. She was off-island at the time visiting her mother in Virginia. Her husband remained in Key West. Over the three weeks that she and her partner journalists John Teets maintained around-the-clock coverage, they reached almost a million people around the world. These are the columns she wrote each day. Hurricane Season is always June 1 – Nov. 30.
Hurricane Irma | How did news coverage get so confused?
By Sept, 5, 2017, five days before Hurricane Irma battered Key West and the Florida Keys, I was swearing -- or at least muttering unpleasant comments under my breath. I was, as some will remember, visiting my mother in the Shenandoah Valley and...
Hurricane Irma | Are you ready for the anniversary?
Sunday. Aug. 20, 2017 -- exactly one year ago -- was a perfect island beach day. High temps in the upper 80s, low humidity -- at least for us -- great breezes and sunny skies. No storms on the horizon; all quiet off the shores of Africa from...
