Opinion & Commentary

Update: Jervon A. Smith wants the world to know that he wasn’t a pastor when he did all this creepy shit.We usually use this column to recklessly mock regional idiots who accidentally shoot their toes off or are busted for running pathetic Ponzi schemes. But this week, we’re issuing a…

Mandolin Set To Play Turkish/Greek CuisineIt is a white-washed 1940’s house with blue trimmed windows. There are bougainvillea boasting bright colors, greek oil canisters turned into flower vases, traditional taverna chairs at wooden tables beneath a lantern-lit tree. Mandolin Aegean Bistro, serving rustic dishes authentic to the villages of Greece…

Click here to view photos from this event.Last night, Rakontur debuted an extended version of its upcoming ESPN documentary The U inside Overtown’s historic Lyric Theater. Among the local celebrities in attendance were former University of Miami football players Melvin Bratton, brothers Brian and Bennie Blades, Kelvin Harris, and Randall Hill,…

It’s just about 2010. Here are my choices. What do you think?1. After being snatched by federal authorities, Elian Gonzalez is sent home to his father in Cuba on June 28, 2000.2. Art Basel Miami Beach starts in 2002, an offshoot of the Swiss affair, it changes Miami’s cultural life…

Rothstein for Governor! Spence-Jones for lieutenant: In response to “Sheeee’s Back” (Gus Garcia-Roberts, December 3): Michelle Spence-Jones is demonstrating how little she cares about her constituents by running for office again. If she had one ounce of concern, she would not run until her corruption case is resolved. The burden…

When New Times featured Music is a Weapon over the summer, the Magic City hustlers were giddy with go after a 7-day Netherlands stand that saw the band treated like the rock stars they’re destined to become. You could see the sparkling stars in their eyes, refracting back from the…

At this Thursday’s Miami city commission meeting, Mayor Tomás Regalado and Commission Chairman Marc Sarnoff will sponsor city legislation that would require elected officials and lobbyists to complete an ethics training course. No one is going to argue that ethics reform is long overdue at 3500 Pan American Dr.In fact,…

Real Housewives of the NBA probably couldn’t be used for legal reasons, but reality TV’s love affair with ladies who lunch (and then throw it at each other) continues with VH1’s upcoming Basketball Wives.Although the show might not sate our need for a Miami version of Bravo’s weave-snatchin’, table-throwin’, all-around addictin’…

Last week was, of course, utter art, music, and media ridiculousness — so of course, it’s captured all over the social web. Missed out on a show? Don’t feel bad, practically all of the week’s musical events are on YouTube! Reading reviews of both OK Go’s electrified performance at Design…

Moving Units is a weekly column on Crossfade tracking the best-selling albums at South Florida independent record stores. Top Five Albums for the Week of November 30 – December 5 Sweat Records, Miami Echo Party, Edan Blakroc, Blakroc Them Crooked Vultures, Them Crooked Vultures Daptone Gold, Various Logos, Atlas Sound Radio-Active…

In 2001, a start-up phone company set up shop in a Miramar office park, looking to corner the market on international calls from Little Haiti to Port-au-Prince.​It was a great business plan in Miami. Unfortunately, according to the feds, the company’s execs decided there was only one way to make…

My post last week about Luna PIzza’s opening party and the entertainment provided by students from The Miami Charter School generated quite a strong reaction. I think crazy strong. Here is, in its entirety (I’ve added CAPS to a few words I think might have been missed the first time…

Late Friday, at 9:05 p.m., Miami-Dade Judge Beatrice Butchko dealt a serious blow to state prosecutors’ case against a popular pastor in Miami’s black community.Butchko ruled Assistant State Attorney Richard Scruggs cannot use digital recordings of two interviews with Rev. Gaston Smith. They were made months before the clergyman was indicted for…

Richard Scruggs is usually the guy asking people tough questions and getting witnesses to spill the beans. But today Miami-Dade’s veteran public corruption prosecutor was on the receiving end of an intense grilling. And he was not enjoying himself.It went down inside the courtroom of Judge Beatrice Butchko in the…

Daily Candy, the popular listings and shopping website, is cutting its editor in Miami and six other cities. Its daily emailed suggestions of things to do will reduce in frequency to twice a week….and its editor, Brooke Siegel, will be “splitting her time between Miami and New York,” according to…

In a digitally distorted blaze of electro-house glitch, local party starter Panic Bomber, a.k.a. Richard Haig, has spent the last year going supernova. First came his six-track EP effort, Calling in Threats, a December 2008 release loaded with crunchy club killers like “Miami Stunnaz” and “Disillusionment.” (Cop it at PanicBomber.com…

To read past installments of South Florida According to Brooklyn, click here.This week I would like to talk about the bleak future of music. The state of things is pretty shitty, and every band gets ripped off by the common man. As the old cliche goes, trends and styles go…

Letters from the Issue of December 3, 2009

Tobacco Road turns 97. What would you like to do before you’re that old?

Already more than $2 billion over budget and more than three years behind schedule, Miami International Airport’s north terminal is about to suck more money from Miami-Dade County.This Friday, aviation department bureaucrats will ask the county commission’s airport and seaport committee to sign off on adding $46 million to a…