What a difference a war makes. Back in 1995 CNN devoted no fewer than 388 breathless hours to the daily murder-trial proceedings of OJ Simpson. On Tuesday, December 4, however, as news broke of Simpson’s alleged connection to an accused member of an Ecstasy smuggling/money-laundering/satellite-television piracy ring (talk about a…
Eduardo Padron: Sometimes the Truth Ain’t PrettyAfter fifteen years at MDCC, I should know: As a full-time faculty member for fifteen years at the North Campus of Miami-Dade Community College, I can say that Gaspar González’s story about MDCC president Eduardo Padron (“Fear and Loathing in la Escuela,” December 6)…
Angel Mora and Luis Miguel are natural enemies: paparazzo and pop star. Spurred by a star system that makes Miguel’s tiniest dalliance NEWS, Mora hunts the Mexican balladeer with all the big-game intensity of the Green Hills of Africa. The Miami-based photographer once spent hours hidden outside a hotel in…
I have a confession to make. I love the song “Chi Chi Man” by Jamaican quartet TOK. I know, I know, even with my barely speaky-spokey patois I can understand that the chorus “Blaze di fire mek we bun dem!!!!” is not a SAVE Dade slogan. And yet I love…
Ray Lata is about to wax nostalgic. The director of Wilhelmina Models’ Miami office leans back in his chair and casts his gaze out the window of his Lincoln Road office. “When Miami was at its worst, the fashion industry was at its best,” Lata opines of the turn-of-the-decade period…
Club Space from the Outside Looking InIt was nasty and unjustified, but at least we weren’t beaten by brutes with badges: Let me congratulate Rebecca Wakefield on her excellent article “Thump, Thump, Thump: No, That’s Not the DJ You’ve Been Hearing Outside Club Space” (November 29). It was a great…
The collective mood inside the Level nightclub for November 17’s Ford Models’ Supermodel of the World competition was less exultant than simply relieved. After all, for the past two months the very existence of the modeling industry has been called into question. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11…
Last week Mayor Alex Penelas gave his favorite county manager a hearty pat on the back. “This is a good, tangible example of what I’ve been saying for a long time — that the manager’s doing a good job,” Penelas told the Herald. “I don’t think Steve is getting the…
Praise for the PutridThat stench you detect comes from our very own political cesspool: I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed and appreciated Jacob Bernstein’s article about Tomas Mestre (“Greed Stinks,” November 15). The depth, the effort, and the journalistic excellence were quite apparent. It is refreshing…
Forget about digesting turkey and stuffing. I’m still churning over the pre-Thanksgiving festivities from the week before. I know I previewed a lot of this stuff two columns ago, but I had no way of knowing what would actually happen. Pop psychology has it that if you never process the…
Message to Merrett: Get a Life!I was there and I can tell you he was spoiling for a fight: I work at the county’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during activations and was there during the Hurricane Michelle activation described by Jim DeFede (“Bunker Mentality,” November 15). Miami-Dade County residents are…
Blame Ayden. Even after three hot teenage girls plied him with food and gas money, the nineteen-year-old MDCC student took his time driving from the school’s Kendall campus to Spec’s records in Miami Beach. Now Bettsy, Linda, and Sandra are stuck on the wrong side of Ocean Drive at the…
By its very nature, the county’s Emergency Operations Center is a tense place. Activated in times of crisis, the EOC becomes the nerve center of local government, the fulcrum of decision-making for the state’s most populous county. And so as Hurricane Michelle moved north toward Cuba and possibly South Florida,…
The cobblestones of the Shops at Sunset Place are a world away from Mr. Cheeks’ old haunts in South Jamaica, Queens. Indeed as the 29-year-old rapper leads Kulchur inside the mall’s sprawling GameWorks arcade, there’s little to distinguish the expat New Yorker from any of the other figures playing video…
Thugs, Dictators, and Freakin’ CommunistsNo surprise that the first two are local boys: Thanks to Kirk Nielsen for exposing Otto Reich, the thuggish Bush administration nominee for assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs (“Waiting for Otto,” November 8). And as reported in the same issue in “Riptide,” a…
A lot can happen if a drinking hole manages to stay open 89 years. Tobacco Road started as a speakeasy and gambling den during Prohibition and would have been a strip club back in the Mariel days, but the crowd was so rough no woman, self-respecting or otherwise, would work…
A few weeks ago a county hall insider mentioned to me that he had heard about an interesting memo written by Tom David, executive assistant county manager. David is new to Miami-Dade government, brought in by County Manager Steve Shiver seven months ago to be his right-hand man. Since his…
A Paragon of Fair and Thoughtful JournalismFree weekly lauded for political coverage: So New Times considers itself an alternative newspaper. Yeah, right! Lately you guys have been coming across about as alternative as the Wall Street Journal. Let’s see, first there was your puff-piece interview with former Miami Beach Mayor…
Forget about anthrax jitters or terrorist sleeper cells. To hear outgoing Miami Beach Mayor Neisen Kasdin tell it, there’s a more imminent threat, one set to rear its head with the local election this Tuesday, November 6. “The fate of the Beach hangs on Elaine Bloom beating David Dermer in…
So Sayeth the Old SpookNow tell us, would it help to bribe the INS? Bob Norman’s article “Admitting Terror” (October 18) was a true public service. It’s shameful how indifferent our authorities are regarding immigration. Having lived in Mexico, Uruguay, Spain, and Japan, among other places, I can tell you…
The folks at IRmagazine have a roundabout strategy for boosting readership. “It’s a literary magazine,” explains editor in chief Ben Carrasco. “We do short stories, poetry, nonfiction. But people like to read about music, so we write about music, too.” The only problem is, Carrasco doesn’t think there’s all that…
“A recession is never a good thing,” says Saul Gross, owner of Streamline Properties (a real estate management and brokerage firm) and a candidate for the Miami Beach City Commission in the November 6 election. But, he explains carefully, there’s a “silver lining” to this ongoing crunch, particularly as it…
