Editorial Voice

Casinos, pot, and fun will save Miami’s economy

UPDATE: Univision says candidates invited to its forum were invited based on the amount of money they’ve raised for their campaigns and not because of their Cubaness. You’d expect a state-run university in Cuba to exclude candidates from participating in a public forum, but not one in Miami-Dade County, U.S.A…

Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness once made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke — who is a candidate for Miami-Dade mayor — lays out his vision for kick-starting the local…

Could The Real Swamp Snakes of Everglades City or America’s Next Top Invasive Species be coming to your television set anytime soon? Possibly. Over the next two months, not one, but two cable channels are set to roll out reality television shows based on snakes living in the swamps of…

Early voting begins today. That means in 15 days we will know who the next Miami-Dade Mayor is. Will it be the Hialeah snake oil salesman ward boss, the ex-fire chief, the Tulane-educated lawyer, or Miami’s favorite uncle? And whoever wins, will he still be a strong mayor or will voters…

The folks over at conservative glossy The Weekly Standard think Luther Campbell’s run is serious enough to warrant a 7,228-word profile. Writer Matt Labash spent a considerable amount of time shadowing Campbell early in his campaign. Kudos to his editors for allowing him the space to explore the complexities that…

For someone who is the presumed front runner in the race to become the new Miami-Dade Mayor, Julio Robaina is showing he has no backbone. He’s been conspicuously AWOL from candidate forums where he knows he’ll face a tough crowd and skipped out on his interview with The Miami Herald…

A Miami-Dade County commissioner wants us to know that $790,000 is a “little bit of money and not a whole lot.” During the May 3 discussion concerning the Public Health Trust’s executive board, Javier Souto digressed from one of his typical winded soliloquies on the role of county commissioners to…

Luther Campbell doesn’t just have taxing strippers and decriminalizing marijuana on his mind. This past April 25, as he cruised from one special event to another in downtown Miami, the county mayoral candidate and New Times columnist offered up his plan for local government reform. “If you run for office,…

Letters from the issue of May 5, 2011

Miami’s black commissioners must go

Some of the worst mistakes restaurants can make occur at the beginning of the dining experience or before you sit down. Many have to do with hosts and hostesses, but they are usually just  messengers delivering the repercussive news of bad management decisions.1. When you’re making a reservation by phone,…

Tonight’s in-store show at Sweat Records, brought to you by the people behind the Death to the Sun series, presents rowdier fare than usual. Original headliners, the ominously named Brooklyn duo Unstoppable Death Machines, have canceled. but there’s still plenty of weirdness. To wit, touring circus Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt,…

Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness once made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke — who is a candidate to replace more-boring-than-bread-pudding ex-Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez on May 24 — calls…

Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness once made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. In this special edition, Luke praises George W. Bush, President Barack Obama, and the U.S. soldiers who took out Osama…

Raleigh Flowers lives in a three-bedroom condo with brand-new kitchen cabinets and freshly painted walls in a lushly landscaped residential development in west Hialeah. It is certainly a home fit for a Hialeah Police major earning at least $3,500 every two weeks. Except this cop doesn’t have to pay rent…

My old buddy Bob Norman is shipping outta New Times Broward Palm Beach and heading for the TV news. Bob has been the franchise player at that paper for years — ably assisted by the likes of a staff that has included stars like Sam Eifling, Ed Newton, Tony Ortega,…

The Honeymoon Series begins this Saturday with Datsik, continuing with Zeds Dead May 6 and Borgore June 17. Back in the LSD-soaked ’60s, a big boxy San Francisco building named the Fillmore Auditorium was routinely overrun by love-crazed hippies, radical longhairs, speed-addled bikers, middle-aged beatniks, and endless other freaky types…

In case you missed it, we’ve embedded the 12-minute ESPN E:60 segment on Dhafir Harris, aka Dada 5000, and his backyard brawling tournaments. Although the feature rehashes Harris’ story and the illegal aspect of his events first told by New Times, the footage of dudes beating each other to a…

Letters from the issue of April 28, 2011

Gimenez, Robaina are soft-money whores

The man once dubbed “Mayor Loco” and who showed up at a constituent’s house in his bathrobe when he was Miami mayor is still a formidable rainmaker. Xavier Suarez has picked up $109,950 in campaign contributions in his second bid to become a county commissioner.Suarez is running against former state…