The beckoning of a pay phone ringing on a derelict downtown corner, in front of a seedy convenience store, or better yet, in the arid lobby of an office building, offers the thrill of random human contact, or at least the opportunity to generate good prank karma by helping the…
The clearest lesson from the August 31 county mayoral election: $1.8 million just doesn’t buy what it used to. That was the size of candidate José Cancela’s immense campaign war chest, and it delivered only a distant fifth-place finish for the media mogul turned pol. Contacted by Kulchur, Cancela declined…
Bus People: Don’t Bother Complaining Miami-Dade Transit customer service — now there’s an oxymoron: Kudos to Francisco Alvarado for exposing the mismanagement and lack of commitment to customer service so rampant at the Miami-Dade Transit Agency (“Critical Mass Transit,” September 2). My dependency on transit is a constant frustration and…
The Teele Inaccuracy A phone call would have been nice, but I didn’t even get that: My name was wrongly inserted in your article “The Teele Conspiracy” by Francisco Alvarado, Kirk Nielsen, and Rebecca Wakefield (September 2). At no time did I speak to anyone at New Times or anyone…
Seaquarium nemesis Russ Rector is at it again. In October 2003 the founder of the Dolphin Freedom Foundation hired a public safety expert to check out the aquatic attraction. The ensuing report, along with videotape of the Seaquarium, became the basis for federal and city inspectors to cite 137 violations…
Big Sugar vs. Silly MTV Guess which one gets the cover treatment: Bravo to Eric Alan Barton and New Times for the story on the Fanjul family and their wicked ways (“From Bitter to Sweet,” August 26). This type of writing, and the reporter’s active prodding to force the Fanjuls…
The MTV Video Music Awards went off as planned Sunday at the American Airlines Arena, with no known interference from Alberto Ibargüen. Celebrities did what they were supposed to do — look remote and beautiful, and throngs of Miamians massed outside VMA ground zero as well as indoors in the…
Eohippus, the miniature five-toed ancestor of the modern horse, bounded through the rainforests of South America dodging dire wolves and munching lush vegetation. As primitive ponies emerged from the forest to gallop across plains and continents, another eohippus descendant, the tapir, remained in the jungles along the Amazon River. Tapirs…
The Mayor Matters He still has veto power and can smack down the commission: Last week’s cover story on why the mayor’s race is not important (“Mayor X,” August 19) hit a huge nerve in our community, particularly because we are working so hard to get Jimmy Morales elected. I…
Get ready to see your local justice system spirited away over the next few years, thanks to a flaw in a brave new computer imaging system that Miami-Dade County is using to scan and file court records. “The SPIRIT system is not adequately secured or protected to ensure the reliability…
As he prepares to attend next Monday’s Republican National Convention in New York City, Miami delegate Marco Rubio is already anticipating trouble. But not from the more than 250,000 anti-Bush protesters expected to march past the convention’s Madison Square Garden site. “I’m hoping to go to a Marlins game in…
Why We Love Our Place We wear casual clothes, there’s no velvet rope, and you don’t have to take out a second mortgage to buy a round of drinks: I’m writing in response to Humberto Guida’s “BuzzIn” column about Our Place in Miami Lakes (“Dive Bar Shenanigans,” August 5). I…
Christopher Mazzella: Vigilante Unbound This inspector general has crossed the line: Tristram Korten would like his readers to believe that Christopher Mazzella, the crime-fighting Miami-Dade County inspector general, is about to be fired by his boss, Kerry Rosenthal, chairman of the county’s Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, aided and…
Though The Bitch normally wouldn’t notice a 100-meter dash even if one happened in her back yard, she thinks the Olympics should be taken seriously. People in the ancient world really knew how to party; long-snouted, rose-eared hounds gained welcome just about every place in Greek society; and intramural sports…
Go Ahead, Call Me a Zealot Just don’t call me a Bush fanatic or a Cuban hardliner: After reading Max Castro’s “Triumph of the Zealots” (July 29), I came to realize why I no longer pick up your newspaper: Poor research and both sides of issues not accurately represented. By…
Were it not for all the delusional people The Bitch runs across, this column would be about 90 percent white space (the remaining 10 percent would, of course, be devoted to the welfare of pigeons). Fortunately the horror vacui bullet is dodged again this week, though the lead is buried…
Have you heard about John Kerry’s secret connections to Fidel Castro? How about the hidden financial links between Teresa Heinz Kerry and the Cuban government? No? Derek Newton rolls his eyes, and with a laugh plunges his hand into the six-inch-deep sea of paperwork that covers his entire desk. As…
Indie film director Troy Duffy will someday overcome the creative blocks he has suffered in trying to make All Saints Day, the much-anticipated sequel to The Boondock Saints. Though only released in 1999, that film is already a classic in the underserved cinematic genre depicting Boston-based, Irish-Catholic-catechism spouting, arsenal-brandishing, law-giving…
A Bird Leg in the Hand Is worth two or more in the alley: “The Bitch” has been writing about a mystery man who cages and steals pigeons (July 15), and now this: Pigeon legs are being tied up with plastic tape and left in our Miami Beach alley. How…
Out of the billowing exhaust of Grand Theft Auto 3: Vice City comes Driv3r, another mega-selling video game that tries to convince anyone who hasn’t actually driven here that Miami is one big, lawless speedway. The Atari game is stunningly detailed to the point of eerieness in its re-creation of…
It is almost too easy to make fun of Xavier Suarez. Miami certainly has suffered through its share of troubling political leaders, but only Suarez managed to have reporters across America, from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times, wondering in print if our mayor had lost his mind…
Micky Arison, You’re Outta Here You’re being replaced by some real business pros — Miami-Dade’s county commissioners: As Jim Mullin correctly implies in “Down in Flames” (July 15), the reasons given by the Miami Business Forum for terminating the referendum drive to create an independent airport authority were never robust…
