Opinion & Commentary

Letters from the issue of April 14, 2011

Alex Penelas: Mayoral loser

We’re gonna go ahead and take credit for James Cason’s victory in Coral Gables yesterday. Voters in the City Beautiful made the former state department official their mayor. He beat incumbent Don Slesnick and local attorney Thomas Korge. Despite a last-minute flyer declaring him a carpetbagger with a felon for…

Luther Campbell is in the mayor’s race. Now he just needs to settle on a campaign slogan. The high school football assistant coach and Miami New Times columnist was officially accepted by the Miami-Dade Elections Department as a candidate for county mayor. Campbell joins a field that includes former county…

Today, voters in Coral Gables will either give Don Slesnick a third term or elect a new mayor. Two city commission seats are also up for grabs in a city election that has seen all the candidates raise close to one million dollars combined.And unlike previous election seasons, this cycle…

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 — explains why a rerun…

Here at Short Order, our collectively beady eyes are always on the lookout for delectable plates of food that do not require a ransom to acquire. On the one hand, there are more than five such deals; on the other, there aren’t as many as one might think. Here’s a…

As the tax season draws to a close this week, some of our more recognizable citizens are probably wondering if Uncle Sam will catch them cheating on their taxes again. Take Lil Wayne, who was just popped by the Internal Revenue Service for not paying his fair share in 2008…

This past Wednesday night, a couple dozen Miami-Dade voters gathered inside a back dining room of Town Kitchen & Bar in South Miami to hear New Times columnist Luther Campbell, county Commissioner Carlos Gimenez, and former state Rep. Marcelo Llorente talk about their platforms for Miami-Dade mayor.It was an intimate…

Every Friday, Riptide brings you the most eye-catching mugshots taken the previous week in Miami-Dade County. Yes, there is some mockery of bad neck tattoos, but also adulation directed at perps who just plain look more badass than we ever will. This is the italicized intro to that series…

Admittedly, dear readers, I’ve never been the savviest of hip-hop scribes. Nah, it would be a sham to claim so. I was born out of my father’s Bossa Nova and my mother’s disco. I smashed my head on the punk rock and tempered it with metal. Music is love. A…

While Miami-Dade County residents paid higher property taxes last year, Hialeah Mayor and Miami-Dade County mayoral candidate Julio Robaina did not pay property taxes on a shopping center he owns in his city. In fact, it appears Robaina has avoided paying taxes on the building since 2006, when he and…

The Jacuzzi Boys have definitely made it big. You know why we know this? Not because they have a live album out on Jack White’s Third Man Records. And not because they just got back from a monthlong American tour. But because they’ve got a performance featured on WFMU. Gabriel Alcala…

Maybe Ron Book is losing his touch. On Monday, Miami-Dade County commissioners denied Book’s request to lobby on behalf of a private client pushing a state bill the county is against. The ultra influential lobbyist represents Miami-Dade before the Florida Legislature. But he also works for the Florida Apartment Association,…

Julio Robaina’s slush fund can buy lap dances and stone crab claws

Letters from the issue of April 7, 2011

Drug Czars On Venus (Fruit Bat Entertainment) myspace.com/drugczars Last time we looked at the Drug Czars, we drew little lines separating the old from the new and identified these guys as potential line-blurrers. And keeping in the tradition of skipping around in artist’s catalogues, we’ll be looking at their last…

An assistant principal’s mistake led Miami Northwestern High to get graded a D instead of a C last year. But the state’s education commissioner won’t grant Miami-Dade Public Schools’ request to give Northwestern the higher grade. As a result, the students at the storied African-American school are being punished for…

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 – has a few things…