When is the sobering ritual of burying war dead an act of treason? Virtually never, unless you happen to be a member of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, also known as Brigade 2506. But that extraordinary situation isn’t stopping a small group of brigade veterans from taking care of…
Bonnie Canino, the Women’s International Boxing Federation (WIBF) featherweight (126 pounds) champion out of South Florida, flew to New Orleans in March 1997 to defend her title against a young Irish puncher named Deirdre Gogarty. This was at the beginning of a huge crest of popular interest in women’s pro…
On this Friday in late November, Max Lesnik arrives at his storefront shortly before 8:00 p.m. From the outside the West Little Havana location appears to be just a simple tienda peddling cheap knickknacks. But concealed behind the façade is Lesnik’s office and that of Replica, the general-interest magazine he…
It was a night in October, and across the island of Cuba, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s antiwar anthem, “Give Peace a Chance,” crackled out of the nation’s television sets. It was the music bed for a video montage: United States military jets taking off, a ground-to-air missile blasting skyward,…
The Miami Heat’s Ricky Charles is sitting on a plush red cushion atop a gold-painted throne. The chair is on a platform perched dizzyingly over the 400 level at the very top of the American Airlines Arena, more than 100 feet in the air. Far below, an action-figure-sized Karl Malone…
As national political action committees go, the Miami-based Free Cuba PAC is not among the very rich. While PACs affiliated with some big industry groups and labor unions pour millions of dollars into political campaigns each election, the Free Cuba PAC invested a modest $106,000 in campaign contributions during the…
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into a Coconut Grove parking garage, some developer tries to gouge you. Under City of Miami law, a person is supposed to be able to park a vehicle in the garage at the 22-story Mutiny Park condominium (just a block…
When he stepped off a plane in Miami, Shaheed Mohamed says, he was running for his life. At the airport he immediately reported to immigration officials and asked for asylum. Within hours he was telling FBI agents all he knew about a plot by Islamic militants to bomb the U.S…
Miami in 1955 was a young town full of gin joints, aging mobsters, scruffy fishermen, Southern gentility, a swinging Harlem South in Overtown, and a little pre-Castro Cuban flavor. It was a good time for many. Land was cheap, dreams were big, and most zoning problems were fixed with a…
There is a group of men in South Florida who insist they knew the horrific events of September 11 were coming. They didn’t know the particulars — the day, or the way it would happen — but they have long felt certain that a deadly large-scale act of terrorism on…
If you live in Miami, your city remains under siege by one of the most tenacious insurgencies of the modern era: the billboard industry. So far your troops on the frontlines — the city’s zoning enforcers, attorneys, and commissioners — have been unable, unwilling, or just plain frightened to mount…
1. Macoute Blood Marilise was eighteen in the fall of 1992, when she boarded a boat leaving Haiti. Her boyfriend, Franfrico, was with her. Maybe a third of the 70 passengers were heading out for reasons similar to Marilise’s: They were young women who, owing to attacks or harassment by…
‘Tis time once again to think about settling our holiday debts, and as usual some of us have rung up quite a tab. The payments will be daunting, but of course we’ll scrimp and save and eventually claw our way back to solvency. But imagine a world in which the…
When Ignatius Murray turned eighteen, his father went to the official registry of Westmoreland Parish in southwestern Jamaica and signed over the leases on the twenty-acre family farm to his son. It was an act of trust and faith. With the gesture, Raymond Murray conveyed his belief that Ignatius was…
This is the city. Miami. We work here. It was Thursday, December 6. A morning like most mornings. Muggy. Had just wrapped up a feature story, a tale of strong-arm tactics at Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC). The arm, according to faculty and staff, belonged to MDCC president Eduardo Padron. The…
Margaret Soltis pauses midsentence to choke down a bubble of emotion and look distractedly at the young man playing the piano a couple of yards away. “Sorry,” she apologizes. ““America the Beautiful’ always gets me.” The song catches Soltis at a vulnerable moment, just as she is describing the corporate…
Ideologically entrenched Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits have been calling one another “terrorists” since the term flared up into our modern-day lexicon three decades ago. But after the September 11 jetliner attacks, hard-liners here and on the island have taken the opportunity to inflame their long-running war…
I Rode for Lansky II: Despite Ms. Cynthia Duncan of Miami, who is curiously sensitive about her grandfather Meyer Lansky — “the Syndicate’s Accountant,” who ran Havana under Batista, who perfected the skim at the old Sands and Thunderbird hotels in Vegas when both were cash registers for the Chicago…
On November 27 the North Miami City Council, after twenty minutes of discussion and public comment, unanimously passed a resolution challenging the newly drawn Miami-Dade County Commission district boundaries. The resolution, the first step in a process leading to a lawsuit against the county, charges the new district plan violates…
The mysterious Jordanian flew into South Florida on December 3, 2000, armed only with some fake documents and a ludicrous claim that he was a U.S. citizen. Yet Mohammed Braish, who was 22 years old, still made it past the first obstacle: the Immigration and Naturalization Service. With his Jordanian…
On Nov. 28 the Progressive Firefighters Association, which looks out for black firemen in Miami-Dade County, showed up in Liberty City at Fire Station #2, in solidarity with Willie Latimore, a seventeen-year veteran of the department, who’s been having the same kinds of problems with some of his co-workers that…
What is it with polls and Miami? From bogging down presidential elections to the hapless Hurricanes, Miami seems forever jinxed when it comes to votes. And the latest DJ mag Top 100 poll is no exception. No less than nineteen DJs living in the United States were selected for the…
