Local dealers and users call them rophies, ropies, roopies, roofies, ruffies, loops, wheels, and circles. Roche, the company that developed the drug, calls it Narcozep, Rohipnol, Roipnol, and Rohypnol, depending on where the one- and two-milligram tablets are sold. Chemists call it flunitrazepam, a sedative similar to Valium that is…
The six little wood-framed paintings, modestly Impressionist in style, depict a street scene, a shady lakeside park, historical monuments. They are glimpses of Odessa, a port city of two million on the Black Sea. They hang in Alvaro and Ludmilla Alba’s sparsely furnished living room in Little Havana. Alvaro Alba,…
The moment of truth had arrived, and attorney Karen Gievers was losing her grip. Her voice was cracking. Her eyes kept misting over. Much to the astonishment of lawyers and laymen alike, her questions were barely coherent. And those that did make sense were being summarily overruled by the judge…
One of the things that distinguishes South Florida’s music scene from, say, Seattle’s, is that our bands do not have an identifiable sound, like grunge. The women making the music at our original rock venues have little in common beyond geographical proximity. Ponder the following: “I don’t know if spit…
“We’re creating our own history,” offers Helaine Blum, manager of promising local rock band Black Janet. She is trying to explain what sets South Florida’s rock music scene apart from other cities’, and in particular why she and so many other local women have taken up the cause. “Because of…
What drives seemingly intelligent and enlightened human beings to whack golf balls off the fantails of ocean liners? A momentary feeling of liberation as the dimpled sphere soars unimpeded toward the infinite? A symbolic and finite deep-sixing of worldly problems? The comforting knowledge that this is a water hazard you…
For Roberto Martinez the news was too good to be true. This past March a reporter from the Miami Herald called his office to inform him that Attorney General Janet Reno had declared he would stay on as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. The next day the…
NORML is getting back to life in South Florida. Which is good news for anyone in favor of health-care reform, a dramatically improved economy, a cleaner environment, or civil rights. “There hasn’t been a chapter in South Florida this vigorous and active in almost seven years,” says Norm Kent, the…
“In a world where nothing is true, everything is permitted” — from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky Attorney Roy Black is billing us $710,000 in legal fees for representing City of Miami Police officer William Lozano, who, Black successfully argued in court last year, was “indigent” and couldn’t afford…
A photograph from the late 1950s captures the image of an attractive woman, her face turned from the camera in order to gaze at a young but already balding Francis Augustus Conner. He is standing in front of the low-lying military buildings that used to line the area just north…
Since the time of its invention more than a decade ago, the gamma knife has been hailed for its ability to remove brain tumors that are considered impossible to reach through conventional surgery. Developed in Sweden, the instrument uses radioactive cobalt to excise tumors with gamma radiation, without incisions or…
New Times hoards multiple honors in this year’s Florida Press Association Better Weekly Newspaper Contest On Friday, June 11, the Florida Press Association announced the winners of its annual Better Weekly Newspaper Contest for material published during 1992. This year, in competition with weekly newspapers throughout the state, New Times…
Most human beings prefer to think of nature as a cyclical process, a perpetual revolution of destruction and renewal. In the face of forces so powerful, such thoughts can be comforting. They can also be profoundly depressing. As Dade County’s citizenry frantically prepares for the possibility of a second hurricane…
Sean was one of those people who never drank in public but who was always drunk. Without too much trouble, she was managing to put down a case of beer every day and still work. Totally dependable. She’d stay up emptying the case until midnight or 1:00 a.m. and then…
When last we left the genteel citizens of Indian Creek Village, the hue and cry over the burg’s twelve-man police department had nearly subsided. In February an independent audit commissioned by city officials had labeled the force “out of control” and recommended that Chief Rudy Piedra and his right-hand man,…
Just for a moment or two, imagine yourself alongside the renowned architects who were flown in to town this past week by German developer Thomas Kramer and his company, the Portofino Group. For six days, you, along with town planners and local officials and community leaders, would participate in a…
In the coming weeks, as the push for health-care reform collides with efforts to reduce the national deficit, one federal program is virtually guaranteed to get caught in the crunch: Medicare. Lawmakers in Washington are targeting that sprawling program A primarily for those over the age of 65 A for…
The modern hospice movement was born in England as an idea that you should have someone close by as you near death A a helping friend, a caregiver to sit with you in those final days to ease your fears and tend to your needs. The idea has been expanded…
It was one of those little things that mean a lot. A postcard from a distant country. “Thinking of you!” it read. “See you soon!” When Shirley McGreal found the Kenya-postmarked card in her mail about a month ago, she wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but she did know…
They say the big house ages a man. Something about the empty hours, the bare cells, the crush of conscience, gnaws at the very fabric of youth. In Stanley K. Shapiro’s case, that fabric was pretty frayed going in. Lightly liver-spotted, bulging around the belly, the 63-year-old emerged from Turner…
Roberto Polo couldn’t even begin to explain. All he knew was that at some point the money had stopped being money. This was something those around him would never fathom A the sycophants who slobbered for his invites, the art dealers who gasped at his bids, the investors who shoved…
Early in the first quarter of the Miami Hooters’ franchise-opening Arena Football League game against the Charlotte Rage, rather than ducking his head and safely absorbing a sack in the quarterbacking equivalent of the fetal position, Hooters quarterback John Fourcade uncoiled in the face of several onrushing Rage defensive linemen…
