You think you know all about the local education system — the politics, the money crunch, the learning gaps. But schools are not mere hatcheries of learning, into which varying measures of intellectual formaldehyde are mixed with an inchoate population to produce the Alphas, Betas, Deltas, Gammas, and Epsilons of…
For fifty years, the roar of battered, crumpled, home-made stock cars has beckoned gear-heads, racing enthusiasts and curiosity seekers from Homestead to Lantana and everywhere in between. For the weekend racing warriors who pull into the Hialeah Speedway towing their mechanical stallions on flatbed trailers every Saturday afternoon, nothing beats…
Most people know the popular refrain: “Let him rot in jail.” Most people also know it’s just a metaphor for punishing a criminal. It isn’t meant to be taken literally. Convicted criminals aren’t supposed to putrefy and physically decompose while incarcerated. Right? I just wanted a reality check, especially after…
Miami Beach resident Jeff Bradley is legally blind. The 53-year-old freelance writer is among the thousands who, through necessity, rely on public transit to get around Miami-Dade County. “I drove a car until 1985, when I lost my peripheral vision,” Bradley says. “I live on the Beach because it’s easier…
The arrest last week of Miami Commissioner Art Teele on assault charges following a wild car chase brought to a climactic close one more scene in the drama that has become his life. The saga began more than a year ago with state and federal agents launching corruption probes into…
In the western expanse of Palm Beach County, where sugar cane stretches to the horizon like an endless green sea, sits the Osceola Farms refinery, an island of grime-covered cement, an eyesore of human creation. A maze of steel pipes rings the five-story factory that billows waste from a pair…
We really do want you to vote on Tuesday, August 31. In fact we think it’s your duty as a citizen of this great country and a resident of our fine community. In fulfilling that duty, you’ll be doing your part to keep democracy strong by holding elected officials accountable…
My July 29 column about the clash between the county ethics commission and Inspector General Christopher Mazzella sent paper clips flying and fax machines buzzing. The conflict centers on threats by the ethics commission’s chairman and executive director to curtail Mazzella’s criminal investigations into public corruption. Knowledgeable people responded with…
The Miami-Dade Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. I like the sound of that. Such a hopeful name for such a severe agency. If you get into serious trouble, all is not lost. You can always be rehabilitated. I’m talking about the staff, of course, not the inmates. At corrections, there…
Miami’s movie history is long, but far from proud. The past ten years or so, especially, have seen a flurry of film crews sweeping across the humid landscape of America’s craziest city — closing causeways, blowing shit up and whatnot. All of this is, we suppose, good news for the…
After flying into MIA on June 29, an extra-hot Tuesday even by Miami standards, Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart strolled out of the terminal and headed for his car in the VIP parking lot. An airline passenger spotted him and soon he was swarmed by an angry mob, some of whom weeks…
The most extreme faction within the Cuban-exile community has effectively seized control of U.S. policy toward Cuba. Understandably, attention lately has centered on the reaction of Miami Cubans to radical new restrictions on travel to the island. To deny people the right to travel to see loved ones (except once…
Last week Miami-Dade Inspector General Christopher Mazzella stood beside State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle during a press conference announcing the arrest of nineteen people charged with stealing hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel from the airport. Rundle gushed over Mazzella and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG)…
At the America Coming Together office on Biscayne Boulevard and NE 27th Street, a sign asks in stark red marker: Have you registered 537 new voters yet? That is the number by which George W. Bush ostensibly beat Al Gore in Florida in 2000, nudging the Republican candidate into the…
For 60 days, beginning the first week in November and lasting through the first week of January, a thicket of towering pine trees along the Palmetto Expressway at Bird Road comes alive with the dazzling sparkle of some five million Christmas lights. It’s Santa’s Enchanted Forest, the holiday-themed amusement park,…
It was right before midnight on July 3 when the dispatcher at Florida International University’s police department reported a disturbance at the Panther Hall dormitory. Some students trying to enter were “disregarding the check-in policy.” So goes the life of an FIU police officer in the middle of summer patrolling…
When U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft visited Miami two weeks ago as part of a nationwide blitz to promote the Bush administration’s war on terror, he issued a scary warning. “Multiple available streams of intelligence indicate to us that al Qaeda plans to attack the United States this year and…
One day, Martin showed up at Carlos’s house with a yellow suitcase. “Need you to take this for me for a couple of days,” Martin told the West Kendall private investigator and bodyguard. He plopped the heavy valise, which Martin said was stuffed with cash, on the kitchen counter. Carlos,…
“Only dreamers pay $150 to $200 for nylon expandable luggage, plus ten percent fees and taxes, hoping that they’re going to find any treasures.” This piece of wisdom from a man with a baby-blue Hawaiian shirt and a slightly sad face. Mike Morales resembles a deeply tanned, Taxi-era Andy Kaufman,…
The strange death of U.S. Customs inspector David Berkofsky almost sounds like a riddle, the kind of thing crime writers or medical examiners would bandy about: Two men with a history of personal animosity walk into a room. No one else is present or within earshot. Only one man comes…
Some doctors call them “super bugs,” bacteria that have grown so resistant to antibiotics they can withstand all but the most powerful and expensive drugs. Untreated, they can cause serious illness such as pneumonia and bone disease, even death. Three weeks ago I wrote about one of these super bugs…
This past Tuesday, June 22, Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess announced his selection of a new director for the Corrections and Rehabilitation Department: Charles McRay, a 27-year department veteran. “While we hit a little bump in the road,” he told county commissioners, “I make this recommendation with total confidence.” Some…
