Opinion & Commentary

​Since I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, it gives me great pleasure and pride to see the work of UltraChic*, a band based out of Miami but hailing from my homeland. The group continues to soldier on with a rock and roll racket that pays plenty of respect…

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 remembers Miami Commissioner Miller Dawkins, who died early this month. One of Miller Dawkins’s legacies is Charles…

Out Through the In DoorSean Bernal has left the Oceanaire Seafood Room and headed for Fairview, Texas. Jonathan Wright is skipping the Setai for Barbados. Usually the sign of a restaurant city becoming robust is the influx of talented chefs from elsewhere — not the fleeing of chefs for greener…

NMA News, a Taiwanese news organization, has begun explaining America to its viewers through the use of wacky CGI animation. We’re not sure how the animations help Taiwanese viewers understand the ridiculousness of American pop culture, but they sure do make for great viral videos. The latest edition takes aim…

Pink LincolnsSumo Fumes(Stiff Pole Records)www.stiffpolerecords.com In honor of Richard “Big Stiff” Konwinski, who passed this past July in Tampa, I’ll be juggling between the County Grind and Crossfade blogs doing my Blast From the Past thing on the record label that he founded, Stiff Pole Records. In my opinion, it…

Frommer’s “highly recommends” Versailles, touting it as “a glorified diner,” where Cuban exiles meet over a cafécito. Travelers on TripAdvisor have awarded it four stars, hail it as the best Cuban food in town. But is it really?Anyone who visits Miami is automatically pointed toward Versailles as the place to…

I was wrong. Seven years ago, at the Iraq War’s start, I wrote a column expressing skepticism about the Bush administration’s claim that Adnan Shukrijumah of Miramar was a top terrorist. Earlier today, reports leaked from the FBI that Shukrijumah has become Osama Bin Laden’s top man on global terrorism. Shukrijumah…

Turns out Luke’s Gospel is indeed the word, the truth we all seek. Miami New Times columnist Luther Campbell penned an opinion piece on Elena Kagan, which was cited by several national media outlets, including Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News. Next thing you know she’s…

Last night on Jersey Shore, the cast continued to wreck havoc on the previously sleepy little island known as Miami Beach. Ronnie the shaved gorilla struggled with newly developing human emotions and even harder-to-grasp basic human logic. Meanwhile, Angelina the rat scurried about the house, tried desperately to avoid being…

​Unlike many of his “MySpace generation” peers — the words from his press materials, not ours — English phenom Kissy Sell Out has refused to move on to new flavors like tropical disco or funk or house. Instead, he’s instead stuck to his bass-bombing electro guns, mostly on a series of frequently…

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) sure doesn’t think so. The courageous congressman should be applauded for having introduced legislation aimed at preventing businesses from writing off advertising of junk food targeted towards children. Specifically, congressional measure HR 4310 would prohibit any company from claiming a tax deduction for expenses derived from…

We were not surprised when it was announced that Barton G would be opening a restaurant, Prelude by Barton G, at the Adrienne Arsht center. He is a true showman and his original restaurant Barton G. is more reminiscent of a circus act than a fine dining establishment. It is…

Bert Gonzalez and David Karsh have left their jobs with Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff to work for the city’s community redevelopment agencies. The personnel changes come after Sarnoff and Commissioner Richard Dunn II abandoned a controversial proposal to use $105,000 in taxpayer money meant for alleviating blight in Overtown and…

Letters from the issue of August 12, 2010

Rick Scott and Bill McCollum want to turn Miami into an immigration prison

(Stiff Pole Records) www.stiffpolerecords.com In honor of Richard “Big Stiff” Konwinski, who passed this past July in Tampa, I’ll be juggling between the County Grind and Crossfade blogs doing my Blast From the Past thing on the record label that he founded, Stiff Pole Records. In my opinion, it came to…

The Game and Cool & Dre have a long history together. “Hate It Or Love It,” from 2005, was the first collaboration among the three. Since then, they’ve frequently worked together, with Cool and Dre landing placements on all of the Game’s subsequent albums.Fast forward to 2010, and the Game…

Raising cash for county commission and school board races in Miami-Dade is like making it rain at the strip club. The more loot you fling, the more popular you are! As voters start going to the polls for early voting, Banana Republican compiled the top five ballers greasing the wheels…

Mayday still never ceases to amaze us. Every leaked record from their upcoming Stuck On An Island album has been nothing but sure-fire hip-hop goodness, mixed with a little bit of a multi-genre twist. A couple setbacks have delayed the album’s release, though. An original May date was changed to September,…

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 claims Democrats are missing in action in the governor’s race.The Democratic Party is out of sight and…

Even though Ralph Arza recently popped up at one of her fundraisers and at her campaign headquarters in Hialeah, Perla Tabares Hantman insists the disgraced former state representative is not working on her re-election campaign for Miami-Dade School Board. “He has no involvement as far as I know,” Tabares Hantman tells Banana Republican…