Message to Andres Oppenheimer: Work Harder!

OK, now this is funny. In a Herald correction this morning, the newspaper admitted the first paragraph of Andres Oppeneheimer’s column “was inadvertently picked up from a previous column.”What they actually “picked up” was the headline of the column from three days before: “One sure bet: Venezuela’s condition will worsen.” And…

Odebrecht Is Portuguese for “Big Money Donor”

For the past two days, I’ve noted all the work Miami-Dade County awards Brazilian engineering and construction firm Odebrecht. Despite a history of completing jobs behind schedule and over budget, the company continues to get the nod to build county-funded projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Part of the…

¿Que Pasa, M.I.A.? Miami in Pop Culture

Seeing Miami in a movie or a TV show or music video turns on my internal geek switch. I’m super excited to see the 305 represented on the screen, but I approach America’s assessment of Miami like one of those guys that knows the names of the different kinds of…

Letters from the Issue of February 19, 2009

Six Good Kids Dead Show some respect: To begin with, Brian DuPree was murdered on a Friday morning, not a Saturday, and he was sitting on the passenger side of the car, not the driver’s side, as Gus Garcia-Roberts wrote in the “Curse of the Class of 2006” (February 12)…

Odebrecht Is Portuguese For “Behind Schedule”

For more than 10 years, Brazilian-based construction firm Odebrecht has made tons of money from Miami-Dade County public works projects. If anything, the company is consistent…at completing jobs behind schedule and charging the county more money to finish. For example, Odebrecht accepted responsibility for having to repair 96 massive concrete…

Odebrecht Is Portuguese for “Pay More”

Imagine you hire a contractor to build your house. And that contractor goes over budget, continually misses deadlines, and then tries to charge you more for it. Logic dictates you wouldn’t hire that contractor again, unless you’re a sucker. Well, Miami-Dade County government is the biggest sucker when it comes…

Are You Obese? Talented? Both? NBC Wants You

Riptide was actually not aware that NBC bothered to broadcast anything besides 30 Rock, The Office, and the “I really, really hope one day it gets funny” Kath & Kim. But apparently those shows aren’t paying the bills, so they’ve got a schedule full of sweet, sweet reality television, and…

Buk Fifty Graffiti on I-95

  Are you one of the two gazillion people who has passed the sign on I-95 north where the graffiti crew Buk Fifty has scrawled its name over the dang highway?It seems they did it in the dead of night Sunday at the entry to the express lanes — and…

Oops, This Herald Forgot New Times

See that pretty 1A pic in this morning’s edition of the Magic City’s largest English-language publication, the Miami Herald? Notice the gorgeous Trinidadian woman next to her equally good-looking hombre? “Patrice Yursik and her husband, Steve, will pick strawberries in a Kendall field and dip them in chocolate, cook dinner and give…

Letters from the Issue of February 12, 2009

Diversionary Fire He’s a great arms dealer: Your February 5 story “Armed Again” is the most biased piece of sensationalist writing I have ever seen. The author, Penn Bullock, intentionally misleads readers. For example, anyone who was following the AEY story knows that although there were eight contracts that didn’t…

Conversation Hearts Predict Valentine’s Day

Corbett’s (12721 S. Dixie Hwy., Pinecrest) is a small, wood-paneled bar in a shopping center next to Suniland Park. Inside, there’s a small circular bar with an island of TV sets. Hanging from the flat-screens are stemware and an inflatable flamingo mounting an inflatable shark. Now that’s what I call…

Miami According to Brooklyn: On Loyalty

To read past installments of Miami According to Brooklyn, click here. This week I’m just gonna shoot off at the mouth. I want to talk about loyalty. And I don’t mean this to sound like bitching or complaining — I’m just talking about a topic that’s very important to me. I…

Internal Affairs = Sexual Harrassment

Donald Rifkin, a former Miami-Dade police major accused of trying to exchange sensitive information about internal affairs cases in exchange for sex from a female cop, is no longer investigating county officers accused of misconduct. He is now assigned to the Strategic Planning and Policing Bureau, says MDPD spokesman Det…

¿Que Pasa, M.I.A.? My Excuses For Being Late

Not too long ago, as impossible as it looks, sounds and seems, I held a day job. It was a mundane era of wearing socks, shaving, and having far fewer groupies. Sometimes, I needed to call this day job of mine and tell them I was not feeling so good…

Letters from the Issue of February 5, 2009

Tibor’s Claims Are Hollow His son is okay, though: In response to “The Man Who Built Miami” (Tim Elfrink, January 29): I personally dealt with Tibor Hollo and FEC Realty as a vendor on one of his properties. I was warned about how he would promise the moon and deliver…

When Internal Affairs Gets Too Cozy

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently ended an investigation into the onetime commander of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s internal affairs unit, concluding Donald Rifkin was hoping to get laid by talking to county cop Carmen Pichardo about sensitive information in the internal affairs case against her. Department rules forbid…

Hugo Chavez Stinks, but Rafael Correa…Not

Today’s Hugo Chavez’s tenth anniverary in power. He’s messed with everybody’s brains since taking the oath of office — and he has brought a voice to a lotta poor Venezuelans, many of whom have come to Miami. But this caudillo ain’t slick. He’s lucky. Oil revenues have soared to the…

The Week That Was: This Sort of Thing Ain’t Our Bag, Baby

Karl Rove in the flesh got some UM co-eds very excited. The possibility of spectators in nothing but flesh was the death nail in the coffin of the Lingerie Bowl. Meanwhile, fleshy, nudist tourists are an important part of our economy. On the Dem side, Tampa’s Mayor might run for Senate,…