Forget about calling it the American Riviera. When election season rolls around, Miami Beach begins looking less like a well-oiled resort town and more like Caracas, complete with all manner of backroom intrigue: anonymous flyers alleging anti-Semitism, cryptic Spanish-language radio ads intimating pro-Castro sympathies, and whispers of secret payoffs. The…
Five weeks after the Miami Herald canned columnist Jim DeFede, his spot in the newsroom appeared, well, rather strange. A crash dummy in a baseball cap, jeans, and Nikes sat in his chair. Its left hand rested on the desk next to a bottle of Australian Chardonnay. Nearby was a…
Note to Wayne Huizenga Even die-hard Dolfans say it’s time for a change: I’ll admit I was not thrilled to hear that people thought our Miami Dolphins logo needed an upgrade. Yet the beauty and clean lines of the new design by Steve Guaico of North Miami, displayed on last…
Hoops Hype Got game? Come to Flamingo Park and we’ll see about that: Having read Forrest Norman’s great article “Streetball Legends” (August 25), I would like to invite him to see the South Beach streetball at Flamingo Park (Thirteenth Street and Meridian Avenue). Any day of the week between five…
The 1200-year-old Borobudur temple in central Java, Indonesia, now sparkles at night thanks to the work of lighting designer Robert Daniels, who redesigned the Buddhist temple’s illumination scheme. “The Borobudur temple, covered in elaborate carvings and sculptures, is certainly one of the most magnificent and beautiful … monuments,” explains Daniels…
Another Bahamas Mystery Snatched in the middle of the night: I read Bob Norman’s four-part series about the disappearance of Gary Weaver (August 4, 11, 18, 25) and was struck by the similarities to a crisis in my own family. My cousin’s cousin disappeared under mysterious circumstances around the same…
Pitbull was humbled by a hot dog. Miami’s most respected round-headed rapper had to wait in line along with everyone else at a concession stand in the American Airlines Arena during Sunday night’s Video Music Awards, paying for his snacks and remaining relatively unrecognized, while a few yards away Kristin…
The summer of 2005 seems as endless as Abel Gance’s Napoléon. The Bitch passes the time staying fit with the Abraham Lincoln workout — a regimen of rail-splitting, log-cabin-building, ceiling-walking, and Union-preserving — making cafecito Popsicles, and of course sleeping. But the thus-far Marfan-syndrome-free dog is not the only newshound…
Labels matter. Just as one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, the tiny sliver of Middle Eastern land that some refer to as the “Occupied Territories” is to others an integral part of Israel. Indeed for a growing faction of Miami’s Jewish community, even the term “West Bank” is…
The Throbbing Towers of Übertown Sexy lifestyle condos for sale now! South Florida is indeed in the midst of an unprecedented condominium building boom. Your tongue-in-cheek, satirical condo article was very humorous (“Übertown,” August 18). It reminded me of the sacrilegious approach Mad Magazine takes to ridicule sacred cows. The…
Dump This Dolphin! It’s time for a redesign. We want your ideas for a new Miami Dolphins logo. If you can’t draw, find a friend who can. We’ll publish the most interesting entries in our issue of September 8. Deadline for submissions is Wednesday, August 31. Send to: DOLPHINS REDESIGN…
The Bitch, an oceangoing mammal by nature, is keenly aware Miami’s waterfront is being converted into condos and that available boat slips at marinas are disappearing. The city’s maritime community has been trying to deal with this issue for years, with little to show by way of results. This disappearing…
Behind Every Condo Tower Real people made real decisions to destroy the West Grove: Initially I was excited to see the New Times had decided to report on the deconstruction of the black community on the west side of Coconut Grove in Kirk Nielsen’s story “Fables of the Reconstruction” (July…
A reluctant student of eschatology, The Bitch was alarmed this week to receive what might be the fourth or fifth sign so far this year of the imminent Armageddon. Although tight, revealing garb and Burberry tams are venerated as South Florida cultural standards, Lior Gonda, a Web designer from Weston,…
Arthur Teele’s death last week brought to a shocking and tragic end a life as complex as it was compelling. Teele was a gifted politician beloved by his supporters and feared by his opponents. His superior intellect gave him a chess master’s advantage over the amateurs who sat with him…
Compact disc sales are down, online piracy is up, and the tune being sung by the music industry is increasingly dire. How dire? Even the size of the industry’s graft has been scaled back. That much was clear from last week’s $10 million payola settlement between New York State Attorney…
Editor’s note: We received hundreds of letters following the publication last week of “Tales of Teele,” which consisted of verbatim excerpts from a police investigation into Arthur Teele, Jr. The investigative report had been released to the public on May 4, 2005, by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. This sampling…
Murdered Memories Developers in the black Grove are destroying our past: I want to believe what Kirk Nielsen reported in “Fables of the Reconstruction” (July 14) — that rising Coconut Grove property values have caused developers to come in and destroy generations of hopes, dreams, struggles, and memories of Grovites…
Through no fault of her own (actually, definitely through her own fault), The Bitch set off an argument among a group of friends out walking on Collins Avenue about whether the coral rock house on the corner of Ninth Street deserves a continued reprieve from death by heavy equipment. “If…
Like any successful music industry CEO, Damon Dash knows the value of building personal relationships. “Individual development is very important to me,” he explained earnestly to the roomful of aspiring moguls who hung on his every word at this past week’s How Can I Be Down? (HCIBD) conference on South…
Cuba: Perception vs. Reality Trust me, it’s more than drunkards and Jesus freaks: Kathy Glasgow’s article “The Rum Chronicles” (July 7) reminded me of the old story about the blind men and the elephant: Each fellow has a very different description of what the animal looks like, depending on which…
Even in summer, The Bitch likes to be covered in sun-repellent fabric from whiskers to tail, and her attire regularly consists of a Ludacris/Curtis Sliwa-inspired urban uniform of a short-sleeve T-shirt over a long-sleeve white T-shirt and Lucky Brand jeans. The culturally conscious canine does make some concessions to Miami…
