Until Tuesday morning this page was occupied by an article headlined “Los Van Van Ban Lifted.” Staff writer Elise Ackerman prepared the story, which explained how it came to be that recordings by the venerable Cuban band Los Van Van were now being played on a commercial radio station –…
Lead Stories *Former Gotti crime-family hit man Sammy “The Bull” Gravano cooperated on author Peter Maas’s Gravano biography Underboss, to be published in April. Despite the fact that his testimony helped send Gotti to prison for life without parole, and 36 others to the slammer, and despite the fact that…
Thirteen years ago, when it was revealed that the Pentagon had spent $640 on a toilet seat and $435 for a hammer, the public was outraged. Congress immediately launched an investigation, hearings were held on Capitol Hill, and red-faced military leaders stood by helplessly as their careers came to an…
Witness Against the Prosecution Jim DeFede is getting to be quite the comedian. What a sense of humor! He sounds as though he expects something to come of [Dade State Attorney] Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s political inquisition (“A Primer on Prosecuting Corruption,” March 20). Ha! She caught Ronnie Book not with…
On January 23, New Times published a cover story entitled “You Call This a Fairway?” revealing that, for nearly two years, Dade County Manager Armando Vidal had accepted dozens of free rounds of golf from the company hired to manage the county-owned Golf Club of Miami. The story also established…
High-Spirited and Perhaps Highly Imaginative Though I shudder at the thought that Kathy Glasgow’s “Urban Shipwreck” (March 6) will amount to my fifteen minutes of fame, I respectfully request your correction regarding the following: 1) Robert Madsen has been paid in full through his last date of employment. He is…
Lead Stories *Veterinary breakthroughs: In February surgeons in Washington, D.C., removed a cataract from the eye of the National Zoo’s six-foot-long Komodo dragon Muffin in hopes that she could better see how studly the male was and thus would mate with him. And in January doctors in Johannesburg, South Africa,…
Lead Stories *In 1978 the Oakland Raiders’ Jack Tatum made a clothesline hit on New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley’s neck, causing permanent paralysis. At the time Tatum arrogantly defended the play as legal and warned other opponents they could expect the same. In January 1997 Tatum applied for disability…
Big Elk Speaks I take this opportunity to thank New Times, writer Ray Martinez, and photographer Steve Satterwhite for the fine article on the Coral Gables Elks Lodge (“Fraternal Reorder,” March 6). The members enjoyed contributing to the story and looked forward to seeing it in print. We are very…
Prejudging Them on Their Prejudice Jim DeFede’s article “Coming of Rage,” (February 27) was an extremely well-written and insightful piece of journalism regarding the racial situation in Miami. Ira Everett’s statement that Cuban immigrants do not appreciate the civil rights movement is true, but let’s be frank. Cubans don’t care…
Lead Stories *In January the owners of KZZC-FM in Tipton, California, ended eighteen consecutive months of being an all-“I Heard It Through the Grapevine” station, playing various versions of that song all day, seven days a week (except once, when it played the Eagles’ “New Kid in Town” for a…
Standing above the tiny coffin containing five-year-old Rickia Isaac’s body, Mayor Alex Penelas searched for meaning in the tragedy of the child’s death. “This is a day of grief,” he declared during her funeral earlier this month. “We are all grieving.” But that sorrow should not be directed toward Rickia,…
Lead Stories *The Associated Press reported in January on the three-year-old anti-smoking policy of Kimball Physics in Wilton, New Hampshire, which not only forbids lighting up at work but subjects each employee and visitor to a sniff test of his breath and clothing by receptionist Jennifer Walsh. Those whose odor…
Castro Is Bad, Not Cuba Last Thursday my children called to tell me that I was featured in New Times (“Overthrow on the Radio,” February 13). Later that day I saw myself in the photograph, but when I read Kathy Glasgow’s article, I did not recognize myself or my friends…
Lead Stories *Still more Italian justice: In November a judge in Rome ruled that a 24-year-old man is entitled to live with his mother even though she doesn’t want him to. Said the woman: “If he comes home, I’m [leaving].” In a 1996 case reported by the Associated Press in…
Might That Be Tediously Close to Poetry? Miami Herald staff writers, who tediously gather and compose the Neighbors’s “Police Report,” appreciate the kudos awarded in Robert Andrew Powell’s article “Life Sentences” (February 6). Although nothing was stolen and no one was hurt, “Police Report” is as close to poetry as…
Jen Be Illin’ I’ve been able to stomach restaurant reviews in which Jen Karetnick reminisces about her days in sleepaway camp, in New Jersey, and God knows where else, but her review of Cafe Aqua (“Just Add Water,” January 30) frankly made me nauseous. It had nothing to do with…
Lead Stories *An ancient fear of penis-shrinking sorcery periodically surfaces in Ghana, the latest instance in December. Mobs beat seven men to death in Accra and injured others in Tema, all because of rumors that the men had the power to make others’ disappear by a mere touch. Police said…
Mayor Alex Penelas flew to New York two weeks ago to tell anyone on Wall Street who would listen that Dade County is being led by ethical people whose honesty is beyond reproach. Hoping to distance himself and the county from the negative publicity swirling around the City of Miami,…
Lead Story *Texas A&M student Jonathan Culpepper and his fraternity, Kappa Alpha, were indicted in College Station, Texas, in December on a criminal hazing charge — inflicting a severe wedgie. The grand jury found that fraternity members lifted a candidate off his feet by the waistband of his underwear, resulting…
A few years ago in these pages I described Joel Cheatwood as “the evil genius behind Channel 7’s lurid news style.” The occasion was the release of a Hurricane Andrew documentary Cheatwood and WSVN-TV produced that was about as melodramatic, self-absorbed, and manipulative as you might have expected — just…
She Made Cuba Sing Again I am Julia and Ramon Sabat’s oldest daughter. It is absolutely incredible how Judy Cantor captured not only my father’s personality and dreams, but the pulse of a nation and its people during the Forties and Fifties (“When Cuba Sang,” December 26). Also, without ever…
