For the past month Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez has been inviting members of the media to meet with him in an effort to improve his rather strained relations with the press. So far he has met with reporters and editors from the Miami Herald and executives from local television and…
Lead Stories *The New York Times reported in October about the secret life of a 25-year-old British-born daughter of Pakistani immigrants living in Bradford, England, who has changed residences nineteen times in the last five years just to avoid death threats from her own father and brother. They’re angry that…
Our Promise: Leave No Perverted Agenda Unexposed Jim DeFede’s piece on Alex Penelas was great (“Style: 10, Substance: 0,” January 1). But he was a bit too kind. Penelas is less qualified to be Miami-Dade County mayor than was the late rag popper Doctor Cool. Please continue to expose local…
The INS’s Civil Wrongs I want to commend Jacob Bernstein on his excellent investigative article “Welcome to America. Now Go Home” (January 1). What type of society have we become that defenseless people can be so badly treated? I think it is important to encourage readers to write to their…
Lead Story *In November in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Kenneth J. Nowicki, age 34, was formally charged with disorderly conduct. According to the police complaint, Nowicki picked out three kids in a park, left them candy and a cup, and asked them via typewritten instructions to spit into the cup after eating…
Whenever Paul Philip’s name is mentioned, I recall the scene earlier this year in front of the Miami Beach houseboat where Andrew Cunanan killed himself. Metro-Dade police raided the floating home just before dusk and found Cunanan’s body in one of the upstairs bedrooms. A communications snafu initially caused Miami…
Lead Stories *The Court of Appeal in London ruled in November that a convicted rapist who continued to call and write his victim and her husband from prison could sue the victim for libel because of what she wrote to the police when reporting the harassment. The rapist, David Daniels,…
Todd Talks Back to the Idiot Box As a former editor at a local TV station, I take responsibility for two of the pieces mentioned in Robert Andrew Powell’s “Sweeps Unchained” (December 18). After nearly five years, I recently quit over what I considered to be insensitive and often offensive…
Lead Story *Allegheny High School in Clifton Forge, Virginia (which is seventeen percent black), suspended two boys and a girl (all white) who wore Ku Klux Klan outfits to school as their Halloween costumes. In Saybrook, Illinois, however, the Lions Club awarded its prize for best schoolkid Halloween costume to…
Jockey Club Bad, Jockey Complex Good It was with great dismay that we read Ted B. Kissell’s article about the Jockey Club (“The Jockey Club’s Wild Ride,” December 11). The first question that came to mind was “Why?” What was the purpose of the article? Sensationalism? Gossip? While Mr. Kissell’s…
For nearly a year Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruce Kaplan has been under criminal investigation by the State Attorney’s Office for allegedly providing false information on an application for a home mortgage. State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle last week confirmed the ongoing probe but said she couldn’t provide any specific details…
Lead Stories *In November Denver school board candidate Lee McClendon lost his race despite a vigorous campaign promising to improve kids’ performances in reading, writing, and basic math. The loss might have had something to do with his 1984 guilty plea for attempted sexual assault of an eight-year-old boy, a…
Burke, Gersten, and the Power of Political Connections In Jim DeFede’s article “The Waiting Game” (December 4), Commissioner James Burke wonders, “I know that Joe Gersten was investigated, but I never heard of any attempt at a sting operation involving him. I don’t think the level of scrutiny is the…
Packed into the conference room of Sen. Bob Graham’s downtown Miami office, Miami-Dade County officials gathered two weeks ago for a meeting with attorneys from half a dozen federal agencies overseeing the transfer of Homestead Air Force Base. Among those present: Mayor Alex Penelas and several members of his staff,…
Lead Stories *Kenneth Curtis, age 32, was arrested in November in Hartford, Connecticut; state prosecutors will again attempt to bring him to trial for the 1987 murder of a former girlfriend. Curtis had avoided trial earlier because of mental incompetence — he sustained a brain injury after shooting himself in…
How About “Humanitarian Criminal? Over the past few weeks, I have been carefully reading Jim DeFede’s continuing saga of Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko (“The Baba Chronicles,” September 25; “The Baba Chronicles, Part 2,” November 6; and “Bye-Bye, Baba,” November 27). Even with all of Mr. DeFede’s in-depth scrutiny of the…
Tell It to the Cops, Tell It to the Judge I think Tangela Hollerman, [who claimed her daughter had been abducted at gunpoint], should be brought up on criminal charges (“With Kidnappers Like These, Who Needs Social Workers?” November 27). The last time I checked, lying to officers of the…
Lead Stories *In September Michael F. Schmitz, age 45, serving two years in the Kentucky State Reformatory for drunk driving, filed a $1.9 million lawsuit against the Lexington Police Department, complaining that officers had been too nice when they arrested him in 1996. According to the lawsuit, when police found…
Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko’s $1.2 million contribution to Camillus House last week was secretly orchestrated by U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore and has raised questions about whether the West African millionaire made the supposedly voluntary donation in order to buy his way out of federal custody. Earlier this…
The Write Stuff In his article “First Draft” (November 13), Mike Clary did an incredible job portraying a woman who will be a literary force to be reckoned with. Miami is finally able to recognize what a group of us has known for years: Ivonne Lamazares is a talented and…
Lead Stories *In December 1996 Phillip Johnson, then age 32, of Johnson Bottom, Kentucky, shot himself in the left shoulder with his .22-caliber rifle “to see how it felt,” he told ambulance personnel. On October 2, 1997, an ambulance crew was again called to Johnson’s home, where he was bleeding…
Lead Stories *According to an October Reuters news report, a man who mooned German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in a political protest two years ago near Vienna has decided to appeal his fine of about $357. The man has asked a court to require Kohl to come back to Vienna, take…
