Opinion & Commentary

From Edgerrin James to the homeless, McAdoo saved them all

Letters from the issue of July 15, 2010

Last November, Barbara Carey-Shuler was the reason the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office charged then-Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones with grand theft of $50,000 in county grants that went to a now defunct family business called Karym Ventures Inc. Nine months later, the former county commissioner is the reason Spence-Jones could…

Phresh James comes through with another release representing his unique smooth cadence that his listeners love him so much for. Backed by his C-9 label and his Legacy Effect management team, the new mixtape is called Just Practice and its as true to a title as one can actually stay…

Earlier this month, the Miami-Dade School Board’s watchdog agency and federal immigration agents busted a family of south Miami-Dade builders using 20 undocumented immigrants to build new modular classrooms at Southside Elementary. According to a July 1 federal indictment, Luis Daniel, his son Ariel, and his wife Marta Duque hired…

People seem to really like Pizza Rustica; seats at the three South Beach venues are almost always filled. Zagat readers praise its “fantastic selection of unusual pizzas” with “gourmet toppings” that yield a “stomach-filling and rewarding experience.” What can we say? Sometimes there is just no explaining popular taste…

*Essencia Restaurant & Lounge at The Palms Hotel & Spa has just introduced a new summer menu. Executive chef Frank Jeannetti, who refers to his restaurant food as “the pure essence of taste”, is including new items — for instance, miso-glazed black cod with celery root puree and shaved radish salad…

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 eulogizes one of Miami’s unseen black leaders.Miami’s black community recently lost a great person, a man who…

Come this fall, the Eden Roc Renaissance Miami Beach will premiere a “farm-friendly steak house” co-conceptualized by Seth Greenberg, my dentist. Wait — sorry, that’s just a coincidence. This Seth Greenberg is a hospitality impresario from the Northeast. “Earth, fire, water, air, and space” will be the classical elements brought…

Former North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns abandoned his campaign for U.S. Senate to run for state Senate, but maybe he should concentrate on getting his financial house in order first. This past June 28, Florida’s division of elections notified Burns via letter that his bank did not honor a $1,781 check…

David Brieske returns to our pages under the working name of his musical project Fsik Huvnx. Again, please, do not ask me to sound that out. What works here, and again, I do not purport to infringe on my colleagues who scribe about art, is the visual artist as musician…

Last night’s monthly meeting of Miami-Dade Republicans was an entertaining respite from the LeBronomania enveloping the county. As promised, congressional candidate Paul Crespo demanded that David Rivera, the Republican frontrunner in the U.S. congressional race to replace Mario Diaz-Balart, resign as the local GOP’s chairman. Contender Marili Cancio also demanded…

State Rep. David Rivera’s campaign for U.S. Congress has taken quite the ass-kicking since he was caught being less than forthright about his friendship with Ariel Pereda, a Miami businessman who facilitates trade with Cuba. Being a hard-line, pro-Cuban-embargo advocate since he took public office, Rivera didn’t expect to look like…

False Facebook friends at Gulfstream Park

Letters from the issue of July 8, 2010

Elena Kagan helped 2 Live Crew and blacks, so confirm her already

A little while ago, we posted a track by Ice Berg called “Stop Look & Listen,” which was meant to be a teaser for this then-upcoming mixtape Strictly For The Streets 2: Color On Color. On July 4 exactly at midnight, the tape was released, and in minutes garnered hundreds to thousands…

Banana Republican is watching a projection screen inside a chilly classroom with no desks.On the screen, a police officer in a tan uniform talks to a middle-aged man in farmer duds on the side of a rural road. It looks like a scene from the TV show Cops, except Banana Republican is…

The girls of Jersey Shore came through Miami like a wrecking crew hell bent on bitch slapping anything that got in their way. They left a pile of beaten and bruised bitches and bros lying on the floor in their wake of tanning gels and hair sprays.Unfortunately this is not…

Ten years ago this past June 28, Elián González was returned to his father in Cuba, and Alex Penelas’s rising political star imploded. Miami-Dade’s then-county mayor dug his own grave in 2000. Sure he won a second term as mayor, but he double-crossed Al Gore during the presidential election and…