Building Rights and Wrongs Thanks to Kirk Semple for covering the efforts of the Save Miami Beach PAC to give voters a say about waterfront development. I would like to respond to some of the issues raised in the article (“Arrested Development,” January 16). An anonymous lawyer who is “intimately…
Lead Stories *The New York Police Department announced in December that it has been stepping up enforcement of a little-known ordinance that makes it illegal for a subway passenger to occupy more than one seat (such as by putting a package or one’s feet on an adjacent seat), even if…
Lead Stories *Can’t hold it in: The school board in Durham, North Carolina, suspended a substitute teacher at Hillside High School in November after she urinated into a trash can during class, allegedly because of a medical condition. And fifth-grade teacher Dow Ooten, age 36, was suspended in Charleston, West…
You Don’t Have to Be a Kook to Hate the Sanctuary It’s a shame that Sean Rowe’s article “A Key Battle” (January 9) portrays such a narrow view of why the referendum on the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary was defeated in the last election. He didn’t seem to talk…
No Rabbis, No Exiles, No Way It’s encouraging to read positive ideas to make this town more livable, especially the thought of a competing daily newspaper (“New Year’s Revolution,” January 2). But Kirk Semple did not include suggestions from Jewish clergy or Cuban activists. With the calls for forums, community…
Lead Stories *Township supervisors in East Marlborough, Pennsylvania, proposed an ordinance in November to ban offensive smells within the town, requiring that a panel of people with “ordinary and reasonable sensibility” be convened to determine which odors are unacceptable. The issue arose when one supervisor complained about the smell from…
Ever wonder what the initials J.L. stand for in Miami City Commissioner J.L. Plummer’s name? For the longest time, I thought it stood for Just Loquacious. Attend any city commission meeting and you will soon realize that Plummer loves the sound of his own voice. He’s a redneck Chatty Cathy…
If She’s Such a Great Psychic, How Come She Didn’t Know She’d Be Appointed Queen? I suppose Ray Martinez felt compelled, in his article on King Mango’s new queen, Ellen Whitmore, to get into the spirit of the Strut and zero in on the zanier aspects of Ms. Whitmore’s personality…
Lead Stories *Officials at the Central Penitentiary in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, revealed in October that they are encouraging male inmates to marry each other in order to hold down HIV infections. Eight couples have taken the plunge so far. The marriages are valid only in prison because Honduran law does not…
Lead Stories *In October Miriam Flores, serving six years for robbery in Mexico City, was selected Miss Mexico Jailhouse in a pageant that featured fourteen of the city’s foxiest female inmates. A week later Pham Ngoc Tam won first place in a nationwide beauty contest of female jail guards held…
Would You Like Totally Start Making Sense Please? I was totally appalled by Jim DeRogatis’s article “Bush Whack” (December 19). Bush has one thing in common with Nirvana: They both have made great and original music. Bush is the best band to come along since Kurt Cobain died. The group…
A week before Thanksgiving, on Thursday, November 21, the Miami Herald ran a rather laudatory story on the front page of its business section. “BRANDSMART EXPANDING” the headline blared above a large picture of the company’s smiling president Michael Perlman. Below the picture was a secondary headline: “Thriving chain outgrows…
Lead Stories *People getting too much sleep: Michele and Tony Phebus were arrested in Lafayette, Indiana, in August after they fell asleep in their car between the microphone and the pick-up window at a White Castle drive-thru; police found numerous marijuana butts in the car and a brick of the…
No Reservations Regarding Empathy for Native Americans I am writing in response to Paula Park’s informative story about the Miccosukee Tribe in the Everglades (“The Last of the Indian Wars,” December 12). I have done a lot of research on the plight of American Indians. They are unnecessarily confined to…
Seven years ago, while working at a daily newspaper in Spokane, Washington, I met Damon Chapple. He stood only five feet nine inches tall but he weighed 200 pounds — all of it muscle. Chapple was a fighting machine, as perfect a creature of destruction as either Heaven or Hell…
Lead Stories *In a procedure denounced by the Association of Professional Piercers, Phoenix piercer’s apprentice Joe Aylward recently had a metal plate implanted under the skin of his skull so he can screw decorative spikes into his head. *Incriminating fingers: In Amsterdam in August and Miami in June, men were…
The Antichrist of Broward, Part 1 I am writing in response to a letter by David L. Laurence you printed under the headline “DeFede Flunks Civics 101” (November 28). Who is this David L. Laurence character and why does he feel he is an expert on journalism? Why do you…
There Goes the Neighborhood Regarding Kirk Semple’s article “First the Bumbling, Then the Crumbling” (November 28), I really did move to Miami Beach from New York City in 1989 because I loved the Art Deco buildings. On a beautiful, crisp, sunny, dragon-clouds-racing-by day, I was sitting having a colada with…
Lead Stories *On October 21 the CBS Evening News aired a videotape of an Iraqi wedding reception in which members of a cult of Sunni Muslims performed a series of severe self-mutilations to demonstrate their devotion to Saddam Hussein. While Saddam’s sons Odai and Qusai looked on approvingly, the men…
Less than three months ago, on a dazzlingly bright Sunday afternoon, Donald Manning and I stood outside a church in Liberty City discussing the bribery scandal enveloping his long-time friend County Commissioner James Burke. The just-concluded religious service had turned into a rally of sorts for the embattled commissioner, and…
A Student of the Game In his November 14 column (“Arena Winners and Losers: Alex Shoots, Alex Scores!”), Jim DeFede failed to mention those who suffered the greatest loss of all — the people of Dade County. Not only were we duped into allowing the use of at least $250…
Lead Stories *Denny Constantine revealed to the San Jose Mercury News in October that he was part of a team that almost got the go-ahead to drop flying-bat bombs on Japan in World War II. The plan: Tiny incendiary devices would be attached to millions of bats, which would be…
