Reader Response

H.E.R will headline the Best Life Fest in Miami.

You might think politicians’ bad decisions — the ones that have led to all of those awful news cycles about domestic and international embarrassments, about barbarically retrogressive, unabashedly ignorant policy shifts and 3 a.m. Twitter outbursts — happen at a level far above your head. But they don’t. Decisions are made by those who show up. And right now, it’s time to show up at your local polling place and make sure your opinions count.

A judge Monday sealed tapes of hours of jailhouse phone calls made by chart-topping Lauderhill musician XXXTentacion. The decision is an affront to anyone who believes in open-record laws. It also violates state law.

Hope you’re planning on some barbecue at Tortuga Music Festival this year, ’cause it’s a straight-up sausage fest.

This week, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High returned to school — to the hallways and classrooms where they had watched people die, where many of them thought they, too, would probably die. It’s impossible to imagine what that place must feel like to them now, once an average part of everyday life, now something wholly different.

Ahead of this year’s Oscars, we look into what the film’s shocking victory has meant for black films, LGBTQ films, and Miami.

Acoustic shows are rare in Miami. The DJ is king, and jazz nights are plentiful. But performances with just a musician and his or her instrument of choice are hard to come by.

Last week, Nikolas Cruz took an AR-15 to Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and opened fire. He attacked students and faculty alike, and when the day was done, he’d left 17 dead.

After Donald Trump was elected to the presidency, Americans planned and executed one of the largest public demonstrations since the Vietnam War. When the White House tried to enforce a racist travel ban, Americans  gathered with signs and chants in airports. When unarmed people of color are murdered by police officers…

There’s nothing wrong when other states say they’re proud of their beaches or they want to protect them from the dangers of offshore drilling. But when they start saying their beaches are the same as Florida’s beaches and saying there’s nothing about our beaches that makes them more special, somebody needs to tell those people it’s time to go to bed — because our beaches are better.

This year was, thankfully, a year in which America’s most sexually rapacious scumbags finally started to get their comeuppances. And guess what? Florida is filled with complete scumbags. You’re not surprised? Literally everyone has known this since Florida was first incorporated? Okay, fine. But — hey — at least we…

“Do you know kimchi? Do you know bulgogi? Do you know Gangnam Style? Do you know Psy?” The Korean pop star Psy himself raps those lyrics in a distorted deep voice on the song “Fact Assault,” a collaboration with G-Dragon. Psy, of course, became a viral phenomenon in 2012 with…

Why is South Florida, the eighth largest radio market in the country not providing a listenable station anywhere on the FM dial? When was the last time anyone came to you and said, “Hey, I just heard the greatest set of music on W???-FM?” Never! It just doesn’t happen in…

I’m in grad school in a critical theory class. My professor — a bald, white, intellectual man — looks poised for something. He wants to start a discussion about an excerpt we read, and he seems to be treading carefully. We — six or seven white students at a prestigious art school in Chicago — listen intently.

The word hurricane is rich with symbolism that evolves from indigenous Caribbean mythology and even deeper roots in Mayan culture. There are various accounts about the origin of the word, but most agree that Spanish explorers in the 16th Century spelled it phonetically as juracán (“wind of center”), the word Taíno natives…

Both Republicans and Democrats are now glad former State Senator Frank Artiles is gone. Democrats hated him for being an outright bigot, and Republicans mostly just hated him because he made them look bad. But, either way, after dropping the N-word in front of a black colleague and becoming a…

“Miami is an ass town.” Years ago, an American expat in Miami used that phrase to point out what I, a Cuban-American Miami native, hadn’t seen with my own eyes. ¿Que se se habrá creído el gringo comemierda este? I thought he was full of shit. But he was right. And Estrella Insurance’s ongoing sexist ad campaign is the latest in a long line of proof.

Miami-Dade County has had the same prosecutor since Bill Clinton was president. Beginning in 1993, through the Clinton, Bush, Obama, and now Trump eras, she has not once charged a police officer for an on-duty killing. What Katherine Fernandez Rundle, age 67, has done instead is make decades’ worth of excuses for public officials accused of corruption and murder.

When it comes to grassroots community work that helps children, the Liberty City Optimist Club does an incredible job with limited resources. So why won’t Miami-Dade pitch in? Next week, the county commission will vote on how to dole out $2.4 million to dozens of community-based organizations. The cash is…

In its quest for “good TV,” the Grammys ignore some of today’s best artists.