Get ready to see your local justice system spirited away over the next few years, thanks to a flaw in a brave new computer imaging system that Miami-Dade County is using to scan and file court records. "The SPIRIT system is not adequately secured or protected to ensure the reliability...
Among mainstream hip-hop acts, few are known for albums that resonate beyond the genre's own idiosyncrasies. But critical acclaim is little reward when rap domination is defined by the number of platinum plaques one collects. For the Roots, a band with notoriously outsized ambitions, the piddling two gold discs they...
You think you know all about the local education system -- the politics, the money crunch, the learning gaps. But schools are not mere hatcheries of learning, into which varying measures of intellectual formaldehyde are mixed with an inchoate population to produce the Alphas, Betas, Deltas, Gammas, and Epsilons of...
Look out, because Tommy Lee is now part of the South Beach partyscape. He has officially kicked off his new club ROK Bar after months of waiting for construction to wrap up, and a previous unofficial opening that the rock star skipped out on because he supposedly couldn't find a...
With aqua-driven economies and permanent-vacation mentalities, you'd think Fort Lauderdale and New Orleans would be sister cities. These are two places where everyone has a tan, a boat, and a drinking problem. Both cities indulge happily in things cultural, from buskers to giant festivals. Both offer fantastic food. Both enjoy...
In February and March Mareeta McIntyre's Eagle Care Productions was so jammed up with the jams it was presenting that the Super Talent Showcase had to be delayed three weeks. A mere ten days before the event, she and her crew were still auditioning acts to find the best of...
Andean Region On the great-grandfather clock of time, 500 years is about a second. And in that second, European mestizos have managed to plunder this region of nearly all its mineral wealth, subjugate the Indian populations, and force on them Western laws and the Catholic Church. But if the recent...
Oh, the marvels of a book. From a bound volume of pages loaded with words, comes forth the keys to the universe, the liberation of people, the indoctrination of acolytes, Thanksgiving recipes, and the dirty thoughts of prepubescent boys reading the good parts of a Judy Blume novel. As the...
Vincent Falco, a tall, gawky 31-year-old clad in a T-shirt and shorts, sits at a computer in a North Beach office. He hardly looks like a CEO, but here he is, showing Basshead the popular online peer-to-peer (P2P) software known as BearShare. "I'll just walk you through the user experience,"...
The book sits quietly, battling long odds. Hundreds of other titles line the shelves of Books & Books in Coral Gables. Meditations on politics. Memoirs and biographies. First novels by the graduates of elite writing workshops. Some 60,000 new books are released in America every year. Most disappear quickly, with...
It all begins with a touch on the forearm -- two fingers gently reminding me that I'm not alone tonight. Electricity shoots up my spine. She is a short, plump woman inching into her thirties. Her belly pushes out from beneath her red halter top. Chubby legs fill her skin-tight...
Usually Sebastian Ordoñez is a racecar driver only when he's pushing toy cars across his bedroom floor. The eight-year-old will sputter engine noises between his lips as he maneuvers imaginary Formula One racetracks all over the globe. "In like Brazil, Australia, lots of places," he says. He'll be a star...
One hour before screenings begin on the final day of the 2003 Miami International Film Festival, Nicole Guillemet -- tailored, coiffed, and uncharacteristically agitated -- sits huddled over a tiny cocktail table at the back of the dim balcony lounge at the National Hotel. Leaning forward and locking her eyes...
Cop's-Eye View Miami-Dade Det. Kenny Veloz took a call from a buddy cop, Kendall District Sgt. Carlos Dominguez, in December of 2000. Dominguez's parents and grandparents lived in an apartment complex on SW 96th Street and SW 142nd Avenue in Veloz's own Hammocks District. Dominguez told Veloz that his folks...
Yes, Haiti Is a Dreadful Place But that doesn't mean Miami has to go down the toilet with it: Regarding Rebecca Wakefield's article about Cheryl Little, who heads the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center ("Little Goes a Long Way," November 7), when the Haitians landed on Rickenbacker Causeway I just happened...
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami's Brain Matter Last week Miami Mayor Manny Diaz unveiled an assortment of proposals he hopes will reduce poverty in his city. Not end poverty, just reduce it. This wasn't exactly a rousing declaration of war, and it was 30 years...
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami's Brain Matter It's the women who keep ramshackle, decaying Overtown held together as it waits (and waits) for the revitalization promised almost since the day it was destroyed. And nobody works harder or longer than the grandmothers, the elders who...
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami's Brain Matter Yes, Miami is a trash-strewn city of desperate extremes, plagued by inadequate educational opportunities, job prospects, and public services. It's a city fragmented by racism, corruption, and apathy. But Miami is also a city of endless reinvention, a...
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami's Brain Matter Miami underwent significant change between 1990 and 2000, not least of which was the city's poverty rate: It grew with such exuberance that Miami climbed from fourth to first place among the nation's most impoverished big cities. That's...
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami's Brain Matter Surely by now someone somewhere in Miami's bureaucracy must have drafted a war plan to attack the city's outrageous poverty, right? In fact the Community Development Department (CDD) did just that several years before the 2000 U.S. Census...
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami's Brain Matter A small misunderstanding about Medicaid and Medicare coverage touched off a crisis in Ofelia Garcia's world. The money involved (less than $100 per month) would have elicited no more than a shrug from some people. But it was...
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami's Brain Matter Ted Lucas grew up in Carol City, a black neighborhood close to the Broward County line. His family was poor but his athletic talent helped him win a scholarship to Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in Hollywood, though his...
