Email Author Paul Belden

1998 Stories by Paul Belden

• Does Not Compute

  published December 24, 1998

  At first glance the programming class at the Emerging Computer Technology magnet program at Dillard High looks exactly right: 20-odd students... More >>

• An Epidemic of Apathy

  published December 17, 1998

  In 11 years traveling around the country bringing the AIDS Memorial Quilt into redneck backwaters and fundamentalist strongholds, activist Cleve... More >>

• Emerging Elitism

  published December 10, 1998

  There's something off kilter about the cover of the brochure for the elite private academy known as the American Heritage School, and at first... More >>

• The Fear of Living Dangerously

  published October 22, 1998

  After having his hand broken in three places by a mop handle, Darin Militello decided a month ago that it was time he came up with a survival... More >>

• A Token Dispute

  published October 1, 1998

  Standing in the center of a howling nightmare of blinking lights, screaming sirens, roaring animals, revving engines, blaring calliopes, and... More >>

• The Dentist Is Out

  published September 24, 1998

  In a small cabinet in the Pediatric Dental Clinic of the Children's Diagnostic & Treatment Center, several rolls of brightly colored stickers sit... More >>

• Loose Lips Sell Ads

  published September 17, 1998

  Although a year has passed, the infamous magazine spread still lingers in the consciousness of the Broward County yacht crews. Readers who... More >>

• It Takes a Village to Raise a Ruckus

  published August 27, 1998

  Dana Bennett dreams of living in a place without ill will, distrust, or hostility among neighbors. To make that dream come true, he's sunk... More >>

• Still Cruisin' For a Bruisin'

  published August 20, 1998

  The dealer's hand is spitting cards as the players' eyes flicker from side to side, up and down, from cards to faces and back again. Chips fly and... More >>

• Cutting the Healing

  published August 13, 1998

  "What was growing up like for David McClain?" The questioner, a woman with a pad and pencil in her lap, seems in no hurry for an answer.... More >>

• The Unforgiven

  published July 23, 1998

  Stephen Ryan came home one day in February to discover that his future had been erased by certified mail. At the time he was working as a... More >>

• Waging War Off the Port Bow!

  published July 16, 1998

  Near midnight off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, a pulsing white beacon on the black water signals the captain of the supertanker Chevron Arizona... More >>

• Cause of Death: Excessive Privacy

  published June 4, 1998

  Sometime within the past four years in Broward County, a man in his early twenties developed a fast-spreading infection in his lungs and died... More >>

• United They Fall

  published May 28, 1998

  Last summer an untried labor activist named Ocean Dessoi saw his first union victory deflate into defeat in the time a fax machine spits out a... More >>

• She Came, She Stole, She Hit the Bestseller List

  published May 7, 1998

  Not for the first time, nor probably the last, Elizabeth Wurtzel has found a topic to set her to whining. This time it's not the canopied... More >>

• Every Breath You Take, Every Test You Fake

  published April 30, 1998

  It wasn't until David Tory failed his second breathalyzer test of the day that he started to beg. Flunking the first test after his arrest... More >>

• Biting Back

  published April 16, 1998

  To a casual passerby, the sight of Phillip and Doris Samarco probing and poking through the grass of their neighbor's front yard on a summer... More >>

• Shades of Macho

  published April 2, 1998

  With fireplug build, five o'clock shadow, and a green dragon tattoo across his forearm, Margate police officer Al Simon will never be mistaken for... More >>

• If at First You Don't Succeed, Sue

  published March 12, 1998

  At ten minutes past three on the afternoon of January 22, a penniless, jobless, and nondegreed former Florida Atlantic University student named... More >>

• Freedom of Screech

  published February 5, 1998

  To the untrained ear, it might not have been apparent that a civil-rights protest was under way last September 29 during the second-period string... More >>

• Guilty by Reason of Insanity

  published January 29, 1998

  Having delivered their verdict, the members of the jury shuffled slowly out of the jury box, the gravity of their judgment reflected in somber,... More >>

• Heard It Through the Pipeline

  published January 8, 1998

  Leading a guest through the headquarters of the radio station known throughout Broward County as the Pipeline, owner and manager Jerry Lyddane... More >>

• Islands in the Mainstream

  published January 1, 1998

  In a conference room buried deep amid the sprawling halls and cubicles of Ely High School in Pompano Beach, a recent discussion of the proper role... More >>