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Best Blog

http://the_bone.blogspot.com

"The Bone" was nicknamed in high school for his skeletal frame. At this site, he offers a pleasant mix of politics, cultural observations, and whimsy. It's a winning combination in a blogosphere filled with the raspy screeds of right- and left-wingers and the idle musings of 14-year-olds about school activities. The Bone is a 32-year-old teacher from Fort Lauderdale who keeps things light even when the subject is contentious. In a recent post, he reasoned that the religious argument against homosexuality is flawed because "the universe is a hell of a lot bigger than that." He illustrated his contention with excerpts from God's Palm Pilot: "6:30 a.m. -- Turn off chirping seraphim and cherubim alarm clock. 7 a.m. -- Form new comet on the far side of Arcturus. 10:45 a.m. -- Collapse large star to initiate formation of new galaxy. 2 p.m. -- Sit in judgment of Bruce Miller (West Hollywood, California); condemn him to an afterlife of shrieking agony because he occasionally put his penis in another man's mouth."

Best Festival

Florida Renaissance Festival at Quiet Waters Park

Generally, the word huzzah is in short supply these days, its usage replaced by other exhortations of good will that tend to impart a more, shall we say, modern resonance. But for one glorious month each and every spring, the verdant glades and cool brooks of Quiet Waters Park resound with hollers of "Huzzah!" As you traipse around all day, buying tie-dyed T-shirts, pottery, and pewter while gawking at wenches in their tight bodices or strapping knights changing out of their shining armor, this Medieval exclamation of joy, triumph, and encouragement rings from the wood. Mud-beggars shriek it, jousters scream it, wizards and magicians whisper it, minstrels sing it. And ale-wives shout it as you buy tankard after tankard of cider, beer, and mead. Yes indeed, mead -- the honey wine from ancient times that dudes would quaff while sitting 'round the Round Table. Visiting the Ren-Fest is just about the only way to find the golden nectar in the whole state. And that sure calls for a round of huzzahs. In 2005, the event is scheduled for May 13, 14, and 15. Tickets cost $20 for one day and $35 for the weekend.

Best Quote

Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne

The art of providing an effective political quote lies in the ability to say the opposite of the truth and make it sound good and earnest. George W. Bush (a.k.a. Karl Michael Rove Gerson) is a master of this art. How brilliant was it when he kept referring to starting the war in Iraq as "securing the peace"? George Orwell couldn't have dreamed up anything more beautiful. Nixon had a bit more trouble -- his "I am not a crook" line failed to shine. Ken Jenne, who has had a very bad year, is somewhere between the two. He's surviving the crime-stats scandal but just barely. On the front page of the February 13 Sun-Sentinel, he was quoted as having uttered, "I'm the sheriff, I'm in charge, and I'm responsible for what happens on my watch." Of course, that couldn't have been further from the truth, since two deputies have already been charged with crimes linked to the scandal and four top commanders are on their way out the door, but Little Kenny remains at the top of the dysfunctional department. Might have been a smart move, though, since a lot of voters in Broward County probably believe he has, actually, taken responsibility. As Dilbert creator Scott Adams (who is not a politician) has said, "Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public."

Best Bum

Flippin' George

It's Friday night at 11:30 or so, and the first of the alcohol-induced quarrels is under way in downtown West Palm Beach; a feuding 30-something couple causes a small commotion outside O'Shea's Irish Pub on Clematis Street. Just as the conflict looks as if it might get physical, a third party intervenes and a truce is called. But the mediator isn't a bartender, bouncer, or even a cop. He's a bum. Not just any bum -- he's the colorful street character known as Flippin' George. Proudly boasting a name most people won't say aloud in public (he prefers the n word as a middle name and insists on hearing it repeated), the short, stocky, would-be gymnast has been a fixture of downtown street life for more than half a decade. George is one of those bums with a gimmick -- front flips -- and he's got it down to a science, performing just the right number of flips and moving on before his shtick gets old. Since his debut six years ago, George has turned lots of heads and, not surprisingly, earned a few bucks along the way. But even if the money stops flowing, George says he'll continue flipping. And Clematis Street will be a more amusing place because of it.

Best Near-Death Experience

Aaron Carter's Turnpike Inferno

Citizens, beware! Even teenie-pop hack fame cannot protect you from the dangers of Florida's Turnpike! Witness the fate of young Aaron Carter, the auteur/snot behind such schoolyard hits as "That's How I Beat Shaq" and "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)." The 17-year-old was piloting his Escalade to Orlando shortly after midnight on January 8 when a mattress reportedly blew off the back of a delivery truck near Sample Road, became lodged under Carter's Caddy, and ignited a fire that engulfed the vehicle. Carter and a companion escaped the blaze unhurt. According to some random teen-heartthrob websites, this is not Carter's first experience in tight spots: He simultaneously dated former Nickelodeon jailbait Hillary Duff and barely legal bombshell Lindsay Lohan, infuriating both of them. Also, he was once sucked into quicksand up to his waist before his family pulled him out. The Reaper grows frustrated.

Best New Trend

Bedhead

Hey there, hipster, did you just wake up? No? It sure looks like it, what with that scraggly, disheveled hairstyle. It's hard to imagine that you actually spent half an hour trying to look like you didn't spend half an hour on your hair. Oh, but that's the latest craze around here. The Jackson Pollack of hairdos, bedhead once was the style of the emo crowd. But now everyone has it, even punk rockers (Billy Joe, what happened?). The funny thing is that, like its trailer park predecessor -- the infamous mullet -- bedhead is something you can sport without thinking too much about it. But unlike the now-popular parody culture surrounding the mullet, bedhead has yet to be defined, categorized, and mocked like the mullet, which has garnered its own websites and even calendars. Of course, that won't happen to the bedhead for another ten years or so. Just wait till VH1 airs I Love the '00s. Oh what fun we're having now.

Best Sun-Sentinel Writer

Brittany Wallman

First, a disclosure. This Sentinel writer is married to a New Times writer, who shall remain unnamed but who had nothing, nada, zip to do with this. Hell, her choice of spouse means this lady had to go above and beyond for this honor. But the fact is, she rocks. Sure, Sally Kestin is a crack investigator, but she won in 2003, and you can't keep giving the same person the prize. And Michael Mayo's recent stuff on Sheriff Ken Jenne's ethical lapses has been nothing short of a knockout punch. But we like our reporting municipal, tough, and unrelenting. During difficult times in the city, as the budget deficit has soared and city managers have sunk to new lows, Wallman has plunked out hard-as-nails daily copy that has exposed Broward's county seat as a mangled, mismanaged mess. Our favorite example of her reporting was a January story about City Commissioner Dean Trantalis violating code standards and getting away with it. The lead sentence: "The city is enforcing its code rules with unprecedented vigor, but not in the case of the vice mayor." Go get 'em, Brittany. But don't try to compete with your hubby.

Best Miami Herald Writer

Nicholas Spangler

He could win this honor simply for one of the ballsier obituary leads you're likely to see in a daily newspaper: "Deid sah Milk Yelnats." That's "Stanley Klim has died," backward, beginning a farewell to a hilarious bartender who liked to reverse his name. It highlights Spangler's ability to produce stories for the newspaper that (blessedly) do not sound like newspaper stories. Spangler stories do not assume the reader is in a hurry to turn the page. Spangler stories do not waste time pleading to be considered relevant. Instead, Spangler stories tell genuine stories and often suggest he has joined the lineage of Herald writers who strike hard with that critical first sentence. Examples: "God is too wise to make mistakes and too just to do wrong, the minister said, but Shantel Christina Johnson was lying in a pink coffin in front of him when he said it." Another: "Randy got lucky around midnight, in a giant Dumpster behind a sporting goods store near South Miami, with his girlfriend watching." Or even: "The killer has considered the possibility that God hates him. In this last year, the killer's brother choked to death on his own vomit. The killer's first and best-loved dog was run over. The killer's wife left him. 'I love you, but I'm not in love with you,' she said." After a stint covering North Miami Beach, Spangler has for the past two years cranked out hundreds of tales about bowling nights and spring break and waterless urinals for a running column called South Florida, U.S.A., a hell of a territory to cover. It's the sort of gig editors bestow only upon writers capable of understatement, and it is in understatement that Spangler shines most brightly. So let's leave it at: The dude flat writes.

Best Palm Beach Post Writer

Mary McLachlin

Many old-timers in the newspaper business will some day find themselves in the back corner of the features department typing up TV listings. But in the cutthroat world of newspapering, Mary McLachlin is much more than a survivor. She spent 17 years as the Palm Beach Post's number-one reporter before retiring in February. Since the paper started keeping its articles in an electronic library in December 1994, McLachlin has written 938 articles, and of those, about a third landed on page 1A. Even as she prepared to pack it up, she covered hurricanes, Scripps, and Rush Limbaugh's drug case and even penned a dogged series of articles exposing health problems at the county jail. "She has been the go-to person in our newsroom," Post Editor John Bartosek says. McLachlin had a natural attention to detail, Bartosek says, often describing not just the facts but the way people spoke, dressed, walked, and otherwise were. In one of her last articles, McLachlin landed a scoop on a story that exposed the half-million-dollar buyout of a shamed blood bank official. It was a nice crowning to a class career.

Best Reason to Proofread the Death Notices

The January 23 Sun-Sentinel obituary page

Obits offer the dual ghoulish fascination of rubbernecking and peering ahead into your own future. Will you be the great-grandfather who expires at age 92 surrounded by loved ones? The gone-too-soon 60-year-old whose heart explodes as he walks out of his favorite deli? Or the 24-year-old hit by a train? The page normalizes death and dying by treating them like stock quotes or a Marlins box score. But even in the practiced death mill that is South Florida, there had to be some scattered cringes when this item appeared tucked on the obituary page earlier this year: "DeJoseph, Theresa, 75 of Plantation, FL died on January 19, 2005. $595 Cremation, Coral Springs." The cost of the final trip is always free, but at what price the ashes to ashes? About as much as a new flat screen TV, roughly.

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