It’s a bad week to be Jesus, but another messiah is preparing for a truly wondrous holiday season, and a local high school made the guest list. J.P. Taravella High School will be the only Florida high school to send a marching band to Barack Obama’s inauguration parade on January 20th. Now,…

We love our flip-flops, cleavage, and mini-skirts here in South Florida. Our dress code may be flawed, but it’s ours, goddamnit!Well, excuses mean nothing to Clinton Kelly, the style guru from TLC’s hit TV show What Not to Wear. Don’t tell this handsome fella that your sweatpants and clogs are…

Allan Payan lifts a photograph from a shelf inside his singlewide trailer home. The smiling woman in the image has full cheeks and long, thick, brown hair. Caroll Payan, who sits across the couch from him, can’t bear to look at the old photo of herself. She has dropped 20…

Brian Sprinkle dismounts from a blue ten-speed with a warm smile on his face. The 24-year-old environmental activist has just biked 15 miles, from Fort Lauderdale to Coconut Creek, on a hot and humid Saturday afternoon. Streaks of sweat on a green T-shirt serve as the only evidence of his…

Across the country, young Jews are heeding comedian Sarah Silverman’s call to have a political pep-talk with their grandparents in Florida. The message is: Don’t let bubbe and zaideh vote McCain. Silverman’s video, below, urges the Jewish grandchildren of America to employ cruel threats – no more visits to God’s…

The men crouch behind a pine log bunker in the middle of a large wooded lot. Ready to roll. They’re in camouflage fatigues, ammunition vests, and goggles. Some have Glock handguns strapped to their thighs. Battlefield helmets on their heads give them a menacing, robotic appearance. They’re carrying what looks…

Griselda Blanco has acquired many monikers in her 65 years. The Colombian drug dealer earned the title of “Cocaine Queen” in 1970s New York, and she became La Madrina — AKA “The Godmother” — when she moved her operations to Miami. Because of her tendency to bump off her own…

We’re slouching around a wooden picnic table, killing time before our final game of the season, when my softball coach asks me the question I’ve been dreading for months: Are you in a relationship? It sounds like a harmless inquiry. But it’s one that will force me out of the…

It’s a late Sunday afternoon in Wellington, and the polo crowd is trying to squeeze in another match before the stifling heat of summer consumes South Florida. Invites are word-of-mouth, while both game time and venue are subject to change depending upon the weather. The sport of the horsy set…

On a recent Saturday evening at Lauderhill Sports Complex, the westernmost baseball field is missing its leather base bags. A large white circle cuts through the orange dirt of the infield, extending into the lush green grass of the outfield. In the middle of the circle, about centerfield, is a…

Markus Groh felt uneasy aboard the M/V Shear Water. A buddy had talked him into booking a six-night trip on the charter boat with nine other Austrians to scuba-dive with sharks in the Bahamas. There would be dead fish in the water to attract the big boys — tiger sharks,…

On Friday nights, the parking lot of an 18-unit apartment building in Pompano Beach fills with white plastic lawn chairs. The men who gather there seem, at first blush, to have nothing in common, displaying every look possible, from clean-cut preppy to gaunt heroin chic to sunburned construction worker to…

The life-sized cow figurine is coming home for the evening. Watching it roll indoors from the sidewalk on East Broward Boulevard reminds proprietor Jerry Miles of all the other outrageous objects he has employed over the decades — oversized Adirondack chairs, enormous mirrored sunglasses — to draw attention to his…

It all began with an anonymous letter from “a concerned parishioner.” There was a small matter of missing funds from St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in Delray Beach. Would Palm Beach County state attorney Barry Krischer care to take a look? By then the Diocese of Palm Beach had removed…