People & Places

Derek Hayward has a way with words. A general-assignment reporter with WSVN-TV (Channel 7) since 1991, the English-born Hayward has an uncanny ability to drop phrases that only he could get away with. Our favorite: When police were looking for a murder suspect recently, Hayward told his audience that the boys in blue were looking to have a "wee chat" with the man. An old-school, shoe-leather television reporter, Hayward is known for his casual, disarming style with sources behind the scenes and a beat-on-the-door-for-a-comment approach to on-camera journalism. He's the guy you see in front of the courthouse or police station when big news breaks. Heck, he's often one of the first reporters on the ground when big news happens. And that hard work has paid off for Hayward, who has won three Emmy Awards for journalism in South Florida and, before that, Jacksonville. But Hayward is also a regular guy. Unlike some TV reporters, Hayward hates pretension. In the off hours, it's not uncommon to happen across Hayward at a pub, his jacket and tie in the car and hand cradling a pint of beer. Sit down with Hayward, buy a pint, and have a wee chat. After all, whether he's on camera or off, Hayward is always one of the good lads of South Florida journalism.

This is no contest. In terms of local programming, WPBT kills the competition. For local politics, you've got Issues with Helen Ferré. Sure, Ferré's show is low-key, but you usually learn something when you watch the area's politicians, educators, and journalists yap about important, um, oh yeah, issues. Listening to Broward County Mayor Ben Graber talk about how he thinks the commission gets a bad rap for corruption is priceless. It's not just local politics, though. Capitol Update takes you to Tallahassee for the latest from that little cesspool of special interests. The station also has the only local newsmagazine out there. New Florida is a well-produced show that features two classy (and lovely) hosts in Debra Ball and Hunter Reno. If that's not enough, then turn to Florida Crossroads for homegrown documentaries. What's amazing about these shows is that they offer a lot more than your average -- and so often boring -- public television tripe. The shows have solid reporters who know how to tell great tales. They pull you in to the Florida that's around you -- and that's worth the price of admission right there.

Joe LaRue has achieved renown by ingesting large quantities of food -- pancakes, corn on the cob, hamburgers, hot dogs -- better and faster than almost anyone else. He is South Florida's foremost competitive eater. To watch the six-foot-eight LaRue down Nathan's Famous at the annual hot-dog-eating contest in Coney Island (where he placed 14th last year) is a wondrous sight, a rarely viewed natural function, akin to watching a python swallow an alligator. This has absolutely nothing to do with LaRue's choice of snakes and lizards for pets (actually, living in an apartment, he couldn't have a dog or cat) or with his selection of Pet Paradise on Hiatus Road in Sunrise as his favorite mom-and-pop establishment. The friendly little pet store is where LaRue, who owns three pythons and a leopard lizard, goes to do his reptile thing. Paradise is where LaRue gets the rats to feed the pythons and the crickets and worms for the lizard. It's also where he gets knowledgeable advice from Paradise's proprietors, Robert and Patricia Kesselman. Like, what kind of heating system should you get for your python terrarium? The Kesselmans will school you. It's all for love. Reptiles can be surprisingly personable, LaRue contends. "They actually do have personalities," he says. "It's hard to find them, but they're there."

She began humbly as Tropical Depression 12, dawdled for a bit over the Bahamas, and eased over to South Florida in the last week of August. Around the time she breached our shore, she graduated from a tropical storm to a full-blown hurricane, although with sustained winds no faster than your grandma drives on I-95. But it was just enough to snuff your electricity and blunt your weekend. Candles and Jameson and Scrabble came out of the cabinets; milk and meat went into the garbage -- c'est la vie, welcome to Florida. The storm passed, FPL made its rounds, TVs awoke, news spread: Our kitten of a 'cane killed 14 people in Florida, then swelled in the balmy Gulf to a 175-mph, 902-millibar, Category 5 civilization-stopper of a storm. We then watched her go all Old Testament on Louisiana and Mississippi. It was horror. And as we gaped and grieved and beheld a thousand dead and a million homeless and $200 billion in destruction, we could feel at least a tingle of providence, knowing that for us, at least, the jazz-hating, Superdome-wrecking, family-killing cycloptic scourge that was Katrina could have been much, much worse. At least we got to say we knew her when.

Known as the "killer cop" and a "sex beast," Gerard Schaefer, a good Broward boy, passed through almost every local institution during the 1960s and 1970s while secretly indulging his extracurricular passion: abducting and killing young women. During his time as a student at BCC and FAU, a teacher at Plantation and Stranahan high schools, an FPL security guard, and a Wilton Manors cop, Schaefer allegedly abducted and murdered a string of Broward County "whores" and "sluts," ranging from 9-year-old girls to 20-year-old women. But no good local legend worth his snuff limits himself to murder: Schaefer is said to have been a childhood crossdesser and an avid Everglades marksman and to have enjoyed raping the decomposing bodies of his victims. He was eventually up for two consecutive life sentences for the deaths of 17-year-old Susan Place and 16-year-old Georgia Jessup of Fort Lauderdale, the only two women who he was ever convicted of killing and mutilating. The remains of the rest of his more than 20 alleged victims were never found, aside from their personal effects and, in one case, teeth, discovered in Schaeffer's house. Unabashed, Schaeffer wrote gruesome short stories from the Florida State Prison in Starke that described the detailed slaughters of young girls. He got his own in 1995, when he was hacked to death by a fellow inmate. But South Florida's homegrown serial killer lives on forever in local lore. An oak tree in Port St. Lucie is rumored to have held the decomposing, hanging remains of his mutilated victims.

From, let's say, the turnpike, South Florida doesn't look all that picturesque -- it's just shopping plazas, billboards, and traffic. And more traffic. But from the deck of a sailboat, you'll understand why people call this place paradise. Now, the tough thing about going sailing is that there's not really anything to do on a boat. Then again, the wonderful thing about going sailing is that there's not really anything to do on a boat. Seriously, when was the last time you completely and thoroughly relaxed? At Tropical Sailing, the captain and crew do all the work. They raise the sail (which is silk-screened with a colorful fish print) on the 50-foot catamaran, The Spirit of Lauderdale. They point out some of the mansions, and, most importantly, they've already chilled the drinks! While the company does morning trips and midday sails (with a stop at John U. Lloyd Park), it's the daily sunset champagne cruise that's a must-do for tourists and locals alike. You can sip champagne (or beer or wine or soda) and chill with your babe or party with friends -- for just $30 a head. As the suns plops magnificently behind the city skyline and the bubbly goes to your head, try not to be so overwhelmed with that warm, fuzzy feeling that you turn and propose to the person sitting next to you -- unless, of course, that's why you came.

If you live by the water or you live near a swamp (and who down here doesn't?), you know exactly what we're talking about. There aren't many places in the contiguous 48 states where parrots and iguanas breed with impunity -- come to think of it, most of the country isn't known for an abundance of bright-green wildlife at all. From a downtown Fort Lauderdale riverfront cottage, we watched raccoons and red foxes foraging, shiny silver smelt and mullet spawning, and a variety of colorful lizards leaping, including the basilisk (or "Jesus lizard"), plus snakes like black racers. A nest of burrowing owls and their babies in the backyard. Of course, not all members of our prodigious critter kingdom are welcome, hellacious bugs in particular. But especially for transplants from colder climes, the sight of screaming, dive-bombing streaks of monk parrots or the sight of a four-foot iguana sunning itself on a deck while chomping on hibiscus flowers is a surreal reality.

Just as the giant Chili Cookoff inspires food with the impact of a reactor-core meltdown, the Jerk Festival usually ignites taste buds in a big way. Scotch bonnet peppers, the fiery ingredient in jerk sauce, appears to greater and lesser degrees in the authentic Jamaican cuisine offered by vendors and competitors. Having outgrown a smaller spot in Pembroke Pines, the festival settled into the big fields of Markham Park last year, where the food and music lasts until 9 p.m. (last call used to come at 5:30 in the old location). And there's more jerk chicken, fish, and pork than ever before, with a $500 prize and the Dutch Pot Trophy waiting for whoever can curry the judges' favor without burning their tongues. Instead of the country anthems that blare at the redneckian Chili Cookoff, these jerk fans get off on reggae, ska, dancehall, soca, and mento. The red, gold, and green banner of the World's Loudest Island replaces the Stars & Bars. Caribbean-made and themed wares, naturally, are aplenty. If you simply must make an ass of yourself, the opportunity awaits at the jerk-pork-eating competition. Just don't call it a jerk-off.

The sign of a successful protest isn't the number of people marching; it's how seriously the rest of the world takes those who do. By that measure, the demonstrations during the June 2005 meeting of the Organization of American States General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale were a triumph. Hundreds marched along Federal Highway, then down SW 17th Avenue to the Convention Center, where they rallied against the proposed enactment of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. An army of police from across South Florida, decked out in Darth Vader-like riot gear, lined the march route. The cops, seemingly outnumbering the protesters, surrounded the rally, which was held in a heavily fortified "protest pit" designed so that police could sweep down and crush any nascent violence. But there wasn't any fighting, only the loud voices of those remonstrating against the decisions of a body politic they didn't elect and to which they had no direct access -- not unlike similar gatherings in the 1770s.

We already knew about John Rodstrom's muscle-flexing ways. A former investment banker, the county commissioner raised ethical concerns a couple of years ago when Citibank paid him more than 400 large to help broker a bond issue for Miami International Airport while he opposed expansion of its competitor, FLL. But if there were any questions about Charlotte Rodstrom's own power hunger, she answered them right after her election to the Fort Lauderdale City Council in March. Her first act was to boot nonemployees out of City Hall, a move transparently aimed at unpaid volunteer coordinator Genia Ellis, a one-time Citizen of the Year. Ellis had done fine work in helping the city crawl out of its fiscal crisis, but she had also (oops) supported Rodstrom's opponent in the municipal election. Not long after that aggressive move, Charlotte helped bounce fellow City Commissioner Carlton Moore's hopes of narrowing Sistrunk Boulevard from four lanes to two in a revitalization project. It just so happened her husband at the county was of the same opinion about the project. Clearly, this is a power couple locals are going to have to keep their eyes on.

Operated by the not-for-profit Hollywood Trust, this site seeks to better balance the public's role in decisions made by city officials. The philosophy underlying the site is that Hollywood's city government doesn't give average citizens much say-so about how their taxes are spent. Public comment isn't allowed during meetings of the city's redevelopment agency and restricted during commission meetings -- which are still not shown on public-access television. This all comes at a crucial time for residents of Hollywood, as its elected officials oversee the explosion of development in a small town in the throes of either remaking itself into a kingdom of looming condos for the wealthy or maintaining its Old Florida charm as it grows. An editorial on the website opened with this salvo across the bow: "The city commission continues to slip millions of our public dollars and valuable tracts of our public land into private hands: developers, attorneys and former city staff members are the major beneficiaries."

South Florida is a little behind the curve in blogging -- Miami scribblers are gaining some steam, but Broward and Palm Beach cyber diarists have a long way to go to catch up to thriving blog communities in other parts of the country. As more locals join in on the conversation, however, they could do worse than to emulate Stuck on the Palmetto. This excellent web journal is the creation of a Pembroke Pines resident named Rick, who asked not to be identified more completely for fear of being "dooced" by his employer. Fine by us. Anything to assure that he keeps up his hilarious takes on local news. Rick tells us that he spent a couple of years blogging in obscurity about national politics until he realized last fall that it was more fun to write about the absurdity of life on our swampy peninsula. Rechristening his blog to commemorate his lousy daily commute, Rick has found a niche he finds more fulfilling -- and has given us a destination we hit every morning, without fail.

Save for Miami Beach's famed crayon-box outcropping of Deco hotels, out-of-town visitors rarely find much to write home about regarding South Florida architecture. In fact, it's probably easier to locate architectural atrocities and "what were they thinking?" landmarks. But the mid-'50s Kennan Building, at the northwest corner of Federal Highway and Oakland Park Boulevard, always draws compliments from locals and tourists alike. Twin columns of coral rock, steel, and glass adorned with a stylized, mid-century-modern mosaic, terrazzo floors inlaid with turquoise and silver -- they don't design buildings like this in Broward anymore. In fact, sadly enough, most of the area's best structures have been cannibalized by the wrecking ball. Even a renovation a few years back couldn't mess up the Kennan's Jetsons-esque appeal (it's hard to alter a round building, after all), which remains a beautiful beacon in a lonely sea of strip malls and chain restaurants.

Once upon a time, there was a lovely kingdom that flowed with coconut milk and sugar-cane juice. It was a warm, sunny place, and its citizens reveled in happiness and shared their joy and homes with every manner of beast: dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters, birds, bunnies. But the subjects of the kingdom acted unwisely with their pets, which milled about the kingdom pell-mell. Cat begat cat and dog begat dog at a furious rate. They howled in the alleys and yelped in the streets and hopped in the neighbors' yards. So the queen, a just and beloved leader, commanded that each wandering or unwanted pet be brought to her court, where her jesters would feed them and pooper-scooper after them all their live-long lives. And the land rejoiced. Unfortunately, South Florida isn't a fairytale land, and there's no magic bullet for handling unwanted and discarded pets. But Abandoned Pet Rescue, with its no-kill policy, is probably the closest thing we have to it. Founded in 1996, the shelter takes in abused and neglected pets, then rehabilitates them and finds them good homes. It's all done with a troupe of volunteers who run the shelter day to day, but it takes cash to keep all those animals fed and cared for. The shelter is currently trying to raise money to buy a used recreational vehicle or bus to use as a mobile adoption unit, which will be outfitted with cages, to help more animals find adoptive owners.

Here's what you do. You need your oil changed, you go to Jiffy Lube at 44th Street and University Drive. When you're done there, they give you a $7 discount at Prestige, which is right up the road. So if you want to get a standard wash, you get it for $3.99 -- and you get top-of-the-line service while you're at it. Remember, Prestige isn't just a car wash; it's a salon. Real tony, this place. And you can go all the way up the ladder of offerings if you have the time and money. You want a full detailing of the interior and exterior of your car? That costs $100 -- but a mere $93 with the $7 discount. And you thought gas prices were high. Hey, if you got it, might as well spend it, right? If you don't, get the $3.99 deal. Can't be beat.

After Wilma clobbered us and the electricity went dead, some folks' reasoning, logic, and judgment went right out all those open windows. How else do you explain the guy found in his Hollywood apartment on November 5, unconscious and barely alive, next to a portable gas-filled generator? Or, on that same day, the Lake Worth family who allowed their generator to blow its exhaust back into their mobile home? But the luckiest death-cheater of all has to be 7-year-old Freolon Castro, who suffered second- and third-degree burns on November 1 after he helped his grandmother refuel a running generator while he was holding a lighted candle so she could see better. There's a lesson here, obviously, a crystal-clear lesson: Whatever you do, never listen to Grandma, especially when she hands you a candle while she's holding a can of gas. Sometimes age doesn't bring wisdom.

A totally average bureaucrat with a penchant for flashy clothing is brought under a town administrator's wing. He becomes "The Protégé." The town administrator resigns to take a sweet job in the Florida Keys. The town council needs to hire a replacement. The logical choice: The Protégé. But The Protégé is having female problems and needs some supplementary income. He begins to think he's smarter than everybody else. The Protégé sets up a sham corporation and begins to issue town contracts to his bogus company. He collects nearly $500,000. The town finance director discovers the scheme and asks a few questions. The town's assistant city attorney tips off The Protégé to an impending investigation. The Protégé begins to act like a crazed sociopath. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrives in town. Agents say they are investigating fraud, theft, money laundering, even illegal pornography. The Protégé inquires about getting a gun. He goes on the run. The allegations mount. Finally, The Protégé returns to town and turns himself in to police. His mug shot is plastered everywhere. The Protégé awaits trial. That is the story of former Davie Town Administrator Chris Kovanes, whose scam fell apart in October. He was arrested and removed from his job and should go to trial later this year. A crooked bureaucrat. A sham company. FDLE. Fraud. Illegal pornography. Those are fine ingredients for a Best Political Coup.

Most Broward politicians are pawns for a network of well-heeled lobbyists, business tycoons, and land barons. They waste millions of our dollars and think they're hot shit while they're at it. Not Gonot. When big-deal developer Pete Boinis tried to build a huge restaurant on the public pier, Gonot realized it was a sweetheart deal and went head-to-head with the town's overlords to stop the project. And, much to the chagrin of City Manager Larry Deetjen and Mayor Al Capellini, he was successful. Today, it's all out war in the town, as Deetjen and his political allies have begun a movement to recall Gonot. Voters would do well to recall the honorable stands that Gonot has taken before signing any petitions.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Addie L. Greene is quite possibly the first politician in South Florida history to spin an ethics complaint against her into good news. Earlier this year, Greene, a former school teacher, became the swing vote on the most contentious issue in Palm Beach County: where to build the Scripps Research Institute's Florida campus. Three county commissioners wanted to build in Boca Raton. Another three said they favored the Abacoa area of Jupiter. Greene, the only African-American on the dais, made her politics clear: Whoever promised the most money for minority outreach programs would get her vote. Abacoa developer George de Guardiola promised $5 million, plus another $3 million from Jupiter officials, so Greene delivered for the Abacoa site. The ethics complaint, filed by Delray Beach residents, alleges that, because Greene will help administer the $8 million in funds, she misused her public office. But Greene is unapologetic. She says that she's simply representing her largely African-American district and that if Scripps really is about countywide economic development, her constituents should benefit from the $600 million project. While it's possible that Greene did violate ethics laws, we have to give it up for a ballsy politician like Greene: From the beginning, she cast a critical eye toward Scripps, and when the time came to select a site, she made sure the developers made good on their promise to benefit Palm Beach County's less fortunate.

If you think Weston is an unusual winner for this category, you obviously have a short memory. Flash back to October 24, 2005. In just six hours, Hurricane Wilma ripped across Florida, leaving a trail of damaged roofs, flooded cars, and broken windows and cutting power to roughly 6 million Florida households. Most of South Florida went dark. But there was one beacon of light: the City of Weston. Thanks to buried power lines, most Westonites survived Wilma to brew coffee and run their air conditioners the next day. But the ability to withstand natural disasters is only one of Weston's benefits. Broward's westernmost burg is a safe, well-manicured suburb -- and we mean suburb, because it's out there! And despite the cookie-cutter neighborhoods and gated communities, Weston offers a family-friendly atmosphere unmatched in most of South Florida. Plus, Weston, with its roughly 64,000 citizens, has a cosmopolitan feel (honest!). For one thing, Weston is diverse -- 30 percent of the city's residents are Latino. For another, Weston has some money -- the city's median household income is $80,920. And they all know how to have fun. Take Weston Town Center. On Saturday nights, Weston's developer-designed downtown is packed, with people milling in and out of nice restaurants, trendy bars, and, of course, Starbucks. Sure, some may scoff. But no one was making fun when the power was out everywhere else as Westonites enjoyed nice dinners at the Town Center.

As so much of Broward and Palm Beach counties becomes strip-malled, sanitized, faceless, and boring, this part of town is weird. The strips of stores here are old and crumbling, signs are in English, Spanish, and sometimes Creole, and the area pulses with a chaotic feel that's more downtown Miami than the Venice of America. Davie Boulevard, which cuts through the neighborhood, is where you can find papusas and empanadas, birthday cakes with Spanish lettering, media noche sandwiches, ancient pawn shops, even a botanica or two. But a drive just a half-mile down Riverland Road delivers a whole new perspective -- a private, hidden network of dead-end trails and finger canals with some of the most magnificent and varied architecture around. Doctors, lawyers, and college professors live back there in modern-looking glass/concrete/steel mini-mansions, which are almost invisible because of the impenetrable jungle of vines, palmettos, and trees that have obviously never been cut. It's an odd juxtaposition of stuff you don't find anywhere else and, unlike the rest of this place, isn't in any hurry to change.

Sure, Plantation's Jacaranda neighborhood doesn't have the Old Florida charm of neighborhoods close to downtown Fort Lauderdale, such as Victoria Park. And it lacks the tree canopy you'll find -- or, ahem, used to find -- in Sailboat Bend, also in America's Venice. But Jacaranda has a way of blending big-city amenities with the slower pace and convenience of suburbia. Jacaranda -- which runs roughly from Broward Boulevard to Sunrise Boulevard and between Pine Island Road to Hiatus Road -- is a collection of single-family homes, townhouses, and condominiums, most built from the '80s to mid-'90s. They orbit one of Plantation's greatest assets, Central Park, between Broward Boulevard and Cleary Boulevard, just west of Pine Island Road. The park hosts sports leagues for kids and adults and has a well-maintained gym available for Plantation residents. Grocery stores and chain restaurants abound. There is, of course, a Starbucks around the corner. And many Jacaranda residents are within walking distance of one of Broward's finest restaurants, Josef's. Amenity for amenity, house for house, it's hard to find a suburban neighborhood better than Jacaranda.

Yes, it's recently been unmasked as a bloated private company that drains big bucks from the public coffers. Yes, it's really just a fleet of glorified tugboats catering to the fat wallets of beached tourists. Yes, one ride up the Intracoastal will set you back ten whole kahunas. But let's admit it: Despite its flaws, Fort Lauderdale's Water Taxi is still the coolest way for nonmillionaires to get around Broward County. Unlike the Tri-Rail, it actually comes on time and stops within walking distance of destinations, not empty parking lots in office parks. And unlike land-bound buses, Water Taxi's poor cousins, it isn't permeated with exhaust fumes, hotter than flambé, or festooned with "PetPeePee" ads. It's South Florida's tourist-friendly answer to San Francisco's cable cars and New York's ubiquitous yellow cabs. The water taxi is one of the few reasons why Fort Lauderdale's dated title, "the Venice of America," is still valid; where else can you stroll around downtown sidewalks and then hop on a water-bound tour bus to see the sites? (OK, fine: Miami, New York City, Seattle, and Baltimore, for starters.) But still. You've got to admit that watching the honeycombed yellow barges belly up to the waterfront to swallow a column of tourists headfirst borders on the charming, and floating through downtown with only the quiet whirr of a propeller to distract you is a hell of a lot better than the bus.

The star of your Herald's local section is undoubtedly 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts, who writes forcefully about politics, culture, and race and happens to do so from Maryland. The less, uh, heralded columnist, Fred Grimm, you're more likely to notice loitering at Le Tub on the Intracoastal. His copy is likewise local and, lately, has been the most reliably solid read in the paper. In recent months, Grimm has leveled his pen at such deserving targets as Katherine Harris ("Before we elect leaders who covet a 17th century-style theocracy, maybe a few impolite questions might be in order"), helmet-averse bikers ("It's those who insist on lingering around hospital trauma centers whose personal freedoms intrude on the commonwealth"), and juvenile boot camps ("Oh, how we love to combat crime with military metaphors. Unless some brave political leader declares a War on Useless Policies, the failures just won't matter."). Grimm gets out of the office, fixes his gaze away from his own navel, and argues forcefully without taking the tone of an apoplectic PTA mother. Example: Rather than work himself into a froth during the immigration debate, he noted calmly that all six of the trophy winners at Broward's latest spelling bee were the children of immigrants. When a middle-schooler there told Grimm that he was familiar with his work, it boggled the columnist's mind: "Here was this 13-year-old in a tie, a dress shirt and shiny shoes, rather more sophisticated than the tieless writer in a knit pull-over. (The shine on all my shoes dates to the date of purchase.) I tried not to notice that kid didn't add, ÔI admire your work.'" But of course, the kid didn't. Goes without saying.

The job of a news reporter is a Sisyphean cycle of ignorance turning to expertise, and it requires versatility of any prolific scribe. Here, then, in short, are some of the topics that Holland has covered in the past few months: a woman who pimped a 16-year-old girl; a kitchen-knife fatal stabbing; the Davie town government scandal; a police standoff with a hostage-taker; jai alai labor disputes; crocodile relocation; fatal car accidents; all manner of hurricane chicanery; the sad Lionel Tate legal saga; the confounding Mamdouh Ebaid terror saga; the epic Gus Boulis murder saga; sex offenders; Seminole parties; and a pathetic German shepherd named Bear nearly done in by infections in his ear canal and face, saved from euthanasia by concerned doctors. The guy has been all over Broward, in more ways than one. It should surprise no one if one day the Sun-Sentinel admits in print that some time back, John Holland cloned himself to better cover the news. The byline on that story would no doubt be Holland's own.

You rarely have good writing in newspapers without good reporting -- and Larry Keller provides the right blend of both skills in his stories for the Palm Beach Post. Take his extensive coverage of the sensational James Sullivan murder-for-hire trial in West Palm Beach, which begins: "Lita Sullivan probably saw the man who delivered a dozen long-stemmed roses draw the gun. Probably saw him aim it at her. She retreated into her upscale townhouse and futilely tried to shield her face with the box. A bullet from the 9mm pistol ripped through the box and into her left temple. She died about 80 minutes later. She was 35." Just the facts, ma'am, but with powerful style. That's Larry Keller. And that's good stuff.

For sheer silly fun on the airwaves, Miss Pat cannot be beat. In these dim radio days, when a live human being and a malleable playlist is rarer than a white rhino, someone like Miss Pat is a savior. Tune in to 1170 AM during a weekday drive home after work and let her laughter leak some levity into that traffic jam. Whether it's her "Afternoon Party Mix" or her "Reach Out" program, Miss Pat entertains with both new (Richie Spice, Baby Cham) as well as old-school reggae (Marcia Griffiths fans rejoice) and her home-spun call-in shows like "Who Wants to Be a Hundred-Dollaraire" and "Domino Grand Slam" -- which mix music trivia, Jamaican history, and patois-laced hilarity into a hearty pan-Caribbean stew. Any segment that Miss Pat lends her voice to is easy on the ears, but when she's live in the studio bantering with loyal listeners, there's an unplanned, unpredictable vibe that recalls the medium's golden age. Bless you, Miss Pat.

You're right, Joseph Cooper, he of the somnolent monotone voice, is a strange choice for best FM radio personality. He's no Howard Stern, assuredly. Cooper is a unique force in local talk radio, though. His weekday show, which comes on at 1 p.m., is, um, local. And these days, if it's not about sports or Steve Kane's rantings, it's hard to get homegrown programming in South Florida. Cooper has it in spades. No, he's not the most hard-hitting interviewer, but he does elicit some great information from local authors, journalists, and newsmakers. It might be about eminent-domain issues, a book about the Everglades, or dubiously sealed federal documents, but it's almost always going to have a local angle. And Cooper is more than just a seasoned pro -- he's a rock, as dependable as the turning of the clock and as soothing as a security blanket. If everybody got his daily dose of Cooper, the world would be a better place.

Let's face it: South Florida has one of the worst radio markets in America. If you want something other than cookie-cutter pop, rock, hip-hop, and country, you need to go satellite. But the publicly financed WLRN remains an oasis from the commercial combine, where you get a whole lot more than the solid NPR stuff. There's Topical Currents with Joseph Cooper, which is one of the last decent local shows left in South Florida. There's South Florida Arts Beat with Ed Bell, where you find out that, good golly, there are intelligent life forms growing in these parts. And the station also offers us interesting music. Every night, there's Evenin' Jazz with Len Pace. On Sunday afternoons, Michael Stock brings us his show, practically titled Folk and Acoustic Music. I know, I know -- you have to suffer those incessant pledge drives. Take the medicine, boys and girls, and throw some money their way every now and then. You won't know how bad you'll miss WLRN until it's gone.

Cuban-born newscaster Belkys Nerey performs on Channel 7 at 5, 6 and 10 p.m., and we use perform here for good reason. If local TV news has slid into a hybrid form of journalism and entertainment, at least we can watch someone like Nerey have more fun on-air than others. She laughs her ass off and spurs her on-air comrades to join in. But when she's delivering serious news, Nerey also has the smarts and gravitas to pull it off. Not to mention with a great sense of style. She may not be quite the fashion plate she was while hosting Deco Drive, but when she rocks the designer threads and a boyish haircut, her edgy look makes us think we're seeing the newscaster of the future. And speaking of exotic, we never get tired of hearing everyone else on the set say that unusual name.

Like Johnny Cash, Tommy Hutton has been everywhere. After several years in the minor leagues, where he played in places like Albuquerque and Spokane, his 17-year-career in Major League Baseball took him to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Montreal. But for the past ten years, the former reserve first baseman and emergency outfielder has been firmly embedded in South Florida, where he does color for Marlins games. You don't get any frills with Hutton; he's just a good-natured baseball guy with scads of trivia floating through his head. Want to know who pitched Game 3 for the Houston Astros during the 1980 National League Championship Series? Odds are Hutton could come up with it (Answer: Joe Niekro). That's what you get with Hutton, a guy who's been around -- and paid attention while he was at it.

Don Noe is the doyen of South Florida meteorology. And nowhere is weather forecasting more important than in the Sunshine State, where mysterious underground magnets seem to pull hurricanes toward our peninsula every year for a grueling, six-month showdown with Mother Nature. The chief meteorologist at Local 10, Noe -- an unassuming man with a bald pate and a broad smile -- has a reputation for good-natured humor coupled with down-to-business weather forecasting. It's an art he's crafted over more than three decades in the business. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Noe was a weather forecaster in the Great Lakes Region and Portland, Oregon, before moving to South Florida in 1979. And he's good. Need proof? In a time of television weathercasters with more looks than experience, Noe has proven that knowledge and expertise count. C'mon, when Wilma was bearing down on South Florida, were you really watching what's-her-name on the other channel? Thought so.

While chasing after that elusive first novel, Deerfield Beach author Heidi Boehringer supported herself with every kind of job, from bartending to loan processing. Following graduation from the creative-writing program at the University of Florida -- Gainesville, she went on to write Chasing Jordan, the story of a woman's life crumbled by guilt after accidentally running over her small son. While many of the area's newest novelists use South Florida's gritty and sometimes bizarre milieu for detective mysteries and whodunits, Boehringer mines the banality of the gated communities carved out of the Everglades. "Motherhood sinks to an all-time low in Boehringer's bleak debut, set in the soulless suburbs of South Florida," posits Kirkus Reviews. Despite the subject matter, the novel courses with an unpredictable sense of humor. "This is my kind of novel," Florida writing legend Harry Crews gushed in a blurb. "Whatever Heidi Boehringer writes next, I will read."

Asa Boynton deserves a spot in the South Florida Community Activist Hall of Fame. In his day job, the tall 59-year-old dresses in a purple gorilla suit and delivers singing telegrams throughout South Florida. Otherwise, he's a one-man gadfly, civic activist, and crime fighter in Hollywood's troubled south side. Ask Hollywood's city commissioners. They'll tell you how Boynton delivers the newspaper to their doorstep every time it has a juicy Hollywood story inside. Or ask the editors of those newspapers. They'll tell you how many letters to the editor they receive from Boynton. And Boynton is as brave as he is tireless. When he takes pictures of suspected drug dealers, he waves and smiles. He calls the cops to scenes of crimes he witnesses, times how long it takes police to arrive, and then distributes that information (often damning) to police brass, newspaper reporters, and other Hollywood activists. He once paraded through crime-ridden neighborhoods in South Hollywood with a sign that read: "Drug Dealers Suck." Even when Boynton is just being kind and generous, he can't get community activism off his mind. During Hurricane Wilma, a scared stray cat wandered to his door. He took in the feline and has since adopted him. He named the cat "Mr. Singley," as in Hollywood Police Officer Nick Singley, who was given a gun and a badge in Hollywood despite a psychological report that said he lacked "maturity and self-control." Boynton can tell you about that story. Just hope another distressed cat doesn't scratch at his door. Boynton's nickname for Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti -- likely the next cat's name -- just isn't fit for print.

Khurrum Wahid has the most unpopular important job in the country. An attorney with offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and New York, Wahid represents Muslims in federal court against terrorism charges. Wahid was a federal public defender in Miami when terrorists flew commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center. At that time, people asked him what he thought the U.S. government would do to Muslims in the country. "And I said, I wouldn't worry about it, because my experience has been the government and law enforcement have always been a group that has worked smart, has worked with surgical precision as opposed to the broad brush," Wahid told National Public Radio for a segment on post-9/11 civil liberties. "I was wrong. It turns out they were as reactionary and as emotional as everyone across the country." Now a private attorney, Wahid has handled the cases of dozens of Muslims who have been detained by the government, many without just cause. What's more, Wahid hasn't shied away from controversial cases. Most recently, he represented Abu Ali, who in March was sentenced in Virginia to 30 years in prison for conspiring to assassinate President George W. Bush and aiding al Qaeda. The government's case was built around confessions Ali made in Saudi Arabia. Wahid has maintained that Ali was tortured before making the confessions and is appealing the case. Let's be clear: Wahid's job isn't to defend terrorists; it's to defend civil liberties. And at a time when hundreds of men sit in a military-run jail, with no access to lawyers and no knowledge of the charges against them, the United States needs more fearless attorneys like Wahid.

If there were more people like Stephen Gaskill, maybe the Democratic Party wouldn't be in such an ugly mess. That's because Gaskill is a smooth media man and political operative who knows the game and how to play it well. A spokesman for Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich during the Clinton administration, Gaskill moved from the Beltway to sunny Fort Lauderdale in 2001 for a change of pace. He dreamed of a slower life as a consultant. No more political rat races. But in 2004, the Dems started calling. Gaskill agreed to become the communications director for former Wilton Manors Mayor Jim Stork's well-funded campaign against Republican U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw. Gaskill gave a professional appearance to Stork's laughable candidacy. It wasn't his fault that Stork flaked out and dropped out of the race 100 yards from the finish line, leaving the Democrats scrambling for a replacement candidate. Besides, after Stork's flameout, Gaskill landed a cherry gig with the Kerry-Edwards campaign, handling media relations for the candidates' families. It's possible that a Kerry-Edwards victory in 2004 would have sent Gaskill back to Washington, but fortunately for South Florida, he remains here. Today, Gaskill serves as the communications director for the Fort Lauderdale-based Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus.

Perhaps nowhere in the entire state exists a better spot to bear witness to the forces of change than this small strip of land in downtown Fort Lauderdale. A hundred years ago, someone standing at this spot would have seen a single structure -- the clapboard, cracker-box Stranahan House, where the city started -- and maybe a Seminole paddling a skiff down the river. The area was surrounded by thick undergrowth and wild, vine-filled jungle. Now, Smoker Park sits in a thicket of multistory condominium towers, on top of the Federal Highway tunnel, next to a massive, noisy ventilation unit. Instead of Native American traders, the river is choked with pleasure craft and tourists. The Stranahan House (now a museum) is still there, surrounded as it is by a Cheesecake Factory and every other abomination developers could envision -- just wait for the 45-story-condo where Hyde Park Market now sits. Take a trip to the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society and ask to see a postcard of Smoker Park in the early 1900s, and marvel at the old wood-frame homes. Then go visit today, for a dose of future shock of the present.

Better have a thick wad of bills or a sturdy stack of plastic if you want to spend much time on Fort Lauderdale's version of Rodeo Drive. Shopping and eating along this upscale quarter-mile, it's easy to burn through cash by the hundreds. Amid this, the Christian Science Reading Room is an oasis of solitude and thrift. By offering no more than a friendly "howdy" and a tip o' the hat to the manager, you can relax in a comfy chair and read the day's edition of the Christian Science Monitor. You save the $1 price on one of the best English-language newspapers covering world events. Hey, a buck is a buck. Open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Remember those driving vacations you took with your family as a kid? Motoring just outside Nothingville, USA, you'd spot a giant roadside sign touting "Miracle Hills" or the "Wonder Spot." You'd bully and sob your old man into making the detour, and he'd shell out the five bucks apiece for a tour led by an enthusiastic old man. Inside specially built hillside shacks that played with your senses, balls seemingly rolled upward, chairs balanced on two legs. You can recapture that childhood thrill at the Atlantic's dark-marbled restroom in the lobby, which also serves the adjoining Trina Restaurant and Lounge. As you gaze down at the automatic stainless-steel faucets, you realize that there is no sink basin beneath them. There is only a flat, faux-marble surface. It's obvious that water out of the spigot will have no place to go but over the front edge and onto your feet. Ahh, but the great joy of a potty pit stop here is the barely noticeable backward grade of that even top. The water is engineered to flow at just the right rate to not overwhelm the sink, and it drains out the back.

There was much grumbling and gnashing of teeth when the Broward County School Board laid out $29 million in the 1990s to build its new headquarters, soon derisively dubbed "The Crystal Palace." For many, the shiny, dark-blue 14-story juggernaut jutting up beside the county courthouse was an example of a bloated bureaucracy out of touch with its constituency. Then when Hurricane Wilma whipped through here last October, the K.C. Wright Building took a real pummeling and became the most visibly damaged structure downtown. Most of the glass on its west side shattered and rained down upon streets and sidewalks. Through the gaping holes vomited papers and folders and fixtures. In the days following, the palace became the leading sightseeing destination, an example of mother nature's wrath, poor construction, and official hubris.

The best area hotel is not a hotel at all -- it's a B&B, one of the few stalwarts of its kind to survive surrounded by sprouting condos and opulent resorts. Hibiscus House offers luxury on a small scale, trading the quiet ambiance of a palm-lined street in West Palm's Old Northwood neighborhood for the valet-lined drives that accompany the area's heavy-hitter luxury hotels. Owners Colin Raynor and Raleigh Hill maintain eight unique bedrooms, most with private porches and four-poster beds, and serve up a vast and elaborate breakfast every morning with china and Waterford crystal. The house, a 1922 historic structure in the land of vinyl siding and concrete-slab construction, is the kind of sprawling, multiroomed manse that populates Faulkner novels. It sits in a verdant jungle of a garden fringed with high palm fronds that provides each room with its own lush view. There's no concierge and no Swedish massage, but those would just interfere with the simple delights of staying in a unique and lovingly decorated home, far from the fetters of conspicuous consumption that chain the denizens of Worth Avenue to their monocles and bellhops. Best of all, a stay in Hibiscus House costs just $95 to $210, unheard-of affordability for an accommodation in West Palm Beach that both feeds you and swaddles you in simple elegance.

Argue all you want about whether Sears is "Where America Shops," but the vast parking lot at this long-in-the-tooth strip mall sits mostly empty. Not that Sears and a half-dozen other little businesses at this locale don't get business; it's just that there are so many cars bordering the shopping center, all bogged down in one of the worst designed intersections in Fort Lauderdale. First, there's all the traffic headed east on Sunrise from I-95, which meets the steady, tar-thick flow of north/south traffic on Federal Highway. In this intersection, they merge into one, with drivers who are jockeying into position or, worse, are clueless. Here's a suggestion: Let's get a couple of road engineers, give 'em slide rules and paper, and direct them to incorporate part of Sears Town to devise an intersection that's not a recipe for road rage and brain hemorrhage.

Less than a half-hour flight east lies Bimini, the closest foreign island to mainland America. This seven-mile-long sliver of the Bahamas offers a peaceful respite from the hectic pace of South Florida 50 miles away. You can split your weekend between hanging at the beach and biking and kayaking. The north end of the island is an intricate mangrove forest. In it is a natural phenomenon dubbed "The Healing Hole," which is a section of creek connected to a warren of underground tunnels. When the tide goes out, cold mineral water flows out of the tunnels that some believe has mystical healing powers. If paddling and self-healing isn't your bag, stick to the island's commercial strip, Alice Town, where you'll find saloons the likes of Compleat Angler and End of the World. There are a number of flight options to the island, but Lynx Air (www.lynxair.com) makes a weekend getaway simple and not too expensive. A round trip out of Fort Lauderdale airport for just under $200 leaves Friday afternoons at 12:30 and departs Bimini on Sundays at 2:15 p.m.

Hi, um, would you like to go out with me tonight? I don't know, what do you wanna do? I was thinking that, if you like steak and really good wine, we could go to the Council Oak restaurant at the Hard Rock. Oh, something more casual? Sure, well, there's the Jazziz bistro that's also part of the massive Hard Rock entertainment complex -- they play live jazz while you eat. I don't really like jazz either; I was just saying that to sound cultured. I know -- let's go have Mexican food and ride the mechanical bull at Tequila Ranch! You're not even hungry? OK, there's a comedian at the Improv there. Yeah, comedians can be annoying. Want to see a band at the Hard Rock Live? My ears hurt too. Do you like shopping? I'm broke as well... but if we play the slots, we might win something, and then we could go clubbing right next door at Pangaea and Gryphon or play pool at Knight Time Billiards or drink at Murphy's Law. What's that? You just want to get drunk at the poolside bar? Me too! Gosh, I just knew I would love you! We are meant for each other! Should we book a room?

Better-organized than the pagans, more regularly scheduled than the belly dancers, and more committed than wine enthusiasts, poets, or people with ADHD, Broward County atheists have a meetup group to be reckoned with. With 104 members and a weekly meeting that hopscotches around various pubs and restaurants in Davie, the group is part secularist society, part singles get-together, and part homegrown church substitute for the godless. Its members promote "logic and reason as basis for beliefs" and entice newbies with offers of "drink, some good food, and lively conversation." At their weekly non-Sunday meeting (usually held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays or Wednesdays), Broward Atheists form a lively community where potlucks are shared, anti-God (and anti-Bush) harangues are aired, and non-God-oriented group activities such as highway litter cleanups are planned. The group has even spawned its own website, www.browardatheists.com. While some might suspect that the Broward Atheists are merely a cover for closeted Democrats to mingle with like-minded folk without revealing their political affiliations, the atheists themselves say that they are simply creating a haven for freethinkers of all stripes in a land that's obsessed with God. But whatever their underlying motives, their success in the world of meetups is clearly unparalleled.

South Florida has worked hard earning its reputation for making noses shapelier, chests bigger, and chins tauter. Culture, schmulture -- give us the lipo, Botox, and scalpel any day of the week. But it's hard to keep up with the Joneses when you're a working-class stiff just trying to save enough cash for a trip to Disney World. Thankfully, credit card companies feel your pain and are now offering credit cards specifically tailored toward plastic surgery. For example, Capital One's card provides loans of $1,500 to $25,000 for up to 60 months. Interest rates vary from 1.9 to 23.9 percent. GE Consumer Finance offers a card called CareCredit that also provides the financial high road to higher brows.

Tired of shelling out hundreds of dollars every year to Microsoft for a buggy Windows operating system ($299) and Office suite ($399) that crash at inopportune times? Let the men and women at Florida Linux User Exchange (FLUX) show you an alternative: Linux, a free (free!), open-source PC operating system developed by a community of programmers from throughout the world. Once the operating system of choice for the world's geekiest geeks, Linux has matured into a true, user-friendly Windows replacement -- complete with point-and-click interface and plug-and-play compatibility. Plus, a variety of other Linux-compatible software packages -- such as Microsoft Office replacement OpenOffice (free!) and Adobe PhotoShop competitor the GIMP (free!) -- have allowed Linux to become a do-any-task alternative to Bill Gates' clunky but ubiquitous operating system. Compared to Windows, Linux is a virtual Fort Knox -- immune to all Windows viruses and worms. Interested in switching? Just hook up with FLUX, whose members are more than happy to help computer novices and geniuses alike. FLUX meets at 6:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. "We are a pretty friendly bunch and always welcome new faces," says Adam Glass, one of a small group of people who founded FLUX in 1997. "The presentation topics range from basic to advanced," Glass says. "Some are given by FLUX members and others by technical experts who are visiting South Florida." So if you're ready to finally dump Bill Gates, pack up your computer and head to the next FLUX meeting. They'll help you get up and running with Linux in no time -- and, of course, no charge.

The past year was filled with so many memorable utterances perfectly reflecting the place and time in which we live that choosing a winner is pretty tough. First, there was Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, who earlier this year threw a hissy fit during a City Commission meeting about those opposing plans for building the 66-acre Village at Gulfstream Park. With a straight face, the mayor of the most overdeveloped, strip-malled, condo-canyoned town in the county howled, "Hallandale finally has an opportunity for crucial economic development." Then there was this honey from Randy Johnson, a state representative shilling for a law that would penalize municipalities for failing to trim trees in front of billboards for the sake of beauty. "Tourism," he declared, "depends on billboards, not on trees." But the winner has to go to that most quotable of public officials, Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti, who keeps alive the dream of squelching government by and for the people. In an effort to expel a synagogue from a residential area, the City Commission met behind closed doors to avoid any public debate and "pre-decide" its vote. Earlier this year, a transcript of that meeting was made public through a lawsuit filed by the congregation. Giulianti instructed her colleagues: "Let me ask each person, because we don't put it on the agenda for us to decide until we know we have some kind of consensus. Otherwise, we have an argument until 6:30 in the morning and a whole bunch of people getting up and talking about it."

Every Florida driver has been held up by boat traffic. It's frustrating, sticking to your sweaty seat as some millionaire in a yacht stops traffic for miles. That's why the swing bridge in Sailboat Bend -- one of only 14 in the United States -- turns the gridlock into a refreshing pause. To open, the manually operated bridge is spun on its center pivot, and the span moves (slowly) 90 degrees to let boat traffic pass. Not many boats ply this short stretch of the river, and when they do, they pass by quickly. Watching the levers and gears turn on this old (built in 1927) bridge is far better than waiting for a glimpse of the Jungle Queen's upper deck through a cloud of bus exhaust. It's a slice of slow-paced, old-school history in a town that's nothing if not fast and new.

It's Broward traffic's version of the perfect effing storm: An I-95 exit that runs straight to the county's biggest condo canyon on A1A, along the way passing a Wal-Mart, Gulfstream Race Track, a Publix plaza, two Winn-Dixies, and more Walgreenses than you can shake an empty prescription bottle at. One exit to the south is Ives Dairy Road, an artery so overburdened, its off-ramp jams the freeway even on weekends and affects Hallandale Beach Boulevard as well. The stoplights here are mistimed, leaving huge swaths of the westbound lanes empty while SUVs honk at one another to advance into the intersections at congested green lights. Things were really bad for the past seven months of 2005, when the Florida Department of Transportation set about carving up the road, forcing lane closures. After a brief tourist-season hiatus, the orange cones will be back through late fall, with high temperatures drawing the good people of Miramar and Pembroke Pines to the beaches. Oh, and the construction? FDOT is merely improving the appearance of the road and medians, not increasing the road's capacity, unless you count the bike lanes planned for the truly suicidal among us.

Fort Lauderdale native Mike Mularkey could be exactly what the long-struggling Miami Dolphins need: a guy who knows how to score touchdowns and has absolutely zero reverence for convention. The 'Fins' new offensive coordinator, Mularkey is a University of Florida graduate who played a short stint in the NFL as a tight end before becoming the Pittsburgh Steelers' offensive coordinator in 2001. It was in the steel city that Mularkey earned the nickname that sticks with him to this day: Inspector Gadget. In Pittsburgh, Mularkey designed a book of trick plays using Hines Ward and Antwan Randle-El. His dynamic offense earned him a top job with the Buffalo Bills in 2004, where Mularkey struggled for two years, finishing 9-7 in 2004 and 5-11 in 2005. In January, Mularkey resigned as the Bills' head coach, citing disagreements with team management, and signed up to become Nick Saban's offensive coordinator. If anyone has the ability to jumpstart Miami's sluggish offense, it's the 44-year-old Inspector Gadget. Besides, Mularkey has a good incentive: He's finally coaching his hometown team.

For those who watch professional wrestling -- even those who won't admit it -- Fort Lauderdale native Amy Dumas is a badass. Better-known by her ring name "Lita," the 31-year-old Dumas is a high-flying, take-it-to-the-mat warrior for World Wrestling Entertainment's RAW. Intrigued by the story lines in professional wrestling, Dumas worked her way up the wrestling ladder from minor-league rings in Mexico to Extreme Championship Wrestling to the wrestling big time, WWE. She established a loose alliance with one of South Florida's other well-known wrestlers -- former University of Miami footballer the Rock -- and quickly ascended to become one of WWE's premier acrobatic talents. In 2000, Dumas won the WWE Women's Championship and rivaled Chyna (you know, the one who went porn) as wrestling's top vixen. But in April 2002, her wrestling career was put on hold. While performing a stunt for the TV show Dark Angel, Dumas suffered an injury, breaking three vertebrae in her neck and requiring surgery. Sidelined from wrestling for 15 months as a result, Dumas could have traveled the world and taken it easy on the beach. She didn't. Instead, she started volunteering at an animal hospital near her home in Sanford, North Carolina, and formed a charity, ADORE (Amy Dumas Operation Rescue & Education), which provides adoption and education services for pets and pet owners. Dumas uses her notoriety to educate the public and gain access to government leaders. ADORE provides educational materials to a variety of agencies and has established a spay/neuter program for pet owners who cannot afford veterinary bills. But don't let Dumas' charity work fool you into thinking she's done with wrestling. In January, Lita returned to the ring -- pinning her opponent to the mat and proving that she's still a badass.