The watchdog spirit of Helen Ferris is afire in Fort Lauderdale. In the two weeks since Undercurrents revealed the city’s heavy-handed crackdown against her famous crime signs, Ferris commandos are counterattacking with examples of bureaucratic laxity, including “The Mystery Cars of Hardy Park.” According to a suspicious reader, the park’s…
It was quite the bash, considering it was the opening of a temporary bridge. Neighbors sipped sparkling champagne, waved little American flags, and cut a ceremonial ribbon at the provisional 17th Street Causeway bridge. The twenty people who gathered can also brag forevermore that they were the first humans across…
Recently I read the useless fact that the quack of a duck will not echo. (1) Is this true? (I currently do not have access to either a duck or a canyon, or I would find out myself.) (2) Why not (assuming it is true)? (3) Are there other noises…
Viewing Racism in Black and White This is regarding Lucy Chabot’s “Biting the Hand That Needs” (May 7). You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. Well, actually you can, but you will need a hammer to do it, and you will make a big mess in the…
On prime-time national TV, John Nicholas, Jr. steps proudly out of his Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office patrol car and helps Dateline NBC reporter Chris Hansen decipher the “Sweetheart Swindle.” The scam is nothing new, just slick and slippery Gypsy women making old men fall in love with them before taking…
“This was a masterpiece, wasn’t it?” laughs Steven Russell while talking on the phone from the eighth floor of the Broward County Jail. He is referring to his latest escape. A fast-talking, pathological liar, Russell recently pulled off his fourth illegal exit from a Texas prison or jail. This spring,…
The animosity had been steeping for a decade. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle finally let it loose recently when his colleagues on the City Commission opted to hire the engineering firm of Hazen and Sawyer to oversee the city’s drinking water plant. At the mere mention of the firm, Naugle’s…
Before he became an agoraphobic dope fiend, grew his fingernails to repulsive lengths, developed a pathological fear of germs, and at last went completely nuts, Howard Hughes was in the habit of flying around in a Boeing 307 Stratoliner on which he’d spent $250,000, turning it into a plush, high-altitude…
A sign of one community’s growing power arrived last week with gold-embossed dignity, a formal announcement on the formation of “STEINSMITH, HIRSCHY & CO., GAY CONSULTANTS.” The firm, specializing in helping political candidates reach gay voters, is headed by long-time activist Gary Steinsmith, past president of the Dolphin Democratic Club,…
I’ve just begun reading your latest book, The Straight Dope Tells All. On page two, while ruminating on the subject of “questions… that give you pause,” you write, “The other day someone writes in and says, ‘If making a robot limb is so hard but other types of machines are…
Get Ready, It’s Going to Be a Contentious Ride I was surprised by the tone of Michael Freedman’s article, “Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’,” April 30. Frankly, after my lengthy discussions with him and his interview with SunCruz Executive Vice President Greg Karan, I would have thought it would be more…
Late in the afternoon of February 9, 1996, Fort Lauderdale City Hall was reeling from an onslaught of reporters who wanted answers. At dawn that day, a disgruntled former employee had shot and killed five city maintenance workers at the beach, then turned the gun on himself. The killer, Clifton…
With apologies to Jim Croce, it is well known among local government officials that you don’t tug on Superman’s cape and you most certainly do not mess with Helen Ferris. The senior spitfire, who entered Broward’s Women’s Hall of Fame in 1995 for helping destroy the ethically challenged Port Everglades…
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 bed that a local hotel was nice enough to set her up with (“repulsive”) or the Broward County scene (“shallow”) or even men in…
Sometimes You’re Paranoid, and Sometimes They Are Out to Get You You can imagine my concern upon learning of a reporter named Sean Rowe reading court documents and interviewing my neighbors regarding my family and our lawsuit against the City of Fort Lauderdale and its police department (“Sonny’s Last Stand,”…
To the Rev. Isaiah Clark, the facts were as clear as a church bell chime. If the city of West Palm Beach sold the Municipal Auditorium to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society — the Jehovah’s Witnesses — for $12.5 million, it would cast open the floodgates for a modern-day…
You probably answered this one years ago, but in 1973, I was in junior high. Fig Newton Cookies… who the heck was Newton? — William Killinger, via the Internet Much as I like Fig Newtons and the other fine products of the Nabisco company, you can appreciate that this not…
Sex and the Sun-Sentinel Co.: While the paper may lack passion in its pages, there’s more scandal on the staff. At City Link, Managing Editor Stuart Purdy, after writing a column about “another hell-raising year” inside “the City Link free-fire zone,” was himself fired last week. The apparent reason, according…
We’ve been having a heated discussion in the office, and we need to know how Spam luncheon meat is really made. Also, how come they never released a chicken or turkey version (i.e., Spurkey or Spicken)? Finally, what is Monty Python’s true relationship with Spam? — Steve Tolin, Sudbury, Ontario…
White tigers, blinking neon lights, dancing showgirls, Siegfried & Roy, a tower or two emblazoned with the name “Trump” — you’re not going to find them in Riviera Beach. While it’s true that the SunCruz V is, in essence, a floating casino, the boat’s home base is no Las Vegas…
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 had been bad enough. Tory believed he was well under the legal limit, yet he’d somehow ended up sitting in the Palm Beach County jail…
Biting Your Tongue-in-Cheek I am writing this letter in regard to the article “Biting Back,” by Paul Belden (April 16). I was shocked and appalled when I read that a police dog in pursuit of suspected felon Rusty Samarco actually bit a chunk out of his leg. I would like…
