People who can’t see are blind, and people who can’t hear are deaf. What is the term for people who lack the sense of smell or taste? Smell-less? Tasteless? — Bob, Dallas, Texas No question, these would be handy terms to have in these trying times. Luckily the medical dictionaries…
Seminole Indian chief James Billie, dressed in traditional multicolored jersey and snakeskin boots, is dropping fast from two miles above the earth toward his target — a windblown airport runway in Tallahassee. The man sitting next to him in the copilot’s seat, an old friend of mixed Creek Indian and…
Pity the poor lobbyists, how they sometimes suffer. Consider David Ericks, an example of why lobbyists earn every tassel on their loafers. Broward County taxpayers give Ericks $44,000 for a few months’ work representing county government while the state legislature is in session in Tallahassee. In Broward he has other…
National Day of Prayer is losing its reverential tone in Fort Lauderdale this year. The Broward County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says it’s marching into federal court to try to block Mayor Jim Naugle from using his official position to promote the National Day of Prayer…
I recently acquired a satellite dish and have become a shameless junkie of old Westerns. In half of these B movies of plains life, it seems there is a woman giving birth. After they give her the obligatory wooden spoon to bite on, someone always yells to boil some water…
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Reporter We greatly appreciate the fine article by John Ferri entitled “Keeping the Faith” in your February 26 edition. It was a real pleasure to visit with Mr. Ferri while he was writing his story, and we especially appreciate the way he captured…
I’m a sucker for gourmet markets. Shelves stocked with flavored mustards, refrigerators filled with ripe cheeses, and wine racks lined with fruity vintages always make me want to picnic right in the store. You can pretty much do that at Grapevine Gourmet Shoppe and Catering (256 S. University Dr., Plantation,…
Last month, Broward County commissioners reluctantly gave the Unisys Corporation $21 million to manage a computer project so risky one commissioner described it as going “into the abyss.” State Sen. Walter “Skip” Campbell could certainly understand their fear. At the time, he was poring over stacks of documents in Tallahassee,…
At ten minutes past three on the afternoon of January 22, a penniless, jobless, and nondegreed former Florida Atlantic University student named Gary Snyder sat down at a conference table across from the most powerful man on campus and began issuing instructions. “Please state your name for the record,” he…
In the interest of history, New Times must reveal a hush-hush tale from the closing days of the glorious Hollywood mayoral campaign, the mysterious case we shall call “Coleman and the Karaoke Tapes.” Since this election featured controversy over everything from tax liens to out-of-state license plates, why not controversy…
Caught in the Same Wrong Net I wish to thank New Times and Michael Freedman for printing the article on the troubles of net fisherman Everett Hobby (“Bait and Shackle,” February 26). It so happens that the same officer who arrested Mr. Hobby arrested me on a cast net charge…
While busily working one afternoon (i.e., staring at the clouds), my coworker told me that a cloud can weigh as much as or more than a 747. I think she’s nuts and that this is impossible. Please set her straight. –JMG, via the Internet Hope you didn’t put serious money…
By the light of a full moon, Big Cypress Swamp seems far closer to the world of dreams than to that of everyday experience. The trees — thin-trunked, ruler-straight slash pines and skeletal, twisted pond cypress — stand above moon-silvered palmettos like eerie, silent sentinels. The ground is uncertain, a…
At the age of ten, Dorothy Rickmeyer took up the alto saxophone and continued to play for years. Living in West Virginia at the time, she was proud to march in the sax section of the Ceredo-Kenova High School band during parades. But, like many, she stopped playing after graduation…
Errol and Kathy Wyrick are occasionally scared awake in the middle of the night by rocks pelting the side of their trailer in the Royal Plaza Mobile Home Park. Vandals and vagrants have begun to hang out in the abandoned trailer next door, with its aluminum siding ripped off for…
There is a certain fear that as Broward County matures it will become as dull as the Sun-Sentinel; thus spirited readers rejoice when they discover deep within the paper signs of rip-roaring life. Such a moment came last week in the pseudo-expose of Pompano Beach Commissioner George Melcher, who violated…
Throughout her 24-year tenure as a police officer with the Village of North Palm Beach, Lt. Cynthia Hawes has heard dozens of accounts and read as many reports alleging that the force’s top-level officers have repeatedly committed sordid and potentially criminal acts. More recently, in sworn, tape-recorded testimony, Hawes herself…
When Irish Eyes Are Glaring I want to register a complaint about the depiction of the Celtic cross as a hate symbol (“The Racist Next Door,” David Schwab Abel, February 19). The symbol [from the Stormfront Website] accompanying the article is a cross of uniform dimensions, with an overlaid circle…
It took Columbus two months in three leaky ships to reach the Americas and open up a new chapter in exploration. The Russians were less than twenty miles from Alaska (two miles if you count a few islands) and never managed to “discover” America before 1492. Why not? — Chris…
Any other time of the year, finding Fort Lauderdale Stadium is tricky. Crouched in the southeast corner of Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, it’s obscured from the view of those driving down Commercial Boulevard by Lockhart Stadium, where the Fort Lauderdale Strikers used to play professional soccer. But during spring training,…
Politicians tend toward simple terms — “I,” “vote for me,” “send a check” — so when they start using strange-sounding words it usually means either they’re hiding something, or they’ve been staying up too late watching C-Span. Thus Undercurrents was intrigued at last week’s Broward County Commission meeting when, while…
It is the height of the ballyhoo season, yet fisherman Everett Hobby frets over an expected cold front about to blow in from the west. He worries about how he’s going to meet the demand for the popular baitfish if the winds are so stiff that he can’t fish. He…
