In a conference room buried deep amid the sprawling halls and cubicles of Ely High School in Pompano Beach, a recent discussion of the proper role of education in a child’s life is beginning to fray around the edges. Spurred perhaps by the continual blatting of the fax machine in…
He sits at a small table in the Wild Oats Community Market, amid the muffins and the hazelnut coffee, waiting for his ride as Christmas carols float from speakers above. “I’m your natural-living super friend,” Aaron Travis says with a smile. “I assumed everybody was going to do right. See…
For those who question whether Fort Lauderdale has the visionary leadership to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, consider the results when the city’s finest minds, its boldest thinkers, gathered to discuss the future of Fort Lauderdale beach. In November the city convened a “Vision Workshop” where 130 “invited…
Joe Hessman walks across the rundown parking lot, a symbol of governmental trust betrayed, and tells the story of how it was supposed to be: The year was 1958, and Gov. LeRoy Collins, sitting behind a large mahogany desk, scribbled his name across the bottom of a deed giving Fort…
I have never understood why Circus Peanuts (orange, gooey, diabetic-coma-inducing, peanut-shaped candy) are still available. I have never known anyone who actually likes this candy, and I have asked everyone I know. So, Cecil, can you give me a little information about who invented this candy treat, why they are…
“Hold on a minute, hold on a minute,” Leola McCoy says. The high-school auditorium falls silent. Something’s wrong. The people in the room, approximately 40 of them, can detect annoyance in McCoy’s soft but shrill voice. They watch as she marches to the front of the room, arms swinging, and…
Before the biggest party-night of the year, Jacek Tomasik has had one of those realizations that would make even the most staggering New Year’s drunk stand up straight and come out of a near-midnight stupor: There’s no more beer. Well, technically speaking, there is beer. There’s Michelob, Miller, Budweiser beer…..
A little holiday humor from the laughing lawyers in the Palm Beach County Attorney’s Office: Issuing a summons “In the Matter of One (1) Rollicking Good Time,” party invitations in finest legalese commanded guests last week to enjoy a “tableful** of food and drink, engage in spritely [sic] conversation with…
One hundred years ago, on September 21, 1897, a little girl with great doubts asked the editor of the New York Sun for the answer to a question that had been bothering her. There was no “Straight Dope” then, so she had to settle. The Sun came up with an…
Please Say That Tom Tomorrow Isn’t Yesterday’s News I was so happy when the Broward*Palm Beach New Times came into existence recently. The first thing I would do was read Tom Tomorrow’s great biting political satire in his comic strip, “This Modern World.” I really appreciated that I didn’t have…
With breathless intensity Kim Mascola’s story jumps from the TV screen: “Tonight on Crime Special Edition, ‘MURDER FOR HIRE!,'” thunders the announcer. “A wealthy lawyer hires a hit man to kill his unborn twins, even if it means murdering their mother. And what was her crime? Well, she wasn’t Jewish…
A pair of mangy dogs, too languid to bark, scratch and sniff themselves in front of a row of weathered wood houses set atop cinder blocks. A sign is tacked on the door of each of a dozen or so dwellings on this block in the northern section of West…
Color them salmon in West Palm Beach. With tireless devotion to official duty, Mayor Nancy Graham flew off to Italy for nine grueling days of fact-finding — from Rome to Venice, from Siena to Bologna — endlessly seeking inspiration for the policy decisions to be made: how best to accessorize…
Phil Bares His Claws Dear heartless people: I am writing about the first “Undercurrents” entry in last week’s New Times (December 4) regarding the “pick your own lobster game.” Do you not realize there is something wrong with making a game out of taking a life (even though it is…
In your book The Straight Dope, you wrote about a possible link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s disease. You waffled on the question of whether aluminum actually causes Alzheimer’s and gave your stock response that research was continuing (equivalent to Ann Landers kissing off a question by telling the writer to…
Some time ago the editors at Newsweek magazine saw fit to put a picture of Bob Isom Gibbs on the cover of their magazine. They became interested in Gibbs, a judge on the circuit court of Palm Beach County’s criminal division, because of the court’s war on drugs in general…
Judging from his rap sheet, Jesus Garcia is not the sort of guy you’d want for a next-door neighbor. Since 1972 he’s been arrested nineteen times under various aliases and charged with crimes ranging from cocaine possession and disorderly conduct to aggravated battery and homicide. Of course Garcia’s neighbors in…
Just north of the Boca Raton inlet, a vision of luxury rises suddenly from the beach. Dozens of chaise longues, each of them complete with plush, two-inch-thick padding and a retractable hood, sit in perfectly placed rows on carefully raked sand. Attractive as this seashore opulence may seem to those…
For all those who make their living candy-coating crap, an inspirational tale from a band called the Nocturnals: They were one of twelve local groups that won a contest to be included on a compilation CD from radio station ZETA (WZTA-FM 94.9). After recording a new song specifically for the…
Why isn’t fire alive? It breathes oxygen. It eats wood. It reproduces (sort of). What defines life? How do we know it’s not an advanced non-carbon-based life form? On that same note, why isn’t a rock alive? If a rock grew at a nanometer every million years, how could we…
Intimacies Occurred Elsewhere Please give me the opportunity to respond to the letters regarding my part in the Wissink story (“That’s Why They Called It XS,” November 20). I did not have oral sex in public at an office party with Stephen Wissink. Although I related to reporter Paul Belden…
Seldom does the clock seem so unmerciful as when a child is trapped in a burning bedroom and the fire engine has yet to arrive. “Every minute — every second — seems like it takes at least an hour,” says Lt. Don Petito of the EMS division of the Coral…
