Every weekday morning for two years, Becky Wyatt’s monotone radiated from thousands of South Florida clock radios tuned to WLRN-FM (91.3), repeating a condensed version of the local news. Twice an hour between 6 and 10 a.m. (during Morning Edition), she would read to public-radio fans stuck in rush-hour traffic…
Newspapers around the country played the New Year’s Eve suicides of Morris and Estelle Spivack as a dramatic spectacle. Almost every headline about the Hollywood couple, for example, contained the word “leap.” The Chicago Tribune printed this atop its brief January 3 story: “Ailing couple leaps 17 floors to death.”…
Why didn’t they whack ‘im? Thank you for Bob Norman’s on-target and hilarious January 9 column about Rick Sanchez (“Wake Up and Smile”). The few times I’ve seen Sanchez, I couldn’t believe that MSNBC picked this guy as a morning anchor and then didn’t fire him. He is so obnoxious…
At the head of a 20-foot table, the squat silver urn looks as if it should be under glass. It has been so meticulously polished that not a spot of tarnish can be found among the ornate ribbons and miniature flowers decorating its edges. A water spout emerging from its…
For more than a year, residents of NE 26th Place in Coral Ridge, a pricey street on the Intracoastal Waterway south of Oakland Park Boulevard, enjoyed an unobstructed view of the water. Then on a clear day in October, they looked out their windows, past their BMW convertibles, Cadillac Escalades,…
This guy did it… so let him vote! I want to thank Wyatt Olson for the informative article that appeared in the December 26 New Times (“Barred for Life”). I am one of those people who was under the impression that once I served my time for my crimes, I…
Wake Up and Smile! That’s the name of the imaginary early-morning news show in one of the funniest Saturday Night Live skits ever. Former cast members Will Ferrell and Nancy Walls play anchors who are full of cheer until, “Good God no!” their teleprompter breaks. After Ferrell repeats the last…
Heatseekers drummer Chuck Loose pounds away at Churchill’s Hideaway in Miami on this Saturday night. Lurching into the beat, he threatens to bounce over his kit every time he hits the crash cymbal. Loose’s crazed energy washes over his bandmates and into the mishmash of punk kids and jaded scenesters…
A year ago, shortly after Thanksgiving, readers of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel were treated to a photograph of the merry and hopeful faces of Anthony and Charmaine Nelson and their four children. Anthony, in a bright white T-shirt, smiled broadly and revealed his missing eye tooth. Two-year-old Immanuel squirmed in…
With winter here, these are the glory days in Everglades National Park. Cold fronts chase the mosquitoes, alligators congregate where visitors can easily see them, and, as if on cue, anhingas and herons preen and pose to accommodate anyone toting a camera. “It is very peaceful and so different from…
She’s a minority of one this week: Most people write to complain about something. I am writing to compliment Wyatt Olson. We were truly amazed by his December 26 article, “Barred for Life.” His perception of people and issues is unreal. He described us and our surroundings perfectly, down to…
Chris and Robin DiFranco operate a small contracting business from a worn second-story suite in North Miami. A couple of blocks from Dixie Highway, their cream-colored building is surrounded by a hodgepodge of auto-body and machine shops. The deadbolted first-floor door opens to a long flight of bare-wood steps. Their…
Santa is frantic. Pacing through the living room of his red-and-green-and-gold Christmas-spangled home in an absolute dither. The cause of his distress? Barbie, a doll that has held an enviable position on Christmas wish lists for generations. A Santa must-have. And a mere week before Christmas, Santa’s major problem. Out…
Editor’s note: This is the last of a three-part series. The first column described Plantation’s racist history and showed that blacks are severely underrepresented in the police department and in supervisory positions throughout the city. The second told of City Hall’s unequal treatment of black and white nightclubs. Emelio Davis…
She knows apartheid, and this is no apartheid: I am curious as to whether Bob Norman’s article regarding the City of Plantation is supposed to be factual or opinion (“Down on the Plantation,” December 12 and 19)? If it is supposed to be factual, it seems to me, a lot…
Boxes of pizza are stacked over on the plastic picnic table, and a waitress brings out free bottles of Bud. There’s a guy on a cordless microphone singing karaoke-quality funk tunes. But overall, it’s not a fancy party. That’s not Fay Fiess’ style, even though she just became a wealthy…
Some people might think Jim Crow died a long time ago. But the City of Plantation enacted laws a couple of years ago that were clearly designed to run black patrons out of town. And it has protected white-owned businesses, even when they break city ordinances. A group of political…
On the art of defacing: I read Rebekah Gleaves’ December 12 story about street art (“Tagged”). A friend and I have had many a heated argument about graffiti and its place in the art world. Gleaves’ article was very eye-opening and has caused me to realize that I was generalizing…
George Hanneforf III is short, broad, and muscular, with Johnny Weissmuller, 1930s, old Hollywood, he-man good looks and an Old World demeanor. At the moment, his natural courtliness is at odds with the outfit he’s wearing — baby blue-and-white-striped cotton clown pants, decorated with red, yellow, and green saucer-size patches…
Spray cans clink every time “Dems” takes a step, the pellet in each tapping with his every move. His sagging, desert camouflage pants droop with the weight of his loaded pockets, and his shoulders slump under the heft of the gear in his backpack. Darting back and forth across East…
Jim Ironman wants to sell you the gift that keeps on giving. For two months now, Ironman (not his real name), a family man with the face of a deacon and the body of a department store Santa, has written, edited, and distributed the Pynk Pages from his Boynton Beach…
The boys ride to my driveway on mad killer bees. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! The sound emanates from small gas-powered motors, which are attached to little steel scooters called Go-Peds. They come for the basketball hoop, and I let them play, though the near-daily thumping of the ball on the blacktop and the…
