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…
My wife and I are at somewhat of an impasse. We debate (intermittently) whether or not braking a manual-shift car should be done solely with the brakes (meanwhile putting the car into neutral) or by gradually slowing down the car by downshifting — that is, shifting from fifth to fourth…
This Message Sponsored by the “Coleman for Mayor” Committee Your microscopic report (“Face Off,” February 5) by Sean Rowe on the mayor of Hollywood and her battle to retain an ironclad grip on the city is sensational. Finally a reporter who tells it the way it is in Hollywood government…
Beads of perspiration slide into his bloodshot eyes. The underarms of his shirt are soaked through, leaving salty circles. And the former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is now sweating through his second cotton polo shirt in four hours. It’s not that humid, but Don…
By any right Paul Lautner should be a wealthy fellow. For the past four years, he has offered a practical solution to a vexing problem. The question is how to rid your household of sewage if your household happens to be a boat. The solution is the Turd Tug, a…
County Commissioners short-circuited last week after New Times revealed Clerk of Courts Bob Lockwood hired defeated Commissioner Ed Kennedy as his $110,000 computer consultant. “I read it and I thought holy…. I mean Lockwood is paying this guy that kind of money?” roared Commission Chairwoman Lori Parrish. “Ed Kennedy was…
Is there anything to the phenomenon known as “stigmata,” i.e., when people inexplicably develop the same type of bloody wounds inflicted on Jesus on the cross? — R.T., New York, New York Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but I have these scaly patches on my palm that have been…
Taking a Dive for the Environment Once again Terry Coburn and Brent Tubbergen haven’t a clue on issues that they feel it is their duty to inform people about (Letters, “Going Deep on Mike Halprin,” February 5). Dave Earp made a character statement about himself the day he chose to…
