Letters from the Issue of September 2-8, 2004

Big Sugar vs. Silly MTV Guess which one gets the cover treatment: Bravo to Eric Alan Barton and New Times for the story on the Fanjul family and their wicked ways (“From Bitter to Sweet,” August 26). This type of writing, and the reporter’s active prodding to force the Fanjuls…

The Bitch

The MTV Video Music Awards went off as planned Sunday at the American Airlines Arena, with no known interference from Alberto Ibargüen. Celebrities did what they were supposed to do — look remote and beautiful, and throngs of Miamians massed outside VMA ground zero as well as indoors in the…

The Bitch

Eohippus, the miniature five-toed ancestor of the modern horse, bounded through the rainforests of South America dodging dire wolves and munching lush vegetation. As primitive ponies emerged from the forest to gallop across plains and continents, another eohippus descendant, the tapir, remained in the jungles along the Amazon River. Tapirs…

Letters from the Issue of , 2002

The Mayor Matters He still has veto power and can smack down the commission: Last week’s cover story on why the mayor’s race is not important (“Mayor X,” August 19) hit a huge nerve in our community, particularly because we are working so hard to get Jimmy Morales elected. I…

Tamper Tantrum

Get ready to see your local justice system spirited away over the next few years, thanks to a flaw in a brave new computer imaging system that Miami-Dade County is using to scan and file court records. “The SPIRIT system is not adequately secured or protected to ensure the reliability…

Nixon Rewound

As he prepares to attend next Monday’s Republican National Convention in New York City, Miami delegate Marco Rubio is already anticipating trouble. But not from the more than 250,000 anti-Bush protesters expected to march past the convention’s Madison Square Garden site. “I’m hoping to go to a Marlins game in…

Letters from the Issue of , 2002

Why We Love Our Place We wear casual clothes, there’s no velvet rope, and you don’t have to take out a second mortgage to buy a round of drinks: I’m writing in response to Humberto Guida’s “BuzzIn” column about Our Place in Miami Lakes (“Dive Bar Shenanigans,” August 5). I…

Letters from the Issue of August12-18, 2002

Christopher Mazzella: Vigilante Unbound This inspector general has crossed the line: Tristram Korten would like his readers to believe that Christopher Mazzella, the crime-fighting Miami-Dade County inspector general, is about to be fired by his boss, Kerry Rosenthal, chairman of the county’s Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, aided and…

Acropolis Now

Though The Bitch normally wouldn’t notice a 100-meter dash even if one happened in her back yard, she thinks the Olympics should be taken seriously. People in the ancient world really knew how to party; long-snouted, rose-eared hounds gained welcome just about every place in Greek society; and intramural sports…

Letters from the Issue of August 5-11, 2002

Go Ahead, Call Me a Zealot Just don’t call me a Bush fanatic or a Cuban hardliner: After reading Max Castro’s “Triumph of the Zealots” (July 29), I came to realize why I no longer pick up your newspaper: Poor research and both sides of issues not accurately represented. By…

The Dead Only Quickly Decay

Were it not for all the delusional people The Bitch runs across, this column would be about 90 percent white space (the remaining 10 percent would, of course, be devoted to the welfare of pigeons). Fortunately the horror vacui bullet is dodged again this week, though the lead is buried…

Democratic Mayor or Republican Mayor?

Have you heard about John Kerry’s secret connections to Fidel Castro? How about the hidden financial links between Teresa Heinz Kerry and the Cuban government? No? Derek Newton rolls his eyes, and with a laugh plunges his hand into the six-inch-deep sea of paperwork that covers his entire desk. As…

Current Events

Indie film director Troy Duffy will someday overcome the creative blocks he has suffered in trying to make All Saints Day, the much-anticipated sequel to The Boondock Saints. Though only released in 1999, that film is already a classic in the underserved cinematic genre depicting Boston-based, Irish-Catholic-catechism spouting, arsenal-brandishing, law-giving…

Letters from the Issue of July 29 – August 4, 2004

A Bird Leg in the Hand Is worth two or more in the alley: “The Bitch” has been writing about a mystery man who cages and steals pigeons (July 15), and now this: Pigeon legs are being tied up with plastic tape and left in our Miami Beach alley. How…

X Marks the Crosswalk

Out of the billowing exhaust of Grand Theft Auto 3: Vice City comes Driv3r, another mega-selling video game that tries to convince anyone who hasn’t actually driven here that Miami is one big, lawless speedway. The Atari game is stunningly detailed to the point of eerieness in its re-creation of…

No More Mayor Loco

It is almost too easy to make fun of Xavier Suarez. Miami certainly has suffered through its share of troubling political leaders, but only Suarez managed to have reporters across America, from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times, wondering in print if our mayor had lost his mind…

Letters from the Issue of July 22, 2004

Micky Arison, You’re Outta Here You’re being replaced by some real business pros — Miami-Dade’s county commissioners: As Jim Mullin correctly implies in “Down in Flames” (July 15), the reasons given by the Miami Business Forum for terminating the referendum drive to create an independent airport authority were never robust…

Between Something and Nothing

Shoegazer: Hey, at least it’s not emo. Sometimes The Bitch’s addiction to the music that has evolved into the more flatteringly termed “dreampop,” thrumming with the alien wail of guitar reverb and a Dagwood sandwich of effects, is soothed with the live music methadone known as Internet radio. No, it…

Down in Flames

For the sixth time in recent years a promising effort to create an independent body to govern Miami International Airport has flamed out. A group of business leaders last month dropped its plans to place on the November ballot a referendum for an airport authority that would finally put an…

Bickering Not Allowed

“We’ve got real plans, we’ve got a better sense of what’s happening to America. And we’ve got better hair.” — John Kerry, introducing running mate John Edwards at a Cleveland rally “You need to call Dennis, he’s freaking out!” sputters Charles Lenchner, thrusting his cell phone at Tim Carpenter. Lenchner’s…

Letters July 15-21, 2004

New Questions That Won’t Die If I were investigating David Berkofsky’s death, here’s what I’d ask: Forrest Norman’s very well-researched article about the mysterious shooting death of U.S. Customs inspector David Berkofsky (“The Question That Won’t Die,” July 1) raised several questions of interest to me as an attorney. First,…

From the Cradle to the Rave

Given the rolling, glow stick-wielding dancers, the 100-plus-degree heat, the total indifference of the cops, and the concentrated presence of more than 5000 men in tank tops, Peacock Park in Coconut Grove could well have been the scene for mass chaos, even a riot — but The Bitch was disappointed…