News of the Weird

Lead Stories *Sweden’s Social Democrat party and England’s Vegetarian Society released controversial erotic video ads in August. The Swedish commercial was shot by the party’s youth wing and featured a young couple in bed discussing how cool their “first time” was (meaning, first time voting). In the English spot, phallic-shaped…

News of the Weird

Lead Stories *Among the street theater performances at New York City’s International Fringe Festival in August: a 45-minute satirical, bigoted rant against hunchbacks from Nebraska; a six-person troupe performing Eugene Ionesco’s Bald Soprano play continuously, for a total of 24 times in 24 hours; and “Brown and Blue,” an “ode…

Letters

New Times Launches Vicious Pre-emptive Strike against Upstart Competitor May I suggest that an advertising-supported publication like New Times should tread lightly when reporting on the standards of the telemarketing industry? The indignant tone of Tristram Korten’s story about Richard Bronson (“Bull in the Market,” September 10) and his alleged…

News of the Weird

Lead Story *In separate incidents over a three-day period in July, three cousins in Shasta County in northern California lay down on or dove onto Highway 89 directly in front of approaching cars, apparently on purpose, resulting in the death of one and serious injuries to the other two. There…

Letters

Ted Gives His Pulitzer the Boot This is in response to Ted B. Kissell’s article “Parking and Politics” (September 3). Does Mr. Kissell think the public to whom he’s addressing his article is a bunch of juveniles who cannot see clearly through the manner in which it was constructed? He…

News of the Weird

Lead Stories *A man whose name was not released checked in to a motel in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on July 15 for two days and left behind twelve jars’ worth of Vaseline smeared on the carpet, furniture, curtains, walls, bedspreads, sheets, and towels, necessitating a $1300 cleanup. No motive was apparent,…

Letters

Good News! The Food May Be Chancey, but You Won’t End Up Hospitalized In response to Jen Karetnick’s article about Islands Cafe (“Restaurant 101,” August 27), I would like to make the following comments: It seems pretty sad to me that a restaurant critic has to go around critiquing educational…

Letters

Party Poopers and Proud of It! I hope New Times is proud of itself for single-handedly being responsible for the demise of the Miami High School athletic program and possibly costing a number of student athletes college scholarships because of Robert Andrew Powell’s articles (August 20, August 13, July 2,…

News of the Weird

Lead Stories *Six women filed a lawsuit in July in Birmingham, Alabama, in protest of the state’s new ban on the sale of sex toys (“any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs”). According to an Associated Press report, four of the women…

Right Out of a Movie

Last month Miguel Moya was walking to his car in an employee-only parking lot at Miami International Airport when he was approached by a large and rather ominous-looking fellow. The man stood approximately six feet four inches tall and appeared to weigh in excess of 300 pounds. His face was…

News of the Weird

Lead Stories *In July in Columbus, Ohio, the prison sentence of convicted child-pornography importer Timothy Rowles, age 29, was bumped from one year to two after he wrote the judge a letter showing a lack of remorse. Rowles asked the judge matter-of-factly if his explicit child-sex magazines could be returned…

Letters

Steroids: Thick Outside, Thin Inside The cover photograph for Ted B. Kissell’s article “Size Matters” (August 13) says it all: no face, no personality, just body. What a sad and pathetic statement for the gay community. The fact that there is so much emphasis placed on physical appearance — and…

News of the Weird

Lead Story *NASA revealed in May that it had inadvertently allowed an astronaut impostor to sit at the mission control console at Alabama’s Marshall Space Center during a shuttle flight in which actual astronauts were preparing to rescue a satellite from space. Jerry Allen Whittredge was arrested in Houston and…

Requiem for a Newspaper

The Miami Herald used fourteen reporters last week to cover the resignation of its publisher, David Lawrence, Jr. Fourteen! With so many people on the story, you might have thought Lawrence had made his announcement from the deck of the burning Ecstasy. Testimonials gushed forth from the governor, lieutenant governor,…

Letters

Apology Accepted With regard to Jacob Bernstein’s article on travel to Cuba (“Passport to Paradox,” August 6), I am writing to clarify that the promise of money to begin a Website [devoted to scholars’ travel concerns] at the American Association for the Advancement of Science came from the John D…

News of the Weird

Lead Stories *According to Pat Rusin and her team of researchers at the University of Arizona, the toilet seat is actually one of the least bacteria-laden surfaces in the home. Study results were published in a June issue of New Scientist magazine; three times as many bacteria were found on…

Letters

New Times: Soothsayers; Miami Herald: Mendacious, Deceitful Profit-Seekers, Hmmmmm This letter pertains to Jim DeFede’s article “Only Himself to Blame” (July 30). Mr. DeFede says he was surprised the Miami Herald supported Daryl Jones. The whores at the Herald never surprise me. The question Mr. DeFede should be asking is,…

News of the Weird

Lead Stories *On July 1 in South River, New Jersey, Yugoslavian Americans Boris Angelevski and his wife and 31-year-old son, after fighting among themselves about the son’s having become too Americanized, threatened police and barricaded themselves inside their apartment for eleven hours before giving up. Police knew the apartment well…

Only Himself to Blame

The nomination of Daryl Jones to become Secretary of the Air Force may be dead, but his transmogrification into a martyr — crucified on a Republican cross of racism — is proceeding nicely. Indeed, the reaction to Jones’s rejection by the Senate Armed Services Committee last week was both predictable…

Letters

Lawless Miami: Way Too Much Fun! There once was a time when, on election day, all saloons and taverns were closed until the polls were closed. Seems some citizens were known to sell their vote for a drink. And they weren’t Cubans! In addition, lots of deceased voters managed to…

News of the Weird

Lead Stories *Distrust of modern medicine has led to the increasing popularity of therapeutic self-trepanning (drilling a hole in the skull), according to a June Chicago Tribune story. Trepanning activist Peter Halvorson said that drilling into his own skull 25 years ago brought him “a heightened, childlike sense of awareness”…

Letters

Inner City, Outer Beauty I’d like to thank New Times for Judy Cantor and Steve Satterwhite’s extraordinary article, “The People’s Gallery (July 16), about our inner-city wall paintings. I have lived in Liberty City for 30 years and have never read anything as uplifting as this article. Not one newspaper…