Some people hit the bars in the afternoon. Ninety-two-year-old Rosie Hirsch Leckart is one of those people. Sure, she’s only drinking soda water — a drop of liquor and she might fall asleep right there in her chair– but, she’s on the prowl. Her not-quite-five-foot frame teeters on the edge…
Four wheels beat the two-wheeled variety every time: In regard to “In the Blink of an Eye,” December 4, by Eric Alan Barton, the use of motorcycles by the police has never been a cost-effective mode of transportation, and, as such, these devices are not used by 99 percent of…
Donna Kim waits behind the metal detector at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale at 9 a.m. on Thursday, October 16. A stout woman with long, shiny, black hair who stands about five feet, five inches, she wears a blue, loose-fitting shirt and black slacks. She has on no jewelry,…
Talk about stepping into deep doggy doo. Authorities are still trying to piece together exactly what happened at an alleged local drug hangout in November 2002. What began as a late-night drug bust, with a scrum of Fort Lauderdale police officers poised to follow a battering ram into a marijuana…
The good doctor phoned me a couple of weeks ago after reading a column I wrote about the corrupt depths of a North Broward Hospital District building deal. He says he didn’t want his name in print because district leaders would try to destroy him for saying his piece. “I…
Bitching about the system is as much a part of being in the military as bad food and dumb non-coms. But the longstanding complaints by National Guard soldiers in Iraq that they’re always the last to get the latest battle equipment are starting to assume a deadly reality. “They always…
All those damn kids are the problem!: As a recently retired police captain with 30 years of service, I have seen my share of death and destruction, particularly as it relates to the carnage that is occurring and has occurred on our highways. With this in mind, I attempted to…
It was lunchtime on a hot Friday in October, and the Ortiz family cottage on Morton Avenue in West Palm Beach seemed to be bursting with restless kids. The house, a cramped, two-bedroom rental unit, maybe two dozen paces from end to end, resounded with the din of five hungry…
Big sleek farm animals with blue ribbons attached to their harnesses. Ladies in gingham unveiling the perfect chocolate layer cake or lemon meringue pie. A calliope playing carousel tunes, the gleeful shouts of children, somebody picking at a banjo somewhere or sawing away at a musical saw, and the sweet…
Huh, Mr. Mayor, sir? Huh? It seems to me that nobody was really much fooled by your hoax article about anarchists’ releasing rodents at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Boca Raton (“Our Own Smarty-pants,” November 27). None of the newspapers ran with it, and police security was in place…
It’s 7:30 pm on a Monday, and the bartenders are clearing away someone’s dinner from an open spot at the bar of Mangos (904 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale). As I try to put my purse down on the empty chair beside me, a husky man with a stack…
Andy Markley, a graphic designer in Sacramento, California, was finishing some work on Saturday, August 30. The Labor Day weekend upon him, Markley was ready to relax. But before leaving his office, he decided to check his e-mail one last time. To his surprise, he found hundreds of bounced-back messages…
What a difference four years makes. In 1999, some Christian conservatives were so demoralized at having failed to remove Bill Clinton from office that they were ready to drop out of politics. Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich went so far as to declare that Christian conservatives had lost the culture…
This is my second and last newspaper article. That’s because I, Greg O’Shube, am entirely made up, as was every fact and detail of my first article. It appeared in last week’s edition of New Times (“Anarchy in a Briefcase,” November 20), claiming that antiglobalization anarchists were planning a major…
The acronym used by North Broward Hospital District staff for the $32 million medical office building project — “MOB” — says it all. Meyer Lansky would have been proud. As I wrote here November 6, the publicly funded district intends to pay a few big-wheel developers $170 million over 55…
Norman steps out of the deep freeze: Even though I have been enjoying Bob Norman’s articles, I was ready to write and ask him to revisit the bloody mess in Iraq. (I think you guys call it “war”; since English is not my first language, I call it as I…
Francine Katz is not happy. The 68-year-old Jewish matchmaker sits at her dining room table in Miami Beach, leafing through her big black date book. She shuffles through printouts of a 45-year-old divorcee looking for someone who is great with kids, a 28-year-old Hasidic man looking for a woman willing…
Steve Rosen owns a motorcycle, a jet plane, and a black Corvette. Even when he is not in a vehicle, the 52-year-old dentist is always moving. On the road, he likes to lead, but he’s a bitch to follow. He alternately presses hard on the gas pedal, then forces down…
None of the rallies in Miami to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) summit can rival what’s supposed to come next. Anarchists plan a massive infiltration of a Republican governors meeting that begins Thursday, November 20, in Boca Raton. Dozens of members of a radical organization will…
After several meetings with two local congressmen about the Iraq War, it’s time to unleash the transcript. Democratic Reps. Robert Wexler of Boca Raton and Peter Deutsch of Pembroke Pines revealed their most intimate thoughts during the sessions, though they thankfully stopped short of any discussion about their precious bodily…
All over Himmarshee, there were boys in white. The USS Ronald Reagan was docked in Port Everglades from November 11 to 14, which meant a three-day injection of about 2,000 horny men into Fort Lauderdale’s nightlife. Once, these uniformed chaps might have been enough to make girls swoon, but these…
Ann Sparks grabs a nightstick out of her 1995 Dodge Dakota pickup and hooks a leash to the collar of her not-very-nice-to-strangers black rottweiler/labrador mix, Tiger. She leaves her .38 at home. The 47-year-old Orlando-born businesswoman owns a home-cleaning firm with her mother, Shirley. She is dressed in a big,…
