Bush Appointee: We’re at War With ‘Evil’ Islam

Dozier, center, with Crist On the Steve Kane Show this morning, Rev. O’Neal Dozier, a black pastor who has advised President George W. Bush at the White House and is a political appointee of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, went off on Islam. Talking about his efforts to keep a mosque…

Ch-Ch-Changes

I’m flying here because I’m on deadline and have family errands to run, but very quickly: Anthony Man is taking over as political writer at the Sun-Sentinel. He’s packed up his bags in Palm Beach County and moved down to Broward. I’ve known about it for a while, but haven’t…

Hugs and Hammerlocks

Pitts I spoke with Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. about the Lucius Gantt rant. From his home in Bowie, Maryland, where he lives with his wife and five children, he said that he’s used to being attacked, from within the black community and outside of it. “This is not…

Mayor Al’s Shady Pal

VVho is Sam? That was the tantalizing question that emerged in the continuing investigation of Deerfield Beach Mayor Al Capellini. For several weeks, New Times has been examining the business dealings of Capellini, leader of the seaside town of 67,000 people that has been in the grip of a raucous…

Gantt Rants Against Leonard Pitts

Lucius Gantt is a black columnist and politico whose stock-in-trade has been old-school polemics and an abiding distrust of the white-dominated power structure. For more than 30 years, he’s been writing his often vitriolic and sometimes outrageous opinion, and it has won him praise from fellow journalists, academics, and even…

Red, White, and Hackneyed

Today, we have all kinds of Sun-Sentinel Fourth of July fun. In yesterday’s edition, the newspaper had two section front pages with centerpieces using the same headline. Or the same gimmick, I should say. The Metro section’s center package headline: “RED, WHITE & YOU.” And from the Business section’s center…

The Palm Beach Post’s Pathetic ‘Patriotism’

On this Fourth of July morning, the Palm Beach Post out-jingos the other two midsize metropolitan dailies with a big package (it took up a full two-thirds of the front page) titled The Mounting Cost of Freedom. By William M. Hartnett, it begins this way: “On this 230th anniversary of…

Drugs In Space

From New York Times home page: “Crack Is Found in Shuttle’s Foam Insulation By WARREN E. LEARY and JOHN SCHWARTZ” Well, you can’t really blame the astronauts for trying. It’s boring as hell up there…

Congratulations Tony Fins. Now Eat It.

Earl Maucker (looking blurry at right) done good. I don’t say that very often. Sometimes I even criticize him. Some of you might even believe that I don’t think he’s fit to be editor of the Sun-Sentinel. Not so. I think he’s an honorable guy and decent newspaper steward who…

Killer Pool Drains Stalk Our Children! (Updated)

In terms of the Sun-Sentinel’s Help Team, there’s good news and bad news. First the good news: The “Sun-Sentinel Watch” charticle (a mix between an article and chart that is all the rave at newspapers these days) was bumped off the Local front and onto 3B this morning. Apparently the…

Right(wing)ing The Wrongs

Media Matters tells the tale of the fall-out of the Sun-Sentinel correction on the Murtha matter. (Thanks to Flablog for pointing the way). Hell, Fox News was actually accountable. Nice to see. Hate-spewer Neal Boortz (who once went off on me on his sickeningly popular radio show) didn’t retract a…

Poitier’s Divine Tragedy

Broward Times Remember Sylvia Poitier? She’s the one who was voted off the Broward County Commission after creating an untoward relationship (financially) with reviled mega-developer Michael Swerdlow. You might remember that she had her political Lazarus moment by getting elected to the Deerfield Beach city commission. Well, she’s running into…

Gonzo Gets Noticed

Mike Berardino has an interesting column in the Sun-Sentinel today about the newfound appreciation of long-time Marlins shortstop Alex Gonzalez. Gonzalez is playing this year in a big baseball town, Boston, and is finding out what it’s like to be a real major leaguer. That kind of comparison extends beyond…

Factor This, O’Reilly

Well, since I’ve come out in favor of shooting cats, I might as well defend Jay Mariotti. Picked this up off of Romenesko about the Chicago Sun-Times sports writer, whom White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen (who was with the Marlins second World Series champion) recently referred to (tenderly, I’m told)…

Mama Kitty, Marijuna, And More

— As the Miami Herald tells us in its web tease, a fellow shot his own cat’s “head off” and had to go court. Then reporter Amy Sherman tells us all about the case of the murdered cat. First thought: anybody who has [lived with] a cat that is drifting…

The Sun-Sentinel’s Murtha Mess

By all appearances, it was just another random Saturday afternoon story assignment. A 3B job on U.S. Rep. John Murtha’s remarks at a town hall meeting at Florida International University. Get out there, capture the gist of the speech, talk to a few people, get back and file eight inches…

DeGroot: Alan Levine Will Be New NBHD Chief

Levine John DeGroot was taking a cigarette break at the North Broward Medical Center this morning and he was mad as hell. “The fucking Sun-Sentinel is so asleep at the switch, it’s just fucking embarrassing,” he told me on a cell phone call. You should know DeGroot. He’s a 21-year…

Givus Some Truth

The Miami Herald website lets us know: “Israelis Keep Pressure on Palestinians.” The Palm Beach Post’s front page informs us: “Bridges Bombed to Cut Off Militants’ Routes.” The Sun-Sentinel: “Israeli Troops Move into Gaza.” NY Times: “Israeli Forces Appear to Increase Pressure in Gaza.” Washington Post: “Israeli Launches Gaza Operation.”…

Mayor Mara Answers Her Critics

Our Leader Below is an e-mail from Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulanti responding to her many critics. The mayor was adding her voice to a series of e-mails that began about the Mach eminent domain victory over the city. She was responding, as best as I could tell, to an e-mail…

Kiss my Bee-hind

Okay, it looks like that Sacramento Bee story I mentioned in the post below has (or had) been shitcanned. I got an e-mail from Bee managing editor Joyce Terhaar saying the newspaper never had a story about the downfall of Miami Herald in the works. I knew differently, since I’d…

About Those Alleged Terrorists

When you have a gang of disconnected, apparently inept stragglers who make international news because of a federal War on Terror bust, it’s the duty of the press to look upon it with a critical and discerning eye. To investigate it to its core and reveal all of its intricacies…

Knight Riddance, The Final Chapter

Okay, I’m backwards today. I should have filed this post this morning and this morning’s post now. But if I’m going to be backwards, well, I’m going to be fucking backwards. Fred Tasker’s story about Knight Ridder this weekend was … God, I still don’t know how to charactarize it…