Use quotes to search for a phrase or name: "toy story", or "brooklyn bridge".

Article

The Beauty of Being James Blunt

The more cynical among us would insist James Blunt's one-hit-wonder status is a fate well-deserved. A vapid song so pandering and puerile, "You're Beautiful" was curse enough to those who find soft rock, adult rock, easy pop, and the like an anathema in any of form. Two successive albums found...
Article

Exclusive: Feds Eyeing Lobbyist Ron Book, Fort Lauderdale Housing Authority

In Broward and Tallahassee politics, influence peddling comes in countless forms. Here's one currently under investigation by the federal government: A powerful lobbyist, seeking to curry favor with a state senator and benefit a major client, helps to secure the senator's boyfriend a job at the development firm the lobbyist represents. The...
Article

Betty’s Soul Food: A Fort Lauderdale Institution

I first met Betty Taylor after enjoying a downright tasty breakfast at her restaurant one weekend morning. She was a petite and, I soon learned, painfully shy woman, bustling between the kitchen and the register but not exuding a lick of stress. "Are you Betty?" I asked while paying my...
Article

Hate TSA Body Scans? Homeland Security Is Also Monitoring Your Tweets

If you thought intrusive body scans and airport pat downs were just a fluke in the War on Terror bureaucracy, fear not: The Department of Homeland Security has plenty of other programs that will make your skin crawl.For instance, Big Brother is reading your tweets and Facebook status updates, searching...
Article

Backstage: Seven Classic Shows From the University of Miami’s Past

Music vet and New Times scribe Lee Zimmerman shares stories of memorable rock 'n' roll encounters that took place in our local environs. This week: UM's glorious past In past columns, I've touched on my musical encounters while attending the University of Miami from 1969 to 1973. And in fact, much...
Article

Freaks and Movie Geeks

When murder rates took a sudden dip in the ’90s, it had nothing to do with stricter gun-control laws or more police presence. The lower rate was a direct result of legalizing abortion in 1973. According to the authors of bestseller Freakonomics, criminals are often born into the same troubled...
Article

Motown Legend Diana Ross to Visit Hard Rock

Diana Ross was the first modern pop diva, a benchmark of haughty elegance that laid the path for Whitney, Mariah, and Christina. Her front-and-center attitude could be trying; she constantly overshadowed fellow Supremes Flo Ballard and Mary Wilson and demanded top billing in the trio's final years. Still, you couldn't...
Article

The Doors Don’t Support Jim Morrison Pardon

Earlier this month, outgoing Governor Charlie Crist, recent Doors convert Alex Sink, and the two other members of the Florida clemency board issued a full pardon to frontman Jim Morrison for a 40-year-old indecency charge that remained on his record at the time of his death in 1971. County Grind...
Article

The More Rick Ross Lies, the More We Love Him

When Rick Ross lumbered onto the national stage in 2006, he was something of a blank slate. Though he was a protégé of EPMD's Erick Sermon who had signed to venerable Southern labels Suave House and Slip-N-Slide, his story was largely unknown. His debut, Port of Miami, didn't fill in...
Article

Bankruptcy Trustee: Rothstein Partner Adler Is Broke and Owes IRS

Instead of a big showdown in court with big-time witnesses like U.S. Sen. John McCain, former Gov. Charlie Crist and Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti, Russell Adler and the bankruptcy attorneys representing his former law firm settled the clawback suit today with little fanfare. The Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler bankruptcy trustee sued Adler last...
Article

“Freakonomics” Cottage Industry Multiplies

A quartet of uneven TV pilots posing as a full-length documentary, Seth Gordon's anthology Freakonomics pulls case studies from Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt's bestselling book of pop math and hands them to famous doc filmmakers to make their own. Gordon (King of Kong) knits together the resulting shorts with...
Article

Backstage: Road Stories From Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa

Music vet and New Times scribe Lee Zimmerman shares stories of memorable rock 'n' roll encounters that took place in our local environs. This week: Florida foibles... My wife, Alisa, and I recently did our annual road trip up to Eastern Tennessee, and because we chose to travel via I-95, past...
Article

Is JenJen’s School the Whitest in South Broward?

You've probably read about the construction of Broward School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb's pet school in Hollywood that wasn't needed at all but still cost taxpayers some $25 million and ruined a neighborhood park. The school, Beachside Montessori Village (which is neither on the beach nor a village), was put in a...
Article

Behind the Line With Erik Brinkmann From Shelby’s Kitchen

Erik Brinkmann admits he has restaurant withdrawals. "I'm here every day," he says. "We closed on Christmas, and I was dizzy -- literally -- because I was off." The owner of Shelby's Kitchen in Deerfield Beach says he is good at delegating. However, Brinkmann has put in 14 hours every...
Article

Zitfest Day 2 at Orange Door, December 18

Zitfest Day 2With Sumsun, the Dewars, Plains, the Monster, This Heart Electric, LLLR, Little Beard, Teepee, Go Ghosts, Band in Heaven, Guy Harvey, the Jameses, and Love Handles.The Orange Door, Lake ParkSaturday, December 18, 2010Read Day 1 coverage here.The seriously anticipated second day of Zitfest lived up to all the...
Article

Palm Beach Elections Officials Embarrass County Once Again

The Palm Beach County election nightmare of 2000 -- all those hanging chads, butterfly ballots, Pat Buchanan votes, and silly canvassing-board photos -- seems to have taught elections officials nothing. The county's Supervisor of Elections Office still could not count all the votes last night, delaying a final statewide tally...
Article

MP3: 20 South Florida Tracks From 2010

Over the course of a year, County Grind offers up a lot of music at the affordable price of free. Much of this tuneage is home-grown, and reflects the boundless interests of the local freelance corps contributing to the blog. Area hip-hop, goth, electronica, punk, folk, and ska all got...
Article

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

Unauthorized immigrants make up just more than 3 percent of the U.S. population, But they're accused of sucking up public benefits and dodging taxes. Illegal aliens are tax dodgers. That's one of the most shocking findings of FAIR's most recent report on the "cost of illegal immigration. "Most illegal aliens...
Article

Penalty Killers

The adage that it’s hard for a team to win if it can’t score has become something the Florida Panthers have taken seriously against their opponents this season. Lead by Marty Reasoner, Mike Weaver, and Dennis Widemen, the Panthers’ stifling defense has allowed only four goals on power plays this...