Blogs

The Facebook group "Save the Orange Bowl" was founded by two University of Miami grad students, who eloquently state their cause: "Recently, rumors have been circulating that the City of Miami is going to refuse to renovate the OB in order to force the Hurricanes to move to that cross-town shithole known currently as Dolphin Stadium, so that they can demolish the OB and build a new stadium for the fucking Marlins!...Please, do whatever you can to SAVE THE ORANGE BOWL!!!"

Wolfgang Puck announced that he is removing foie gras, battery caged eggs, and crated veal and pork from all his menus, and adding vegetarian options throughout his restaurants worldwide. Puck's continually expanding empire encompasses Spago, Postrio, Cut, Chinois, Grand Cafe, Gourmet Express, Lupo, American Grille, Bar & Grille, Vert, and 20-21.

This is a huge victory for the animal-rights group Farm Sanctuary, which first launched a campaign to encourage Puck to eliminate foie gras and crated veal in 2004. It is also very good news for ducks. --Lee Klein

The State Attorney's Office announced this week that over the course of the past six months, "Project Safe Childhood," a program designed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to crack down on Internet-related child exploitation in South Florida, sparked 66 investigations.

Of the 66 cases, 58 individuals were indicted between September 2006 and February 2007; 35 have been convicted. The remaining indictments are either still under investigation or awaiting trial.

A sample of case highlights:

A couple of weeks ago, the Bike Blog was chatting with Miami Beach City Commissioner Saul Gross about the city's Master Plan for bicycles, a fairly ambitious scheme that would include miles of bike lanes and a much-needed bike path along the beach.

Sounds great, right? So how soon can we expect the first white stripes to appear?

The Dinner in Paradise series continues this Sunday, April 1, with the fifth in a series of six charity-driven, six-course farmers dinners served under the stars. Host/chef Michael Schwartz, of the just-opened Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, welcomes what I think might be the best guest chefs of the year: Tim Andriola of Timo, Sean Brasel of Touch, and Michael Bloise of Wish.

It is certainly good news that Miami-based Burger King announced this week that the company will begin buying eggs and pork from suppliers that don't confine their animals in crates and pens.

PETA has declared a victory, as has the Humane Society of the United States. According to the New York Times:

"While Burger King's initial goals may be modest, food marketing experts and animal welfare advocates said yesterday that the shift would put pressure on other restaurant and food companies to adopt similar practices."

But one question remains: when will Burger King start treating the workers who pick their tomatoes humanely?

Farm workers — some of whom work right here in Florida, just a couple of hours from Miami -- are paid 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. They make roughly $10,000 a year. Many of those tomatoes end up on those Triple Whoppers with Cheese.

Burger King has refused to pay more for its tomatoes, thus keeping workers' wages low. In February, after farmworker rights groups picketed Burger King and demanded answers, Burger King responded: they offered to train farmworkers to work at Burger King restaurants.

Sheer brilliance. Trade one low paying job for another!

Said Lucas Benitez, of the Coalition of Immokalee Farmworkers (and a recicpient of the 2003 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award for his crusade against human trafficking): "Burger King's plan to eradicate farmworker poverty is so simple as to be almost magical. Send a crack team of Burger King trainers into Immokalee, retrain thousands of farmworkers to be Burger King restaurant employees, and *poof* farmworker poverty disappears..."

"This suggestion might seem comical," Benitez continued, "until you stop to think that Burger King is actually responsible for keeping the workers in poverty through their leveraging of volume purchases to drive down tomato prices and, consequently, tomato pickers' wages." --Tamara Lush

The apotheosis of A'mod Ned continues. Last fall the injured FIU football player was photographed walking onto the field on crutches to try to join the notorious brawl between UM and FIU players.

Shortly thereafter, the bloggers at Deadspin began Photoshopping the be-crutched Ned into legendary battles, including the D-Day invasion.

Then, near the end of a rambling Deadspin discussion (which grew out of a post about a scultpure of a horse with Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho's face), T-shirt maker Matt Johnson received an unusual request: "Is the one on the way the Ned shirt? PLEASE tell me it's the Ned shirt. I will dedicate a post to you in the vein of the CC one if it's the Ned shirt."

"I was hesitant to do it," Johnson tells New Times. "There wasn't going to be much profit in it, but I figured out something really quick. An hour later it was up. There's been three orders so far which is two more than I honestly
expected."

Ned fans can buy theirs here. Soldier on, A'mod! --Frank Houston

The gentrifying march of Starbucks goes on.

The giant, earth-devouring coffee chain has planted its latest flag on the northeast corner of Biscayne Boulevard and 30th Street, in front of the moldering former Delicias del mar Peruano restaurant, and just a couple blocks north of the caffeine-craving New Times offices.

The site should be a handy location for the patrons of Boulevard Liquors
("Checks Cashed 1.5%") spilling out onto the sidewalk across the street, who might be looking for a quick wake-me-up.

Since it was erected last fall from scraps of wood and sheet metal, Liberty City's Umoja Village shantytown — which currently houses 50 residents - has managed to keep close to whatever's hot in Miami. During the Superbowl, Umoja residents staged demonstrations, calling national attention to the city's lack of affordable housing; in the wake of scandal surrounding the Miami-Dade Housing Agency's misuse of funds, Umoja homesteaders again lured the media spotlight to their little plot of land.

So it should come as no surprise that as the Winter Music Conference descended upon Miami, Umoja made sure once more to get a piece of the action. Sunday night, as folks lined up — the poor suckers - to pay twenty bucks or more to get into South Beach WMC venues — the Doubtree Surfcomber, Mynt, Ink Boutique, etc. -- NYC's DJ Scribe was spinning for free at the shantytown.

It seems the El Salvadorians are not convinced by Jose Louis de Jesus Miranda's claim he is the second coming of Christ.

Nor are they too happy about him traveling to their central American nation and encouraging folks to tattoo a 666 symbol on their bodies.

So unhappy are they with the 60-year-old, self-proclaimed anti-Christ and his Growing in Faith Ministry, they voted unanimously this past Thursday to make tattooing the mark of the beast illegal. --Joanne Green

As it turns out, patrons of South Beach nudie institution Club Madonna are staunch feminists. They named the place #1 Sexist club in Miami, according to a full page ad on page 62 of this week's Sun Post (right). -- Rob Jordan

Winter Music Conference might have spawned some pretty stellar parties, but Susanne Bartsch's bash at the swanky Setai hotel on South Beach this past Friday was the ultimate in divine debauchery.

Where else would you find the likes of America's most infamous transsexual, aka Amanda Lepore, perched naked in a bubble bath in the middle of the dance floor.

Exactly!

Eugene Davis has no love for the Miami Police Department. "If you're a Miami cop," Davis grouses, "you can pretty much get away with anything." The 38-year-old federal investigator is fuming over the Broward State Attorney's Office decision to drop a misdemeanor battery charge against William Scarola III, a Miami police sergeant Davis accuses of attacking him during a twilight confrontation in Pembroke Pines three years ago.

Scarola denied Davis's allegation through his criminal defense lawyer and former Broward prosecutor Al Milian. "This case should never have been filed," Milian says.

On August 28, 2004, Davis says, he and his wife were on their way to dinner at the now-defunct Dr. Desserts restaurant in Pembroke Pines. As they traveled north on Palm Avenue, an off duty Scarola, in his Miami police cruiser, pulled up behind Davis, swerved around him, and then cut him off. "So I flashed my headlights at him," Davis recalls. "I guess he didn't like that."

Wired on my third cup of coffee at Out of the Blue Cafe (2426 NE 2nd Avenue), I noticed a woman sitting a few seats away with a familiar looking image tattooed on her chest, directly over her heart. After a moment, I realized what it was.

"Um...excuse me, isn't that tattoo from a New Times cover?"

The Bebop Theatre Collective's Sty of the Blind Pig opened last night at the Joseph Caleb Auditorium. Sitting in that theater in the heart of Liberty City, time seems to rewind. You're transported to a small apartment in pre-civil rights Chicago — a witness to the secrets inside one of Chicago's State Street high-rises. At times humorous, also tear-jerking, but ultimately a three-act masterpiece, the story is about a family's struggles with death, poverty, love, and sin.