Dec 31, 2003 – Jan 6, 2004

Dec 31, 2003 - Jan 6, 2004 / Vol. 19 / No. 53

Italian in far east

While on the way to Toscana at Avalon Park, make sure you have a cell phone handy. Because, aside from enjoying a pleasant conversation with the nice folks in the restaurant, it is unbelievably easy to get lost in the wilds of east Orlando. And if you’re like me, you’ll probably pick the wrong entrance…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Dictators ‘R’ Us

All people who have any concern for human rights, justice and integrity should be overjoyed by the capture of Saddam Hussein, and should be awaiting a fair trial for him by an international tribunal. An indictment of Saddam’s atrocities would include not only his slaughter and gassing of Kurds in 1988 but also, rather crucially,…

Noam Chomsky and AlterNet

The truth is out there somewhere

They say it’s a small world but not when it comes to accurate news reporting from around the globe. There’s an overwhelming amount of information that’s not served to the public on major news networks, but the Internet has leveled the playing field somewhat, opening up viewpoints that can explode U.S.-centric tunnel vision. Here’s a…

Lindy T. Shepherd

Tamp out the old, inhale the new

If 2003 will be remembered for anything, short of the requisite intellectual apocalypse inspired by beefcake leadership, it will be its flippant celebrity scandals played out incessantly to the dull hum of the crowd. Seemingly on hyperbolic overdrive, the American consciousness — now veritably ruined by “reality” television and the surreality that implies — has…

Billy Manes

One year at a time

A wise man of our acquaintance once pointed out that “futurist” is the easiest job on Earth to have. You spend all your time issuing pronouncements about what life is going to be like many years — centuries, even — from now. If you’re right, you’ll be hailed as a genius for generations to come.…

Steve Schneider

Get on the stick

Two American Legion posts and two other veterans’ groups in Pleasanton, Calif., sponsored a class on dowsing to consider whether domestic terrorists could be identified by pointing sticks at suspicious people to see if the sticks move. Said one of the leaders, “You can’t wait for the FBI and police to come up with solutions…

Chuck Shepherd

Saved by TV

Slung on the couch, watching the mistletoe wither, a thought occurs to me: Life isn’t what it used to be. Duh. So, all channel-flipped out, I ball myself into a fetal position on the couch and pray for the end of the holidays, the end of life, the end of something. But then the narcotic…

Billy Manes

Volume business

Plan your 2004 reading early with this preview of the year’s most eagerly anticipated book releases The Five People You Meet at Neverland — In the sequel to her best-selling tearjerker “Tuesdays with Jacko,” world-renowned entertainer/sponge LaToya Jackson describes the star-studded excitement and moving solidarity of an “innocence rally” at her brother’s California ranch. Telling…

Steve Schneider

Secrets of the best from Zingerman’s

Last year’s New Year’s resolution: Eat smart. Since we know how well that worked, this year’s should be: Eat informed. And a new book sheds various lights on what we eat and how to do it well. “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating” by Ari Weinzweig (Houghton Mifflin; $19.95) is a hefty tome devoted to choosing…

Joseph Hayes

Still not good enough?

Although I’ve only been in town a little more than a year, I think I have enough of a hold on things to be bold and make a few predictions for 2004. If anything links these five predictions, it’s an ideal that’s been abundantly clear to me since I arrived in The City Beautiful last…

Jason Ferguson

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