The works of local artists James Kitchens and Michael Finnimore are different in both medium and subject. However, they are bound together by their ability to reflect human nature. Kitchens focuses on the future of man and his battle to preserve a natural spirituality in a computerized age, while Finnimore interprets moods and feelings associated…

Cameron Meier

Voices calling in the wilderness

A Los Angeles Police Department report released in January revealed that, because of high turnover of operators and slowdowns in construction of new 911 facilities, a total of 219,733 calls to 911 last year were never answered by an operator, which, even when discounted by the 80 percent that are nonemergencies, averages to 120 emergency…

Chuck Shepherd

Keeping the peace

It happened again. That’s twice in the last 30 days. A troubled kid opted to try and resolve his problems by bringing a gun to school. This was followed by the usual media pundits droning on about how this unfortunate incident was a result of the moral decay of American society, which was brought on…

Jim Hill

Reason to rejoice

It’s been a long road for a group of tenants living in the Sanford projects who have worked for two years to remove their executive director, Timothy D. Hudson. They marched in front of City Hall, they picketed the mayor’s house, and they wrote volumes of paperwork to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban…

William Dean Hinton

Basic training

When it comes to the pageantry and showmanship of governing, Glenda Hood is a mayor without peer. During council meetings, the former public-relations executive makes sure she genuflects in front of minor dignitaries like Bob Snow. She sidles up to retiring city employees for their farewell snapshot, often bending a silver microphone over a podium…

William Dean Hinton

Suffagette still throwing stones

On her 43rd birthday last November, artist Charon Luebbers received a seemingly innocuous gift: a balloon emblazoned with the maturity-denying gag, “I demand a recount!” Five days later, she awoke to find the balloon next to her bed and a real recount under way — the one that forever changed the way America’s presidential elections…

Steve Schneider

Having their say

The human vagina has more nooks and crannies than a Thomas’ English muffin. If you’ve ever owned or operated one of these things you know that for intricacy and complication, they make the Space Shuttle look like a Big Wheel. They have more delightful surprises than Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, or, on bad-mood days, more…

Liz Langley

Two steps back

On June 2, as he’s done every June since 1997, nationally recognized dance-party promoter Jeffrey Sanker will rent a Walt Disney World theme park for his after-hours “One Mighty Party” and draw thousands of Gay Days revelers at $75-$80 a head. This year, according to a Thursday, March 22, post on Sanker’s official website, Sanker…

Jeffrey C. Billman

Bubble, bubble, oil and trouble

Last week, exactly 100 years after the Spindletop gusher ushered in the start of the modern petroleum age, the world’s largest offshore oil rig sank off the coast of Brazil. Owned by the Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras, the platform had been pumping about 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day — the same amount…

Al Krulick

Continuing education

The fall and rise of American High has been a largely ignored chapter in the reality-TV phenomenon. Produced and scheduled as a 13-week inquest into the lives of 14 Illinois high-school students, the program was pulled from Fox TV’s lineup last August after only four 30-minute episodes were aired. The proffered reason — poor ratings…

Steve Schneider

No mystery to these hot dogs

You get hungry after a long evening of drinking and listening to music at eardrum-shattering levels, don’t you? But pizza is too messy, and a sit-down meal is too time-consuming. A street hot dog covered in sauerkraut and mustard — that would be heaven. If only what goes into a frank were a little less,…

Joseph Hayes

Girls to ‘Stag’: Amy Ray plays tough

As a raw-throated folk visionary, Amy Ray has helped to impress the Indigo Girls’ place in pop’s developmental psychology, referencing historical and social observations as a means of dignifying the process of figuring it all out. This month, Ray releases her first solo record, “Stag” — a more searing collection of epithets against discrimination, oppression…

Billy Manes

A joyful noise

With Sunday School class finished, Elder Tripholia Brinson of the House of God church allows her parishioners a short break before the worship service begins. It’s a welcome interval. Lesson books are set aside, the front doors of the small, concrete-block building in south Apopka are pushed open, and kids in their best dress flee…

Jim Markel and Jeff Truesdell

Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2001

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