There Goes the Hood

Don't make like this is Beverly Hills. This is the real goddamned hood. The motherfuckin' hood."

So warns the gentleman watching workers set up lights and cameras in front of a graffiti-strewn, one-story yellow house just off Sistrunk Boulevard — in Fort Lauderdale's most notorious neighborhood. The man's name is Tommie Lee Carter Sr. — "but they call me Kool-Aid."

It is not quite 11 o'clock on this late-July morning, but the sun is already punishing. It's hot enough to make a man want to unzip his lunch cooler and crack open a can of cold Miller High Life.... full story >>

Six Pac

Father murdered. Mother imprisoned. Drugs. Fights. Guns. Lies. Suspensions. Handcuffs. Electronic monitoring devices. Irrepressible urges. Intuitive receivers. Irrational media.

The works.

Adam "Pacman" Jones has been in his share of pickles during his exigent 24 years. But this predicament in Oxnard, California, is one he welcomes. One he can handle all by himself.

While his Dallas Cowboys teammates meander onto the training camp practice fields at the Marriott Residence Inn River Ridge Complex, Pacman shows off his favorite parlor trick. One of the NFL's best... full story >>

William Orr's quest for better, cheaper gas left him facing prison time

Few dreamers believe in their dream the way William Orr did.

He chased his idea, a search for the perfect fuel to put in a gas tank, for three decades. He conducted test after test, applied for patent after patent, and transformed his quest into a business and a cause. He traveled around the world to promote and defend it. He lobbied and borrowed and worked slavishly to keep it running, keep it on track.

But sooner or later, every entrepreneur has to confront a world of disbelievers — people who think the dream is a fantasy and the product is worthless. Orr's... full story >>

Hope for the Houston Texans?

The Houston Texans are about to embark on their seventh NFL season. In only one of the previous six seasons did they finish anywhere but last in their division.

That was in 2004, when they finished next-to-last.

So, just two years removed from a disastrous 2-14 year, why is there optimism about the Texans in 2008?

It's not like QB Matt Schaub lit the town on fire last year. It's not like the team doesn't face a killer schedule in the first five weeks of the season. It's not like they've been impressive in the preseason.

So why the... full story >>

Home Sweet Parking Lot

Times are tough all over.

Today, several families are visiting the office of Catholic Charities at 333 East Poplar in Olathe, just across the street from Mill Creek Park, a few blocks from the Johnson County Courthouse. Inside the one-story, peach-colored building, parents are picking through bags of donated groceries in the food pantry and poking through cubbies full of free clothing. An elderly man, also here to pick up food, slips two one-dollar bills to a volunteer on his way out the door and tells him to give the cash to two tiny Hispanic girls in sundresses after he's... full story >>

Tim Pawlenty: Jilted for Sarah Palin

Wearing a striped polo shirt and a forced smile, Gov. Tim Pawlenty last week handled the greatest humbling of his political life with all the grace he could muster.

"I'm really excited and pleased with [John McCain's] selection," Pawlenty said to the gathered reporters at the Minnesota State Fair. "Governor Palin is an outstanding, terrific pick for vice president."

But as he grinned wanly before the cameras, Pawlenty could have been forgiven if he felt just a little bitter. Like John McCain's first wife, Carol, who waited faithfully as her husband endured five years in... full story >>

Warring US Airways and America West pilots have the merged company in a real tailspin

A pilot for US Airways, Braid has the friendly demeanor and wholesome blondness common to many Midwesterners — it's no surprise to learn that he hails from Michigan. Now living in Mesa, the 46-year-old seems about as nice, and low-key, as they come.

If you believe his own union, though, David Braid is part of a vast, vicious conspiracy. In fact, the union has sued him and a host of his fellow pilots under the very laws that were used to stop the Gambino crime family and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club — the Racketeer... full story >>

Dancing with Words

Erika Chong Shuch and her much-lauded company, the Erika Shuch Performance Project, have been making dreamlike, profoundly theatrical pieces that toe a line between the esoteric and the visceral since 2002. Whether she's invoking cannibalism's tangible connection to love ("All You Need") or tackling the concept of attaining oneness with the universe ("One Window"), she always makes her work relatable to diverse audiences, no matter how subtle the subject matter.

This September, Shuch and company carry the choreographer's kooky populist aesthetic into a new piece, After All... full story >>

Perverts Beware: St. Louis area police have your number

Earlier this summer, Roderick McArthur shuffled into a courtroom at the Thomas F. Eagleton Federal Building for his sentencing hearing. Hunched over his walker, the 77-year-old Ballwin man was trailed by his wife and two middle-aged women who came in support. McArthur's pale blue eyes welled with tears as he waited for Senior Judge Donald Stohr to take the bench.

On April 2, the judge had found McArthur guilty of possessing child pornography, and now, because of a prior offense, he faced a ten-year minimum prison term. On this Friday morning of July 25, the only question left... full story >>