"It's troubling ... to know that some people actually get upset when a U.S.-born-and-bred Latino isn't fully fluent in Spanish," Gustavo Arellano writes in a Los Angeles Times editorial published Monday. Arellano is a reporter for OC Weekly and the author of the controversial syndicated ¡Ask a Mexican! column. He explains that his parents taught him a rural Mexican dialect, which became "mangled" after he attended a public school where he only spoke English. The criticism of Arellano's Spanish intensified after a June appearance on The Colbert Report, but he swears he doesn't care: "I'm an English-language columnist; it's my job to help Americans understand Mexicans, not to write the next Don Quixote."

Continue Reading¡Ask a Mexican!, Just Not in Spanish

Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger, disagrees with proposed Seattle regulations that would require club owners to prevent patrons from entering the premises while carrying drugs. Naturally, he chose to demonstrate the difficulty of enforcing such a ban by tucking a fake gun into his waistband, packing his bag full of pot cookies, and heading to City Hall. As he describes in the Aug. 31 issue of The Stranger, he not only got in the door and consumed the cookies while on city property, he also offered pot cookies to several mayoral staffers without repurcussions. Photos of the cookies, the gun and Savage can be found on Slog, The Stranger's blog.

Continue ReadingDan Savage Takes Pot Cookies, Gun to City Hall

"It's a bit mind-blowing ... to realize one's place of employment is perceived as a citadel of crunchy-granola neo-hippies," writes Pamela Robin Brandt in Miami New Times' Aug. 31 issue. Brandt is describing her experience dining at the Daily Creative Food Co. restaurant, where sandwiches bear the names of newspapers. Miami New Times' namesake comprises vegetables, mozzarella and pesto on ciabatta bread. Brandt suggests a better choice would have been the lobster club, which contains a Bacardi-spiked chili mayonnaise.

Continue ReadingMiami New Times’ Unsatisfying Sandwich

Dan Nassif (pictured) earned his place at the World Series of Poker earlier this month by beating out 80 other players on an Internet gambling site. The site then paid for his hotel room at the Las Vegas event, and, once Nassif qualified for the No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em Championship's final table, gave him $100,000. He lost on a bluff but left with $1,556,858. Nassif, now a millionaire, has no plans to leave his job at the alt-weekly, nor has he made any big purchases. "I just paid off my house," he tells AAN News. "I have a car, I have a house, I don't know what else is out there to get."

Continue ReadingRiverfront Times Ad Rep Wins $1.5 Million at World Series of Poker