BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — In the 2002 comedy “Barbershop,” the most worrisome problem facing the shop owner Calvin Palmer (Ice Cube) is a duplicitous loan shark who wants to turn the neighborhood fixture into a strip club. Two years later, in “Barbershop 2: Back in Business,” Calvin’s biggest […]
WASHINGTON — When it comes to nominating presidential candidates, it turns out the world’s foremost democracy is not so purely democratic. For decades, both major parties have used a somewhat convoluted process for picking their nominees, one that involves ordinary voters in only an indirect way. As Americans […]
Just when I thought I’d had enough for one evening, an Afro-Cuban-American gentleman pulled me off the bustling Calle Ocho and into a room jammed with dancers bouncing up and down to the beat of congas. No, this wasn’t a ’90s-style rave; this was the normally unassuming lounge […]
