:
Fr Nov 24 -

SoFlo Local and Beyond:
CARTOONIST WITH A GUN -

It started out as an ordinary Black Friday with wall-to-wall coverage of shoppers who had arisen early and busy shopping malls with parking lot and traffic conditions. And it soon became unwatchable. But late this morning, just in time for the noon TV News broadcasts, the SoFlo Situation rapidly spiralled out of the MSM's main agenda for the day: Shopping.

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An apparently sacked editorial cartoonist armed with a grievance and a gun entered the sixth floor of the downtown Miami Herald Newspaper Building today, demanding to confront El Nuevo Herald's executive editor, Humberto Castello.

Jose M Varela, dressed in camoflage clothing, complained he had been subjected to censorship.

Varela managed to telephone his Miami lawyer, Joe Garcia, a couple of times from within the building.

*Garcia said Varela was concerned about a conflict of interest at El Nuevo Herald.*

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The newspaper said Varela entered the newsroom at about 10:40 Friday morning and ended shortly before 2:30, when Varela was taken into police custody. Police say no shots were fired.
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In conversations with a Nuevo reporter, Varela demanded the resignation of Executive Editor Castello, who, it was reported, was not in the building. While the episode unfolded, most of the employees were evacuated from the building.

*In a 1999 Nuevo column, then-exec editor Ramon Mestre mentioned that his father and Varela's father were both political prisoners in Castro's Cuba.*

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:: Varela's tongue-in-cheek mini
auto-biography [in translation]
from the Nuevo website.
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:: Samples:: of
Varela's work [in Spanish].
...