And they're celebrating with a special issue and a public birthday bash in a park across the street from the paper's new office building. In addition to a rear-view mirror look at the paper's coverage of educational and environmental issues, this week's Indy includes features like "Top Ten Reasons the Independent Must Die" (No. 4: "They're sex-crazed, amoral sodomists.") and, for connoisseurs of the publisher's occasionally garbled syntax, "Top Ten John Weissisms" (No. 1: "We're growing like hotcakes!").

Continue ReadingColorado Springs Independent Turns 10

Arnold Schwarzenegger is grabbing all the headlines, so few may have noticed that Gary Coleman is also running for the Golden State's top job. According to CNN.com, Coleman's candidacy was engineered by New Times' paper in Berkeley "in protest of the scheduled vote aimed at recalling Gov. Gray Davis." Editor Steve Buel, Coleman's campaign treasurer, says he collected the 65 petition signatures necessary to place the former child star on the ballot at a recent Oakland A's game. Even though he's throwing his own hat in the ring, Coleman says he's voting for Schwarzenegger and admits, "I'm probably the least qualified for the job, but I'll have some great people around me."

Continue ReadingEast Bay Express Puts Actor on Ballot in Calif.
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After a night of drinking and rock 'n' roll, an off-duty Orange County cop engages in random gun play. No charges are filed. But a Santa Ana resident accused of randomly firing a gun in his yard faces a life sentence. OC Weekly's Nick Schou looks at a case where justice isn’t so much blind as stupid. "Let’s see: Shooter No. 1 is a gang-unit cop. Shooter No. 2 is a crew-cut Latino who lives in a gang-infested neighborhood. You do the math," Shou writes.

Continue ReadingA Tale of Two Shootings
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Spammed if you do, spammed if you don't. Chickenboners, mainsleazers and spiders are out to get you. Ben Fogelson of Eugene Weekly looks at bulk e-mail, "an increasing irritant in the folds of international cyber-flesh." He examines who's doing it, who's trying to stop it, how you can beat it back and even how to speak a little spam.

Continue ReadingTrashing Spam

About 75 percent of the members of Local 2110 signed a letter to VVM management declaring their "profound outrage and disgust" at last month's cuts, which they chalk up to "greed on the part of the paper's owners." Sadness and paranoia now rule at the paper, says Cynthia Cotts, who also reports that two of the seven employees originally laid off have been hired back. More controversy may be just around the corner: Cotts reports that "many staffers dislike the redesign that debuts in next week's issue."

Continue ReadingVillage Voice Union Protests Layoffs

When the free weekday tabloid Express debuted Monday morning, the City Paper and its band of merry pranksters were prepared, hawking 10,000 copies of its own Expresso at subway stops across the nation's capital. The City Paper parodists, led by Webmeister Dave Nuttycombe, "anticipated the journalistic emptiness of Express," according to Slate's Jack Shafer, who says the Post's new lite version "ladles the news out with an eyedropper into tiny text boxes and then flattens it with a steamroller." Also revealed: The editor of Express is none other than Dan Caccavaro, former editor of AAN-member Valley Advocate.

Continue ReadingCity Paper Parodies Post Co.’s Free Daily
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Thanks to a section of 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows a court clerk to rubber stamp a subpoena, the Recording Industry Association of America is sending out hundreds of subpoenas to ISPs across America, who are forced to turn over the names of downloaders. Creative Loafing's Steve Fennessy talks to college students, industry watchers and music pirates about the recording industry's efforts to save itself by suing its customers.

Continue ReadingMusic Industry Steps Up War On Illegal Downloads