Readers of Gambit Weekly, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Miami New Times, Weekly Planet (Tampa), Weekly Planet (Sarasota), Folio Weekly and Orlando Weekly have lately seen Mother Nature at her worst. Distributed in areas affected by the hurricanes that have pounded Florida and surrounding states since August, these alt-weeklies have come out on schedule -- thanks to determined staffers and contingency plans.
Doug Vanderlaan, of Jacksonville, Fla., didn't like what he was hearing on the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show. For two years he waged a campaign to get Bubba and all his lewd talk off the air, Jane Akre reports in Orlando Weekly. The result: Bubba was fired, his station (owned by Clear Channel) was hit with the largest fine in Federal Communications Commission history, and Clear Channel got on its knees before Congress.
Orlando Weekly writer Deb Berry never had much use for feminism, until she joined the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., and fell in with a group of people who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. She had to leave her protest sign, "John Ashcroft Is a Sexually Repressed Woman-Hater," behind in a broken-down bus and rely on her voice to respond to anti-abortion protesters who lined the route.
A writer for the Orlando Weekly column Happytown™ was there when George W. Bush kicked off his re-election campaign in Orlando March 20. Emily Ruff's note-taking looked suspicious to some Republican women, who accused her of being a "dirty hippie" and "terrorist." After Ruff responded with some chants of her own, a security guard escorted her out the door.
In December, Gov. Jeb Bush dedicated Lawtey Correctional Institute as the state's first "faith-based," government-run prison in the country, Jeffrey C. Billman reports for Orlando Weekly. "I can't think of a better place to reflect on the love of our Lord Jesus than to be here at Lawtey Correctional," said the Catholic governor. On a visit to the medium-security prison, Billman attends a revival, observes the temporary segregation of Muslim inmates and interviews some nervous, unhappy inmates.
Jeff Truesdell, who had been with Orlando Weekly since its birth in 1990, was abruptly fired this week after a spat with Publisher Mike Johnson. Truesdell says he and Johnson had a tense relationship, but says the publisher never interfered with the editorial side of the paper. Johnson says he respects Truesdell but won't talk about the argument that led to the termination.
