Literary publicist Bev Harris sounded the alarm about the integrity of voting software after she discovered that Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., had an ownership share in Election Systems & Software, one of the big three companies that make electronic voting machines. She posted that revelation on her Web site, following it with other evidence that raised doubts about the reliability of vote-counting software. George Howland Jr. describes in Seattle Weekly Harris's evolution from Web advocate to media darling. He questions whether she and her allies will be successful or "like presidential candidate Howard Dean—an online tiger and an analog kitten."
Young male viewers are continuing their exodus from network TV, according to a new report from a top media shop that reveals another lesser publicized, but equally profound shift appears to be taking place in the TV universe. Slightly older men are actually watching more network TV.
Contrary to perceptions that the growth in U.S. ad spending is coming from electronic media, print media--thanks to a surprising boost from local newspapers--expanded its market share during 2003.
King County Executive Ron Sims had to race ahead with his plan to challenge state law prohibiting gay marriage after the editor of The Stranger showed up at the courthouse on March 5 seeking a marriage license. Bob Young reports in The Seattle Times that gay marriage proponents wanted to have "hand-picked couples" challenge the law but feared the controversial author of the sex advice column Savage Love (pictured) might beat them to it.
Far more dangerous to Americans than the USA Patriot Act is the Bush administration's assault on another class of liberties, which Harvey A. Silverglate and Carl Takei define as "threshold rights." These include fair elections, the right of the accused to a public jury trial, separation of powers among the three branches of government, and the right to free expression. Once lost, the authors assert in The Boston Phoenix, "the only thing that stands between any of us and arbitrary imprisonment is the good will of the president, the attorney general, and the secretary of defense."
"When you're out there and you're living that fast life, you can never say what you wouldn't do," Falicia Blakely tells Mara Shalhoup in a jailhouse interview. Shalhoup reconstructs the events that led an 18-year-old to commit murder. The nude dancer was seduced by a club patron who bought diapers by the caseload for her baby and later insisted she sell herself to bring in cash. When her pimp made the ultimate demand, she delivered. The Creative Loafing Atlanta cover story is the first in a series.
Writing in Boston's Weekly Dig, Paul McMorrow tries to figure out why a book arguing that the Grand Canyon was created in the Great Biblical Flood is being sold in a park bookstore overseen by the National Park Service. "Nearly 80 years after Tennessee v. John Scopes supposedly made the world safe for science, militant creationism has returned with a vengeance," he writes. "And this time, it's seeking government sanction."
