UMass Boston professor Tony Van Der Meer and his many supporters say he’s been caught up in the climate of repression that’s swept the nation since September 11, 2001. Prosecutors say his pending criminal trial has nothing to do with repression; they allege that Van Der Meer assaulted a cop. The story might sound like a he-said-they-said dispute. But, according to Kristen Lombardi, it has come to epitomize the potential injustices facing those who dare speak out against the prevailing pro-war, pro-"USA" fervor.
"What should every visitor know about Los Angeles?" American Way Magazine asks Drew Barrymore. To which the 28-year-old actress and film producer responds, "Always start with the LA Weekly. It's a free newspaper you can find at certain stores or newsstands and it will tell you everything you want to know about what's going on that week." Ummm, that’s free alternative newspaper, Drew.
This is a new kind of war being played out on hundreds of thousands of computers. And the stakes are not just street cred but money and prizes and a certain kind of rabid fame inherent to a weird subculture like the one surrounding computer gaming. This is Team Forsaken, one of the Houston area’s best gaming clans, and Jennifer Mathieu watches as they humiliate their friends publicly, shake their asses in other people's faces, wear baseball caps at all times and play video games for hours on end.
Steve May, who owned Lafayette, Louisiana's highly regarded Times of Acadiana until selling it in 1998, plans to return to the market in September with a new weekly paper. May and his wife, Cherry Fisher May, last month bought a monthly lifestyle magazine and will convert it to a weekly to compete with the Times, which is now owned by Gannett, also the publisher of the Lafayette's only daily paper. "They have screwed up my newspaper so badly and I think it’s part of a plan to steadily bleed The Times of character and influence and somehow, divert it into the daily," May says.
In addition to the layoffs, editors Karen Cook and Lenora Todaro have resigned, according to a memo posted on Romenesko. Publisher Judy Miszner says the layoffs will help the paper maintain its "long-term health and sustain profitability" and are "a reflection of the difficult business climate in New York City." Miszner also says she doesn't expect New York's economy to rebound in the coming months.
Although they represented more than half of all paperback fiction sold in North America last year, romance novels have long been the object of ridicule among the East Coast publishing and critical establishments. But the "shockingly nice ladies" who attended a recent convention of the Romance Writers of America don’t care what anyone thinks about their love stories, and they will remind you that Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte were the best-selling romance novelists of their time. Alexander Zaitchik reports that the romance field has diversified in recent years -- with some subgenres like chick-lit and romantica starting to bump against the limits of the romance formula.
When a police-led quality of life initiative forced drug dealers off the streets, Philly hustlers didn't know what to do. Dealers argued over every corner, every $5, every baggie sold. Three North Philly peddlers decided to leave the narcotics trade behind and start selling T-shirts. Philadelphia Weekly's Steve Volk explores whether or not these guys are for real -- or just trying to position themselves for their next court appearance.
Eight months after Salt Lake City's alternative paper did a major expose of real estate fraud, the Salt Lake Tribune trotted out the same story and packaged it as original, Shane McCammon writes. An ethics guru tells McCammon, "I think most honorable organizations will give a nod to the original publication” but the Tribune's Terry Orme shrugs it off and says, “We always feel we do it better than other media outlets.”
