The post-Vietnam myths of the spitting woman and the heroic POW are part of a strange psychology empowering America's "Support Our Troops" rallies. These myths of emasculated males regaining their manhood, which were even told by defeated German soldiers after World War I, reflect the nation's lost potency. Local Planet Weekly Editor Tom Grant examines how this need to revive America's challenged manhood has become a Freudian underpinning of pro-war politics.
The city of Dayton, Ohio has a new paper this week: AAN member Impact Weekly changed its name to Dayton City Paper and has "abandon(ed) the bully pulpit," Publisher Kerry Farley tells the Dayton Daily News. According to Farley, Dayton wasn't receptive to the traditional format of an alternative weekly, so in a bid to reach new readers he plans to change the left-leaning paper into a forum for local opinion that spans the ideological spectrum.
San Francisco Bay Guardian reporters hit the streets to cover war protests that clogged the city center and ground traffic to a halt. "As I looked around, I realized that the most ambitious, best-organized -- and yet most wonderfully anarchic and free-flowing -- demonstrations I'd ever seen had done exactly what organizers set out to do," one reporter writes. "The core of the city was shut down. It was No Business As Usual in San Francisco."
A group of investors, including former Cleveland Free Times Publisher Matt Fabyan, Editor in Chief David Eden and former Village Voice Media President Art Howe, has purchased the assets of Cleveland Free Times from VVM and plans to resume publishing in early May. Most of the former staff has been offered jobs and many plan to return, Fabyan says in a news release. Free Times was shuttered as part of a deal between VVM and New Times that closed papers in Los Angeles and Cleveland, ending head-to-head competition between the two chains.
Six AAN member papers in the Southeast picked up 61 percent of the awards in SPJ's Green Eyeshade Awards' print (weekly/monthly) division. SPJ has announced the finalists for the awards, and the order of finish will be announced at the Green Eyeshade Banquet April 5. Creative Loafing Atlanta and New Times Broward-Palm Beach picked up six each, while Miami New Times snagged four. Memphis Flyer has two nominations, and Mountain Xpress and Creative Loafing Charlotte came in with one each.
How did the Oscars fare in this time of Shock and Awe? J. Hoberman traces leftist Hollywood history, and decodes this year’s protest squiggle. He concludes that Michael Moore's speech, although booed, was not the evening's moment to remember. "There was no John Wayne on hand to shoot down the obstreperous Moore," he writes. Nor was it Adrien Brody's Al Gore-like smooch on Halle Barry. Instead the youngest Best Actor's heartfelt anti-war speech put the grace note on the 75th Oscars.
