Steve Tucker served a 10-year prison sentence for selling light bulbs. Nearly a decade ago, he, his brother and his sister-in-law were sent to prison in a once-infamous federal drug case that sparked national outrage for its rough interpretation of justice, Scott Henry writes in Creative Loafing (Atlanta). "Watch out, you're talking to a notorious ex-con," Tucker says to Henry. His saga and the fate of his brother testify to the human tragedies that are the real product of the War on Drugs.
Ida Ford comes to Cleveland Scene as classified advertising director from the Plain Dealer, where she directed inside and outside sales units for both real estate and recruitment advertising. Scene Publisher Ramon Larkin says her experience in these two vital areas, as well as her community and professional contacts, will be "a great contribution."
Two of the advertising industry's most respected forecasters predict ad sales will rebound in 2003. Robert J. Coen and John Perriss agree the improvement will accelerate in 2004 with a presidential election and the Olympic Games, Stuart Elliott reports in The New York Times. The two analysts made their forecasts at the opening session of the 30th annual UBS Warburg Media Week Conference in New York. To see a PDF file of Coen's report, click here.
Gambit Weekly has used AAN's marketing materials to create a whole line of customized sales collaterals, and the payoff has been new sales, Ad Director Sandy Stein tells AAN News. "We loved it the minute we saw it," Stein says, describing the materials as sleek and beautiful. "The best thing for me is we're all slammed all the time, and there's no use to reinvent the wheel," she says.
In a case involving jurisdiction in Internet publication cases, an Australian court has ruled that Dow Jones cannot have a defamation case moved to the United States. Dow Jones had argued that the Barron's story in question was published in the United States and only downloaded in Australia. AAN has joined other news organizations in filing an amicus brief supporting Dow Jones' position, arguing such jurisdictional issues would have a chilling effect on Web publishing.
There isn't a college in the country that wouldn't mind having St. Louis schoolboy prodigy Kalen Grimes as its starting power forward in two years, Mike Seely writes in Riverfront Times. "But wooing prep hoop talent these days is a lot like courting a potential sweetie-pie. If you remember the orchid and box of chocolates on date one, you might flip skins by night's end. Show up all by your lonesome with only the merits of your program and a beat-up Ford Taurus, and you'll end up sharing a bed with the January issue of Hustler and a squeeze bottle of hand lotion," Seely says.
Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger and author of the syndicated sex column "Savage Love," goes home to Chicago, where Chicago Tribune arts critic Sid Smith catches up with him. "How did this North Side Catholic boy, the son of a Chicago homicide cop, become America's down-and-dirty (and gay) sex columnist -- and, now, defender of the Left?" Smith asks, and then provides some answers.
The Coast Guard and INS are being pumped up to fit into the Department of Homeland Security. Under the new bureaucracy, created by a bill Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., called a "hoax," the policing half of the INS "is bulking up like a football player in training, while the clerkish services division is shunted aside and told to make do with what it already has," writes Traci Rae Hukill of Monterey County Coast Weekly. "It's a case of enlargement of the enforcement gland. "
