The Chicago Sun Times' new youth-oriented tabloid Red Streak hit the streets today opposite the Chicago Tribune's RedEye. "Both papers featured slick designs and a paucity of original content," Jeremy Mullman writes in Crain's Chicago Business. Both tabloids launched Web sites today as well.
"Sometimes, dressing like a woman can make a guy feel even more like a man." Chris Wright speaks from experience, having enlisted the services of Veronica Vera, the best cross-dressing coach in the business. Wright describes his night on the town in the Boston Phoenix. "In the space of an hour or so, I had my breasts prodded, twiddled, tweaked, squeezed, cupped, and, finally, patted."
Jeannette Batz's story, “The Right to Answers,” was a finalist in the inaugural Awards for Reporting on the Environment by the Society of Environmental Journalists. Batz’s feature examined whether toxic pollution caused the death of infants in the St. Louis suburbs.
Taylor Mead, an writer, artist and actor with more than 100 movie credits, lives in a two-room, tub in kitchen apartment piled with stuff and crawling with roaches. The 77-year-old artist's eviction date has come and gone, and the "hardcore boho" is a little worried, C. Carr writes in The Village Voice. "This is not just someone with a total disregard for ordinary comfort, but someone with a complete inability to make a life outside of impulse and the aesthetic that springs from impulse," Carr writes.
Saddam Hussein may no longer be enemy No. 1. With pressure building around the world and at the United Nations against an invasion, George Bush seems to be examining alternatives, however reluctantly. LA Weekly's Celeste Fremon hangs out with L.A.’s Iraqi community; Bruce Shapiro examines the reasons why the war in Iraq may never happen; David Corn sheds light on the new CIA report that details greater dangers than Saddam; and Christopher Layne gives the conservative case against the war.
The Ohio weekly has changed its name to simply Alive and is now "the music, art and culture paper of Columbus," Publisher Sally Crane writes in an Oct. 17 editorial. Saying the paper was "stuck in a rut," Crane says Alive will quench those who "were thirsting for more of what they find relevant to their lives" -- and that's more on the arts, music and culture scenes "with tips and top picks in each category." Crane says it's hard for her, a former investigative reporter, to admit, but the paper was taking itself "a little too seriously."
