"I'm surprised that some people think that artists shouldn't write criticism," says Phoenix classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz, who last week faced questions about his ethics from the Boston Globe because an orchestra he covers was setting his poetry to music. "I can't believe that there is anything wrong with anyone, let alone a teacher and artist who also happens to be a critic, taking part in a worthy educational enterprise such as this one, a modest effort to further the education of a handful of young classical musicians," says the Pulitzer-winning critic. "It's a sad state of affairs that anyone thinks this service to a new generation of composers and musicians compromises my standing as a critic."
California recently joined 10 other states in compelling Anheuser Busch to stop selling caffeine-spiked beer products like Tilt and Bud Extra. "The watchdogs might have saved steps by looking up a 2000 SF Weekly satire column, which facetiously predicted the introduction of an 'energy beer' that would be viewed as a public menace, and run into trouble with the law," columnist Matt Smith notes. The satire was part of a regular dot-com-boom-era feature called "South to the Future," in which the writers Becky Bond and Jose Marquez "concocted made-up news stories about improbable, absurd, yet somehow believable technological advances." Energy beer was one of those advances, and as Smith points out, "eight years later, the Bond and Marquez column reads like current news."
A couple of weeks ago the Portland alt-weekly broke the news that former Oregon GOP boss Craig Berkman has been giving generously to Republicans -- including Sen. John McCain -- despite claiming to be millions of dollars in debt. On Wednesday, the Washington Post turned its attention to Berkman and expanded upon the story. The McCain campaign tells the Post that they've donated Berkman's money to charity and will urge the RNC to do the same, but that doesn't placate some Berkman critics. "He used political donations and the doors those opened to build a web like a spider," says Jordan Schnitzer, the head of an Oregon investment firm who says Berkman duped him. "Someone should ask John McCain, 'With all these folks in your campaign, you couldn't put his name into Google?'"
"A month ago we were enemies, hunkered down in bunkers and trying to will each other into starvation or surrender; today, we share the same fax machine and make small talk in the elevators," Frank Lewis says of the now-merged Cleveland Free Times and Scene. "And between deadlines and the seemingly endless details inherent in merging two operations -- packing and unpacking, integrating computer systems, finding the goddamn coffee -- there's just been no time to nurse grudges." He adds: "What matters most now is figuring out what to do with this rare opportunity -- in the Rust Belt, at least -- to leave behind the hand-to-mouth, week-to-week existence, the paranoia and bitterness, and figure out how to make the most of a more stable future."
In a Q&A with The New Yorker's Cartoon Lounge blog, Flake, whose "Lulu Eightball" strip appears in many AAN papers and who also does spot illustrations for alts, says that, yes, Emily Flake is her real name. "All too real, my friend, all too real," she says. When asked to describe her typical day, she does thusly: "Drawing, pen chewing, staring into space, brooding, looking at websites of superior illustrators and dying a little inside, losing at computer solitaire, some more drawing, venturing out for coffee, seeing if a cigarette helps things along (things being 'ideas,' not 'fatal diseases,' God willing), some desultory fumblings at the Y, some more drawing and staring, dinner, lots of knitting, staring at the ceiling, merciful sleep."
In an effort to "help the planet survive," the paper's editorial team is now on a 10-hour-day, four-day work week, with one of those days a work-at-home or work-in-the-field day. Editor D. Brian Burghart notes that "this should enable editorial to cut about 40 percent of our fuel costs and carbon emissions." Office hours won't change for the business end of the newspaper.
Senate Majority Leader Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has included the Free Flow of Information Act on a list of legislation he hopes to complete before the August recess, Politico reports. The bill passed the House and Senate Judiciary Committee late last year. But with the Bush administration's opposition to the federal shield law, the bill still faces an uphill climb, as many federal agencies have fallen in line and written letters opposing the legislation. According to Politico, a major point of contention in the Senate regarding the Shield Law is how it defines "journalist" -- some senators are concerned that the definition remains too broad.
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