On Monday, as part of deal for a reduced sentence, Hans Reiser, the Bay Area Linux programmer convicted of killing his estranged wife Nina, led police to her shallow grave. Five days earlier, California journalist/author Stephen Elliot went to cellblock nine of the Santa Rita Jail looking to talk to Reiser for his current project, [...]
Stories in Shades of evil:
Duh
Craig Whitney, the NYT’s standards editor, sends an email telling the newsroom staff to avoid single-source profile stories in the wake of the Margaret Seltzer homegirl hoax because, um, well, people lie. “Live and learn,” Whitney concludes.
Live and learn?
You woulda thought the NYT would have learned that lesson a long time ago. It’s reporting 101. [...]
Slaughterhouse blues
In today’s LAT, Christopher D. Cook, the author of Diet for a Dead Planet, chews over the big beef recall and its dirty backstory. He writes:
Nauseating as it was, last week’s record-setting beef recall and the apparent feeding of meat from crippled “downer” cattle to our nation’s children and others should come as little surprise. [...]
Face number one in anti-government-spying video
People for the American Way included Kate and Val Cohen’s protest photos in their new video against illegal domestic spying by our government. Check it out! Then sign the petition against telco immunity today.
First Amendment front lines
The latest American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression newsletter details the battle over censorship of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s book, Fair Game, as well as the Bush Administration’s brakes on the Freedom of Information Act. “The administration is assaulting First Amendment rights on two fronts,” says ABFFE President Chris Finan. “On one hand, [...]
Score one for reader privacy
The AP reports:
Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), newly unsealed court records show.
The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.
“The (subpoena’s) chilling effect on [...]
Bookstore nazis
From BoingBoing: “The Harvard Coop bookstore had the police remove students who were writing down the ISBNs of textbooks, in defiance of the store’s ridiculous position that ISBNs are ‘property.’”
Amazon and animal cruelty
From The Elegant Variation: “Most of you are no doubt aware of the whole Michael Vick controversy. What you might not know is that, apparently, Amazon is the only online retailer that continues to offer animal fighting magazines and videos for sale…. We’ve written to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to advise him to reconsider [...]
Duh
Craig Whitney, the NYT’s standards editor, sends an email telling the newsroom staff to avoid single-source profile stories in the wake of the Margaret Seltzer homegirl hoax because, um, well, people lie. “Live and learn,” Whitney concludes.
Live and learn?
You woulda thought the NYT would have learned that lesson a long time ago. It’s reporting 101. [...]
Slaughterhouse blues
In today’s LAT, Christopher D. Cook, the author of Diet for a Dead Planet, chews over the big beef recall and its dirty backstory. He writes:
Nauseating as it was, last week’s record-setting beef recall and the apparent feeding of meat from crippled “downer” cattle to our nation’s children and others should come as little surprise. [...]
Face number one in anti-government-spying video
People for the American Way included Kate and Val Cohen’s protest photos in their new video against illegal domestic spying by our government. Check it out! Then sign the petition against telco immunity today.
First Amendment front lines
The latest American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression newsletter details the battle over censorship of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s book, Fair Game, as well as the Bush Administration’s brakes on the Freedom of Information Act. “The administration is assaulting First Amendment rights on two fronts,” says ABFFE President Chris Finan. “On one hand, [...]
Score one for reader privacy
The AP reports:
Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), newly unsealed court records show.
The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.
“The (subpoena’s) chilling effect on [...]
Bookstore nazis
From BoingBoing: “The Harvard Coop bookstore had the police remove students who were writing down the ISBNs of textbooks, in defiance of the store’s ridiculous position that ISBNs are ‘property.’”
Amazon and animal cruelty
From The Elegant Variation: “Most of you are no doubt aware of the whole Michael Vick controversy. What you might not know is that, apparently, Amazon is the only online retailer that continues to offer animal fighting magazines and videos for sale…. We’ve written to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to advise him to reconsider [...]
Meet the authors of the California Authors Directory. Visit the directory to discover writers like Christina Meldrum, a Bay Area attorney whose book Madapple was just released this month. “In debut novelist Christina Meldrum's mesmerizing literary mystery, 
You can shop online from your local independent booksellers. 
Reality check
Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks offers her read of Margaret Seltzer’s phony South Central memoir. She is offended. Puzzled, too. And she looks for answers at the scene of Selter’s lies.
Eso Won bookstore in South Los Angeles was supposed to host the author at a book-signing Friday night but canceled and sent the [...]
File under: Booksellers, Commentary, Debacle, Sad, Shades of evil