BAD TIMES
5 years ago
May 16, 2003 | Dan Kennedy called for “tougher standards” in journalism in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal.
“Yet by purging Blair, it would be wrong to think that all is now well at the Times, or in journalism. Tougher standards are needed. We all deserve better. I was struck by a comment that Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center.

Just yesterday we got a weird email from Zebbler, a/k/a Peter Berdovsky, whom you will perhaps remember as the naked hippie/video artist responsible for last year's terrorista art uprising Cartoon Channel-funded movie stunt that had Boston's Finest mistaking lite-brite boards for IEDs. The email mentioned that a) hey, it's the one year anniversary of Mooninite Madness! (TM), and b) Zebbler is still broke.

TOUGH LOVE
5 years ago
January 31, 2003 | Michael Bronski remembered the tough-as-nails, gay journalist Sarah Pettit.
“I DON’T KNOW that I’d say I enjoyed working with Sarah Pettit. One of my first dealings with her was in 1993, when she was the arts editor for Out magazine. She called me on a Monday to ask for revisions on a piece I’d written.

"Gee, too bad the article isn't as good as the illustration." Illustrators have heard this from editors since the first stick scratched in the dirt. Boston-area commercial artist and graphic-novel illustrator John Garcia routinely equaled or out shown his collaborators.

He died a few days ago.

Holday cheer!

CBS is rolling out the super sexiest/weirdest Chistmas/Holiday(??) schedule ever (see below). A Ricky-Martin-meets-Rudolph-under-the-push-up-bra sort of thing...

A spinning spiral of pouty models, The Bumble, and The Island of Misfit Toys. Who looks better in faux fur? Who is Heidi? Who is Seal? Are they characters? Are they real? Are they Santa's TV elves? Haphazardly scheduled bring us holiday cheer and loathing.

From the inbox:

"We pass over most lines that are presented to us, but we stocked Art Terror by local artist/MassArt grad Gordon Riker immediately because of it's distinctive and intelligent designs. He was killed this year in a bike accident at age 22. I got together with his brother Andrew (he runs local dance party Paper) and Project SF, and hung Gordon's last works and painted a tribute mural.