The New York Observer today has a very moving article recognizng the two National Magazine Awards finalist nominations 5280 won last week for articles written by Maximillian Potter, executive editor of Denver's glossy city magazine, 5280. The awards are in the Reporting and Public Interest categories. It describes how Max went from being a New York writer to moving to Denver and writing for 5280.

Mr. Potter, 33, abandoned New York in 2003, after being chewed up by the magazine business. He had been fired as a GQ staff writer by newly installed editor Jim Nelson, then had seen a pair of major pieces commissioned and rejected by Men’s Journal and Rolling Stone. Those killed pieces ended up in 5280.

Max gives a lot of credit to 5280 publisher Dan Brogan. As I was reading Maxmillian describe Dan's support, I was nodding my head in agreement. I've been blogging daily for 5280 for several months now (here's last week's group of posts), and Dan and I confer by e-mail a few times each day and evening. He is as supportive as Maxmillian describes. He's also incredibly gracious. He has never refused to publish any of my posts, even the opinionated ones, and when criticism has come in about a few of them, he has reminded the critic that 5280 is a magazine and writers have opinions. If he edits my posts, it is with such a light touch that I don't notice. On the other hand, when I'm stuck looking for a word or pithy phrase, the kind that don't come naturally to lawyers, he's always got one ready when I ask.

I hope you will read Maximillian's articles. They are top-notch. My hat is off to him. The first is Conduct Unbecoming, about the rape trial of an Air Force cadet everyone assumed was guilty. From the Observer article linked above:

New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer has closed his office's investigation (WSJ, free link) of possible charity accounting malfeasance at radio host Don Imus's New Mexico ranch, which operates as a charity for sick children.

The Imus Ranch, a 4,000-acre ranch in northern New Mexico, is run by Mr. Imus and his wife, Deirdre, to help sick children by teaching them how to be cowboys and cowgirls. The ranch's expenses totaled $2.6 million last year, although the ranch hosts only about 100 children annually, mostly during the summer. Mr. Imus raises the funds through his radio and television broadcasts.

Mr. Imus's personal use of the ranch has drawn scrutiny from tax and charity officials. He and his wife and son stay at the ranch all summer to oversee the children's programs. He and his family also visit the ranch in the off-season, including during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, as well as occasional weekends, Mr. Imus said in the Journal article and reconfirmed on his show yesterday.

The last appeal was denied this morning in the Terri Schiavo case. Florida state Judge George Greer denied relief in this latest filing in which the parents presented an affidavit from a member of their lawyers' firm who says on the day the feeding tube was removed, Terri was asked to repeat the words "I want to live" if that's what she wanted, and she responded, "Ahhh" "waaaa".

Doctors have said Schiavo's past utterances were involuntary moans consistent with someone in a vegetative state.

The parents have said they will not go back to the federal courts. It's over.

Her death will now become a spectacle watched by the entire world. Already, there are sites taking bets as to the exact moment she will expire. Some express boredom or indifferrence - saying the story has outlived its newsworthiness.

The story clearly is making a lot of people uncomfortable. Why? I My view is that it a display of American voyeurism at its worst.

On the angle of the radical right's religious hysteria over the case, read Billmon and check out Jesus' General's Republican Jesus feature.

Randall Terry, anti-abortion activist and now Schindler family spokesman, has an unusual family background. CNN's Anderson Cooper reported tonight: (Transcript available on Lexis.com)

BAKHTIAR: It's been a long road for Randall Terry, who was once imprisoned for sending former President Bill Clinton an aborted fetus....His clinic crusade slowed after he was forced to settle a lawsuit with Planned Parenthood. He moved to Florida and campaigned against infidelity and birth control, gays and unwed mothers.

But a year ago, his expended agenda came under fire from his own devout Christian family, the children who once featured in TV ads.

...His son Jamiel came out as gay in a magazine article.

JAMIEL TERRY, RANDALL TERRY'S SON: In my family, it was you start having sex outside of marriage you get AIDS, you're a whore, your a slut, those are exact words. Yesterday he said to me I'm going to be at your funeral, you're going to die at 42.

BAKHTIAR: His teenage daughter Tila, said her father no longer welcomes her in his home.

Last week I wrote about the Internet radio channel, Rightalk.com, for two reasons.

One was that righty bloggers Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom and Bill Ardolino of INDC Journal , got their own show which debuts tomorrow at 3:00 pm ET. I will be a guest. So will Michelle Malkin, but not at the same time. The call-in number is 1-866-884-8355 (866-884-TALK.)

The Citizen Journalist Report (3pm EST)
Description: 2 broadcast amateurs ask personal questions of famous people they hardly know!
Host: [Bill Ardolino] [Jeff Goldstein]
Guest: [Michelle Malkin] [Jeralyn Merritt]

Personal questions? I had no idea.

Jeff, on the other hand says, "Topics: Who knows? Immigration? Michael Jackson? Fruit pies?"

If listening to rightalkers doesn't interest you, don't forget Air America and Radio Left.

The second reason I wrote about the station was that several talkleft readers had e-mailed me to tell me talkleft had been hijacked and redirected to rightalk.com. It turned out that these readers had incorrectly typed leftalk.com instead of talkeft.com. Rightalk apparently bought the domain name leftalk.com and redirected it to rightalk.com.

This is pretty amazing. Imagine you publish a book in Europe where you are protected by the laws of your own country, and that without your knowledge, it gets published in another, less free country. You may be summoned to court in that country, tried in abstentia and sentenced to jail. That's what's happening to Gerhard Haderer, an Austrian cartoonist.

Haderer published a 40-page book titled, The Life of Jesus. The book contained a cartoon of Jesus, depicting him as

...a binge-drinking friend of Jimi Hendrix and naked surfer high on cannabis.

Unbeknownst to him, the book was published in Greece. He found out when he received a summons to appear in court in Athens in January, having been charged with blasphemy.

Thanks to CNN's Inside Politics for mentioning TalkLeft during its blog segment today. I missed it but Crooks and Liars and reader Kitt sent me e-mails letting me know.

ABBI TATTON, CNN PRODUCER: Now, there's some discussion on the blogs, playing politics with this morning's ruling. Discussion of the federal Judge James Whittemore, who denied the request of the parents this morning to reinsert the feeding tube. Whittemore, as we heard earlier in this show, is a Clinton appointee and that is coming up a lot on the blogs.

Over at the right here, jacklewis.net, "Clinton nominated judge rules for death." Over to the other side, TalkLeft.com. This is a blog related to crime-related political and injustice news. Over at TalkLeft, they anticipated that this would be a theme and started looking into this judge's background, his published opinions, and says that his decisions do not show political partisanship or even liberal tendencies. So, trying to stave off some of the criticism from the right there.

Denver's Rocky Mountain News had an editorial yesterday calling for journalistic protection for bloggers.

Count us among the growing legions who embrace the notion that Web bloggers deserve the same shield-law protections accorded to other journalists.

The News finds the Apple case ominous:

The problems here are self-evident. First, of course, is that companies could hang the "trade secret" label on almost any material they didn't want published, including, for example, internal memos detailing everything from product flaws to accounting fraud. The media's responsibility is to publish accurate information of broad public interest, not protect the business interests of private corporations.

Second is [Judge] Kleinberg's suggestion that he is the best judge of what constitutes legitimate news. That is simply not true. In a free country, news is what consumers and journalists say it is.

31 states and the District of Columbia have journalistic shield laws that arguably cover bloggers. The feds, and Colorado, do not:

Bob Dylan's new tour opened in Seattle last week. Here's the schedule. Playing with him are Merle Haggard and the Strangers and Amos Lee.

The last time I saw Dylan play was in Chicago, in November, 2002. It was a spur of the moment thing, I was at a criminal defense lawyer's conference, and 15 of us got last minute tickets from a scalper and my seat was in the 2nd row, center. It was a good show, particularly because I could see that Dylan was enjoying himself.

He's playing Denver on March 28. This time, I'd like to interview him for TalkLeft. It's probably a pipe dream, but you never know. I remember that in 1998, I was doing one of many Rivera Live shows on CNBC about Ken Starr and the Clinton investigation. This night, we were talking about Starr's promised report. Lanny Davis and Salon's David Talbot were on too. (CNBC News Transcripts April 9, 1998, available on Lexis.com.)

• Lanny opined, "Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Armey and Mr. DeLay have already characterized the report as going to do damage on the president. They've already politicized the document. Mr. Starr, I believe, is a diminished asset as a credible, objective investigator of the truth, and therefore, I believe that report will have diminished value."

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has an interview with Jeff Gannon. This exchange told me all I needed to know, I didn't bother with the rest.

Scott McClellan, the press secretary to President Bush, called on you and allowed you to ask questions on a nearly daily basis. What, exactly, is your relationship with him?

I was just another guy in the press room. Did I try to curry favor with him? Sure. When he got married, I left a wedding card for him in the press office. People are saying this proves there is some link. But as Einstein said, "Sometimes a wedding card is just a wedding card.''

You mean like "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar''? That wasn't Einstein. That was Freud.

Oh, Freud. O.K. I got my old Jewish men confused.

Ok, I looked at one more snippet. Gannon looks to the future and says:

by TChris

The Bush administration has no business disguising propaganda as news, but publicity surrounding the administration's effort to manipulate local news coverage may have sent a wake up call to local broadcasters.

With the abundance of independent sources for video feed -- all three major networks, CNN and the Associated Press have wire services that supply national news to local stations -- there is no excuse for airing government-sponsored news stories, television officials said.

According to Jim Morris, news director at WABI in Bangor, the lack of reporters and resources at small stations is a "lame excuse for airing government-sponsored news packages" -- particulary when the station neglects to inform the viewer that the piece was created by the government, not by the station's news department.

Nighttime cable news viewers can let out a great sigh of relief tonight. Larry King has signed a contract with CNN for four more years. Four more years before Nancy Grace replaces him.