InkBlots

Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose makes regular trips to Picayune, MS. He pontificated recently about the post-Katrina influx of new residents who relocated after the storm. Seems now the times are changing, and the new residents could serve as a swing vote in an upcoming referendum to allow liquor sales in the city and beer sales in Pearl River County. Rose also supposes someone new in town will also eventually have a problem with the Jesus is Lord over Picayune billboard at the town’s entrance.

Former Louisville Mayor Louis Taunton died recently. He was 65. An Army veteran and career educator, Taunton was an avid geneaologist and regular columnist for the Winston County Journal. Publisher Joseph McCain paid tribute to the mayor in an op-ed piece.

The Greenwood Commonwealth is dealing with a rash of stolen newsracks, nearly 16 in the past three months. Authorities found five the racks earlier this week. The paper is offering a $1,000 reward in the case.

“Boy, there are two businesses I wouldn’t put money into right now — newspapers and TV stations. There’s just too many other ways to get news.”

That’s numbers guru Alan Wurtzel talking in a recent edition of National Review. Ironically, he’s a TV guy, heading up NBC’s research division.

Charlie Mitchell, who has been pontificating now for 20 years on the op-ed pages of The Vicksburg Post and other state newspapers, recently lamented the passing of copyright law in the U.S., which he declared as dead as Hammurabi and his code.

(If you need a refresher on your ancient Babylonian references, you may find it here.)

No doubt there were plenty of conversations at the Lake County News-Sun in Waukegan, Ill. about “ripping the band-aid off all at one” in terms of shock to readers. The 22,000 daily recent converted from a afternoon broadsheet to a morning “compact” (read that: tabloid) and did so less than two months after the arrival of a new publisher.

John McCusker, a photographer for New Orlean’s Times-Picayune was arrested last week after he begged cops to shoot him. E&P reports McCusker was despondent after realizing insurance payments would not be enough to rebuild his home after hurricane Katrina.

A couple of days after the incident, McCusker was being held for psychiatric evaluation and more than $9,000 had been raised on his behalf by Friends of the Times-Picayune, a philanthropic effort founded last year to benefit staffers who were victims of the massive storm.

In an unrelated incident, a 27-year-old Baton Rouge-based sportswriter for the paper was busted in a teen internet sex sting. William Kalec was arrested last Wednesday in Kenner, La. He faces a mandatory two years in prison if convicted.

Sam Hall, former publisher of the Scott County Times and, before that, the Houston Times Post, has escaped the PR office of the Mississippi Democratic Party where he had toiled for the past year as communications director. He’s taken the job of publisher at Boone Newspaper’s Demopolis Times in Alabama. Read about Sam’s efforts to escape the revolving door at his new headquarters.

The Daily Times Leader in West Point has a new general manager. Pete Sanders, a veteran print and radio man, took the job last week. The Times Leader is a five-day morning daily with a circulation of about 4,000…Lovell Beaulieu has been named opinion page editor of The Hattiesburg American. He comes to the paper from Gary, Id…Ole Miss alum Mary Irby-Jones has been named business editor of the Dayton Daily News.

The Evening Times‘ building in West Memphis burned to the ground Sunday morning. The newspaper, with a circulation of nearly 8,000, lost everything, including its printing presses. The staff will relocate to a sister newspaper in Marion. Monday’s edition was to be printed by the Daily News in Memphis.