but what can I do?” she told me.Her idea of hardball was gettingin IPA’s face and making it feelguilty. “I typed up a three-pageletter basically explaining why weneed this payment so badly,” shesaid. “We’re basically on deadlinenow. We have to ship the nextissue to the printer next week.Without the payment, we may notbe able to. So I wrote the letter to15 people or so, including employ-ees of IPA, the board of directorsat IPA, and also employees atBigTop.” (BigTop was recentlyrenamed Indy Press, but no onecalls it that yet.)

Schroeder’s check arrived onHalloween. It covered newsstandsales for the spring issue andallowed her to print the winterissue. She’s still owed for the sum-mer and fall issues, but she wasn’texpecting that money yet anyway.

Distribution is a miserable thingfor a publisher to deal with.Revenues from the nation’s salesracks flow slowly to big magazinesand more slowly to the zines.BigTop represents about 90 ofIPA’s 500 member titles, giving

4 CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 4, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Hot Type

By Michael Miner

A couple of local zines,Punk Planet and Venus,got really bad news a few

days ago. It came in an e-mailfrom Richard Landry, executivedirector of the IndependentPress Association, the nationaltrade alliance they belong to. Hewrote that IPA’s distributionarm, BigTop Newsstand Services,was having “cash-flow problems”that weren’t close to beingsolved. IPA had some ideas abouthow to fix things, but “thisprocess is taking much longerthan any of us would like.”

Zines like Punk Planet andVenus live hand to mouth.Newsstand revenues from oneissue pay for the next. These rev-enues are always slow to reachthe publishers, and Landry waswarning that the wait would geteven longer. In the past IPA hasborrowed from itself to pay itspublishers in something approxi-mating a timely fashion, but“about a year ago our boardagreed that this was not a sus-tainable approach for our organ-ization to continue to take.”

Amy Schroeder, editor andpublisher of Venus, which shestarted in a Michigan State dormroom 11 years ago, says 80 per-cent of her revenues come fromnewsstand sales. “We were sup-posed to receive our last paymenton September 15, and we stillhaven’t received it,” she told meafter hearing from Landry. “Thecheck is really substantial [highfour figures], so around thattime I started making phonecalls asking where it was. Theysaid, ‘Next week. Next week.’”

IPA now concedes it shouldhave admitted BigTop’s troubleslast spring, but it naively hopedto fix them over the summer.According to Schroeder, meredays before she got Landry’sOctober 19 e-mail someone final-ly leveled with her: BigTop didn’tknow when she’d be paid.

“I have to play hardball now,

them all a louder voice. It collectsrevenues from the distributorsand sends them back to theclients, and when the wait’s beenlonger than a client can tolerateit’s advanced the money from IPA’sfunds. But in the past two yearsthe number of copies BigTop isresponsible for has roughlytripled. That volume drove up col-lectible revenues to a point whereBigTop could no longer pay offclients the old way—by advancingthem IPA’s money.

IPA hopes that one day it’ll bebig enough to demand betterterms from the distributors. “Butin the meantime we’ve startedfund-raising,” says treasurerCheryl Woodard. “What we reallywant is a line of credit, or outrightgrants from foundations to giveus a cushion.” She says severalfoundations dote on IPA becausethey value the independent pressas an alternative to media con-glomerates. Even so, creating thatcushion—a revolving fund to sup-port the loans—hasn’t been easy.Woodard says IPA needs $1 mil-lion it doesn’t have now.

“Nobody’s choking at that numberor turning us down, but it takes awhile to raise it. It can take years.”

She says IPA got serious aboutraising the money a year ago,which was a year after it recog-nized the problem. “The boardthought that by early summerwe’d have at least some of thatmoney in hand. And actually wedo have some in hand, but not allof it. The misery that publishersare feeling is real and it’s justi-fied. If you’re the one that’s goingunder, there’s nothing I can saythat will change that for you.”

In These Times is the best-known Chicago magazine to dis-tribute through BigTop, but pub-lisher Tracy Van Slyke says itsnewsstand revenues aren’t criti-cal to the operation. Besides, atthe moment In These Times isrepaying a loan from IPA by let-ting it keep what BigTop collects.

Punk Planet is another story.Publisher Dan Sinker signed upwith BigTop early this year withthe understanding that news-stand revenues would start arriv-ing late in the year, so he hadn’t

“The problem isthere aren’t otheroptions,” saysSinker. “BigTop isthe last distributorthat specializes in the small inde-pendent press.”

YVET

TE M

ARI

E D

OS T

ATN

I

The Death of Indie Distro?It used to take months for Punk Planet and Venus to get a check from their distributor.Those were the good old days.

hottype@chicagoreader.comwww.chicagoreader.com/hottype

Amy Schroeder at Venus, Dan Sinker and Anne Elizabeth Moore at Punk Planet

CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 4, 2005 | SECTION ONE 5

Comments, questions? Take it up with Cecil on the Straight Dope Message Board, www.straightdope.com, or write him at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611. Cecil’s most recent compendium of knowledge, Triumph of the Straight Dope, is available at bookstores everywhere.

The Straight Dope®by Cecil Adams

T he truth in this case is a tallorder. But maybe I can lendmatters a little focus.A few clarifications. First, we’re

not talking about violating the rights ofworkers in Latin America in general, butspecifically in Colombia. What with drugtraffickers, left-wing guerrillas, and right-wing death squads, life in Colombia isn’teasy, particularly for union members—byone count something like 2,100 have beenmurdered since 1991. The killers arethought to be rightist paramilitaries, butfew have been prosecuted for the crimes.

Second, detailed allegations have beenmade not about multiple murders but onemurder, specifically that of Isidro Gil, aunion leader who was gunned down onDecember 5, 1996, at the entrance to aCoca-Cola plant in the Colombian town ofCarepa. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. federalcourt in 2001, Gil’s union claimed thatbefore the murder the plant managersocialized with paramilitaries andannounced publicly that he had told themto destroy the union. After the murder theother members of Gil’s local either quitthe union or left town, allegedly afterparamilitaries entered the plant and toldthem to resign or else. The suit mentionsseveral additional killings circumstantiallytied to Coke, but information on them issketchy and I won’t take them up here.Various other charges have been laidagainst Coke elsewhere; to keep this man-ageable, though, we’ll stick to murder.

Third, notwithstanding the impressionyou may get from slogans like “Stop KillerCoke,” no one seriously contends that theCoca-Cola company of Atlanta, Georgia,orchestrated the murder of Isidro Gil orother union members. Coke bottlingplants in Colombia, as in most of theworld, are independently owned and oper-ated. The argument essentially is thatCarepa plant management called in goonsand that Coke HQ, or at any rate its whollyowned Colombian subsidiary, had advancewarning but did nothing to prevent theviolence.

Is it true? You got me, compadre. Some

basic points are in dis-pute. For example,a key allegationin the 2001 law-suit is that onSeptember 27,1996, more thantwo monthsbefore the mur-der, the nationaloffice of Mr. Gil’sunion sent a letterto the Carepa bot-tling plant manageraccusing him of“working withthe paramili-taries todestroy theunion” anddemandingsecurity forthe workers. Acopy of this letterwas allegedly sent to Coke’s Colombiaoffice. When I asked the Coke people inAtlanta about it, they sent me a copy of aSeptember 30 letter from the Carepaunion local to the national office askingthat the September 27 letter be retracted,saying that the local was “unaware of anyrelationship that the Manager may havewith the Paramilitary groups.” A lawyerfor the union suggests that a faction with-in the local may have been afraid ofantagonizing the manager.

Events after the murder are no clear-er. Coke says two separate judicialinquiries, one by a Colombian court andthe other by the Colombian prosecutorgeneral, “found no evidence . . . that bot-tler management conspired in or encour-aged the murder.” The court finding thatCoke has made available online doesstate, “Nowhere has it been establishedthat any Company executive ever played arole in violating [workers’] rights.”However, the ruling doesn’t mention theGil murder but rather addresses a relatedcase. A Coke lawyer says he has read theprosecutor general’s decision and that itspecifically discusses the Gil case and

absolves the bottling company of blame.No one has been able to supply me with acopy of this decision, though, and it’simpossible to say how thoroughly thematter was investigated. The union’slawyers say there was no investigationand no one was ever charged with Gil’smurder.

In 2003 a U.S. federal judge threw outall charges against Coke and its Colombiansubsidiary on the grounds that they didn’tcontrol the Carepa plant. Pending a reso-lution of the remaining charges againstlocal bottler management, the Colombiansare taking their case to the public. U.S.labor organizations and activists have ral-lied to the cause, among other thingsorganizing a Coke boycott on college cam-puses in North America and Europe. In2004 Coke general counsel Deval Patrickresigned, reportedly because Coke’s thenCEO nixed his plan to send an independ-ent fact-finding mission to Colombia. Cokenow has a new CEO and is considering afresh inquiry into its Colombian laborpractices. A question not on the table, butwhich I think is still pertinent, is: Who hadIsidro Gil killed?

Is there any basis to accusations of Coca-Cola’s having tortured,killed, or otherwise violated the human rights of workers in LatinAmerica? I am a student in college and have heard much mentionof these supposed “facts.” I am not sure what to make of them, andam wondering if you could reveal the truth. —Yeh Kahn Yiin, via e-mail

SLU

G SI

GNO

RIN

O

been worried. Landry’s e-mailmade him desolate.

He wrote Landry back, “When Ireceived your e-mail last night myfirst thought was ‘This is the blowthat kills us.’ Independent pub-lishing is a shoestring business. Ifone of those strings breaks, every-thing comes tumbling down. Ifour payments from BigTop aredelayed by any significant amountof time (and by that I meanmonths, possibly even just weeks)we will be put out of business. Iknow others are in the sameboat. . . . I find it ironic that for thefirst time in twelve years I findmyself staring the end directly inthe face and it’s being broughtabout by the very organizationthat was originally put in place tosupport the independent press.”

“The problem is there aren’tother options,” says Sinker.“BigTop is the last distributorthat specializes in the small inde-pendent press. So do you go to abig national distributor, whodoesn’t understand what you doand doesn’t understand whyyou’d want to sell 15,000 copiesinstead of hundreds of thousandsor millions? And those distribu-tors have even more arduouspayment terms than BigTop has.”

When Sinker pulled himselftogether, he and associate publish-er Anne Elizabeth Moore wrote ane-mail asking for help: “An imme-diate influx of cash will allow us topay off back debts—to contribu-tors, printers, web hosts, etc—andbetter enable us to weather anycoming storm caused by nonpay-ment from our distributor.” Mooresays, “We pretty much sent copiesto anyone we had ever heard of ormet in our entire lives and askedthem to send it to everyone theyhad ever heard of or met.”

It’s worked. “We’ve been prettyoverwhelmed with the amount ofsupport,” says Sinker. “We proba-

bly cut our overall debt in half. Itwas in the $16,000 range, whichfor a big business is a roundingerror and is for us a significantamount of money. It’s given us alittle more breathing room.”

More power to them, saysWoodard. “Yeah, I’d encouragepublishers to find other sourcesof cash,” she says. “I know howhard that is—I consult for start-up magazines. But I also knowthat it doesn’t work to think, ‘I’llget paid from the March issue intime to pay the printer for mySeptember issue.’”

Preaching tothe PreachersPlenty of people preach that wordsare cheap and the act is all, but it’san odd message from a writer. Yethere’s syndicated columnist VictorDavis Hanson in the October 28Tribune: “To paraphrase theancient Greeks, it is easy to bemoral in your sleep. Abstractethics or soapbox lecturesdemanding superhuman perfec-tion mean little without deeds.”

Hanson was sneering atAmnesty International and other“global humanitarian groups” forfretting over the trial of SaddamHussein. “Now these globalwatchdogs are barking aboutlegalities—once Hussein is inshackles thanks solely to theAmerican military,” he wrote.“The new Iraqi government issanctioned by vote and attunedto global public opinion. SaddamHussein was neither. So AmnestyInternational can safely chastisethe former for supposed misde-meanors after it did little con-crete about the real felonies ofthe latter.”continued on page 6

Baghdad had accomplishednothing, it had decided “to putits grave human rights concernsin Iraq on public record.”

An “urgent action” bulletin inNovember 2000 reported that“up to 50 women accused ofbeing prostitutes and menaccused of procurement havereportedly been publiclybeheaded” by a paramilitarygroup controlled by Saddam’sson Uday. Fearing “that scoresof women may be arrested andexecuted as suspected prosti-tutes,” Amnesty urged anyonewho cared to “send telegrams/telexes/faxes/express/airmailletters in English, Arabic oryour own language” to SaddamHussein. In April 2001 it listedby name eight political oppo-

6 CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 4, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Hot Type

nents Saddam had recently exe-cuted. That August there wasanother long report, this onetitled “Systematic torture ofpolitical prisoners.”

Mere words failed. InSeptember 2002 Amnesty con-ceded that Western governmentshad “turned a blind eye toAmnesty International reports ofwidespread human rights viola-tions in Iraq during the Iran-Iraqwar, and ignored AmnestyInternational’s campaign onbehalf of the thousands ofunarmed Kurdish civilians killedin the 1988 attacks on Halabja.”Yet with war finally in the air,Amnesty protested thatPresident Bush was makingselective use of its reports “tolegitimize military actions.” This

bothered Amnesty, though some-one like Hanson must have won-dered what the problem was.

The idea that the only way tospeak truth to power is with agun—Hanson’s phrase for thealternative is “abstract moraliz-ing”—has a long history. If hewants to give Amnesty no pointsfor trying it’s his right. But therehe is, someone full of contemptfor mere lecturers, lecturing.

News BiteaFour years ago DeborahLoeser Small hired Pat Colanderto work for, then run, Lakemagazine, a slick chronicle she’dcreated for the Small

continued from page 5

It’s true. Amnesty’s dozens ofreports on Iraq were only words.In April 1998, for instance, itprotested “a wave of expulsionstargeting 1,468 Kurdish families”and announced that it had writ-ten the Iraqi government“expressing concern.” InNovember 1999 it issued a longreport, “Victims of SystematicRepression,” that began, “Grosshuman rights violations are sys-tematically taking place in Iraq.They range from arbitrary arrestand detention to torture, extraju-dicial and judicial executionsafter unfair summary trials, ‘dis-appearances,’ and forcible expul-sions on the basis of ethnic ori-gin.” Amnesty explained thatsince its frequent letters to

Newspaper Group that’s a who’swho and what’s where in week-end-cottage country. Last Julyshe was hired away by the Timesof northwest Indiana, whereshe’d once worked, to run itsniche-products division, andnow she’s launching Lake’s newcompetition, a slick magazinecalled Shore.

Colander left Lake suddenly andtook several writers and editorswith her. But Lake kept going, andthis week the Small NewspaperGroup announced that it hadhired a new editor, Miriam Carey,founding editor of Long Weekendsmagazine in Ohio. Colander saysshe and Deborah Loeser Smallhad different visions. Colandersays, “I wanted to be a regionalVanity Fair.” v

CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 4, 2005 | SECTION ONE 7