Lowe's Pulls Advertising from O'Reilly Show

Here's a little good news and positive reinforcement for your weekend; somebody emailed Lowe's complaining about them advertising on The O'Reilly Factor.
Lowe's response?
check it:

Replied On 07/27/07 15:41:09
Dear Lowe's Customer,
Thank you for your comments regarding the program, The O'Reilly Factor.
Lowe's has strict guidelines that govern the placement of our advertising. Our company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on a variety of cable outlets.
Lowe's constantly reviews advertising buys to make certain they are consistent with its policy guidelines. The O'Reilly Factor does not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines, and the company's advertising will no longer appear during the program.
We are dedicated to providing the best service, products, and shopping environment in the home improvement industry. All three of these are very important to our business, and our customers will always be our number one priority.
We appreciate your contacting us, and hope this information addresses your concerns.
Thank you,
Lowe's Customer Care

Ah, yes, my day just got a little brighter...

Denver Bookstore Cannot Be Forced to Name Buyer of Drug Manufacturing Books, Court Says

This is from 4.12.2002, but I thought it was cool and would compliment our Loompanics Collection. Of course, the original offense occurred prior to good 'ole Nine double one, so The U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act (did you know that's an acronym?) has kicked in with officious anti-terror. Just another reason for booksellers and librarians to destroy their records on a regular basis if you ask me. Or flat out refuse to fork them over to the F.B.I. Here's an interesting little update on that sort of shite.

One of the country's most prominent independent bookstores, the Tattered Cover in Denver, has scored a victory in a case pitting First Amendment freedoms against drug war law enforcement imperatives. In a Monday ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court held that police erred when they attempted to force the Tattered Cover to reveal the name of the person who ordered two books on drug manufacture found at the scene of a raided drug laboratory.

In the unanimous ruling, Colorado's highest court held that both the First Amendment and the Colorado constitution "protect an individual's right to purchase books anonymously, free from government interference." The ruling overturned a state appeals court decision that ordered the bookstore to comply with a police search warrant seeking the name of the book purchaser.

The case originated with a raid on a suburban Denver trailer home by the North Metro Drug Task Force in March 2000. Agents found a meth lab. Outside the trailer, agents also found a mailing envelope and invoice for the two books in question, "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture" by Uncle Fester and "The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Labs" by Jack B. Nimble, both published by Loompanics Unlimited, a Port Townsend, WA, publisher. But the invoice contained only the trailer's address, not the name of the book buyer. Police obtained a search warrant to force the Tattered Cover to reveal the name of the book buyer, but when bookstore owner Joyce Meskins refused to comply, authorities agreed not to serve the warrant until the courts had a chance to decide the issue.

Now, the state's ultimate court has decided, and booksellers' groups and civil libertarians are claiming a victory for privacy. "We think this is a very, very important decision because it is the strongest opinion on the issue of protecting customer privacy in bookstores that has come down so far," said Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, which provided financial support and wrote an amicus brief in the case.

"I think the decision will be upheld as the decision to go to when other courts confront this issue," Tattered Cover attorney Dan Recht told the Denver Post.

The case is the first of its kind to be decided by a state supreme court. Because the decision is based at least in part on provisions of the Colorado constitution, it cannot be threatened by federal court rulings.

Meskins told the New York Times the case had been demanding, but was worth the effort. "Two years is a long time to be working on this," said Meskins. "There is an implied understanding when an individual goes into a library or a bookstore with respect to the privacy of their reading material," she said.

The court agreed. "We hold that the city has failed to demonstrate that its need for this evidence is sufficiently compelling to outweigh the harmful effects of the search warrant," the court held. The ruling also referred repeatedly to the "chilling effect" of search warrants issued without prior hearings.

"Bookstores are places where a citizen can explore ideas, receive information, and discover the myriad perspectives on every topic imaginable," wrote the court. "When a person buys a book at a bookstore, he engages in activity protected by the First Amendment because he is exercising his right to read and receive ideas and information."

"Hooray," said Michael Hoy, owner of Loompanics. "I couldn't be happier with the court's ruling. If you allow that sort of thing to go on, then nobody will feel secure," he told DRCNet. "This is just another example of trying to use the war on drugs to erode our rights. If a cop can't make a case without subpoenaing a bookstore, then he doesn't have a case."

Uncle Fester and Jack B. Nimble were not available for comment.

Thanks www.stopthedrugwar.org!

The Dead Guy Buy

Thanks to my pops over at Earthlight Books for pointing this one out. Great piece!

by Jaime Frontero
#98, 2 July 2007

A Personal Essay

After 40-some years of doing this book stuff, I've come to understand certain immutable laws and progressions in the trade. There are many that are easily categorized, some that are more difficult, and a few that I still haven't quite put together - although I'm working on it.

One of the simplest to understand and recognize is the Dead Guy Buy. Whether you get your large book purchases from people bringing books into your store or get them by seeking out people with large caches to sell, the Dead Guy Buy is instantly recognizable and of only two major varieties.

By far the most common DGB - probably in the neighborhood of 90% of them - is the book accumulation put together by someone who had a normal, reasonably long life; and died from a well-known, hard-fought, and expected cause - cancer, for example. Typically, these buys are offered in dusty (and frequently basement-dampened) cardboard boxes, packed carefully and lovingly with crumpled newspapers dated from two to ten years before you see them. It's hard for the relatives who offer these books for sale to do so, and they almost always keep the books for several years. Books are such personal things that letting go of them is perceived as tantamount to letting go of the decedent. As you go through the boxes, you go through a life ... Read More...