Paul Waldie looks at some of the options for David Radler, recently granted parole, and finds the former right-hand man of Conrad Black can get back to what he does best -- milking tiny newspapers for every nickel.

From the Dec. 16 Globe and Mail:

Now that he has been released, Mr. Radler could go back to running his newspaper company, Alberta Newspaper Group. The Vancouver-based business owns a string of small papers in Alberta and elsewhere. He is still listed as president of the company, and yesterday a receptionist took messages for Mr. Radler.

It's not clear what other business interests Mr. Radler still has. Before going to jail, he owned an interest in other newspaper ventures, including Horizon Operations Ltd. He used to own that company with Lord Black, and they bought several papers from Hollinger International. Lord Black sold his stake in the business in 2006.

So how was prison for Mr. Radler?

While behind bars, he began work on a book and taught a course to fellow prisoners called "advanced business." The course included "a little business history, a little business psychology and a lot of Radler philosophy," he said in a letter to The Globe and Mail last July. The course probably had "the highest attendance on the compound," he wrote.

Overall, he said life in prison was "not totally unpleasant." He added that he received a fair bit of Canadian news while in the U.S. jail, including regular copies of Vancouver newspapers.