GuysBlog

John Perry Barlow

• was graduated from Wesleyan U. in 1969 with High Honors in comparative religion.
• owned and operated a large cattle ranch in WY for 17 years.
• wrote songs for the Grateful Dead from ‘70 to ‘95.
• co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is its Vice-Chair.
• has been a Berkman Fellow at the Harvard Law School Berkman Center for Internet & Society since ‘98.
• was busted at San Francisco Airport in September, 2003 and has finally gone public with a statement about his experiences with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (and its local contractor, Covenant Aviation Security) vs the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The defendant’s checked baggage alarmed as it passed through an explosive detection system. As a result, TSA contract screener _____ conducted a hand search of the luggage to resolve the alarm. During the course of the additional screening of the defendant’s luggage, batteries, wires, and Ibuprofen bottle were discovered.  Upon further inspection of the items, marijuana was found in the Ibuprofen bottle.

Dan Gillmor, the technology columnist of the San Jose Mercury News and author of We the Media (O’Reilly)  is leaving his position at the end of the month/year to work on "a citizen-journalism project."  It’s not yet clear where he will continue his blogging, so watch for further info.  We’ll be watching and blogging, Dan.

The Snopes urban legends site has a roundup of Christmas Mondegreens. [Of course, first they explain that a mondegreen is a misheard song lyric.]

Indeed, some folks apparently hear Christmas songs and carols with somewhat different words than the authors and performers intended. Old favorites, like:

While shepherds washed their socks at night

and

Police car ahead…

and

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Barney’s the King of Israel.

and

Get dressed ye married gentlemen…

"Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Year 2004 …

Based on your online lookups, the #1 Word of the Year for 2004 was
Blog  noun, [short for Weblog] …."