I’d like to start out this Friday Note with a special go to hell shoutout to whichever sad soul on the planet it was that decided to use spoofed blacknell.net return addresses for what must have been an *enormous* batch of spam. Starting late Sunday night, I’ve been getting thousands upon thousands of bounce/spam filter messages, through which I have to sift to find my own mail. I’ve found most of it. I think. But anyway – die in a fire, please. And if anyone reading this is wondering why I ignored your email this week, this is probably why.
~
Steve Thurston’s most excellent hyperlocal blog The BuckinghamHeraldTrib is going on hiatus for the summer. He’s been turning out a quality site for a while now, and I can’t imagine how much time that must have been taking. A big loss to the rest of us, but we all need breaks sometime. Thanks, Steve, and I look forward to seeing it pick back up in the fall. In the meantime, if any of you have ever been tempted to keep a blog focused on your own community, go over and check out what Steve’s done.
~
Bruce Schneier, as usual, nails it. This time it’s about “The War on Photography“:
Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.
Yep.
~
The 1979 published Disco Handbook is now free for all to partake in its wisdom. From the glossary:
Camp. An ever-changing measure of hipness. Something so bad it’s funny is camp, but something that tries to hard to be funny and fails, is not. Going to camp is not camp, but reliving your camp experiences can be. Camping, as an activity, isn’t camp at all.
~
And while we’re talking about amusing, newish cooking blog Veggin‘ explains the vegans’ reaction to the news that Canadian KFC’s will soon be offering a vegan option on its menu.
~
Finally, good luck to Gwadzilla and all the other DC locals heading out to race at Big Bear this weekend. Wish I could be there.