Sure, disrupt the dealers, but it does no good if you fail to wean the addicts (or, in fact, instead encourage them).

Benedict Cumberbatch Goes to War: Celebrity and Diplomacy

Great assessment.

Cumberbatch may be dreamy, clever goodness, but he's also an army of payroll for a carefully projected persona with a skyrocketing career made possible in part by the same folks he faults. Meh, why can't we all do like Damon?

The failure Cumberbatch perceives isn’t one of supply but demand. The star should have raged at his fans directly, not at his photographers. What if instead of chastising the paparazzi, he had written “Go look at Egypt.”

Benedict Cumberbatch might have reflected on his own experience as one of the most photographed individuals in the world. He has become an image himself. Photographs circulate endlessly of him at work and at play, in public and in private. Does his overexposure mean those who have seen his image know him or understand him?

Consider again his handwritten plea over the weekend: “Go photograph Egypt and show the world something important.” If he had spared the paparazzi his scorn and skewered his fans with the imperative to go look at Egypt, what would they see? What are we to make of the images so perilously obtained by photojournalists embedded in these protests?

I know it seems like I'm always posting about wife-beaters and sexual predators when it comes to privacy and civil rights, so let me say again, for real, it's not because of sympathy.

As a society, we knee-jerk when it comes to anything about these two button-pushing populations. We will sacrifice anything -- with nary a glance at how it may pan out in the long run -- ostensibly to protect ourselves, and that's what I find troubling.

So it was with interest that I have been following the match.com plan to check their user lists against sex offender registries, in the wake of a lawsuit against the company by a woman who says she was assaulted by a "match." All kinds of wrong, and the stellar Electronic Frontier Foundation (love them so much) says it best:

Sexual Predators, Please Check Here: Match.com’s Deeply Flawed Plan to Screen for Sex Offenders

I've heard people say, "if you don't like the policies, just don't use match (or FB, or insert-social-media-site-here)" but whether these policies are misguided, panic-induced, or actually well thought out ways for companies and the guvmint to work their way into your life, they have implications far beyond simply stringing up those we find distasteful "for the children" blah blah blah, and far beyond sites you just decide not to use.

Heads up holiday travelers...














...or anyone who is frustrated with what seems like ineffectual airport security screenings, or concerned with intrusions on their privacy.

Do I Have The Right To Refuse This Search?

I believe what we have here is the beginning of the end of complacency. It is now apparent to me that in the haste to ensure compliance with procedures that are inconsistent if not inarticulable, TSA has hastened the likelihood of failure. If we do not insist that TSA work to create articulable policies that make sense, procedures that are explicit and consistent and training that supports both, then we are complicit in what will inevitably be an ultimate compromise of TSA.

By virtue of even minimal experience with TSA screenings, that's something that I think most every traveler suspects, but this former Assistant Police Chief's personal experience with the clear lack of training -- as well as incompetence and lassitude around supervisory chain of responsibility -- when it comes to the actual screening of potential terrorist threats is absolutely, well, terrifying.

That compromise may come in the form of terrorist attack, or it may come in the form of a collapse of public support. Either or both are inevitable. Either or both are preventable.

Safe travels, keep your eyes open, and remember that the airport is not a Constitution-free zone!

Hooray!

I'm not so naive to think this was purely the result of grassroots organizing, but I don't want to be so bitter to think that it came about solely because even the Richie McRichersons were going to get sprayed. Let's just be happy it's been halted!

Aarrghh, matey...Piracy NOW!