To: nwv@media.mit.edu
cc: privacy@media.mit.edu
In-reply-to: <199807261602.MAA05530@ml.media.mit.edu> (nwv@media.mit.edu)
Subject: And so does everyone else [was: dejanews knows all]
Reply-to: rhodes@media.mit.edu
X-UIDL: 888d059e7a62a46ea0b80bb0f2a9a0fc


On a related note, a grad-student friend of mine got a call from MIT police
the other day.  The officer sounded kinda sheepish, but said he had gotten
a complaint from a Mass state maritime policeman.  Apparently this state
policeman was surfing the web and came across an old fraternity picture of
my friend using a funnelator in our annual water-war.  He informed my
friend that slingshots of any kind are illegal in Massachusetts, and wanted
to make sure that the slingshot in the picture had been destroyed.

The trouble is the web and dejanews have extremely low barriers to who goes
where.  I remember Clinton had an interview on MTV where he was asked if
next time he'd inhale, and he said "hell yeah I'd inhale."  An appropriate
answer for the MTV crowd, but being a political candidate of course it was
replayed in republican commercials everwhere.  With the web and archives,
this sort of crossover recontextualization can happen to us plebians just
as easily.
   -- Brad