Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Planning to travel abroad? When you re-enter the U.S. the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that Federal agents may take your laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing. These officials may share copies of the lap top's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons.

The policies cover any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form:

• including hard drives
• flash drives
• cellphones
• pagers
• ipods
• video and audio tapes
  

They also cover:

• all papers and other written documentation
• including books
• pamphlets
• pocket trash
• pocket litter

Yes that would miscellaneous paper scraps in your pocket.

With all the talk about abuses in the civil liberties of people by the Chinese government, I'd say that under the Bush administration we are well down that slippery slide. More information on protecting privacy issues can be found here

You May Be A Closet Poet If...

Be careful those of you besmirching poets... some of you may be closet poets yourself.

You could be a closet poet:

• If you use a circle to dot your i
• If when sitting erect your head lobs slightly to it's right
• If you suddenly stop your sentences before the end of a line and continue on the line below
• If you personify your ball glove or other objects you hold near and dear to you
• If things that befuddle others makes perfect sense to you
• If the absence of punctuation can be found at times in what you write
• If you write words or sentences in disjointed cursive letters
• If you've ever found yourself sitting in a dark closet alone and enjoyed it
• If you secretly wish to be called by the name Wadsworth, Emily, ee, Sylvia or Pablo

Michael A. Wells © 2008

Journal Bits This Week

• a quotation from the poet Stanley Kunitz - "I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world."
• ...monster winds rebuke her for safety disregarded.
• -still, fashion statements speak up/unpretentiously. These are long firm legs and sleek/institutional distractions.
• I want rain to be plain/I want rain that stays the same/No horizontal riding of wind/No golf ball sized hail on or off/the green.
• "Your whole age sits between what you hear/and what you write." - W.S. Merwin from "Sibyl"
• A lavish history locked away in a graying point of view.

Obama HQ Opens in KC

On my lunch hour today I stopped by the new Obama HQ in Kansas City for their open house. As you can see the crowd was very respectable for a week day lunch time event. In the first photo above, Jackson County Executive Michael Sanders is addressing the crowd.

The headquarters is on the NW corner of Gillham Rd and 31st Street - there is good parking available for volunteer workers. It should be a great location. There are other officers open and yet to open in Missouri including more in the K.C. metro area

Poetry In the News 7-29-08

• Robert Redford Fights Global Warming With Poetry [NPR]
• He dismisses university writing programs as "multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes" in which Volvo-driving poet-professors are too fearful of risking prizes or promotions to make waves. [story]

Weak 287 Unconscious Mutterings

Unconscious Mutterings ~ link
Word & Thought Associations

here's mine:

1. Memory :: card
2. Original :: Kentucky Fried
3. Exclusively :: yours
4. Listings :: Real Estate
5. Bucket :: seats
6. Knight :: Sir Lancelot
7. Dusty :: Baker
8. Choice :: Pro
9. Sunglight :: *I'm going to take a wild assed guess that they mean "sunlight" and say:: bright
10. Change of plans :: life

Words of Interest

This weekend I came across a couple of words I'm intrigued with...

1. biduous - (pronounced bid-u-us) N. lasting two days.

2. dilogy - (pronounced dil-eji) N. intentional ambiguity; emphatic repetition of words, etc.

Poetry in the News

• Semic - pleased to be back at his writing desk - "Washington is very much in my mind and will undoubtedly be the subject of many poems." [Story]
• Before the Mississippi Department of Education pats itself on the back for raising educational standards, it needs to take a long look at what those standards are. [Editorial]
• Is poetry's future as bright as its past? [Editorial]
• 1,000,000,000,000 Web pages! Somebody who doesn't have at least one Web page in cyberspace should feel totally insignificant. [Op-Ed]