Don't Blog So Close to Me

The best blog posting of all on the Gee affair comes from Michael Feldman on his Dowbrigade site. The BU lecturer on foreign law and business provides a visual representation of Gee's feverish imagination, not to mention a few choice comments of his own: "An educational institution that has just condoned a student sex magazine called 'Boink' cannot very well fire a teacher for simply noting the exuberant physical endowments of one of his students, especially as part of an introspective evaluations of the difficulties of his didactic duties. The remark about Sabras, however, was clearly over the line. As regular readers will note, the Dowbrigade also works at a Major Boston University, and over the years we have had our share of 'hot' students, but we would never dream of saying so in a public posting. Other than absolutely necessary meta-leering like the above reference, that is."

Meta-leering? I can't recommend it enough. Doing it online, though? That doesn't sound like such a good idea.

As for David Scott, the man who broke the news on his Scott's Shots blog, he took some heat from readers for not getting Gee's comments before running his initial story. He maintains in an "ombudsblogger" post that he did not "rat Gee out:"

"Some colleagues (and even friends) have asked why I didn't call (or email) Gee first to get his initial comments, before contacting BU? To be honest, I thought he'd already done his talking on the posting. I wanted to know (as a media critic) what BU (and its Communications school, remember) would do about such thing. I wanted their comments and then I would give Gee the 'final' say (which I clearly did, even offering up unlimited space)," Scott wrote. "I was examining an issue... where writers who are empowered by their abilities are also brought down (at varying degrees) by them."

I know it sounds funny when I write this, considering that I didn't speak to a single person involved in this story before I pounded this column out, but just because it's blogging doesn't mean you shouldn't cover your bases.

Especially when the topic is sexy j-school students.

Tunnel Talk

You can link up in the Lincoln and holler in the Holland again thanks to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey which decided that shutting down cell-phone service inside the tunnels wasn't such a good idea after all.

The New York Daily News reported that the service, first cut off after the London attacks on July 7, was restored at the end of the Tuesday rush hour. "PA executive director Kenneth Ringler said full service was reinstated after 'ongoing consultations' with security officials in New York and New Jersey," the Daily News reported.

I reported last week that the city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority also shut down phone service inside the Brooklyn-Battery and Queens Midtown tunnels, but turned it back on after determining that it didn't actually receive a request from the New York Police Department to suspend it.

Many drivers also noted that switching off the phone service means preventing people from calling 911 in case of a real emergency. Of course, anyone trying to dial 911 from inside a tunnel using anything other than Verizon Wireless's network is out of luck anyway. Happy driving.

Can You Show Me Where It Hurts?

Here's a strange tale relayed to us by the AP: "The founder of a company that runs answering services for doctors tried to destroy a competitor by hacking into the firm's computer so that patients heard either a busy signal or sexual moaning when they tried to call their physicians, Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro said yesterday."

The hack was part of a series of actions taken by 37-year-old Gerald Martin of Pawling, N.Y., to interfere with his former employer after he founded his own company, Emergency Response Answering Service Inc.

"He had once worked for the targeted company now known as Statcomm but formed the new firm after an 'acrimonious breakup.' The DA said the complaint specifies that for three days in November, Martin 'interfered with the ability of Statcomm to conduct business' by hacking into the computer so that patients heard either a busy signal or 'groaning, moaning in a sexual nature.' He also had a moving company show up at Statcomm with a phony order to pick up six boxes of Statcomm material for the state Department of Taxation and Finance, she said."

Pirro told the AP that one patient in California had to go to an emergency room after failing to reach a doctor because of Martin's alleged actions.

Fine Wines of New Jersey

We thought that might get your attention. The New York Times reported that New Jersey wines have come a long way since Star-Ledger columnist John Foy stuck them with the ultimate loser labels: "Parkway Red and Turnpike White." David Corcoran at the Times food section sampled a good number of Garden State vintages, made from grapes, blueberries and other fine fruits.

The technology angle? See page 3 of the story: "Unlike wineries in other states, those in New Jersey are barred from shipping their product directly to consumers who order by mail or Internet. (A recent Supreme Court decision allowing such shipments to out-of-state consumers applied only to those states that allow in-state shipments.) Nor, winemakers and other experts say, does the state do much to promote its wines."

I guess most of you are going to have to trust the Times on what undoubtedly will remain New Jersey's best-kept secret.

Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com.