Senatorial Trash
Dana Milbank has apparently been going through Senatorial Trash, specifically that of Barbara Boxer’s office on the Hill, stealing her phonetic pronunciation guides and the detritus of meetings with other Senators. With all the foofaraw surrounding the difference between journalism and blogging, if journalism means digging through trash, count me firmly in the blogger camp until that rule is lifted.
Bob Levey and Dana Milbank may be trashhounds, but I prefer to leave mine on the curb to be taken away. (Hat Tip to Mr. Mortman)
As odd as it may sound, there is a long history of Dumpster diving as a legal means to obtain other’s information & personal effects.
The courts take the view that if you put it out for municipal trash pick-up, it is then in the public domain and open to inspection & reallocation. There is even a Hollywood artist who makes collages from famous peoples’ tossed out detritus.
Legal, sure. At times, totally legitimate. But you’d think that if you’re going to go dumpster-diving, you could at least come up with something worth, if not YOUR time, then MY attention. I’m supposed to think that a phonetic pronunciation guide means anything other than that the Senator feels strongly that she’d like to get people’s names right?
It sounds to me that he was stealing directly from her trashcan, in her office, not from the dump.