I enjoy reading old newspapers, in large part because they provide a very visible demonstration of why newspapers today are dying. They also have their moments of unintentional humor, and the strange values dissonance that exists can sometimes provide some amusement, as well.

In today’s Saint Paul Pioneer Press, page “A2″ - the “Nation & World Briefing” - contains three advertisements which take up about half the page; there’s some lottery information, some contact information for the paper’s various departments, and then the following headlines:
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In 2007 - yes, 2007 - I came across a reference to a paper written by Chris Rasmussen - who some readers might recognize as a NGIA employee and one of the more vocal and visible proponents of Intellipedia. The paper was entitled Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants in the US Intelligence Community, and discussed, among other things, how and why the intelligence community (IC) should adopt reasonably modern information technology, rather than relying on the technology of a quarter-century ago.

I requested a copy of the paper through the FOIA, and asked for the report to be provided in electronic format. Ironically, given the subject of the paper, it was eventually released as photocopies… some two years later.

I don’t know the exact date it was written - Mr. Rasmussen has never bothered to reply to my emails asking about the paper - but I think it was 2006 or early 2007. Given the changing nature of technology, it’s a bit dated in the “real world”, but I’m pretty confident that it’s still very relevant to the IC, which is still thinking - at a glacial pace, I might add - about making a decision about adopting new technology at some point in the future Real Soon Now.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants isn’t a hugely exciting paper, but it’s been cited in a few public places, and deserves to be available to the world at large. If you have a professional or academic interest in this sort of thing, you can download a copy here (16pp, 5.5MB PDF).

Enjoy…

When Paul Burgess Bernard Fay, Jr. - known as “Red” to his friends, which included several members of the Kennedy family - was appointed as Undersecretary of the Navy by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, not many people outside of the California social scene had ever heard of Fay before. The extroverted and entertaining son of a reasonably successful construction magnate, Fay’s only experience with government service had been five years in the Navy during and immediately after WWII, during which he captained a PT boat, earned a Bronze Star, and befriended a fellow captain named Kennedy. Nonetheless, he became Undersecretary of the Navy in January 1961, and served in that capacity through 1965; he also served as Acting Secretary of the Navy for a few weeks in November 1963.

He wrote a memoir about his twenty-year friendship with JFK in 1966, called The Pleasure of His Company, and that was pretty much the last thing anyone ever heard about him, until his death in September 2009.

When he passed away, I made a Freedom of Information Act request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, suspecting that they had performed an investigation of Fay in 1961.

This month, I was proved correct when I received a bit over a hundred pages of documents from that investigation…
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Last week, I got a letter from the FBI in the mail. This is a fairly frequent occurrence, as I tend to file a lot of FOIA requests with them. I was a bit taken back, though, when I opened the letter, because I didn’t immediately recognize the name of the subject of the FOIA request.

When you think of The Lone Ranger, you think of Clayton Moore, right? Well, Moore is only the iconic, best-known actor behind the famous mask; it turns out that in 1952, a little-known actor named John Hart took up the role for two seasons of the show.

Hart passed away in September 2009, at the age of 91.
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A year ago, I wrote about the kindness that retired Colonel Bernie Moore showed in responding to a request posed on this very blog by a guy named Shaun Strickland, whose father was killed in a military training accident back in 1982, shortly before Shaun was born.

Some of you might remember Shaun’s post, which read “I was born on March 23, 1982. On April 26, 1982 my father was in Stuggart, Germany and attempted Mission Skyhook. My father died due to faulty equipment and fell to his death at 1400 hours. Any information would be great.”.

And some of you might recall Col. Moore’s response, which began “Shaun, I was the co-pilot (right seat pilot) on the flight on which we lost your father…”.

What are the odds, right? Well, that was 22 Dec 2008. I tried to contact Shaun to give him the news. Col. Moore tried to contact Shaun to give him the news. We tried several times over the last year, but were unable to get in touch with him over the last year.

I promised, in that earlier post, I’d make an update whenever I heard from Shaun about this little Christmas miracle.

Saturday, I got a message…
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