Today's events here at GP have been very interesting, to put it mildly.
First, we have our outside video game lawyer and correspondent, Jack Thompson, posting what amounts to personal information in public. Dennis McCauley's unlisted office phone number, while used for business, is un-listed - therefore private - information. Jack's posts were promptly deleted, and his account banned. His usual ban-evasion ensued. We here at GP know this to be against the LiveJournal ToS.
Second, we have Mr. Thompson's letters to the editors of two newspapers (St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Philadelphia Inquirer) that publish Dennis's columns. We now see the reasoning behind his posting of the phone number: the voice mail message referred to Dennis as a "columnist" for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This is technically not accurate, due to the differing definitions of "columnist" between the Inquirer and the P. Press. A response from the editor of the P. Press, Thom Fladung, informs us (and Dennis) of the inaccuracy. This response is in no way accusatory, and is friendly in demeanor. We can assume from the friendly tone that this misunderstanding has not damaged Dennis's relationship with either paper. The editors there, until this point, were probably blissfully unaware of Jack Thompson and his rampant ass-hattery.
Lastly, we have seen a shrill insistence from Mr Thompson that Dennis in some way misrepresented himself. Perhaps, as a matter of semantics, he did. But he has shown true integrity in admitting the honest and un-intentional mistake, and has corrected it.
T1J: Since this admission, Jack Thompson, being the asshat extraordinaire that he is, has insisted on an ulterior, underhanded motive on the part of Mr. McCauley. This free-lance writer for GP can find no such motives. I humbly suggest that Mr. Thompson tries his local Wal-Mart, as they have the best prices on tin-foil that I know of.
Regards to the GP community,
~Jeff
ps. I wrote this without the consent of GP, or Mr. Thompson.
