Defending the Foreign Service

...This is not the first Second Life lawsuit to hit American courts—that distinction went to a Pennsylvania man who sued parent company Linden Lab in 2006 for suspending his Second Life account and depriving him of his virtual assets...

...Calling Iraq a death sentence is just way over the top...

...Buy This Pamphlet...

...The plaintiffs charge that Simon (and ten Second Life John Does) exploited a glitch in the Second Life software to copy their wares and resell them at Second Life “yard sales” in an attempt to “unjustly profit from the fame of and goodwill associated with the Plaintiffs’ Marks...

...Susan Wicklund, author of the forthcoming book This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor...

...You can read the whole thing and, if you are so inclined, the several dozen comments it provoked, roughly half supportive, half vituperative, at blogs...

...Simon claims that the case rests on evidence acquired when the plaintiffs entered his pretend Second Life house and took pictures of the copied merchandise, and that if he’s going to be held to RL (that’s real life) rules, then so should be the plaintiffs...

...I do not think many Americans feel sorry for us and it is embarrassing for people with our privileges to paint ourselves as victims...

...Sure beats helping sick people...

...I volunteered to come here aware of the risks but confident that I will come safely home, as do the vast majority of soldiers and Marines, who have a lot riskier jobs than we FSOs do...

...So many wonderful possibilities...

...We have enough trouble w/o having to baby sit...

...This sound and fury at Foggy Bottom truly signifies nothing...

...Our system really does not work like that...

...All of us volunteered for this kind of work and we have enjoyed a pretty sweet lifestyle most of our careers...

...We signed up to be worldwide available...

...I tell them that most FSOs are not wimps and weenies...

...Scrapbook Defending the Foreign Service Last week, we editorialized on the well-publicized caterwauling of a senior foreign service officer, Jack Croddy, who is deeply unhappy that the State Department might assign some of its career diplomats against their wishes to serve in Iraq...

...After having witnessed an abortion of a 21-week-old fetus, Wicklund “writes that at the sight of its tiny arm she decided she would perform abortions only in the first trimester of pregnancy...

...Get over it...

...It seems like just the sort of book Times readers will want to add to their holiday shopping lists: Wicklund, who describes her own abortion as legal but “ghastly,” was moved to become an abortionist in order to provide her patients with a better experience...

...I personally dislike the whole idea of forced assignments, but we do have to do our jobs...

...Something Wicklund This Way Comes Last week the New York Times profiled Dr...

...Antioch Update Shortly after we printed Charlotte Allen’s cover story on Antioch College last week (“Death by Political Correctness”), the trustees of parent Antioch University, at the importuning of college alumni, granted a stay of execution for the Yellow Springs, Ohio, institution, contingent on alumni meeting a series of fundraising deadlines over the next three years...

...Will the court order the defendant to make his restitution in the pretend Second Life currency, the Linden...

...It’s a beautiful piece of work: funny and delicate and tough and lovely in equal parts...

...Our apologies to both gentlemen, not to mention the good people of Ohio...

...We all know that few FSOs will REALLY be forced to come to Iraq anyway...

...I will not repeat what the Marines say when I bring up this subject...

...According to an account of the deal published by insidehighered.com, “the agreements announced by the college focus on continuing Antioch courses for current students and there are no plans to recruit a new freshman class to enroll in the fall...

...The facts of the case, Eros et al v. Thomas Simon a/k/a Rase Kenzo (Kenzo is Simon’s avatar in the virtual online world known as Second Life) boil down to this: The plaintiffs are all vendors of virtual gewgaws inside Second Life...

...It is one of the few areas of medicine where you are not working with a sick person, you are doing something for them that gives them back their life, their control...

...in our October 1 issue...

...If these guys at the town hall meeting do not want to come to Iraq, that is okay with [me...

...Matel writes impressively: I just finished reading a news article discussing some of my FSO colleagues’ vehement and emotional response to the idea that a few of us might have directed assignments in Iraq...

...The plaintiffs are asking for damages equal to three times the profits they lost as a result of Simon’s alleged piracy...

...Because real life is not interesting enough, Second Life continues to entertain, providing diversion in the form of a lawsuit filed on October 24 in New York by several residents of the virtual online world against another resident, on the charge of intellectual property theft...

...Croddy (whom we, following other news organizations, unfortunately misidentified as Crotty) complained that an assignment to Iraq would be a “potential death sentence...

...How could I explain this wailing and gnashing of teeth...

...The best essay THE SCRAPBOOK read this week is not appearing in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, for a change, but was written by our colleague, Dean Barnett...

...Will anyone show up at the trial dressed like a giant lizard (the lead plaintiff’s avatar is “Stroker Serpentine...

...I have been here for a while now, and you may have been misinformed about life at a PRT...

...I would not want that sort out here with me anyway...

...But Eros et al is the first suit brought in federal court...

...To my vexed and overwrought colleagues, I say take a deep breath and calm down...

...Not that there’s anything wrong with second- or third-trimester procedures, Wicklund explains...

...state.gov...

...I will not share this article with them and I hope they do not see it...

...For a refresher on the virtual world, see Jonathan V. Last’s “Get a (Second) Life...

...And if Second Life were to establish its own court system, would anyone be able to tell it apart from the Ninth Circuit...

...In the same article (“The Republicans Have a Chance”), Ohio Republican congressman Pat Tiberi was misspelled as Pat Teaberry...

...Get a (Second) Life, cont...

...The Plucky Smart Kid with the Fatal Disease, Dean’s reflections on life with cystic fibrosis, has just been publishedby the New Pamphleteer and can be purchased (and downloaded) from the website pamphleteerpress.com...

...Corrections A caption last week referred to Ohio governor Ted Strickland as Terry Strickland...

...Asked if delivering babies would be a more rewarding experience, Wicklund replies, “Women are so grateful to know they can get through this safely, that they can still get pregnant again...

...BUT they are not worldwide available and they might consider the type of job that does not require worldwide availability...

...Antioch College had been scheduled to suspend operations at the end of June 2008...

...They sell pretend shoes, pretend clothes, and other such...

...Comes now John Matel, a career foreign service officer serving on a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Iraq’s Anbar Province, to defend the honor of his colleagues in an open letter posted on the State Department’s official blog (yes, there is such a creature, and it’s called “Dipnote”—you can supply your own jokes...

...It’s just that she herself can’t handle the sight of something that looks so, well, human...

...Lead plaintiff Eros is a company that creates pretend sex toys...

...In an interview [November 4], a university spokeswoman said that new freshmen would not be recruited until the curriculum was revised and facilities were substantially improved—a process that will take at least a year and could take longer...

...It’s a very rewarding thing to be a part of that...