Jeff Jarvis can’t seem to buy credit for his Fly Naked initiative. First, Thomas Friedman claimed the idea as his own in the New York Times. Now, in a new column for the National Post that touches on some of the same issues we’ve been discussing here recently, Mark Steyn attributes the Fly Naked idea to Ken Layne.

Reading Steyn’s column, dated December 27, I experienced a distinct sense of deja vu when I came to this sentence:

President Bush’s Transportation Secretary, Norm Mineta, told an interviewer the other day that, if a 70-year old woman from Indiana and a group of praying Islamic men were in line to board a flight, he hoped there would be no difference in the scrutiny to which they were subjected.

Hmm. On December 26, I wrote:

I heard a soundbite from Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta on the radio a few days ago, in which he said that if there were a 70-year old woman from Indiana and a group of praying Islamic men waiting to board a flight, he “would hope” there would be no difference in how they were treated.

Coincidence, or copy and paste? Notice the hyphen in “70-year old.” And I must admit I paraphrased the details from my 60s-addled memory; for all I know it might have been an 80-year old woman from Iowa, and a nervous Muslim student.

Mark’s a great writer who has no trouble coming up with his own stuff; I’m actually honored that he’s reading my amateur scribbles. But if this keeps up, I’m going to want my cut.

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