Not.
I feel so much better now, so much more transparent. So much more naked.
Why, the mere fact that even now some DHS contractor is putting "Silence Dogood" on a no-fly list makes me feel all warm and runny inside....
NOTE Yeah, sure, I'm going to start using my real name on the Internet because Beltway wanker and WaPo Op-Ed writer Tom Grubisich started clutching his pearls at the lack of Civility
in the blogosphere and thought a system like this would be a good idea:
Gordon Joseloff, a former CBS News correspondent who owns WestportNow.com, a popular grass-roots site [Sic! See Update below] in Westport, Conn., used to employ the standard permissive registration process. But in late 2005, turned off by the venom of anonymous posters, Joseloff instituted a policy requiring anyone who wanted to comment to use his or her real name. Joseloff also requires registrants to give their phone numbers. Numbers aren't posted on the site, but they give him and his team an additional check against false registration.
As usual, the man in the grey turtleneck nails it:
The club that they want to use is the "consequences," which for most of us is about aving current or future employment prospects threatened because someone googles our names and discovers that we don't like George Bush enough, or we hate her favorite rock band, or some other reason. This, of course, is a barrier too high for plenty of people. Which is the point.
Yep. The DFH, they want to knock the wheels off the cocktail wienie wagon. Can't have that. Fuck no.
UPDATE OK, Tom Grubisich is a fucking idiot.
Grubisich calls WestportNow.com a "grass roots" site, and if that's a fucking "grassroots site" I'll eat my fucking hat.
(The tipoff, of course, is right in the Op-Ed column: the putatively grassroots site is "owned" by one Joseloff.)
Just go look at WestportNow.com. Typically, "grass roots" sites aren't LLCs, don't have copyright in the name of the LLC (we do Creative Commons), don't run real estate ads, and don't publish puff pieces about local CEOs.
Oh, and typically, "grass roots" sites allow anonymous comments.
I have the feeling that the venom in the comments that distressed Joseloff so much had more to do with his business model than a general breakdown in civility -- which would be remarkable, or not, in an extremely wealthy bedroom community like Westport CT in any case.
"Grassroots," forsooth. Or, as we say these days, WTF?
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whoa.
whoa. wut?
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.delusions of un mundo mejor.
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.delusions of un mundo mejor.
"Silence Dogood"
He's either a medium-good thoroughbred racing mare or this is an allusion to a pseudonym once employed by Benjamin Franklin after he was denied the opportunity to write for his own brother's newspaper under his own name. Neither his brother nor the rest of the family, nor the town for that matter, knew these letters were being written by a punk 15 year old kid, and were none too happy when this was found out.
"Mrs. Dogood" was a frequently irate middle aged widow...hey, waitaminit!
[goes off to pout, embittered, shaking tiny fist at the Blogger Formerly Known as Lambert]
Pseudonymity is the spiritual foundation of our traditions
Eh?
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
the roots of astroturf run so deep
So green, so lush.
Let the DHS secret police deal with the weeds.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
sorry, when i commented all
sorry, when i commented all i could see in the post was "not." i see the whole thing now.
—Rumble F. Ne'erWell
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.delusions of un mundo mejor.
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.delusions of un mundo mejor.
This anti-pseudonymity push
This anti-pseudonymity push happens to coincide with the CALEA deadline forcing ISPs to set up mass surveillance capability for Karl Rove's secret police, the FBI. And you can trust them. So proudly add your name to the GOP's perpetual ratfuck roster!
Deeply foily thought on CALEA
And in its honor, I have re-allocated this post to the Department of When Foily is Not Foily. Eesh.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
No need for "sorry"
That was all that was there, but then I saw the possibilities of the title, and started riffing...
And then I found out, riffing onward, that Grubby's Westport example was a total crock, so everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds!
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
And those are really Atlas' Jugs!
No foolin'. Ruth
Ruth