Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

There's a whole subculture of web writers who post personal stories, often using pseudonyms. Oddly, the pseudonymous writers have a lively offline community where they their real names and are friends in real life.

http://www.austin-stories.com/

My personal favourite: the telling of tall tales and outright lies behind a ghostwritten, deceased or completely ficticious name while posting entirely fabricated items as if it was all legit and correct.

I think that's called the PR Blogger, or maybe it's the New York Times ... or maybe it's called the Oval Office Press Secretary. I'm not sure.

Horst's (in my view) over-generalized post struck a big fat sore nerve with me. My response is here.

"Anonymous blogs never admit that they were wrong because they don't have to."

I cannot recall the specifics, even less find the URL, but I recall that Easchaton did post a correction.

To me it is less important to know anything about an author than to know the source of his information. Anonymous sources are far more troubling to me than anonymous authors.

And you don't have to live in a repressive society to get into trouble for politics. Sure anyone with time and a budget can track you down, but an anonymous web log will protect you from amateur stalkers.

How about the 'Um, I never really thought about it' bloggers, who use their real name but haven't published biographical info simply because they think that no one is interested?

I have to admit that I fall into that category and, up until today, I'd not really considered putting up a biography. I tend to assume that, because I have only a handful of readers, the majority are probably people who already know me and therefore a biography would be somewhat redundant. Virtually no one links to my blog, so I can’t see that situation changing any time soon.

My guess would be that there are a fair number of semi-anonymous bloggers out there who are following the same sort of logic as I am, but just have more readers than maybe they realise. That doesn’t mean that they’ve carefully contrived their anonymity, though. It’s probably just accidental.

As for my feelings on the matter, whilst it is nice to have some sort of idea about the lives of the people whose blogs I read regularly, I don’t think it’s essential. With factual/opinion blogs, you can usually tell whether someone’s talking out of their arse or not by the sources they quote (and if they don’t, then they are). Where they got their degree and what job they have is pretty much irrelevant to whether or not they have a firm grasp of the subject under discussion.

For the more personal blogs, well, a biography adds flavour but mostly it’s down to the individual writing style and whether or not they’re saying anything interesting/amusing. I don’t need to know Salam Pax’s real name to enjoy reading his blog.

As for me and whether I am now prompted to publish a biography, well, I suppose I should just ask my readers if they want to know who I am.

Both of them. ;)

Ah, the perennial favorite topic of anonymous/pseudonymous blogging.

If anybody cares, I have a good reason for being pseudonymous: bitter experience. Although I didn't use my name on my old blog, I was foolish enough to let my employer see it. Not a word was said about it, but suddenly I was off the "company" web project (not much of a loss, but it still sucked).

I ended up killing the blog and now I'm staying incognito at my new location. I have no pretense of credibility anyway.

20 years ago there was a big controversy around
"faction" - the deliberate mixture of factual information and fictional elements of "mise en scene". This was in the broadcast tv world. It was about documentary.
Now that we have reality shows, docu soap etc. the barriers between private and public are coming down.
And the internet is a driving force - and blogs are a part of it.

How will blogs evolve? Will there be a subgenre of blogs that are entirely fictional? Will there be blogger-art?

I'll be blogging about this when I finish my comments on Reboot6.

Writing under a pseudonym (even though it's actually the same name I go by in everyday offline life as well, and even though my "real" name is easily uncovered if it's that important to someone) has only ever caused me consternation when someone disagrees with something I've said so virulently, and happens to also be so incapable of justifying their own opinion, that they decide "why are you afraid to tell us your real name?" is somehow a sensible and rational substitute for an actual argument or conversation.

The most thrilling blogs for me are the ones that are brutally honest, personal and revealing. I want to tell the truth when I blog but the truth can hurt. It's easy to control your 'self image' in a blog, so I censor myself. Should I? Should I blog under a false name so I don't have to censor? And is the choice only one or the other? Well if the truth is so thrilling, making up an identity would be missing the point. For some people the blog seems to be a kind of semi-passive psychiatrist. It's very intersting to poke your nose into other people's lives if they are baring their souls. It's even more intersting to discover you have found personal things about a someone you actually know. (see cheezwiz above) But what if that utterly changes the way I feel about that person, in a negative way?

I purposely do not currently blog because I know myself and everything that I would want to brutally share with the world in a blog, would hurt the feelings of some individuals I care deeply about. I really wish I could find a way to anonymously blog everything I really want to write and say, but unless I was sure amateurs could not find out it was my writing it shall be left unsaid.

I think there are many like me, and thats sad!

I read for content, never for identity!

Kevin

I'm looking into getting a home mortgage loan in california and needed to find a website to apply for a mortgage loan. I found this site, home mortgage refinance loans california and they seem okay. Anyone tried them?

I know I’m being a sore winner, but there are a lot of things I need to get off my chest.

Kerry said that Bush needs to come clean with the American people. He spoke of all of the deaths, and said Bush was living in a dream world, and that he was hiding the truth about Iraq.

Fist off, I don’t get how the democrats can get away with these crazy accusations. Could bush stop the flow of information out of Iraq if he wanted to? Instead of demonizing Bush, why don’t you just face the fact that you believe different things? Why do you have to say he is evil just because he disagrees with you? When Bush focuses on the positive aspects of the war, it is because he believes the sacrifices being made are worth the benefit gained, and when you focus on the negative things, it is because you don’t believe it is worth it.

Lincoln’s critiques could have said that he was living in a dream world, and refusing to face reality when he continued prosecuting the civil war even when thousands of Americans had died. And people did say a lot of even worse things about Lincoln. At the end of the day Lincoln hoped that the sacrifices made would be worth it in the long run.

What was the civil war fought over, and was it worth it? Simply stating it, civil war was fought to stop slavery the south from starting their own country. If you look at each issue on its own would it be worth it? No one knows. Who can answer such questions? What is the worth of life? How can you make a judgment? Can one side say without a shadow of doubt that Lincoln was right or wrong? Looking back we can be awfully glad slavery was resolved, but think of all the life lost. If John Kerry was alive then he would have accused Lincoln of not exhausting all diplomatic efforts with the South first.

Those who are optimistic can say that the solders who die in Iraq, died so that threats given to an evil dictator do not mean anything. Threats mean nothing, when countries never follow threw.

A lot of people, cynically say that the war was about Oil. I don’t see what is so wrong about that. We know the world is going to run out of Oil in the next couple of hundred years. How powerful would Sadaam Husain’s sons have been if we would have left them in power? Would they have been as influential in the world as Saudi Arabia? Russia? India? China? America? Think how much power they could have bought. What would the price of oil have gone to, as the world economies built on oil, fall apart. What type of weapons could they have bought? Could Sadaam’s grand sons have taken over Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the rest of the Muslim world? Who knows? I just know that sanctions were falling apart, and they saw the pot of gold at the end of sanctions.

If people hat bush for what he did, I hate them. I hate them because they assume that they know these things wouldn’t have happened. I hate them because they don’t care about the men women and children that Sadaam tortured. They don’t care about the mass graves in Iraq. There stupid response is always, we can’t be the world police. We can’t solve all of the problems in the world. They say that things are worse in North Korea, so why don’t we go in there. This is a stupid question, that Bush, and other responsible leaders can not answer. The reason we can not go into North Korea is because they already have a nuclear bomb, and if we did go into there, millions of people would die. Bush can not make this argument in public, because it gives motivation to dictators to acquire nuclear weapons.

Back to hatred. I don’t hate people who hate bush; because I think everyone has to agree with them. I am undecided about Iraq. Only history will tell if it was a mistake, and even then, no living man could fully know what would have happened if we had not gone. What I hate is hatred. I hate blind hatred. What I hate is stupidity. What I hate is over-simplification. What I hate is Monday morning quarterbacking. What I hate is criticizing the president, for one’s own personal gain, when we are at war. I’m not saying you have to agree with him on everything, but accusing him of lying about the reasons he went to war is stupid. I hear, “HE LIED” so often I want to gag. People who say this are past reason. They are no longer listening to logic. They are consumed by hatred. He did not lie about WMD’s. Every single intelligence agency in the world thought Sadaam had them. Saddam went threw years and years of sanctions, because he would not come clean about his WMD’s programs. Sadaam used them on his own people, killing thousands of his own citizens. This is no joke. This is not just stuff people say. This can not be ignored. You can not ignore this. You can’t go on, thinking he lied. You can’t look at the sun, at noon, and say that it does not shine. If you do this you are evil, and I hate you.

If you continue to believe something that has no evidence for belief, than you are evil. If you make decisions, ignoring facts, than you are evil. If you commit suicide just because Bush one, then good riddance.

I am so ashamed that I wasted my vote on george war bush. What was I thinking? Why did I let my right wing extremist, neo-conservative, neo-evangelical thinking get in the way of exercising sound personal judgment when I stepped into that voting booth? Growing up, I was led to believe that the republican party was a grass roots party of the people & for the people. In retrospect, it is clear that the last 3 presidents produced by the republican party were nothing more then the rich man’s rich man hiding under the disguise of the overly misused term, “conservative�. The economic dark ages of reagonomics fleeced the middle and lower classes of this county simply to benefit the rich and wealthy. George warmonger bush has quietly shifted this country back to those economic dark ages. Bush inherited a strong economy and squandered that real quick. And even though 9 -11 did happen, none of bush’s reckless decisions are in any way justified by that day in history. It is clear that he never had any real salient foreign & domestic policies when he became president in 2000. Now we have 4 more years of neoconservative republican lies and a growing body count overseas. When are people going to wake up to the truth that neoconservative political philosophy does not work for anyone but the rich and wealthy at the top? When are people in the USA going to wake up to the fact that neoconservative republican political philosophy does not even cross paths with reality?

Anyone who believes george war bush’s lies about promoting democracy in these middle eastern Islamic states is living in serious denial of reality. Those who believe bush’s lies are simply easy pickins and victims of logical fallacies. Historians and political scholars realize that to impose such changes on another country takes decades and that is only if it seriously adopted. Also, the very definition of democracy is not something that the United States has any claim of ownership. Even some communist states think that what they have is democracy. If we ever actually do get out of Iraq, nothing will have changed and nothing will have been gained. The American people have never been given a specific objective in Iraq or a clear definition of exactly what victory in Iraq is from the president. Invading Iraq never had anything to do with, WMD, freeing the Iraqi people or making Americans safer and secure. Statements about WMD, Freeing Iraq or Making America Safer are nothing more then a marketing spin used to hide the ugly truth and make the lies palatable to the American public and justifiable to the red necks who voted for him. Bush likes to make statements such as “It’s worth the price� but he never says just what exactly “it� is. If he really believes that, then he should put his money where his mouth is and send his little party animals to go fight in Iraq. The republican party claims to be for smaller less wasteful government but the current administration is responsible for the waste of more money, resources and human lives then any past democrat presidency. I have a hard time sleeping at night knowing that the blood of Americans and innocent civilians is on my hands and the hands of those who voted for george warmonger bush. The real legacy of the bush cabinet is going to be one characterized by lots of wrongful deaths, lots of money and resources wasted, unnecessary tax increases for our children and grandchildren and the unnecessary destruction of various social programs that good decent people count on.

Thanks to bush and his power hungry cabinet who all want to control congress, the senate & the supreme court, the USA is now a third world country with a disappearing middle class. Neoconservative agenda is to make the USA just like Mexico with the top 2% all rich and the rest of us poor. Now that I know that invading Iraq was all about oil and nothing more, all the senseless deaths of Americans and Iraqi civilians takes on a whole new meaning. It would appear that even the constitution means nothing to bush and his cronies. It has been reduced to something to be twisted and manipulated by neoconservative agenda to make the rich richer and screw over the rest of us. Now that the USA owes all these hundreds of millions of dollars to countries like China, Germany, Russia & Japan, I wonder which language I need to learn for the day when these countries come to collect.

Man…Nixon got impeached for things much less offensive then Bush & Cheney’s crimes against humanity and crimes against the US constitution. I will never make the mistake of voting republican again. Thanks for all the memories GOP.

I am so ashamed that I wasted my vote on george war bush. What was I thinking? Why did I let my right wing extremist, neo-conservative, neo-evangelical thinking get in the way of exercising sound personal judgment when I stepped into that voting booth? Growing up, I was led to believe that the republican party was a grass roots party of the people & for the people. In retrospect, it is clear that the last 3 presidents produced by the republican party were nothing more then the rich man’s rich man hiding under the disguise of the overly misused term, “conservative�. The economic dark ages of reagonomics fleeced the middle and lower classes of this county simply to benefit the rich and wealthy. George warmonger bush has quietly shifted this country back to those economic dark ages. Bush inherited a strong economy and squandered that real quick. And even though 9 -11 did happen, none of bush’s reckless decisions are in any way justified by that day in history. It is clear that he never had any real salient foreign & domestic policies when he became president in 2000. Now we have 4 more years of neoconservative republican lies and a growing body count overseas. When are people going to wake up to the truth that neoconservative political philosophy does not work for anyone but the rich and wealthy at the top? When are people in the USA going to wake up to the fact that neoconservative republican political philosophy does not even cross paths with reality?

Anyone who believes george war bush’s lies about promoting democracy in these middle eastern Islamic states is living in serious denial of reality. Those who believe bush’s lies are simply easy pickins and victims of logical fallacies. Historians and political scholars realize that to impose such changes on another country takes decades and that is only if it seriously adopted. Also, the very definition of democracy is not something that the United States has any claim of ownership. Even some communist states think that what they have is democracy. If we ever actually do get out of Iraq, nothing will have changed and nothing will have been gained. The American people have never been given a specific objective in Iraq or a clear definition of exactly what victory in Iraq is from the president. Invading Iraq never had anything to do with, WMD, freeing the Iraqi people or making Americans safer and secure. Statements about WMD, Freeing Iraq or Making America Safer are nothing more then a marketing spin used to hide the ugly truth and make the lies palatable to the American public and justifiable to the red necks who voted for him. Bush likes to make statements such as “It’s worth the price� but he never says just what exactly “it� is. If he really believes that, then he should put his money where his mouth is and send his little party animals to go fight in Iraq. The republican party claims to be for smaller less wasteful government but the current administration is responsible for the waste of more money, resources and human lives then any past democrat presidency. I have a hard time sleeping at night knowing that the blood of Americans and innocent civilians is on my hands and the hands of those who voted for george warmonger bush. The real legacy of the bush cabinet is going to be one characterized by lots of wrongful deaths, lots of money and resources wasted, unnecessary tax increases for our children and grandchildren and the unnecessary destruction of various social programs that good decent people count on.

Thanks to bush and his power hungry cabinet who all want to control congress, the senate & the supreme court, the USA is now a third world country with a disappearing middle class. Neoconservative agenda is to make the USA just like Mexico with the top 2% all rich and the rest of us poor. Now that I know that invading Iraq was all about oil and nothing more, all the senseless deaths of Americans and Iraqi civilians takes on a whole new meaning. It would appear that even the constitution means nothing to bush and his cronies. It has been reduced to something to be twisted and manipulated by neoconservative agenda to make the rich richer and screw over the rest of us. Now that the USA owes all these hundreds of millions of dollars to countries like China, Germany, Russia & Japan, I wonder which language I need to learn for the day when these countries come to collect.

Man…Nixon got impeached for things much less offensive then Bush & Cheney’s crimes against humanity and crimes against the US constitution. I will never make the mistake of voting republican again. Once again, it is up to the Democrats to fix the messes created by republicans. Too bad that our children and grandchildren will wind up paying to clean up the messes of the current presidential administration. Thanks for all the memories GOP.