I miss Armando.
And I'm dissapointed with him; and every other poster defending the right to blog anonymously.
I'm also dissapointed in anyone who things it's okay to disclose private information.
But they are two distinct issues. The first is about net courtesy; in a world full of bots looking for personal information, posting private info is wrong.
But that doesn't mean that the right to post anonymously is sacred; in fact it makes it harder for us to effectively participate in public discourse.
Pick up your local paper, and read the guidelines for letters to the editor -- they must be signed and contain your contact info, or they don't get printed.
There's a good reason for this; it makes the writer take responsibility for their words.
Blogging anonymously is great. Get it off your chest. But if you want to influence national and international dialogue, you've got to be willing to stand behind your words; and you've got to accept the consequences for them.
If freedom of speech -- if expressing progressive views -- threatens your livlihood, then that's what we ought to be talking about. It's another of our rights taken from us under this government of corruption.
But defending the right to hide is silly. It destroys all the credibility we might otherwise have here.
As a journalist, I lived with the consequences of my words. There is much talk here about being the new media, of replacing the incompetent mainstream media. I hope for that every day.
But it ain't gonna happen if we're not willing to stand behind our words and accept responsibility for them. To do otherwise makes us less than the harpy attacking 9-11 widows for book sales.