My prior posts about And What Thanks Do We Get? are here and here. (I'm now providing a direct link to "The Evil Little Blog," despite my earlier suggestions that I wouldn't, since a link was provided by Ernie the Attorney and Kevin Heller, the Tech Law Advisor. Howard Bashman also linked to the blog in his sidebar.)
One of the interesting things about this blog-for-partners-to-bitch-about-their-associates is that it might be a hoax, or as Denise Howell says more eloquently: "[I]t might of course be a fully intentional and fictional piece of performance art."
Does it matter? Here's what Ernie says: "Whether it is a hoax or not doesn't matter. The fact that it represents a real viewpoint is the thing that draws our attention, and which deserves to be contemplated and discussed."
Meanwhile, I told you Kevin Heller had likely figured out who's writing the blog. As I wrote in my second post, "Kevin and I are working out the details of the author's unmasking--unless he chooses to come clean here first."
Well, he didn't come clean here. Meanwhile, Kevin wrote on his site, "I'm not about to out an anonymous author," while adding that the blog's author wasn't me or Ernie or Scheherazade Fowler. (I also know it's not TPB.)
Confused? So am I. And now that Kevin has decided he doesn't want to "out" the author, I must respect his wishes--after all, I got the information from him. So you won't find the author of What Thanks unmasked on this blawg. I must admit I didn't try very hard to change Kevin's mind about his decision. Why not? Because I'd already decided I agree with Ernie: Let the author (or authors) of the "Evil Little Blog" speak. Those who disagree with the blog's point of view can say so in the comments or on their own blogs.
If the authors were "outed," the blog would probably die, and we'd lose our ability to criticize the evil-partners-badmouthing-associates-in-public point of view. As for whether it's a hoax, I think it is. If it were real, wouldn't the associates have a more vocal presence in the blog's comments? (Now watch some "associates" suddenly show up in the comments. I predict it will happen.)
Is this the final word on the "Evil Little Blog"? Stay tuned.
Who knew that some people unmask anonymous authors for a living? The NY Post is reporting that Don Foster, the man who unmasked Joe Klein as the author of "Primary Colors", is convinced that Belle de Jour is Sarah Champion, a 33-year-old author from Manchester in north-west England.
Posted by: Kevin Heller | March 22, 2004 at 04:03 PM
Belle de Jour demurs, and points to a website designed to amuse those who are preoccupied with the identity of the writer of that blog. Wouldn't it be interesting if there were a similar place on the Internet to post outings of the alleged authors of And What Thanks Do We Get? It need not be a separate website, like I Am Belle de Jour. A creative blawger might just write a post with a Typepad comment thread that would do the trick, as Belle would say. Let the outing and shouting begin!
Posted by: Nic | March 23, 2004 at 02:12 AM
Evan, what do you think? Nic seems to be daring us to start that thread right here. This makes me even more interested in finding out who Nic is actually.
On a side note, Haloscan's new trackback feature is working on my blog as you successfully pinged my post from this one.
Have you tried pinging And What Thanks Do We Get?
Posted by: Kevin | March 23, 2004 at 12:55 PM