Glad to Know It's Doing Something Good

Apparently, blogging may do the body good:

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

Scientists now hope to explore the neurological underpinnings at play, especially considering the explosion of blogs. According to Alice Flaherty, a neuroscientist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the placebo theory of suffering is one window through which to view blogging. As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a "placebo for getting satisfied," Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly. ...

The frontal and temporal lobes, which govern speech—no dedicated writing center is hardwired in the brain—may also figure in. For example, lesions in Wernicke’s area, located in the left temporal lobe, result in excessive speech and loss of language comprehension. People with Wernicke's aphasia speak in gibberish and often write constantly. In light of these traits, Flaherty speculates that some activity in this area could foster the urge to blog.

Although I'd prefer gently to ignore the potential link between gibberish and the urge to blog, I can't let slide the reference to sleep: When it comes to blogging, I suspect that any somnolent effects are negated (and then some) by the compulsion.

RE: World Famous in Rhode Island

Not sure if Ian was chumming the waters with his headline, but I'll bite: Jerzyk looking to sell Rhode Island's Future. Heh, some of us would agree (ba dum bum).

Ian has more from Matt:

For me, I have given 3 years of my life to getting RI Future off the ground and I am ready to pass the torch sometime in the near future. In fact, I have been talking with interested parties about selling the blog. Ideally, I would like to sell it to someone who will maintain the character and the integrity of the blog.

Ian also covered Matt's entrepreneurial quest in his article and quoted Justin to the same, if less ambitious, effect. As for us Anchorites, well, perhaps we are a little less profit-driven in our motivation for blogging. To quote, um, myself (forgive the pretension) from Ian's piece

You have to do it because you love doing it for its own sake. Lots of blogs flame out. People get bored or realize how hard it is. But I think that so long as you are passionate about something — whether politics, music, food or whatever — you will be able to keep it going. Just don’t ever look at it as a way to make money or gain power.

Don't get me wrong: more power to Matt if he can make a nice profit from his investment. Speaking for myself, I just never envisioned making a buck off of this blogging stuff. It may sound all altruistic and naive--cue "Kumbaya"--but my goal is simply to do my part to help improve RI's future for my kids and their generation.

Political Blogfire

Brown student Sara Sunshine's article on the local region of the blogosphere is a worthy offering — much better than I'd feared, having been forewarned of Crowley's involvement. What better comment on the quirky, intangible power of blogging could there be than Ms. Sunshine's inclusion of a quotation from the post in which I mentioned our interview. And it was certainly good of her to give me the last word with this:

Crowley is "more of a rhetorician than an intellectual," Katz told The Herald. "And not a very good one at that."

ADDENDUM:

For the record, I'm pretty sure that I said, "I made a joke when we started Anchor Rising..."

Introducing The Ocean State Republican

Give a warm welcome to the Rhode Island Republican Assembly's new entry into the local blogosphere, The Ocean State Republican (also accessible through the web address www.theOSR.com).

From the OSR's "About us" page...

The OSR is the new politically-focused, conservative activist-oriented blog, primarily sponsored by the Rhode Island Republican Assembly, “The Republican Wing of the Republican Party”....

As all good Rhode Island Republicans “in the know” know, The Ocean State Republican was the former moniker of a local electronic newsletter — which featured local political news and commentary from a Republican point of view — that was faithfully sent out by e-mail each month for a number of years, as a regular supplement to the Rhode Island Republican Update.

For reasons still known only to Divine Providence, The Ocean State Republican mysteriously disappeared in late 2003 … but it did not die! The OSR has been biding its time … integrating and adapting to emerging technologies … assimilating new ideas and concepts … refining its purpose and message … steadily regaining its strength … waiting for just the right time to awaken from its long slumber. The OSR has returned! (… and not a moment too soon!)

The OSR's impressive list of contributors (including some names you may recognize from Anchor Rising's comments section!) can be viewed here.

Finish This Sentence: When The Going Gets Tough, the Rockefeller Republicans…

Thursday's Warwick Beacon carried its report, written by Russell J. Moore, on former U.S. Senator/former Warwick Mayor Lincoln Chafee's disaffiliation from the Republican party. (Moore mentions Anchor Rising's early coverage of this story; we appreciate the hat-tip).

However, the item in the article that really caught my eye was current Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian's answer to the question of whether he would consider switching away from the Republican party…

Avedisian, a fellow Rockefeller Republican, said he personally wouldn’t leave the Republican Party as long as he is in his current term.

That's a little less than telling the rank-and-file that "I'm in this with you all the way", isn't it?

ProJo Will Print Baloney After All

Apparently some of the baloney that blogs put out is good enough for the ProJo to pick up.

And unattributed at that.

On Saturday, Andrew broke the story that former Senator Chafee had finally left the GOP. So did RI Report's Tom Shevlin, who has some "original thoughts" on the way it was reported by ProJo (h/t Ian):

Sunday morning, the vast majority of Rhode Islanders awoke with the impression that somehow the Providence Journal had by chance asked Chafee if he had left the GOP. The Journal’s opening paragraph read as follows:

“Lincoln D. Chafee, who lost his Senate seat in the wave of anti-Republican sentiment in last November's election, said that he has left the party.”

It goes on “Chafee said he disaffiliated from the party ‘in June or July,’ making him an unaffiliated voter. He did so quietly, and until Sunday, he said, ‘No one's asked me about it.’ He said he made the move because ‘I want my affiliation to accurately reflect my status.’”

So did the Journal just decide to ask him about it? Why ever would they do that?

What the Journal failed to mention, but which I reported on Saturday along with AnchorRising, is that Chafee’s disaffiliation was discovered by an eagle-eyed RIGOP activist who had specific questions regarding Chafee’s registration status.

In fact, there was no need to speak to Chafee except to gather his personal reaction to what was as clear as black and white. Confirmation of the initial assertion was easily obtained through public access to the voter roll available online through the Secretary of State’s website.

No, there was no press release from Senator Chafee; no press conference or unsolicited phone call to the Journal newsroom. Chafee had kept his disaffiliation quiet for several months before the news broke, and without the diligence of one nosy party activist, the Journal and the rest of us probably still wouldn’t know about it.

Now, I’m under no illusions. I realize that the meager readership of the Rhode Island blogosphere pales in comparison to that of the Providence Journal and makes bloggers for the most part bit players in the news cycle....But if the Journal chose not to cite these bit players in their “original” reporting, then perhaps they shouldn’t have used reaction to Chafee’s disaffiliation for the basis of their follow-up story on Monday. Especially if those reactions were taken from a blog which carried the real story the day before the Journal’s own report ran.

Kerr Must Be in the Index...

Bob Kerr somehow got his hands on a copy of Rescuing Providence blogger (and regular AR commenter) Michael Morse's forthcoming book of that name, and he really thinks you should read it:

Morse has been an emergency medical technician (EMT) and firefighter in Providence for 16 years. He is one of those people, like most who work at firehouses, who are hooked on the job. Despite the falling-down fatigue that comes with call after call, he would have it no other way.

He has been a writer for a lot of years too. It is tough to say just when that part of him kicked in. He remembers his days at Bishop Hendricken High School, where he did not light up the honor roll. But he got that B in English once. There were some early indications that he could do things with the language.

And he has. He’s written a book, and it’s so damn good that I can’t stand this guy. I mean, just where does he get off climbing out of a rescue wagon and writing with this kind of feeling and pace and vivid recollection?

Oh to be so good that Kerr can't stand you! I guess we mere citizens will have to wait until October 1st to stoke similar resentment of Mr. Morse.

There's that "B" Word Again

An old joke down in Washington (as I've heard) is that inhabitants have a peculiar method of reading books: index first. Of course, "Washington" is a metonym for American politics, and the index-first urge is a natural one for anybody who may find his own name (or that of another person or an organization about which he cares) in a political book.

That is why, although I'll confess that my interest in political memoirs in general and Steve Laffey's in particular is a nearly inaudible hum, this line in a front-page Providence Journal piece on his forthcoming book caught my attention:

The narrative travels from debates and behind-the-scenes strategy sessions to advertisements and door-knocking and the Laffey campaign’s efforts to seed its message into political blogs and radio talk shows.

The "B" word appears again in Darrell West's review in the Books section:

He says he has no regrets about his campaign and he blames “shameful journalism,” unfriendly newspaper columnists, aggressive bloggers, and national figures such as Karl Rove and the D.C. Republican establishment, which poured millions of dollars into ads, direct mail, and opposition research attacking him.

Honestly, I don't expect to find Anchor Rising in Laffey's index. We weren't particularly "aggressive" during the primary season, for one thing. For another, I don't believe that we played that large of a role in either his momentum or his defeat. But then again, I don't recall any blogs figuring very largely in the saga, so perhaps some adviser — of either a political or literary sort — put the "B" word so prominently in the marketing vocabulary of Laffey's book because "blogs are hot," or some such headline phrase from a marketing trade publication.

That said, if anybody who reads Laffey's book comes across a paragraph akin to the following made-up possibility, I'd be interested to hear about it:

My staffers so harassed the comment sections of Anchor Rising (the state's uninspiring conservative blog) that the Web site's contributors seriously considered closing down the interactive feature altogether.

If the book is of the Tell All variety, perhaps we'll finally learn who posted under which nicknames.

Net Root Hypocrisy

Didja hear about the netroot capo who had to settle with the SEC? Matt Drudge (of course) broke the story that, according to the NY Times, MyDD.com blogger Jerome Armstrong is paying close to $30,000 in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission because he promoted the stock of a company on his blog and didn't tell anyone he was being "compensated" for it (here's the settlement). Roger Simon observes:

Now, as we all know, sleaze and corruption are not unique to either side of the political spectrum. But Armstrong, Kos & their netroot cronies have made a big deal out of clean government (and they should). So this kind of allegation speaks even more deeply to their ethics, as it it would for anyone in that position.

Moreover, this behavior, if true, besmirches blogging in general, harming all of us who take this enterprise seriously as a criticism of the activities of mainstream media....I'll give Armstrong the benefit of the doubt for now. But he owes us all a complete and thorough explanation of how this came to be. Otherwise, he might as well quit blogging. He and his integrity are toast.

All those followers of Kos should be especially interested in this. I hope they don't respond defensively, because if they do, the grounds for communication between intelligent Americans will be even worse than it is. How will we be able to take their pronouncements seriously?

Indeed. And Red State (schadenfreude, anyone?) reminds:

So, let's review: one of the founding members of the left blogosphere not only got his start in politics by predicting races on the basis of whether "Earley's natal Jupiter (that's being transited by Jupiter), is being dragged down by his south node there as well," he's now settled with the government over charges that he failed to disclose a conflict of interest when the law (as well as a basic sense of ethics) would have required him to do so. As noted at the time, this allegation in particular is troubling because of allegations that Armstrong was engaged in a hype-for-hire scheme in which he failed to disclose conflicts of interest with respect to his political career as well.

Now, lo these many months ago, in the course of exercising his remarkable powers of persuasion to make sure that the rest of the liberal bloggers kept quiet about the whole situation, Armstrong's long-time blogging partner and book co-author Markos Moulitsas said this:

Jerome can't talk about it now since the case is not fully closed. But once it is, he'll go on the offensive. That should be a couple of months off.

Well, it's actually been a year. But the case is apparently fully closed. We eagerly await Vis Numar "going on the offensive" to explain whether he did or did not fail to fulfill his legal obligations to disclose that he was being paid to tout a stock. More Markos:

My request to you guys is that you ignore this for now. It would make my life easier if we can confine the story. Then, once Jerome can speak and defend himself, then I'll go on the offensive (which is when I would file any lawsuits) and anyone can pile on.

Well, folks, the world awaits. Is an "offensive" from Armstrong coming? I mean to say, beyond deleting diaries at MyDD that make reference to the settlement (I am told that the "inflammatory" diary title in question was "Jerome Armstrong Admits Wrongdoing." The Google Cache has not caught it yet.)? Is Kos going to file a bunch of lawsuits now, to clear his name of the charges that the campaigns in question were really paying Armstrong in order to get favorable treatment from Kos? Or will another eerie silence fall over the left blogosphere like it did when this story originally arose?

The initial response over at Daily Kos? Drudge is Gay!!!!

How very "progressive." (As Glenn R. puts it, "What is it with the lefty types and gay slurs?").

Wonder what some of the local bloggers think of all this. (So far, crickets chirping...)

N.B. In the "Comments," RI Future's Matt Jerczyk points out that it wasn't Kos himself who posted that "Drudge is Gay", but one of his many "diarists." Point taken. Instead of originally pointing to a "Kos" response, I should have used the more accepted "Kossack" to avoid any conflation between the Kosfather and his fellow travelers.

Unionizing Bloggers?

Only the "reality-based" community could come up with this:

...a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.
...

"I think people have just gotten to the point where people outside the blogosphere understand the value of what it is that we do on the progressive side," said Susie Madrak, the author of Suburban Guerilla blog, who is active in the union campaign. "And I think they feel a little more entitled to ask for something now."

But just what that something is may be hard to say.

In a world as diverse, vocal and unwieldy as the blogosphere, there's no consensus about what type of organization is needed and who should be included. Some argue for a free-standing association for activist bloggers while others suggest a guild open to any blogger -- from knitting fans to video gamers -- that could be created within established labor groups.

Others see a blogger coalition as a way to find health insurance discounts, fight for press credentials or even establish guidelines for dealing with advertising and presenting data on page views.

"It would raise the professionalism," said Leslie Robinson, a writer at ColoradoConfidential.com. "Maybe we could get more jobs, bona fide jobs."
...

While bloggers work to organize their own labor movement, their growing numbers are already being courted by some unions.

"Bloggers are on our radar screen right now for approaching and recruiting into the union," said Gerry Colby, president of the National Writers Union, a local of the United Auto Workers. "We're trying to develop strategies to reach bloggers and encourage them to join."
...
Sitting at a panel titled "A Union for Bloggers: It's Time to Organize" at this week's YearlyKos Convention for bloggers in Chicago, [Kirsten] Burgard said she'd welcome a chance to join a unionized blogging community.

"I sure would like to have that union bug on my Web site," said Burgard, a blogger who uses the moniker Bendy Girl.

Madrak hopes that regardless the form, the labor movement ultimately will help bloggers pay for medical bills. It's important, she said, because some bloggers can spend hours a day tethered to computers as they update their Web sites.

"Blogging is very intense -- physically, mentally," she said. "You're constantly scanning for news. You're constantly trying to come up with information that you think will mobilize your readers. In the meantime, you're sitting at a computer and your ass is getting wider and your arm and neck and shoulder are wearing out because you're constantly using a mouse."

Sheesh. Yes, they're serious. At least the KOS crowd. Not everyone is too keen on the idea, though:

"The reason I like blogging is that it's very anarchistic. I can do whatever I want whenever I want, and oh my God, you're not going to tell me what to do," said Curt Hopkins, the founder of the Committee to Protect Bloggers.

"The blogosphere is such a weird term and such a weird idea. It's anyone who wants to do it," Hopkins said. "There's absolutely no commonality there. How will they find a commonality to go on? I think it's doomed to failure on any sort of large scale."
...

Unsurprisingly, there's decidedly less support for a union movement among conservative bloggers.

Mark Noonan, an editor at Blogs for Bush and a senior writer at GOP Bloggers, said he worries that a blogger union would undermine the freewheeling nature of the blogosphere, regardless of its political composition.

"We just go out there and write what is on our mind, damn the critics," he said. "To make a union is to start to provide a firm structure for the blogosphere and that would merely make the blogosphere a junior-league (mainstream media). ... Get us a union and other 'professional' organizations and we'll start to be conformist and we'll start to be just another special interest."

I can see it now: Anchor Rising becomes targeted as a "scab blog". Will there be "virtual picketing"? An electronic "card check"?

Robert Whitcomb Hits the Big Time with Cape Wind

The Providence Journal’s Robert Whitcomb may think that running the editorial page of a daily metropolitan newspaper is already a big-time job. However, today, he really hits the big time -- a link from Instapundit, who previews Whitcomb's new book titled Cape Wind : Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound (co-authored with Wendy Williams).

From the Publisher's Weekly blurb provided at Amazon.com...

This well-reported assessment of democracy manipulated by powerful federal, state and local insiders, and other not-in-my-backyard shenanigans surrounding plans for a wind farm five miles off Cape Cod, is certainly upfront about its bias. Williams, a former journalist-in-residence at Duke University, and Whitcomb, editorial page editor of the Providence Journal, jauntily champion the cause of energy entrepreneur Jim Gordon's "bold idea" to plant 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound—a project still snared in a regulatory maze as this peppery account went to press. The authors decry what they call fear-mongering by Gordon's well-funded opponents (2005 contributions: $3.3 million) and are particularly peeved by the obstructionism of Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose behind-the-scenes maneuvering is highlighted, as are the fulminations verging "on the incoherent" by environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr.—normally an outspoken opponent of coal-powered energy generation and a vigorous supporter of alternative energy sources. The Kennedys' stubborn opposition is shared by such moneyed neighbors as Listerine heiress Bunny Mellon and coal, oil and gas magnate William Koch, who are depicted as plutocratic bullies in this rambunctious, unsparing dissection of ruling-class abuse.

Robert Whitcomb Hits the Big Time with Cape Wind

The Providence Journal’s Robert Whitcomb may think that running the editorial page of a daily metropolitan newspaper is already a big-time job. However, today, he really hits the big time -- a link from Instapundit, who previews Whitcomb's new book titled Cape Wind : Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound (co-authored with Wendy Williams).

From the Publisher's Weekly blurb provided at Amazon.com...

This well-reported assessment of democracy manipulated by powerful federal, state and local insiders, and other not-in-my-backyard shenanigans surrounding plans for a wind farm five miles off Cape Cod, is certainly upfront about its bias. Williams, a former journalist-in-residence at Duke University, and Whitcomb, editorial page editor of the Providence Journal, jauntily champion the cause of energy entrepreneur Jim Gordon's "bold idea" to plant 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound—a project still snared in a regulatory maze as this peppery account went to press. The authors decry what they call fear-mongering by Gordon's well-funded opponents (2005 contributions: $3.3 million) and are particularly peeved by the obstructionism of Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose behind-the-scenes maneuvering is highlighted, as are the fulminations verging "on the incoherent" by environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr.—normally an outspoken opponent of coal-powered energy generation and a vigorous supporter of alternative energy sources. The Kennedys' stubborn opposition is shared by such moneyed neighbors as Listerine heiress Bunny Mellon and coal, oil and gas magnate William Koch, who are depicted as plutocratic bullies in this rambunctious, unsparing dissection of ruling-class abuse.

Re: Now Here's an Interesting Development

Warwick Daily Times editor Louis C. Hochman summarizes…

For those of you who are keeping track, at this point we've got new media (Anchor Rising) commenting on old media (the Warwick Daily Times), which was reporting on how new media (RIFuture, and later Anchor Rising) commented on old media ([Dan Yorke's] show)…

…and editorializes on the chain of the “varied and sometimes seemingly self-contradictory” responses to the Dan Yorke/Scott Avedisian kerfuffle…

It's a credit to both Katz and Jerzyk (both of whom participated in our coverage as sources) that they've been able to turn an insensitive comment by an often-abrasive talk show host into an intelligent discussion on the responsibilities of media, Internet-age, transistor-age and printing-press-age alike. It's just too bad our local Imus-of-the-moment didn't put quite as much thought into what he had to say.

Now Here's an Interesting Development

I'm not sure what its significance is, but a Warwick Daily Times story, by Matt Bower, on the Yorke/Avedisian kerfuffle places the story largely in the context of blogs and their commenters:

Matt Jerzyk, administrator of the generally liberal RIFuture blog, www.rifuture.org, said he wrote a post the next day expressing his outrage that the media was staying silent about Yorke's comments, rather than holding him accountable and taking him to task. ...

"Anytime we get over 20 comments on a post, it's considered a pretty hot issue. A lot of people were weighing in with their opinions on the matter," he said. ...

When Mark Comtois from the generally conservative AnchorRising blog, www.anchorrising.com, got wind of Jerzyk's post, he wrote a blog entry of his own asking whether or not bloggers have a responsibility regarding the comments on their blogs. ...

Justin Katz, administrator for AnchorRising, said bloggers need to be careful about spreading rumors that they may have heard.

"I think Matt's outrage is ludicrous and it's bizarre to believe that outing someone - the idea that that could affect someone politically and adversely is bizarre," he said. "The leftists see an opportunity to silence a voice that they want out of the media. It's almost as if we're requiring gay politicians to have a stance on [their own] gayness, which raises issues for concern."

Katz said there's value to the area in which public figures' lives aren't spelled out and scripted.

"I think there's a humanity lost if we start requiring a checklist of what we're allowed to say about each other," he said.

The fact that the story centers on a blog debate puts blogs in the position of being generators of news. That, of itself, isn't particularly unique at this point, but the number of commenters whom Bower quotes strikes me as a new development — almost as if blogs can become a repository for quickly available and easily quotable man-on-the-street reactions.

Frankly, I'm not altogether sure that such a thing would be a healthy development. One doesn't often read news stories in which the reporter writes, "One person I stopped on the street said X. Some guy sitting at a table outside the local coffee shop thought Y." (I'd categorize separately lazy/suspicious constructions such as "some people feel.") With an abetting blogger, anonymous commenters — perhaps each pretending to be multiple different people — can now generate the impression of a movement within minutes and reach a large audience of not-necessarily-tech-savvy print news readers within days. Just look at the upshot in this particular case: Matt and a bunch of nicknamed commenters manufactured some outrage, and now a print media source has given their production old-media credibility. Here's a well-lubricated chute for the creation of political avalanches out of a little spit and froth.

On the other hand (or perhaps on the same hand, I suppose), this dynamic clearly presents people a channel through which to discuss matters — such as the evolving significance of politicians' sexuality and society's reaction thereto — but have felt it improper to raise on a public stage for quite some time. Perhaps there is grounds for faith that free expression and a growing reward for participation are ultimately beneficial, despite opportunity for abuse.

ADDENDUM:
The relevant page at RI Future appears to be unavailable for the time being. It may be some sort of technical glitch, but until Matt resolves it, here's the Google cache.

ADDENDUM II:
The original post is back up, and the only thing that I can spot that's changed from the cached version is that comment #27, by Mike, has been deleted. It read as follows:

Oh, Matt-everyone, and I mean everyone, in Warwick has known he was gay for years. I don’t think he’ll be running to the courthouse to file a defamation complainyt. LOL.

Of course, the cache is short 50-some comments from the actual post, so who knows what else Matt might have deemed inappropriate in that range. Other comments make it clear that Mike had other posts, and their disappearance is particularly peculiar, given comments to this post. I'd be curious what Mike might have said to become erased from the page that was more worrisome, from a blogger's standpoint, than comment 46.

Righteous Indignation and a Blogger's Responsibility

The left-side of the local blogosphere is atwitter with calls to fire WPRO's Dan Yorke for an assertion/information he let slip during his show. (I won't repeat the comment, you can find it on your own.) However, what I did find interesting was that a similar assertion had been made in the comments section (the last one) of one of the righteously indignant blogs almost exactly two years ago. It raises an interesting question: if it's not OK for Yorke to publicly assert something, regardless of whether or not it's common knowledge, what responsibility do we as bloggers have to ensure that our anonymous commenters don't do the same? Or does anonymity confer a mantle of plausible deniability for us?

I know that we at Anchor Rising let our commenters have a pretty free reign, but we have, in the past, removed comments that have made assertions that we would consider un-provable or distasteful. As part of the "new media" bloggers need to keep an eye out for such things in their comments section. I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou, after all, there are probably still a few "hearsay" comments floating around our comments sections, too. As named bloggers who have "ownership" of these sites, we are responsible for what is asserted by anonymous commenters on our blogs. Thus, it behooves us to reign in the "gossip" to help strengthen our position as "serious" news/commentary outlets. The trick is to do it without scaring away people. (I know, we've had this discussion before).

Update: For those interested in blogger-navel gazing, I posed a shorter version of this as a comment over at RI Future (comment #40), to which I've received a response (#44) and have replied (#50).