ANONYMITY, POWERFUL ENEMY OF PROGRESS

Sorry friends, I have to go serious on you.  I had a flood of thoughts rushing into the bilge between my ears the other day when I received a very well written item by a professional anonymous reporter. Honestly, I was taken by the talent of the individual who seems to do this kind of thing for a living.  It goes against just about all the moral standards that I have tried to develop in my life.  I started to be encouraged from a very young age to speak my mind frankly and without personal attack.  That is what my father tried to teach me.  He used to tell me, "You can tell anyone anything, as long as it is not an attack on the person to whom you are taking."  This axiom of EFR Dion's was a part of my growing up from maybe 10 or 12 years old.  The corollary was, "Talk and write in the open.  If you have to hide to say it, shut up."  So OK.  I trusted the "Old Man" so that's what I have been doing for a long time...not always with great success, mind you.  It's the "personal attack" part that I haven't totally conquered yet.
Getting back to the item that I received over the Internet the other day.  I had a chance to measure some of the information offered in the piece against other sources of information, some of which featured the person about whom the article was written.  I was rather happy to find that the plausibility of the information contained in the anonymous, insider work contained a verisimilitude to what was developing before my eyes and in my brain in an open forum, non-anonymous exercise.  I do have to admit that the interlocutory in public was a superb exercise in "Politicalese."  Furthermore, I have to admit that I was able to understand the "politicalese" more easily after having read the first rendition of the same story.
I'm telling you this because I think it is a sign of growing up.  I suppose that there are some times when anonymity can serve a purpose.  I suppose that it is fine for some people and I suppose that wrapped up in some anonymity there is a degree of truth.  But mostly, anonymity makes me think of the Irish drinking song that celebrates the humor of "Wasn't that So 'n So I saw ya with the other day?  I was over there with Whoyamacullem takin' a look-see at the doins goin' on..." (It's something like that).   Of course frankness also makes me think of my favorite classical comedy, "The Misanthrope" written by Moliere over 300 years ago.  I think it is my favorite because I see so much of myself in it.  The Misanthrope finally comes around to being a little more civil.  Something that hasn't happened to me yet.  Yes, I still think that anonymity doesn't really advance anybody toward the goal.  I can hear you thinking, "Neither does bald-faced frankness."  True, but bald-faced frankness gives the person the comfort of knowing that no one can deny having received the message, no matter what their opinion about the speaker.  One of my favorite stories about Jesus is when He told His Interrogator, "Ask these who are standing here. They heard me because all I have said, I have said in the open."  So, jam it, Herod [or whoever it was].  
All this to say, just as I like my whiskey straight up, my coffee black and my soup hot, I like straight talk.  Always have, always will.  It's better that way, then there won't be anyone crying at my funeral.

NO ONE READS IT ANYWAY -- #1 SON ABOUT "365 THOUGHTS"

No one reads it anyway.  That's what I heard about the blog that you, being someone is reading.  You And 1,670 others in the short time that this has been public.  In the short time that I have been on this earth I have come to the conclusion that whatever is written will someday be read.  I grew up in a place where there were newspapers competing for eyeballs every day.  There were English Language newspapers, Polish Language newspapers, Chinese Language newspapers and French Language newspapers.  Some one had to be reading them.  I remember that every weekend we would have two New York City newspapers in our house.  They featured great colored comics sections and a Sunday Magazine.  I remember very vividly one Sunday when the magazine cover had some scantily clad cheer leaders and our baby brother who was all of about 7 or 8 made the "woo-woo" sound.  Even my overly modest mother laughed at that.  Print survived because people read.  The Internet is popular because it presents so many choices to be read.  Ideas abound.  (Maybe not here, but they're out there somewhere.)
As human beings we have a drive to get a glimpse inside one another's heads.  We want to know what the other person is thinking.  We are driven to validate our own opinions.  We do that most easily when a person lays it out in black and white rather than to keep it covered inside his/her coconut. Reading is like being at a car race, rather than at a horse race.  What's the difference?  I never met anyone who would go to a horse race to see a crash.  You?  When we read we are always looking for the "Gotcha" moment [crrasshh] when we can firmly disagree with the author's position.  That's what I love about reading on the Internet.  If I read something that lights my fire, man, it's like, comment, comment, comment.  I always put my name too.  None of this anonymous, light a firecracker and run away stuff.  I want you to know that someone is enjoying the clash of opinion, whether or not you intended to cause a clash.  So don't tell me that "no one reads it anyway."  I know that someone is reading it because my computer tells me so...and...the comment box does too.  And remember to put your real name because "anonymity is the enemy of progress in truth."