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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

"You're a P**** if you don't put your name to your words..."

Or something to that extent...

There is a link to a fox News video linked to the headline of this post that is what got me to this post.

The back story:

Model Liskula Cohen is suing Google to force them to reveal the blogger responsible for naming her "Biggest Floozy in New York City". Somehow, out of all the negative press she's gotten over the last year, month, decade, whatever, she has targeted a blog that made an (probably) arbitrary decision to post something about her that was negative and she's taking issue with this, calling it defamation. Before her lawsuit, no one had really heard of her, outside of she being the one who was hit in the face with a vodka bottle by a doorman at the Hudson Hotel. Now that she's filed this stupid lawsuit, everyone is talking about her in a most derogatory manner.

In reading about this story, I watched the aforementioned video on Fox News where a group of people are talking about this. At one point, one of the commentators, Andrew Breitbart, made the comment, "There's nothing more annoying, ... It's borderline evil, for people to do anonymous sniping. It's so cowardly - it's like being in traffic and driving past the person and giving them the finger. It's so cowardly. Pete, you are a pu**y if you don't put your name to your words online."

That being said, recently, a former friend started passing out my blog address like Halloween candy so her online acquaintances (she has no "real" friends as she is unable to sustain a live relationship, choosing to have only online "friends" so she has greater control over them) to attempt to leave comments here to degrade me in print. First, all my comments are moderated so nothing gets through like spam. Second, these people posted anonymously, thereby making them the same kind of "...pu**y" of which Andrew spoke. Third, the ONLY thing these anonymous posters had to say was to attack my writing, telling me what a failure I am/was at it.

Let's touch on this last one, shall we? For them to zero in on this, thinking it's going to bother me, tells me the single most important fact: that they, my former friend included, are themselves failures at writing and believe the best way to assuage their feelings of inadequacy is to attack me in that manner. Given their propensity for anonymous posting, I'm guessing they are the failures in that they don't have the courage of their convictions nor do they trust their words.

This is a particular pet peeve of mine, for people to take some kind of stand against an injustice, either real or perceived, but they don't want people to know they feel that way. Wow, imagine them taking a stand for, I don't know, the clubbing of baby seals. "Stop that!" (as they slink away silently and obliquely in the hopes that no one heard them to later point them out as being one with any kind of conviction at all.)

I am a person of words. I make my living by them and words create immortality in the sense they are always there, in print, for decades and centuries to come. The Declaration of Independence is truly just words, however, it is one of the single most important documents in the world. With a few simple words, strung together with the proper intent, the United States became a country. However, how powerful would that document still be were Thomas Jefferson to have not penned his name to it? The Magna Carta; again, just words, but they created a new land. The German Instrument of Surrender; just words on paper, but it ended WWII. I'll bet the people who wrote that put their names on it too.

It takes a great deal of courage to put your name to your words. If you are unable to do this simple task, then don't bother writing the words. As a journalist/writer, I believe STRONGLY in the First Amendment and all its protections. I also put my name to my words, which is more than a lot of people will do.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough about this one. I'm out...