My airplane reading this for this trip is a book I've wanted to read for a few months now: Small is the New Big by Seth Godin. It's a collection of 'the best' of his blog posts over the past 3-4 years. While I spend a lot of time reading online I still appreciate holding some paper in my hands.
He riffs on the troubles associated with anonymity on the internet. Seth's against it. Says it causes a ton of problems, not least of which are spam, flame wars, trolls and general bitchiness. My favorite line:"anonymity is the enemy of civility."
You know, I completely agree. When I started this blog I thought about writing under a pseudonym or leaving my blog completely anonymous. But within a week of my first post I read two blogs by people I know in Regina and i was appalled by how cranky the blogs were. Not really the tone (not my style, but that's OK), but more that they didn't have the guts to put their name behind what they were writing.
My question: who do you respect/admire more, someone who anonymously puts up a web page criticizing local government, or some kids who recorded a song criticizing local government (click 'ode to Pasquala') and perform it live on stage all over the city no matter who attends?