Reprehensible.

As usual, I'm late to the party, but I can't resist commenting about this and following the instructions of Zoe, who has a very fun and award-winning blog called My Boyfriend is a Twat. What's not to like there? Anyway, the Girl With a One-Track Mind was "outed" by Sunday Times news editor Nicholas Hellen. Read the details of why the guy is a complete bastard here. His e-mail address is nicholas.hellen@sunday-times.co.uk. Do send him a nice message and let him know what you think about him vindictively threatening Girl; his e-mail to her was of the "do what we want you to or we'll print your mother's name, your name and address and other information about you in our big newspaper" variety. Blackmail, pure and simple. Bastard.

This whole episode frightens me lots and lots and lots, as I too am an anonymous blogger. Lucy Arin isn't my real name, and I'm always purposefully vague about where exactly I live. Sure, several people in my life know that I blog and where I blog, including most of the people that I write about; my hubby knows about my blog, as do my sisters and parents. None of them read it with any regularity, but it isn't them that I worry about. Here's what worries me: my employer is unaware, as are the civic organizations that I belong to, of my abortion-rights stance, my lack of religious faith (a cardinal sin here in the red states), and my extreme dislike of the current administration in Washington. I firmly believe that I am exercising my right to freedom of speech here on my blog, plus it is a fine place to dump all the things that are running around in my head. I chose a pen name because I like the freedom that affords me, as well as the fact that my real last name is pretty distinctive, and it would be very easy for some psychopath stalker to track me down with just that small bit of information, my real name. This Nicholas Hellen fella is a right twat. Privacy isn't among the basic human rights that people talk about in the hushed tones reserved for the freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly that most democratic nations afford their citizens, but it is my considered opinion that it ought to be.