Ed Kilduff’s anonymous and frequently vulgar blog is cowardly and hypocritical. And yes it is his blog. If there are any doubters that it is, I suggest you ask Kilduff, Mike Carlson, Dave Cable, or Royce Meyerott, whom I assume will all tell you the truth.
My thanks to Sharon Kvisto, editor of sanjuanislander.com for pulling back the curtain on this wizard of anonymity, as expressed in her website and reprinted on Orcas Issues.
It needs to be added that Kilduff is on the board of the Common Sense Alliance, and that his blog is endorsed by the CSA and Mike Carlson, its President Emeritus. The CSA has a link to Kilduff’s blog on its website, and both the CSA and Mr. Carlson frequently refer their readers and friends to the blog as a source of information supporting their cause and with which they agree.
As almost all entries on the blog are anonymous posts or under fictitious names, they are in effect using Kilduff as their anonymous attack dog while hiding their own names. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide if the term “cowardice” also applies to the CSA, Carlson, and anyone else on the CSA board with the exception of Gordy Peterson. He and Peg Manning, not a board member, post under their real names, to their credit.
Why my accusation of hypocrisy? Because Kilduff’s blog and the CSA demand transparency of public officials and council candidates, while hiding behind anonymity itself. That is as pure as hypocrisy can get.
Kilduff justifies the anonymous posts and fictitious names on his blog in part because of his claimed fear of reprisals to him and his commenters. (Many of the anonymous commenters are suspected of being Kilduff himself.)
If anyone needs to fear attacks, it is the victims of Kilduff’s blog, including current county council members, public officials and employees at all levels, candidates running for County Council, consultants, environmentalists, relatives of these individuals, and critical posters who use their real names.
On the site, I have been compared to George Wallace, and also accused of having foreclosed on poor homeowners when employed by Wells Fargo Mortgage, when in fact I have never worked in the mortgage industry. I am not alone in these unfounded rumors: there was also a recent witch hunt on the site, attempting to prove that a candidate did not have her claimed college diploma. This campaign went so far as to claiming that the fonts on her diploma were bogus and therefore invalidated the diploma.
Kilduff also justifies his actions in part by claiming that anonymity is common practice in the worldwide blogosphere. That may be true, but pornography is also a common practice on the internet. if Kilduff and his supporters want to continue their anonymous vitriol they have the right to do so. Bur our closeknit community deserves better than this.
I am not trying to censor them, which is beyond my powers anyway. However, the public does have the right to criticize them for the use of anonymous posts and fictitious names without fear of reprisals and vulgar retaliation.
David Dehlendorf
San Juan Island
Dear Mr. Dehlendorf,
I agree that it is unfortunate that members of our community find it necessary to use anonymity in online communication that is widely read. However, the need to cloak oneself arises from aggressive community and county official response – especially to those who have valuable and sensible reasoning to their discontent, as Mr. Kilduff does. It would not be far fetched for Mr. Kilduff to be paid a visit from county officials or the Sheriff’s department following the posting of controversial (and true!) blog posts if his name was attached. Our county officials, and especially the “Friends” of the San Juans, often demonstrate inappropriate behavior when dealing with people they don’t like. They also take revenge and hold grudges. If the Trojan Heron is indeed Mr. Kilduff’s blog he is wise to keep his name off of it.
I encourage any person with valuable information to share to do it through whatever channel you can find comfort in. Jail cells and graves around the United States are filled with the bodies of whistle blowers. I am all for the security that anonymous internet posts provide – especially if they share valuable information.
Adam Farish (yes… it’s really me)…
Please start taking vitamin D supplements all of you. It’s the dark and rain making you crazy. We need vitamin D supplements here even more tahan they do in DC.
Mr. Dehlendorf is mixing apples and acai berries here. Blog=entries written by blog owner. Comments on blog=comments by all sorts of people with all sorts of agendas and all levels of rationality. Which is he complaining of?
In another section, Mr. Dehlendorf is mixing oranges and durian: Demanding that public officials act transparently is part of our ethos and mandated by law. Private citizens are private citizens, and many–like whistleblowers–have good reason not to challenge their employer in public, not to challenge the person who controls their housing in public, not to challenge the people who have authority over their school kids in public. Sure, it’s easy to share your opinions when you have no skin in the “game.” Or when you are well-connected with the very powers-that-be so that it doesn’t matter. A lot of regular folks here in the islands are not in that position.
An interesting position–that our County government is being victimized by shadowy citizens.
I’m complaining about both. Kilduff is responsible for both blog entries and blog posts because he owns the blog, sets by example its uncivil tone, and has the ability to remove vulgar comments. [Editor’s note: the comments referred to were deleted from this post].
I’m somewhat hampered in responding to the prior post because I do not know what material was removed from Mr. Dehlendorf’s post. I am not easily offended so perhaps he will send me his examples offline.
I believe that a blogger is responsible for the content of the blog, but not for the comments it evokes. The blogosphere is a forum that developed well after ladies stopped wearing hats and white gloves and people stopped writing in fountain pen using black ink on fine paper; it is a very modern animal, for good or ill, and removing comments is considered to interfere with the free flow of ideas. The real question is, is the blogger’s argument supported by facts and logic. The commenters often serve to separate wheat from chaff and focus discussion on key points.
I find very little that could fairly be characterized as “uncivil” or “vulgar” in the Trojan Heron blog
[trojanheron.blogspot.com], to which Mr. Dehlendorf apparently refers. Indeed, I find the entries topical, well-researched, and very well written.
The comments are another story, reflecting the wide range of personalities in our community. I prefer to maintain that diversity of thought and approach rather to squelch it in to conform to one person’s idea of “civility.” [I am not speaking of Orcas Issues here; it is not a political blog and I respect Margie’s right to remove material that she thinks is inappropriate for her audience.]
There are two simple solutions available for those offended by the “tone” of this modern mode of discourse. First, stop reading the blog. Second, and more productive for those interested in the subjects addressed there, is to identify errors in fact or weaknesses in logic, with evidence, so that the writer and commenters may evaluate the new information and the discussion may proceed. In Mr. Dehlendorf’s example, he can correct the commenter who claimed that Mr. Dehlendorf worked in mortgage banking. And certainly, if he had raised his concern about the use of what he thought was a “made-up” word (“hortative”) to describe part of Council debate when that term was used quite some time ago, someone could easily have pointed him to the dictionary to make clear to him that the Latin-derived word relates to urging or encouraging, and has nothing to do with impugning a woman’s morality. And to address the remaining item in Mr. Dehlendorf’s list of horribles, there was no photoshopped picture of a candidate dressed as Sgt. Schulz that I could find on the Trojan Heron.
Finally, I far prefer a blog that clearly states facts and opinions to one that routinely passes off as journalism one-sided reporting. Happily, the choice in reading material is our own.
Full light exposure often clears up many dank and decaying situations. Kvisto is to be congratulated, and still I trust in our Islanders abilities to sense un-truthful-ness. Recent posts from all sides claim that there is much “Fear” out there… yet it seems “Fear based” to say that anonymous postings are necessary to avert reprisals from non-profit groups and county officials! Furthermore, I doubt that our Sheriffs really double as “opinion police”.
Marta Nielson
Peg, I only read the blog in an effort to understand better the views of people who are opposite me poltically. And your suggestion that I correct or respond to anything on his blog is a bit naive. Why would I waste my time going back and forth with anonymous people who are likely going to respond with insults, mockery, and/or vulgarities? If you get an email from an anonymous source, or an obviously fictitious name, do you open the email and respond?
Mr. Dehlendorf,
I am troubled by what seems to be a recurring thread in your public statements, namely that certain people by virtue of association, affiliation or, in this case, anonymity, do not deserve the right to engage in the public sphere. There are real consequences to speaking one’s mind in a small community. I choose, as do you, to air my views publicly and let the chips fall where they may. But I would not second guess the need for anonymity that others might feel. I would like to encourage our flagship Sound Publishing organs and the San Juan Islander to open their pages to a more robust debate of issues and opinions. It is this bottleneck, ie the heavy handed editing and reportorial omissions, that has created the need for alternative news outlets. If some of them do not match up to your notion of responsibility, well, the way our mainstream news outlets throttle information and abdicate investigative duties does not match up to mine.
The legal and regulatory changes happening in SJC are having real consequences for real people here. The broader and wider and more honest the debate we have about them, the more likely the outcome will be acceptable. Official and sanctioned channels of discourse are doing an appallingly negligent job of facilitating this. Margie, ECK (whoever that is) and the other folks who host more robust information and debate are to be applauded, not demonized.
Nick Jones