One of the nice things about the internet, particularly blogs, is that people can interact with the writers through comments.  Not every site allows comments, but most of those that do generally allow people to speak out without providing a lot of personal information for the world to see.  For the most part, one doesn’t have to reveal their true identity to have their remarks published.

But one Idaho lawmaker is not pleased with this fact, and he’s trying to do something about it:

“Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, is drafting a bill to require bloggers to post under their real name, and require online commenters to do likewise. In essence, Hartgen wants online commentary to more closely resemble newspaper opinion pages, where letter writers are generally required to identify themselves.”

When I started this blog, way back in the former AOL J-Land, which is no more, I used a screen name that did not reveal my real name, but did sort of hint at “Patrick.”  The blog, even back then, was still called “Patrick’s Place.”  Even when I left J-Land because of its unbelievably-lousy customer service and moved to Blogger, my last name was never anywhere to be found.  Then I started my own website (where you now are, unless you’re reading this from a feed) so my name sort of became part of the URL.  The main reason I decided to go ahead and use my name was simple:  at the time, the URL that would have featured the name of this blog was taken.  It may still be, but I haven’t checked in years; the cat’s out of the bag.

For the most part, if I comment on someone else’s blog, particularly on a Blogger blog, I’m not really posting anonymously because I sign in to my Google account, and if you click on my name next to a comment I’ve left, it links to my old blogger site, which then takes you here.  So after a very short time, you know who I am.

Does this limit what I say?  Sure it does.  I’d probably feel more comfortable being snarky if I was posting under a screen name like “TVGuy1169” or something like that.  Although in this day and age, I’d be mildly concerned that ‘TV’ might be misinterpreted as transvestite instead of television.  In any case, I could probably feel a little better about being a pain in the butt on someone else’s site if there was no way at all that anyone would ever know that it was truly me.

The thing is, we don’t need a law to make that happen:  all we need is a blogger to take the extra step of requiring registration for all commenters:  that way, they allow people who submit their real information to post.  Simple.

That so many bloggers (and newspapers and television stations, for that matter) either require no real registration or take almost no time to verify that the information they do require is actually accurate speaks volumes about their wishes.

No doubt, part of it is about the comment count.  I know for a fact that if I required everyone who commented here to reveal their first and last name — their real first and last name — my comment count would drop into the red in no time flat.  There are a few “regulars” who stop by here to use a nickname even though I know their real name.  That’s fine with me, because if anyone is going to know their real name, it’s better that it’d be me, the person to whom they’re responding, than you, who is just reading what they’re saying to me.  I like comments, doggone it, and I’d prefer to avoid doing anything to stifle them.

The only reason I even moderate comments is because I want to avoid spam and any inappropriate content.  I get almost no inappropriate content; I get lots of spam.  Moderation makes sure only I see it.

A lack of registration makes sure there’s something besides spam to actually moderate.

I am the first one to admit that I’ve had run-ins with commenters at this blog over the years; that’s to be expected, really.  One in particular had no problem leaving his real name.  Another didn’t leave hers.  Another compromised, leaving a real first name, but no last name.  (And in all three examples, I’m assuming that the names they left either were or were not real:  they all could have been faking for all I know.)

Despite their full disclosure, or lack thereof, they said what they had to say, whether it dripped with sweetness or not.  And that was fine:  if they got too far out of line, I could just delete their comment from the moderation cue before you ever saw it.  That wouldn’t stop them, of course, from posting something on their own blog about what a jerk I am; it didn’t stop one guy in particular from doing precisely that.  Nor would it stop me from pointing out what jerks they must be to point out what a jerk I am.

Sticks and stones.

The question is, how would such a law actually be policed?  Do we create a new government agency called the Bureau of Internet Identity to check every newspaper story, every television station and every blog for every comment?  Would this BII then take action if they saw a name that wasn’t listed in a phone book?  Would they do spot checks, making sure that you, the commenter, are who you say you are?  And how would that even work?

Maybe you’d have to go to your local Department of Motor Vehicles, and get a separate Internet License to go along with your Driver’s License.  Wouldn’t that be fun?  You’d be given a web ID card, complete with a password.  They’d probably have to issue multiple passwords just to make sure things remain secure.  You’d enter all that stuff, every time you left a comment, so Big Brother would always know you’re you.

The very thought makes you want to run right out and leave a comment somewhere, doesn’t it?

Maybe, just maybe, someone with a screen name like MadVoter329410382 said something about this legislator that rubbed him the wrong way.  That’s just a guess.  Maybe he wants to know who they really are so he can give them a piece of his mind.  Of course, he could just go ahead and do that, anyway.  Anonymously.

Isn’t taking a little verbal heat part of the job description for our elected officials?  There’s no pleasing everyone, after all.

If our politicians would spend more time trying to fix our economy, and less time worrying about people using their abilities to speak freely about things that are important to them in a country in which we’re supposed to be able to do that, there’d be fewer negative remarks being made about them in the first place.

All the news about employees being laid off, empty positions not being filled, and employees being asked to take furloughs — unpaid time off — would be depressing any time of the year.  But to see that it is happening to so many this close to Christmas makes it a lot harder.

I talked to a friend of mine who just this week lost her job.  As the saying goes, she is “doing as well as can be expected.”  I don’t know how well that really is, because when the news is that bad, I don’t know how well one can even be expected to be.

The media industry is not immune from the bad economy.  Local car dealership advertising can account for 40% or more of a local broadcast station’s ad revenue, and with the automotive industry in such a mess, you can easily do your own math about how serious things are getting in TV.  Add to that the fact that a lot of television station owners also own newspapers, and that newspapers aren’t doing well, either, and you begin to understand why a lot of people working in newsrooms really feel the fears they’re covering when they do stories about people losing their jobs.

A quick scan of the front page of Newsblues, an industry insider site, has staggering headlines:  one ownership group cuts 500 jobs.  Another cuts 200.  This station loses 6.  That station loses 15.  This company is trimming its workforce by more than a thousand.

I have a few vacation days left to take before the end of the year, at which point I would otherwise lose the time.  And part of me genuinely feels guilty about taking vacation right now.

Yeah, I know, I am owed this vacation as part of my job, and it’s a benefit that is extended to employees.  It’s dumb to feel guilt about something you’re supposed to have and that your employer is pressuring you to take with the warning that there is no “carry-over.”  Use it or lose it.

I get that.

But there are more people now than there have been in the past 26 years, according to reports, who are jobless right now.  They’d love to have a job that would even consider giving them vacation.  But they don’t.  It just happened.  In some cases, completely without any warning at all:  they showed up for work one day, just like any other day, but this one just ended a bit differently.

Maybe a few saw it coming.  Maybe a few thought that if it did happen, it’d be next quarter.  Or the quarter after that.  Or that it would hit their division or their department, but just not them.

So I’m feeling a little down today, for some good people who didn’t deserve what happened.  And for others who are going to go through the same thing in the days, weeks or months to come.

I’m also thinking about the people I met a few weeks ago when I volunteered to help get families signed up for Christmas assistance at the local Salvation Army.  They’re people who have no credit card bills because they haven’t charged up a lot of things they don’t need.  They’re people who don’t have luxuries like cable television or cell phones.  They don’t have car payments because they take a bus.  And they still can’t afford food because they need medication just to stay alive.  Or they can’t afford toys for their children because a hot meal is more important.

And I’m getting paid to take a day off.

No matter how you feel about newspapers these days, in a bad economy, newspapers still have one unquestionably attractive feature:  the Sunday coupon section.

Here in Charleston, the local Post and Courier has devoted the top left corner of its front page for several weeks now to a tally of the dollar amount of coupons and value savings offered in the Sunday paper.  This week, for example, there is up $4,531 in savings.

I’m not sure where they get that figure; it seems a little high to me considering that the average coupon is for 35¢ off a package of Dixie paper plates or $1.00 off any two Quaker oatmeal products.  I’m guessing that they’re also including all of the department store sales circulars, so that when Target sells something for $10 cheaper, that ten bucks goes into the big tally.

If that’s true, it would mean you’d have to spend a small fortune to reap the benefit of that $4,531 in savings.

But still, if you spend that much, that’s still a lot of savings.  And going online to hunt for coupons you can print out just doesn’t have that old fashioned charm of cutting out paper coupons!

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the paper once owned by Joseph Pulitzer’s family, released its endorsement for president on Sunday. I’ve always had mixed emotions about newspapers endorsing any candidate, because the implication for far too many news customers, even when the endorsement is confined to the Op/Ed page, where everyone is supposed to have an opinion, is that the paper itself cannot be impartial if it favors one candidate over another.

Also, when it comes to voting for any office, you shouldn’t rely on a newspaper to tell you who should be getting your vote.  That’s a decision you should make after considering all of the points raised over the course of the election, and how each candidate has handled them.

Still, there are interesting points that are raised in the editorial, and worth your consideration regardless of whom you support or plan to vote for.

So in that spirit, I invite you to read their take, here.

The nation’s newspapers are in trouble.  And some of them across the country are raising newsstand rates from 50¢ to 75¢.  The raise in rates is supposed to compensate for rising production and distribution costs and falling subscription and advertising revenue.

Some newspapers are trying to come up with ways to bring in revenue from their websites, which are more and more likely to feature video, especially if the newspaper’s owner happens to also own television stations.

Here in Charleston, the local newspaper, The Post and Courier, recently introduced a new feature:  the E-Edition.  Customers who already subscribe to the paper’s actual paper edition get this for free in the form of an email.  Those who don’t can subscribe only to the E-Edition for just under $10 a month.

When a subscriber opens the email, it displays that day’s newspaper in graphic form, exactly as layed out in print.  Clicking on an article or photo in the graphic mock-up enlarges it.  A second click, as far as I can tell, takes the viewer to the full story on the paper’s website, which is free even to those who don’t subscribe at all.

Maybe I’m missing something there.  My guess is that the people most likely to subscribe to the E-Edition only are those who are nostalgic about their paper, and are trying to adjust to electronic life as slowly and easily as possible.  Maybe some see the advantage as seeing the news “stacked” by the relative priority that they’ve been used to for so long.

Of course, we all know that different editors stack stories differently, and most people never agree about what’s actually important.  But an E-Edition user might be faster to read a story the print edition places on A2 than one found on A8.  And either story might be a little harder to find in links if you just go to the website’s front page.

It reminds me of those eBook readers that attempt to simulate the turning of pages rather than just scrolling one way or the other:  they seem to be trying to reach out to people who aren’t ready to give up their romanticized view of holding a book in their hand while still adding to the convenience of having an electronic device that can hold several books at once.

But would you pay for that, when you can go online to the newspaper’s site and get the news for free?

Do you subscribe to your local newspaper?  Would you be willing to pay a 50% price hike?