...For those of you who have been paying attention, there *are* a couple of blog entries missing. A family member found my blog and took offense at my opinion and conjecture based on things I'd heard and discussed with my DH. At her request (passed to me by DH who received it) a certain couple of entries have been removed.

That's right folks, I have been censored. By family. Something I always said I'd never ever cave to (because no one who reads this knows any of them and they didn't know it existed - I'm sure that's completely changed now). It's one of those greater good things - I don't want strife in the family.

But that leads me to discussing something about the blogging world - censorship (self and from outside forces) and what you write as compared to what you read. And it all ties together.

Let's use my life as an example. I've been a target for a lot of people in the past. I've gotten hate mail for expressing an opinion, or simply being an unpopular moderator (because I made someone follow rules) on a popular BB. I've even been vilified for giving advice that wasn't wanted even though the individual was seeking advice at the time (she just didn't like the advice *I* had to give, even though I was building on what someone else had said, and many other agreed with me).

I've had blogs written that have mentioned me by username, given name, or simply a perfect description mentioning the place that I used to work. I've gotten understandably pissed off about them and my friends have heard about it, but I didn't ask for the statements to be removed. I could have, certainly, but it would have gotten me nowhere - especially with the ones where I wasn't specifically mentioned by name but instead identified by situation or example. It was that person's right to express how they felt at that time, what they needed to vent, and their opinion of the situation as stated from their viewpoint.

That's what some blogs are for. They're observation logs. They're opinion centers. They're gathering places for some folks who have shoutboxes installed (no, I don't think that I'll ever do that here, sorry). They're a place to share information, or vent anger and frustration, or simply to advertise. People have them for all sorts of reasons.

I'll admit I laughed at one where the author thought that they were completely anonymous until I waved at them in their comments. The response I got back (privately) was "you're not supposed to know I have a blog". Sorry, someone ratted that blogger out to me. And I'm sure there are more that I don't know about. Sheesh, it's not my right to know who does and doesn't have a blog, right? I don't necessarily broadcast the fact that I have one out to the world. Oh sure, the stitching community knows I have one, but we've all shared our blog links with each other. After all, they're all right there in the scrolling sidebar. We know each other online, and we've met each other but very few have gone to the point where we have met and interacted and started more than a passing acquaintanceship with each others families. Ah, but I digress.

I think a lot of people have been fooled by the casualness of the web and the freedom that they feel blogging. I know I did. But now comes the time to self-censor - I won't be talking about family any longer. This is in case DH gets upset that I mention something I found funny that he did, or in case my daughters one day decide that I need to stop embarrassing them with stories about them destroying mission projects or what they did as babies. I'll have to go completely plain vanilla and generic now. I'll blog stuff that won't offend anyone I know personally should they decide to read it because it won't be about them. You know the drill - celebrities, news of the weird. Fluff blogging...

...I'll start with politics and religion.