Blog fear?

I received this reply to a earlier to posting:

At 7:12 PM, Fearing Consequences said...

I Wonder if the lack of comment isn't because people are afraid they will be quoted in the paper.... after all, we all know ANONYMOUS opinions are considered invalid.

I don't know if this is a valid point or not. I thought one of the points of blogging is to get your point of view out there and/or generate discussion. I guess people can reply anonymously (as this responder did) or with a pseudonum. If I were to use anything generated by this blog in the paper, I'd confirm it with both the source and from alternate sources. I'd assume that anybody who signs their real name is not shy about having it used. But if anybody is sending a tip for a story or idea, I can assure their anonymity if that's what they want.

I have had two responses to my blog. Both were in reply to the Wal-Mart item. One was replied to from the blog site and e-mailed to my e-mail. I forget at this point whether it was anonymous or not. Once I'm finished posting this I can have a look from the blog page.

The other was from Coun. Morgan Ostler who was partially the topic of the Wal-Mart blog. She replied directly in person, though. It was a very interesting and enlightening conversation. Much has happened since she talked to me but one point I remember in particular was her comment about the seeming inconsistency of voting to allow Ocean Cedar to operate their mill on the estuary for another five years while, at the same time, opposing Wal-Mart on the estuary. Among other things about that she said that the presence of log booms didn't kill the salmon runs - bad DFO management did. All the while logs were being boomed on the Campbell River estuary for the better part of the last century, massive salmon runs were swimming underneath them heading upstream. It's a hard point to argue against. Overfishing on the ocean did more to kill the Campbell's legendary salmon runs than log booms.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart's rezoning application has been delayed to allow council to get more information from the applicant. It will be interesting to see what more they come back with and whether that will convince councillors to approve the rezoning. It certainly sounds like some councillors have reservations.