Yesterday I learned that the incomparable Digby, of Hullabaloo, was-of all things-a woman. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, and led to what we Catholic school kids remember as an examination of conscience. Why, after all, did I presume she was a man?
My conscience was somewhat comforted, however, by the fact that Digby’s gender was not common knowledge even in the upper reaches of the blogosphere, as this post by Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake demonstrates, It also proves that her gender came as something of a surprise to that august personage. Nonetheless, it is rather sad that in the absence of any external clues, one tends to default to an image of a white male.
In my defense, the logo on her homepage doesn’t help:
Apparently Digby had been anonymous, until she agreed to accept the Paul Wellstone Leadership Award from Take Back America. Here’s a video of her acceptance:
[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=860546376283859020&q=digby+%22take+back+america%22&total=1&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=0[/googlevideo]
It’s long, but worth a listen.
In my humble opinion the award was well deserved. There is probably no progressive blogger who combines great writing skills, a deep fund of knowledge, and profound insight better than her.
There’s an old New Yorker cartoon showing a dog in front of a computer, telling another dog: “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. There’s a lot of truth in that. People are judged by the quality of their minds, because that’s all you “see” on the internet. Digby is just an ordinary looking person, which of course completely disqualifies her from any role in the mass media, stuffed as it is with bubble brained babes. On the internet she’s a star because only her brains and talent matter.
(Edited to correct misplaced sentence)
One Comment