Why We Blog

Unfortunately I had to work today, and all weekend, so I am struggling to catch up with the news and the blog (we are closing in on 15,000 visitors today). Fortunately Pat has been more than picking up his load. I did notice this article while reading the Wall Street Journal this morning. People are constantly asking us why we spend so much time dealing with these conspiracy theorists. Of course the conspiracy theorists themselves think it is because we are government shills, but this one of the main reasons.

Locals say the past five years haven't been easy for them. Some ambassadors say their home lives have been tested, as they pay less attention to their children while giving long hours to Flight 93 projects. Others have been targeted by bloggers and conspiracy theorists, who charge that they are somehow involved in nefarious cover-ups involving the flight.

It continues later:

The photo she took shows a mushroom cloud rising into a blue sky, with a neighbor's barn in the foreground. The FBI says it is the only known image taken within seconds of the crash. Ms. McClatchey, 50, says, "If I knew how much chaos it would create in my life, I might have just deleted it."

Accusations about her photo have spread across the Internet. Conspiracy theorists say the photo actually depicts a bomb blast, or that the cloud suggests the plane was shot down by the U.S. government. Others charge the photo is a phony. It is hard, she says, to see her name on the Internet alongside the words "total fraud."

The ambassadors feel for Ms. McClatchey. If bloggers would come to Shanksville, "they could talk to a hundred people who saw that same cloud that day," Ms. Glessner says.