"Goodbye to the people at Patterico", Aaron Worthing guest-blogged for the last time at Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey's blog earlier today.
Well, it was over a year ago that Patrick asked me one day if I was interested in guest blogging. As memory serves, he asked me to take over for about two weeks while he was on vacation, although he didn’t disclose that to the rest of the world for fairly obvious reasons.
Patterico added,
Back in October of last year, I announced that Aaron Worthing would be filling in for the next two weeks. That turned into the rest of the year. And then kept going. Aaron has been helping out here now for over a year.
But everything must come to an end, and the time has come to part ways. I want to thank Aaron for his blogging here over the past thirteen-plus months. His energy and enthusiasm have filled a lot of empty spaces here, and made my life easier.
But after some commenters began to wonder about the backstory, Patterico added a second update,
Aaron comes clean about his pseudonym. Looks like any thugs who want to come after Aaron for his association with me will have a little extra work to do. And that makes me smile.
At the Everyone Draw Mohammed blog, Worthing admits, "I am not really named Aaron Worthing. Which means that I told a white lie to you and for that I apologize. I believed it to be a necessary evil, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an 'evil.'"
"Worthing" continues,
It all started when I started this blog, Everyone Draw Mohammed. I had planned on releasing my real name when starting this blog as part of my show of solidarity with all the other people in the world being bullied by Islamofascists. But I realized that as a married man, it was not just my life that I would be risking but my wife’s as well. So I told her what I planned to do and asked for her consent.
And she refused to give it. I know that can sound easy to say, but it wasn’t so much that I was necessarily braver than her as I always thought that the terrorists were mostly talk. I wasn’t afraid of them because I didn’t believe they would go to the trouble to come after me.
But perhaps Aaron Worthing - who still claims to be a real lawyer - should have rechecked his blog's mission statement before "setting the record straight" without really setting the record straight since he still won't reveal his name.
From Aaron Worthing's Mission Statement from the Everyone Draw Mohammed blog:
The idea is simple. On May 20, 2010, we will all draw Mohammed cartoons. And if you would like to publish them, cheap and easy, I am here to help.
Ideally, you should give your real name, and maybe the general town in which you live. I’ll start. My name is Aaron Worthing. I live in Manassas, Virginia. And pretty soon I will inflict upon you my artistic skills.
And if you want to publish your creation here, just send it to me. If you can give your real name and town, that would be good. But even just an image would be fine. There is no censorship, in this, except you can’t actually be pornographic. But otherwise be as offensive as you want. And you can include anyone else in the depiction. But, and this is key, you must depict Mohammed in some clear way, preferably with a label. So if you show a picture of a toilet and call it “Mohammed” we are good.
Quoting Benjamin Franklin, the lying lawyer wrote, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately," but no one would be able to find Worthing since he uses a fake name.
"So Sunday night I revealed to Patrick the truth about the whole thing," Worthing writes.
But instead of apologizing to his readers for sending them to a blog where all the bloggers lie about their true names but ask people to risk their lives for the sake of provocation, LA Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey took aim at the "thugs" - real and imagined - who are out to get him.
"And hopefully this dramatic example can convince the rest of the world to stop cowering in fear of the Islamofascists and chose to offend, or not offend, according to nothing more than their own sense of decorum and courtesy," Worthing wrote at a blog that featured bestiality cartoons.
On April 27, 2010, Worthing wrote, "Why wait for May 20? I threatened to inflict my artistic skills on you, so let’s start today with my crappy cartoon."
Yep, that’s pretty awful. But the point isn’t to make something pretty, but to show solidarity, so there you go.
And I have a few more in the que which I will post tonight.
And the message is Mohammed crapping on a toilet that is labeled “terrorism”—that is, Mohammed craps on terrorism. My goal was to minimize the offense to the good Muslims, although they might still be offended by 1) the fact I am depicting him at all, and 2) that I am showing him using the toilet.
So there you go, Revolution Islam and anyone else who would try to bully people into silence. My name is Aaron Worthing. I live in Manassas, Virginia. If you want to come after the South Park guys, come after me, too.
On Tuesday, Worthing claimed,
As for Patterico’s site, I never said in a post that I was really Aaron Worthing, but I did link back to here where I said it, and I did say it in the comments at his site (e.g., here) to a man who has stalked me for over ten years, who goes by the nickname “Kman.” And I will say this in his favor. I may not like him very much, but “Kman” knew the truth all along and never revealed it. So that speaks well of him.
But in July, Worthing wrote at least three posts at Patterico's blog where he copy-and-pasted emails that claimed the alias was his real name:
July 5th post on email to David Eisner, president and chief executive officer of the National Constitution Center
July 7 post on email to NPR ombudsman
July 11 post on email to American Constitution Society (ACS).
In January of 2010, before he started the "Everyone Draws Mohammed" blog, Worthing had a different excuse for using an alias, as he wrote in a blog post called, "So Who the Fuck are You?" (or: "About me")"
I am in my 30’s. Happily married. I work as a lawyer. Ah, crap, now you hate me, right? Well, I will also say that I am not one of those cheesy lawyers who isn’t aware of how his profession can be incredibly corrosive in our society, nor do I make the mistake of thinking every problem has to be solved by lawyers.
And full disclosure, I work for a home care agency as their corporate counsel. So judge my biases as you will.
I am also handicapped. Specifically, I have three learning disabilities. In fact, that is why I write this blog anonymously. I don’t usually tell my employers about my disabilities. But I wanted to write freely here about those experiences. So I post anonymously so I can speak more freely to you.
Worthing is "allergic to bullshit" except for when it comes to why he keeps his name secret, apparently.
Update:
Patterico blogged on October 15, 2010:
Welcome Aaron for the next two weeks or so. He has a blog called . . . well, let’s just call it Allergic to B.S. Aaron is a regular commenter and often sends me tips about current events in the news — and he broke that story about Zoominfo’s verified profiles not being so “verified.”
Along with whatever Karl and Jack Dunphy can generate, I think the blog will be in good hands for the next two weeks. I have asked Aaron to get started today just to get in the swing of things.
But sometimes Patterico had to add updates to Worthing posts.
In a post published on November 15, 2010 called "I Know This is Wrong, But I am Really Having a Hard Time Not Enjoying it Anyway," Worthing blogged about "Westboro Baptist @$$holes" who had their tires slashed while protesting a soldier's funeral.
"Of course it is always wrong to do violence or property damage to anyone over a mere disagreement, however big a bunch of @$$holes they are, but really it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch, right?" Worthing blogged.
Added to Worthing's post, "UPDATE/DISCLAIMER BY PATTERICO: I do not approve of criminal acts in response to speech acts, no matter how heinous the speech act in question."
"Heads up, islamofascist hackers on the loose," Worthing complained in a Google support forum on May 21, 2010.
Your Blogs URL: http://everyonedrawmohammed.blogspot.com/
Browser(s) used:
Location:
at this link they are explicitly threatening to try to do some kind of hacker attack on my site. http://groups.google.com/group/muslims-united/browse_thread/thread/b8c50f5bce6c647f?pli=1
And if you look at all the other sites listed, all of them are down.
so 1) i wanted to warn you this might be coming and
2) i wanted to ask what I might be able to do to protect my site from this.
On June 28, 2010 Worthing blogged at his Everyone Draw Mohammed blog, that he was among the "bravest" for using his real name.
If you want to earn the title of “bravest” give me your full name, city and state. I will accept and publish cartoons anonymously, but I really encourage you to give out your name, city and state to make the boldest statement. And I have in fact done so myself. (Aaron Worthing, Manassas, Virginia, in case you forgot.)
On May 17, 2010, Worthing blogged, that he was one of the "bravest" and was helping to "make the boldest statement."
If you want to earn the title of “bravest” give me your full name, city and state. The bravest will be the most prominently featured in my letter to the creators of South Park. I willl accept and publish cartoons annonymously, but I really encourage you to give out your name, city and state to make the boldest statement. And I have in fact done so myself. (Aaron Worthing, Manassas, Virginia, in case you forgot.)
There is a separate "bravest" section at the blog for those that use their real names, and in a May 6 2010 post, Worthing noted that the standards for the honor were "clear and strict."
The Everyone Draws Mohammed blog lists four members but Worthing - for some reason - posts as Aaron Worthing and A.W. The other two members are J.D. and Dustin (who has a Twitter account @dust92) - who are also commenters at the Patterico blog site - and don't appear to be using their real names.
In May of 2011, Worthing wrote,
I’d like to introduce you all to two new authors for this blog.
The first is Dustin. Dustin is a regular commenter at Patterico’s Pontifications where I have been a guest blogger for around six months. He is sensible and expresses himself well.
The second is JD. You might recognize JD as the artist behind the very first of the Dreaded Stickfigures of Blasphemy. Go ahead, take a look at his artwork. It kind of makes you misty-eyed, it’s so beautiful.
Worthing then added,
They are going to be doing 99% of the heavy lifting but to be blunt, if you terrorists are going to go get mad or kill anyone, come at me. I still insult your prophet on a regular basis and I will continue to do so until this sort of thing stops getting a violent response. And this blog is mine. So if you are feeling like beheading someone, I’m right here. Aaron Worthing of Manassas, Virgina, b*tches.
In May of 2010, Worthing began posting the real names of people who hadn't even sent cartoons specifically to his blog.
"I am operating under the assumption that if you put it on facebook, you don’t mind it being reproduced elsewhere, with your name and hometown if available," A.W. blogged.
Dustin - who is infamous for passionately defending Patterico across the Internet - responded to a commenter at Worthing's blog who wondered if the Allergic blogger was even a lawyer.
"Patterico never vouched for Aaron being anything but a blogger, which he is. He's a great blogger, actually. And Patterico has had many anonymous or psuedoanonymous co-bloggers over the years, and I see no problem with that," Dustin argued.
In July, I asked Worthing about his Twitter avatar.
Worthing had evidently seen the photo at libertarian satirist Frank J. Fleming's IMAO blog where Tim B.'s submission "Oswald was a pussy!" became the "Kitty Sniper Caption Contest Winner" back in September of 2003.
"Yay me!! 'The Usual Suspects' rules...again!" the winner cheered himself in the comments. In a November of 2006 comment, Tim B. wrote that he "work[ed] in the health insurance field."
However, the actual line from the movie is "Oswald was a fag." When asked in July on Twitter, Worthing claimed he only ever used A.W. and Aaron Worthing at the IMAO blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment