I was outed to both my boss and several folks high up in the Michigan Powers That Be as the author of the Bug Blog.
I have deleted several posts about the recent Michigan budget issues at their request. I’m very sorry if your comments disappeared with them.
I am really happy that people like my work enough to praise me by name–but there is a REASON that I blog anonymously.
The Bug Blog is closed until further notice.
February 20, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Hey Bug Girl,
Hope all is well with you. Love the blog. Best wishes!
February 20, 2009 at 9:41 pm
… and here I was, a foreigner, thinking that the USA was the land of free speech!
February 20, 2009 at 10:12 pm
What the heck!
February 20, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I’m sorry to hear that, and hope you are able to come back!
February 20, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Come back soon Bug Girl!!!!!
February 20, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Sorry this happened to you
.
Reading your wonderful writing over the past couple of years has taught me so much and given me many good laughs too.
Thank you for all your hard work and I hope you can start blogging again soon.
February 21, 2009 at 3:02 am
I don’t know what to say – at any rate, best of luck
February 21, 2009 at 6:24 am
I’ve only recently started following this blog, and I find it both very informative as well as entertaining. I hope you get things sorted out and return soon.
Best wishes, Alan.
February 21, 2009 at 10:13 am
I’m so sorry to hear this. I was thrilled with your blog and shared your posts widely. I’m certainly not a “power” but I didn’t see anything wrong with your posts and commentary. I hope to see you back soon.
February 21, 2009 at 10:40 am
What a drag. A minor,temporary, trivial obstacle I hope
February 21, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Good luck. I really enjoy your blog.
February 21, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I too only recently found you – via the cochineal issue – and now you have to leave us. Sorry to hear it and I hope you’re not in too much fertiliser.. best wishes.
February 21, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Ahhhh man… I just started reading your blog. I can’t believe giving you trouble… so much for freedom of speech. I’ll keep watching for your return.
February 21, 2009 at 7:39 pm
It’s not so much a free speech issue as an “I’d really like to keep my job” issue, and a “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion” issue.
I am not faculty but an administrator, and I serve at the pleasure of the State. Anything that even looks vaguely like lobbying is right out.
So, had I not been named, I would have been OK to go on happily dispensing snark online. I’ll just lie low a while and come back next month, assuming budget kerfuffle is over.
February 21, 2009 at 8:38 pm
This bugs me, but I’m not surprised. In my academic universe, there’s been so many boundaries dropped because of Facebook – All of a sudden administrators, the PTA president, parents, and other teachers are your “friends.” It does make it hard to speak your mind, which you do so eloquently here.
I’ll await your metamorphosis (or the budget’s)
February 22, 2009 at 12:23 am
This is a wonderful blog, and you have been an amazing author and scientist. Thank you so much for the great articles. ♥
February 22, 2009 at 1:43 am
Bummer. I look forward to reading more of your posts again soon!
February 22, 2009 at 2:34 am
that sucks. Somebody clearly only knows how to register his or her disagreement by shutting down all expression of it.
February 22, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Oh no! What saddening news. I love your blog (even though I’m more of a lurker). Best of luck with it.
February 22, 2009 at 9:47 pm
*Raises glass to Bug Girl*
Good luck…I hear there’s an Iowan rooting for you
February 22, 2009 at 9:50 pm
[...] Bug Girl’s taking a break from blogging? [...]
February 23, 2009 at 9:06 am
I’m very sorry to hear this.
February 23, 2009 at 3:23 pm
This does suck. My wife is in a gov’t position and sometimes finds her personal twitter postings being censored for the same reason. Still, I’ve enjoyed your blog immensely up until now and look forward to more in the future.
February 23, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Hopefully, (like the cicadas) will be able to emerge in a timely manner!
I miss your posts already…
andrea
February 23, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Goodness me. What are we supposed to do when the mightiest of the bug blogs runs aground?
One reason your blog is so addictive is the personal style of the writing, the strong opinions, and the advocacy. It’d be a shame if you softened the sharp edges.
February 24, 2009 at 4:42 am
Geez guys! *blush*
If I had known I was going to get so many nice compliments, I would have quit years ago
February 24, 2009 at 11:24 am
Noooo! Don’t go, I only found your blog two weeks ago!
February 24, 2009 at 4:20 pm
[...] long-standing entomology blog by Bug Girl has been closed, hopefully only temporarily, after her employers were notified that she was the [...]
February 25, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I hope you can come back. This is a quality blog with frequent posts, interesting information and thoughts. I would be sad if you stopped posting.
If your boss is like my former university administration boss, (s)he probably had a difficult time even typing in a URL or performing a search to find out about this crazy “blog” thingy. Just say something scary like “Twitter!” at them and they’ll get scared and distracted and run away and forget they ever read a “blog.”
February 25, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Sorry to hear politrics have got you down, must be the bugs in the system, or lack of good luck and fair sailing.
February 26, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Hope things work out well for you. Enjoy reading your site.
February 26, 2009 at 5:33 pm
I’m really bugged that you’ve left the web. Please do come back. You’re needed!
February 26, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Boooo. I wanted a buggy hit today.
February 26, 2009 at 11:34 pm
This sucks indeed. I guess you work in one of those states where you work at the pleasure of the employer and can be dismissed, essentially, for any reason at all.
I live in a province like that, but fortunately I am much, much meaner than you and people know damn well that if they push me to censor myself or stop blogging I’ll go online and do something that will make national news. I had a boss, now ex-boss, who tried to get me to tone raincoaster down so much it wouldn’t offend anyone, so it wouldn’t hurt HIS reputation. Let us just say that it was not successful. Fortunately, it’s easier to do those things when A) blogging is what you actually DO for a living and B) it’s an extra job rather than the only job.
March 1, 2009 at 4:07 pm
well…..crap!
March 1, 2009 at 10:09 pm
[...] Girl’s last post to date is still alive and accepting comments. Well wishers desiring to send messages of support are [...]
March 1, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Frass!
Wishing you a speedy return to the blogosphere.
March 1, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Love your blog and hope to hear from you again.
Fellow Entomologist
March 2, 2009 at 4:18 am
I will miss your blog. I hope you can return soon.
March 2, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I think I’ve held out commenting for so long because I was hoping this was actually not true, and the joke would be revealed shortly. This now looks to be no joke.
Your reasons for blogging anonymously are unknown to me, but I accepted them. Still, it occurs to me that there is something seriously wrong when a university employee (I’m assuming) must fear retribution from her (I think I’m right on this one) employer should they see the contents of this oft-acerbic but certainly not slanderous or inciteful blog. I guess the bill of rights applies only to legislators – not deans!
My best regards — ted
March 3, 2009 at 3:37 pm
late on this, but I just wanted to let you know how sorry i am that you have to leave bug girl for a while. I miss your writing!
entomology is so far outside of my field that reading your writing was like peering into another world. I loved it.
Remember that you are always welcome in tryharderland!
March 3, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I just found your blog and was going to tell Bug Guy and Bug Lady about your blog. Goggle Project InSECT to make contact with those two buggy people.
March 3, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Really late dropping by here, but hope you come back! Geez why did someone feel the need to tattle on you? Some people… If you have to change the name to go incognito, be sure to let me know the new one.
March 5, 2009 at 4:31 am
I keep checking back to see if you’ve started blogging again and am always sad to see the note about suspending the blog. I’m am academic in the humanities who doesn’t typically read a lot of science but I read your blog regularly and learned a lot from it. I hope that you’ll be back. Your knowledge and wit are missed.
March 5, 2009 at 8:31 am
Thank you so very much Amy and Others! It’s comments like that that make me keep writing
I hope to be back on St. Urho’s Day.
March 9, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Having no idea when that is, and being too lazy to Google, I’ll just say that I hope it is soon.