A few days had passed since I’d last checked the Alaska Voices blogsite, so Wednesday night I scrolled down the most recent entries, curious to see what new opinions had surfaced. I didn’t get far before Rudy Wittshirk’s headline, “Afghanistan and other leftover wars (see end for blog comments)” got my attention. I’ve never met Rudy, but over the years I’ve enjoyed his Compass pieces in the Daily News, many of which have dealt with wildlife management issues, also a great interest of mine. I especially appreciate the perspective he presents as one who lives in a more rural area (Willow), clearly gets out into the wilds a lot, and perceives many problems with the way wildlife is managed in Alaska. As one of the Daily News’s Alaska Voices, Rudy (much like me) has “spread his wings” to comment on a much wider array of topics. Though to be honest, last night I was more curious about his “blog comments” than his thoughts about leftover wars. Thus began my search for Joann Grimes.

Until the moment I read Rudy Wittshirk’s blog, I hadn’t even noticed that Joann Grimes was missing from the AK Voices lineup. The last thing I’d read of hers, “Did You Hear the Rumor About Shannyn Moore?” was apparently her last entry. And what an entry it was. Upon reading it, I was nearly moved to comment on what I considered a mean-spirited attack on Moore. But I didn’t. Many others, however, were in fact moved to do so. In Wittshirk’s words, Grimes’s commentary generated a “Tsunami of semi-spontaneous comments.” Semi-spontaneous, in that word spread throughout Alaska’s liberal blogging grapevine and faithful readers of those lefty blogs responded in big numbers. When I last read Grimes’s piece, it had generated 49 responses, a pretty remarkable number for an Alaska Voices blog. But by Wittshirk’s count, a “blog-storm” of at least 125 comments had been registered when he last checked. You can go to Wittshirk’s blog entry for his entire commentary, but I couldn’t help chuckle when he admitted his own jealousy at the response to Grimes’s piece: “I wish I could get some intelligent criticism like that. Some real and specific corrections of my basic facts and premises – from the right, the left, the bottom, the top or those hiding their heads in the middle. I envy Joann Grimes.”

And yet Joann had gone missing.

I searched the Daily News website for some explanation of her departure, but found nothing. Next I went Googling, in hopes of finding her Shannyn Moore commentary and the scores of responses it had generated, but it too had disappeared, along with Joann’s previous Alaska Voice entries. It’s as if she had never participated in this experiment.

It was getting late, yet I was now hooked into learning more. Hoping for some leads, I went to Shannyn Moore’s blogsite and also to The Mudflats, where the AKMuckraker – now widely known as local resident Jeanne Devon, since being “outed” last March by Mike Doogan – “tiptoes through the muck of Alaskan Politics.” I did find some references to Joann Grimes on both sites, in postings contributed by people who, I assume, are faithful followers of those sites and Alaska politics generally.

Finally, my head reeling, I shut down the computer and resumed my hunt this morning. Today I discovered a “thread” pulled from The Mudflats, in which several postings had unkind things to say about Joann Grimes, including one that outed her as one Joann Grimes Pantages, an alternate delegate for McCain/Palin to the 2008 Republican National Convention. Not surprisingly she apparently has also contributed lots of money to Republican candidates and the Alaska Republican Party. All of this, I should emphasize, can be learned by Googling or otherwise searching the Internet, so I’m not revealing any secrets here. Finally, from an opinion piece contributed long ago to the Daily News, Joann Grimes Pantages described herself as “a nascent writer and an opinionated former New Yorker who lives in Anchorage.” It appears that opinionated nature has produced a blogging backlash.

None of this answers the question of “whatever happened to Joann Grimes.” But it certainly suggests that after the “blog storm of comments” to her piece about Shannyn Moore, she decided to exit Alaska Voices, taking along any and all traces of her participation. If true, I’m sorry for that, though I think Joann Grimes perhaps attracted a lot of unwanted attention – and considerable leftist anger – with her own approach to blogging. If you’re going to be mean spirited, expect the same in response. I also wonder if Joann ever considered the option presented by Daily News editor Matt Zency to all Alaska Voices, namely to make it impossible for readers to comment. I know that a couple of other Voices have chosen that option.

As for me, I so far have enjoyed the relatively few comments my opinions have sparked, though some have left me shaking my head in wonderment. Like Rudy, I feel a bit envious of Joann Grimes. I would love to get more feedback, though I’d prefer it be thoughtful and reasonable, which is, after all, what Alaska Voices is supposed to be about.