What’s so eerie about the ‘Prof’?

After being exposed by the Ed Board Wednesday, the Phantom Prof, it seems, has escaped into the netherworld. But with a promise of a forthcoming book — which gives a whole new meaning to the term ghost writer.

“The professor has left the building,” reads the main page of the blog formerly known as Phantom Prof, which Ed Board described as eerie. A quick check of my online dictionary, and I was reminded that eerie is defined as “something so mysterious, strange, or unexpected as to send a chill up the spine.”

Nothing I read sent a chill up my spine. It did make me want to go get a Diet Coke. But as my students can attest, just about everything makes me crave a Diet Coke.

And nothing the Ed Board revealed about the blog — presumably written by an SMU professor about the criminal activities of SMU students — qualified as eerie. Titillating? Yes. Eerie? Not really.

What I find eerie is that legislators and school districts are kowtowing to a religious minority and mythology — creation — is being given the same credence as science.

And please don’t email to call me an atheist — I’m not — or to tell me I’m going to hell — I don’t believe in it. Nor do I believe that God created everything in six days, or that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. If fundamentalists want their children to learn about the “creation,” they can send them to Sunday school.

I also find it eerie that officials in Indiana have decided that Venus de Milo and Michelangelo’s David are obscene because they exhibit nudity. The daily musings and ruminations of an SMU professor don’t quite compare to censoring two of the greatest works of art in history.

I had already decided to write a column in response to Ed Board’s orotund pronouncement, “Whether or not this blog is referring to SMU is irrelevant. Blogs like this are inappropriate and unprofessional in any setting,” but wasn’t quite sure I could milk 900 words out of a non-issue. Then I thought, “Who are you kidding? You could write 900 words on anything.”

I had already constructed a loose thesis in my mind and had put down a few thoughts on paper: the obvious First Amendment issues; blogs as an emerging medium, the role — dare I say value? — of blogs in journalism; blah, blah, blah.

There is a First Amendment or censorship issue inherent in Ed Board’s pronouncement. As for blogs as an emerging medium, well, they are a force to be reckoned with. And they do serve an important function. For example, bloggers broke the Dan Rather forged-memo scandal, which eventually brought down the veteran broadcaster.

And bloggers exposed the gay escort posing as a journalist who got daily access to the White House for two years. Now a self-described blogger, James Guckert, who used the pseudonym and escort-name, Jeff Gannon, has been invited by the National Press Club to participate in a roundtable discussion on the role of blogs in journalism. That, boys and girls, is irony.

Whatever their role, one thing is for sure: Blogs illicit strong feelings. Maybe because they are new. Maybe because they are so in-your-face. Maybe because blogs, like adolescents, can be reckless and unwieldy.

And, no, I am not the Phantom Prof. If anything, I’m very public about my opinions. I pretty much say it all in this forum every week. Anonymity is not my thing, unlike some bloggers and some people who write to criticize me or my opinions. I’ve always believed that anything worth saying is worth taking credit for.

Still, everything the Phantom Prof reported was a matter of public record. It’s not like the mystery blogger exposed anything new: the freshman student who disappeared and was found in a semi-psychotic state wandering among shelters and the downtown library; and a “prep-school” freshman who was conducting a mafia-style enterprise from his dorm room.

Perhaps the Peeping-Tom nature of the blog — the nameless and faceless author lurking around the cyber underworld like the Phantom of the Opera, watching our every move — is a bit unnerving. Or is it the thought that someone, an insider, is exposing SMU’s skeletons to the rest of the world? Considering the blog never mentioned SMU, that argument falls a little short.

Ed Board made a very strong accusation — at the end of its editorial — and then just left us hanging without explaining why “blogs like [Phantom Prof] are inappropriate and unprofessional.”

Are we supposed to guess or just take its word for it? It does invite readers to read the blog for ourselves. Too late.

Granted, stating a thesis at the end of an essay can be a useful rhetorical technique when used carefully, but it didn’t quite work this time, which is unfortunate. The editorial started off with a lead that pulled me in. And blogs are a timely topic. So, I bit and kept reading. I won’t even cavil about a missing conjunction in the second sentence, especially considering I routinely email my columns before I’ve ironed out all the wrinkles.

Then, like the blog itself, Ed Board fed us a few tantalizing tidbits — except Ed Board listed the names. For the record, I’m not saying any of this because I disagree with them, although I do. I’m saying it because, aside from a few examples of how some mysterious blogger is keeping an online journal about the titillating and often illegal goings-on at SMU, Ed Board doesn’t explain why it objects.

For those of you like me, who got only a brief glance — or no glance at all — into the musings and ruminations of the Phantom Prof, fear not: The peek-a-boo blogger left us these words of hope, “It will all be in the book.”