>Obsessed seems too strong a word to describe the level of interest
>in AN's identity. Is it so strange people want
>to know with whom they are conversing?
No, but what does a name tell us? "John Thornton," "Carl Remick," "Angelus Novus," how do those words help me "know" the people writing posts under those names? All I can go in is what those people write, and their names contribute nothing to that. Aren't we all just texts to one another?
It's a bit ironic that some of the people who are most insistent on AN's reveal his/her real identity are also people who have in the past been critical of identity politics.