I get emails:
Jeff,
I lived with Marc L'Hommedieu as a housemate over 10 years ago. I was following a link from Pinterest today and came across Deviant Art, and thought I'd look up Marc's page. When I followed the google link of his name to your blog, I was horrified.
I honestly can't believe it's the same person writing all of these things to you. I have no idea what has happened to him in the past several years that he has turned into this person spewing hate and bitterness in comments and emails.
I really don't know what to say other than: Wow...just wow. I never knew Marc to be hateful or use any sort of racial/ethnic/hateful slurs when speaking of people. I never knew him to wish evil on children.
Once, he tried to help me out of a horrible situation, and I totally abused his generosity. I truly hope that anything I ever did to him didn't help cause him to become the person he seems to be now.
I really don't have anything else to say to this...I'm really shocked.
At a loss,
Sarah
My reply:
Sarah,
People change, I guess -- and for Marc, a failure by others to embrace his political world view is grounds for all sort of vile wishcasting upon them.
I don't know the Marc L'Hommedieu you knew 10-years ago. I just know the one who wanted my son to contract bone cancer, the one who liked to call me a kike, and the one who thought he could do so with impunity because he'd so cleverly hidden his real-world identity.
Perhaps the truth about Marc is somewhere in between; but frankly? I suspect that how he acted when he thought he could operate candidly and without consequence is the better measure of the man.
I'd like to say I forgive him, but honestly, I hold him in the utmost contempt. He is a coward who spewed his bile from behind a computer keyboard, relying on what he thought was carefully protected anonymity.
He was wrong.
And I'm glad at least one person who knows him personally now knows how he is prepared to act when the lights are out.
Regards,
Jeff
Jeff, have you heard anything else about this guy – ex. his social media pages-or is he laying low?
Keep your guard up.
I haven’t.
But there’s been some stuff going on in the background that I suspect he’s part of. Can’t detail it now, though.
It remains for us to reflect on similar shocks of recognition with regard to whole populations, populations formerly believed to stand at the pinnacle of western civilization, even.
That’s the macro. I’m still astounded by the micro. Like, eg., Ann Coulter.
To be sure, but as we dig into that macro, we find nothing less than gazillions of aggregated micros, each one a new incident to astonish.
Truly. It’s too big to get my head around.
I’ve never held any particular population in very high regard. Rather, I respect a system that protects and encourages a vanishingly small minority of extraordinary individuals whose ingenuity can elevate the entirety of an otherwise mediocre population.
See also bad luck, Heinlein.
“I’ve never held any particular population in very high regard.”
Still Squid, you and I live in a time after these events and have no means to erase them to get to the stance of those who lived before them. Those who could be astounded by the events, like D. D. Eisenhower, for instance, were honestly and properly astonished in their time, or so I believe of them.
I was astounded by Maher’s little billy, as well.
Now to the really important question: does Monsieur L’Hommedieu have any good drawings of Visigoth Hobbits?
I don’t recall there being any female hobbits, Squid, other than a brief mention of Bilbo’s mother. So: no titties, no drawings.
Rosie Cotton. Married that Samwise feller – lots of kids, etc.
Mentioned one daughter in particular as fostered out as maid of honor to Queen Arwen.
Well, and then there was Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. Who was mentioned in both The Hobbit and LOTR as being the Middle Earth incarnation of Nancy Pelosi….
I stand corrected. A portrait gallery is in the offing!
Yikes!
It’s nice to know that however much I complain about headlines that start with ‘in which’, I’ll never be the biggest butthole in the comments section :).
Did you receive any indication Sarah is indeed a real live human being?
Cue Sarah in 5,4,3,2,1…
@ThomasD I am indeed a real live human being. I haven’t seen Marc in person in about 10 years, and haven’t spoken to him via internet in about 6. We didn’t really stay in touch after I moved back to Texas. I live in the DFW metroplex, am married, and have a 5 year old son.
Wow. It took Jeff six minutes to count down from five. Dang.
He hasn’t been back around bugging me either. And, he’s mowed his yard. )
(Someone came across an old post I’d written in ’09, wherein he’d made some crass comments, and took him to task. Seems like ages ago after what’s happened since.)