Less Than Excellent

I do no understand some people.  A certain blog post from last week hung out enough dirty laundry of a just-deceased Massachusetts senator and his family to fill the Kiel Center floor to ceiling.  I didn't storm out on to the balcony of the hotel at which my buddy and I were staying in Biloxi when the flash came over that Reagan had died; it wasn't my damn place then and it isn't now.  Sorry, but castigating someone for breaches in ethics and character posthumously is contemptible in the extreme.  Kicking a man when he's dead--which he'd already been for quite some time when you consider the sharp plummet in his mental and physical health--is kicking a family when it is dead.  Absolutely repugnant.

I'm not going to go into more detail than you really need to know about Canadian blogger Robin Edgar or his leaving the Unitarian-Universalist faith but I have a hunch it may have dragged him down the apocalyptic hallway into his new psychological home.  All the posts on his blog and myriad troll comments at which he more than dutifully excels really just have to be read to be believed.  Edgar's calling card terms and phrases--memory hole, DIM thinking, corpse*cold Unitarians--and an eerie personal feeling of destiny to make sure every UU quivers to her knees and and proclaims how sorry she is for tormenting him may just be the impetus fate needs to induct him into this most hallowed institution alonside Mr. Dec and Tom Lloyd.

But Robin Edgar knows a thing or two about kicking a man when he's dead.  And one post in particular nailed it shut for me that he is a callously sleazy, pious douchebag.

On August 9th a UU minister named Tim Jensen passed away suddenly at the age of 52 after fighting lung cancer for a year-and-a-half.  Not that Edgar gave a crap.  He was expecting Jensen to mend some fences--make that mend all fences since, hey, Edgar is completely blameless for everything--because Jensen also contributed to the verbal pruning over Edgar's religious conversion but didn't offer anything in the way of a sincere, heartfelt apology before he CROAKED.  Unacceptable, says the self-appointed "Emerson Avenger":

For Rev. Tim Jensen's sake, as much as my own, I regret that our online conflict aka "pissing match" never reached a satisfactory resolution before his untimely death and still remains unresolved. Had Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Jensen taken a moment or two to responsibly retract his insulting and defamatory allegations about me, and offer an acceptable apology for making them, those words and actions would have gone a long way to restoring (or creating) right relations between us, but Rev. Tim Jensen quite evidently had other priorities in his life and took *those* conflict resolving, aka peacemaking, aka right relations restoring moments for granted.

Now, I can't say all the UU's I've met or known--I used to be one--necessarily fit the profile of the mentally "composed".  I once met a UU of about 17 or 18 at a Young Religious UU conference who told me his parents had him checked in to a psychiatric facility after he ran away from home...once.  (Gee, who are the crazies now?)  But the conduct of someone who used to subscribe to UU tenets and principles to act so cavalierly and unsympathetically toward someone whose just died has to be the result of more than just the glaringly obvious psychiatric face plant Edgar took after that 'profound revelatory experience'.  He is narcissistic and borderline histrionic but that's another ball of wax: Robin Edgar is a piece of garbage.

You by chance had breakfast yet?  In the most disgusting part of the post Edgar, out of "respect" for Jensen's family and their time of mourning, wants to do the most decent thing at this time and hold off on writing more posts outlining Jensen's numerous moral transgressions or going ahead with that clergy misconduct complaint against Jensen until after the family has had its time to grieve:

Out of respect for Rev. Tim Jensen's mourning family and friends I will not be posting a couple of blog posts about our online "pissing match" that I had intended to post last week but which were delayed by other priorities. I do not intend to make any new posts here about our online conflict for at least a couple of weeks, nor do I intend to proceed with my formal unbecoming conduct / clergy misconduct complaint against Rev. Dr. Tim Jensen unless some compelling reason convinces me that it really is in my own and other people's best interests to do so. The main point of filing a formal clergy misconduct complaint against Rev. Tim Jensen was to make yet another attempt to persuade the UUA and its ever so aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee to properly hold U*U ministers accountable when they insult and defame people on the internet or in "real life" (as it were), rather than turning a willfully blind eye to their "less than excellent" ministry or even go so far as to pretend that their unbecoming conduct, or even worse clergy misconduct, is "within the appropriate guidelines of ministerial leadership". As it happens there are a few other living U*U ministers who can still serve that purpose well enough even though Rev. Tim Jensen's well documented insults and defamation presented a pretty solid case against him. . .

Awww, isn't that beautiful?  Another calling card term Edgar uses is "less than excellent", usually toward ministers and fellowship committees.  He desperately needs to heed his own words.  How about this for a profound revelatory experience?  He should stand in the middle of his back yard and not move until the next solar eclipse.  Then he would actually be doing something constructive.

Comments

[chingo bling]

Fuck the Kennedys.

[Jim]

So, it was contemptible in the extreme to castigate Hitler posthumously for his breaches in ethics and character?

[Joe]

Godwin'd in two. That's a hiiiiiiigh level of discourse you're aiming for.

[woid]

If the blog post you mention was the one on this blog, repugnant is right.

Not only did it call out Kennedy for his sins, it condemned him: "There's no redeeming him." I didn't realize it was your decision, Mr. or Ms Whoever the fuck you are.

And as the cherry on top, the last words of the post are "may God bless."

Apparently that doesn't include Teddy.

[craig]

jesus x. christ, who gives a shit? the dead certainly don't. when did fmu followers go from people who would (metaphorically) piss on a headstone to pantywaists who fear to offend? is there a bobby mcferrin channel you all can post on somewheres?

[Jrld]

It was a weird post though, 'god bless it'.

[Jonathan Steinke]

Oh, Jim...the comparison to which you are alluding is A) not going to be entertained and B) making you look like a fucking goldbricker.

Who gives a shit, indeed, Craig. An equally viable question to have asked the Kopechne poster, wouldn't ya imagine? "Pantywaists who fear to offend". Uh, Craig, when two people have what they might previously deem an innocent conversation, especially about the awful things a now-dead person had done WHEN THEY WERE LIVING, and THEN proceed to post it on a public forum for humankind to read, it has made the tempestuous permutation from "innocent conversation" to "Hoooo, we are going to piss people off and bag a shitload of comments from this one, dawg!!".

In that sense the Kopechne post definitely wasn't aiming for a hiiiiiigh level of discoure either there, was it, Joe?

[fartron]

If your criticism was based on the offending post's complete lack of content or genuine criticism I would be much more willing to hear your arguments. But since you present the case as one of simply "bad taste" to speak ill of the dead and proceed to run off on a gripe with some other blogger and some other death, neither of which I have heard of nor care about, I have to classify you as a loon.

[Robin Edgar aka The Emerson Avenger]

Thanks for sending all that traffic to The Emerson Avenger blog Jonathan. It's always appreciated. :-)

For the record "less than excellent", or indeed "less than perfect", are words that considerably less than excellent and far from perfect U*U clergy use to describe themselves. I am in fact throwing back those words in *their* outrageously hypocritical two faces. . . DIM Thinking is a phrase coined by clergy misconduct expert Dee Miller to describe the Denial, Ignorance and Minimization of "less than ethical" behavior, including clergy sexual misconduct and such things. Corpse-cold Unitarians plays off of Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous reference to "the corpse-cold Unitarianism of Brattle Street and Harvard College" and refers to the remarkably insensitive and callous cold-heartedness of rather too many of the Unitarians aka U*Us I have the misfortune to know.

[Kevin]

Two facts worth considering:

1. Children often say cruel and thoughtless things. They do so because they haven't developed a filter, common sense, tact, empathy, etc.

2. Some adults are childish. This could be due to arrested development, lack of education, or incapacity, ie.. stupidity, psychopathy, etc.

Throwing your verbal garbage out the window onto the Information Super-highway may be common, but it makes Chief Iron Eyes Cody cry.

[Dale]

So no one should ever say again that Michael Jackson was a child molester who bought off his victims to drop the charges. Or that Ted Kennedy should have done time for manslaughter or enabling a rape to occur at the Kennedy compound in Florida . And when OJ Simpson dies should we all lay down our heads and pray? God Bless us all, if you believe in that sort of thing.

[Arvo]

What the hell is a Unitarian? If it's not an obscure krautrock band, I don't care.

[Listener #109577]

What-ever. I'm no longer interested in whatever it was you originally posted about. In fact, your cheap sniping at Bronwyn tends to make me think YOU weren't, either. Again, whatEVER.

Regarding the the Hitler reference: It should be pretty clear to anyone who can muster an objective thought in their brain that it was not intended to compare Hitler and T. Kennedy as moral equals, but, rather, to demonstrate the silliness of denouncing all postmortem criticism. There will always be exceptions. Saying that there are none, or saying that anyone who says that your guy CAN'T be one of them, is stupid at best and bullying at worst.

I don't think that Bronwyn has much of a point, because I think all religion-referencing arguments are bullshit. But I also think that anyone who is offended by her post should not let the door bang their ass on the way out.

[HowdyDodad]

Once people bring up some analogy to Hitler or the Nazis, you can pretty much ignore any dilettante political argument (always phrased in absolutes) that their junior high debating skills seek to employ. Hitler bad? Teddy bad? Hitler = Teddy. Red Little not Teddy? Red not bad. Ad naseum...
Please, back to the music and arts.

[Jim]

I'll have you know I never took debate--not even in middle school, smartypants.

[K.]

Why, the way I heard it Jim, you were a master debater in middle school. Besides, everyone knows that Obama = Hitler. WAKE UP SHEEPLE! I'M TYPING IN ALL CAPS! CAN'T YOU HEAR ME???

[Robin Edgar]

Arvo said, "What the hell is a Unitarian? If it's not an obscure krautrock band, I don't care."

Well Arvo, if you want to stretch the meaning of "an obscure krautrock band" just a little bit, one *could* say that German Unitarians are alleged to be something of an obscure krautrock band of brothers. German anti-fascist and anti-racist groups have been alleging for decades that alleged Nazi ideologues, some of who were allegedly former SS officers and even convicted war criminals took over the Unitarian church in Germany in the late 1940s or early 1950s and used it as a front group for their neo-Nazi activities. Just Google -

Deutsche Unitarier Nazis

to learn more about this. For the record 'Unitarier' is Unitarian in German and Aryan in German is 'Arier'. Kind of convenient eh? United Aryans perhaps? It would appear that it might not be totally unfair to refer to at least some of the post WWII German Unitarians as UnitAryans. ;-)

[Jonathan Steinke]

Postmortem criticism for Listener 109577 and another sort of thing for Dale to believe in: LET...IT...GO.

[Robin Edgar aka The Emerson Avenger]

LET WHAT GO?

Sorry Jonathan but I don't think you made a very favorable impression with your blog post that largely misrepresented what I was saying in my allegedly "less than excellent" blog post. I clearly said that I was withholding some criticism of Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Jensen as a result of his death, criticism that AFAIAC he thoroughly deserved and that I had intended to post prior to his death. As should be clear from some of the comments here the simple act of dying does not suddenly make a person immune to criticism. The whole point of my blog post was that people should make an effort to mend fences with those people they have harmed *before* they die rather than neglecting such responsibilities or moral obligations. I might add that this is perhaps especially true of clergy who are supposed to be spiritual leaders and set an example for society.

So just what are Listener 109577 and Dale, or indeed myself, supposed to LET GO of Jonathan? Often when someone say LET IT GO in ALL CAPS SHOUTING its because they have lost the argument. . . Come to think of it it's similar to Godwin's rule. The first person to say LET IT GO in an argument has lost the argument.

Allah prochaine,

Robin Edgar

P.S. Thanks again for all the traffic you sent my way with this blog post. It was kind of nice having my August web stats go out with a bang! :-)

[Jim]

Robin, he lost the argument when I NAILED him with my Hitler comment. Booyow!

[Jonathan Steinke]

Lost the argument? The comments are still enabled, aren't they?

Jim, seriously...had you not yet ascertained from Robin's comment referencing Godwin's rule that your first comment applied it? Jig's up, cussin.

Robin...first off, the fact you mentioned how my blog post beefed up your web stats TWICE not only doesn't impress me, it only further amplifies your narcissism. Secondly, I don't know whether your decision not to post the criticism prior to his death was because you somehow weren't able to do so or you actually did intend all along to post it after his death. I, personally, am leaning toward the second. (Didn't you say you believe in God now? Uh, Matthew 6:14.) But I guarantee you would be clenching a closed FIST around your tongue and weeping like a little bitch if the person had been your brother or uncle or something.

It's people in fucking Western society who don't put themselves in the places of mourning relatives (regardless of socioeconomic position) of other people for whom I instantly lose respect.

[Jim]

I never heard of Godwin's Law, but I never said let it go. I nailed your sorry butt. Just because you use a lot of big words doesn't make you right.

[Jonathan Steinke]

Never implied you said let it go...I said let it go. Focus, Jim...focus.

No, you didn't nail my "sorry butt" because you applied Godwin's Law. And Godwin's Law states the first person in a Usenet or comment thread who namedrops Hitler then explains why they namedropped Hitler (everybody, meet Jim) is doing so in a last-ditch, hopelessly desperate attempt to disprove the original poster because they realize they no longer have a theoretical leg on which to stand.

Other way 'round, big guy.

[Jim]

You misread Godwin's Law. Furthermore, your penchant for obfuscating the dearth of cogent rhetoric in your missives via sesquipedalian displays such as "tempestuous permutation" is risible. I suggest that you look up "permutation," because your use of the word was incorrect and nonsensical.

But suit yourself. Let's substitute Saddam Hussein for Hitler. Explain to the families of the people he had murdered why castigating him for breaches in ethics and character posthumously is contemptible in the extreme.

Consider yourself nailed again. You're entitled to your opinion, but your condescending tone really is irritating.

[Jonathan Steinke]

Well, look at that...Godwin'd in THREE!

Speaking of, care to explain HOW I misread Godwin's Law? Me and my mouth. Looks like...right about...HERE! Eighth paragraph: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if.html. Shit, if not going into further detail than that one sentence explaining why I misread it isn't proof enough you've thrown in the towel, I don't what is!

I'll leave the obvious "apples and oranges" ethical deathmatch argument concerning Hussein vs. Edward Kennedy to those reading this blog and listening to this station who can add single numbers together.