Monday, 9 August 2004 - 8:44 AM CDT

Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury, eh Toby?

"Lose your cool, lose the fight.
Toby Petzold | Email | Homepage | 08.08.04 - 8:33 pm | # "

Never a wiser words spoken. Except... and I'll bet you know what's coming next :-)

"Numbnuts, contrary to what you believe in your laughable delusions of grandeur, no one cares what I said or suggested about you and your fucking skull and what did or didn't happen to it. Do you think I am going to waste any more of my time than I am right now explaining this to you? How about arguing some actual issues instead of pursuing this pathetic non-issue?
Toby Petzold | Email | Homepage | 07.20.04 - 7:36 am | # "

And how did he respond to the "Issues"? Well, funny story that...!

But let's not harp on about past issues (and past links showing Toby demanding people talk about questions they've not answered yet in order to distract them from the current issue, and then losing his cool over someone pointing to all the questions etc.)! What about this weekends drama?

Well, once upon a time there was a little boy called Toby. He was a naughty little boy, and his teachers despaired of him: for instance, despite attempts to educate him on historical concepts like the Dhimmi in Islam, he still persisted in using the word not only incorrectly, but also as an insult. "But the Dhimms are happy to use whatever they can to get people angry" he'd race around the playground shouting, whilst at the same time widdling in his fellow playground users shoes to do just that himself.

His teachers, having devoted their lives to the education of their fellow man, were by their nature far more tolerant of such behaviour than the average person would be: besides, they had seen countless children with attentional problems before, it was nothing new to them. Given time, they thought, he'll grow out of the need for loud but essentially meaningless antics in order to feel important. But slowly it became apparent that this child was something worse; he started to confess that he actually understood what he was doing, and although he once more confused terms, describing "being an ignorant asshole" as "I'm a fisherman", it was clear to his teachers that his behaviour wasn't just due to immaturity, but actually willful disregard for such a virtue as maturity.

The child just could not be reasoned with. He would make up lies and insult other children, and then demand they be what he could not as if it were their failing to react to him, instead of his own for not trying to force them to react. Given time, most children would develop sympathy as they grow older; His teachers had taken him aside in the playground and tried to instill in him a sense of things that were not dependant upon the victimization of others for meaning... But whilst the child obviously understood the difference, he plainly didn't care to choose differently, instead choosing to add the language of victimization itself to his abuse of others. "You are fish!" he'd cry, after yet another child came back from the playground to find his shoe was full of piss.

And that was not enough for the child, oh no. He would shout and scream at his teachers themselves, demean and offend them, and insist that they just sit there and take it: And for months these greater people than he did indeed take it, because they believed in the structures they were part of, and were not prepared to let just a very small test of them ruin the greater good. But the child saw no other good than himself, and he hated the structures which tried to incubate anything which could be valued in other people. And so he consciously tried to get his teachers to despair in him and break the structures they were trying to uphold... and so he howled and wailed and cursed and pouted and whined, whined, whined until even the nerves of angels would have snapped. Which eventually of course, they did, for even the greatest teacher is not an angel... the sum knowledge of which, incidentally, is the "great wisdom", the arrogance of the child would later proclaim to justify his own inflated sense of worth.

But just as no man is an island, so no teacher is completely powerless, even when most sorely tested by their pupils: and so the child, in the interests of the greater good, was removed from the school rather than allow the snapping of nerves to break the dignity of the whole structure.

Only the child did not see, or did not care to see this action coming. Perhaps because it punctured his own sense of importance to realise that no matter how domineering you are, there will always be someone who still has the power to influence you. Or perhaps because he was aware of how appallingly he had behaved, but somehow thought the eventual judgement would reflect badly upon his Judges and not himself, he persisted in that behaviour. Or maybe perhaps he was just so mal-adjusted that there was only ever the sense of himself, in the ever present "now", that existed in his mind.
But in the end, it was unimportant. For the greater good, the child had to be removed. Needless to say, the child began to howl and wail louder than ever as he was dragged away from the playground and removed from the school: Despite everyone knowing of his past behaviour, his lies and immaturities, out the door in an undignified manner he went, screaming about concepts he'd spent so many, many months abusing, as if his audience would somehow now believe he had truly discovered the worth of tolerance: mewling and puking about dignity to the other children, (whose only thoughts were of how they would find their shoes dry and clean at last) whilst he clung to the door and screeched like some hairless monkey.

And then, at last, glorious silence. Oh, the child did not moderate his behaviour once removed: but everyone inside the school knew him for what he was now, and once outside, it was so much easier to keep him there... for who would want to open a window and let him back in again?
Our story will not end here, of course. In time, the child will make many, many attempts to get back inside and once more piss in the shoes of the other children: Perhaps we will even see him leave little notes explaining how the children have brought it onto themselves by the teachers trying to protect them from finding their shoes so soaked in his wit. And, over time, perhaps he'll find himself amongst the company of other such children, the children removed years before, who have taken to abandoning their homes, their personal hygiene, and even their minds in the pursuance of vengance against the teachers who tried to show them what they still have not learned... Ahh, but all of this remains to be seen, gentle readers! The patterns may be laid, but let us today wait before seeing it's inevitable weavings: For now... let us listen to the following sound:




That my friends, is the sound of silent dignity. It will not last long: but for today, the child is outside, and we may listen to it in peace. Enjoy!

Monday, 9 August 2004 - 11:58 AM CDT

Nemesis, you have way too much time on your hands. Sure, Toby needs to grow up. But don't you think that all this flaming crap just makes it impossible for reasonable people to have a decent engagement. Maybe I'm wrong that that can happen even between people who seem on the surface to despise each other, but all this seems like a lot of not even trying.

Tuesday, 10 August 2004 - 3:23 AM CDT

Nemesis, you're a tedious fuck.