A Dear John Letter

Dear John

I should be flattered. I am flattered really to find myself in such distinguished company even if placed there by the oddly named hatingautism blog. I don’t know that this blog is about hating autism so much as about disliking autistics intensely. Perhaps you don’t like people much at all and with your moniker, that isn’t too surprising. What twit of an ancestor burdened the tribe with Best as the family appellation? Some person from Mittel Europa with a very poor grasp of English thought that ‘Best’ would be an admirable anglicisation of Bruinovskowa or some such? Some things are hereditary.

However, the main purpose of this letter is to clear up some of the misstatements, not to build your family tree. John, you have me mixed up with Whirledpeas. Whirledpeas has a website and I have a blog but no matter. I’ll take that as a compliment in light of the site’s contents. I hope that whirledpeas doesn’t mind too much. You seem to have some difficulty with who’s who. We’d all like to know how come Joseph gets to be Frank Klein. Sheer envy I know, but nobody’s perfect.

Of course, we can see that your problems don’t end at knowing who’s who. Some of those people sketches are amazingly off the wall. I’m not 100% sure what Kathleen Seidel’s religious affiliations are but Wiccan is unlikely to be among them. I’m fairly sure the Diva doesn’t reside in a trailer park, which is incongruous considering her occupation, the distribution of tiaras, occasionally crumpled ones. I doubt that you’re in line to get one, even a crumpled one any time soon. What with the costs of postage these days, even Divas have to weigh the costs and benefits closely. As an aside –are there any hidebound rednecks lurking in the forests and mountains of New Hampshire? I don’t mean to insult the non-feral elements in the State but who doesn’t know that David of Finland emulates his compatriot Billy Connolly on all occasions? I suppose that one would actually need a smattering of general knowledge outside of redneck school to know that.

What do you have against credentials? Touch of the green-eyed monster there? How does one get to be an alleged surgeon anyway? I’ve heard of alleged culprits in various nefarious enterprises, axe murderers and the like but not in relation to surgeons. Funny that, I thought one of the crusading mercury mafia put Orac’s name, photograph and address on the EOH dartboard?

Meanwhile back at the misstatements, I must protest the poor treatment meted out to my illustrious colleague Clay. Readers are entitled to know that at considerable risk to life and limb, Clay sallied forth to lay the path of righteousness among the heathen - that is, the EOH mob. And did they listen? Nope, they said good riddance and cast him into the wilderness. My forays into the mercury thickets were more along the lines of guerrilla warfare – he who fights and runs away etc etc – not particularly brave but then I have this dominant streak of pragmatism. Some people like to call it a defect but I dunno.

And then there’s the treatment of Michelle Dawson, our illustrious leader. Sorry John, but there’s been a palace coup d’etat and Frank got shafted, which is why you don’t see much of him these days. It’s really Michelle who’s the Capo di capi. Just ask “A Mom”. It’s in black and white on Michelle’s quick topic. Michelle’s the Messiah and we, like sheep, have been led astray, which you must admit John is considerably more inventive not to say entertaining than downgrading our illustrious leader to misguided aspie status. Much baa-ing, references to Monty Python and general hilarity ensued and a good time was had by all (well, nearly all – ‘A Mom’ didn’t join in much). But that’s the trouble with militants – the first casualty seems to be a sense of humour.

If I were you John, I’d ditch the disclaimer. Nowhere on this side of reality is anybody going to confuse your writings with fact. Trust me on this one.

Cheers

Al