April 28, 2003
The Subhuman Stain

A site-specific search function can be very handy in confirming (or not) one's first impressions about a blogger's vocabulary. For the fourth time in the last eight months, and the third time in the last four, the blogger who calls himself 'Hesiod Theogeny' has referred to opponents as "urine-stained". (I won't link to him, but the post is dated April 24th, 7:23:38 PM.) It's an unusual locution, and his use of it is beginning to seem a little obsessive. It may be worth asking why he is so fond of it. Here are some possibilities:

  1. 'Hesiod' has always been quite mysterious about his day job. Is this an inadvertent clue? Perhaps he's a plumber, a washroom attendant, or a hospital orderly, maybe even a urologist or regional sales manager for Depends.
  2. Is the repetition a statistical artifact, a side-effect of other factors? His weblog combines voluminous production with low quality and adolescent attitudes -- not to mention an unhealthy dose of wide-ranging hatred and contempt -- and this would naturally result in the overuse of bathroom epithets.
  3. 'Hesiod' has often shown himself willing and eager to defile, degrade, and dehumanize everyone on the other side of the political spectrum. I've asked before in some comment section or other, but it's worth asking again: does the wording indicate a wish-fulfillment fantasy? Does 'Hesiod' call his opponents "urine-stained" because of his ill-concealed and (I hope) subconscious desire to urinate on them? I certainly hope it has nothing to do with his own personal sexual practices or medical problems.
Posted by Dr. Weevil at April 28, 2003 11:44 PM
Comments

More likely it just shows his lack of imagination - recycling lame insults.

Posted by: Robin Roberts on April 29, 2003 11:17 AM

Hesiod's urine-stained prose appears to be a product of an adolescent mind. If men are from Mars and women from Venus, teen-agers are from Uranus.

Posted by: Joanne Jacobs on April 29, 2003 06:32 PM

Once long ago, I frequented Usenet newsgroups as "research." After months of observing the various permuations of insult and invective, I devised a Projection Chart that delineates the flamer's innermost sexual obsessions, fears and/or fantasies. It's pretty rude. If you'd like, I'll send you a copy.
Suffice to say that Hesiod's repeated use of the term "urine-stained" correlates to what is commonly referred to as Golden Showers.

Posted by: Rebecca on April 29, 2003 08:56 PM

lol, rebecca, i would like a copy of that.

its definitely a case of lazy prose, but he should be tested a bit before he is ladened with a claim of a fixation on urine.


I find it fascinating that you can do search functions to find this type of info....


Imagine how far the NSA is into our collective heads.

Posted by: joel on April 29, 2003 10:50 PM

Joel,
My "research" was in response to the rantings and flame-outs of one particularly obnoxious denizen of alt.california. It was really pretty silly.
Send me an e-mail, and I'll send you the list.

Posted by: Rebecca on April 30, 2003 09:04 PM

Hmmmm, I'm gonna have to ask Joanne's royalty rate to steal that great line above.

Posted by: Robin Roberts on May 1, 2003 12:56 AM