Waxing Dantesque: Richard Benham and Scott Horne ... Werner Patels' heirs!

Does anyone remember a figure called Werner Patels? He was notorious a couple of years ago for his vituperative, unjustified, persistant and noxious attacks on fellow translators, organizations, just about anything. His modus operandi was basically that employed by Benham and Horne: ambush, Internet, if anyone didn't agree they were in complicity with each other and ipso facto needed to be trashed, too. Mr Patels, too, was vicious and random and he, too, was banned from many professional sites but managed, however, to find sites to host his "blogs" and continued his mission of wanton ad hominem destructive malconduct.

Scott Horne at one time found an admirer in Patels at at time when Patels was banned from the forum for professional translators and interpreters and Horne was subsequently banned from the same site for malconduct. Common commonalities.

This is interesting because I just received an e-mail from a visitor to this blog who mentioned the similarity between the attacks on me and Patels' claim to fame. I hadn't even thought of Patels until now but then it appeared so obvious. There are many parallels between Patels and the Benham-Horne duo: Patels was random, vicious and nasty, almost obscene at times, appeared to be a megalomaniac or at least an egomaniac, had an almost pathological need to "expose" people, needed to point out his "righteousness" and the factoid of the shortcomings of the professional fora, and, like Benahm and Horne was progressively banned from mainstream sites -- not because of his truthfulness or professionalism or fairness, of course -- and finally had to resort to free hosts that are oblivious to their contents. And much of Patels' michief was done in ambush--but to Patels credit he did not resort to pseudonyms as does Benham-- and he did sometimes have the audacity to actually 'go direct' and abuse his victims by direct e-mail, similar to what Benham and Horne have at times done. It's Internet 'hit-and-run' technique; a tactic frequently used by cowards.

The parallels are indeed remarkable and these types raise their ugly heads almost periodically ... like the occurrences of plagues and other blights. But pardon me if I wax somewhat Dantesque but 'me thinks' there's a special circle in hell for the Benham and Horne ilk. The address is 666 Patels Pit.

Happy holidays! Perhaps Mr Benham a.k.a. "Dina" (IoL discussion forums) and Mr Horne will get a small package of brains, morals, and good common sense and a gift certificate for a real life for Christmas. There's still hope!