No Wonder I Scratched My Nose Raw

I want to thank Adam for bringing Le Colonel Chabert's latest anti-Long Sunday screed to my attention.  Had he not, I would've missed the following exchange between Our Infallible Colonel and her Brothers in Moral Perfection, Patrick Mullins and The Troll of Sorrow:

LCC: Matt likes to start fights, it's his schtick, he had a habit early on of linking, pseudonymously often, at The Valve to other bloggers' posts there to draw abuse and draw the other bloggers, who have no patience for The Valve, which is really like reading I don't know what, high school student papers, into arguments there to defend themselves.

PM: Oh, my God, this is all somewhat off-topic, but yes—very pimply ones with more verbosity per square inch than I've ever seen. Who could read a novel if they read 'The Valve?' They reduce all literature to labyrinthine horror and freeze-dried trends (when they can find them; they very often can't).

TOS: [constantinated]

The Valve, if you follow, is like very pimply high school student papers.  I see only one solution available to such morally savvy folks:

• Drive down to your local pharmacy and buy the Valve some topical tetracycline. 
• Return home and log on to the Valve.
• Before applying the medicine, thoroughly wash the affected area with warm water and soap, rinse well, and dry completely.
• Hack the medicine in half with a cleaver.
• Squeeze its contents into the palm of your hand and apply it to your monitor gratuitously.  Be sure to apply it to the entire Internet, not just the affected area, as that will prevent new pimples from breaking out elsewhere.
• After applying this medicine, it is recommended you cover the treated area with a gauze dressing. 
• Repeat this in the early morning and before bed, and in two to three weeks, your Valve will be as unblemished as you lot are supercilious.

Comments

[Josh]

OMG, the ToS was constantinated? What did John Constantine do to the poor blighter? At least it wasn't the Spectre, I guess.

[Luther Blissett]

Scott, in unrelated news: Check out Kathryn Harrison's review of Anne G. Rogers' *The Unsayable* in the NYT. Why is a novelist qualified to review a work -- albeit a popularizing work -- on Lacanian trauma therapy?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/books/review/13harrison.html?ref=books

[Craig]

The thing that annoys me with these events is that I'm the only one who is never worthy of denunciation. It makes me feel so small and inconsequential! Oh, and, of course, the sheer hypocrisy of it all.

[Brian]

I don't read LCC, but after skimming over the linked post, I find the above criticism of The Valve pretty funny - but then, I'm not a literature type, so maybe I just don't know verbosity when I see it...

[Ray Davis]

Ah, memories.... That is to say, AAARRRGHHHH! MEMORIES!

And it's Moretti, too. Among my forty or fifty top Valve regrets must be the utter failure to convey that a person might champion contemporary scientific methods and empirical research and yet (and I still don't understand why it's "yet" instead of "therefore") ask questions about unexamined premises and find fault when terms are applied misleadingly. Taking vocabulary for uniform and cheering for teams instead of plays may be too engrained a habit for most people to break.

Of course, shared personality disorders outweigh even team allegiance. (Yet another reason why the indomitability of the human spirit leaves me kinda cold.)