Mark Shea brags about his latest raise
This would be sort of funny if it weren't a grown man leaving the comment. The comment was left yesterday by Mark Shea on a blog called Coalition for Fog which was highly critical of Shea's positions but which had been shut down about 3 years ago.
Wow. Hard to believe it's been four years! And here the Coalition for Fog sits like the rusting hulk of the Bismarck on the floor of the blogospheric ocean. Good times! Good times!
Just thought I'd drop in and invite you all to celebrate the raise I got from Patheos since my traffic is going up. Salud!
Maybe somebody will find this site in a century or so when they are researching the self-destruction of American conservatism. I'll leave this note, sort of like a small commemorative plaque.
Mark Shea
Whenever I have good fortune, like a raise, I generally share my good fortune with my friends, not with those whom I dislike. I really wouldn't see the point of that, nor would most people, I imagine. Just a peek into a man's mind who's always raving about how he's just trying to bear witness to Jesus.
LOL
ReplyDeleteWhat does "patheos" mean? Here's a page on Wordnik. Favorite line:
ReplyDelete‘Patheos’ has been looked up 179 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.
Root: pathetic
ReplyDeleteSo it stands for Pathetic Operating System. But is it worse that Windows Vista? or OS-X? (shiver)
ReplyDeleteOr... remember LINDOWS?
[geek = off]
ReplyDeleteThis may certainly be uncharitable of me, but on the rare occasions I read Mark Shea and his twin sister Erin Manning I often wonder what it is they really worship. Often it seems to be accounting, especially the sort of accounting once practiced by Arthur Anderson.
ReplyDeleteIf so, I think I also might understand why God invented and dispenses migraine headaches to some people so much more regularly than to others - as a very special form of patient home schooling homework all His own. Surely that sort of regular spanking can't just be a coincidence. If so, asking for prayers for yourself may not be the fastest path to relief.
New Anon
Frankly, I think Mark's lying about the increase in his traffic. If you look at every post since March 9, only four or five have more than 20 comments attached (one of them being the post that dumps on me). At least half of his posts have comment figures in single digits.
ReplyDeleteIt's also possible that Mark's right, but that people leave and don't come back once they've paroused his blog.
It's also possible that Mark is an absolute cynic, exploiting the capitalist system he rails against. He doesn't really believe what he posts but he knows that it will attract the eyeballs he seeks. He's a rabble-rouser for personal profit.
None of these cases reflects positively on Mark's faith, let alone on him.
Remind me again why EWTN employs this character....
Sounds like he's bearing witness more about how great Mark Shea is, than Jesus. And I don't know Mark Shea from Adam.
ReplyDeleteNew Anon, as usual I snickered at your remark. Separated at birth, perhaps. As for health issues, I don't know or care who has them.
ReplyDeleteLet me take this opportunity to beg everyone reading this to please pray for my intentions. But if you are curious to what those intentions are, suffice it for me to say "None of your damn business."
I don't know much about EWTN; I don't even have cable. I use the TV exclusively to watch movies and other stuff on Netflix. I get all my news via the internet and radio and am absolutely happy with that arrangement.
Sounds like he's bearing witness more about how great Mark Shea is, than Jesus
ReplyDeleteWhen he had his pre-Patheos blog he use to sort of "brag" about how poor he was. He would go on about sub-standard medical care, etc. Then once a month he would official beg for money in what he called a "tin-cup-rattle".
Now he's doing better--and good for him--and he's bragging about his raise. It seems that he suffers from what I call "living out loud" among other things. It's difficult for most people to respect someone who has to offer so many personal details to the public.
What a strange man he is. He's mean, scouts around other blogs looking for mention of his name and drops in to insult everybody. His books may be good but the way he acts is a huge turnoff.
ReplyDeleteWill someone clear up the truth or not about a rumor I heard a few years back about Shea: that he got caught in some plagiarism incident way back when?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't credit it, except that..if he's such a great writer, how come he's never really been invited to pen even an occasional piece in bigger leagues? The Atlantic, National Review, heck, even Rod's post-Pat AmCon? Are they avoiding him for some reason?
Anonymous, I won't credit it at all based on what you have written.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, you don't need to be a plagiarist to be shunned by all the publications you mentioned. They might just all have reasons not to associate themselves with his provocative style.
I mean, the guy has painted himself into a pretty tight niche. I was amazed that he attacked the contra crunchies six years ago and a little freaked out by it. I didn't know much about him at the time except I had thoroughly enjoyed "By What Authority?", one of his apologetics works. I thought to myself, man, here's a guy with a big following attacking a relatively small-time group blog
IMO, he has become a cautionary tale to other would-be Catholic Apologists to steer clear of politics lest they be tempted to absolutize prudential matters.
The guy left a message, on a four-year old blogpost, to brag about a small raise. I'm sure Victor Morton would respond, but he has a job helping to run an actual newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI think I know what the plagiarism accusation is about. There is a guy named Steve Kellmeyer who wrote this post awhile back which seems to accuse Mark of plagiarizing, but only doing so as a thinly-veiled literary device to illustrate someone else's plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteShea takes the bait and shows up in the combox to defend himself. The ensuing argument is catty to my mind.
But the interesting thing is that the linked piece where Shea supposedly attacks Christopher West has been taken down by Inside Catholic. I don't think there was really any plagiarism going on where Mark was stealing ideas and passing them off as his own. But other writers have been practically pounced on for suggesting Christopher West is anything less than 100% orthodox even after he has said a lot of totally goofy things.