Some of you may remember back in the dawn of the internet discussions in DeBary – before Facebook became a popular forum for any anonymous idiot with an opinion to launch attacks on his neighbors from behind the comfort of his iPad – there was a vocal “activist” named Mark Meister. Mark had good intentions and was a pretty benign guy with a good heart but he was a chronic whiner – not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. He ran for office once, showed up at nearly every council meeting, was a frequent contributor to a Yahoo group that I moderated (https://groups.yahoo/neo/groups/debary_fl/info), DeBaryPOP (debarypop/) and even started his own short lived group – DeBaryDialog (debarydialogue.proboards/) when he got pissed at DeBaryPOP. Sadly, Mark passed away a few years ago. What a lot of people didn’t know, however was that Mark had a twin. An evil twin brother. This twin brother discovered the internet one day and would jump online and make disparaging posts, insult people and engage in chronic ad hominem attacks – often from behind the fog of a double (or triple) Crown and diet. He was extremely bigoted and made no secret of his disdain for anyone who dared to not agree with him ideologically, theologically or politically. You could tell when he was on the losing end of a “discussion” because he would really ratchet up the hate filled rants which would cite some crazy, off-the-wall source that attempted to support his case. People would call him out on his tactics and some even referred to him as a “bully” although I’m pretty sure in any sort of face to face confrontation, the evil twin would wither. He always had to have the last word and he’d never let a conversation thread go, even when he was roundly trounced. With him, there was never any “civil” in civil discourse. No one really ever saw the guy. He pretty much hid behind his nom de guerre as “donteven” when he posted in these groups. We were never even sure of his real name – some people just began referring to him as “Howie Meister”. I’m not sure whatever became of the evil twin brother – I’d heard that he created some sort of motorcycle gang, the Howidiots and they called their undereducated, toothless groupies The Howie Boo Boos… but I digress. Sometimes when I see some of the rancid posts here attacking neighbors, spewing vitriol and launching insults in order to make some weak point, it conjures up visions of Mark’s twin brother. I wonder if somehow, he has crawled out from where ever he was, under a different name and sits on his porch, iPad in one hand and his triple Crown and diet in the other hurling more cyber hate at the people of DeBary…
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 22:23:08 +0000
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