I said this nearly two years ago, but perhaps not clearly enough; at least not clearly enough for the semicententarian DUmmie from San Francisco to "get."
The semicentenarian DUmmie from San Francisco ostensibly has a college degree in English literature, or Shakepearean literature, or something like that. There is no reason to doubt that, as she sometimes betrays a good knowledge of Elizabethan poets (although she recently posted a quote allegedly by a now-long-forgotten internet nonentity, when the quote was actually from a rock band).
Because of her academic background, the semicentenarian DUmmie from San Francisco is of course aware of what were called "medieval morality plays," which were a popular attraction (along with things such as Punch-and-Judy puppet shows, and dancing bears) among the villages and rustics of the Middle Ages.
The common theme of medieval morality plays--all of them, no matter the story-line--was that we all are inevitably tripped up by our own machinations and arrogance. The Devil does not trip us up, God does not trip us up, the law does not trip us up.
Why should they waste the time, when we ourselves trip our own selves up, through our machinations and arrogance?
Somewhere near the beginning of the scam that rocked the internet, I commented that watching the semicentenarian DUmmie from San Francisco, "sfexpat2000," was like watching one of those medieval morality plays.
And that it would have its usual ending, its usual moral.
Frank, am enjoying the takedown on CU of Beth's latest "invitation to a scam" --- her thread in DU's General Discussion titled "My neighbors have nothing to eat."
The people on the mental health thread seem oddly resistant to her unctuous concern for them which might impede her plans to fund-raise there, but the starving neighbors have elicited the usual liberal guilt which makes "progressive" shakedowns so successful.
If Beth's attribution to Ezra Pound of Dame Julian of Norwich's remarks is any indication of Beth's familiarity with medieval literature and morality plays, she is ignorant of the danger you suggest. I believe that her ultimate end will require a more modern and mundane intervention, although there might be medieval aspects to it.
Why do her sudden lurches into erudition remind me of the chorus girl bent on self-improvement in "Guys and Dolls" who belts out --- "I was reading Schopenhauer last night --And I think that Schopenhauer was right..."?
Her breezy ignorance of the literature she claims to have earned several degrees studying is probably her only endearing quality. It's almost as if it really doesn't matter to her that she attributes lines from a Shakespeare sonnet to John Donne, or plops it into one of a series of galloping posts where its relevance to what she's posting about is non-existence. I enjoy these howlers, bad person that I am.
We should all pray that poor Doug gets this dybukk off his back soon. Amazingly, she posted on the "my neighbors..." thread, "I'm going through a divorce and when my partner left so did my job."
Aaarrrgh! Run, Doug, run.