Mark Hughes Is Lying Through His Teeth!

I suppose this could escalate even further into more childish antics as we shoot barbs at each other via web page content rather than private Emails, but I would like to make something perfectly clear. Mark Hughes is lying if he says I wrote him more Email quite removed from our initial encounter back around February of 2000. The last direct contact we had was then when I simply deleted his last Email to me since he failed to keep his promise of including a counter point of view on his page. I had no reason to read his last letter in the face of such stunning proof he was not a man of his word, and therefore, I knew whatever it said would mean little to me. Thus, it was deleted. But that was back in February of 2000, and no Email has passed between us since.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I'm told his latest addition to his AD&D hating rant intimates I recently wrote back to that loser, and somewhat badly at that. I didn't. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may simply be confused, however, as to whom he was speaking, or perhaps someone even misrepresented himself or herself as me, or as speaking for me. If so, they weren't.

Or maybe he doesn't care who wrote, feeling anyone who likes AD&D is a psycho and they all fall under the same heading and can thus be collectively referred to or thought of as a single interchangeable entity.

But if someone did write to him and he took them as me, he is mistaken. I never use html Email either, except to businesses, or when no other choice is readily available.

So I'd like to assure anyone reading this that I have no knowledge of the recent letter of which he speaks. Even so, I find it interesting the worst he can say about the letter, and whoever wrote it, is nothing more than picking on some typos and taking such things as indicative of a lack of intelligence. Still, what else can you expect from someone who hasn't got anything substantial to say about the substance of the letter, whatever it may have said?

In fact, recently - while cleaning up a few items - I revisited his page and discovered the badly spelled excerpt he claims I wrote was altered to include even more typos than he originally published. It seems he wanted to make that person look even more a fool - but I suspect, since I did not write that letter, or even anything remotely similar to it, that Mark simply made it up, so he should feel free to alter it later since it seems to be his own work. But I digress.

He's also a hypocrite in that regard, I guess, for I saw when I ran his own page's content over a spell checker, several errors were revealed. No matter. Such things happen even to the best of us, which is why the wise don't pick on such meaningless trivialities, lest others pick on our own similar shortcomings.

I can only reiterate, the mangled text he claims I wrote wasn't my work at all, nor does it even remotely sound like me, or attack points I'd ever bother to mention. Alas, the letter was not mine, so it's really not my place to defend it; I can only make clear it's not my work.

Yet, given Mark's apparent track record, I can honestly say he is hardly above outright lying through his teeth, too, and perhaps even making things up to try to make his point seem legitimate or valid. If so, maybe no one wrote to him at all, but rather he just wants to invent more lies to lampoon my character or me or damn by association anyone and every one who finds value in a game he can't stand. He might even have deliberately misspelled words and used them incorrectly to make someone who liked AD&D seem like a fool, just so he could lampoon him or her, just as I suspect he made up some stuff about 'what AD&D players really believe.' The rules certainly don't insist on many things that he claims they do. And all this from a man who claims an ad hominem attack is wrong? Can you say hypocrite? I knew you could. No matter.

I sincerely hope he reads this and corrects this misrepresentation on his site. It could just be a question of pronouns and misunderstanding. But he did refer to me as a 'psycho' when he linked to my site, and such a reference is ok with me. He feels that way. I also relate how I feel about him. But when he speaks of the 'psycho' - apparently still meaning me as it links down to the link to my site - as writing back to him, he is either mistaken or blatantly lying.

I promise I have not written back him, ever, and I have no desire to write back to him even now to 'debate' further with a closed minded dolt. At best, I might write asking him to correct this personal lie about claiming I recently wrote to him, but I doubt he'd do it. He never struck me as the sort who was scrupulously honest in anything he does or says. Still, if anyone else wishes to put him on notice while writing him something you planned on writing anyway, I suppose it at least would call his attention to the problem.

And if you, Mark, ever read this or delete this intentional or unintentional misrepresentation of me recently E-mailing you when, in fact, I haven't, I will of course delete this particular page in kind upon notification.

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© June of 2002
by
James L.R. Beach
Waterville, MN 56096