Hattip to commenter Nate Winchester.
Note that Shea says this at the same time as Biden is blundering this country into a potential war with another nuclear power, Russia, while Trump was the most peaceful President since Silent Cal went back to Massachusetts. Facts are stubborn things, but Shea mentally inhabits an alternate dimension where facts are infinitely malleable.
His rant did remind me of a game published decades ago. It had long been known in wargaming circles that the most popular themes were Nato, Nukes and Nazis. Ty Bomba in 1990 published a game with an alternate history where the Nazi regime survived in Germany. Nato was established to keep a check on the Nazis, and nuclear weapons developed as they did historically. His game entitled Nato, Nukes and Nazis posited a conflict between Nato and the Nazi regime. The game has a place of honor in my game collection.
Although Shea is definitely kooky, sin isn’t what is making him that way. Some of the nicest people I’ve known suffered from mental illnesses. And one of the nastiest persons I’ve known was mentally ill. So I don’t buy this idea that sin makes you psychotic. Based on what I’ve observed, if a person is already predisposed to anti-social behavior, all a psychosis will do is to make that behavior worse. So, I suspect the Seattle Shaman was probably a nasty piece of work from his earliest years, but his true personality didn’t fully flower until recently, when his ego got inflated by the praise snd adulation he’s received in recent years.
Does this guy not have anyone in his life willing to get him help? Very sad to see.
My guess is that he has alienated most of his family. I can’t imagine Thanksgiving dinner with him. Rather, I wouldn’t want to imagine Thanksgiving dinner with him.
He has needed help for quite sometime but until he’s ready to help himself….
“Eine idiot ist eine idiot. Zwei idioten sind zwei idioten. Zehntausend idioten sind Truckers für die Freiheit.
90% of Canuck truckers are vaccinated. The selfish minority of jackasses clogging Ottawa are there to spread lies, disease, death, and sociopathic narcissism.”
That’s his response to the Canadian Truckers protests. I think Mark’s sanity left the building some time ago. The early warning sign from years past was his inconsistent standards: calling hellfire down on someone and then giving a pass to someone else because he admired or liked the individual. Then came his hypocrisy of routinely condemning others for what he proudly did himself. If that isn’t stopped, it will never turn out good, as Mark’s divorce from the burden of reality demonstrates.
So, I suspect the Seattle Shaman was probably a nasty piece of work from his earliest years, but his true personality didn’t fully flower until recently, when his ego got inflated by the praise snd adulation he’s received in recent years.
He’s been married for 38 years and has four children. His wife popped two babies when she was past 40. He’s had co-operative projects with others over the years (Sherry Weddell, Fr. Sirico, Fr. Johansen, and that travel agent in Dallas). The Price family was at one time acquainted with him in meatspace, and it got under the skin of Mrs. Price when she’d see him slammed in her comboxes (“Mark’s a friend…”). He couldn’t have been that bad all these years.
As long as I’ve been familiar with him, his voice was quite different when he had an editor (e.g. Brian Saint-Paul) than when it was raw. He could be abrasive when raw, but he wasn’t deranged. About 15 years ago, someone (Victor Morton?) offered the opinion that Shea was Rosie O’Donnell, self-employed because his personality defects made him an impossible employee. That cannot be true. His first book was published when he was 38 years old and 13 years married; he must have had side jobs all these years to pay the bills. His wife’s a CNA, not the most lucrative of trades (and her license lapsed in 2015 or 2016, IIRC).
Dave Griffey occasionally quotes Sean P. Dailey, the cashiered editor of Gilbert!, the magazine of the Chesterton Society. Dailey’s also gone off the rails, although his stylistic flourishes are much more subdued than Shea’s. There’s something about this late middle age decay I just don’t get. I should. I’m older than Dailey and plenty decayed.
On the praise and adulation front, I doubt he ever had more than the most modest income from his writing. He was employed by Catholic Answers at the time of the compensation scandal there, but I do not recall that anyone there but Karl Keating was getting a hypertrophied salary. His audience I’m guessing was at it’s peak around 2003; he was more temperate and predictable when he was reaching more people, so I’m not persuaded this is the efflorescence of narcissism on his part.
That’s his response to the Canadian Truckers protests.
Earth to Mark: the vaccines aren’t that effective. Carry a lucky rabbit’s foot. It won’t have any side effects and it might help your anxiety issues.
No! Sin makes one incoherent.
Insane in the membrane.
This just in.
Correlation?
The US COVID 1984 vaccination rates are 17% above those of Mexico. The US COVID COVID 1984 death rates are 17% above Mexico’s.
Coincidence?
When one reads Marx Che comes away either in stitches from hysterical laughter or more stupider.
This title (“Sin Makes you…”) actually caused me to think it a Pope Francis story.
Well,..
Art, I’ve following Shea for quite a long time, and I believe my observations are correct. Based on remarks Mark has made about himself for years, they indicate he has a tremendous amount of self-hatred, that has been made worst by a growing mental illness, probably bipolar. I recall he has regularly debased himself with descriptions like schlub, saying he wasn’t worthy of his wife, and so on.
And those people he worked with years ago, where are they now in his life? He may have worked with them, but was it a pleasant experience for them? I think Victor Morton has the right take on this.
they indicate he has a tremendous amount of self-hatred, that has been made worst by a growing mental illness, probably bipolar. I recall he has regularly debased himself with descriptions like schlub, saying he wasn’t worthy of his wife, and so on.
Self-deprecating remarks are not that unusual. Since he’s had in the past a neuralgic response to people who are skeptical of the widespread use of psychotropics, I’m going to assume that’s been in his medicine cabinet at times. I think he has admitted to counseling or therapy.
None of my business, but if the man’s manic-depressive, it’s not leaving any obtrusive signs on his blogs (and might not). As far as I can tell, his writing has grown more and more emotions-driven over the years, with the predominant emotion being rage.
I do believe he’s deteriorating with age. What I was saying was I doubt he’s been impossible his whole life. In regard to his writing, it was only around 2005 that his unfiltered remarks began getting regrettably intemperate, though I think Joseph D’Hippolito was already complaining about cyberstalking behavior by him. He would have been 47 years old in 2005.