Henry Is "Just a Man," He Says

I think that I may have started more than one post with the exclamation, "I don't believe that Babalú can sink any lower" and yet they always manage to raise the stakes on stupid. Well, this time I don't believe that they can top themselves and I mean it as never before: Henry is now writing fake e-mails to himself which he answers on Babalú in lieu of comments because these have dried up for good. He gives himself away by inserting too many errata in his fictional e-mail just to make sure that he hasn't made his invented opponent too smart. One would think that with so many real opponents as Henry thinks he has that he would have no necessity of inventing new ones. Phil Peters is right there. Why doesn't he tackle him directly without inventing a foolish conduit to him? Really, Peters is an easy mark. Henry doesn't need banderilleros. That much said, the odd thing is that Henry's refutation of faux Henry is actually rather good and en passant he connects a few good ones to Phil's glass jaw. It may be that Henry has at last found a worthy opponent -- in Henry. This exercise in shadowboxing is the best thing that Henry has written in eons. [We are still waiting for Parts VIII and IX of "Nostradamus" Dorschner, which is the worst].

Of course, whether good or bad Henry can't avoid having a couple of "those moments" which add the real value to his writings. He tells us, apropos of nothing, that he was "educated by some of the good fathers that educated Fidel." He means at Belén2. Now this is hardly a ringing (self-)endorsement. Could those "good men" have hit on the same formula twice? I hope not. He tells us that he majored in Economics from UF, which is something else that most people would keep quiet, if only to avoid being renamed "Henry 'Economist' Gómez." All this, I think, is intended to show that he is as smart (or at least as academically-linked) as Peters or even that illiterate "señor Madrid" who supposedly sent him the e-mail extolling Peters. Really, all this is unnecessary. I will gladly concede that Henry is every bit as smart as Peters (and much less dangerous).

At the end comes this, which everybody knows is not directed at the mythical "señor Madrid:"

"[O]n a Sunday afternoon he felt that I was important enough to refute. If what I say is so misguided then why is it so important to correct me? I'm just a man. Why does it seem that there are more and more people out there who think it's important to dissect my every word? Whatever the reason it's flattering to know that an "ignorant" person whose "brain doesn't work well" like me needs to be refuted."

Oh, brother.

[Forgive this interlude: that "I'm just a man" line has me paralyzed again with laughter and I need a moment to recover].

Ok.

[No, I was wrong. One second more].

Alright.

Henry thinks that the fact that he is refuted by others (including and principally me) means that what he says must be important and hence he himself must be important, too. That's one way to look at it, although it's like claiming that you are a great humorist because you keep falling on a banana peel.

For the record, Henry is not an idiot. Or leastwise, not an absolute idiot. An absolute idiot would be absolutely no fun to refute. In fact, only a bully would bother to refute an absolute idiot. Most people are content to let him take his knocks in life without adding to his misery.

No, Henry is not an idiot. He is something much worse. He is a menace. His efforts to be relevant make him a menace. He is enamoured of his own "good ideas" but is unable to see the natural consequences of his ideas. The example that I offered on Sunday is perhaps the best: his effort to "draft" Oscar Biscet to run against Castro for president of Cuba. Yes, that would be wonderful, except that Cuba is not a democracy and Biscet is not a sacrificial lamb. Instead of just presenting this idea, however, Henry actually launched Biscet's campaign on Babalú and offered himself as his campaign manager. All without consulting Biscet. Only the frantic pleas of Biscet's anguished wife caused him to desist before he got the great man killed.

There, in a nutshell, is the problem with Henry: he thinks big but not long.

A good thinker doesn't just need "big ideas" but also the prevision to see them through to their logical conclusion.

That is the faculty that Henry badly lacks.