It’s amazing really. This man has no off button. None, not even a pause button. Instead of doing, as Joe Sherry has intelligently pointed out, what he should have done, he has done the opposite and probably should earn the award for most angry, foul-mouthed, horrendously pathetic and cranky editor to ever grace the publishing industry. In Joe Sherry’s words:
Not to get too deep into the initial issue, as this has all been covered before, but what bothered me most about this whole situation was not necessarily the opening statement (bad as it came across), but rather in how Sanders responded to the criticism…it appears that Sanders was so angry that anyone would possibly be offended by something he said and no longer wish to be associated with his magazine that he accused those writers of having their panties in a wad (more or less) and of being cowards, among other less complimentary things. This is what bothered me the most.
Well, this is what bothered me the most as well. You see, I saw the comments in the original rejection letter and thought, “Well, I understand what he means, but these are stupid words.” And then I read Sanders’s responses and started to get the impression that these weren’t simply stupid things said by people that don’t always think through things all the way–I’m guilty of this at times. I saw his anger, his hatred, and his violent words towards the people who disagreed with him and thought his comments were offensive. He never once made an honest apology, but continued shoving his foot into his mouth in a display of close-minded anger, the kind of anger we’d expect of the extreme religious right who still think the Earth is only a few thousand years old and refuse to accept that science has made the world a better place.
Now comes word that Helix is closing its doors. It seems true that Helix has had plans to close for a while, and I’m willing to accept this as truth as one of the contributors of Helix, quoted in Joe Sherry’s article, has stated that it is true. But, considering the controversy over this whole thing, are we at all surprised by this? Let’s just say that Helix wasn’t planning to close their doors before the incident, do any of us honestly think that Helix would last much longer anyway? Some places have already withdrawn their support by removing *links* to Helix and the blogosphere has turned William Sanders’s name into an alternative to searching for the anti-christ. Authors have been requesting that their work be removed from Helix’s archives. Many were denied (and still are being denied, with Sanders’s grumpy, and very “professional” comments attached). In all honesty, the market has become so tainted by Sanders’s inability to save face for even a moment, or at least shut his mouth and stop fuming like delinquent teenager.
And now we’re left with these comments about those of us who spoke out about him:
At this point the Blogtrotters and other hostile entities will be leaping grasshopperlike
about, emitting shrill piping sounds of joy, clapping their tiny hands, bursting into “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead,” and other childish expressions of triumph. One hopes that they do not injure themselves patting themselves on the back.
…
The point is, all this was decided long before the Blogtrotters went into their latest shit-flinging frenzy. So as much as it no doubt pleases them to believe that they were responsible for taking down the Great Monster, they should rather offer thanks to the freeloaders who, simply by sitting on their rumps and doing nothing to support the magazine, did more to terminate Helix than all the silly whining bastards put together.
Of course they won’t believe this; they will choose to believe what they want to believe, just as they always do. If there is one thing the Blogtrotters and the Silly Righteous Girls have demonstrated throughout this affair, it is their total imperviousness to reality.
Yeah, and if that wasn’t enough you can see his continued spewing of hatred here, in which he’s apparently interviewed about his comments and tries desperately to make himself sound like a rational human being who never did anything wrong. I read about three or four questions worth and realized this is the same garbage he’s been spewing the whole time since the beginning of this fiasco, with the same style of language, the same unapologetic attitude, and the same anger and bigotry that got him flamed by bloggers in the first place.
So a word to William Sanders: Grow up. If you ever work in this business again, pray you get hired by someone that doesn’t know what kind of person you are, because you’ve yet to learn what it means to be an adult. No human being should be as angry as you. Maybe some therapy in your near future would help you deal with whatever deep-seeded psychological damage has turned you into this grumpy person.
And with that, I think I’m done with this whole thing. We’ll see if he can get his foot any deeper down his throat in the next few months or years.
