M.A.L. "pinin' for the fjords"...?

It's not "pinin'," it's passed on! This website is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to Blogspot, it'd be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now history! It's off the twig. it's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-WEBSITE!!

A silence descends upon M.A.L.adyland

For those who haven't noticed, it's been two-and-a-half weeks since the last M.A.L. post. Could the head M.A.L.ady have decided to try to fade away to avoid legal action? Or did Mom and Dad give them an especially-long "time out" from the computer?

A note to my "helper"

Several times, over the past few weeks, I have received comments (presumably from the same person) identifying a certain photographer as the force behind the M.A.L. site. As I've said before, legal considerations prevent me from revealing any unofficial "tips" as to the identity of one or more (if there are more) of the M.A.L.adies. Once the culprit(s) is/are revealed legally, you'll be the first to know.

I would note that my "helper," in making his or her case that "photographer X" is a/the M.A.L.ady, points out that he or she made the accusation in a comment to the M.A.L. blog, and had the comment censored by the M.A.L.adies. Hence, his or her suspicion that "photographer X" must be the guilty party, or else the blog would have published the comment to throw suspicion elsewhere. Unfortunatly for that conclusion, when I went through all the M.A.L. blog comments a few days ago, I found several published comments accusing "photographer X" of being responsible for the site. So, it would seem that the (singular or plural) M.A.L.adies didn't censor some accusations against that photographer -- which leads me to suspect he isn't really the culprit. Close, but no cigar.

One Hundred Days

Yes, one hundred days ago, we issued the M.A.L Challenge, calling on the M.A.L.adies to "put their money where their mouth is" and show us their own photographs, so we could see just how their work compares to that of Marc Adamus and his friends they so despise.

To no one's surprise, the response has been...silence.

I guess the M.A.L.adies realize that, if they had to show their own work, the jig would be up, and the entire photographic world would realize they weren't worthy of carrying a real photographer's tripod case. This way, instead, what we see is that they don't have the guts to stand up and speak for themselves. Again, not a surprise.

I swear, you just can't make this sort of stuff up!

A couple of days ago, the M.A.L.adies offered yet another "proof" of Marc Adamus's supposed lies: This one is such a classic, you really need to go through it bit by bit.

They begin by claiming:

First, Marc starts off his post with an epic amount of bullshit, making this relatively easy hike sound like some epic Himalayan trek. He even throws in gratuitous lies about having a lot of experience hiking "off-trail" in the North Cascades (laughter).

Then a concerned Photosig member calls out some of his shit, and Marc goes into the familiar defensive pattern we're all familiar with (ie, I don't remember what I've said in the past, I do what I want, etc etc). You can clearly tell that Marc is bristling at having been exposed, and he's stomping all over this fellow.

The M.A.L.adies provide a link to this thread, as have I. I strongly recommend you read it, as the actual thread bears absolutely no resemblance to the M.A.L.ady account above. Adamus gives a straightforward account of the taking of the photograph, another member (Tomas Kaspar, by the looks of it) calls it a "beautiful shot," but qualifies that it's not really "wilderness," whereupon Adamus replies that, although a popular hike, it is technically in the Mt. Baker Wilderness area. Then the conversation moves on to other matters. Only in M.A.L.adyland could this civil, mutually-supportive discussion be retold as a near-apocalyptic battle between the forces of light and darkness. But, wait, the best is yet to come!

More importantly, he added another LIE in his little "tirade". He stated that the hike was "about 5 miles in". This is a RIDICULOUSLY transparent lie! The official hike distance is 4.1 miles (USFS, Lake Ann trail).

Yep, you've got that right: In M.A.L.adyland, calling a 4.1-mile hike "about 5 miles" is a grave and unforgivable lie. Most people, of course, would recognize the "about" as meaning it was an approximation, and figure "about 5 miles" was to distinguish between it and, say, a one-mile hike on one hand, and a ten-miler on the other. But not the M.A.L.adies!

Of course, this could be held up as yet another example of the M.A.L.adies making a mountain out of a molehill (except, in this case, it's more like Mt. Everest out of a grain of sand), but I think I've figured out their "logic." You see, you need to ask the question: what sort of person would think the difference between 4.1 and "about 5" miles a huge discrepancy? The only answer I can come up with is "an 'outdoorsman' for whom a 4.1-mile hike is just barely doable, but a 5-mile hike utterly impossible." In other words, someone pretty seriously out of shape, unable to get to locations where much of the best photography can be found. Hmmmm...do you get the feeling we just found out something new about the M.A.L.adies?

Hypocrisy, thy name is M.A.L.ady

Check out the M.A.L.adies' latest (multiple) entries, in which, on the anniversary of the death of Galen Rowell, they capitalize on and exploit Rowell's death in order to criticize Marc Adamus for allegedly capitalizing on and exploiting Rowell's death. Seriously, can they really not see the double-standard in their action?

This just in: M.A.L.adies issue gratuitous insult against Muslims!

In their latest "parody," the M.A.L.adies issue a mock letter from NaturePhotographers.net (an excellent web forum, by the way) supposedly taking to task, in Gestapo-like fashion, someone who declared insufficient loyalty to Adamus. Now, this is pretty innocuous (except for it being a second violation of Godwin's Law), and is even a bit funnier...no, wait, make that a bit less unfunny than their usual slime, except that they take a completely gratuitous swipe against Islam by repeatedly having the NaturePhotographers.net Gestapo refer to "Marc (Peace be upon him)"-- the honorific bestowed on the prophet Muhammed by his followers. I suspect that devout Muslims would not appreciate throwing in a bit of mockery of their religion into a message supposedly coming from a Nazi-like dicatatorial group. So, where's the Ayatollah and his fatwas when we really need them?