Shock! Horror! Vadney gets a translation assignment!

The Vadney often claims to be a translator, but there is scant evidence of any professional activity. Or rather I found none at all until relatively recently. So one might have begun to suspect that the Vadney was not really a translator after all. Well, just recently, I happened on a sample of his work, and yes, it confirms our suspicions: the Vadney is not a translator at all.

The sample is available for perusal at http://www.alice-in-wonderland.biz/chromolithoshistorical.htm. Those who know German will acknowledge that the text is challenging in places, with its convoluted syntax, archaic use of language and somewhat technical content. But the Vadney is unfazed by all this. In fact, he is so stupid he doesn’t even see the problems, and in any case he stuffs up even simple things.

For example, consider the last sentence:

The colour plates in the Brockhaus Conversation Lexicon, 14th Ed., are generally produced in 12–21 colours for creating an artistic, natural and finely nuanced reproduction.

I am aware that the reader is not necessarily familiar with German; so I shall focus on the English. What, for example, is a “Conversation Lexicon”? Is it a dictionary you consult simultaneously with talking to someone? Clearly, the Vadney has seen the German word Konversations-Lexikon and simply calqued¹ it. But in translation, you are not supposed to produce nonsense, unless of course the original happens to be nonsense. So what should the Vadney have done? Well, actually, he had two perfectly defensible options:

• The German Brockhaus’ Konversations-Lexikon is obviously the name of a reference work, and therefore, as a proper name, could be left untranslated.


• He could look the word up in a good dictionary. The first choice for serious translators is a monoglot dictionary in the source language, and there is a reasonably good one available on-line, known as DWDS. Here is how DWDS defines Konversationslexikon:

  alphabetisch geordnetes Nachschlagewerk über alle Wissensgebiete

  which can be more or less literally translated as

  alphabetically-arranged reference work dealing with all areas of knowledge.

  In other words, it’s an encyclopædia. So, having consulted the dictionary, the Vadney could have quite legitimately translated Konversations-Lexikon as “encyclopædia”. (Note, too, that there is a big hint in the full title of the work, given on the site referred to: it contains both the word Konversations-Lexikon and the word Encyklopädie. Being able to read is generally a professional advantage for translators.)

Then we could perhaps look at that “for creating an artistic, natural and finely nuanced reproduction”. What we can see here, again without reference to the German, is that this use of for + gerund is wholly unidiomatic in English. (I am not saying it is unidiomatic in all contexts, of course: consider “This axe is for decapitating vexatious litigants” or “Vadney should be imprisoned for using fake credentials”.)

The word “natural” is also wrong as a translation, although you need to know a little German to work that out. The original says originalgetreu, which means “true/faithful to the original”—precisely what the Vadney’s translation is not. The English word “faithful” would be quite adequate here.

Just to answer the common charge that one should not criticize something unless one can do better (actually a contemptible argument²), I consider the German sentence:

Die Chromotafeln in Brockhaus’ Konversations-Lexikon, 14. Aufl., sind zur Erzielung einer künstlerischen, originalgetreuen und fein nuancierten Wiedergabe meist in 12-21 Farben hergestellt.

As is more often than not the case in translation, there is a wide range of options to choose from. Here is one suggestion:

Most colour plates in Brockhaus’s Konversations-Lexikon (Encyclopædia), 14^th edition, have been produced in 12-21 colours to achieve an artistic, faithful and finely-nuanced reproduction.

I am the first to acknowledge that this first attempt could be improved, but at least it avoids the beginners’ traps into which the Vadney’s effort falls.

I would invite the reader to check out the rest of the Vadney’s effort. Non-Germanists will probably, through no fault of their own, not understand very much; Germanists may enjoy some of the hilarious misparsings of the original. Here is a random quotation:

Plate 3: Brown is the principle [sic] drawing plate of the image and more strongly delineates off all central parts that produce shadows and foreground elements than the latter, but is omitted entirely in individual light and background elements, because in virtue of the application of the subsequent grey drawing and contours, these elements are replaced.

A couple of days ago, I lambasted the Vadney for misspelling the word archimandrite on a religious forum. Perhaps I was too harsh: perhaps being a sloppy, inconsiderate, semi-literate moron is now the accepted norm on on-line fora. But a paid translation (and the Vadney leaves no room for doubt as to his attitude to unpaid translation³) is another matter: once you accept payment, certain “professional” standards are expected. Let’s face it: the Vadney is too stupid and too ignorant to produce an accurate translation, and at the same time too lazy and too arrogant to spend a few minutes checking readily available references.

Footnotes:

1. For the benefit of non-linguists, a calque is a slavish literal translation. As well as being a mistake made by beginner (or incompetent) translators, it is also a possible route of word formation. For example, the French prêt-à-porter is a calque of English ready-to-wear. (Its use as a trendy “loan-word” in English is a lesson in itself!) Other possible examples are English undertaking and German Unternehmen, both based on French entreprise.

2. Suppose, for example, you buy a domestic appliance (say a washer) which, due to a design fault, catches fire, resulting in the destruction of your house and the death of several members of your family. So you sue the manufacturer, whose defence is: “Well, you build a better washer!” Do you consider this an adequate defence? Would you meekly drop your case unless you could meet the manufacturer’s challenge?

3. Consider the following, taken from his “Twanslation Fwauds and Wannabes” blog, as part of an attack on me for (allegedly) translating a piece on apes’ skulls without payment:

Most professional translators do not bastardize their work or the industry as a whole and receive a fee for translating.

Whatever you may think of pro bono translation, all Vadney succeeds in demonstrating, apart from his cupidity, is that he can’t read: what I actually said I had translated free of charge was a section of the Algerian legal code, for the benefit of a charity that tries to reunite abducted children with their parents.

Update: Here is the relevant sentence from my old CV; judge for yourself whether the Vadney read it right:

More unusual jobs have included some scientific descriptions of the skulls of the great apes, and (on a voluntary basis) the Algerian family and nationality codes.

After the Vadney’s petulant outburst, I added to my web-page (which is in serious need of more professional hosting: I pay Yahoo! for my own domain name and an ad-free site, and they persistently fail to deliver!) the explanation:

(unfortunately, Mr Harold William Vadney III’s application to be included in this collection had to be rejected because of the qualification “great”)....

So you can see why he is dirty about it. Imagine missing out like that! I suppose, when it comes to reuniting abducted children with their parents, the Vadney is afraid he’ll be torn away from the tender embraces of Mr Edward J. Hayes III and taken back to the trailer. Well, How-Old, you may never have grown up, but the legal definition of “child” is purely in terms of chronological age.

The last thing the RC Church needs is another bleeding deacon!

In my most recent entry, I wondered aloud just why the Vadney even wanted to be a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, given that it is so hostile to his dogma. Then someone wrote to me and pointed out that there are other definitions of the word deacon, especially as a verb.

Consider the following:

transitive verb

1. ☆ Informal to read (a verse) aloud before it is sung by the congregation: usually with off


2. ☆ Slang
   
   1. to pack (produce) so that only the best shows
   2. to deal with deceptively

["deacon." Webster's New World College Dictionary. 2009

• Your Dictionary. 24 May 2009
• <www.yourdictionary.com/deacon>]

Well, one can see some sense in the first definition quoted above. The practice seems to be a relic of the days when most people were illiterate. Vadney is trying to lead a chorus of condemnation of his (by definition right-thinking) detractors. Funny how nobody seems to be joining in. The trouble is that anyone stupid enough to take him seriously is unlikely to be able to read.

The other definitions also have some applicability. The Vadney does indeed try to package himself so that only the best shows...except that even his best is so shabby he has to dress it up, claiming degrees, professional memberships and affiliations he doesn’t have, for example. And he is too stupid to realize just how transparent his lies and posturing are. And that brings us to the last definition: “to deal with deceptively”. Well, I don’t think the Vadney needs any kind of ordination to do that: he’s been deaconing us all along!

But then there is the question of what sort of deacon the Vadney wants to be: did he perhaps have in mind becoming a “bleeding deacon”?

n. a person who believes himself indispensible [sic] to a group, esp. a person who becomes so over-involved in a group’s internal management, policies, or politics as to lose sight of its larger goals; (hence) a person with a negative, moralizing character, who acts like the sole source of wisdom.

["bleeding deacon." Double-tongued Dictionary

• Double-tongued Dictionary. 24 May 2009
• <http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/bleeding_deacon/>]

Hmmm... “a person with a negative, moralizing character, who acts like the sole source of wisdom”: does that sound like anyone we know?

All this leaves me with just one question:

Why doesn’t he just deacon off and bleed to death?

Vadney's Wings Clipped (at last!)

Well, he has been asking for it for years, and finally he has achieved it. Not before time, a judge has taken a stand against Vadney’s vexatious litigation. Here is an excerpt from a recent order in the matter of Vadney vs Ross et al (State of New York Supreme Court, County of Greene, Index N^o 08-1361):

Finally, since Mr. Vadney has a history of abusing the civil justice system by bringing continued actions devoid of merit against the same defendants, he must be precluded from relitigating the same claims and issues and expending judicial resources. Therefore, Mr. Vadney is enjoined from bringing any future actions in the New York State Unified Court System against John Luckacovic, his agents or his attorneys without prior approval of the appropriate administrative Justice or Judge.

There is a similar order with an identical relevant paragraph, mutatis mutandis, in relation to Joan Ross.

Joan Ross and John Luckacovic are neighbours of the Vadney against whom he has filed several vexatious and frivolous suits in the past few years. It is good to see that the judge, Joseph C. Teresi, has finally put a stop to it. For some reason, although there are five defendants named in the recent lawsuit, including myself, the Vadney has elected not to serve on me or the Times Union, and served too late on Joan Ross and Scott Horne. (He has claimed to have served against me at my parents’ address in Australia, although he knew—and even stated on his blog—that I was not living in Australia or anywhere near it at the time. In fact, for several weeks during the period allowed for service, I had my then current street address on the main page of my website, which the Vadney was aware of, having made sneering references to it in his blogs....)

The Vadney did his best to butter up the judge with a couple of blogs devoted to defaming him (thinly disguised as blogs about the legal system in New York State, but somehow almost invariably picking him as an “example”). The astute reader may be wondering why Mr Teresi didn’t disqualify himself from hearing the case. Well, there would have been a bit of a problem finding any judge who had not at some time been the target of scurrilous attacks from the Vadney, often including attempts to have them removed from the bench for alleged misconduct. (“Judicial misconduct”, in Vadneyese, is any decision or action the Vadney doesn’t like. Note that, apart from a few ostentatious references to press articles he has seen, all examples of “judicial misconduct” he ever mentions are in cases to which he is a party, even if he frequently neglects to mention this.)

Reverend Deacon Vadney?

Recently, I had cause to note that the Vadney has been campaigning to have himself made a deacon of the Roman Catholic Church. Now the Roman Catholic Church has attracted a lot of criticism in its time (in this 15th-century German woodcut, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, for example, note the form of the “golden cup [...] full of abominations” in the hand of the “Whore of Babylon&rdquo). It might have given the world the Crusades (for which, it could be argued, we are still paying in terms of the distrust between the Muslim world and the West), the trade in indulgences and the Holy Inquisition; it may have supported Franco and connived at Hitler; but surely it would not sink so low as to ordain such an odious and loathsome creature as the Vadney? Let us hope not! Deacons can actually make a difference to people’s lives, you know!

Anyway, there is something in common between the Vadney’s attempts to become a deacon and his attempts to win frivolous court cases, apart from the impudence and hopelessness of his efforts. As we have seen, he has been attacking the judge presiding over his case against his neighbours while the case was still in progress, surely not a very politic thing to do. So it is no surprise to find his efforts to obtain ordination accompanied by attacks on his bishop. It seems How-Old has some trouble with people exercising authority over him....

I am in discernment for the diaconate in the Latin rite but I have reservations about our bishop (he's saddeningly liberal) and have discussed seeking dual faculties in both the Latin and Byzantine (Ukrainian) rite with a Franciscan priest and Byzantine archymandrite (is that correct) at our friary.

[Catholic Answers Forum posting 08/01/2009]

We may note that the Vadney describes his bishop as “saddeningly liberal”. We shall have occasion to return to that question later. We may also note his pathetic attempt at spelling archimandrite. It would have taken less than a minute to look it up in an on-line dictionary, but the Vadney is not inclined to show even that minor level of respect for his readers. It also speaks volumes for his level of classical education: doesn’t he even recognize the Greek prefix αρχι- (as in archiepiscopal, to maintain the ecclesiastical tone)? In this regard, I would note his propensity to try to give the appearance of erudition with Latin quotations, which he almost invariably stuffs up. (It must be admitted that the ostentatious interpolation of blundered Latin is widespread on that forum.) For example, another post contains the alleged Latin sentence Laudate Jesu Christi! Perhaps the Vadney would care to explain why he has put Jesu Christi in the genitive...? Didn’t think so; so I will explain: He has lifted the quotation from a longer sentence in which he did not understand the grammatical relationships.

Returning to our muttons, it seems that How-Old has been told he is too old to enter the diaconate. He has made numerous postings to the Catholic Answers Forum about this, some of them addressing the issue of age directly, others just attacking his bishop with greater or lesser degrees of explicitness. For example:

In the meantime, I have received about 130 responses from about 161 dioceses across the USA re: whether the diocese has age limits on vocations (specifically the permanent diaconate).

Interestingly, many of the poorer performers (e.g. my own Albany NY diocese) have caps on vocations.

16/03/2009

This is the second post to the thread, which How-Old himself started, on “Scriptural Bases for Agism” (not to be confused with another one of his threads, Scripture and Agism: Any Refuting Passages?). In other words, he was replying to himself. There is no indication in either this posting or its predecessor as to what he is on about, but it seems from yet another thread that he is referring to a report on the per-capita level of ordinations by diocese. He apparently is trying to claim that there is some correlation between the “success” of a diocese in attracting vocations and its lack of age limit. He uses this as a platform for another irrelevant and gratuitous attack on his bishop:

Fr Roger Hunter-Hall and his co-author Steven Wagner, despite what appears to be a methodology problem, have nevertheless produced a very valuable contribution to our understanding of the state of the Catholic Church and the situation of the dioceses and their CEOs, the bishops.

In summary, Hunter-Hall and Wagner, provide us with five very convincing characteristics of the successful bishop:
(1) successful bishops [...].

Hunter-Hall would have been more complete if they were to have enumerated the same number of characteristics of the unsuccessful bishop. I'd like to propose the following based on the Hunter-Hall model of the 5 Characteristics (with the proviso that I am using my own bishop and Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany (NY) as a general model):

(1) an unsuccessful bishop abuses discretion or relies too heavily on underlings or delegates his authority to subordinates in matters requiring his personal pastoral and paternal attention; discretion takes the place of the Holy Spirit;
(2) an unsuccessful bishop is not cheerful or joyful and does not inspire his flock with evangelical enthusiasm and joy in their faith;
(3) an unsuccessful bishop delegates his responsibility for outcomes to subordinates;
(4) an unsuccessful bishop is not personally involved in discernment for vocations and uses discretionary authority as a weapon rather than a tool; he fails in promoting the morale of his priests, ministers, and flock; he fails in his pastoral and paternal obligations and fails in his teaching and evangelization obligations by not inspiring the faithful to build the church, becoming overly focused on ulterior activities;
(5) an unsuccessful bishop accepts the decline of his dioceses faithful, parishes, vocations, ministries and does not take proactive and decisive steps to ensure that his diocese flourishes;
and
(6) an unsuccessful bishop surrounds himself with administrators and bureaucrats, insulating himself from his priests, religious, and flock;
(7) an unsuccessful bishop is not paternal or fraternal but is arrogant and distanced;
(8) an unsuccessful bishop frequently is too long in the one diocese and is literally burnt out and ineffective;
(9) an unsuccessful bishop becomes the victim of his own unwieldy administrative system and its lethargy;
(10) an unsuccessful bishop does not seek his flock's inputs and concerns; he ceases to himself discern.

27/02/2009

Note that the Vadney does not even name his bishop (Howard J. Hubbard), but makes it very clear that the reference is to him, by citing his diocese “as a general model” and referring to “an unsuccessful bishop”. So which bishop did you have in mind, How-Old? This is standard practice for him: he just happens to take Judge Teresi, who heard his case, as an “example” for his attack on the judiciary, just as I was an “example” of an “Internet troll” (I wonder whether he ever worked out what that term actually means), because I happened to be involved in his exposure as an impostor and fraud.

Funny that he should attack the bishop as too “liberal”, though. Does the Vadney know the Roman Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality? His own views seem somewhat “liberal” by comparison, for example:

I am pretty well read in Holy Scripture and would be hard-put to cite any outright statement that condemns homosexuality and those that are interpreted by some as lending support for such condemnation are less than convincing on closer scrutiny.

[...]

While not "homosexual" myself, I do know many homosexuals who are pretty well-balanced and would put some agressively [sic] Christian people to shame in terms of caritas, generosity, faith, etc. I know of some homosexuals who are in long-term relationships that any Christian would be proud of and many Catholic divorcees should have endeavored to have emulated. I know some brilliant and saintly religious who are homosexual. Are all of these to be lumped together and prime candidates for prime property in Gehenna?

21/01/2009

One has to wonder why the Vadney has put the word “homosexual” in quotes. Cynics might cast doubt on his disclaimer, pointing out that almost all the Vadney’s public utterances, whether they concern Suzuki dealers, judges, bishops or translators, are self-serving. Those same cynics might even ask why the Vadney posted to the Gay Bombay mailing list. But let us not let such uncharitable thoughts detain us. Let us assume that the Vadney’s threat to stick his “big red dick up [Mr Edward Hayes III’s] ass”, reported in the depositions the Vadney was always promising to post but never did, was some kind of abstruse metaphor. The Vadney provides enough occasion for nausea without the need to delve into his private life. The fact remains that his views are in direct opposition to Roman Catholic doctrine. So why does he even want to be a deacon? Why does he bag his bishop for being “liberal” when his own views (on that particular subject) are so incompatible with traditional doctrine? I think I can answer both questions. The Vadney wants to be ordained to give him a feeling of power and importance, and he is bagging the bishop because he apparently is an obstacle to the Vadney’s latest pet project.

To round off this post, a Latin (mis)quotation of my own....

Ceterum censeo Vadneium esse delendum

Note that I have adjusted the case-endings to fit the change of object. Pity the Vadney can’t do that.

Sleepless in Seattle?

[Background note: I wrote the below some months ago, and never got around to posting it. It is no longer current, including as it does topical references to such things as Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State, but some might find it amusing; so I have decided to post it for the record.

In view of the lapse of time, some explanation is called for.

The Vadney had sent me an email purporting to be from the New Baltimore Town clerk. This forged email asked me if I could be contacted on my parents’ telephone number. Clearly the Vadney was hoping to “prove” something he knew to be false: that I was living with my parents. This in turn was a pathetic attempt to retrospectively validate his “service” of a summons on me at that address. Having been discovered and exposed, he tried to have it both ways, calling my revelation an “invention” in his own blog, and posting comments to my blog claiming to have cleverly entrapped me into admitting I had received his emails....]

First of all, I would note that the Vadney seems to be once again showing symptoms of multiple personality disorder. We all know how he refers to himself as “we” with alarming frequency. But now it seems there are two distinct Vadneys. Vadney₁ accuses me of lying (doesn’t he always?) in the last-but-one posting to his blog [Note: now last but two]. There was only one matter mentioned in the blog entry he refers to [Note: my posting “A minor curiosity...&rdquo]: his puerile attempt to deceive me with a forged email address. So, in accusing me of “invention”, he must have been referring to this, and denying that he ever sent me the email.

At the same time, Vadney₂ has attempted to post a long string of comments to this blog, trying to create the impression that his painfully obvious fake email was in fact a cunning ruse to entrap me into admitting that I received his emails in general. Well, the fact that he was able to get past my filters (actually only one of them) by fraudulently altering the originating address does not in any way prove that his other alleged emails got through. And it is perfectly reasonable of me to filter out his emails, given the personally abusive and threatening nature of some of those he sent me in August 2007. Either way, he can’t accuse me of “inventing” the pathetic attempt at email forgery and at the same time use it as evidence of my having received anything. And, equally, it is too late for him to remove the posting in which he claims that the fraudulent email was my “invention”. It’s already been archived.

Now you may be wondering what this has to do with Sleepless in Seattle. Well, I’m coming to that.

Vadney back at a “low place”?

Over ten years ago, the Vadney succeeded in having published a puff piece in the Schenectady Daily Gazette, under the by-line of Cheryl Clark, although who actually wrote the sickening sycophantic bilge and how much money, if any, changed hands is anyone’s guess. This is what “Cheryl Clark” had to say about the Vadney’s attitude to the Albany region back then:

"When I was really at a low place, I was saying this place is never going to make it -I'm going down to Washington, boom," Vadney said with a cultured European tinge that belies his Albany upbringing.
But "this place" does seem to be making it. The house [...] is not Vadney's home, but the hub of an international technical translation business he calls BioMediTech - "The Foreign Language Doctors."

Although folks in the Capital Region may snicker a little when they use the new names "Albany International Airport" and "Tech Valley," Vadney is betting the bank that the global commerce here is growing fast enough to make him a very comfortable living.

[...]

Last year, he moved the business from New Jersey to Albany, because he saw the expansion of the airport here as a sign that more businesses would be needing translation services. His partner stayed in New Jersey and another principal joined Vadney after he opened the office in Albany's South Pearl Street Economic Development Zone.

Daily Gazette, 25 April 1998, p. B-11

Now here’s what the same Vadney has to say about the same Albany region in a recent blog entry:

You'd think they'd have contacted AJ with at least something of an apology, even a free car wash? No. But that's the way businesses are run (into the ground) in the Capital District (for those of you who are not aware, Albany is the capital of the bankrupt--or nearly so--state of New York), so-called Tech Valley (also known as Yeck! Valley).

Vadney’s blog, 6 February 2009

So it seems the Vadney is back “at a low place”, and thinks that “this place is never going to make it” again. Of course, he is no longer actually in Albany, but he is still in the Capital Region. And his bet seems to have failed, if you believe some of his recent depositions. He has described himself, under oath, as a “poor person”, and denied having any assets at all. I am not so sure what has happened to the much-vaunted “assets in Europe” and in particular the “apartment in Italy”, but the Vadney, a wannabe deacon, would never lie under oath, would he?

So it looks as though the long-postponed trip to Washington may well be back on the agenda. Did he mean the state of Washington or Washington, DC? If he moves to Seattle, for example, I am sure the New Yorkers will not lose any sleep over it. The Seattle-ites might, of course. Or did he mean Washington, DC? What could a failed translator hope to gain by going there? Perhaps he could run for Congress. I mean, we know he only managed to get 17 votes when he ran for Town Justice, but then people actually expect their politicians to tell lies. They require more ethical conduct from judges. His best hope might have been to lobby for the Senate seat Hillary vacated: after all, no voting was involved; but he has left his run too late. So far, the exercise of the Vadney’s political cunning has been limited to seeking endorsement from some radical right-wing ratbag rabble, and, on getting it, repudiating it. Given the extent to which he has alienated the major parties, it is most unlikely he would get anywhere in “real” politics, any more than in the one-horse-town variety.

So it seems he’s stuffed. By his own account, his business is a total failure. After 25 years, the last few of them spent living rent-free in some guy’s house, he hasn’t, by his own account, got anything to show for it. (His repeated jibes about my “origins”, about which he knows nothing, betray a deep sense of shame at his own. You’d think he would buy his mother a house with all this money he claims to have made over the years, having been spared the expense of paying for his own accommodation (his brother owned his previous place) for all these years. It’s rather hard to cover up your trailer-trash origins when your mother still lives in the trailer.... But then, Vadneyoid self-obsession is supposed to be due to maternal rejection...and who can blame her? So maybe he would rather go on punishing her than cover up his shame at his background.) He apparently can’t even afford to pay a $1600 costs order. That’s how bad it is. He can’t go to Washington, either of them. He may soon be bankrupted. He can’t even buy a used Suzuki without getting into trouble.

A minor curiosity...

The other day I received an email apparently emanating from the office of the Town Clerk of the Town of New Baltimore, NY, population three-and-a-half thousand. I have never set foot in New York state, and would probably not have heard of the town if not for the egregiously disreputable activities of one of its most justly reviled residents, recently an aspirant to the Roman Catholic diaconate. So I might well have wondered why the Town Clerk of this bustling metropolis, a Ms Janet Brooks, would want to write to me. I might have, but I didn’t: it was obvious to me straight away that the said wannabe deacon, wannabe judge, wannabe consumer advocate and wannabe translator was behind it.

Here is the full text of the email (telephone number masked):

Can you be reached at 08 xxxxxxxx?

Thank you

No name, no signature, no suggestion of a reason for wanting to contact me by telephone. Nothing. Now how stupid does Mr Wannabe think I am? More to the point: How stupid is Mr Wannabe? But it gets funnier. Out of curiosity, I made as if to reply, just to see what the return email address was. Any guesses? Would you believe <hvadney@mhcable.com>? You couldn’t get much more inept an attempt at email forgery than that! (For the record, here are a few things he could have done differently, without any additional technical knowledge: choose a more plausible alleged sender, write a more plausible email giving some reason why the alleged sender wants to contact me, set up a freemail address that looks as though it might belong to the alleged sender and is not obviously connected with the real sender....)

The telephone number was that of my parents in Adelaide, without the country code. This guy seems determined to prove that I am still living at my parents’ house, thirty years after I moved out (it was November 1976, in fact), even though he knows it isn’t true.

There was another dead giveaway. According to the header, the email was addressed to two recipients. One was my normal email address, for which email from the wannabe Ralph Nader’s address is filtered; the other was to the address given at the top of this blog (<Richard_Benham_AU-StopVadneysLies[at]yahoo.com>), which I have instructed Mr Wannabe to use if he feels he absolutely must contact me. Of course, I only received one copy, and that was the one addressed to the “StopVadneysLies” address.

On the subject of consumer advocacy: I thought the whole idea was to make a fuss about other people’s being hard done by!

ΔOKEI ΔE MOI KAI TON ’OYAΔNEION MH ’EINAI

The Taming of the Shrew, or the Shaming of the True?

Recently (23/08/08), the Vadney published an entry in his sordid little blog entitled Taming of a Shrew or Amnesty. I would advise readers to ignore the pictures and zoölogical commentary. For example, the final picture, with the caption “The cute, chubby shrew mole likes to roll over and have her belly scratched”, is actually a photograph of a shrew, taken in the Netherlands, and the shrew, far from having rolled over, was face up on a piece of glass, and photographed from below.

Quite apart from the Vadney’s customary aversion to the truth, this posting shows his lack of invention when it comes to titles. Mine is much better, don’t you think?

Of course, what the Vadney is all about has nothing to do with the Taming of the Shrew: he wants to see the Shaming of the True. More particularly, of anybody who dares to publicize any inconvenient truths about himself. And when you’re someone as pathetic and dishonest as the Vadney, almost any truth is inconvenient. Not only does he want to shame those of us who stand up for the truth, he wants to extort money from us. He knows that his legal actions can’t win on their merits, but he hopes people will be fearful of the cost of defending them and settle out of court. Sorry, How-Old....

Vapid Vadney’s Vexatious Vexillology

In another ridiculous recent (25/08/08) posting, the Vadney has included a picture of the Agnus Dei, complete with vexillum. The cross on the vexillum is intriguing. It looks rather like the Savoyard cross: white on a red background. This must be the Vadney’s sly little back-handed reference to my living in Haute-Savoie, in the Alps. Now that raises an interesting point: the word alp means “summer pasture”; So what happens to all those alpine lambs in the winter? They get slaughtered, of course! And that is exactly what will happen to the Vadney if he is foolish enough to try to sue me. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)

However, I have now moved back to Geneva, Switzerland, and so How-Old had better change the shape of the cross on his grubby little picture.

Pompous Pseudo-Piety

All this talk of religion reminds me. The Vadney’s piety is about as credible as his hair colour. A serious Christian theologian would doubtless tell him his use of religious images and language in support of his campaign of defamation and perjury (to cut a long list short) was nothing short of blasphemy.

He has also made a complete fool of himself with the affair of his pseudo-Psalm. First (21/08/08) he presents it as “Psalm 152”, with no qualification or comment, clearly under the impression it was a genuine Psalm. Then (PS to same posting), in response to my pointing out that there are only 150 Psalms in the Book of Psalms, and giving his drivel’s real origin (from a contemporary “charismatic prayer group”), he accuses me of “ignorance”, pointing to the existence of the Apocryphal Psalms (with a claim that “Psalm 152” appears in the Septuagint. I’d like to know where!). Eventually (25/08/08), he finally wakes up to the origin of his pseudo-Psalm, trying desperately to pretend he knew it all along, and citing a capitalization convention which neither he nor the poor benighted charismatics had complied with.

The real Apocryphal Psalm 152

First of all, let me apologize for previously having included, on my biblical quotations blog, a translation of the wrong Apocryphal Psalm. Foolishly, seeing it immediately after a translation of Psalm 151, I assumed it was number 152, but I was wrong. At least, when I make a mistake, I don’t try to cover it up or threaten to sue anyone who points it out.

Anyway, the following translation of the Syriac Psalm 152 is from the monograph Studies on the Syriac Aprocryphal Psalms (Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement, 7), by H. F. Van Rooy. I have taken the liberty of replacing the second occurrence of the word lion in Verse 2, in the light of Van Rooy’s footnote: “All the other manuscripts have ‘a bear’”, and because it makes more sense: David was said to have been attacked by a lion and a bear simultaneously, while tending sheep. I have also put in some standard punctuation.

1. God, God, come to my aid. Help me and save me. Deliver my soul from the murderers.


2. I will descend into Sheol through the mouth of a lion, or a bear will harm me.


3. Was it not enough for them to lie in wait for the flock of my father and to tear sheep from his flock, that they also wanted my soul, to slay me?


4. Have pity, o Lord, on your chosen one, and save your holy one from harm, he [sic] who persevered in your praises in all his times and who praised your great name.


5. How did you deliver me from the hands of the destroying death and how did you snatch my devastation from the mouths of the beasts.


6. Send quickly, o Lord, a saviour from before you and rescue me from the gaping death that wishes to confine me in its depths.

I am not so sure about some of this: Verse 5 seems a bit premature, but that’s how Van Rooy has translated it.

Anyway, I thought it quite apt in a way, with the religious references, and the sheep, and situation the Vadney currently finds himself in. Of course, he would be very foolish to look to God for salvation. No self-respecting God would take pity on someone whose situation had been brought about and was being prolonged by his own iniquity. The Vadney would do well to consider such simple concepts as truth and truthfulness if he wants to save himself.

Vadney4Justice or Justice4Vadney?

Please try not to puke. This is a picture of the Vadney from his 2007 election campaign for the post of Town Justice of New Baltimore. You will be relieved to read that I don’t want you to look at his face. I would like rather to draw your attention to the flag in the background. It’s a 13-star American flag from the days of the War of Independence. So you would think the Wad was trying to tell us something about his attitude to Britain with this picture, wouldn’t you? Well, probably he is, but like most information emanating from the Vadney, the message of this picture is totally false. At best, his attitude to Britain is ambivalent. Vadney doesn’t look down on Britain; rather, he aspires to be British himself. Remember, he claimed (falsely, of course) to be a Member of the Institute of Linguists (MIL) and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), both august British institutions. And he claimed to have attended, among many other institutions, the University College of London. That would have been more impressive if he had got the name right: it is simply University College, London.

Vadney is a Merkin, Vadney is a thief!

And then there is the sycophantic puff piece in the Schenectady Daily Gazette (24 April 1998, p. B-11), in which the pseudo-journalist Cheryl Clark describes Vadney making “a little pot of chamomile tea” and serving it on a “silver tray”. And, of course, speaking “with a cultured European tinge that belies his Albany upbringing”: in plain language, a fake English accent. How quaint!

So, for something novel, let’s see how the Vadney would fare in the British legal system. As I have mentioned, we know that the Vadney claimed, on his ProZ.com and TranslatorsCafe.com profiles, as well as his own commercial website, to have qualifications he lacked. I also know that one UK agency, until relatively recently when they found out about his fraudulent claims, hired the Vadney on a regular basis. So where does this put him legally?

Also, feigned qualification cases, to my knowledge, have been brought/prosecuted - with the higher criminal standard of proof of beyond reasonable doubt - only under the UK Theft Act 1968. The gen. category is obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. The spec. count is s. 16(2)c)-> a deception i.e. as to qualifications allowing a person to be given an 'opportunity to earn remuneration or greater remuneration'. See MPC v. Charles; R. v. Lambie; and esp. R. v. Callender (1992)- an unqualified book-keeper pretending to be a Chartered Accountant.

See <http://www.iol.org.uk/discussion/viewtopic.asp?id=1026>,
post by Maurice, a UK solicitor.

So, in simple terms: Vadney is a thief under English law! (Section 16 of the UK Theft Act 1968 has now been replaced by Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006, which came into effect on 15 January 2007. Vadney’s deceptions took place both before and after this date; so he is a fraud (in the UK legal sense) as well as thief! Note that there is no longer a requirement to have actually made a gain or caused someone a loss; intention suffices. And the maximum penalty is 10 years.) Wouldn’t it be nice to see him locked up where he belongs?

A day to remember

22 August 2007. The day Scott Waldman’s article about the Vadney and his lies finally appeared in the Albany Times Union. On the top of the front page of the D (Capital Region) section, with the headline “Candidate lists false credentials”, and a picture of the Vadney’s grotesquely grinning countenance (cropped from the same picture as is shown on this page, by the looks of it.) The subtitle was “Harold W. Vadney III, running for New Baltimore town justice, claimed degrees, memberships he doesn’t have”. There was also a teaser on the very front page of the paper. The Vadney was finally exposed as a fraud, not just on an obscure forum for translators, but in the mainstream press on his home turf!

This magnificent achievement was the culmination of a lot of very hard work behind the scenes by a lot of people I can’t name due to the Vadney’s practice of harassing people who disclose inconvenient truths about him with vexatious and frivolous lawsuits. A bit late for Scott Waldman and the Times Union, though! The limitations period is only one year. My thanks and congratulations go to all those people who helped, and to Scott Waldman and his publisher for having the guts to run that excellent story.