BEEF ON WECHT, PART THREE
or, when cyril wrote jerry.
again.
Last week I got another email from Jerry Schiller,
whom you'll remember as the recipient of a foul and
filthy and irrational and (let's not mince words here) racist letter from our
esteemed -- which is to say, indicted -- former county coroner, Cyril H. Wecht,
M.D., J.D., A.S.S.. You will also remember Jerry as the husband of Else
Schiller, who received an equally foul and filthy and irrational and
almost-as-racist letter from Dr. Wecht's son, Ben.
In that email, Jerry told me he'd received another letter from Dr. Wecht, and that it was even worse than the first. I found that hard to believe. Really hard to believe. But then I read the letter.
And now I find it hard to believe that anyone who harbors such irrational and indiscriminate hatred could ever have achieved the heights of success that Dr. Wecht has in his career. It's hard to imagine that he could have hidden this corrosive animus from so many people for so many years. Did everyone just ignore it? Did they just consider it the high price of doing business with such a talented man? Or has it only fully revealed itself in recent years, a kind of late-stage lunacy and paranoia that cause him now to see the world only in terms of black and white, German and Jew, evil anti-Semite and noble, forever-put-upon Semite?
I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to know. But I do know that it's awfully sad. And more than a little depressing.
To wit:
Herr Gerald und Frau Else Schiller:
Did I mention it's also incredibly childish? Witless? Sophomoric at best?
I have never bought into the myth of Dr. Wecht's alleged eloquence -- even when he's not accusing people of being Nazis, he's a pretty poor communicator, always choosing verbiage over economy and often substituting circuitous bloviation for real precision and clarity of thought -- and here he proves himself no more capable of coming up with a creative insult than most kids on a middle school playground. Herr und Frau? Please.
And extra points taken off, Doc, because you used that one already.
Congratulations! The German Bund scored a double-header on Friday, September 21st.
Let's ignore Dr. Wecht's awkwardly mixed metaphor -- you don't score a double-header; you play one -- and his second recycled insult in as many sentences -- he used the bundsmen bit last time too -- and cut this time right to the black heart of his metaphor. In case you don't get the reference, take a look at this Wikipedia entry on the German American Bund, and you'll have a much better sense of what Dr. Wecht is playing at. What he's insinuating. Hell, what he's all-but declaring: that Jerry and Else Schiller, because they happened to write some letters to the editor critical of Dr. Wecht's opinions, must necessarily be Nazis. Or at least Nazi sympathizers. Who would like nothing more than to see...
...well, we'll get there in a minute.
Wow! Both the P-G and the T-R together. And with such precise timing.
Precise timing. Like the Nazis. Get it?
In case you don't...
I haven't witnessed anything like that since the Nazis utilized their panzer divisions to overrun much of Western Europe and kill millions of innocent people in World War II.
That's right, folks. In the last sixty-plus years of human history, the top of the list of Great and Coordinated Feats of Precision Timing and Terrible Devastation looks like this:
1) Nazi Panzer attacks on Western Europe.
2) Jerry and Else Schiller's simultaneous letters to the editors of two Pittsburgh newspapers.
Which means, of course, that the top of the list of the Most Unfortunate Victims of Great and Coordinated Feats of Precision Timing and Terrible Devastation in the Last Sixty Years looks like this:
1) All of Western Europe under attack by the German Army.
2) Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., A.S.S. under attack by two letters to the editor.
And to think that some people say Dr. Wecht suffers from an elephantine ego.
I have a little poem I would like to privately dedicate to the two of you.
I thought it might begin, "Germans are Red, Violets are Jews..." But I was wrong.
What makes your bavarian garden bloom so well?
If you tell me the truth, I promise not to tell you.
Presumably, ample fertilizer is the underlying basics.
Would using exterminated Jews be considered too racist?
And there you have it, kids. The end of the ellipsis. The exclamation point on this big, fat question mark of a letter. The moment when Dr. Wecht waxes poetic (and paranoiac) and essentially suggests that Jerry and Else Schiller, because they happen to disagree with one Jew, are akin not just to Nazi sympathizers but to the Nazis themselves. In the fetid and all-too-frightening Wechtian worldview, disagreeing with a member of The Family is as good as being a member of The Party. Questioning Cyril is as good as turning on the showers. And criticizing him in print is as good as digging the graves and finalizing the solution.
Which must make me -- German surname and all -- by now the equivalent of Amon Goeth.
(Note to Dr. Wecht: My German great-grandparents emigrated to the United States in the early 1920s. You can look it up. Or maybe you already have...)
Ever since you informed me that you really are Jews, I have been bursting with curiosity.
No doubt because, using his own family as a baseline, he can not possibly conceive of two Jews possessed with reason and lacking an outlandish persecution complex.
Regrettably all my investigative efforts have proven to be unsuccessful in attempting to learn more about your Hebraic heritage.
This passage scares me a little. And were I Jerry Schiller, it would scare me a lot. Though I suppose he can take considerable solace in the fact the FBI is already aware of -- and, indeed, investigating -- that first letter as one more example of what they see as Dr. Wecht's nasty little habit of threats and intimidations.
Gee, who knows?
What? That you might be researching Mr. Schiller's background? That you might be indicted again? That you might be nuts?
Considering how the Jews were forced to move from one part of Europe to another over the past centuries in order to avoid being slaughtered, it might even be possible that we shared some of the same ancestors.
Here, I defer to Jerry Schiller's response: "Now that's a terrifying thought. The dementia of the letter writer may be atavistic."
Just in case it is, Jerry, I urge you to seek help and medication immediately. Best to nip this thing in the bud and get some control of it before it takes hold of your faculties and ruins your life like it so clearly has ruined Dr. Wecht's. I mean, if you're not careful, you too could soon be writing vile, racist, nauseatingly offensive letters to people you've never met. Not to mention getting yourself banned both from the Carnegie Science Center and from new downtown restaurants.
Pray, tell me more about your Jewish background so that I can hopefully be more successful in researching this matter more completely.
Doesn't the good doctor have more important things to do than investigate poor Jerry Schiller? Doesn't he have any real work to do? With that many degrees, you'd think he's still be employed doing something for someone. Maybe he should find a hobby.
In the meantime, I must commend you for having conceived the perfect plan to keep yourselves from being physically attacked, threatened, or otherwise victimized by any anti-Semites residing in your non-Jewish neighborhood.
What the Schillers really need is a perfect plan to keep themselves from being linguistically attacked, intimidated, or otherwise harassed by two uber-Semites residing in their otherwise peaceful community.
Truly a masterful disguise!
This is high praise coming from a man who has so long disguised himself as a sane and rational, if wildly egomaniacal, human being.
You simply pretend -- through repeated venomous, malevolent letters to the editor of your two local newspapers -- to be virulent anti-Semites.
I had no idea that both newspapers had the same editor.
Wow. You learn something new every day.
Not to worry! I am too much of a gentleman, as well as an empathetic fellow Jew, to give away your ingenious secret.
Oh, yes, Doctor. If these letters prove anything, it's that you're an empathetic gentleman.
Or maybe a raging hypocrite. I always get those confused.
Auf wiedersehen.
Und gutes riddance, du loony.
Very truly yours,
From the depths of my dementia,
Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.
He always forgets the A.S.S. Very sloppy. Perhaps he should blame it on his secretary.
CHW/dlb
This little tidbit may be the most shocking part of the whole letter: that someone else actually typed this letter for him. Can you imagine how badly that woman must need a job? To be willing not just to work for Dr. Wecht, but to type festering filth like this and still come back for more? I hope he pays her well. And I hope she's able to scrub herself clean at the end of each work day.
Because, let's face it: she's willing to submit herself each day to the mind-blowing irony and gut-churning hypocrisy of a man who rages against people who would (and those who actually do not) impugn and persecute Jews by impugning and persecuting Germans. (And even, for good measure, some Jews with German surnames.) Which means that she's willing to submit herself each day to a man who, if these letters are any reliable indication, spends at least some parts of his day disguised as an unstable and unapologetic racist of a letter writer.
(I don't know about you, but I think I'd be checking the want ads. And fast.)
I'll leave the last word here to Mr. Schiller, whose reply to Dr. Wecht proves yet again that the mad ramblings of our indicted former coroner are no match for his dry wit and cool remove:
Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., A.S.S.,
The lunatic using your stationary & writing under your name is at it again.
Help is available. Please refer to the enclosed list of psychiatrists...
In that email, Jerry told me he'd received another letter from Dr. Wecht, and that it was even worse than the first. I found that hard to believe. Really hard to believe. But then I read the letter.
And now I find it hard to believe that anyone who harbors such irrational and indiscriminate hatred could ever have achieved the heights of success that Dr. Wecht has in his career. It's hard to imagine that he could have hidden this corrosive animus from so many people for so many years. Did everyone just ignore it? Did they just consider it the high price of doing business with such a talented man? Or has it only fully revealed itself in recent years, a kind of late-stage lunacy and paranoia that cause him now to see the world only in terms of black and white, German and Jew, evil anti-Semite and noble, forever-put-upon Semite?
I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to know. But I do know that it's awfully sad. And more than a little depressing.
To wit:
Herr Gerald und Frau Else Schiller:
Did I mention it's also incredibly childish? Witless? Sophomoric at best?
I have never bought into the myth of Dr. Wecht's alleged eloquence -- even when he's not accusing people of being Nazis, he's a pretty poor communicator, always choosing verbiage over economy and often substituting circuitous bloviation for real precision and clarity of thought -- and here he proves himself no more capable of coming up with a creative insult than most kids on a middle school playground. Herr und Frau? Please.
And extra points taken off, Doc, because you used that one already.
Congratulations! The German Bund scored a double-header on Friday, September 21st.
Let's ignore Dr. Wecht's awkwardly mixed metaphor -- you don't score a double-header; you play one -- and his second recycled insult in as many sentences -- he used the bundsmen bit last time too -- and cut this time right to the black heart of his metaphor. In case you don't get the reference, take a look at this Wikipedia entry on the German American Bund, and you'll have a much better sense of what Dr. Wecht is playing at. What he's insinuating. Hell, what he's all-but declaring: that Jerry and Else Schiller, because they happened to write some letters to the editor critical of Dr. Wecht's opinions, must necessarily be Nazis. Or at least Nazi sympathizers. Who would like nothing more than to see...
...well, we'll get there in a minute.
Wow! Both the P-G and the T-R together. And with such precise timing.
Precise timing. Like the Nazis. Get it?
In case you don't...
I haven't witnessed anything like that since the Nazis utilized their panzer divisions to overrun much of Western Europe and kill millions of innocent people in World War II.
That's right, folks. In the last sixty-plus years of human history, the top of the list of Great and Coordinated Feats of Precision Timing and Terrible Devastation looks like this:
1) Nazi Panzer attacks on Western Europe.
2) Jerry and Else Schiller's simultaneous letters to the editors of two Pittsburgh newspapers.
Which means, of course, that the top of the list of the Most Unfortunate Victims of Great and Coordinated Feats of Precision Timing and Terrible Devastation in the Last Sixty Years looks like this:
1) All of Western Europe under attack by the German Army.
2) Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., A.S.S. under attack by two letters to the editor.
And to think that some people say Dr. Wecht suffers from an elephantine ego.
I have a little poem I would like to privately dedicate to the two of you.
I thought it might begin, "Germans are Red, Violets are Jews..." But I was wrong.
What makes your bavarian garden bloom so well?
If you tell me the truth, I promise not to tell you.
Presumably, ample fertilizer is the underlying basics.
Would using exterminated Jews be considered too racist?
And there you have it, kids. The end of the ellipsis. The exclamation point on this big, fat question mark of a letter. The moment when Dr. Wecht waxes poetic (and paranoiac) and essentially suggests that Jerry and Else Schiller, because they happen to disagree with one Jew, are akin not just to Nazi sympathizers but to the Nazis themselves. In the fetid and all-too-frightening Wechtian worldview, disagreeing with a member of The Family is as good as being a member of The Party. Questioning Cyril is as good as turning on the showers. And criticizing him in print is as good as digging the graves and finalizing the solution.
Which must make me -- German surname and all -- by now the equivalent of Amon Goeth.
(Note to Dr. Wecht: My German great-grandparents emigrated to the United States in the early 1920s. You can look it up. Or maybe you already have...)
Ever since you informed me that you really are Jews, I have been bursting with curiosity.
No doubt because, using his own family as a baseline, he can not possibly conceive of two Jews possessed with reason and lacking an outlandish persecution complex.
Regrettably all my investigative efforts have proven to be unsuccessful in attempting to learn more about your Hebraic heritage.
This passage scares me a little. And were I Jerry Schiller, it would scare me a lot. Though I suppose he can take considerable solace in the fact the FBI is already aware of -- and, indeed, investigating -- that first letter as one more example of what they see as Dr. Wecht's nasty little habit of threats and intimidations.
Gee, who knows?
What? That you might be researching Mr. Schiller's background? That you might be indicted again? That you might be nuts?
Considering how the Jews were forced to move from one part of Europe to another over the past centuries in order to avoid being slaughtered, it might even be possible that we shared some of the same ancestors.
Here, I defer to Jerry Schiller's response: "Now that's a terrifying thought. The dementia of the letter writer may be atavistic."
Just in case it is, Jerry, I urge you to seek help and medication immediately. Best to nip this thing in the bud and get some control of it before it takes hold of your faculties and ruins your life like it so clearly has ruined Dr. Wecht's. I mean, if you're not careful, you too could soon be writing vile, racist, nauseatingly offensive letters to people you've never met. Not to mention getting yourself banned both from the Carnegie Science Center and from new downtown restaurants.
Pray, tell me more about your Jewish background so that I can hopefully be more successful in researching this matter more completely.
Doesn't the good doctor have more important things to do than investigate poor Jerry Schiller? Doesn't he have any real work to do? With that many degrees, you'd think he's still be employed doing something for someone. Maybe he should find a hobby.
In the meantime, I must commend you for having conceived the perfect plan to keep yourselves from being physically attacked, threatened, or otherwise victimized by any anti-Semites residing in your non-Jewish neighborhood.
What the Schillers really need is a perfect plan to keep themselves from being linguistically attacked, intimidated, or otherwise harassed by two uber-Semites residing in their otherwise peaceful community.
Truly a masterful disguise!
This is high praise coming from a man who has so long disguised himself as a sane and rational, if wildly egomaniacal, human being.
You simply pretend -- through repeated venomous, malevolent letters to the editor of your two local newspapers -- to be virulent anti-Semites.
I had no idea that both newspapers had the same editor.
Wow. You learn something new every day.
Not to worry! I am too much of a gentleman, as well as an empathetic fellow Jew, to give away your ingenious secret.
Oh, yes, Doctor. If these letters prove anything, it's that you're an empathetic gentleman.
Or maybe a raging hypocrite. I always get those confused.
Auf wiedersehen.
Und gutes riddance, du loony.
Very truly yours,
From the depths of my dementia,
Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.
He always forgets the A.S.S. Very sloppy. Perhaps he should blame it on his secretary.
CHW/dlb
This little tidbit may be the most shocking part of the whole letter: that someone else actually typed this letter for him. Can you imagine how badly that woman must need a job? To be willing not just to work for Dr. Wecht, but to type festering filth like this and still come back for more? I hope he pays her well. And I hope she's able to scrub herself clean at the end of each work day.
Because, let's face it: she's willing to submit herself each day to the mind-blowing irony and gut-churning hypocrisy of a man who rages against people who would (and those who actually do not) impugn and persecute Jews by impugning and persecuting Germans. (And even, for good measure, some Jews with German surnames.) Which means that she's willing to submit herself each day to a man who, if these letters are any reliable indication, spends at least some parts of his day disguised as an unstable and unapologetic racist of a letter writer.
(I don't know about you, but I think I'd be checking the want ads. And fast.)
I'll leave the last word here to Mr. Schiller, whose reply to Dr. Wecht proves yet again that the mad ramblings of our indicted former coroner are no match for his dry wit and cool remove:
Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., A.S.S.,
The lunatic using your stationary & writing under your name is at it again.
Help is available. Please refer to the enclosed list of psychiatrists...
Posted: Tue - October 9, 2007 at 10:17 AM
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