Meltdown Monday: Does Bill Schmalfeldt Need a Brief Vacation at Spring Grove?

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Bill Schmalfeldt ranting, 2011. (Image via Thomas Anderson at Vimeo)

“The point is, the sound advice I gave Barrett Brown could apply equally to you, Mr. Schmalfeldt: ‘Spare me your lawsuit threats … you are traveling a road to destruction.’ …
“As for your own understanding (of law or anything else), sir, I am quite certain it is impaired by the fact that YOU’RE CRAZY.
“Crackers. Psycho. Loopy. Off your rocker.
“Nuttier than a Snickers bar.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, July 26

“Spring Grove Hospital Center is the oldest hospital for the mentally ill in Maryland, and the third oldest in the United States. … It was renamed the Maryland Hospital for the Insane in 1838, and moved to its present site at Catonsville in 1872. …
“With 295 inpatient beds and 62 assisted-living beds, the Center provides acute, subacute and long-term psychiatric care to adult and geriatric patients …”
— Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

It would be wrong to say that Bill Schmalfeldt “went crazy” today, because clearly he arrived at that destination long ago. Having been ordered by Carroll County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Stansfield June 14 to cease all contact with John Hoge, Schmalfeldt’s insane obsession makes it impossible for him to comply. So when for the third time Schmalfeldt “accidentally” addressed Hoge in a Twitter message (the difference between speaking about someone and speaking to someone on Twitter) what does Schmalfeldt do? He sends a crazy e-mail to the Carroll County State’s Attorney’s office:

“People contacting me now are surreptitiously adding @wjjhoge to their tweets hoping to catch me in this mistake, and they have succeeded again. . . .
“Hoge’s friends have been trying to trap me this way. . . .
“I know that I have blundered into the trap that was set for me . . .”

Exactly whom does Schmalfeldt mean to accuse of “trying to trap me”?

What is actually happening — you should read this post by Hoge — is that Bill Schmalfeldt is engaged in cyberstalking: Obsessively watching Hoge and Hoge’s friends to see what they’re talking about, and them jumping into their timelines to shout his crazy accusatory gibberish at them.

If anyone wants me to provide a court affidavit to explain how Schmalfeldt’s particular form of harassment works (in terms of tactics, strategy and purpose), I’ll be glad to do so, but I’m not going to describe it here, because I don’t endorse it, and I don’t want to accidentally offer a “How To Be a Troll” guide for copycats.

Schmalfeldt’s problem is that he has become so obsessive and/or compulsive about his cyberstalking that he lacks the rationality necessary to avoid violating the court order.

Bill can’t help himself. So when he starts ranting about “POOP FLAKES” and scrotums (trust me, you don’t want to see those Tweets), this is not merely evidence, it’s symptomatic. His Twitter timeline got so crazy, even his left-wing buddies were telling Schmalfeldt he was losing his mind and finally Hoge felt it necessary to ask police to do a welfare check to make sure Schmalfeldt had not become a danger to himself or others.

Having expended 5,000 words to explain to Bill Schmalfeldt that he’s crazy, I don’t know what more can be done. When the nice young men in white coats show up to cart him away for a psychiatric evaluation, we can expect that Schmalfeldt will blame other people for his problems.

Because that’s what crazy people always do.

UPDATE: This was predictable:

Switching your Twitter account to “protected” status is, in this kind of situation, very much like waving a white flag. Bill Schmalfeldt was the aggressor, and it’s impossible to accomplish much in terms of Twitter aggression once you switch to “protected” status.

 



 

 


112 comments

  1. I know I’ve got to pay my dues as a guy who just got into blogging a couple of years ago, but I’m looking forward to the day when I can move up from the likes of Schmalfeldt to that better grade of crazy that Stacy seem to get.

  3. The name calling, poop obsession, homoerotic porn fixation, relentless cyber-trolling, and pretentious lectures on the law . . . well, that was nutso. I almost fell off my chair, however, when he started tweeting about Ali’s so-called “hairless nut sack.” I think they heard my scream in the next county. Honestly, there does seem to be an unsavory pedophilic element to all of these people.

  4. The day that “hairless nut sack” shows up in somebody’s Twitter stream … well, time to cue up that timeless Patsy Cline hit, eh?

  5. “Exactly whom does Schmalfeldt mean to accuse of “trying to trap me”?”

    Stacy? If you diagram that sentence, you will find that you want “who”, or at least I think so, since I simply cannot find a way to make that an object. That is just off the top of my head, but I did a quick run, and it looks like you want “who.”

  7. Schmalfeldt means to accuse them (object of accuse), but I never took advanced composition and grammar, and do these things by the seat of my pants, so I’ll let the Grammar Nazis tell me if I’m doing this wrong.

  8. I was a Grammar Nazi, but it has been a while. I think you are correct. “Whom” is a direct object in this sentence.

  11. While Mr. Schmalfeldt has a point in the sense it is easily to hit retweet without looking if one is under a legal sanction I would think one would be careful.

    But even given that what I don’t understand is this: If Mr. Schmalfeldt assumes Mr. Hoge et/al are after him then naturally they would be checking out his tweets anyway, therefore you could tweet out your point and be assured they would be seen anyway.

    But I am of course assuming a goal to make a case rather than a more nefarious purpose.

  12. BS. Another way to phrase it to see the subject is: “S means to accuse whom (or “them” if we reorganized the sentence).

  13. That’s what I did; that’s why I ended up raising my hand.

    Never mind – you’re probably right, and I am procrastinating.

    Back to work!

  14. Attempting to apply logic to Bill Schmalfeldt’s online behavior is futile, Pete. The whole craziness becomes apparent the minute you ask, “Why is Bill Schmalfeldt so obsessed with John Hoge?”

    Good luck getting Schmalfeldt to give you an answer to that. I know the answer, but I’ve explained it before, and my point is that Schmalfeldt is so far gone he doesn’t even remember why he’s doing what he’s doing.

  15. He’s obsessed with Hoge for the same reason he’s obsessed with Stranahan and Walker. And the “Knot My Wisconsin” group.

    He needs help.

  16. The fact that you and Dianna are arguing about this tells me that my “whom” is not so obviously wrong that I should worry about it.

    Ain’t diagrammed a sentence in a few years, but I could give it a try.

  17. Heh. Ignore us. We are grammar obsessed, which is better than being obsessed with “hairless nutsacks.” Shudder.

  18. Well now Schmalfeldt has protected his tweets. Maybe some peace can be had by all. (But I give it 2 days before his is back in his old form or under a new alias. He can’t seem to help himself.)

  20. The problem for Schmalfeldt is that he was not a party to the conversation. He had to be stalking Hoge’s twitter account to see the tweet, then hit reply without regard to who the original tweet was sent to. If he quit butting into other peoples conversations he would have have this issue.

  21. I believe he believes (hah!) the entire world is out to “trap him”. What a head case. He apologized ahead of time in his email to the authorities, so everything is just peachy, right?

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