The Sad Song of "Johnny One Note", or Professor Moore Explains Himself

Exchanging emails with John Moore is always, like we used to say, a trip and a half. Although the ones below are not nearly as hilarious, nor as long, as the ones enshrined in The Moore Follies they are not without their interest, especially considering the truculent professor's most recent embarrassments both scientifically as described by subversive grad student, and in his own "fighting" words that are preserved in The Moore Declaration of War.

To those encountering Moore for the first time, it is true that everything you read with his name attached is written by a real person, who at one time was in fact a very big macha in the AIDS church and spent a gazillion almost of your taxpayer dollars before his recent demise, and even briefly had the ear of the editors of the NY Times as someone whose words of "truthiness" had some relation to truth. Now he is just a caricature of his former empty self, good only for the Sunday funny pages.

I wonder if John ever encountered data that he looked square in the face? Maybe, just maybe when he was an undergraduate before the daze of AIDS came over him.

Whenever I publish anything on YBYL that I think John might enjoy, I send him the url, and blind copy his dean at Cornell Med. and my old compadre Kendall Smith. Usually within 15 minutes, the logs begin to record IP Address: 140.251.128.# (Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Grad)  visits.

The email that begins this tepid tango concerns his perusal of the article last Monday that calls into serious question the procedural utility of HIV antibody testing in South Africa.

I refrain from adding any interlinear comments because you can have so much more fun providing your own. [I use lower case orthography whenever I want to yank his e-chain.] 

To: John P. Moore / Feb 27, 2007 12:10 PM         

"are you the 'jonathan' who left [briefly] the asinine comment yesterday to my latest article, saying the fault lay with me and roberto's lab technique in being unable to perform a 'simple lab assay' according to the manufacturer's directions and not the chemistry of the test?

you might therefore wish to look at today's 'recent comments' to see an intelligent person's response to the article.  h."

Feb 27, 2007 12:14 PM    

"Sorry Harvey old chap, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.......... But then, the ramblings and ravings of a demented mind, particularly the mind of a "retired" academic, are never going to make a lot of sense now, are they? Just keep deluding yourself.

And for the record, unlike you people, I communicate under my own name. John"

Feb 27, 2007 12:17 PM    

"well you lie a bit as usual since you read the piece in question ( i have you logged john), for the rest...what can i say..i am demented, delusional and dangerous too (at least to you, although not nearly as dangerous as you are to yourself)"

Feb 27, 2007 12:29 PM    

"Oh, we know you monitor YBYL log-ins, but we check it now and then for information that might be of use against you and your fellow denialists (and we find it sometimes, so keep on posting). I just wish the quality of the writing hadn't dropped off so much since the days when David Steele ran it - he was so much smarter and more erudite than you are. Shame what happened to him isn't it? I guess he "retired", didn't he? [David Steele is a successful SF attorney who began this weblog as Hank Barnes in Nov. 2005. In October 2006, I convinced him to turn it over, so to speak, to this HB.]

You're not dangerous, Harvey. You've never succeeded in anything you do, so why you would you suddenly start now? Your threats are empty words, because you lack the power to change anything. You're a lightweight in the denialists' ranks, a mere gadfly, a commentator on events, not a framer and shaper of them. We take others seriously, but not you - you, we just laugh at in your "retirement". John"

Feb 27, 2007 12:35 PM    

"you are one funny fellow .....

and btw jp...thanks for all this ammunition...look for it suitably framed this weekend, on the sunday funny pages along with three new cartoons in a bob gallo(w)'s humor mode that make the fauci ones [1, 2] flattering....

btw...if michael geiger is not worth 'crushing', and 'taking seriously' and i am not either...who is it you are after exactly? they should be warned.... "

Feb 27, 2007 12:45 PM    

"Post away! We don't care; nobody who matters takes your site seriously. But note that the information flow is one way, we won't be revealing our plans, targets and activities to you. You'll find out after the fact. We don't issue warnings........

Michael Geiger? Don't make me laugh! He's even more deluded than you are. And even less influential (if that's possible......). John"

Feb 27 2007 12:55 PM    

"i notice that you did not answer the question, as usual...if not me and michael g. who do you consider the deadly to you denialists to be?

why do you think i am in "retirement" when it seems that you are the one with all the free time on his hands. i thought you had a big lab to run, and papers to write, and review, and editorials to compose, and meetings to chair, and grants to renew  (ok, maybe no renewable grants .... and clearly no new ones that have a prayer of funding), but you do get the point dr. dizzy ... how do you manage to always be right there at the email trigger every time i decide to yank your chain?

and like everyone else, i continue to be amazed that you hang yourself higher and higher in this way ... are you certain you do not take prescription or other medications?"   

Feb 27, 2007 12:57 PM    

"How little you know....... And how little I care about what you know and what you do......."

Feb 27, 2007 1:00 PM

"well don't let me keep you from your busy day any longer than i have...myself has a 3-cushion billiards match at my club that i need to prepare for ..."

I can't help wondering what John does for relaxation and fun with the guys after he has "gotten to the end of [his] day's work on HIV/AIDS research" [1].

Yesterday I wrote him again, in normalized orthography. [As Thelonious Monk once famously remarked to George Wein, "You can't wear the same hat everyday, George."]

Mar 3, 2007 10:47 AM

"I know you are drooling in anticipation of tomorrow's promised YBYL offering. Or maybe you are just drooling from all the Thorazine. In either case, I wonder whether you or Bob will enjoy it mas.

I suspect he will since he can read (even if his geography, physics and logic are less than A level) and despises you so intensely, and because once upon a long time ago (when you were still wearing school uniforms) he had a wicked sense of humor and was even able to laugh at himself."

And I give Prof. Moore the coda (same tune, same verse).

Mar 3, 2007 11:08 AM

"Sorry to disappoint you, my dear old "retiree", but we only look at your site now and then to see if there's useful ammunition to use against the denialists (there sometimes is, so keep it going). But poorly drawn, (italics, HB) childish cartoons and your demented warblings hardly constitute useful material now, do they? But, like I've said to you before, the quality of the YBYL site went down hill pretty rapidly after David Steele "retired" from running it."

Harvey Bialy is the founding scientific editor of Nature Biotechnology, and the editor of "You Bet Your Life".

Comments

[Moore writes to Duesberg]

The Same One, Sad Note ... Cranked to the Max

In significant distress due to the publication of this piece, and my sending him an email from the venerable cancer biologist Sir Henry Harris praising my biography of Peter and condemning the likes of Moore to purgatory (if not someplace closer to the circles of hell), and this article on the genesis of cancer that appeared in BioEssays, and in which he cites the book prominently, John felt obligated to send me (and Peter and a few others) a piece of disgusting propaganda by Michael Spectre in this week's New Yorker on "Denialsts and South Africa", in which he gets "to fumigate" a little - maybe for the last time in a venue that is read by anyone who is not a church goer.

After reading it, which is more than I did, Peter sent him the following note:

"Thanks John P,

This could have been much more uncivilized than it is.

Regards,

Peter"

Unable to contain himself, possibly because the Thorazine ran out, John displayed his truest colors once again and first thing this morning wrote Peter his well considered reply:

"Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2007 00:48:46 -0500
From: "John P. Moore, PhD"
Subject: Re: New Yorker story on AIDS denialists in South Africa
To: Peter Duesberg

It's far more civilized than someone like you deserves. But one day, either before or after your death, the complete truth about you will be published, once all the senior scientists who really know you go on the record. It will be the final word on your wasted life in which you have contributed to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people. What a legacy to leave behind, what a way to be remembered by the scientific community and the general public you have misled for too long. I've no more words to waste on you."

- HB

[Elizabeth Ely]

A ringside seat to 'tai chi master plays with a lobotomized brawler'! More fun than a tractor pull or a big-tire truck show. And just as easy to understand: Fancy-pants Cornell scientist good, questioners bad. Questioners wish tens of thousands of people would die!

Interesting how one side of the argument always seems to OWN death.

Several friends of mine have died of literal poisoning. I have not tearfully "watched them die," as some people get to claim so piously -- I wasn't allowed in the room. And now Moore says that I and others like me, as people who question AIDS, who would have rescued our friends if we could, supposedly wished them dead.

Did my friend Al have to die, and Wayne, and Mark, so that you could sit your ass on a nice cushy chair at Cornell? Tell me how some sacrifices are necessary as long as you don't have to personally get your little white gloves dirty.

How do you get to OWN "Silence Equals Death" while attempting to silence others?

How many tens of thousands have you and your 'anti-retrovirals', that have just "virologically failed" so miserably, murdered John? Have you saved even one?

Have you neither shame nor a single drop of decency?

[Moore writes to Bialy]

Earlier(but not too much earlier) in the day, I wrote Juanita Moore after receiving his gracious email to Peter:

[To Peter, cc Juanita]

"I am copying JP even though we know he would never have any interest in seeing what his words to you look like in public.

But you might.

It is the most recent comment.

Saludos compadre,

h."

At 1:50 PM, the email below arrived in my Trash

"Retiree", my dear old chap!I knew I could rely on you! How kind of you do that for me, as it saves us the trouble of creating a new page on AIDSTruth for much the same purpose. What's so disappointing in communicating with you is the low level of intelligence you show by your responses and reactions. I suppose I should not be surprised, but I'm used to communicating with intellectuals with university affiliations, and of course you don't have one, do you? I'll have to make allowances for that, I guess, and lower my expectations accordingly.

I'm not going to bother responding to your emails any more, though, as it's just not interesting enough from my end and we've already more than achieved our purposes in interacting with you. You clearly haven't been able to work it out yet, and you're obviously not going to make the mental leap unaided, so here's a hint: Obviously, you take pleasure in posting my emails on your Blog, and obviously, I have no particular desire to make you happy (I think even you could understand that, surely?). So have you ever stopped to think why I respond to you, knowing full well what you do with the material I write? Put it like this: it has served my purpose to have you post this correspondence. Now, anyone with any real intellectual capacity would have worked all this out a long time ago, but clearly, the requisite analytical thought processes are well beyond your capabilities.

Now, by cc-ing in such mental giants as the Black Knight and young Revolver@)perhaps I have created a dynamic in which you can put your heads together and see if you can achieve a collective level of wisdom surpassing that possessed by a bowl of fruit (Duesberg and Brown do have university affiliations, at least for now, so maybe they can be of particular help to you here...). I won't be holding my breath while your shared neuron fires though.

By the way, has your ultra-sophisticated sic) "triangulation system" worked out that I'm in San Diego this week? I'm attending a meeting with one of my AIDS researcher friends who, according to the typically inaccurate material you post on your Blog, loathes me. We're having dinner together tonight, so no doubt we'll toast your "retirement" (he says "Hi Harvey", by the way, :-)).

Regards,
John
--------

I cannot sufficiently express my degree of awe for the never say die no matter what, easier than a puppy to lead just about anywhere,....except of course to reality street, senor J.P (for pendejo) Moore.

But he did write at great length and improvise quite respectablly on his fing one, sad and getting sadder, and by now O so tired, one note song.

P.S. If any are the least bit interested in why Juanita thinks "retiree" is *suddenly* some kind of an insulting epithet, a look at my AIDS Wiki biography page will provide a clue, but only a clue. The real story remains, like many, buried under mysteries wrapped in enigmas, and nobody who could shed any actual light is talking...and for very obvious reasons.

P.P.S. A look at this page may disabuse a bit concerning the use of the term, "university affiliation" by the always reliably misinformed, and boorish Moore.

P.P.P.S. Being both semi-retired and mostly disaffiliated from the IBT (i.e. I do not have to expend effort writing grants and otherwise collecting funds for the virtual library, and happily it does not require that I do so any longer having a decent endowment in the bank finally), I therefore have both time and temptation at my fingertips, and cannot resist adding this:

Since there are so many who despise you, it is difficult to know who may be at the meeting at which Mellors made an idiot of himself the other day [1], and who is both having dinner with you tonight and sends his "Hi, Harvey" to me (worthless and little known denialist that I am). But say "Hi back, X", and be sure to wash your back Juanita, ooops, I mean watch your back of course.

[RT Magritte]

Ceci n'est pas un savant de SIDA.

et

Ceci n'est pas Sam Broder.

[Elizabeth Ely]

Reading Prof. Moore's impressive online curriculum vitae contained in these pages, his ability to mooch a meal off a man too important to return my phone calls for more than a year (Mellors), etcetera, etcetera, I am inspired to a change of heart, a bit of respect for my betters. People with Ph.D.s and whatnot.

I was wondering how Prof. Moore feels about his real fans, outside of academia: the gay activists, the Welfare moms, the oh-so-loved "persons of color," the children submitting to painful drug experiments. True martyrs to the advancement of Science.

They love you, Professor, with all their hearts. They lay down their lives for you. They march in parades to show their appreciation and raise money for a cure. They, unlike the uppity rabble hanging out on this Web site, respect authority and fear the gods. And you are a god, you know. A high priest, an oracle.

Could you say a few words?

Perhaps you could make a speech, to thank such people. I promise to publish it in my upcoming book, which I am considering subtitling: "Why you should just shut up and listen."

At a church conference I once attended, a very perceptive woman said, "These people need to be educated to take their medicine." Your authority, Professor Moore, extends into the dark places on the earth, inspiring such sentiments, maintaining the social order.

If you could tell the common folk a few things, what would you say? They await your hallowed words and instructions.

With All Due Respect, etcetera, etcetera . . .

[Claus Jensen]

In 1910, according to Jung's ''Memories, Dreams, Reflections,'' Freud made a request: ''Promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. . . We must make a dogma of it, an unshakable bulwark.'' Against what, asked Jung. ''Against the black tide of mud . . . of occultism.''