Glenn Hauman and lies on the internet

Glenn Hauman and lies on the internet.

The internet, like the playground in grade school, is full of bullies and if a teacher is not looking, they will hurt you for no other reason than that they can.

There is the famous story of John Seigenthaler, who woke up one morning to find an entry about himself on an Internet encyclopedia. It claimed possible involvement in the assassination of both John and Robert Kennedy. And the entry stated other bogus “facts” about his life, saying for example, that he had lived in the Soviet Union for 13 years. It was all false.

Seigenthaler was the 78-year-old former publisher of The Tennessean, and he had led a distinguished public career. The story had been on the web for four months before Seigenthaler could get it corrected.

Yancey Hendrieth was not so lucky. His creative film work was hijacked by pornographers who not only allegedly stole his special effects and popular science fiction creations, but apparently stole his name too, claiming on their websites that their hardcore, triple X pornography was directed by Yancey Hendrieth, himself. Yancey, who had no contact or knowledge of his tormentors, went to the FBI to report copyright infringement but his long term struggle with Google was instructive. It didn’t matter if the material was true or not true, he was told, they could not pull the sites that were destroying Yancey’s life. He would have to find another way. His pleas are almost pitiful. (See sources below.) He had to stand by, watching helplessly, as his reputation and his life slipped away from him through no action of his own.

I know the feeling. My tormenter, Glenn Hauman writes a blog with the promising banner, “elevating the discourse.” But it was not very elevating to me and my family to read his false story about my life and now for four years he continues to ignore the facts and proudly proclaims his bogus post about my life.

Glenn Hauman claims that I am a Baptist minister, which is false. He claims that I co-founded a company in France, which is false. That I supplied this company with re-packaged Amway products, which is false. (And rather odd.) He says that an arrest warrant was issued for me in France and that I have never been back to the country since, which is false and a bit of a stretch, since according to Glenn Hauman’s post, all of this happened in 1986 and “this man is the same Doug Wead, who 2 years later, would become a White House Aide to the first President Bush, and spiritual adviser to the second.” Spiritual advisor? Hmmm, that sounds interesting.

Imagine that? Imagine sneaking all of that past the FBI and the CIA and ending up on senior staff as Special Assistant to the President? Imagine sneaking it past the Washington Post, Time, U.S. News and Newsweek and all the other news outlets which continually used me as a source over the years only to be caught by a comic book “guy” who operates a blog, which is “elevating the discourse.”

I have kindly written Glenn Hauman twice since 2005, letting him know the personal damage his false story has done to my career, my children, my wife and her family. (My wife’s family is French.) I have kindly asked him to verify his “facts” and correct his false story. I have directed him how to correct it, to simply call the French Embassy, that I have passports showing entries in and out of France, that the Amway corporation will answer his questions, that the managers of the company in France are still around and can answer him. That I will gladly answer any questions he has.

One of my letters to Mr. Hauman, correcting the story, was written when he was in Italy and for a long time it was posted on his own website as a “comment” but now I can’t find it either. Has he taken that down? He recently came on one of my blogs and invited me onto his website to “present my case.” Is this his motivation? He wants little hits on his posts? Would that be worth destroying a life with false information? Hey, controversy is good. Hurt someone, punch them in the nose and see what happens. You will get some attention.

He said in his comment that I should take my case up with his sources, apparently  Evelyn Pringle who writes for “Scoop New Zealand” and Eric Scheibeler. Well, I have done that. Scheibeler’s book is invoked at the beginning and end of Pringle’s story and appears to be her main source but when I finally tracked down Mr. Scheibeler he denies it all. He points out that my name does not even appear in his book. Not once. And this is “the source”?

So why? Why would someone I have never met want to hurt me and my family? One can understand a mistake. But why would it persist? Could it be my politics or my religion? If so, Glenn Hauman is wasting his hatred. I hardly know what I believe about those things myself. How could he know?

Seigenthaler saw his entry corrected in four months. I am now four years into my ordeal with Glenn Hauman, a person whom I have never met and many years more with Pringle. And the question that keeps coming back is “why?” Who gains? What did the person who vandalized Seigenthaler’s online entry gain? Why did the pornographers want to use Hendrieth’s name? And to the desperate reader, who has googled “internet lies” who is seeking answers to a false rumor spread about them on the internet, why is this happening to you? What did you do wrong? What do they, the people who are spreading this, want?

Someday a psychologist or a good reporter will make a study out of this and they will stumble across this story and others that deal with false stories on the internet and they will figure it all out and give us some profound answers. In the meantime, we will have to accept what our mothers told us in grade school. “There are bullies out there. And they will hurt you. They don’t have to have a good reason. They simply do it because they can.”

Sources for the above story:

The John Seigenthaler story.

And here is the source on Yancy Hendrieth

And on the MLM Watchdog and Evelyn Pringle