Resignation of Mary W. Matthews
from active service to Tampa Bay Mensa
May 2003

On May 14, 2003, I posted a message to the e-mail list serving the general membership of Tampa Bay Mensa (“tbm-gm”) notice of a May 31 event that had recently been submitted to the calendar on the TBM website. At the end of their submission, the hosts good-naturedly chastised TBM Local Secretary [president] Maxine Kushner for not having published notice of the event in the Tampa Bay Sounding, since they had sent it to her on April 1 (“no fooling!”). Thus, I added a parenthetical footnote at the bottom of the e-mail explaining that notice of the event had not appeared in the May Sounding because neither the calendar editor nor I, the Sounding editor, had known anything about it; the notice had been sent to Maxine. This postscript comprised 35 words.

Maxine Kushner took deep offense at the simple truth. On May 15, she posted a 694-word attack on my character, telling the online membership of Tampa Bay Mensa that I had maliciously added the footnote because I deliberately wished to embarrass her, that I am “snide” and never stop “complaining.” Two members of tbm-gm wrote public rebukes of this attack, and a 19-year-old Mensan wrote to me privately, questioning her LocSec's maturity and professionalism.

Out of loyalty to Tampa Bay Mensa, I wrote an 837-word reply to the 19-year-old Mensan defending Maxine's attack on me as the result of overwork and stress, and cc'd it to the other members of the Tampa Bay Mensa Executive Committee. Because I was cc'ing it to the ExComm, thus making it a public e-mail, I included an apology to Maxine for having unintentionally offended her. I did not then and do not now believe that I wrote anything more offensive than the plain, unvarnished truth — but the plain truth has offended Maxine before.

Later I discovered that a fact I quoted in my letter to the young M was incorrect, and I publicly corrected myself and publicly apologized to Maxine a second time. Despite the rebukes from the membership at large, no member of the ExComm rebuked Maxine for her intemperate and false attack on me.

Privately, Maxine next wrote me an e-mail patronizingly informing me that she had attacked me because I am an arrogant intellectual snob with poor people skills. In other words, she used the rapist's defense: I was asking for it. Privately, I replied to Maxine that I agreed with the 19-year-old Mensan: Her attack on me was infantile, way out of proportion to the offense in question (for which I had apologized twice), unprofessional, and extremely unflattering to the image of Tampa Bay Mensa. Mensans expect their leaders to conduct themselves as adults and professionals, not to fly off the handle and attack whenever they imagine themselves to have been insulted.

Maxine responded to my private e-mail twice. First, she sent me a private e-mail that gibbered with rage. It was so vitriolic that I deleted it — which is too bad, since its final remark was unintentionally amusing: Maxine claimed that she and all her friends consider herself an “easy-going” person. Doubtless this is true, provided her friends make no remarks implying that she may not be the nonpareil of rectitude. Until she began attacking and attacking and attacking me, I considered myself to be Maxine's friend. Over the course of almost four years, I spent many dozens of hours attempting to make Maxine look good to the members of Tampa Bay Mensa — with obvious success.

Second, Maxine responded with another, longer public attack so vicious that it and all subsequent messages on the same “thread” have been deleted from the tbm-gm archives by someone wishing to protect Maxine's reputation. As far as I know, only Maxine's close friend Dana Groulx has the power to do this. Because this second public attack nauseated me, I did not save it (for which I am now sorry). The gist of Maxine's second attack was that she had attacked me the day before because I was an arrogant intellectual snob, I have poor people skills, I am emotionally disturbed, I am the only person in human history with whom she is unable to interact successfully, and much more. (Amazing how it took Maxine almost four years of working with me for a minimum of several hours every month before she discovered how much I resemble Charles Manson and how impossible I am to work with!)

As far as I am concerned, only the 35 words that offended Maxine in the first place are the truth. This second attack provoked an online member of tbm-gm to send a very nasty message to both of us demanding an end to the “bullshit.” Would that Maxine had paid the slightest attention to the people she was supposedly representing! How could I possibly stop the “bullshit” when I never once participated in it, and indeed had already done everything in my power to stop it?

In conversations since May, I gathered from the member of the ExComm whom I had considered my closest MM friend, Max Loick, that he deemed Maxine's repeated public attacks on me to somehow be a private matter between the two of us. Her lack of professionalism, the immaturity of her incessant attacks, and her dishonesty did not appear to concern Max even slightly. After all, she was and is his LocSec; she represents him to both American Mensa as a whole and the “real world.”

Once again, no member of the ExComm rebuked Maxine for her second intemperate and false attack on me, including myself. (My feeling was and is that defending myself on Maxine's terms — “I am not the Evil Bitch Monster of Death!” — would be no more effective than Richard Nixon's famous “I am not a crook.”)

I can only conclude that, like the man whom I used to consider a friend, it concerned no one but myself that their leader was publicly libeling a fellow member of the ExComm, despite having received two public apologies for an “offense” that was no offense at all. It apparently concerned no one but myself that their leader was publishing false statements attacking the character of someone she ostensibly considered a colleague. It apparently concerned no one but myself that the leader of Tampa Bay Mensa was behaving in an unprofessional, immature, and dishonest manner.

Enraged by the violence of Maxine's second attack, I threatened to resign all my involvement in Tampa Bay Mensa (editor of the monthly newsletter, webspinner, and ExComm member) if Maxine did not respond appropriately within 24 hours. This ought to have frightened any sane LocSec. Maxine knew better than almost any other member of TBM that I put in an average of 30 to 40 hours a month of work on behalf of TBM — work that has been highly praised by Mensans around the world and frequently published in the online publication “The Best of Mensa,” and that resulted in nine nominations for Mensa's 2003 Publications Recognication Program awards. I also sent a private e-mail to the ExComm in which I angrily proclaimed that I had been “snide” (her word) about Maxine dozens of times in print and online.

Here is how I was “snide” about Maxine Kushner: Approximately once a month for more than three and a half years, I referred to Maxine both in print and online with such adjectives as “wonderful,” “excellent,” “magnificent,” “superb,” and “beautiful.” Anyone who has read both the Sounding under her editorship and the Sounding under my editorship would have known without having to be told that I was not serious in my choice of adjectives. The Sounding under my editorship was called the best newsletter in Mensa by literally dozens of readers across the nation. Maxine's editorial skills are a polar opposite to my own. (To be fair, Maxine says she is quite a good teacher of gifted adolescents. I doubt I could teach a gifted adolescent how to use pimple cream.) The other members of the TBM ExComm knew that I had spent 42 months using lavishly overcomplimentary adjectives about Maxine in the Sounding.

How did Maxine Kushner respond to my threat to resign my involvement in Tampa Bay Mensa (in the upshot, my award-winning involvement) if she did not respond appropriately? She and her friend Dana Groulx publicly gloated that the evil monster had been routed. In addition, Maxine published my angry private “confession” to the world — several times! — while deliberately omitting one vitally important detail. Instead of admitting that I had used lavishly overcomplimentary adjectives to describe her, Maxine deliberately told anyone who would listen that my adjectives were “poisonous,” “insulting,” and “back-stabbing,” and claimed that my angry private e-mail to the ExComm was a “confession” that I had been “the aggressor all along.” In other words, Maxine deliberately misrepresented the truth for her own benefit, i.e., pursuing her one-sided vendetta against me.

Going Forward, A Pro-Mensa Publication, in its May 2003 issue states that the first and most basic “act inimical to Mensa” (“acts inimical” are the sole basis for ejecting an individual from the organization) consists of “Any intentional misrepresentation by a member in dealings with or under the auspices of Mensa, including falsifying records.”

I confidently waited for the majority of the ExComm, people whom I had considered my friends, to tell Maxine to knock off her incessant attacks on me — that my repeatedly calling Maxine “beautiful” and “marvelous” over the course of several years was NOT in fact “poisonous” or “insulting.”

Most other members of the TBM ExComm said and did nothing, at least publicly. Dana Groulx published an attack on me and boasted that at the next meeting of the ExComm, she would nominate Maxine for a second term as LocSec. In my opinion, Dana's deletion of the records of Maxine's second, more vicious attack on me could defensibly be called falsification of the record.

When I published my resignation of active service to Tampa Bay Mensa, Maxine claimed that my dry recitation of the facts of the case (an earlier version of this page) consisted of “inaccurate accusations.” In a later public attack, she claimed that the above facts — all but one of which easily verifiable — “bore little resemblance to the reality of the situation.” Dana Groulx called it “personal venting,” and took concrete action to prevent the truth from becoming known, while admitting that she had not read my resignation and would not; she had no interest in the truth, since she knew by ESP all she needed to know.

In addition, in a very lengthy posting, Maxine told the “M-editors” list, to which close to 100 Mensan editors subscribe, that I am emotionally unbalanced, intellectually arrogant, deliberately malicious, and the sole “aggressor” in this “ugliness.” Well, at least that one word was true; her relentless attacks on me have been ugly indeed.

I have never in my life published even one word libeling Maxine's character. She has published literally thousands of words libeling me.

It seems very clear to me that Maxine Kushner would rather feel that she and only she is righteous than that Tampa Bay Mensa should have an award-worthy newsletter and an online experience that was nominated as the best large-group website in Mensa. I believe that it is immature to start a one-sided war over a perceived insult. I believe that it is at best churlish to respond to repeated apologies with an escalation of the violence.

Maxine Kushner has lost my respect, and I can only wish and hope that she has lost the respect of anyone who believes that falsely calling someone “beautiful” and “magnificent” is not quite the same as falsely calling someone a snide, constantly complaining, malicious, intellectually arrogant, emotionally unbalanced, impossible-to-work-with, poisonous, insulting, back-stabbing, malevolent aggressor who supposedly contrived and executed a 42-month campaign against Maxine, to make her look bad through hyperbole. Exactly how this “campaign” of “aggression” was supposed to work or what results I supposedly intended, Maxine has never explained.

Let me assure you that the above recitation of facts is as dry and unemotional as I could make it, given how deeply unhappy this implacable, one-sided vendetta has made me. You may perhaps even agree that my initial offense (a 35-word aside stating nothing but the simple truth) merited the thousands of words of libel I have received in return. Maxine or Dana may already have told you that this whole ugly incident was my fault — poisonous, insulting, back-stabbing aggressor that I am. I mentioned earlier that Maxine uses the classic rapist's defense — she attacks me because as the Evil Bitch Monster of Death, I'm asking for it. Although you the reader probably consider this a tempest in a teapot, I assure you that I do feel psychically raped, both by Maxine and to a lesser extent by the members of the ExComm whom I had thought were my friends — raped and successfully blamed for my own rape.

I am the victim, not the villain. Except for the second, much more violent attack on me, the evidence of which was deliberately suppressed, Maxine's libels of my character are a matter of public record. (And if Maxine was justified in attacking me over and over and over again, despite repeated apologies for a non-offense, why was the most damning evidence deleted?) Also a matter of public record are my “snide” “libels” of “beautiful,” “magnificent” Maxine, which you can read in virtually any Sounding published between January 2000 and June 2003.

August 2003

I am appalled and disgusted to report that at their meeting on June 21, 2003, the remaining members of the Tampa Bay Mensa Executive Committee unanimously re-elected Maxine to her position as LocSec. Each of these individuals was fully aware that less than a month earlier, Maxine had published thousands of words publicly libeling me. According to the minutes published in the August Sounding, the TBM ExComm did not even bother to discuss their LocSec's egregious misconduct before ratifying it.

Moreover, the June 21 ExComm meeting was the first meeting of the 2003-04 ExComm. It was reported in the minutes of this meeting published in the August Sounding that Maxine and Dana had each received approximately 50 percent fewer votes than any other person on the ballot. It was also reported in the minutes that a write-in candidate had been voted for, and two people who were not candidates for office had received one vote each.

Because I had completed the June Sounding before Maxine commenced her campaign of vitriol, my name was on the ballot, and I know that I received a minimum of two votes (my own and my husband's) despite my having resigned and withdrawn my candidacy. The TBM Scrivener, Chris Drumm, deliberately omitted publishing the number of votes that I received in the 2003 election, although she reported every other vote cast, even the frivolous ones. I can only conclude that she deliberately omitted reporting how many votes I had received because the facts would have raised questions embarrassing to Maxine and Dana.

I enjoyed editing the Tampa Bay Sounding and being the webspinner of a site that in early July won four Publications Recognition Program awards because of my work. And I am proud that my record is unbroken: I have won at least one Publications Recognition Program award in every competition that I have entered, from 1985 through 2003. I am glad that in my entire life, only Maxine Kushner has ever decided that I am the Evil Bitch Monster of Death — and it remains extremely painful to me that in my entire life, only Maxine Kushner has ever engaged in a public campaign to smear my character.

I now regret having wasted so many hundreds of hours of my time serving both Maxine and an Executive Committee that is either as ethically corrupt as she, or is morally supine. I will be delighted if some future ExComm invites me to resume editing the Sounding and spinning the website. That future ExComm, however, will almost certainly have to be devoid of its current membership. Right now, I feel, to a much lesser extent, as though I were Kitty Genovese, learning in heaven that her murderer was elected to high office by the people who listened to her being murdered and did nothing.

As I have been saying since May, the issue is not whether I am or am not the Evil Bitch Monster of Death. (In case you're still wondering, I am not. If I were, she would have been struck by lightning last May, or possibly nibbled to death by ducks.) The issue is whether Maxine's portrayal of me as such is appropriate in a leader of Mensa, or indeed of any other group of post-adolescents.

The 2003-04 Tampa Bay Mensa Executive Committee