Mike Tracey's From Christmas to August "Meanings" part 3

Meanings, pt. 3: public service

by Michael Tracey


A particularly odious aspect to rumour, gossip and innuendo is that they are rarely if ever presented as such. They can masquerade as “concern” for the victim, a pretentious proffering of “…it pains me to say this but…” The gossip or rumour-monger is not especially concerned with solving a problem, rather drawing a kind of narcissistic sustenance from them, from “knowing” something that others don’t. I was, for example, told by three different people, who were in no way connected, that they knew someone who had been on the chair lift at the Eldora ski area near Boulder with a cop who told them that the Ramseys were about to be arrested, and I was told this in each case with a kind of knowing glee. And gossips thrive on the negative, the controversial and the sensational – qualities which were present in abundance in the Ramsey case, as neither the media nor their public heeded the admonition of Psalm 34: 13-15: “Guard your tongue from evil, your lips from deceitful speech.”

Read the entire series:

Prologue: Christmas to August

Part 1: 'JonBenet'

Part 2: 'vile bigotry and voodoo stupidityJonBenet'

Part. 3: 'time to wake up, Professor Tracey'

Daxis: part 1 son of the devil

Daxis: part 2 Bangkok

Daxis part 3: Snake on a plane

Meanings, pt. 1: Post-OJ America

Meanings, pt. 2: a crisis of prevailing values