Does spelling count?

I wonder if my old age is making me less tolerant. I somehow just don't want to tackle an article in which the author can not even verify the correct spelling of a surname in a notorious murder case. Often we IDIs, as those who believe an intruder did it are often called, face criticism for refusing to even read much less give serious consideration to some of the utter tripe that is written on this case. Similarly, those who believe in flying saucers or multiple personalities often criticize non-believers for being too dismissive of various "evidence" that true-believers are fond of touting. The JonBenet Ramsey case has featured a handwriting "expert" whose qualifications consisted of experience as a sales clerk in a store that sold pens. Yet even that so-called expert, much beloved by the RDIs, managed to spell JonBenet's surname correctly.

So what should I make of the following? Is it worth my pondering this at all? Or should I simply dismiss from consideration any article wherein the author attempts to rope in some tangential reference to JonBenet Ramsey in order to buttress his arguments on a totally different topic?

"The scandals about sexually abusive priests ... [are] part of the fallout from a half-century of insidious sabotage by ultraliberal revisionists."

"The percentage of sexually abusive priests is notably higher among non-Catholic clerics and the number of offenders higher for secular schoolteachers -- a fact that the media persistently refuse to note."

"The present furor, though partly justified,..." (Did the author really say that the present furor over pedophile priests is but partly justified)?

"We condemn child pornography as criminal but applaud the parading of little girls, such as Jonbenet Ramsay, in beauty contests and teenage rock stars who do pole dances in concert before mobs of idolatrous children."

"Our violent reaction against pedophilia may be prompted by the ... mental equivalent of pedophilia that the media incessantly spew." (Ah,,, I get it. The author is asserting that the fault lies with the media not the pedophiles).

Excerpted from: American Thinker of April 11, 2010
Salvaging the Wreckage of the Catholic Church by Paul Shlichta.


Frankly, I think I'll not bother with it and will simply move on to an email I've received concerning a mid-western blackjack player's legal action after the casino tried to bar him from playing because he is a card-counter who made sixty-five grand in two years while getting free drinks from lovely ladies. Ah,,, what a life! And much more fun than tackling the work of authors who refer to JonBenet "Ramsay".

twist of fate

As Mike Tracey publishes a few of the emails (made available by the Boulder DA) from Daxis , aka John Mark Karr in his series on media, democracy it's worth spotlighting the predator's seduction in Karr's own words - -that gooming process - - and the innocent responses of a child.

Karr writes to Tracey of his new target Melanie, whose name has been changed to protect her in this story, just weeks before Karr's arrest in Thailand:

"...We continued to eat together and to talk. Finally, I let go of herhand. My hand then dropped under the table. She kept tapping me with her little foot. I suddenly held on to her foot underneath the table. She was wearing sandals and I massaged her little foot with her sandalon. She looked at me intently and with pleasure.

"Oh Melanie, I love you. Your little foot is precious."

I eventually let go of her foot. In a matter of a second or two, she pushed her little foot back into my hand. She had quickly slipped off her little sandal. She wanted the full effect of her little foot in my hand. It was so special that she would toss that shoe aside and seemed to indicate that she was expressing interest in a serious interaction with me. Her naked little foot felt so sexy in my hand.It was almost like feeling her naked body sliding up next to me. Her little foot was divine. I looked down at it as I caressed it. Her little toe nails were painted with glitter polish.

"Oh sweetheart, I love this little foot."

She just looked at me with that same smile. I rubbed her little footall over. I caressed her little toes and massaged the sole of little foot. It was truly intimate and very sexual.

And it all happened right there under that little table, in the middle of the school lunchroom.

At the end of our time together, Melanie looked at me very seriously and said,

"Will you please come back and be with me tomorrow?"

It was the sweetest request and was expressed from her heart. Her voice was soft and so intense. I replied,

"Oh yes, my love. I will be back tomorrow to be with you."

And so, my little Melanie left me with all her wonderful and profuse goodbyes. But tomorrow never came for us. Her mother came to get her early on that day and she was not there for lunch. It would be the last day I would see her for a month. I deeply regret that she willnot be my student in the Fall. She will be a first grader and I teach second grade. But I will see her again. The problem is, her first grade teacher doesn't like me for some reason and will most probably make it hard for me to have any contact with her. In a year's time, if either of us are still at the same school, she will be my student.This is when Melanie and I will become closer. I cannot wait.

Over the briefest period of only two days, I had the loveliest interaction with a little girl named Melanie.

With Melanie and many others in the past, a bond was formed quickly - romantically attached almost instantaneously.”

Is it too presumptive to suggest something similar could have happened to JonBenet that led up to her death? A brief encounter between a charming, loving and trusting child whose responses are misinterpreted as sexually romantic within the twisted mind of one lustful predator, one compulsively and sexually attracted to children?

Some would contend Karr meets the personality and perversions of JonBenet's killer.

And this encounter and others like it can take place in public places, like a school lunchroom. In a twist of fate, we should in some detatched way be thankful to Mr. Karr for writing so clearly and detailed how one so inclined initiates the grooming process with an innocent child, while the pedophiles themselves might be livid for Karr's vast disclosures - and subsequent claim he accidentally (but obviously so brutally) murdered the object of his affection.

A valuable map of the warning signs for those that care about children lies in Tracey's experience. Those concerned might be beholding to Tracey for the unqualified courage to persevere and the fortitude to publish, all degredation he may received considered. Few have had his experience, that opportunity to interact with the non-convicted sexual predator of a very young child, so unguarded and verbose.

The entire email and others from Karr to Tracey are published in full in the chapter
Meanings, pt. 4: an awful, dark year

the wake of destruction

Next in the series From Christmas to August, Mike Tracey writes of Daxis' lusting after yet a another little girl, gossip and the media, and of course the most horrific experience of his life in that year Tracey was exposed up front and personal to one John Mark Karr.

Meanings, pt. 4: an awful, dark year

I don’t want to be misunderstood here. I’m claiming no high moral ground and recognize that I have vices galore and that, for example, some of the women in my life have decent grounds for a war crimes tribunal. I understood that life is a constant struggle between the competing sides of our nature, and that in fact the whole issue of cultural identity, of the dialogue about what is good and bad in culture is an enlarged version of this agonizing struggle about personal identity, and the vexing question of, is this who I am, is this who I should be?

In this instance, from that first stirring of empathy for the Ramseys to the decision to find Karr, for good or ill, I sought to do the right thing, and I am perplexed that there were those who chose not to see it that way.

I could not get rid of one image in particular, that of his tying the ligatures to her wrists and then hanging her from the window. I don’t know how long I sat there, but there came a point when I could hold it inside no longer and, for the first time in almost a decade of thinking about and talking about the appalling things that were done to JonBenet and to her family, I started to sob. Not just tearing up, not just tears running down my cheeks but a flood and a wail of anguish and sorrow. In that sense Karr may not have killed JonBenet, but he sure as hell came close to destroying me.

Those that have been pulled into the grave with Karr, or those that use his brand of medicine, may have a better understanding of the toll and depth of personal sacrifices made in the spirit of doing the right thing. The world, and all our innocent children especially, need more heros.


This chapter and Tracey's entire essay, From Christmas to August is here.