Blogs Are Stupid

Doesn't anyone believe in Dear Diary anymore? What happened to the joy of putting actual pen to paper? And why does every ordinary Jane and John think they can write well enough to burden the world with their scribblings? It’s a mystery that badly needs solving. My first entry contains my thoughts about blogging and will set your expectations. The rest will probably be stream of consciousness garbage, much like you’ll find on any other blog. Perhaps we will both come away enlightened.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Pissed off and Skeeved Out

Honestly, have you ever seen any one who better fit the pedophile stereotype than John Mark Karr? I know, I know, pedophiles come in all shapes and sizes, they are everyone and no one. But he has that effete and innocuous, but somehow menacing blandness that seems to be the hallmark of those who spend their lives trying to shroud themselves from scrutiny. At first glance he seems harmless, but when you look in his eyes, there is something chilly and feral behind the vacancy of his gaze. He does not fit inside his own skin; it is ill equipped to contain the scope of his malignance. Those who encounter him experience a sense of vague but decided unease.

And yet, the bulk of my anger is not directed at him. What I feel for him is revulsion and loathing, but I understand that the poisonous urges that drive him are uncontrollable and innate. He is a slave to his perversity. He is powerless to reign it in. He cannot fix himself.

When I was a child, there was a man in the neighborhood that was known as "The Candy Man." One had simply to ring his doorbell, and he would proffer a bowl of goodies, smiling as the neighborhood children shyly helped themselves. I was never allowed to go there. As far as I know, he never hurt anybody, and was, most likely, a lonely and harmless old man. But he set off alarm bells for my mother, and she did not ignore them even knowing that her instincts could be wrong. She would rather have been wrong, than sorry.

We've all felt that prickling fear, haven't we? That sense that something about someone is just wrong. That sick dread in the pit our stomach that tells us there is danger, evil, malevolence in the presence of innocence. Do we push it away? I think most of us do not.

I think Patsy and John pushed it away. That's not a fair or rational accusation to make. It's an injudicious assignation of blame, but I can't help but feeling that something...something was there. Something they should have seen or felt. The man was in LOVE with a six year old. He was obsessed. He pined for her day and night and was finally compelled to kill her, rather than live his life knowing she could never be his. Such aberrance does not pass through this world without leaving some kind of ripple on the placid surface of normality.

Why didn't they see it?? Their blindness angers me.

And there's more that fuels my indignation. I am...sickened and disgusted by the way that this beautiful, innocent child was tarted up, paraded around, sexualized and objectified by the gaurdians of her innocence. They exploited and defiled what should have been protected and nurtured. It's quite likely that John Karr would have fixated on JonBenet regardless. Pedophiles do not need reason or encouragement to feed their need. But they fueled the fire of his depravity by marketing her sexuality and cultivating validation of her beauty and desireability.

I find the entire concept of Children's beauty pageants loathsome and obscene. Not only because they sexualize and objectify, but because they promote the ideal that worth lies with beauty, and because by quantifying the beauty of some children, they diminish the inherent beauty of all children.

We are destroying the innocence of our children. Through increasingly pervasive, voyeuristic and harmful media in addition to apathetic parenting, we are leaving our children vulnerable to influences they are not equipped to understand or reconcile. We have lost sight of the fact that children are not small adults who possess the capacity to reason through the very complex issues they are being assaulted with every day. Violence, irresponsible and injurious sexual constructs, intolerance, immorality and hatred are tainting the purity and simplicity of chidhood. And it is our fault.

Damned if I know what to do about it.

I have been accused of being overprotective and hyper-vigilant. I have been accused of not letting my kids have any fun. I have been accused of being rigid, unrealistic and overly censorious.

But my kids are alive. Part of that is sheer, unadulterated luck, of course. But JonBenet is not lying in a cold and lonely grave because of bad luck. She was set on a collision course with disaster through the actions and choices of those charged with her safekeeping. That is not a very charitable view to take, I suppose. And perhaps someday I will find myself eating those words. But for now, that knowledge is eclipsed by my anger. She didn't have to die.

R.I.P. JonBenet and Patsy. I hope you both find some peace.

Footnote:I realize John Karr has not been proven guilty. I realize there is still some doubt about his involvement. But somebody killed her, and my assessment of why remains the same, regardless of the identity of the murderer.

8 Comments:

  • At 8:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You're so right, B.A. but I can't even think about John Karr because it sickens me. I can't contemplate his illness or his alleged guilt. I can't wonder what he was doing or thinking - or about others he may have harmed. As the mother of a daughter these things terrify me. While I do not understand the world of pageants, I also don't think that the Ramseys involved their daughter in that to put her in harms way. I think that most likely they were naive - blind - or unaware. And that upsets me because I myself am always wondering, with vigilance, what I am missing. I have had personal experience with not trusting my instincts - so now I do - always. I'm sorry they didn't - as they paid the ultimate price. Well written as always, my friend.

     
  • At 11:32 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Allegedly John Karr was with his 2nd wife in Alabama at the time of the JonBenet murder. Plus he is alleging he drugged her but the tox screens came back negative.

    I'd worry about Karr anyway. His first wife was 14 and she pushed for an anulment, saying she only married him out of fear. His second wife was 16 at the time she gave birth to twin girls (died after birth). All of this allegedly but what is being reported on our local talk radio.

     
  • At 5:40 PM, Blogger Ruth Dynamite said…

    Regardless of whether Carr killed JonBenet or not, he's a sick, sick man. He and people like him make my skin crawl. And John and Patricia Ramsey? I think they honestly saw nothing wrong with that whole pageant thing; I think they loved their daughter as any parents love their kids. It's terribly sad, all of it. For everyone's sake, I hope Carr is telling the truth.

     
  • At 7:08 PM, Blogger OhTheJoys said…

    Okay - kind of tangential, but in re: to beauty pageants... did you see Little Miss Sunshine yet? You would HIGHLY approve.

     
  • At 6:09 AM, Blogger Sandra said…

    I can't think of Carr without feeling physically ill.

    And the world of Pageants? As much as parents who involve their children in them have responsibility, I think that as a society the other big issue is the pageant system itself. Why do we allow it? Why do corporate sponsors support it? What can we do about it? It sends so many harmful messages to young girls and their parents.

    The parents of JonBenet loved her. We may not agree with the way they showed it or how they involved her in pageants. But I cannot imagine a pain worse than loosing your child.

     
  • At 10:22 PM, Blogger Mom101 said…

    While pageants make me sick (oh yeahhhh they're about talent too, right?) I'm really uncomfortable placing blame on her parents here.

    Plenty of kids are abducted or abused that don't wear makeup in kindergarten. Plenty of Little Miss Whatevers are not the target of crazy people. I sort of feel that's the same line of thinking that women in miniskirts are asking to be raped.

    In fact my sense is that this guy, guilty of this particular crime or not, has been through it with other children, many of whom were not dolled up and paraded on stage. Who knows really what makes any one child a target over another.

    I'm half convinced anyway that he's a patsy set up by the Bush administration to distract the news media from some new maneuverings in Iraq.

     
  • At 4:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm just hoping that the killer has finally been caught and that this guy hasn't been jerking us all around. :(

    I want to see what is contained in the sealed arrest affadavit.

    I want to hear the dna results also.

    Nancy Grace makes me wanna PUKE everytime I hear her ratings wanting ass speak!

     
  • At 8:53 PM, Blogger Blog Antagonist said…

    I hope so too, although honestly, the more I hear and read, the more it seems he just might be.

     

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