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John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 527
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 3:18 pm: |       |
Jennifer,
Yes, and here come those space aliens again to build the pyramids on a flat earth while people hang around with dinosaurs.
Nearly all lies are "possible," in the remotest way one can imagine -- that's why the liar tells them, despite their being completely belied by the evidence.
It's the nature of lies. And forgeries.
But...
The evidence tells us that space aliens did not build the pyramids.
The evidence tells us the world is not flat.
The evidence tells us that people did not hang with dinosaurs.
And the evidence tells us that the real James Maybrick did not write this book.
So saying "it's possible" to any of these things really means nothing.
That's where we are now.
It's sad but true.
All the best,
--John |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 679
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 3:25 pm: | |
Hi John,
Maybe the world is not flat. But it was once thought possible and the best way to determine if it was or not was done by science and logic. Thats what we should be applying here I agree (you know i do).
I know I don't agree that such good fortune can exist either. But perhaps i would think differently if it happened to me!
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 528
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 4:27 pm: | |
Hi Jen,
You write:
"Thats what we should be applying here."
Indeed.
And we are.
That's how we know the book's a fake.
From the big blue marble,
--John
 |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 409
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 4:40 pm: | |
Jennifer
But it was once thought possible and the best way to determine if it was or not was done by science and logic.
But it would be a mistake to think that science gives answers that are absolute rather than probabilistic.
For example, supposing the paper of the diary were to be carbon dated (which would perhaps be pointless, as the paper may well be pre-1888, though on the other hand it may be later). Carbon dating gives a distribution of possible dates for the material being tested. To produce a definite range of dates you have to pick some probability level.
For example, you might decide a 5% probability that the sample was outside the range would be small enough to ignore. On that basis, you might arrive at a range of dates 1891-1905 (purely for the sake of argument). But there would still be a 5% probability that the true age was outside the range.
If you were more exacting, and decided you would ignore only a smaller probability of 1%, the range would get bigger - it might increase to 1885-1910, for example. And even then, there would be a 1% probability that the true date lay outside that range.
The point is that most scientific tests will give you only probabilistic answers about the date. And I reckon that the typical probability cut-offs (1%, 5% or whatever) used in scientific statistical analysis are actually far bigger than the probabilities we can estimate from events like the supposed use of the Crashaw quotation by Maybrick, and its chance discovery by Mike Barrett.
Actually it wouldn't be too hard to produce a fairly rigorous estimate of the probability of this happening by chance, based on the number of copies of Crashaw's work in circulation in 1888, the number of potential readers of Maybrick's class, the number of volumes of literature published before 1888, the number of volumes we think Mike Barrett is likely to have searched at the library, and so on. I think it would probably be a waste of time, as common sense already tells us that the probability is tiny, and based on past experience the reaction of the Maybrickites would just be "it's still possible, though".
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 529
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 5:50 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
Yes, and no one tells lies that are on the surface and immediately recognizable as simply impossible. What would be the point?
No one says, "I didn't break the lamp. My friend in another country did."
No one would write, in a Maybrick diary, "Saw Bruce Springsteen last night. He rocks."
They tell lies that they think are at least "possible."
Then the people who doubt their story (or the document) examine the evidence.
And what does the evidence tell us? That the diary gets lots of stuff wrong, that it names a place which didn't exist at the time, that the handwriting is not the real James’s, that the handwriting is not the handwriting of any of the letters, that there's no way the author sees the police document he cites, that the book has no provenance and a completely self-contained artificial structure, that the book includes textual anachronisms and directly conflicts with the historical record, and that there is not a single reason or piece of evidence anywhere on the planet to suggest that the real James ever had anything to do with this diary.
So, at that point, what becomes "possible" transforms itself into what the evidence tells us.
And that is, without exception, that the diary is a fake.
But wait.
I just had a thought. 
Of course, as we've seen, that's not the way some readers around here operate.
It now occurs to me that the diarist could just as easily have written "Saw Bruce Springsteen last night. He rocks."
Sure, Bruce didn't exist in 1888. But, then again, neither did the Poste House. So I'm sure we'd now be being told that there were many musical acts playing in Liverpool during the real James's lifetime, and surely he just meant one of those even though he wrote "Bruce Springsteen." Or, although the census doesn't have any record of a Bruce Springsteen in Liverpool at the time, you can't really prove a negative, so it's possible that there might have been someone by that name that James saw. Or, remember, James was a drug crazed serial killer, so he probably couldn't remember accurately the name of the people he ran into the night before, and when he wrote Bruce Springsteen he actually was thinking of someone who did exist there at the time and played music. Or, maybe we don't have any records of any concert by a guy named Bruce Springsteen (or any murders in Manchester), but surely that's because the records were lost or the event wasn't considered important enough to keep in the archives. Or, Bruce Springsteen must have been the name of one of James's other personalities and here he was chronicling his encounter with his other self -- thereby accounting for why his handwriting looks nothing like the "real" James Maybrick's. Etc.
Come to think of it, I can't imagine a single line the forger could have written that would not have been excused around here using just these sorts of "it's possible" excuses and explanations.
Not the real James's handwriting? No problem.
Textual anachronisms? No problem.
Direct conflict with what actually happened? No problem.
No provenance? No problem.
A line from an official document the real James couldn't possibly have seen? No problem.
Mentioning places that didn't exist in that century? No problem.
Getting family details wrong? No problem.
Hey, the guy was a drug crazed serial killer. Of course when he writes "Poste House" he means "Angel" and when he writes "on the table" he means "not on the table" and when the book's in someone else's handwriting it must be his.
After all, it's just a question of using a little imagination.
No.
Actually, it's just a question of desperation and desire in the face of overwhelming evidence all of which, without exception, leads logically to a single and exclusive conclusion.
The book is a fake and it was not written by the real James Maybrick.
The rest of this stuff, including the Miracle of the Liverpool library, is just fantasy.
The real James Maybrick wasn't quoting Crashaw, he wasn't drinking at the Poste House, he wasn't seeing confidential police reports about the murders, he wasn't completely changing his handwriting in his own self-announced diary, he wasn't just conveniently forgetting details of his own previous night's crimes, and he wasn't seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert.
None of those things happened. And saying, "it's possible, just like it's possible that space aliens built the pyramids" doesn't change that fact.
Just your daily afternoon reality check,
--John
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 680
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 06, 2004 - 7:50 am: | |
Chris,
to that I say, that is why we must apply both science and logic
Jenni
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 534
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 06, 2004 - 7:58 am: | |
Hi Jennifer,
Yes, it is the Bruce Springsteen type arguments I cite in the long paragraph above that represent the victory of desire over logic, of wishing over reading, of dreams over facts, of imagination over evidence.
So, to preserve the historical integrity and common sense of the field on this matter, logic must indeed be our touchstone.
Thanks,
--John
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 417
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 08, 2004 - 2:56 pm: | |
Caz
Just to repeat my follow-up - Sorry, was that a "yes" or a "no" to my question?
Or is the question so awkward that you're just going to ignore it?
Chris
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1181
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 7:25 am: | |
Ally wrote:
‘…he [Mike] conveniently told you guys that he bought it in a shop to back up his claims…’
Er, and exactly what claims was Mike attempting to back up with his mention of finding a copy in a shop? And what exactly did ‘we guys’ choose to ‘believe’ and ‘sell to the world’ regarding those claims?
An explanation, based on something ‘we guys’ actually wrote would be appreciated.
Jenn wrote:
‘…so what is the problem. He did have it in his attic. he said so, right?’
That is the problem. The whole modern hoax theory relies on the book being there because Mike ‘said so’.
And I realise I could repeat this until I’m blue in the face and still not penetrate certain brains here: I have no theory that relies on anything that Mike has ever said. I have no theory period.
So, what if Mike lied about having the book all along, and didn’t even know of its existence until the end of September (and only then because he had been looking long and hard for the diary quotation in a place where three books containing it are know to have been sitting on the shelves)?
Could the modern hoax theory survive such a lie?
Happily, it’s not something I need to worry about. I’m happy to keep watching others, as they express their beliefs about where the truth really lies, based on an assumption about when a liar must really have been telling the truth.
And finally, John wrote what he evidently believes is another truism:
‘Yes, and no one tells lies that are on the surface and immediately recognizable as simply impossible. What would be the point?’
Yet that is precisely what John has been claiming Mike did – that he told a lie about finding the quotation in the library that was, in John’s opinion, and to use John’s own words, ‘on the surface and immediately recognizable as simply impossible’.
Love,
Caz
X
PS Chris, I think that's all I wanted or needed to say on the question of Mike's library experience. |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 556
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 7:35 am: | |
Chris,
Another non-answer for you, then, huh? You must be used to it by now.
Caroline reminds us that she has "no theory." Period.
But still she comes here and argues that the Miracle of Liverpool Library is possible and that the diarist wrote one thing but must have meant another over and over and that the amazing coincidence of the Poste House being the exact name of Liverpool pub is somehow possible despite Maybrick being unable to know that and that the exact appearance of the words "tin matchbox empty" in both the diary and on the police list is possible, despite Maybrick being unable to know that and that the many conflicts in the diary with the history are possible despite the data and the record and that... Etc.
For someone with no theory, she sure is going out of her way to find excuses for obvious mistakes, anachronisms, ahistoricisms, impossible coincidences, and all the rest.
Besides, she doesn't need a theory. She knows the truth. The real James did not write this book.
And, of course, while I recognizes the Miracle of the Liverpool Library as an obvious lie, it is not, for everyone, "on the surface and immediately recognizable as simply impossible."
How do I know this?
I've read Caroline's posts.
--John
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 713
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 7:42 am: | |
Caz,
I don't think the whole modern hoax theory relies on the book having been there. All it points out is that Crawshaw was the source of the line o costly... and that Crawshaw would not have been easily available to James Maybrick in 1888/9. Furthermore would not have been fashionable in his circles.
why would he say it was in his attic if it wasn't - there was another possible source of Sphere book in the Liverpool Library was there not?
Anyhow,
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 558
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 7:48 am: | |
Hi Jen,
Just for the record, it points out one other thing...
Mike lied.
Yes, Mike lied about the Miracle of the Liverpool Library.
And yet he was able to give the source for those five words from the whole history of literature.
It does point out that.
--John |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 424
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 8:08 am: | |
Caz
Chris, I think that's all I wanted or needed to say on the question of Mike's library experience.
As usual, you've ended up saying an awful lot, but evading the central, simple point.
There's no dispute - I think - that he identified the quotation.
So:
(1) Either that happened by chance
(2) Or he was somehow involved in the forgery.
I can't think of any other possibility, and you can't - or won't - suggest one.
The next thing is to estimate the likelihood of anyone being able to identify an obscure five-word literary quotation by chance in this way.
It's not hard to get some idea of the colossal unlikelihood of this event.
How many volumes would he have had to look through? I have in my hand a rather weighty volume listing books printed in the British Isles before 1640. It lists no fewer than 26,143 volumes.
Perhaps someone can give us a better idea of how many literary works had been published in English by the 1880s, after the explosion of publishing in the 18th and 19th centuries. Let's be conservative, and suppose it's just ten times the amount that had been published by 1640 - that is, 250,000 or so. (The British Library today holds about 150,000,000 items.)
How many books would Barrett reasonably have been able to search? Remember that he's looking for a phrase of 5 words, so he has to read every bit of each volume. Suppose we're absurdly generous, and allow that he devoted himself to the task full time, Monday to Friday, 9-5, for a year, and in that time he could get through a complete volume every day (reading every word). That means he could have got through 250 volumes.
If there are 250,000 volumes to cover, the chances of him finding the quotation are 1 in 1000.
And that's on the basis of really generous assumptions. I don't suppose even Caz - if we could get her to discuss it at all - would claim that he really worked full-time for a year in the library, looking for that quotation.
And that's only one of the dozen or so unlikely events we have to believe in for the diary to be genuine!
No wonder the subject is too painful for some people to discuss.
Chris Phillips
(Message edited by cgp100 on August 10, 2004) |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 559
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 8:24 am: | |
Hi Chris,
Yes, I've been thinking about it.
The diarist just happens to write the exact name of a pub in the exact town he lives in with the exact spelling and capitalization.
But we're told that's just a coincidence and that he really meant another pub.
Mike just happened to mysteriously discover these five words out of the entire history of literature. And he was the guy who brought the diary forward
But we're told that's just a coincidence and a miracle took place in a library.
The diarist just happens to write the exact same oddly syntaxed phrase from an official police report that he could not possibly have seen if he were the real James.
But we're told that's just a coincidence, that both the diarist and the police officer just happened to use the same words in the same order.
The diary just happens to have a close call scene where Abberline almost gets the killer, positioned in the exact same place in its story as a fictional TV miniseries from 1988 does despite such an event never actually taking place or being found anywhere in the history or the documents.
But we're told that's just a coincidence, and that who knows, it might really have happened and the TV writers were just lucky to get it right.
The diary just happens to reproduce exactly a number of historical mistakes about the murders found in several modern books.
But we're told that's just a coincidence, that the murderer was just confused about what he did and so got it wrong.
The diary just happens to use a number of exact phrases from a modern book on the Maybricks and even reproduces a misleading detail about James's brother.
But we're told that's just a coincidence and there's a difference between being successful at something and being a success at it.
The handwriting is not anything like the real James Maybrick's and the diary has no provenance whatsoever...
Well, OK those two things aren't coincidences.
Let's not talk about those.
Man, if it weren't for coincidences, there'd be no evidence at all that the diary might be real.
Uh, wait.
There's not.
Sorry. Never mind.
--John
|
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 713
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 8:32 am: | |
Hello Caroline,
You are quite right, I mistakenly assumed that your belief that Mike bought it in a shop was based on something you turned up in your 'research' but that was a mistaken assumption based on my careless reading.
Apparently not even Mike would be stupid enough to try and sell that story. Doesn't stop you though does it?
Regards,
Ally
 |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 715
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 12:26 pm: | |
John,
Does it? Even if it doesn't it is still problematic, that is the point I was trying to make!
Hi everyone,
this is totally the wrong thread for this but i thought what the heck!
How many people would have seen - actually seen in the tin match box empty line in the inventory before it became public knowledge?
Just thinking as usual!!
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 562
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 5:11 pm: | |
Jennifer,
The real James Maybrick certainly would not have.
Therefore...
(No need to finish.)
From the land where a million amazing coincidences are used to replace common sense and reading,
--John (who is already adding to the list above)
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 725
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 4:55 am: | |
Hi John,
Aren't you curious about who would have?
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 569
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 8:17 am: | |
Hi Jen,
First things first.
Let's all agree the thing's a fake, and then we can start talking about who might have faked it.
We should do it this way for all those who are new to the field, for those who come here after us, so that they can see the truth here and aren't tragically taken in by the desperate and illogical and ahistorical nonsense pumped onto these threads in the panicked attempt to keep hope alive.
Let's get together on the one obvious fact we have -- the diary was not written by the real James Maybrick, so that history has that well and truly recorded for those who come along and want to know. Then we can begin speculating and investigating who the forgers might have been and when they wrote this silly book.
We all know it's not Maybrick's handwriting. We all know the text is full of mistakes and anachronisms and conflicts directly with the history of what happened. We all know the real James did not write this book or kill these women. We should all admit that first, and then start talking about the subsequent questions.
--John
(Yeah, right, as if that's ever going to happen here in the land of nonsense that is Diary World, where evidence and common sense are routinely replaced by dreams and wishes and pure unfiltered desire.... Still, it was a nice, logical thought anyway.)
|
Simon Owen
Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 13
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 11:12 am: | |
I think the pro-Diarists should seriously be asking the question ' Who forged this book ? ' rather than desperately trying to prove its authenticity , because at least they might get a bit of dignity back then.
I think that there are two possible options :
1) Old forgery - the book was forged by someone with access to the police records ( because of the tin matchbox empty line )
2) Recent forgery - forged post-1988 , in which case I reckon Anne and Mike cooked it up between them. |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 573
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 11:26 am: | |
Hi Simon
Remember, the police list line was published in a number of modern books, including Martin Fido's, right around the time of the centenary, and the mini-series appeared right around the time of the centenary, and the Ryan book, with the same mistakes and phrases in it that also appear in the diary, came out in the late 1970s and of course the Poste House wasn't The Post House until the second half of the century and the Sphere Guide came out...
Well, you get the idea.
In any case, until those who come here spouting nonsense about Maybrick wanting to look French via his spelling and using many different handwritings and lying about letter writing in his own private diary getting the details of his own crimes wrong and talking to people who didn't exist and getting his brother's source of success wrong and just by accident reproducing a line in a document that he could not have possibly seen and just by accident naming precisely a pub he could not have possibly known existed and all the rest -- until all that stupidity ceases to appear here, the investigation into who did forge this book will be unfortunately deferred.
Once they accept the obvious and simple fact that the real James didn't write this book and once they announce it publicly and in print so that there is no danger of misleading new readers and new arrivals to the field, then, perhaps, we can all start working together on the question of who forged this silly thing.
But I wouldn't hold my breath.
--John |
Simon Owen
Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 15
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 11:44 am: | |
Realistically yes , its almost certainly a modern forgery - the other option is only included because it is technically possible in a way that relies on a lot of coincidences. Quite like the argument that the Diary was written by James Maybrick in fact !  |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 732
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 12:39 pm: | |
John,
you know I agree with the majority of what you have said.
Re James Maybrick's will, this one has always puzzled me, for it was my impression that wealthy victorians would have had someone else (ie solicitor) write out their will and merely signed it themselves?
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 577
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 5:16 pm: | |
Thanks for the agreement, Jen.
It would be nice if everyone involved came here and honestly, simply, and in the name of accuracy, history, and fairness to the field of Ripper Studies and its future, agreed publicly and in print that this diary is a fake, that it was not written by the real James Maybrick.
That would be the intellectually honest thing to do -- especially when they themselves know this to be true.
But just watch. I'll bet it won't happen.
That should tell you something very important about what is going on around here.
--John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1190
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 5:51 am: | |
Hi Ally,
What ‘belief’ that Mike ‘bought it in a shop’?
Where have I expressed such a belief?
Are you saying that particular Sphere volume could not have been found during 1994 in any book shop in Liverpool, had anyone been trying to locate one?
You are the one who believes Mike obtained a copy five years previously, on Mike’s word alone.
I have no way of knowing when or where he obtained the copy he gave to Alan Gray in December 1994. Neither have you, yet you are the believer here.
Hi Simon,
You wrote:
‘I think the pro-Diarists should seriously be asking the question ' Who forged this book ? ' rather than desperately trying to prove its authenticity , because at least they might get a bit of dignity back then.’
I think every modern hoax conspiracy theorist who posts here should seriously be asking – and addressing - the same question, rather than desperately trying to make the modern conspiracy sceptics ‘admit’ stuff: if they are so certain that the diary - and therefore the watch – are both modern hoaxes, who forged them?
The idea that Anne and Mike cooked it up between them has been explored in great detail on these boards in the past, in the days when John argued, very forcibly and at great length, that anyone reaching such a conclusion is going way beyond where the evidence can take them.
And I suspect John knows to this day just how unlikely it is that either Anne or Mike’s handwriting is in the diary, but it’ll be interesting to see if he would actually admit it.
Love,
Caz
X
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 594
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 6:27 am: | |
Funny, I don't think I've ever said (or even hinted) that either Mike or Anne's handwriting is in the diary.
Of course that won't stop Caroline from suggesting I have -- reading, for her, as we have seen, is an act of pure imagination.
She own't be able to cite anything I've written, of course. But she'll make the claim anyway. And she'll do it for a fascinating reason.
You see, while we're all admitting things, I don't suppose we might see her admit that she knows the real James Maybrick didn't write this diary.
Of course not.
Please notice what's happened.
Caroline has not addressed either Simon's point or my own, but rather evaded the entire discussion by returning to the whole modern /old forgery question.
Do you know why this is?
Simple.
Because she knows the book is not real, she knows the real James did not write it, but she can't discuss that or admit that (for some inexplicable reason) and so she has to dance around the issue every time it appears by suddenly changing the subject to Mike and Anne or something and then hope no one notices.
But some of us can read.
Remember -- there is no evidence anywhere on the planet that even suggests that the real James wrote this book or killed these women.
This diary is riddled with ahistorical details, anachronisms, and impossible lines and it's in the wrong handwriting, and it has no provenance whatsoever and is obviously a fake.
Some people here admit that honestly and openly in simple, plain, and clear language.
Others do not. They evade. They change the subject. They misdirect the discussion so as not to face this truth.
One set of behaviors is intellectually sound and open.
The other is not.
That should tell readers here a good deal about what's at stake and why we are still reading the things we are on these threads.
Hunkered down for a Category 3 blow,
--John |
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 718
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 6:58 am: | |
From, your August 03 post,
"I doubt Mike ever did have such a book home in his attic at the time he claimed to have found the quotation in the library. The record allows for him to have located a copy of the Sphere book for himself much later, and shortly before handing it over to Gray in the December of 1994."
Now of course comes the semantic quibbling that you never said you believed he had done it, just of course that it was totally possible and that you didn't say he would have gotten this copy in shop..perhaps he forged another copy of the Sphere book entirely!
And yes I believe it is ludicrous to think that he would have been able to find the exact copy of a book he miraculously found the missing quote in, in order for it to be conveniently handed over to Gray.
Which is more statistically likely, he had a volume of a book already on hand and found a copy in a library of the book he already possessed or he miraculously managed to find the quote in the library, and then also managed to find that exact same book for sale somewhere, while scrounging around the shops.
Hmm..well those who must give a nod to logic have to know which one I am going with.
|
Simon Owen
Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 36
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 9:31 am: | |
I still think Mike and Anne were behind the Diary , but thats only my opinion : and I don't think that the handwriting of either of them appears in the Diary itself. Since some of the major players are deceased in the Diary game , it would be disrespectful to accuse them of anything without hard evidence or the passage of time. I can only say that since Mike and Anne introduced the Diary to the world , it would be a bit obvious if they had written it wouldn't it ?
The main thing is that the handwriting in the Diary is NOT James Maybrick's handwriting.
And as John has pointed out , to claim that the Diary is an ' old forgery ' means you start encountering most of the problems that those who want to prove the Diary genuine have : the quote , the tin matchbox empty , the poste house etc... |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 441
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 12:01 pm: | |
From, your August 03 post,
"I doubt Mike ever did have such a book home in his attic at the time he claimed to have found the quotation in the library. The record allows for him to have located a copy of the Sphere book for himself much later, and shortly before handing it over to Gray in the December of 1994."
Though I'm no longer interested in the debate, I'm interested in obtaining the objective facts. Around Oct 12, 1994 Shirley Harrison contacted Barrett's girlfriend (whom I'll call 'M') who confirmed that Barrett had lent the Sphere books to her son that Summer (ie., between June-early Sept, 1994). Unless 'M' was lying or mistaken, this would seem to prove that Barrett owned the Sphere before he made his first confirmed allusion to the Crashaw quote (to Paul Feldman's assistant on 30 Sept.)
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John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 596
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 12:24 pm: | |
Thanks R.J.
A very useful detail.
Of course, we'll be told why this testimony must not be correct, won't we?
With about four of five hours until the real fun begins here on the west coast of Florida,
--John
(Message edited by omlor on August 13, 2004) |
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 719
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 12:51 pm: | |
Oh pish tosh. Charley..pish tosh. Now Andrew...that was a hurricane.
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John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 597
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 1:32 pm: | |
Hi Ally,
Yes, indeed it was. A killer. I drove through Homestead a full month afterwards and could not believe what I saw.
But here on a small island between St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach, where some of us have said "mandatory schmandatory" to the evac. notices and are waiting this one out, it now looks like we might be about to be spared the worst yet again, at the expense of our neighbors to the south. Charley seems, at least for the moment, to be turning a bit eastward and might pass just south of us around Sarasota.
Or not.
I'm still wondering what a 13 foot storm surge looks like here on my little island.
But I'll be quite happy if I don't find out.
Waiting in the calm before....
--John
PS: Obligatory thread relevance -- the real James Maybrick was not writing a line or two from Crashaw in his diary, and Mike lied about the Miracle of the Liverpool Library (in case anyone cares). |
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 720
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 1:49 pm: | |
13 foot storm surge probably looks like excellent surfing! Luckily for us Andrew was mostly dry so we didn't have to contend with flooding on top of everything else.
Good luck and hopefully he'll fizzle before hitting shore.
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 598
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 2:33 pm: | |
Thanks, Ally,
Unfortunately Charley's not fizzling -- he just made it up to a Cat. 4 and is headed for Naples / Ft. Myers perhaps. That would be good for us on these islands, (on the north side of him and away from the worst) but could be tragic for anyone near the coast down there, where the surge does look like it'll be over ten feet.
Of course, he could still change his made and turn north...
And as I type, I hear the rain beginning...
Take care,
--John |
Simon Owen
Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 40
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 3:29 pm: | |
According to ' Ripper Diary : the inside story ' Mike was given some critical books by Sphere to sell for charity in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough soccer disaster. It is from one of these books that the Crashaw quote comes from.
Crashaw is such an obscure poet even among the Metaphysicals like Donne and Herbert and Marvell , and its so unlikely that Maybrick could ever have read him , that this quote MUST come from Mike. |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 599
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 4:13 pm: | |
Hi Simon,
Caroline Morris, one of the authors of that book, will be here soon enough to tell you that she doubts Mike was ever really given those books for that reason or that he had the book at all until just before he showed it to an investigator (despite R.J.'s recent reminder about that other testimony). In fact, she’ll suggest that Mike didn't get the quote from the Sphere Guide at all but rather having just been handed five completely unidentified, random words he had never seen before, he walked into a library where a Diary World angel came down from heaven and handed him a book in the wrong genre which contained an essay on the wrong poet which just happened to have BY PURE CHANCE exactly those five words (not the whole poem, just those lines) excerpted right in the middle of it.
Now I know this is enough to make any rational adult laugh out loud and I know that neither you nor I believe in Mike’s story about the Miracle of the Liverpool Library, but that won't matter, since rational explanations are not required for Caroline, she just needs an excuse.
Of course, there is no evidence at all that Mike acquired the Sphere Guide only after he brought the diary forward, but she'll suggest that anyway, because she has to, out of desperation.
There's no way the miracle in the library occurred the way Mike claims, but she'll suggest that, too -- because she has to, out of desperation.
But here are some simple facts, just to counter the desperation you'll soon be seeing here.
1. The diary had five words, with no context and no identification, placed in the middle of it.
2. Only one person could provide us with the source of those five words -- Mike Barrett.
3. He was unable to offer a rational explanation concerning how he knew where they were from.
4. He was the same guy who brought the diary forward in the first place.
5. He later showed everyone the same lines, conveniently excerpted in a volume not of poetry but of prose in an essay not on Crashaw but on Herbert.
Those, my friends, are the facts.
The real James sure as hell wasn't quoting these words in his diary (in the wrong handwriting amidst all the mistakes while he drank in a pub that didn't exist).
And only Mike knew where they were originally from.
That's what we know for sure.
All the best, from a land where the rain is now a steady friend but the serious winds have yet to arrive,
--John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1195
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 4:19 am: | |
Hi All,
Interesting to note that John clearly wants to disassociate himself from a belief that the diary could have been penned either by Mike or Anne.
And Simon adds that:
‘…since Mike and Anne introduced the Diary to the world , it would be a bit obvious if they had written it wouldn't it ?’
But of course, the deceased ‘major players’ Simon refers to, while finding it too disrespectful to accuse one of them of writing it, were also ‘introduced’, in one way or another, by Mike and/or Anne.
Anyway, back on topic with the Sphere book:
Chris P fondly imagines a clueless Mike, faced with the prospect of reading through hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of books, if he were searching in 1994 for the origin of the diary quotation. Chris then uses his claimed expertise in the laws of probability to calculate the odds against Mike finding it ‘purely by accident’ as truly astronomical.
Chris doesn’t, however, claim to have any first-hand experience of the Liverpool Library, and he very conveniently ignores the painfully obvious – that even Mike Barrett would have had the nous to confine his initial area of search to books on pre-20th century English poetry.
So how many books would Mike really have been faced with in that library, aside from the three volumes (showing the words English Poetry & Prose) we know contained the quotation?
Has Chris any real idea at all?
And while Chris is helping his credibility by working out more realistic odds, perhaps John can help his own credibility by assuring me once and for all that the chances of the two worlds of Crashaw and the Maybricks ever colliding outside the pages of the diary are as near to zero as the chances of Mike finding one of the three available examples of ‘o costly…’ on those library shelves.
If John can do this one small thing, then his confident assertion, that Crashaw would never have been on the real James Maybrick’s mind, would certainly carry more weight with me that it does at present.
A hoaxer allegedly selected those words from Mike’s Sphere volume 2 (more about that in a mo) to put in a faked Whitechapel murderer’s diary, presumably having no idea that the poet who penned them had been, coincidentally, the son of the vicar of Whitechapel.
Now it hasn’t escaped my notice that this coincidence has been brushed aside as no more than a minor curiosity; slightly inconvenient, but ok as long as readers can be persuaded that any poet, picked at random, is likely to have some tangible connection to the Whitechapel area.
Hmmmm
But I’m trying to imagine how easily readers would still be convinced that Crashaw’s words were chosen at random, by Mike or one of his alleged hoaxing pals, if, in addition to his link with the Ripper’s hunting ground, an association between the ‘obscure’ dead poet and the real live Maybricks came to light.
Less easily, I imagine, than for those who have allowed themselves to be handcuffed to Mike’s Sphere volume 2 while they happily watched him throw away the key, with his 1994 claim to have owned this book since 1989. Unfortunately, although Mike’s friend confirmed (to Shirley Harrison) that he had brought some books round for her son, no one established at the time how many books, what their titles were, or what happened to them after it was decided they were of no use to him in his studies.
(Incidentally, I have to wonder if Mike would have let volume 2 go, to a teenaged boy he barely knew, in the summer of 1994, if he had been aware that it was the one piece of physical evidence that could be used to back up the various forgery claims.)
The authors of Ripper Diary made determined efforts to talk to Mike’s friend, but she wasn’t interested. If she had done her best to forget that particular period of her life, I doubt she was the only one. But the bottom line is that I still have no idea whether the Sphere volume 2, finally handed over to Alan Gray in the December of 1994, could have been among the books offered to her son back in the sumnmer.
But I refuse to wear Mike’s handcuffs. So the digging goes on.
Love,
Caz
X
(Message edited by Caz on August 19, 2004) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 770
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 8:16 am: | |
Caz,
just one thing.
i don't think anyone is assuming the line O costly came from the sphere book if the diary was forged. It could have come from anywhere. It is only likely that it came from there is someone in the Barrett household forged the diary - but we wouldn't want to accuse anyone of such a thing without some concrete proof (of which there is none) would we?
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 625
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 8:28 am: | |
Oh, good.
More stuff to read.
I wrote, above:
"I don't think I've ever said (or even hinted) that either Mike or Anne's handwriting is in the diary."
Caroline finds this somehow, "interesting." One would like to think that she's been reading these threads all along, since she's a regular contributor. But I suppose that's a bit too optimistic. So I guess reviewing what I have and have not written is, for her at least, "interesting." I'm happy to oblige whenever else she'd like a recap, especially if it will correct any of the misreadings of my work (or Chris's or anyone else's or the diary's) that she seems recently prone to offering us.
As for the Crashaw nonsense that follows, we could simply reply to it all by copying here the five simple facts from my post above.
You will notice that Caroline disputes NONE of them.
That's because they are all true.
And they should tell you all you need to know.
Fortunately, there is no doubt as to my credibility or my credentials (despite the best efforts in some camps to do their usual Nixonisms on me, just as they have on several others in the past, when they don't like the truth).
The real James was certainly not citing this line from Crashaw. I'm happy to say it here, speaking as a professional, and I'm happy that every professional in the field I have asked has said that this line points directly to a forgery.
Of course, this is all pointless, since Caroline herself knows the real James did not write this book, despite her public behavior, and so whether my expert testimony carries any weight with her is really irrelevant.
But she nevertheless shamelessly offers the desperate gem I love the most in the whole Crashaw silliness -- the stuff about his father once working in Whitechapel. This one is a monument to reaching for any possible factoid to somehow keep hope alive and pimp the possibility of authenticity.
The diary says nothing at all about Crashaw's father. The diary says nothing at all about any link to Whitechapel. There's no evidence anywhere within its pages that whoever wrote it knew or needed to know or even cared where Crashaw's father might have worked in the 17th century (or was it even the 16th). It's just pure desperation and the typical strategy of desire replacing actual reading in order to keep hope alive, in all it's wonderfully absurd Diary World glory.
An obscure line from and unanthologized poem by Crashaw is found in the diary? Well, hey, did you know his father once worked in Whitechapel a couple of hundred years before even the real James lived? That has nothing to do with anything written in the diary about this or anything about the line or about how it got there, of course. But it must mean something. Right?
Right?!
Jesus. No wonder Paul Feldman got that silly book of insinuations and rhetorical questions published. Some people will swallow anything, no matter how desperate.
And this little beauty is just wonderfully Feldmaniacal.
Don't let it pass without reading it closely -- it'll give you a good, hearty chuckle.
Then, once again, Caroline begins to imagine. Once again, whenever all the real evidence points in a single direction, whenever all we have left are five words identified only by one man who had no explanation for how he knew them other than a Miracle and who also had a copy of a book with those very same five obscure words conveniently quoted in them, all Caroline can do is imagine. Ignore the facts (I list them succinctly and directly in a list of five, above) and try imagining, she says, maybe that way the truth won't be as unpleasant as it is obvious.
But the facts don't change (that's why she ignores them) and nothing she writes anywhere in her post above gives even the beginning of a plausible account for how Mike identified the source of those five words -- since we know she never believes Mike and therefore does not believe the impossible Miracle of the Liverpool Library story he told, right? Right?!
And, you knew it had to happen, she also suggests that the woman RJ cites as testifying that Mike gave the book to her son in 1994 might be lying for some reason.
She reads the direct testimony, not of Mike, but of someone else, and still says "I have no idea."
Well, we already knew that of course.
In fact, despite everything she writes here, despite all the clear and direct textual evidence concerning the diary's origins and despite the many impossible contradictions that would have to have happened for the thing to be authentic, despite every single piece of evidence pointing always and exclusively to one solitary conclusion -- that the real James did not write this book, Caroline's entire public position on all things diary-related can be summed up completely in those four words.
"I have no idea."
It's nice. It's convenient. It allows her to continue pimping the possibility that this forgery might be genuine despite all the evidence. But it ignores so many things -- the handwriting not being Maybrick's, the line from a police document Maybrick could not possibly have seen, the mention of a pub Maybrick could not possibly have visited, the many incorrect and ahistorical details throughout the book, the complete lack of any verifiable provenance whatsoever, and all the rest. Publicly, she ignores all these obvious pieces of real evidence, and refuses to admit what Skinner and Begg and Fido and Evans and Rumbelow and Sugden and so may others have already concluded and what is so obvious here every day -- that the diary was not written by the real James Maybrick.
That's why this discussion here is ridiculous and goes only and always around in Diary World circles. We could be discussing who forged this thing and why, but instead we are talking about Maybrick and Crashaw's father and all this other nonsense, just so that a few people can keep hope alive no matter what it does to the intellectual integrity of their arguments, and for no decent reason other than their own desires.
It's not a very pretty scene around here sometimes.
But at least it's a consistent one.
STILL -- nothing new.
STILL --nothing real.
STILL -- the same desperation and desire
STILL -- no real evidence.
STILL -- no serious case at all made by anyone anywhere, despite the above post's silly suggestions, that the real James wrote this book.
STILL -- Diary World rolls on.
Sometimes, I wish it didn't.
Sad to see the nonsense sometimes,
--John
PS: See the list in my post of Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 8:24 am above to be reminded of the many impossible coincidences Caroline has to believe to keep vaguely insinuating this possibility of authenticity. How are all these possible? We have no idea.
(Message edited by omlor on August 19, 2004)
(Message edited by omlor on August 19, 2004) |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 456
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 8:34 am: | |
Caroline Morris
As I think it's obvious from events over on the "Poste House" thread that you're not really interested in a serious discussion of these issues, I won't bother replying in detail, although I'd suggest you go back and read my post properly if you're going to criticise it.
And you obviously don't understand the probabilistic argument at all, as you think it would somehow make it more likely that Barrett would find the quotation if he was researching in a library containing fewer books. You can see for yourself how absurd this is, if you imagine that he was researching in a library containing only one book! Or better still, a library containing no books at all - in which case he would obviously stand no chance at all of finding the quotation ...
Chris Phillips
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 772
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 8:47 am: | |
Hi,
I guess for the sake of argument there's something I'd like to add her and that is this. Does it matter at all how the source was identified if the first (and more serious problem) that James Maybrick would not have known Crawshaw has not been addressed?
Ok there's no denying the so called miracle in Liverpool library is odd, but isn't it only the secondary part of the problem. First and foremost is the problem of James not having access to Crawshaw.
If evidence that he was a Crawshaw fan emerged suddenly then we could turn all our attention to this secondary problem and try to address it.
Jennifer
ps is this making any sense at all!
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 627
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 9:08 am: | |
Hi Jen,
We've been this route before.
The real James Maybrick was not quoting this line from this poem by Crashaw in his diary, regardless of where Crashaw's father might have worked centuries earlier or any other purely circumstantial or tangentially related factoids about Crashaw or Maybrick that might be offered here as a way of deceitfully insinuating some direct connection.
But that won't stop some people from trying.
Just watch.
Because this is not about the truth (the evidence is clear regarding the question of the real James Maybrick having anything to do with writing this diary). This is about pimping excuses and possibilities as a way of not admitting the truth.
Here's a fun prediction. Someday someone will find, somewhere in history, some other obscure and remote links between Crashaw and Whitechapel or between the Maybrick family history and Whitechapel or between the Maybrick family history and Catholic poetry or between relatives of Crashaw and Liverpool or between relatives of Maybrick and relatives of Crashaw or between the Maybrick family and the world of poetry or between in some general way one world and the other. And these too will be paraded here in a desperate attempt to link this man directly to this line from this poem by this poet.
But, of course, it will not actually do that last thing.
Because the real James Maybrick, in 1888, did not cite this line in his own diary.
And the real James, in case anyone has forgotten, also did not write this book.
Looking forward to more factoids in the promotion of a forgery,
--John |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 773
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 9:28 am: | |
John,
yes indeed I think you'll find i agree with most of that about Crawshaw.
Jennifer
ps did the 'real' James MAybrick keep any 'real' diaries at all?
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Simon Owen
Detective Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 71
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 10:34 am: | |
Caz , its pretty obvious who forged the Diary if you think about it , as well as who wrote it. Do I really need to spell it out ?
As for the Sphere book , I've always assumed that Mike had more than one copy of Volume 2 and although he handed some of the books to the son of J.M. in Summer 1994 , he still had the copy he took the quote from in his attic to give to Gray later that year.
Richard Crashaw is a poet who would only be known to academics at a university in the 1880s , and Sancta Maria Dolurum is so obscure even now , I can't actually find a version of it on the Internet. I sincerely doubt Maybrick would have read any of the works of this very obscure Catholic poet , and any relationship Crashaw or his father had with Whitechapel is a pure coincidence : just like the name Jack supposedly coming from JAmes MaybriCK on the Diary documentary ! |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 628
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 11:17 am: | |
Simon,
One interesting fact, of the few different editions of Crashaw's Complete Works published in the second half of the 19th century, nearly all were published in limited runs by organizations having specifically to do with religious orders or Catholic scholarship.
And there is no record of any sort that even suggests the poem in question was anthologized at the time.
But none of this is really the point.
Remember, we DO have real, hard, incontrovertible facts.
Here they are again, in case anyone has forgotten them:
1. The diary had five words, with no context and no identification, placed in the middle of it.
2. Only one person could provide us with the source of those five words -- Mike Barrett.
3. He was unable to offer a rational explanation concerning how he knew where they were from.
4. He was the same guy who brought the diary forward in the first place.
5. He later showed everyone the same lines, conveniently excerpted in a volume not of poetry but of prose in an essay not on Crashaw but on Herbert.
Those are the FACTS. Not speculation, not theorizing, not dreams or desires or wishes.
We all know those five facts for sure.
Now, no one in their right mind would believe Mike's fairy story about the Miracle of Liverpool Library.
Caroline has already told us we shouldn't believe him.
And yet he was the only person able to tell everyone where those five completely unidentified words came from -- out of the whole history of literature.
So if Caroline truly believes there is some odd chance that the real James was writing this line from this poem in this diary (and she doesn't, by the way, despite her behavior here), then the burden falls to her to explain how Mike knew their origin before anyone else and was also, just by coincidence, the same guy who brought the diary forward.
We can add that to the long list of impossible coincidences that would need explaining, -- the appearance of the exact name of the modern pub, the appearance of the unavailable line from the police list, the appearance of the wrong handwriting, the appearance of the same exact mistakes about the murders found in modern books, the appearance of...
Well, you get the idea.
All this other stuff about Crashaw and his father and the Maybricks and all the rest is just desperate dancing as a way to try and avoid the real issues as sketched out in the five things we know for sure.
It's a shameful attempt to avoid facing the reality of those five facts.
But, from someone whose response to every question in the end amounts to "I have no idea," it should not be considered surprising.
It's just the usual song and dance here in Diary World, where continually promoting the possibility of a forgery being real, despite the evidence, is not considered unethical or even shameful behavior, but rather is routinely disguised as simply having "no idea."
I've seen it all before. Many, many times.
--John
PS: To everyone -- Remember the facts. Don't be distracted by the dance of Feldmaniacal desperation. It's just a show to take your attention away from the things we do know and the conclusions of our common sense. "The Poste House" means "The Poste House," the real James did not see the police list, Mike lied about the Miracle in the library and yet could source the quote, the diary is not in the real James Maybrick's handwriting, and it is therefore a forgery.
The rest is just desire and deception.
(Message edited by omlor on August 19, 2004) |
Simon Owen
Detective Sergeant
Username: Simonowen
Post Number: 74
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 12:29 pm: | |
I wonder if Feldman still believes the Diary is genuine ? Or Shirley Harrison ?
As for Caz , who knows ? Sometimes her posts suggest she believes the Diary is authentic , other times she seems to deny it. Isn't it time to put your cards on the table Caz ?
It seems pretty obvious that the Diary is a modern forgery , indeed the arguments for it being an old forgery are almost as lame as the claims that the Diary is authentic.
If you believe the Diary might be genuine Caz , despite all the pointers towards the fact that it isn't , then come out and say so ! Say why you believe it could be genuine - surely your belief can't be based on all the coincidences that John has pointed out that would have to be true for the Diary to be anything other than a forgery ? |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 457
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 2:31 pm: | |
Simon
Somehow I think that's the question Caroline Morris is least likely to answer - and she's been dodging enough questions in the past few weeks.
Looking back at the posts from the turn of the millennium on the Casebook CD, my impression is that she was arguing at that time mainly on the question of when the diary was forged, not putting forward the possibility that it was genuine.
I'm afraid I think she is definitely a troll (in the technical sense of the word). My suspicion is that she realises not many people are interested in when the diary was faked, but she thinks she can still stir up some discussion by suggesting that it could be genuine. And she's right in that. These boards would be dead (in fact most of them would never even have been initiated) if she hadn't kept stirring it.
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 629
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 8:58 pm: | |
Hi Guys,
Yes, I know. It's the same old song and dance.
I have my own theories about why she so adamantly refuses to state, simply and clearly and honestly, exactly what she believes concerning the question of authenticity; but there's no use getting into it. There are obviously things at stake that have little or nothing to do with the real evidence or the obvious truth -- that the book was not written by the real James (and yes, I think even Caroline knows this by now).
As for Feldman, what I wonder is if he still thinks those people whose faces somehow made them look like they might be related to one Maybrick or another really are Maybricks. That was my favorite loony moment in a book filled with sheer unadulterated lunacy from the first page.
How anyone thought that book of dreams and nonsense was worth publishing... Well, maybe that's not a good issue to get into around here.
Remember the known facts, everyone, and then, if you like, you can enjoy the song and dance that will be here soon enough.
All the best,
--John
PS: Actual quote from Paul Feldman's book...
"Are the facial similarities of the owners of the watch with the known Maybricks really just a coincidence?"
Now that's what I call a solid conclusion to a well-researched, scholarly argument.
Oh yeah, and check out the rhetorical questions on page 251 of the paperback -- it's Feldman at his most wildly hopeful. |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 775
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 7:55 am: | |
Everyone,
really if Caz doesn't want to say what she thinks thats up to her. Perhaps she hasn't made up her mind or whatever, why are you all so bothered? You can surely make up your own minds about if the diary is real!
Now I have to get back to my song and dance!!
Jennifer
ps John I'm curious so i'll go have a look at that page now!
(Message edited by jdpegg on August 20, 2004)
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 631
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 8:15 am: | |
Jennifer,
But Caroline won't even say she hasn't made up her mind. (We saw that a month or two back on a different thread.)
Here's the thing.
If someone comes here almost every day and talks about the diary over and over again (like we do) and then won't say what, if anything, she believes about the question of authenticity, people are going to begin to wonder.
And then, if, when they ask her here in a simple, clear and direct manner, for an honest and straightforward answer, they are instead repeatedly given coy evasions and refusals and deliberate vagaries, they are going to begin to speculate about why.
At that point, the person who did all the dancing can hardly act surprised that this is the reaction.
And, to make matters worse, if that same person comes to thread after thread and offers elaborate arguments and excuses which consistently seek to keep alive the possibility of authenticity despite all the textual evidence to the contrary, she can't be surprised or offended if careful readers eventually begin to assume that she'll do anything, say anything, just to pimp the possibility of this forgery's authenticity.
And then, if it seems at other times as if she does not believe the book is authentic, readers will quite naturally wonder what is going on and whether they are being deliberately deceived and whether there isn't some real intellectual dishonesty going on in the discussion.
And, generally speaking, you like to know that sort of thing when you are talking with someone.
So no, I don't think suggesting that Caroline put an end to all of this nonsense by simply stating honestly and directly and clearly what she believes about the question of authenticity is out of line at all.
In fact, I think her doing so would make the discussion here much clearer, much more specific and direct, and much more productive.
But, of course, that won't matter. Because she'd rather play her game. She'd rather not answer. She'd rather avoid the question.
And of course, some of us here will then continue to wonder why.
It's only natural.
Take care,
--John
(Message edited by omlor on August 20, 2004) |
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