A new front in the history wars? A new article on 'the five'

[Columbo]

There appear to be no serial killer worshipping weirdos on casebook however I've become disenchanted with the endless threads on witnesses that have been turned into suspects eg Lechmere and numerous threads on the diary. While there seems to be very little debate about sensible suspects. I'm wondering has Ripperology become a parody of itself.

I also agree with you. Sensibility has lost ground in the research, particularly when it comes to the list of suspects. I find the actual facts of the case much more interesting then the pet theories, although some are pretty good.

[jmenges]

I will PM him later today.

Hi Linotte!

PM received. Reply sent.

It was good to hear from you.

JM

[Losmandris]

There appear to be no serial killer worshipping weirdos on casebook however I've become disenchanted with the endless threads on witnesses that have been turned into suspects eg Lechmere and numerous threads on the diary. While there seems to be very little debate about sensible suspects. I'm wondering has Ripperology become a parody of itself.

I have to agree with there John. Things do seem to have the ability to go off on wild tangents at the mo! Can get a little trying.

[Linotte]

Hi Herlock,

I will PM him later today.

It seems that a lot of the effusive praise for the book comes out of academia in the UK. This is only my observation, but it seems to be much smaller than ours in the US. And she does have ride-or-die fans and a clique within her field that supports her. Based on her conduct toward people who disagree with her or post less-than-glowing reviews about the book, I don’t think many people feel comfortable reviewing the book. I certainly don’t, but I’ve seen much worse happen with reviews in publishing. I think other people just shrug and let it go. People like her are often their own worst enemy because they’re so wrapped up in their ego, they don’t consider all of the possible ramifications of their actions.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock! I've lurked for awhile, but this is my first reply to a post.

What I'm talking about is having some kind of document or spreadsheet and make it available to the public. Jonathan posted some of his notes and it looks like that he and the other roundtable contributors already basically did a side-by-side comparison of errors and omissions versus the correct information. My suggestion is to organize the information, perhaps by chapter, convert the document into a PDF, and post something here in the forum with a link. This way, all of the information is in one place and it's easily found with a Google search. The goal should be to provide the information for people to find so they can decide for themselves. This would especially be helpful to any postgrad students or academics who may be writing a dissertation or journal article that examines Rubenhold's work. I did discuss Rubenhold and the conclusions in The Five with my cousin who's involved in women's studies academia here in the States. She is familiar with the case and when I told her about Rubenhold's conclusions, she started laughing. She had not read the book, but she did advise me that some of her peers had, and they were not impressed with Rubenhold's work. So not everyone in academia agrees with Rubenhold. So my suggestion is to post the notes for informational purposes and to let it go. Let Google do the rest of the work.

Hi Linotte,

It’s certainly interesting to hear that not everyone agrees with all of her conclusions because we only ever hear from one side which has been a wave effusive comments from her uncritical supporters and from book reviewers who know little or nothing about the subject. It’s not solely her conclusions which can be called into question of course but the picture she paints of Ripperology as a kind of closed shop of sexism and misogyny which almost forced her to become an ‘outsider’ looking in and set a good guy/bad guys narrative.

Your idea is a good one. It might be worth dropping Jon Menges a pm.

[MrBarnett]

Yesterday’s (fake) news, in my opinion. :-)

[PaulB]

Touché!

As this thread has been recently revived, and just for the sake of completeness, it's possibly worth making the point that the exchange with Paul Mangan to which you drew attention was provoked by Rubenhold tweeting a post on JTR Forums which Howard Brown had posted five months (I think it was) earlier. The cynics among us might think she tweeted and misrepresented a five month old post from what was then a moribund thread in the hope of provoking a response. Only Managan bit, but...

[Linotte]

Hi Linotte, welcome to Casebook

I may be mis-remembering but I seem to recall Jon Menges talking about something like this. If he did say something then I’m unsure if anything came of it? Opinion appears to be divided on this subject with some saying that it’s better just to ignore the hype and maybe they’re right? I haven’t heard much on the subject lately but I don’t do social media. IMO it would be good to see a detailed, properly researched rebuttal out there highlighting her agenda and showing that we aren’t serial killer-worshipping weirdos. Whether it will happen or who would write it is the question.

Hi Herlock! I've lurked for awhile, but this is my first reply to a post.

What I'm talking about is having some kind of document or spreadsheet and make it available to the public. Jonathan posted some of his notes and it looks like that he and the other roundtable contributors already basically did a side-by-side comparison of errors and omissions versus the correct information. My suggestion is to organize the information, perhaps by chapter, convert the document into a PDF, and post something here in the forum with a link. This way, all of the information is in one place and it's easily found with a Google search. The goal should be to provide the information for people to find so they can decide for themselves. This would especially be helpful to any postgrad students or academics who may be writing a dissertation or journal article that examines Rubenhold's work. I did discuss Rubenhold and the conclusions in The Five with my cousin who's involved in women's studies academia here in the States. She is familiar with the case and when I told her about Rubenhold's conclusions, she started laughing. She had not read the book, but she did advise me that some of her peers had, and they were not impressed with Rubenhold's work. So not everyone in academia agrees with Rubenhold. So my suggestion is to post the notes for informational purposes and to let it go. Let Google do the rest of the work.

[John Wheat]

There appear to be no serial killer worshipping weirdos on casebook however I've become disenchanted with the endless threads on witnesses that have been turned into suspects eg Lechmere and numerous threads on the diary. While there seems to be very little debate about sensible suspects. I'm wondering has Ripperology become a parody of itself.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I know this is an old thread, but I just came across it.

Question: Has anyone thought of making a searchable document with the erroneous information and the corrections and posting it online? This could probably be done in Google Docs and then PDF'ed. It's a hands-off approach, but the information would still be out there for those who are seeking it out. Because based on this, I'm sure we'll see other journal articles coming out either supporting her conclusions, like this one, or refuting them. It may be a good idea to have this info in one place.

Hi Linotte, welcome to Casebook

I may be mis-remembering but I seem to recall Jon Menges talking about something like this. If he did say something then I’m unsure if anything came of it? Opinion appears to be divided on this subject with some saying that it’s better just to ignore the hype and maybe they’re right? I haven’t heard much on the subject lately but I don’t do social media. IMO it would be good to see a detailed, properly researched rebuttal out there highlighting her agenda and showing that we aren’t serial killer-worshipping weirdos. Whether it will happen or who would write it is the question.

[Linotte]

I know this is an old thread, but I just came across it.

Question: Has anyone thought of making a searchable document with the erroneous information and the corrections and posting it online? This could probably be done in Google Docs and then PDF'ed. It's a hands-off approach, but the information would still be out there for those who are seeking it out. Because based on this, I'm sure we'll see other journal articles coming out either supporting her conclusions, like this one, or refuting them. It may be a good idea to have this info in one place.

[caz]

It genuinely interests me how the term "PC" has come to be used as a pejorative.

The hysterical responses to anything deemed un-pc are counter productive and not conducive to what could be a constructive dialogue around such issues.

See HR's response to those who disagree, for example.

On a personal level, I see the essence of political correctness as quite a positive thing.

it's just a shame that it has become so corrupted.

For myself, I am far more irked by bigotry and small mindedness than I am by the PC brigade.

I'm totally with you on this one, Ms Diddles.

The biggest bigots can behave like the biggest snowflakes when the PC brigade threatens to disturb their peace.

"Political correctness gone mad" is considerably less toxic than free speech without limit or responsibility.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

dam right herlock. get on the pc wagon or youll be demonized. called a racist or a bigot and bullied. its a pc witch hunt and it is a form of fascism. hr is doing it now with qanon crap. it wouldnt be so bad but the ones who are the worst at it dont really give a **** about issues. its an us vs them mentality...win one for your side at all cost.
its the problem with the two party system, which imho is the bane of politics today. us vs them nothing really about issues. dr seuss summed it up perfectly in his book Sneetches. uh oh i referenced dr seuss. im in trouble now.

I don't see any reason to provoke the bullies, though, Abby, by getting angry if the cap doesn't fit. For example, I know I'm not a rabid feminist, so it won't worry me a jot if anyone suggests I am, just because any kind of abuse by men against women makes me desperately sad. I know I'm not homophobic either, so I wouldn't get angry if anyone suggested I was. The same applies to accusations of racism, sexism or misogyny. If you know an accusation like that doesn't apply to you, as an individual, you don't need to react to it as if, secretly, deep down, it just might. You can't speak for everyone, so if a sweeping generalisation used to describe a whole group, such as 'Ripperologists', doesn't apply to you, don't own it. Don't get defensive on behalf of all those who do wear their bigotry on their sleeve like a badge of honour.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Surely the ‘got lucky’ comment refers to Kelly taking the Ripper back to her room, providing him with the opportunity to spend more time on her mutilation.

You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your comment that no woman has ever made a ‘Ripper hit the jackpot’ type comment seriously. I’m willing to bet you have only read a fraction of the posts made by women. Which sadly puts you on a par with HR and her acolytes.

I couldn't have put that first sentence better myself, Gary.

And the last time I looked, I was a woman.

The fact that RJ Palmer takes a "got lucky" observation [referring to the opportunistic destruction of the one victim who had a room of her own] in the sense of a sexual conquest over a younger, more attractive female, is his problem, nobody else's. I've never looked at it that way, but maybe I would if I borrowed RJ's man goggles.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

There’s so much hysteria going on that people are becoming afraid to open their mouths and for me that’s a scary thing. Look at Sharon Osborne over the Piers Morgan thing. Now to me Morgan did absolutely nothing wrong but there was the usual hysterical response. Sharon Osborne defended him then felt the need to backtrack and weasel around because she was terrified of being labelled. It seems like every time someone gives an opinion these days they have to follow it with......I just want to stress that I in no way support the view that.....or something like it. There’s an over-reaction to everything. Look at what happened with David Starkey. How many times have we all said something that we regret or said something and though “that came out wrong?” Starkey made his infamous comment about “so many damned blacks’” which of course sounds terrible (was terrible) and he apologised for it. Now most people have seen Starkey on tv. He gets very worked up when debating. He was obviously meaning to say something like “.....so many black people survived,” but when trying to add emphasis he added the ‘damned.’ He himself said that he was trying to add emphasis because he was frustrated at his interviewers comments. Taken as a sentence it was obviously offensive and he was right to apologise for what he admitted was very clumsy wording. But for one sentence he’s lost every honour and award that he’s gained over an illustrious career. His cowardly publishers have dropped him. Over one very clumsy, very poorly chosen sentence. An offensive sentence, yes. But one sentence said in the heat of debate nonetheless. Surely that can’t be fair. Of course we shouldn’t tolerate bigotry but if we keep seeing it in absolutely every triviality then we’re going to end up in a boy-who-cried-Wolf scenario.