Patricia Cornwell

[jmenges]

so I'm curious if you would consider debating her new book 'As and when it arrives' on Pod-cast with Patricia Cornwall?

Or does pride get in the way of Ripperology?

Ally's pride (as of yet) is not what is preventing Patricia Cornwell from appearing on the podcast. Cornwell has been asked via her publicist at ICM and they have not responded. I do have another avenue to her that I will attempt to utilize in the near future, but I seriously doubt she would ever agree to be on the show. Nor will Keith Skinner appear, for reasons all his own.

While I have no problem with debating the content of the podcasts, ie what our guests and co-hosts actually say, I'm reading now what I believe to be not so subtle gender bashing that I hoped the listeners of our show would be above. Ally, and everyone else, does this for free and it is a service, and I disdain the way she personally, and now her part in the podcast, is being handled by some on this thread.

Could olive branches exist in the Ripper world? I don't know, but a first step towards honest communication would be to dispense of the sexist innuendos.

JM

[Jeff Leahy]

Ally's pride (as of yet) is not what is preventing Patricia Cornwell from appearing on the podcast. Cornwell has been asked via her publicist at ICM and they have not responded. I do have another avenue to her that I will attempt to utilize in the near future, but I seriously doubt she would ever agree to be on the show. Nor will Keith Skinner appear, for reasons all his own.

While I have no problem with debating the content of the podcasts, ie what our guests and co-hosts actually say, I'm reading now what I believe to be not so subtle gender bashing that I hoped the listeners of our show would be above. Ally, and everyone else, does this for free and it is a service, and I disdain the way she personally, and now her part in the podcast, is being handled by some on this thread.

Could olive branches exist in the Ripper world? I don't know, but a first step towards honest communication would be to dispense of the sexist innuendos.

JM

Hi JM

My train of thought developed from the latest Podcast, which highlights some of the problems of faceless critisism..where as the podcast seems to allow for more cordial communication...

I also pionted out that a Paticia Cornwell podcast would be fascinating if it could ever be arranged..Patricia is after all a Ripprologist.

Pleased to here that you have thought about it and tried to make contact i wish you every luck..

Howevr I am confused by the suggestion that I have made a sexist innuendos

Have I missed something? is there some transatlantic joke about olive branches I have missed??

I may be accused of many things but sexism isn't one of them..I think you have your wires crossed somewhere

[Tom_Wescott]

Get real, folks. Cornwell is a multi-millionaire. Her time is worth lots of money and her non-appearance on the podcast is not indicitive of any fear she might have in confronting Ripper 'experts' (assuming any would be to hand for the broadcast) eager to make a fool of her.

Patricia is after all a Ripprologist.

No she's not. She's a Sickert defamist.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jeff Leahy]

like it or not thats exactly what she is..and she is not the only ripperologist who favours Sickert..on the whole Ripperology is about trying to prove inocent people are guilty..150 suspects..they cant all be JtR..

Although I guess some theories mix more than one suspect..

Any sign of Norders evidence against Peter Bower..any sign of the experts he claims disprove his work?

[jmenges]

Hi Jeff,

It was AP who crossed the line and I felt that you might have been taking on his throne comment by asking if it was beneath Ally to extend some kind of hypothetical olive branch to Cornwell. A notion I find ridiculous. If I'm mistaken then I apologize. BTW, 'extending an olive branch' means the same to us Americans as it means to the Brits. Have my olive branch.

But I am glad that the podcasts have dispelled the notion in your head that Ally is a witch. And either you or AP should think about changing your member name.

And Tom,

I agree with you entirely that her non-participation in the podcast would be because it is rinky-dink and beneath her. Not because she is afraid of us.

JM

[Jeff Leahy]

The Podcasts are getting better and really work well..actually I beloeive they'd be an excellent platform for PC..tis the new radio, she could reach teh right audience with her findings.

I'm under know illusion that everybodies going to kiss and be freinds (metophorically) but perhaps if the disagreement was put in perspective..instead of attack we all eased up and see what she has to say..

How knows, if the Irish can sort out their problems..

Jeff

PS..Piracy and free spirit 'tis in the blood..'tis the Wolf man that will hav' to change of his name..arhh!

[Cap'n Jack]

I don't remember crossing a line, JM, but mind you I don't remember going to bed last night either.
My comments to Ally were concerned with her ability to be quite kosher with some authors who have tinkered with the unknown facts to make them suit their suspect; and then presented them as the known facts.
Like Tumblety being out on police bail at the time of Kelly's murder.
Like Kelly wasn't murdered by the Whitechapel Murderer when it becomes questionable whether Tumblety was ever on police bail.
Like Tumblety lodged in Batty Street, etc. etc. & etc.
But that's all okay by Ally, because she is nitty gritty with the folks who claim all these things.
I don't believe I ever accused Ally of casting disparaging remarks about fellow Rippersaurs, for she saves all that sort of flabbergasted invenctive for me.
Bless 'er cottons.
I have accused her of being a Yankee.
But she is, isn't she?
Personally I have always felt that there is a degree of snobbery involved in this Cornwell thing, in that many Brits resent the intrusion of a wealthy American into the fray, especially those involved in the publishing world, and then by some degree of magic - which I admit I do not understand, yet - the American contingent, again involved in the commercial side of this komisch world, turn against their fellow American because they are just oh so comfortable in bed with the accepted British experts, who sort of justify their fragile existence in this strange world.
I don't think wealth has anything to do with it.
I'm a wealthy bloke myself, but I like to get dirty in the gutter, and I don't like snobs.

[Tom_Wescott]

How knows, if the Irish can sort out their problems..

Howard Brown is the last person to reference regarding the burial of the proverbial hatchet. He's one of the few people I've seen in Ripperology who actually nurtures grudges even when handed an olive branch.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Dan Norder]

"Pirate Jack" seems to be trying to claim that pointing out that Professor Bower comes to conclusions no other scientist has and that these conclusions just happen to support the person who paid him is somehow a personal attack on the man. JSchmidt points out, rightly, that Bower is considered a reputable expert and, wrongly, that therefore he couldn't be acting as a yes man for anyone. Both of these arguments miss the common sense reality that experts are not some purely objective beings whose conclusions are formed without outside influence.

Experts can be and often are blind to their own bias. It can be that they naturally want to find support for someone they consider a friend, or that they want to find something so that someone paying them continues to pay them more to find other things, or to be involved with something that they think will be historic. That's how we have archaeologists claiming to have found evidence proving that Atlantis (a purely fictional creation of Plato) existed in some 20 different locations, for example... not to mention countless Ripper authors all claiming things that contradict each other. Experts also can and often do take sides for purely financial reasons. That's how lawyers can find experts who will argue for either the prosecution or the defense to "scientifically" declare something that would help convict or defend someone. Some experts can remain more or less objective than others. Bower seems to be part of the group that loses common sense when it's convenient for his client.

Let's just go with Bower's most important claim. He argues that, by looking at cuts on the edges of sheets of paper, he can state with near perfect reliability whether those pages all came from the same batch of 24 sheets of paper when they were cut together by one sweep of a paper trimmer, and that two Sickert letters and two Ripper letters happened to have come from this same batch.

I would think that it should be obvious that this is an amazingly unrealistic claim. He's not comparing DNA in wood pulp to prove that the paper was made from wood from the same tree (in which case narrowing it down to 24 sheets would still be impossible). He's not just saying that the paper was all cut by the same paper cutter at a factory (similiar to, say, how different bullets fired from the same gun at different times can be linked fairly reliably) at different times, but cut at the *exact* same time (so not only that bullets were fired from the same gun, but also what hour of what day of what year they were fired). And he's doing it by eyeballing some paper edges and just saying that they look the same to him. This was not done in a blind study (comparing a large group of papers not knowing which ones Cornwell wanted to link together). This was not done so that other paper experts who weren't employed by Cornwell could look at the pages and make their own decision. This is not how science works, and any expert who was being realistic about what tests could and could not determine wouldn't make such claims.

Worse than that, it's pretty obvious that these pages are not from the same batch of 24 sheets of paper just by a quick glance:

[ATTACH]1821[/ATTACH]

These weren't even made in the same year! The paper used in the Sickert letter (on left) was made in 1886, while the one used in the Openshaw Letter (on right) was made in 1887. The watermarks were pressed into the pulp of the paper during manufacturing at completely different times. They would have gone through countless numbers of quires of 24 pages through the cutter in a single day, let alone the weeks and months that separated when these different paper samples were made.

Bower's conclusion makes no sense at all; it doesn't even sound slightly plausible. Remember also that the ONLY person who made the claim is on Cornwell's payroll and said a number of other things that no other experts have agreed with him on. People with any sense at all know that all of that put together means that Bower's claims can't be taken seriously.

Every test result Cornwell purchased for her book can be shown to be equally unreliable. The alleged DNA match on the letters (which even Cornwell has to begrudgingly admit is not a match but merely not NOT a match), the supposed message found in some hotel register that she claims was written by Sickert admitting to be the Ripper which really talks about selling chickens (somehow she found a supposed linguistic expert who can't tell the difference between a fusion of German/Italian and Dutch), the idea that Bower and his wife can state that handwriting in hundred of Ripper letters were all by Sickert trying to disguise his handwriting -- it's all nonsense.

[Ally]

I don't remember crossing a line, JM, but mind you I don't remember going to bed last night either.
My comments to Ally were concerned with her ability to be quite kosher with some authors who have tinkered with the unknown facts to make them suit their suspect; and then presented them as the known facts.

Let's just address the never ending stream of lies that AP WOlf vomits forth on a daily, no hourly, basis. First of all, if you will learn to read, a helpful step when engaging in a written debate, you will find that I have repeatedly stated that ALL authors with a suspect bias read what they want into the available facts. lAnd that ALL are equally guilty of this. My beef with Cornwell is that once again...read it slowly and carefully, is that she slandered, defamed and lied about living people, while hypocritically doing the EXACT same behavior she railed against us for doing.

I realize that once again, you don't want the facts to get in the way of what you believe another person is saying, thinking or feeling, but Cornwell's suspect theory is irrelevant to why she is held with contempt by a large portion of people.

In regards to the whole Tumblety thing, please find one instance where I have ever debated Tumblety one way or another, so that you can say that I am "okay" with any given position. I'll tell you, you can't. But again, let's not let the truth get in the way of your determined lies, distortions and misrepresentations.

Now if you want to go start a tumblety thread, and ask me what I think of it, I'll be happy to address all Tumblety points you care to toss my way, but for right now once again, my dislike for Pat stems on one issue:

She lied about, slandered and defamed every single person who studies and pursues an interest in Ripperology, while doing the same thing.

I don't believe I ever accused Ally of casting disparaging remarks about fellow Rippersaurs, for she saves all that sort of flabbergasted invenctive for me.
Bless 'er cottons.

No, I don't save it for you, you just happen to be the one who keeps mentioning my name honey bunch. Take a look back on this thread, and see who decided to throw down first, that would be you. So please get over your pathetic and lame attempt to cast yourself as the victim. And frankly sweety I have made disparaging remarks about a whole bunch of rippersaurs, almost all of them in a much better class than you.

I have accused her of being a Yankee.
But she is, isn't she?.

No actually I am southerner. But once again, let's not let the facts get in the way of your verbal vomit stream.

[Cap'n Jack]

Nice post, Dan, but the link didn't provide the whole text?

[Ally]

And to make it clear because Pirate Jack is attempting to stir up trouble on yet more topics he knows nothing about (re: my pride):

I have absolutely NOTHING to do with the guests, hosts or format of the Podcasts. That is entirely within the domain of Mr. Menges. I am occasionally privileged to be allowed to join the panel of questioners. Additionally, I have stated to him privately and now publicly that if anyone is too afraid to come on a podcast with me, I'll be happy to bow out for the greater good.

If Cornwell ever did come on, and she ever did apologize for her remarks to the Ripper community or hell, wrote an email to be published on the Casebook, I'd be happy to cut her some slack. But I sincerely doubt that will ever occur.

[Dan Norder]

Hey Cap'n,

Ummm... you should be able to scroll down (or hit the little triangle pointing right at the top of the display window) and get the next page... If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll just post the text and graphic straight into this thread (maybe it's only allowing me to do that because I had the search result cached in my web browser?)

[Cap'n Jack]

'No actually I am southerner. But once again, let's not let the facts get in the way of your verbal vomit stream.'

My 'umble apologies, Ally, I didn't realise that the American Civil War was still unresolved.
Where do you cross the line?
Atlanta?

[Ally]

No it's a little further north, in Maryland, called the Mason-Dixon line. If you are going to use a word either pejoratively or not, know what it means to the people you are using it against. Yankee means people from New England and states north-east. Only the cluelessly old-fashioned attempt to call all people of the United States yankees.