[email protected]

Deb L. put up a really good response to someone on the HEM-unschooling
discussion list about whether TV causes violence. That post is great in its own
right, but I have a story to tell about it which I'll put at the end.

Also I put the stories here:
http://sandradodd.com/t/violence
but I'm not going to put the personal connection story there, just here for
you guys.

***The problems may very well go away if TV goes away. Violence...
Columbine... where do kids get the idea to kill other kids?? TV.***

Great Britain passed the Juvenile Offences Act of 1847 which said young
people shouldn't go to the same prison as adults. They did it because of
public concern over the huge numbers of young kids going to jail (not
just on murder charges) with adult criminals. Some figures show the
crime rate in England jumped from 5,000 crimes a year around 1800 to
20,000 a year sometime in the 1830s. No one can blame tv for that one.

Fourteen year old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874 for the murder of a
four-year-old. He was released and immediately killed a ten year old
girl and then another four year old. No tv.

In 1924 nineteen year olds Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold murdered Bobby
Franks just to see what it was like. They were from well off families,
nice neighborhoods. Never saw tv.

In Bath, Michigan in May, 1927 Andrew Kehoe who was fifty (five?- don't
remember) committed the worst case of school violence in American
history. First he killed his wife, locked his animals in the barn and
blew them up, blew up the school where he was a handyman and blew up his
truck full of shrapnel. More explosives were set to go off to kill
rescue workers but were found by the police. In all, thirty eight
children were killed and seven teachers. Sixty some others were injured.
Mr. Kehoe never saw a tv set.

Does TV create violence, really? Maybe guns create violence. Knives.
Baseball bats. Hammers. Axes, shovels, saws? Rope? Dynamite? Sharp
sticks, rocks? Maybe it's language causes violence because most killers
spoke. Maybe it's books. Clothing? Day time night time wind rain snow
trees birds frogs.

History is full of killers, some really damn weird ones who never saw TV.
The Borgias come to mind easily, and so maybe religion or Pope-ness,
Pope hood? is the cause of crime.

For lots of kids, even the bad guys on TV are nicer than the real life
crazy people they live and go to school with.

Deb L, TV loving, movie watching, book reading, true crime fan who never
once shot or stabbed or poisoned anyone. Yet.

=========end of Deb's Post, beginning of e-mail from my friend Joe; note
date========

Subj: Re: Joe Calkins' New Phone Number
Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 12:08:48 PM
From: jcalkins@...
To: SandraDodd@...

Hi Sandra,

Haven't seen either one for over 10 years. I think of Jessie all the
time.

Sorry,

Joe

On 18 Oct 2003 at 12:22, SandraDodd@... wrote:
From: SandraDodd@...
Date sent: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 12:22:42 EDT
Subject: Re: Joe Calkins' New Phone Number
To: jcalkins@...
In a message dated 10/17/03 11:42:56 PM, jcalkins@... writes:
<< Joe Calkins
jcalkins@...
(new) mobile (505) 321-6030 >>

Thanks, Joe.

Are you by any chance aware of where Jesse or Kevin are, who both used to
work at mortuaries? I've been looking for Kevin a little.

Thanks.
Sandra

===========

The reason I was asking was because Jesse would know where Kevin was.
Kevin's name is Kevin Williams, and I lost contact with him when Holly was a baby.
He was a funeral director. Jesse is female. I couldn't remember her last
name when I wrote to Joe (though he would have because they were sweet at one
time), so I ddn't name Kevin's either, and after Joe's e-mail came back I
thought if I could ONLY remember that story, I would remember Jesse's last name.

Here is "that story," from Deb's e-mail:
"Fourteen year old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874 for the murder of a
four-year-old. He was released and immediately killed a ten year old
girl and then another four year old. No tv. "

My friend Jesse is female. Her last name is Pomeroy, but "Jesse" is a name
she adopted as a teen, because she is descended from relatives of that Jesse
Pomeroy. Her great grandfather was his parent or sibling (I forget the details).

Jesse and I were in a group of five people who travelled to Pennsylvania
about 23 years ago in a van that broke down BADLY, repeatedly. So we spent ten
days in Maryland with acquaintances while the van was in the shop twice there.
Jesse and I went every day by bus and metro to the Smithsonian, and then
started on the Library of Congress.

I was looking up wombats, how boy scouts are described by Russians and
Chinese (para-military political action organization). Jesse was looking at
microfilm of 19th century newspaper accounts of the Jesse Pomeroy stuff. I liked
looking over her shoulder sometimes, at the side stories and those few ads which
hadn't been excised.

Jesse's mom was mean to her and Jesse ended up being the kid who stayed home,
so partly out of reactionary spite, Jessy became macabre and dramatic. She
drove a hearse. She was a make-up artist for the dead. She collected ancient
Egyptian stuff to decorate their home (against her mom's will, generally) so
that it looked like an Egyptian-themed Louisiana whorehouse of the late 19th
century.

And she did then and still uses "Jesse Pomeroy" as her own name. She doesn't
like kids. I haven't seen her since I had any. She would never, ever have
any. She doesn't like much of anyone. She had a sister who was in the habit of
finding international travel by being an efficient secretary who put out in
the extreme, with a perference for exotic locales and elevators. Jesse herself
wouldn't have men touch her (nor women). Joe flirted and tried, but Jesse
was impermeable to intimacy.

So yesterday I wondered what her last name was, and today Deb presented me
with a much-memory-flood-inducing reminder.

I have met SO many weirdly fascinating people in my life, and there are so
many bizarre stories of people I have interacted with myself that there is no
soap opera on TV that matches my own real life. Others have said the same, that
my life is way beyond what people would believe could have all happened to
one person. So when people say TV lies and exaggerates, I think "Well, it lacks
imagination, very often."

I'm still in contact with two of Joe's ex girlfriends. I know all their
children, current husbands, other exes.... Just the Joe Calkins stories could be
half a book, and I don't see him over once every two or three years.

Sandra

Kelli Traaseth

Cool post Sandra.

**I have met SO many weirdly fascinating people in my life, and there are so
> many bizarre stories of people I have interacted with myself that there is
no
> soap opera on TV that matches my own real life. Others have said the
same, that
> my life is way beyond what people would believe could have all happened to
> one person. So when people say TV lies and exaggerates, I think "Well, it
lacks
> imagination, very often."**


This is so interesting to me. I know some people like this and others who
never run into situations like this.

Don't you think it says alot about how open we are to others? I know a
few people like you, who have these great stories to tell. I love it. I
know alot more people not like this, though. I think it has alot to do
with our desire to know things and discover things. Also, whether we are
open to others. What do you guys think?

Or maybe some of us just attract weirdness?? <g>


Kelli~ who likes weird

Deborah Lewis

***My friend Jesse is female. Her last name is Pomeroy, but "Jesse" is a
name
she adopted as a teen, because she is descended from relatives of that
Jesse
Pomeroy.***

Holy damn cow, that's weird!

That Jesse Pomeroy story is strange and there's lots of conflicting
information on it. There are lots of stories but the records show he was
accused of torturing seven kids before he was first rounded up and held
for awhile. He had a cleft lip and a white eye and lots of folks thought
he'd been teased by kids and that's why he chose kids as victims.

Some stories say at the time of his arrest there was public outcry about
dime store novels driving people to violence. How about that? They
weren't blaming TV they were blaming books. The story goes he claimed to
have never read any of them.

We spent much of the day at the hospital with my friend who was having a
mastectomy. Last night her doctor came in and Dylan was playing Gameboy
Advance. The doctor wanted to play it some and he and Dylan talked
awhile and he asked Dylan what kinds of things he was interested in.
The doc told Dylan he got interested in surgery and decided to become a
surgeon because he read lots of crime stories and especially liked any
Jack the Ripper stories he could find. He said his mom hated him
reading those books and was just glad he didn't turn out to be a serial
killer. <g>

So, my serial killer coincidence wasn't nearly as interesting as yours,
but it's a swirly world nevertheless.

Deb L

[email protected]

In a message dated 10/24/03 8:33:08 AM, ddzimlew@... writes:

<< So, my serial killer coincidence wasn't nearly as interesting as yours,
but it's a swirly world nevertheless. >>

Yours was way more useful to unschoolers, and more uplifting!!

Sandra