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Okay, I confess I should have better taste and more respect for the delicate feelings of the sensitive censors of Boulder, but I did search for the Globe last week.
The last time I shopped for a supermarket tabloid was a decade ago, when the National Enquirer had pictures of Gary Hart and Donna Rice aboard the Monkey Business.
I felt somewhat embarrassed then, so I went into a
convenience store that I seldom patronize, hoping that no
one would recognize me through my disguise of borrowed car,
out-of-town feed-store gimme cap and sunglasses, and holler
something like Quillen, I thought you'd be reading
Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' instead of some trashy
tabloid. I've lost all respect for you.
This time around, I have gained enough self-esteem to be more forthright in my requests. Why be red-faced when I'm conducting important research for a column in Colorado's leading newspaper?
Safeway didn't have the Globe, either because it was sold out or because our store was part of the general metro chain-store obeisance to the Boulder Sensitivity Police.
I inquired at my usual convenience store, which was sold out, or perhaps never had it. The clerk wasn't sure -- she said there weren't any in the usual place when she'd come on shift, but she wasn't sure why.
Also at the store was the gas-tanker driver, who said
he'd been looking for the Globe, too, and it had been sold
out at all his delivery stops. But from what I hear,
it's not all that sensational,
he said. I mean, why
would any of us be looking for it if Boulder hadn't made
such a fuss?
Good question, but before I could contrive an answer,
the clerk suggested a magazine stand next door, where
they carry almost everything.
The clerk there knew me, so I inadvertently lost my
self-esteem and hemmed and hawed for a few seconds before
asking for the Globe. We're sold out, Ed. Have been
since yesterday afternoon, about 20 minutes after they
arrived, and we're not getting any more.
There are limits to my persistence on research, and besides, copyright laws or no, the Globe pictures were bound to show up somewhere on the Internet in the near future.
Without solid data, though, I returned to that uninformed speculation that our Boulder betters have been warning us not to practice.
Again, I must confess to an inferior taste unsuitable to the enlightenment of Boulder. The Ramsey incident first made the news when both our daughters were home for Christmas. Speculation about who and why immediately became our parlor game, displacing Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit and other traditional family favorites. It has continued via e-mail after their return to their classes.
But such speculation here would attract the unwanted
attention of high-powered attorneys armed with writs to
suppress free speech on the ground that it might impede the
investigation (which is starting to rank with national
security
as an excuse for people in authority to
stonewall), and so I'll turn to a related topic -- why is
the case so fascinating? Why has it appeared in national
magazines and TV shows, with book contracts already
let?
For one thing, it's a rare sort of murder. I had
expected to write something like after all, 3,221 such
children are murdered every year ...
But the most
recent Statistical Abstract of the United States shows that
in 1994, only 80 girls aged 5-9 were murdered in the United
States. Rare events, by definition, are newsworthy.
For another, the Ramseys were making JonBenet into a public figure long before her death. People who care about their children's privacy do not put them on stage in makeup and showgirl costumes, or purchase publicity in pageant magazines. So how can you blame the masses for displaying interest now?
And finally, the case has been instructive to us proles. We're used to seeing immediate intervention -- say, instant transfer of other children in the household to foster homes -- by a county department of social services whenever there's any event which even hints of child abuse, let alone a sex-related murder.
We're accustomed to seeing houses torn apart by police looking for possible marijuana seeds, let alone a possible kidnapping. We're familiar with the spectacle of police officers leading handcuffed people away from crime scenes for questioning downtown.
We didn't see any of that in the Ramsey incident; again, the unusual attracts attention.
We see the police polite and respectful, always
exhibiting sensitivity. And no matter what the police
spokespersons or the spin doctors say, no matter how much
prattle our schoolbooks contained about equality before
the law,
we all derive a certain satisfaction from
daily coverage that says otherwise.
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