Bad reputation because it's either really brave, or really stupid

April 12 2010. E-mail letter sent to my foremost opponent who frequently crosses the line and confuses good skepticism with personal attack. Wait till you see his response! (And mine!)

Jim Carr,

Please stop contacting people in my life. Staff and faculty at my university, students at my university, my friends and family. Any person who is part of my professional or personal life. I consider it highly offensive and invasive.

Please proceed working on your skeptical project without any further elements of a personal nature. Skepticism is won by intelligent, civil, and polite comments, not by slander, hostility, insults, personal attack. This is not a political campaign, business sales, or a legal case in court to be won by the most aggressive and oppressively persuasive person.

Use facts surrounding my investigation, but I urge you to cool down your temper. Insults against my appearance, or weight, as well as your frequent exaggerations and delusions about my intentions or my past, present or future actions, are not fit within skepticism. I must inform you that you have made a fool of yourself among the real skeptical community which I interact with. You may have followers among the mutually devoted to personal attack and bullying behavior, but I do remind you that that is not skepticism.

And all of your thousands of words of criticism against the Rational Alchemy interview, saying how you would do it better, you do know that I have invited you to make a better interview with me that would be to your satisfaction. The fact that you decline, strongly indicates that your interest is in complaints and arguments, not in true skepticism or inquiry.

Please stay away from all people in my life. You have no right to cross the line. My skeptical investigation concerns only a small and distinct part of my life, the rest of which I need you to leave alone.

If you consider this e-mail to you to be offensive, you may show this to any law enforcement official whom you may contact. You can not engage in a personal destruction campaign against me and not expect or allow me to defend myself when you make statements against me that are entirely inaccurate, hurtful, offensive, and that arise from nothing other than your own delusions that I be the next Sylvia Browne.

Please proceed with your own skewed version of skepticism in a manner that will be both respectful and professional in the future. And do stay away from my personal and professional life and any people in it. I do not welcome you into my personal space, so stay out of it.

Respectfully,
Anita Ikonen

April 13 2010. To which our Jim Carr replies:

1) Be advised that you are not welcome to visit my website, www.StopVisionFromFeeling.com. Blog comments from you will no longer be approved, so any continued use of my website by you constitutes unlawful use.

2) This e-mail, which you posted on your website, contains libelous material. Remove the libelous material or run the risk of a lawsuit.

3) Once again, do not contact me again except through an attorney. I consider your behavior to be a cause for alarm despite your protestations that you mean no harm. People who do not mean harm do not continue to contact people who do not desire contact.

No response is required or desired.

Oh dear. Jim Carr is definitely one annoying person to have biting at your heels. And he thinks it is skepticism what he is doing. He comes across as a little angry animal that is too mean to let in the house and you have to chain it to the yard outdoors or it'll chew the furniture and bite on people's ankles or bark until people have to yell at it, yet it is still just a little one that people can laugh at when it's doing that. That kind of a creature is Jim Carr. Libelous? No, Jim. Analogy.

Hm. It really reminds me of this:
It has a bad reputation because it's either really brave, or really stupid.
It's defense is to throw a hissy fit.
There's no doubt these animals are stubborn.
An angry one will just keep coming back for more.

and what is it...?

This also comes to mind...
These things are dangerous.
It's very small.
Yeah but when it grabs a hold of you it never lets go.
What do I do with this?
I don't know. Why don't you throw it away?
It'll just come right back.
Can you undo my boot?
Why?
It's the one that stepped on him.
So?
If I give it to him he can have his revenge.

Start watching 1:40 minutes into this one:
Would you like to see my boot, Jim Carr?

My reply:

1) Jim be advised that you are most welcome to visit my website, www.visionfromfeeling.com. It is a website and thus open for anyone with access to the internet. Anybody could visit it and I have no control over who does, and am sure I can not exclude any person or group of persons from accessing my material. Which is why I keep my material child safe, without the use of profanity, violence, or other behavior that we do not want our children to see or take after. I see that you do not follow this same policy, as your website is littered with negative content and you seem to think you have control over who visits your site. You will be happy to know I have since several days back already stopped reading any and all of your posts, have not visited your website nor read any of your posts but those of others on the JREF Forum, and I came to this choice on my own and not by your asking. However if I were to read or post on your website that is not unlawful.

2) It is not libelous. You have contacted persons in my life and have yourself admitted to speaking to persons that are part of my personal life. You have failed to point to what parts of my e-mail would be libelous and you have failed to provide any evidence of it being so. I would also ask you to remove all libelous material from your website. Remove the libelous material or run the risk of a lawsuit.

3) Stop writing hurtful lies about me and I will have no reason to contact you asking you to stop hurting me. I do not need an attorney to ask you to stop lying about me in intentionally harmful ways. I am not guilty of any of the crime that you are imagining of me whether in the present or in the future, ie. your ideas that I be or become a practicing psychic. I consider your behavior to be a cause for alarm, and you are not even protesting that you mean no harm. You have admitted to not caring if you cause harm to me. I will continue to contact you every time I catch you at posting hurtful and serious lies about me, whether it be that I am offering psychic readings, would be mentally ill, a racist, and the many others.

His aggressive hate campaign against me is greatly exaggerated and uncalled for. He has also made a fool of himself to many real skeptics I talk to. So the answer to the title of this page is most certainly the latter.