Who is the person holding you?
My babysitter.
She wanted revenge for me seducing her.
Posted on 07/10/2006 8:53:40 PM PDT by LdSentinal
An adjunct psychology lecturer at the University of Arizona resigned Saturday after writing to a conservative blogger she wouldn't care if his 2-year-old son was killed the way JonBenet Ramsey was.
Deborah Frisch's comments on the Web site www.proteinwisdom.com created such a furor she has been lambasted on countless conservative Web sites. Her boss at the University of Arizona also received irate e-mails calling for her termination, she said.
Alfred Kaszniak, head of the psychology department, said he has received close to 300 emails about the incident. "The majority were very angry and many of them were using similar kinds of language that she is alleged to have used, accusing myself and the university of all sorts of things," he said.
Frisch, 44, said she quit her $32,861-a-year part time position not only because she fears for her safety, but because she regrets the UA ended up in the middle of what was intended to be a "sick joke."
She had hoped by quitting her job, supporters of blogger Jeff Goldstein would stop their online attacks. If anything, she said, they've increased.
"These people think I should be incarcerated, that I'm mentally ill or that I should be shot," Frisch said during a telephone interview from Eugene, Ore., where she is living now. "This whole thing has been crazy to me. People have spent their whole weekend on this."
Frisch, who has a doctorate in psychology, has been using the Internet to post her political views since the 2004 presidential election. Not only does she have her own Web site, www.debfrisch.com, but she also loves to "troll."
"Trolling is a type of Internet behavior where you post inflammatory comments on blogs when you know they disagree with the blogger and their minions," Frisch said.
On July 4, Frisch found herself on Goldstein's blog, or on-line journal. Soon, she was trading barbs with Goldstein and others of his political bent. At first, Frisch said she was enjoying herself.
"I like to play with fire. I'm a left-wing Rush Limbaugh. I'm a writer and I like to fight with words. I'm a word warrior."
Suddenly though, Frisch said, the conversation degenerated into disparaging personal remarks, many of a sexual nature.
She said she asked Goldstein to tell the others to desist, but was ignored. Eventually, she grew frustrated, she said.
"I wrote something that would make him as queasy as they were making me feel," Frisch said.
According to Goldstein's blog, Frisch wrote "You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one JonBenets your baby" and "I reiterate: If some nutcase kidnapped your child tomorrow and did to (him) what was done to your fellow Coloradan, JonBenet Ramsey, I wouldn't give a damn."
Six-year-old JonBenet was strangled to death in her Boulder City, Colo., home in December 1996. Her killer has never been caught.
Kaszniak said he was not aware of Frisch's blog or her trolling behavior before the incident. Had she not resigned, he said an investigation of her actions would have been necessary.
The UA's Handbook for Appointed Personnel includes "an obligation to respect the dignity of others, to acknowledge their right to express differing opinions, and to foster and defend intellectual honesty, freedom of inquiry and instruction, and free expression on and off the campus,"
Goldstein, in a telephone interview from his home in Colorado, also says Frisch suggested he kiss his son inappropriately and made disparaging remarks about his wife -- something Frisch emphatically denies. She says someone must have used her name and Web address to impersonate her; Goldstein said he traced the remarks back to Frisch.
"I should have just left the blog. It was a horrible, terrible thing to say and I hope his son never finds out about it," Frisch said.
University of Arizona spokesman Johnny Cruz Monday confirmed Frisch's resignation.
Goldstein, a stay-at-home dad, freelance writer and former English professor, said he has grown used to personal attacks since he began blogging following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Debbie is unusual in that she used her actual identity," Goldstein said. "Usually I get people who hide behind anonymous names and fake e-mail addresses." Goldstein said he never felt threatened by Frisch.
He's not sure if his blog has seen an increase in the number of visitors, but he says attackers have managed to bring it down three times within the last week.
Frisch said the number of visits to her Web site increased from 25 hits a day to 30,000 in the past week. What saddens Goldstein is, according to him, an ever-growing number of people are coming out in support of Frisch.
"I'm seeing more and more people from the left embracing her as a heroine," Goldstein said. "Some of the liberal bloggers are apologizing on her behalf, but others sites are trying to justify what she said."
Frisch's comments were likely a calculated move to get banned from his Web site, Goldstein said. "Being banned is a badge of honor for hard leftwing commentators," Goldstein said. "That way they can say 'They censored me. They can't handle the truth.' " Attacking someone's beliefs is one thing; attacking someone's family is another, Goldstein said.
"I think this speaks to Debbie's character. She's someone who wants to be the victim, the martyr. She wants to be embraced by a political party," Goldstein said.
Goldstein denied urging his supporters to contact the UA. He said he simply posted her comments and the address of her Web site.
Kaszniak described the affair as "simply very sad. The comments that she is alleged to have made are highly in appropriate. I don't think that kind of language is in anybody's interest, regardless of the nature of the political debate. It's certainly not the thing the University of Arizona or my department supports in any way."
Now that she won't be teaching, Frisch said she plans to finish writing a book on decision-making. While she still hopes to fill the need for "edgy lefties," Frisch said the entire debacle has taught her where to draw the line.
She'll continue to write inflammatory comments, but she'll stay away from personal attacks.
"I don't want to get anywhere near that line again," Frisch said. "It's been scary, overwhelming and exhausting."
Star reporter Eric Swedlund contributed to this story. Contact reporter Kim Smith at kimsmith@azstarnet.com or 573-4241.
Yeah, I saw it. That series of posts really tripped my trigger.
Who is the person holding you?
My babysitter.
She wanted revenge for me seducing her.
What is confusing me is that she is posting the posts...I mean she is really getting ripped apart and seems to be enjoying it. Talk about low self-esteem, I think she somehow thinks, or is hoping, that she is being propelled into some variation of Cindy Sheehan status. Sad.
A sick joke? No! A sick woman? You bet! She needs to be in an institution, and I don't mean an institution of higher learning. Oh wait, the liberals closed all the mental institutions didn't they? I guess she'll just have to go on the streets with the rest of the mentally dispossessed.
That is a fine point and could very well be. Is this her way of seeking (not notoriety) celebrity status? I'm sure that's how she sees Sheehan and others. Is this merely an effort to place herself in that pantheon of retards? An interesting thought!
You're such a sly one Lazzy! ;-)
Self-ping to find this later. This whole thing has been fascinating to watch.
There's omething about the anonymity of the internet that makes people write things they would never say in person. I have a Leftoid friend who writes a daily "Newsletter" that he thinks is oh, so clever. When I reply and he has no response, he often just writes that he hates me, I'm a horrible person (because I don't believe the blather about Global Warming, etc.) and that I should die. We'll then speak on the phone and never refer to the chain of emails.
Strange.
LOL that is kind of odd, but then so are the lefties!
There isn't anything annoymous anymore, it's so easy to go and backtrack it, and then to lie about it on top of that... good grief. Just tell the truth then you won't get caught out in a lie when the burden of proof reaches out to crush you... as in her "oh they changed my comments/wasn't me" victim whine.
SeaDragon, ping to you per request. Complete and total meltdown of a lefty.
It's not true anonymity, just the shield of being at a keyboard rather than face-to-face.
I go onto plenty of message boards and the things that are written, even on the most innocuous subjects, are vicious.
Take a look at some of the things that are written on the youth sports sites.
Geez, take up skydiving. This is one sick puppy...
Mama always said that a foul mouth is a sure sign of a poor vocabulary and lack of intellect. Mama was right.
Yes, that too.
Maybe we could start a liberal moron of the day post and put these idiots in a spotlight of their own. It would be quite amusing, and there would be not lack of content, that's for sure.
I believe she wrote all the posts. In the kissing one she calls herself "Auntie Moonbat". I notice in other writings on her blog she often refers to herself as a moonbat.
And she used the particular idiom "ephed" in her blog and in one of the posts she is attempting to deny.
There was no shift in style from the admitted posts to the denied ones. She wrote them all, or somebody was a fantastically quick study on impersonating her. And I'll stick with door number one, Monty.
Notice: Even with a gun to my head, I'm still copping a feel.
I've got her nipple.
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind she's the author of all the posts attributed to her. I believe Goldstein has proven that beyond a doubt. Only a moonbat would refute that and they'd lose.
I don't believe there's any further question on that point. the only questions in my mind (even her mental state is not in question to me) are why she's doing this and what's to come.
Oh good. I thought it might be the Admin Mod being more aggressive on moderating posts.
I think that FR and the blogosphere already do an excellent job of that.
Debbie has not just been spotlighted, she has been focused upon and fried to a crisp. Who in their right mind is going to hire her to do anything now? She can't be trusted around children, she has serious issues with men, and Jews, and conservatives, and she probably cannot abide the company of even the usual moonbat lesbian lefties because they are not extreme enough for her taste.
Those emails will be around forever. They will follow her wherever she goes.
No one wants to be around the sort of person who would write those emails.
L
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