Madeleine McCann And Making News About Child Trafficking
SKY news says:
The abduction of Madeleine McCann may be linked to a trafficking network that sees children put on the market for £7,000, detectives have said.
Eastern European gangs are holding auctions in supermarket car-parks in Portugal and France.
Officers in France have released details of the trade, as they believe it may be related to the four-year-old’s disappearance, a Sky source said.
In one case, the mother of a baby boy was arrested for attempting to sell her baby North of Lisbon.
Paulo Reis, a journalist on the ground in Portugal, counters:
Sky News makes (again…) a MANIPULATION OF ONE SINGLE CASE, publishing FACTS THAT ARE FAKE, MISLEADING AND DISTORTED, at least IN WHAT CONCERNS TO PORTUGAL. Let’s take a look of what really happened, in the case referred by Sky News, “the mother of a baby boy that was arrested for attempting to sell her baby North of Lisbon.”
1 - A couple of Romanian gypsies, currently living in Guimarães, North of Portugal, was accused, by local residents of Sousel, a small city in Alentejo, South of Portugal, of trying to sell his three months old baby. They knocked at several doors, in Sousel, and asked the residents if they wanted to buy the baby. Cecília Guimarães, a woman of 34 years to whom the Romanian couple offered the baby, told the mother to give the child to an institution, as “the baby was crying from hunger”. The mother refused and went away.
Cecília Guimarães went immediately to Police and filled a report about the case. She told Diário de Notícias that the mother didn’t asked for a specific amount of money, she just wanted to sell the baby. Few minutes after, GNR (Portuguese rural police) detained the Romanian couple. The baby showed signals of being undernourished and dehydrated, so the local “Child Protection Commission” (a Government body with legal authority to act in any situation of endangered children) gave orders to GNR to send the baby to Paediatric Section of Portalegre Hospital, where she was recovering well. The parents, 20 and 35 years old, will be submitted to a court hearing today (May 25).
Posted: 24th, June 2007 | In: Twitterings Comments (102) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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August 15th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Regardless of “who has done what” here, we have to remember that a child is missing, possibly abducted, possibly not.
Being far removed from the emotions, it is easy for us to cast accusations whether they be for or against the Mccanns.
As a mother of 2 young children, I would NEVER leave them in a hotel room alone and not just to protect them from abductors but simply because so many things can happen in a room when a child is left alone. Both the Mccanns are doctors and must see everyday for themselves the injuries caused by negletful parents. I am guilty of this on occassion, leaving the stairgate open and my child falling downstairs is just one example and hindsight is a wonderful thing but LEAVING your children alone while you dine out is just plain stupid!!!!!
I feel for the Mccanns I really do. They must be suffering enormously, but I can understand the public animosity against them. WHAT WOULD I DO? Firstly I would sell all of my worldly posessions to raise funds before asking others to commit, I would certainly not blog on my website about family coming to dinner and comment on the weather. This is showing Gerry in a cold light and had it not been for this attitude, not so many people would fear his involvment in Maddies disapperance.
I am afraid I do believe that the 2 of these are guilty of neglect and eventually should be brought to justice (if I left my kiddies while I went drinking at my neighbours in the UK, I would have Social Services knocking and a prompt visit to the courts).
June 27th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Poor thing
This last series has been brilliant, and you really have cheered me up today. Isn’t language a funny thing eh?
I heartily recommend getting copies of the latter half of s3 of Doctor Who. If you can’t, then have this packet of free e-cookies for making me smile!
I mean that in the nicest way!
June 27th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Thank you, Vote Saxon.
I don’t get much chance to watch “Dr. Who” so yes, you SHOULD feel sorry for me.
I’m glad my ignorance cheered you up though. Cheers.
June 27th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Murihiku said: “If I saw this [Vote Saxon] on a banner, my first reaction would be to think I was being asked to vote for a political party that would ban immigration into Britain.”
AHHHAHAHAHHHHHAHHHHH.
Oh my good God. This is the funniest thing I have seen all week!! This has cheered me up no end! You poor thing.
I almost feel sorry for you. Google it!
June 27th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
So what does “Vote Saxon” mean?
If I saw this on a banner, my first reaction would be to think I was being asked to vote for a political party that would ban immigration into Britain.
My first reaction is probably wrong in your case, Vote Saxon, because I have no idea what the imperative “vote” and the adjective or noun “Saxon” mean to you. I’d like to know what it does mean now because I’m curious. That doesn’t mean you have to tell me, though.
My own username here, “Murihiku,” is the Maori name for Southland, NZ, where I grew up.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
The Jewel Mahavia/Madeleine linlk
Joanne, Joanne, Joanne. Must you flaunt your ignorance? Can’t you even spell Google?
A google search for “jewel mahavia strong, mccann” turns up a lot of UK hits, all similar posts from what seems to be an organized campaign to tie the Madeleine vanishing into a well-documented and -witnessed (US Coast Guard; Sheriff’s officers; independent witnesses who saw the accident and raised the alarm; the passing boaters who rescued and helped resuscitate the 18-year-old aunt) drowning.
Don’t you realize that this farce, alreadsy shaky, really doesn’t need closer scrutiny?
“I dn’t hear you bleating on about the fact that the parents weren;t with her when she was taken.” Taken? Fookin’ TAKEN?Jewel was a three-year-old, non-swimmer with no flotation device, out on a raft with her 18-year-old aunt a hundred feet from shore in current-filled, choppy,deep water, when they both fell off of the raft. The aunt was rescued, unbreathing, but was resuscitated.
Taken indeed!! Why not go with alien abduction, Tokyo Jose?
Joanne Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
And what is your opinion of the Jewel Mahavia Strong case? I dn’t hear you bleating on about the fact that the parents weren;t with her when she was taken.
Also I haven’t heard you whine about their website once and above all, you haven’t mentioned their donate-to-me fund.
.snopes.
com/inboxer/missing/jewelstrong.asp
Jewel Strong did disappear, but her “missing” status is the result of an accident rather than a typical case of abduction or a child run away from home and the odds that the girl is still alive appear to be quite slim.
On Memorial Day weekend of 2006, Jewel Strong (then three years old) of Jonesboro, Georgia, was vacationing with her family at a beachside spot…in Florida. On 28 May 2006, Jewel and her 18-year-old aunt were out on the water on a raft/float that drifted outside the park’s waveless “kiddie pool” swimming nook and into an adjacent jetty channel with strong currents. Although rescuers managed to save Jewel’s aunt, they were unable to find Jewel herself and intensive searches of the area by divers, boats and helicopters throughout the next few weeks failed to turn up any sign of her.
After the accident, Jewel’s parents, Racharel and Simona Strong, expressed doubts that authorities made adequate efforts to investigate their daughter’s disappearance and stated that they still held out that she was alive somewhere. “I know she’s safe … safe and she’s alive … so you’ll never hear us speaking past tense about our little girl,” her father said a couple of months after the accident. “We have faith that our daughter will come home … safe and alive,” her mother added.
However, others involved with the search indicated there was little chance … that Jewel survived the accident … :
… Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen … says, unfortunately, witness statements at the scene and conditions in the strong current on that Sunday afternoon suggest a different outcome. The Sheriff was personally involved in the search … and says, “Things happen out there in the Gulf and under that water that people don’t see everyday. I assure you … if we had any indication … the slightest indication that something different was going on, we would be all over it.”
myspace.
com/JewelMahaviaStrong
Jewel Mahavia Strong was last seen on Panama City Beach, Florida on May 28th 2006 (Memorial Day weekend). She is 4 years old (born April 14th, 2003) and was 3 years old when she disappeared from the kiddie pool area on the Jetty Beach in St. Andrews State Park. She was about 40 pounds at the time she went missing. We believe that someone removed my daughter from the water in this moment of chaos. We also believe with all our heart and soul that Jewel is alive and that whoever has her is taking care of her BUT her rightful place is with her family.
No one (including family members) can say for sure that my daughter was on this raft when it capsized. This story has no real basis and the police report (written by officer on duty) is completely inaccurate stating things were said by my relatives that were NEVER SAID.
• No one questioned the volunteer coast guard boaters that pulled my 18 year old cousin out of the water and resuscitated her
The authorities are unwilling to issue a missing persons report because they feel that it would contradict their original report which stated that she had drowned.
.childalert.
org/hoaxes.htm
Our reseach indicates that 3-year-old Jewel Strong of Morrow, Ga., went missing Sunday, May 28th, 2006 after she and her 18-year-old cousin drifted on a raft out of the kiddie pool area over a dip in the jetty and into the pass, witnesses reported to authorities. They fell off the raft and although the teenager from Marianna was rescued by a passing boater, Jewel was never found.
According to the News Herald in Panama City, FL, the U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search June 1st, 2006 for the body of 3-year-old Jewel Strong who disappeared near St. Andrews State Park’s west jetty.
The Bay County Sheriff’s Office, however, continued the search Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 with a helicopter and patrol boat, but the body was never recovered.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Ooops - I left someone out…. now a member of the resort staff could have come into the apartment with a key (although how that explains the ‘forced entry’ story as relayed by Trish McCann I’m not sure).
So we now have either:
The McCann’s not always telling the truth OR
A sum of: Lying Tapas Bar staff (one of whom may be a criminal mastermind) PLUS lying Mr Crossland (who may be of dubious character) PLUS members of the public walking past the ‘jemmied’ window lying by omission PLUS Trish Cameron ‘filling in the gaps’ (with some rather fine detail) PLUS resort staff lying about having entered with a key PLUS the collective British and Portuguese press (not that the press are incapable of lying mind you - they are however not renowned for their spirit of co-operation with each other) = a rather large number of conspirators!
This is what I mean about logical conclusions - in order to conclude that the McCanns are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth it is necessary to conclude that ALL of these other people are lying.
Unless of course one is to claim that everyone in and around the resort, from staff to visitors, are part of a well oiled child abduction machine (something not borne out by any other disappearances of tourist children), the second option seems more suited to a blockbuster Dan Brown novel (that must be where the Pope fits in!) than real life.
Therefore you have a choice between believing everything that the McCanns say or stretching credulity to way beyond it’s limits and floundering around clutching at ever more extreme straws in order to maintain your trust in them.
By the way Hal … I’m the mother of three children and I HATE Mis Lit - pure self indulgence on the part of both the writers (although I’m sure it is cathartic) and the readers, for whom I think it is probably a form of self congratulation along the lines of ‘I may not be a perfect parent, but I’m a long way from being THIS bad’. Just an aside to restore your probably dwindling faith in the sanity of modern mothers lol
June 26th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
once again
Joanne, Joanne, Joanne. Must you flaunt your ignorance? Can’t you even spell Google?
A google search for “jewel mahavia strong, mccann” turns up a lot of UK hits, all similar posts from what seems to be an organized campaign to tie the Madeleine vanishing into a well-documented and -witnessed (US Coast Guard; Sheriff’s officers; independent witnesses who saw the accident and raised the alarm; the passing boaters who rescued and helped resuscitate the 18-year-old aunt) drowning.
Don’t you realize that this farce, alreadsy shaky, really doesn’t need closer scrutiny?
“I dn’t hear you bleating on about the fact that the parents weren;t with her when she was taken.” Taken? Fookin’ TAKEN?Jewel was a three-year-old, non-swimmer with no flotation device, out on a raft with her 18-year-old aunt a hundred feet from shore in current-filled, choppy,deep water, when they both fell off of the raft. The aunt was rescued, unbreathing, but was resuscitated.
Taken indeed!! Why not go with alien abduction, Tokyo Jose?
Joanne Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
And what is your opinion of the Jewel Mahavia Strong case? I dn’t hear you bleating on about the fact that the parents weren;t with her when she was taken.
Also I haven’t heard you whine about their website once and above all, you haven’t mentioned their donate-to-me fund.
http://www.snopes.
com/inboxer/missing/jewelstrong.asp
Jewel Strong did disappear, but her “missing” status is the result of an accident rather than a typical case of abduction or a child run away from home and the odds that the girl is still alive appear to be quite slim.
On Memorial Day weekend of 2006, Jewel Strong (then three years old) of Jonesboro, Georgia, was vacationing with her family at a beachside spot…in Florida. On 28 May 2006, Jewel and her 18-year-old aunt were out on the water on a raft/float that drifted outside the park’s waveless “kiddie pool” swimming nook and into an adjacent jetty channel with strong currents. Although rescuers managed to save Jewel’s aunt, they were unable to find Jewel herself and intensive searches of the area by divers, boats and helicopters throughout the next few weeks failed to turn up any sign of her.
After the accident, Jewel’s parents, Racharel and Simona Strong, expressed doubts that authorities made adequate efforts to investigate their daughter’s disappearance and stated that they still held out that she was alive somewhere. “I know she’s safe … safe and she’s alive … so you’ll never hear us speaking past tense about our little girl,” her father said a couple of months after the accident. “We have faith that our daughter will come home … safe and alive,” her mother added.
However, others involved with the search indicated there was little chance … that Jewel survived the accident … :
… Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen … says, unfortunately, witness statements at the scene and conditions in the strong current on that Sunday afternoon suggest a different outcome. The Sheriff was personally involved in the search … and says, “Things happen out there in the Gulf and under that water that people don’t see everyday. I assure you … if we had any indication … the slightest indication that something different was going on, we would be all over it.”
http://www.myspace.
com/JewelMahaviaStrong
Jewel Mahavia Strong was last seen on Panama City Beach, Florida on May 28th 2006 (Memorial Day weekend). She is 4 years old (born April 14th, 2003) and was 3 years old when she disappeared from the kiddie pool area on the Jetty Beach in St. Andrews State Park. She was about 40 pounds at the time she went missing. We believe that someone removed my daughter from the water in this moment of chaos. We also believe with all our heart and soul that Jewel is alive and that whoever has her is taking care of her BUT her rightful place is with her family.
No one (including family members) can say for sure that my daughter was on this raft when it capsized. This story has no real basis and the police report (written by officer on duty) is completely inaccurate stating things were said by my relatives that were NEVER SAID.
• No one questioned the volunteer coast guard boaters that pulled my 18 year old cousin out of the water and resuscitated her
The authorities are unwilling to issue a missing persons report because they feel that it would contradict their original report which stated that she had drowned.
http://www.childalert.
org/hoaxes.htm
Our reseach indicates that 3-year-old Jewel Strong of Morrow, Ga., went missing Sunday, May 28th, 2006 after she and her 18-year-old cousin drifted on a raft out of the kiddie pool area over a dip in the jetty and into the pass, witnesses reported to authorities. They fell off the raft and although the teenager from Marianna was rescued by a passing boater, Jewel was never found.
According to the News Herald in Panama City, FL, the U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search June 1st, 2006 for the body of 3-year-old Jewel Strong who disappeared near St. Andrews State Park’s west jetty.
The Bay County Sheriff’s Office, however, continued the search Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 with a helicopter and patrol boat, but the body was never recovered.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
OK… so let’s go through a few objections to my earlier ’summing up’:
a) That the McCanns didn’t lie about the times that they checked the children - some of the papers got it wrong… Well, that is a possible area for mis-understanding, but brought about by the McCann’s original press statement, in which they clearly stated that they had checked the children every half hour from 7.30pm … so that would be 8pm, 8.30pm, 9pm and 9.30pm. After a little to-ing anf fro-ing the McCanns then issued a statement to the effect that the children had last been checked by Gerry at 9.10pm.
b) That the member of staff who claimed that no-one had left the table during the course of the meal could be lying, or even be the ‘criminal mastermind’ behind Madeleine’s abduction… well for a start it wasn’t ONE member of staff who claimed this, it was several of them - what reason they would all have for lying I can’t imagine - unless they are all criminal masterminds of course.
c) That no-one has said that there were no signs of forced entry … well the statement from Mr Crossland has been fully aired. Yes he could have lied, but as the apartment was not fully closed off as a crime scene and people were able to walk very close to the supposedly forced shutter (a fact well documented in the media, including the quality papers who tend to research their stories fully), I would have supposed that if this WERE untrue then the falsehood would have been pointed out extremely quickly, especially as the resort would have been unable to repair any damage as it would count as evidence… but perhaps the other holiday makers are part of a conspiracy to protect the resort?
So perhaps Trish Cameron got the wrong end of the stick when she talked to her brother?… it all seems a little detailed to be a misunderstanding - here is her original statement to the press..”Trish, of Dumbarton, Scotland, said: “The kids were all sound asleep, windows shut, shutters shut. Kate went back at 10pm to check. The front door was lying open, the window had been tampered with, the shutters had been jemmied open and Maddie was missing. So either she made it up or Gerry told her this… mind you it wouldn’t be the only time that a family member got a bit economical with the truth…
Remember the story about Phil McCann and other family members being thrown out of the airport at gunpoint for putting up posters of Maddie? Not true - they were approached by two uniformed members of Airport Security and told that they would need permission from the Airport Management before they could continue … cue Phil McCann rushing straight to the jingoistic British Media (without bothering to ask the Airport Management on the way out!). Well, I hear Joanne say “Gerry and Kate had nothing to do with this, they aren’t responsible for their family members” - very true! However this incident (Phil McCann’s version that is) is reported in full on the McCann website, so they are hardly disassociating themselves from it.
So far you have accused of lying: several members of Tapas bar staff; Mr Robin Crossland; Trish McCann and the British Press (although you are quite willing to believe anything and everything else that they have printed about this case, as long as it falls in with what you want to believe)
You have also suggested that Mr Crossland may be of dubious character and that a Tapas bar waiter may be a criminal mastermind (do you THINK this stuff through before you write it???) …
So everyone else is lying or part of a conspiracy, but Gerry and Kate can’t possibly be? Then, as the ultimate irony, you write “How can you pick and choose which quotes you will believe and which you won’t. ”
Ummmm …. well I research thoroughly, look for inconsistencies and corroborating statements, think all possibilities through, balance them against each other to see which makes the most logical sense and then decide.
Finally - yes Gerry was advised as to the media campaign by someone … his brother John, who has a quasi PR background but can hardly be considered to be an expert in the field of disappearing children and the harm that a media campaign can cause in an abduction case. The police don’t put up a media blackout for kidnap victims for fun you know.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Joanne, Joanne, Joanne. Must you flaunt your ignorance? Can’t you even spell Google?
A google search for “jewel mahavia strong, mccann” turns up a lot of UK hits, all similar posts from what seems to be an organized campaign to tie the Madeleine vanishing into a well-documented and -witnessed (US Coast Guard; Sheriff’s officers; independent witnesses who saw the accident and raised the alarm; the passing boaters who rescued and helped resuscitate the 18-year-old aunt) drowning.
Don’t you realize that this farce, alreadsy shaky, really doesn’t need closer scrutiny?
“I dn’t hear you bleating on about the fact that the parents weren;t with her when she was taken.” Taken? Fookin’ TAKEN?Jewel was a three-year-old, non-swimmer with no flotation device, out on a raft with her 18-year-old aunt a hundred feet from shore in current-filled, choppy,deep water, when they both fell off of the raft. The aunt was rescued, unbreathing, but was resuscitated.
Taken indeed!! Why not go with alien abduction, Tokyo Jose?
Joanne Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
And what is your opinion of the Jewel Mahavia Strong case? I dn’t hear you bleating on about the fact that the parents weren;t with her when she was taken.
Also I haven’t heard you whine about their website once and above all, you haven’t mentioned their donate-to-me fund.
http://www.snopes.com
/inboxer/missing/jewelstrong.asp
Jewel Strong did disappear, but her “missing” status is the result of an accident rather than a typical case of abduction or a child run away from home and the odds that the girl is still alive appear to be quite slim.
On Memorial Day weekend of 2006, Jewel Strong (then three years old) of Jonesboro, Georgia, was vacationing with her family at a beachside spot…in Florida. On 28 May 2006, Jewel and her 18-year-old aunt were out on the water on a raft/float that drifted outside the park’s waveless “kiddie pool” swimming nook and into an adjacent jetty channel with strong currents. Although rescuers managed to save Jewel’s aunt, they were unable to find Jewel herself and intensive searches of the area by divers, boats and helicopters throughout the next few weeks failed to turn up any sign of her.
After the accident, Jewel’s parents, Racharel and Simona Strong, expressed doubts that authorities made adequate efforts to investigate their daughter’s disappearance and stated that they still held out that she was alive somewhere. “I know she’s safe … safe and she’s alive … so you’ll never hear us speaking past tense about our little girl,” her father said a couple of months after the accident. “We have faith that our daughter will come home … safe and alive,” her mother added.
However, others involved with the search indicated there was little chance … that Jewel survived the accident … :
… Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen … says, unfortunately, witness statements at the scene and conditions in the strong current on that Sunday afternoon suggest a different outcome. The Sheriff was personally involved in the search … and says, “Things happen out there in the Gulf and under that water that people don’t see everyday. I assure you … if we had any indication … the slightest indication that something different was going on, we would be all over it.”
http://www.myspace.com/JewelMahaviaStrong
Jewel Mahavia Strong was last seen on Panama City Beach, Florida on May 28th 2006 (Memorial Day weekend). She is 4 years old (born April 14th, 2003) and was 3 years old when she disappeared from the kiddie pool area on the Jetty Beach in St. Andrews State Park. She was about 40 pounds at the time she went missing. We believe that someone removed my daughter from the water in this moment of chaos. We also believe with all our heart and soul that Jewel is alive and that whoever has her is taking care of her BUT her rightful place is with her family.
No one (including family members) can say for sure that my daughter was on this raft when it capsized. This story has no real basis and the police report (written by officer on duty) is completely inaccurate stating things were said by my relatives that were NEVER SAID.
• No one questioned the volunteer coast guard boaters that pulled my 18 year old cousin out of the water and resuscitated her
The authorities are unwilling to issue a missing persons report because they feel that it would contradict their original report which stated that she had drowned.
http://www.childalert.org/hoaxes.htm
Our reseach indicates that 3-year-old Jewel Strong of Morrow, Ga., went missing Sunday, May 28th, 2006 after she and her 18-year-old cousin drifted on a raft out of the kiddie pool area over a dip in the jetty and into the pass, witnesses reported to authorities. They fell off the raft and although the teenager from Marianna was rescued by a passing boater, Jewel was never found.
According to the News Herald in Panama City, FL, the U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search June 1st, 2006 for the body of 3-year-old Jewel Strong who disappeared near St. Andrews State Park’s west jetty.
The Bay County Sheriff’s Office, however, continued the search Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 with a helicopter and patrol boat, but the body was never recovered.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Interstingly, on the Jewel Mahavia strong donations site, there is no update at all on how many donations they have received.
It doesn’t appear to be irking you though Hal.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I will answer your question, but to be honest i get a bit bored reading your posts because they are poorly constructed and very fragmented.
Perhaps the McCanns thought the window had been jemmied? Perhaps the Aunt had only received some of the information and was filling in the gaps. I have read the quotes from Trish McCann and she does not labour the point about the doors being locked.
It is possible that the MCcanns thought they had closed the shutter form the inside and that it was not possible to open from the outside. Upon discovering it open, perhaps she assumed taht it must have been forced.
Either way, the McCanns could not have lied to the police about this. Why would they stand there and telll the police that the door and windows had been jemmied, when the police are stood there right in front of them looking at the window? The police could see for themselves whether or not a forced entry had occurred.
Maybe someone at the hotel assisted with the abduction and waas monitoring the movements of the parents Perhaps they did lock the doors and windows, but someone had a key, hence their initial certainty that someone had broken in.
Who knows. We don;t have the facts, so it is therefore unfair to call them liars.
And what is your opinion of the Jewel Mahavia Strong case? I dn’t hear you bleating on about the fact that the parents weren;t with her when she was taken.
Also I haven’t heard you whine about their website once and above all, you haven’t mentioned their donate-to-me fund.
Is it because they is black?
June 26th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Stuart Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
One of Joanne’s earlier posts at the “Blaming the Parents” page where she’s convinced it’s an abduction.
—- start —-
# Joanne Says:
June 19th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Are you ‘mawkishly following’ it yourself Anonymous?
I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to help myself. It is fair to say, that I haven’t felt so affected by such an incident before. I am always affected and upset to hear of child abductions, but this one has struck a deeper chord.
I I can;t even let me head think about what Madeleine may be going through, I have to force my mind to change the subject and think of soemthing else.
—- end —–
oh, I am so farklempt…
Fortunately, it’s not in the genes, it’s a corporate marketing ploy. Mothers, the new Midwich Cuckoos. John Wyndham would likely not be amused.
from the TimesOnLine
June 1, 2007
Stefanie Marsh
“I confess: I have not been agonising about Madeleine
One thing the Lonely Planet forgot to point out in its new guide to Britain (in which the British are described, not inaccurately I thought, as celebrity-obsessed, cyber-porn-addicted alcoholics) is how empathic we’ve all become.
…Other countries are starting to wonder what is happening to Britain. The Herald Tribune, which initially reported the McCann case in full, now prints reports on how the British are coping. Not how the McCanns are coping. But how the British public are coming to terms with what has happened to the McCanns. But the Herald Tribune is wrong in assuming that this is “the British” en masse. It is specifically British mothers – not by any means all of them, but a critical mass of mothers – who have collectively decreed that, where potential child abuse is concerned, caring is not enough
…Now let’s get back to the confessional culture. In the publishing industry it has found its natural home, the lucrative subgenre “Mis Lit”. Misery Lit, ie, memoirs of child abuse, “have emerged as the liveliest new category of books”, reports The Bookseller.Five to ten of these books come out every month. A high-ranking publisher friend tells me that the books’ lurid titles are made up at brain-storming meetings before the manuscript has been seen or in some cases, written.
So we have: Please Daddy, No; A Child Called “It”; Don’t Tell Mummy: A True Story of the Ultimate Betrayal; A Girl Called Karen: A True Story of Sexual Abuse and Resilience; and Damagedto name a handful. The stand-out Mis Lit success story, Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood, has sold 500,000 copies. Of the top 100 bestselling paperbacks in 2006, 11 were misery memoirs; with total sales of 1.9 million copies.
Why are these books so popular? Like the McCann case they deliver a predictable emotional charge and allow the reader to experience a strong sense of vicarious self-pity.
Richard Humphreys, Borders senior nonfiction buyer, says that an “element of voyeurism, a macabre fascination” attracts readers to stories of human suffering. Patrick Janson-Smith, a literary agent at Christopher Little Agency, suggests that “a fair amount of prurience” is involved.
…But who reads these books, I asked The Bookseller.“It’s 95 per cent mums.”
Isn’t there something wrong with this picture – when a woman’s idea of relaxation is to watch or read about a major catastrophe unfolding in somebody else’s life? Especially if it’s about paedophilia. Perhaps it makes her feel better, to assuage temporarily all that guilt and paranoia that mothers seem to habitually now carry around with them. Perhaps, deep down, she finds it titillating. Perhaps she enjoys the tingle of self-righteous misandry that most stories of sex abuse will allow her. If this lurid compassion is empathy, the McCanns don’t need it.
The missing girl few have heard about
I will eventually get off this morbid subject, but finally we have an answer to the question: what if the McCanns hadn’t been white and good-looking? In a strikingly similar case, except that it was in America, Jewel Mahavia Strong, 4, went missing on a beach in Florida last May. Local police assumed that she had drowned, but now a new video obtained by Jewel’s frantic parents shows her alive and in the company of three women. …”
June 26th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Murihiku Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
”…please feel free to go through my posts and correct the mistakes in them…”
Ummm…no thanks, I’ll pass. I am still waiting for MissingMadeleineInc.’s very own Tokyo Rose, Joanne, to answer my previous post (one of the ones which you perused).
After studying it so closely, maybe you’d like to take a crack at providing a response, as Joanne does seem to be remarkably mute?
hal Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Joanne Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Hal…Why do you read Gerrys blog? What do you get out of it.
Oh, Joanne. Out of the mouths of babes. Your minders will not be happy with you.
I read Gerry’s blog because it’s on the home page of MMI–and then I shake my head in disbelief, appalled that the English education system has dropped to a level where it awards doctoral degrees to those who seemingly have no concept of spelling or punctuation.
I get feelings of deja vu when I go to MMI to get the site’s updated releases of “Donations of £823,010.23 have been received to the fund to date”, and also get a feeling of disquiet, wondering why spellcheck or Word is not used.
To whit:
Madeleines profile high here
some firends for dinner
Madeleines 50 day
colleague of my brothers
Our requsets to respect
extra play mate round the pool.
Why do you think that Gerry called his sister, Trish, with that most-pertinent bit of early misinformation, “Gerry said the window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, was hanging open”?
Do you think that the interview with the press, given by the sister and releasing to the public that misinformation, had been discussed beforehand within the Clan McCann?
June 26th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I know it wasn’t you Stuart. I was asking you why you were mor inclined to go with Mollys theory abou tlies, when there is not one ounce of fact to back it up.
The rest of my comment was to Anonymous and Hal.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Joanne, it wasn’t me who said the MMI site looked amateurish. That was Anonymous. Again, please get your facts straight. It just so happened my question to you about the McCanns’ lying or not appeared below it.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Oh, and Hal, please feel free to go through my posts and correct the mistakes in them. I’m sure there will be some: I know my writing is not perfect, and I welcome any chance to improve it. However, I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than correct the writing of pedantic strangers. As, indeed, I tell myself, do I.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Hal, if you criticize spelling and grammar mistakes, make sure your own writing is perfect. Yours is good, very good, but not perfect.
You wrote:
“[I] also get a feeling of disquiet, wondering why spellcheck or Word is not used.
To whit:
Madeleines profile high here
some firends for dinner
Madeleines 50 day
colleague of my brothers
Our requsets to respect
extra play mate round the pool.”
Here’s a post of yours with imperfections pointed out in square brackets:
“Thank you for that information, Mr. Reis.
Likely most unwelcome to those with an anti-Portugal slant but, as Jack Webb used to say, “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts”.
[The above is a partial sentence fragment; that is, the first clause is lacking a finite verb.]
The gutter press won’t issue a retraction, but that should deflate their fiction-filled fable, making it as flat as a popped McCann-launched hot-air balloon.
[There are no errors here; I find the alliteration facile, but that's a matter of taste.]
Can you tell us what the average Portuguese resident thinks of the million-pound donate-to-me fund, the virtual wee shoppie selling ‘Look for Madeleine (TM) plastic bangles at two-pounds-apiece,
[There is no closing quotation mark here: perhaps you meant to write 'Look for Madeleine'?]
the horrendous policing costs that Portugal is footing as a direct result of the child being left unattended in an unlocked apartment, and the ignorant anti-Portuguese sentiment all too often expressed in the UK papers and blogs–and
[Here I think you meant "blogs-and" to have a dash rather than a hyphen. It actually needs a comma.]
the constant, never-ending stream of please- look-at-us-and-then-donate-to-us publicity mongering?”
[You have a space after the hyphen after "please"; there should be no space.]
Oh, and when you write “doctoral degrees” are you referring to Gerry McCann’s medical degree? I thought “doctoral degrees” referred to Ph.D.s but I might be wrong.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Why Stuart?
I agree the site looks ameteurish, but is that a problem? Are we going to hand, draw and quarter the McCanns for an unprofessional looking website which was helpfully done for them by someone they know? Or burn them at the stake for their Gerry’s grammatical sloppiness and typo’s?
Why on earth would anyone give a fuck about a few spelling erros on Gerry McCann’s blog?
Is that the best you can do?
June 26th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Hey Joanne, so how do you know that the McCanns are NOT lying? I’m more likely to go with Molly that the McCanns aren’t telling the whole truth.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Good points about MMI site, Hal. The first thing that struck me when I saw it was how amateurish it looked. I put it down to being quickly thrown together given the circumstances. Then I discovered that the site was put together by a former student of Philomena McCann named Calum McRae; and if I’m not mistaken, he’s all of 18 or thereabouts and doesn’t look like he’s had much professional web experience, specially not design. But then I’m sure Philomena gives him an A+ for it
June 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
One of Joanne’s earlier posts at the “Blaming the Parents” page where she’s convinced it’s an abduction.
—- start —-
# Joanne Says:
June 19th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Are you ‘mawkishly following’ it yourself Anonymous?
I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to help myself. It is fair to say, that I haven’t felt so affected by such an incident before. I am always affected and upset to hear of child abductions, but this one has struck a deeper chord.
I have a 2 year old daughter and it is easy for me to feel the dread should it ever happen to me.
Child abductions in the UK (or to UK families ) are very rare. We don’t hear about them often and the ‘millions’ that go missing that people keep going on about - well the majority of them have been taken by an estranged father or mother and removed abroad. Very few are ‘plucked from the warmth of their beds’. It is the stuff of dark fairy tales and we are all sitting in anticipation of the happy ending.
It upsets me greatly to think about what the poor McCanns are going through. No parent should have to endure this.
I can;t even let me head think about what Madeleine may be going through, I have to force my mind to change the subject and think of soemthing else.
—- end —–
oh, I am so farklempt…
June 26th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Joanne Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Hal…Why do you read Gerrys blog? What do you get out of it.
Oh, Joanne. Out of the mouths of babes. Your minders will not be happy with you.
I read Gerry’s blog because it’s on the home page of MMI–and then I shake my head in disbelief, appalled that the English education system has dropped to a level where it awards doctoral degrees to those who seemingly have no concept of spelling or punctuation.
I get feelings of deja vu when I go to MMI to get the site’s updated releases of “Donations of £823,010.23 have been received to the fund to date”, and also get a feeling of disquiet, wondering why spellcheck or Word is not used.
To whit:
Madeleines profile high here
some firends for dinner
Madeleines 50 day
colleague of my brothers
Our requsets to respect
extra play mate round the pool.
Why do you think that Gerry called his sister, Trish, with that most-pertinent bit of early misinformation, “Gerry said the window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, was hanging open”?
Do you think that the interview with the press, given by the sister and releasing to the public that misinformation, had been discussed beforehand within the Clan McCann?
June 26th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Hal, so what if kate doesn;t write a blog?
Why do you have a problem with Gerry writing a blog? Millions of people write blogs. Is it wrong that gerry writes a blog but not kate? What exactly are you trying to read into that?
Why do you read Gerrys blog? What do you get out of it.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Stuart Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
P.S. Why is it that we barely hear anything from Kate McCann’s side of the family? The case has McCann relatives all over the place while all I remember of Kate’s family was her mum saying that she’s going through a very hard time.
Could it be because she has not been reported as having called a relative (hysterical and crying her eyes out) and stating, “They had put the kids to bed at 7pm and checked on them every half-hour as they had dinner nearby with the rest of the party. Gerry said the window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, was hanging open.”?
The wife also does not blog on the MMI website.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Stuart, You say that Mollys post was balanced, yet she bases her opinions on false facts? She starts saying the only *fact* we know is madleine is missing, and then goes on about the *fact* that the mccanns lied to the police. She does not know this to be correct, yet is happy to sit and villify them for this. Is that fair?
What do you mean about my prejudices showing?
As for Kate McCanns family, different people respond to crises in different ways. Maybe they are less vocal. Maybe they don’t like the spotlight and prefer to offer their support by being there for the family, instead of trying to do something to help get Madeleine back.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Och! Joanne forgot to take her Prozac today. I for one thought of Molly’s post as particularly well-written and balanced. She even had an answer for the “What Would You Do” Maria who is missing*. Then Joanne goes on and tries to appear all journalistic and fair too, but no dice; her prejudices still show.
* Hey, we can start a Find Maria campaign too!
P.S. Why is it that we barely hear anything from Kate McCann’s side of the family? The case has McCann relatives all over the place while all I remember of Kate’s family was her mum saying that she’s going through a very hard time.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Hal, you are the one finding ‘false facts’.
The sister may have said that, she may have not. My Robin Crossland may have said that , he may have not.
I am not waiting for the police statement. You are deliberately distorting what I am am saying.
All I am saying, is that just because you read it in a tablid does not make it fact. There is not one ‘fact’ from this incident’ that has proved the McCanns lied about the circumstances. Just conflicting stories from different people.
Perhaps the sister is telling the truth. Perhaps mr Crossland is lying.
Whether or not the apartment was locked we will never know, though, as I said before, some of you here , are using these allged McCann lies to base your assumption that they are guilty and are involved in some way.
Molly quite categorically stated that the McCanns had lied to the police. All I am saying, is that in the absence of witness statements, we cannot know if this is correct.
Why would the McCanns tell their sister that the apartment was fully locked and had been broken into, yet tell the police that they left everything wide open? Why would they lie to the police about that? Bearing in mind, the accusation from Molly was the the McCanns had lied to the police, not that they had lied to gerrys sister.
Maybe Kate thought the shutters had been broken into. The people who stayed there before had reported broken shutters to the resort and these may have not yet been fixed.
Hal, you can try to twist and undermine my posts all you like, but they are there for all to read.
I am the person saying that since there is no evidence that the McCanns have lied, then I will choose to be trusting of them and continue to offer my support.
Those who do not trust them (such as yourself) are basing this on alleged McCann lies, which so far have yet to be proved.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Joanne Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Why are you so willing to believe the word, of one Mr Robin Crossland, on behalf of the resort? Perhaps he never even said that at all? Perhaps he was misquoted. WE DON’T KNOW THE FACTS!!!!! HELLO? HELLO? HAS IT GONE IN YET?
Joanne, Joaane. You didn’t Google, did you?
If you’re waiting for notarized witness statements provided by the Portuguese police, you aren’t ever going to see them.
Three sources, all as united and of a common point of view as the MMI keyboard chimps, are all indicating that Gerry McCann’s sister was the source of the release of that particular bit of initial misinformation, “Trish Cameron, Mr McCann’s sister, said on Friday that she received a telephone call from her brother, who was “hysterical and crying his eyes out”.
She said: “They had put the kids to bed at 7pm and checked on them every half-hour as they had dinner nearby with the rest of the party. Gerry said the window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, was hanging open.”
I am choosing to believe that Trish McCann was the source which released, “Gerry said the window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, was hanging open”. Inasmuch as the sister was not at the scene of the vanishing, then one has no reason to doubt her when she identified the father as the source of her misinformation.
Why are you so determined to attempt to undermine the truthfulness of the sister’s statement to the press? Why is it so important for you to continue to support the position, seemingly originating from the Algarve on the night of the vanishing, that “the window was open, the shutters broken and the door, which had been locked, was hanging open”?
Are you now trying to suggest that deafness (dunno, didn’t hear no shutters being smashed) as well as absentmindedness (she checked every half hour. He checked every half hour. Someone checked every half hour, didn’t they?) is being floated as another excuse?
Come on, Portugal. Cut to the chase. Release a truthful, damning report and put this myopic, miserable Joanne out of our misery.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Maria, where are you today? I expected to get out of bed to find the answers to the Saxon Connection, and why I’m obviously a ‘biggot’ for choosing that as my moniker. Alack and alas, you are nowhere to be seen.
VOTE SAXON!
June 26th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
My opinion about Gerry and Kate McCann
I don’t believe, as a journalist, that the McCanns are, in any way, related with the abduction of Madeleine. I’ve been following this case, not only in the Web – I was also at Praia da Luz, for one week (May 17 to May 23). For the last two months, I also have followed the news on the Net very carefully and closely.
So, based on all the information I collected, either during my stay in Praia da Luz or in the Net, as a journalist, I CAN’T SEE THE SLIGHTEST EVIDENCE THAT GERRY AND KATE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH HER DAUGTHER DISAPEARENCE. And I AM ABSOLUTELY SURE, WITH THE INFORMATION I HAVE, NOW, THAT THERE IS NOTHING THE MCCAN CAN BE ACCUSED OF, FROM A LEGAL OR CRIMINAL POINT OF VIEW. I may be wrong, but I STRONGLY BELIEVE THE CHANCES OF BEING WRONG ARE VERY SMALL: 0,1 per cent, as I’m 99, 9 per cent sure of what I say.
As a human being, a common man, father of two boys (one, 22 years old, the other 11) let me tell you this: I was at an arm’s distance from the McCanns, when they gave a Press Conference at Praia da Luz (1). I looked into the eyes of Kate McCann and I saw so much pain and suffering that I had to take a deep breath to control myself, to avoid tears coming to my eyes and not let emotion overcome me! I was schocked to see so much pain in her eyes and in her look! That’s someting that only people that has kids can understand and feel!
(1) http://gazetadigitalarquivo.blogspot.com/2007/05/copyright-warning-pictures-posted-here.html
Paulo Reis
pjcv.reis@gmail.com
Gazeta Digital
http://gazetadigital.blogspot.com