Going Nuts over Crackers

It all started with a Catholic, by the name of Webster Cook, attending mass with a friend. The friend wasn't Catholic, but Mr. Cook wanted to show him the communion wafer. When it was discovered that Mr. Cook had not consumed the wafer, he was told to leave. Apparently, there's a "policy to make sure that the Eucharist was not going to be used for devil worship". It could have been left at that, but it all goes downhill from there.

Mr. Cook was then accused of kidnapping, and received death threats from insulted Catholics. Of course, the cognitive dissonance it takes to make death threats for kidnapping, but ignore the ritual cannibalism aspect is astounding.

PZ found out about the story, and did a post about it. Following that, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League brought attention to PZ. Bill called for PZ to be fired, and PZ received several emails.

A couple of those emails threatened PZ with bodily harm, and he posted them for anyone to read. The one of particular interest to the rest of this post follows:

Subject: your short life
...
Paul,

what I would like to know is how did you even
get a job at a collage.

when you are obviously a moron.
How would you feel if nice folks starting ranting against
Fags, and atheist like yourself.

well sir, you don't get to blaspheme and walk away from this.
You have two choices my fucked up friend, first you can quit your job for the good of the
children. Or you can get your brains beat in.

I give you till the first of the month, get that resignation in cunt
(Note: Spelling and grammar intact)

Well, that particular email went through the 1800flowers email server.

It turns out that the email was generated by an employee of 1800flowers. Her name is Melanie Kroll, and she was subsequently fired for the email. There's some speculation as to whether she was fired for the email, or for violating her companies server usage policies. Regardless, the end result is the same, and she's now unemployed.

Then, it gets real interesting. Melanie's husband, Charles Kroll, confessed to writing the email. I'm not going to bother to directly quote his comment here. It's in the link, and rather long and rambling. Basically, he blames PZ and his readers for getting his wife fired, and claims that PZ is more tolerant of Islam. Apparently, as Feynmaniac pointed out, Mr. Kroll hasn't perused PZ's blog.

Well, once word got out that Chuck Kroll was the real sender, several readers got curious. I did a quick Google check and found this comment from a couple of years ago, on an internet article.

By chuck kroll, October 11, 2006 at 6:54 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

listen real close you moron, One I doubt you know the secrete troop movements of the United States Navy, and If you do, and wrote about them it is a felony. And Just so you know, my little brother is on one of the ships you wrote about. If anything happens to one of those kids, I’m coming after you. And I’m putting it in writing, I don’t care. God help your fagot communist ass if something happens to even one of those brave kids. I know where you work, it can’t be that hard to find someone as ugly as you. What kind of people are you? It is almost unimaginable that an American would seek to harm his own nation, with the bullshit you call writing, that is ment only to provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Well, I guess I’m one of the few people who remember sept 11, 2001. And how meek and mouse like all you socialist, communist, liberal, progressive (whatever name your calling yourselves these days)were back then. Not a peep out of you. You knew that the real America was awake listening, paying attention, and it was far to dangerous for you to be spouting out your anti American reteroic. Well I got news for you buddy, if any of those ships are attacked and sunk, you and your ilk had better think about a move to France, or maybe North Korea. Again I know your slow so I will say it again. You had better pray (opps sorry bad word for you darwinist’s)that nothing happens to even one of those kids on our ships or I will take you out myself, and stand over your body to the police arrive. No jury in this nation would convict me I’m sure. You Bastard.

Yours,

Chuck kroll
huntington bay ny
(Note: Again, spelling and grammar intact)

The overall vitriol and anger seemed to be very similar. There were several grammatical similarities also. (Do no raving lunatics understand the concept of paragraphs?) I commented on what I found on PZ's blog, and another commenter pointed out some supporting geographical evidence of my hypothesis.

Then, Damian commented on finding another suspicious comment online.

this woman who is the principle of this middle school should be fired on the spot, ther is no need to make a determination to who is responsible.
When the person in charge of the school is responsible.

You see womwn can not have it both way, demand equality and respect, then ask for understanding because " I was flustered by a reporters phone call". If she get's flustered by a phone call, then imagine how she would handle a terror situation, or an emergency.

perhaps this will make some people in this state wake up, and see that these people we have abdicated our parental duties to, could care less about these children.

As long as they can get their six to seven months a year off, teach our kids that America sucks and it's ok to have two mommies public education is fine, but if you want good old fashion morals reading, writting and math skills. well that's another thing.

What's next field trips to whore houses.

Let's wake up New Hampshire, and let's do what we shoud have done a long time ago, run all these scum bag socialists from our state back to mass where they belong
- chuck kroll, manchester
(Note: He actually used paragraphs!)

Then, Sven DiMilo brought a comment from PZ's original threatening email thread to our attentions.

What do emails say?

Nothing.

Who knows who actually writes them.

That is, even with the IP information and so on...who are these people? Are they acquaintances of the Prof, sympathizers, who agree to write letters to make the prof's opponenets look worse? Are they just idiots with nothing better to do? Idiots who have no dog in this fight and just want the Prof to notice them?

An email tells me nothing about who really wrote them. It doesn't tell me anything about those who disagree with the Prof.

Sort of like the Bible.

Just because someone says they wrote something,doesn't mean anything in the text is true or accurate or even if the identity of the person is as claimed. It doesn't tell me anything about the true motivation of the person writing the email. Are they really in opposition to the Prof, or are they playing a convoluted game to help the Prof raise sympathy for himself?

Historical Critical Method v. Blind Faith in the Prof.

You decide!

Posted by: Chuck | July 13, 2008 5:05 PM

Yes, it could be a completely different Chuck, but I'm suspicious that he was trying to sew doubt. Unfortunately, his understanding of how emails are routed through servers would be even more abysmal than his understanding of the English language.

For those interested, Melanie commented on a post by Greg Laden about this fiasco. She explains how her husband "accidentally" used her account to send PZ the email. Her explanation for how it happened seems plausible, but her defense of her husband's actions seems irresponsible.

From what I and others have found, Mr. Kroll appears to suffer from netrage (like road rage but without trading paint). I can respect Mr. Kroll's strong feelings toward "party and his religion", but sending written threats to those you disagree with is crossing the line. If you can't defend your position through rational discourse, then you should rethink your position. Trial by combat is what one resorts to when they are wrong, but physically strong enough to stand a chance at winning anyway.

And to think, all this started because someone combined water, flour, and vegetable shortening.