In a previous “I get email” post, I mocked this bizarre list of 50 “proofs” that god exists: they were all nonsense and non sequiturs and bizarre falsehoods. The author actually dragged out the Lady Hope story as evidence for a god! Take a look and you’ll see how genuinely stupid the list was.
But there’s a stalkerish element to all this, too. Ever since, the author periodically writes me these weird pleading/sneering emails. She was very upset that I called her out on her raving foolishness, and has to remind me of that every once in a while. It’s rather stupid, since I’d basically forgotten the post — it was almost four years ago — but she can’t let it die and has to stir it up now and then.
So here we go again, to oblige the bizarrely obsessed Debra Rufini, here is one of her latest emails. I’ve posted it below the fold as a screen capture because there was no way I was going to try and imbed all those silly smilies.
If anyone knows her, get her some help, OK?
(Also on Sb)
Have you ever posted about her since the original “50 proofs” e-mail? This is the first mention I’ve seen of Debra Rufini.
Wait, I thought Dawkins was a strident firebrand too…
Stalkerish element, indeed. He’s married, lady.
We would love to leave you to enjoy your fantasy world in peace, but you and your fellow believers won’t leave the rest of us alone. Stop trying to get your fantasy world taught as fact in public schools, stop trying to get your fantasy world special treatment and tax breaks from the government, and stop trying to impose it on other people!
She has sent me multiple emails over the years. I’ve ignored them and haven’t posted about her since the June 2008 post.
But, you know, her persistence eventually earned her some recognition as a special kind of kook.
Oh … dear.
There’s nothing here of any substance — unless you want to count a vague attempt at the “all inferences are based on faith so religious beliefs are legitimate” argument, which I won’t.
She wants more attention. She also wants to avoid “personal” comments. If so, my dear Ms. Rufini, I suggest you post something of substance here in comments.
My eyes!
I can’t even read that. The smilies are just too damned much.
Can’t understand a word.
Right, that’s what I’m getting at. She clearly hasn’t been following your blog, or she’d know you haven’t posted about her since that one time three years and change ago. But despite your ignoring her completely, she’s somehow convinced that you consider her important enough to talk about all the time. Wow.
You are a very strange man, Prof. Myers
The passive-aggressiveness of all those smileys makes me want to punch things. Does it show I favour aggressive-aggressiveness?
;-)
Louis
She has fleas? I thought that was Scientologists.
I think her playground analogy is apropos.
Her “proofs” are pretty on par with that environment.
I’m sure he thanks you for the compliment.
I’ll have to check this out later, but for now I’ll just be amazed at all the smilies ;-)
Looks like she’s hawking a book on Dawkins getting religion, or something. I suggest in the second edition she ruthlessly edit out any smiley faces.
She really needs to get out and get laid.
[That kind of comment will get you banned. –pzm]
groan
As one reads this disjointed “letter”, you get the impression that the writers meds seem to be wearing off as she writes. By the end the thought process seems so incoherent it is amazing that the sentences still contain some type of structure.
Oh, can anyone explain to me what a “response to a circular” is?
BTW PZ, you should move to vancouver!
What are you going to tell the Trophy Wife™ when this idiotic succubus finally manages to seduce you?
Wow. Creepy, especially when paired with the smiley obsession and the bright blue text. It must be like being stalked by a middle-schooler…
And all the stuff about leaving creationists to their own beliefs in their own little world? I am sure we would all be happy to if they stopped trying to get their blather taught in science classes, stopped using creationism to try to justify AGW denialism, and cut out all the homophobia and misogyny that seems to be so often associated with many creationist kooks.
As truthspeaker says @ 2, we will leave them alone when they stop trying to force their delusions on us.
Because people like Debra Rufini won’t go away and take their God nonsense with them.
You party your way; we’ll party our way.
And so the mindless misogyny begins. Here is a top tip, Larry; the fact that she is a woman is not relevant, the fact that she is a kook is. Recycling tired and bigoted variants on the trope of “stupid woman just needs a good seeing-to” will earn you nothing more than several invitations to intimate relations with a sadly deceased porcupine.
PZ, you should give the lady some props: her email was already in Courrier Sans! Think of all the formatting time saved for your blog!
Oh man, this e-mail made my day. You have no idea how much I am giggling now.
Pwetty pwease? As Groucho Marx once said, “Was that you or the duck?”
It must be your cephlapod magnetism at work again. Does your Trophy Wife(tm) know about the fringe elements of your fan club?
How many creepy stalkers do you have, PZ?
Guess any celebrity will attract them, even if you’re only known on the internet.
So Rufini provided her own Comic Sans?
Somewhere a font designer is opening a bottle of whiskey…
I love the contradiction of complaining about how mean and abusive PZ is while also whining that he doesn’t respond to her personally. It’s like that old bit with a customer complaining about a restaurant that “the food is terrible — and the portions are so small!”
That is super creepy. At first she starts out with odd language that implies you’re a child (e.g. “naughty” and “big brave boy”) and then she switches to “bearded men are hot” and “feel free to belittle me further” like some kind of masochism, and signs it “Debra x” which, possibly, could be the kind of x that is shorthand for a kiss.
I don’t want to read to much into this but I am SO GLAD I don’t get emails like this. What is even the steak.
Also I’m sure PZ and Dawkins could come to a consensus on the origin of the baseball based on available evidence (sound of a bat, looking over the wall, etc) but I doubt that either of them would assert its origin without evidence. Just sayin’.
gregaxani:
In this context, a circular would be a letter or pamphlet of some kind. A response would be, well, a response.
Why she should respond to PZ is a mystery. Why she should do so without any context is simply baffling. That’d be like me sending him a comment like, “Wasn’t the special on eggs in Sunday’s paper especially nifty?”
Her quaintly oblivious, “Hi! I’m pestering you once again to ask why you just don’t ignore me? I’m waiting for an answer,” schtick is pretty damned funny, though. It’s a nice reflection/inversion of the basic Christian tactic of pushing idiocy that requires reaction, and then becoming outraged at the response.
It just reminds me of a nice little song.
Col. Mustard: Are you trying to make me look foolish?
Wadsworth: You don’t need my help for that.
Col. Mustard: That’s right!
The trouble with the ball “analogy” is that we can very well figure out whether there was an explosion or not. Explosions sort of have a sound, and even the light from it probably would reflect so that you could have seen it.
Plus, the real analogy would be if you said that the ball were perhaps thrown by known beings, perhaps blasted by an explosion, or perhaps hit by a bat, and someone else is saying that witches or unicorns must have made the ball fly over the wall by magic.
We’ll consider the first set of causes, while we have no reason to consider what witches and unicorns might have done.
Still calling down judgments on your idiotic claims, I see, Debbie. Maybe if you don’t like insults you should stop provoking them.
Glen Davidson
It’s not ar argument of ignorance, it´s a bad analogy.
It’s a pity smilies didn’t exist in Darwin’s day. They’d have made the Origin so much more convincing.
Lady Hope would have adored them.
Ms. Rufini, do you happen to write elsewhere under the pseudonym Jean Teasdale? If so, let me just say that I’m a long time admirer of your writing (example) and avid follower of your Twitter-feed.
You could always buy her book on Richard Dawkins.
I really wonder about the kind of mental process that would compel one to write this kind of inane rant… in Comic Sans. With smiley faces.
The ball analogy could be a good one, however it would be PZ and Dawkins that would be inferring a non-supernatural thrower or hitter of the ball based on what we know about balls, gravity and past experience of the natural world. Debra would be advocating the unicorn and fairy dust hypothesis.
Occam’s Razor FTW!
Not that they’re for-certain the same person, but a Debra Rufini has also published a testimony as an “ex-lesbian.”
Sigh. Help me. It might be my mind, but I can’t decode this.
Is it
“She is able to express her experiences suffering from mental health issues”
“She has worked in/about mental health issues and expresses her feelings on issues relating to mental health?”
“She provides feelings on mental health issues from the perspective of a patient?”
“She provides feelings on mental health issues from someone who has been involved with the issues for a long time?”
What…
I don’t know if she has mental problems, or has spent a lot of time working with people who do, or studying mental health issues or what.
You know what else bugs me (besides the smiley abuse and the general idiocy)? When someone takes the time to write and email like that and uses ampersands. I mean, really? “And” is too tough for you?
Also “summat”. *eye roll*
Because her client was also a Samaritan? Because she was empathetic? Because she dealt with mental issues to before helping others? But if that’s the case what does Samaritan have to do with it? Samaritan, if they’re not talking nationality/ethnicity just refers to as an altruist…why would that qualify her more than any other Samaritan trying to help those clients?
How the hell does that have anything to do with…what?
What does that have to do with the mentally ill at all?
Why do all these sentences have two parts, with the first seemingly requiring clarification but the second one just restating the first part.
“She educates people on evolution and to those who want to hear her she educates on evolution”
These are mobius sentences, Starting at the end and reading backwards gives the same information!
Why don’t you respond to my emails? Can’t you just leave me alone?
For someone who demands someone to be more positive, she seems to focus most intensely on downers like “Anti-Christ” and “Down’s syndrome” in her poetry.
This is one of those rare cases in the “I Get Email” series where I kinda feel some genuine sympathy for the mailer, obsessive kook though she appears to be, so this might be the first and last time I try to do something positive here:
Debra, you’ve got to recognize just how much of the negative things you write about stem from your religious outlook.
Your obsession with a lot of these dark concepts is telling me that religion isn’t a positive influence in your life, no matter how some people might tell you otherwise.
I don’t expect you to get into atheism, so I’d recommend baby steps to help make this all a little bit more understandable: get thee to a UU service and compare and contrast with what you’ve experienced before.
She’s a Samaritan? A member of a small ethno-religious minority of Palestine who use an alternate version of the Torah as their Holy Scripture?
Uggh, apologies for the broken markup…
@Irene
True story, because of how I read I read Salarian at first…that made slightly more sense in context.
I do like the way that her book on Dawkins is considered by the publisher to be “related to” a book called “A Portrait of a Modern Day Loser”. According to the preview, it starts with a long drawn-out poem in which Jesus makes fun of Dawkins (You didn’t get the bike you prayed for? And that’s why you’re angry at God?). Yuck.
Oooh- and then it switches to “Of course there’s a God! How else could everything turn out so neatly? Explosions don’t cause order, so this “Big Bang” stuff is clearly nonsense!”
@ Ing:
Ah, yes! That would make more sense in that case! ;-)
for the “why aren’t you nice like that Dawkins” file
You know it’s creepy in light of learning that Dawkins was molested to hear people pull this argument on him. Do they not know or do they know and are just too gutless to go for the real meat of the issue?
Ing, Irene: in this context, I’m guessing that ‘Samaritans’ refers to the UK charity of that name, which operates a telephone helpline (staffed by volunteers) for people in emotional distress, particularly people contemplating suicide. Although it was started by a CofE vicar, it’s a secular charity. One occasionally hears criticism of it, but its public image is mainly positive, and it’s what (I believe) most British people will think of first when they hear the word ‘Samaritan’.
You mean that charity wasn’t made up for a joke by Red Dwarf?
Her publisher specialises in books by people with mental health issues. I’d never heard of them before, but they sound like an interesting outfit. Might be throwing some money their way.
Everything in Red Dwarf is deadly serious.
Her use of the word “summat” hints that she comes from Hitchens’ “favourite” county, Yorkshire.
Is this woman British? There are enough English terms in her writing (dummies, summat) that I wonder. And it’s kinda weird, reading about her book – she’s begging for interviews, saying she got involved in the “gay scene” (???) and other strange things. Poor thing. I hope she gets all the help she needs.
triskelethecat, the bio on that book says she was born in Hampshire, so yes, British.
@Ing #57
I think burying her would be a little strong….how about just burying the book?
*snicker*
Spelt (Triticum spelta) is a hexaploid species of wheat.
I realize that it is acceptable if you are British, but as an uncouth American I found it rather amusing.
I can do both!
Because cocaine.
Wait, isn’t there a—nevermind, I answered my own question. I was thinking of Hampshire 2G.
Mail from religious weird-o’s is depressing.
You have no idea.
It starts out that badly, and then goes downhill from there. Mercifully, it’s only a 58 page book, including the contents.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Q3LG-2hIqXoC&pg=PA2&dq=%22Debra+Rufini%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nKMQT__oHeeRiAKdtsWwDQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Debra%20Rufini%22&f=false
Tethys, “spelt” is spelt right. Damn yankee! *shakes fist*
I understand why the “need to get laid” post is unwanted, crude, uncouth, pointlessly sexual, least common denominator, vapid, and above all, not funny. But why is it misogynistic? How is it over that particular line? Every day these topics arise and I understand the complaints less the more comments I read.
#69- Because nobody would ever dream of saying that about a man.
Actually, people would say that about a man, but when someone says that a woman “needs” to get laid (whether she wants to or not), there’s the implication of rape/violence, and nobody worth having a conversation with would wish that on anyone.
Everybody correct me if I’m wrong (this is a line I’m less familiar with), but I think it’s a sexist meme. Women who are “crazy” often “just need a good fuck.” [WILD SPECULATION]Maybe it has to do with the history of women, mentally ill or just difficult, being diagnosed with “hysteria” and treated via “hysterical paroxysms”?[/WILD SPECULATION] You definitely hear people saying that men need to get laid, but the offenses for which a man merits that comment are different – no fun, stuck up, frustrated, etc.
I think “need to get laid” here means the same as when it is applied to men, i.e., that not having sex causes us to obsess over things or otherwise behave in an uptight manner. Can we call it progress that someone applies juvenile sexual attitudes to both sexes in the same way?
I get the feeling that she is an older woman who has likely just started grasping the web and e-mail and thinks that the web is essentially like print publication and that the only way to communicate with an author is through mail (of the new electronic variety).
Curiously, the one new technology that old people seem to take to like a fish to water is smileys.
Incidentally, don’t you hate it when someone makes some hackneyed one-liner and then fucks off while everyone argues about it?
rrpostal, this insult would not have been misogynistic aimed at a man (though it may have indicated a prejudice about men and/or sex).
In this direction, it replicates a misogynist meme, and is thus a +1 for spreading sexism.
GUMBY
<Comic Sans> If we’re so stupid, just let us get on with our fairy tale beliefs, in our wibbly wobbly world of our own. Why be so angry at summat you just don’t believe in? Have some fun for goodness sake – we’re not worth getting an ulcer over, are we?!</Comic Sans>
/GUMBY
Oh, if only they could have their very own “wibbly wobbly world”.
Someone needs to send this woman a link to Greta Christina’s Skepticon presentation.
–
I think a “circular” is one of those printed handouts (or these days, copy&paste emails) shared among the Faithful, and foisted upon the unwary.
–
Plus, of course, she wants free publicity for this book of hers.
–
Because, all too often, when some woman is perceived as being in some way “wrong”, it obviously means that she needs more candlewick. “Bitchy”? All she needs is a good screw. Sad? All she needs is a good screw. Lesbian? All she needs is a
bit of corrective rapegood screw. Because nothing, but nothing, solves all problems like a dick.We’ve seen it too many times before.
–
Are you aware of the website Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence?
You should send that back to her.
No, wait, I’m wrong. Doing so would merely inspire more BS in your in-box. But the amusement that might ensue might be worth the risk…
As a rule of thumb, you can pretty much always just delete unread anything composed in Comic Sans. You have better things to do.
As a 63 year old, I object to this libel. þ
We Are Ing @ 49;
Salarian? Perhaps, but clearly not a Scientist Salarian…
‘Wibbly wobbly world of our own’? My god, she’s from the Tardis!
this part might be significant (from the website that publishes her book):
No way she’s companion grade KathyO
I tried reading that and I was like, “wait… what?”
And also… the SMILIES! why does it have to be the smilies?…
Busy girl, our Debs:
(From Whitebook.co.uk Directory on Googs):
KATE BUSH (DEBRA RUFINI) is an artiste/attraction specialising in LOOKALIKES / TRIBUTE BANDS.
DebraKate is invited round to mine next Saturday (from Hampshire take the A35 to Honiton, then A30 around Dartmoor and ask the lorry driver to drop you off at the top of the lane with the yew that has that rusty chainfall hanging off it) for a special booking for us here at the Luxton and District Community Nurses Association, to do that Wilhelm Reich song off of “Never Forever” whilst demonstrating (and explaining to us science-hobbled tomato-throwers) a Samaritonian/Creationist take on that Orgone Accumulator thingy. We can sort out a basic physical framework for one if it helps – there’s a tepee left behind by those trustafarian surfers that vanished last year or one of Dopey Denzil’s MDF vardoes.
I’m skint for fees and that but me and the other orifice-groping decubitus-scrapers will sort her out a proper dinner and session to follow at the lock-in.
From the description of the Dawkins’ book:
Ah. She might be encountering problems trying to alleviate the suffering caused by mental health. Sometimes, I can relate.
What for her fleas?
Yeah, that’s a worry – just treated my pets for that. Horrible little blighters. (The fleas not the pets.)
Honestly, its all just rather pathetic – in the pity-evoking sense of the word and the other one too – really.
@ 83. craigore :
Um, really what’s wrong with emoticons? What’s with the hating on the smileys by folks here? I kinda like them myself. I think they give text that extra dimension and work out pretty well. Now, okay, they can be used too much sometimes but in moderation, the odd smiley isn’t too bad is it?
@Rey Fox :
I don’t think that poster – Larry – could respond even if they wanted to seeing as it seems that PZ has just banned him.
Chipmunka Press has an unsavoury history of exploiting the mentally ill:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92347&highlight=chipmunka
http://www.thehorrorzine.com/Beware/Chipmunka/ChipmunkaPublishing.html
Hmm, and it seems that the founder of Chipmunka has a rather unsavoury history:
http://chipmunkawatch.blogspot.com/2009/09/jason-pegler-is-rapist.html
I had a similarly bizarre string of letters from someone with a mental illness who thought I somehow caused all her problems. It was annoying but I felt sympathy for her more than anything – and I didn’t feel the need to ridicule her in public.
The ball could have rolled off a high shelf and bounced over the wall….
I…just…did she just hit on you? She knows you’re married, right?
Too comic sans, couldn’t read. :/