Thursday, February 28, 2008
I feel sorry for Mark Whitecotton. He is the blogger from the Baltimore, Maryland area who has created numerous blogs pretending to be different people. As 'Marc' he died a tragic death from cancer in 2006. As 'Josh,' 'Marc's' brother, he is undergoing chemo. As 'Steve' he is testifying at a murder trial. And so on. It's really pathetic.
He doesn't like me- I exposed his lies about the 11-year-old girl (he claimed she was murdered, she died a natural death) in August 2007 and ever since then he has posted on his various blogs lots of crap about me. You can search on technorati and find many of those entries. He claims I'm a liar, I'm jealous of him, I've threatened other bloggers with death- that's a good one! My favorite- I write too much about lemon meringue pies.
Now he's fixated on the fact that I'm a scientist. You can go read his pathetic entry here. Oh look, he stole a picture of me from the Arizona Daily Star website. I wonder if he asked permission. That's something he's always doing, stealing pictures. Not the best picture of me, I'll admit.
Mr. Whitecotton (as 52-year-old dying dentist 'Josh') says that you have to have a MD or a PhD degree to be a scientist. This was news to me. I asked my co-workers today if we were scientists and everybody agreed, archaeology is considered a social science. Anthropology, which archaeology is a sub-field of, is well known for borrowing from other sciences including biology, botany, geology, and anatomy. My training has included aspects of all of these fields, as well as historical research.
Let me bore you with some details. I have a master's degree from Arizona State University in Anthropology (1992). My thesis involved the analysis of 12,263 animal bones from a fur trading fort in North Dakota. I identified the bones to animal species where possible, skeletal element, portion and side, butchering methods, and a number of other attributes. Entered the data into the computer and conducted a number of statistical tests to identify statistically significant patterns, and then wrote and defended the thesis.
For my undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan (1986), I did an honor's thesis examining a prehistoric ossuary (a mass reburial of people, common in Michigan from about A.D. 1000-1600). The classwork I took allows me to identify portions of the human skeleton from small fragments, determine the sex and age of individuals, and identify pathological conditions such as arthritis, anemia, and healed fractures, all of which leave evidence on elements. I am frequently asked to excavate burials discovered in the Tucson area. I do this with skill and respect for the remains, often times I think about the person as I am uncovering their remains. That is perhaps the most unscientific thing about that aspect of my work, wondering what kind of lives those people led.
For my job of 15.5 years I have run a variety of archaeological projects. Many of these have been at complex sites with hundreds of features, often stretching back thousands of years. I have identified tens of thousands of artifacts and researched thousands of individuals for work. I have also given over 100 talks to the public and over a dozen at national scientific meetings, the most recent one in Albuquerque in January. The results of my archaeological and genealogical research has been published in dozens of reports. I have five books in the Library of Congress.
So yeah, I consider myself a scientist. It isn't something I boast about, no more than me saying I own a house or I have three cats. I've often thought that I would like my tombstone to read "Archaeologist, Genealogist, Homosexual" since these pretty much identify me.
I don't know I'm even bothering to write this.
I just feel sorry and somewhat repelled by this person. I don't understand the need to tell lies and call other bloggers names when they point out the truth and ask pointed questions (Why don't your pictures match? How can 'Marc' be dead when he is alive and living in Baltimore?). I look at his blogs the same way that I look at car accidents- fascinating, a bit weirded out, and sorry for everyone involved.
I guess the reason I'm mentioning this is that a few people on my blogroll link to a couple of Mark Whitecotton's blogs on their blogroll- "Smiley's Place" and "Defying Despondency." Perhaps they don't know that he uses my name in URLs and mentions my name and company name in tags, apparently trying bring search engines in and get me in trouble in some way. Ohmigod, so fucking lame.
Mark, maybe you need a big slice of lemon meringue pie. You know, it makes everybody feel better.
Later. I guess this big question is why would I bother making this stuff up? Such utter bullshit. The 300+ people who read my blog daily probably have a good sense of who I am. So readers, do you think I'm a liar?
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He doesn't like me- I exposed his lies about the 11-year-old girl (he claimed she was murdered, she died a natural death) in August 2007 and ever since then he has posted on his various blogs lots of crap about me. You can search on technorati and find many of those entries. He claims I'm a liar, I'm jealous of him, I've threatened other bloggers with death- that's a good one! My favorite- I write too much about lemon meringue pies.
Now he's fixated on the fact that I'm a scientist. You can go read his pathetic entry here. Oh look, he stole a picture of me from the Arizona Daily Star website. I wonder if he asked permission. That's something he's always doing, stealing pictures. Not the best picture of me, I'll admit.
Mr. Whitecotton (as 52-year-old dying dentist 'Josh') says that you have to have a MD or a PhD degree to be a scientist. This was news to me. I asked my co-workers today if we were scientists and everybody agreed, archaeology is considered a social science. Anthropology, which archaeology is a sub-field of, is well known for borrowing from other sciences including biology, botany, geology, and anatomy. My training has included aspects of all of these fields, as well as historical research.
Let me bore you with some details. I have a master's degree from Arizona State University in Anthropology (1992). My thesis involved the analysis of 12,263 animal bones from a fur trading fort in North Dakota. I identified the bones to animal species where possible, skeletal element, portion and side, butchering methods, and a number of other attributes. Entered the data into the computer and conducted a number of statistical tests to identify statistically significant patterns, and then wrote and defended the thesis.
For my undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan (1986), I did an honor's thesis examining a prehistoric ossuary (a mass reburial of people, common in Michigan from about A.D. 1000-1600). The classwork I took allows me to identify portions of the human skeleton from small fragments, determine the sex and age of individuals, and identify pathological conditions such as arthritis, anemia, and healed fractures, all of which leave evidence on elements. I am frequently asked to excavate burials discovered in the Tucson area. I do this with skill and respect for the remains, often times I think about the person as I am uncovering their remains. That is perhaps the most unscientific thing about that aspect of my work, wondering what kind of lives those people led.
For my job of 15.5 years I have run a variety of archaeological projects. Many of these have been at complex sites with hundreds of features, often stretching back thousands of years. I have identified tens of thousands of artifacts and researched thousands of individuals for work. I have also given over 100 talks to the public and over a dozen at national scientific meetings, the most recent one in Albuquerque in January. The results of my archaeological and genealogical research has been published in dozens of reports. I have five books in the Library of Congress.
So yeah, I consider myself a scientist. It isn't something I boast about, no more than me saying I own a house or I have three cats. I've often thought that I would like my tombstone to read "Archaeologist, Genealogist, Homosexual" since these pretty much identify me.
I don't know I'm even bothering to write this.
I just feel sorry and somewhat repelled by this person. I don't understand the need to tell lies and call other bloggers names when they point out the truth and ask pointed questions (Why don't your pictures match? How can 'Marc' be dead when he is alive and living in Baltimore?). I look at his blogs the same way that I look at car accidents- fascinating, a bit weirded out, and sorry for everyone involved.
I guess the reason I'm mentioning this is that a few people on my blogroll link to a couple of Mark Whitecotton's blogs on their blogroll- "Smiley's Place" and "Defying Despondency." Perhaps they don't know that he uses my name in URLs and mentions my name and company name in tags, apparently trying bring search engines in and get me in trouble in some way. Ohmigod, so fucking lame.
Mark, maybe you need a big slice of lemon meringue pie. You know, it makes everybody feel better.
Later. I guess this big question is why would I bother making this stuff up? Such utter bullshit. The 300+ people who read my blog daily probably have a good sense of who I am. So readers, do you think I'm a liar?
