bkdelong

A picture is worth a thousand words and one of the blogs covering this story has captured that. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I first saw the pictures - or I'd give attribution. Keyes himself has photos of him and his daughter Maya walking alongside each other in a parade in Naperville, Il. There are a few things to note -

The earrings.

The various rainbow paraphanalia.

The marks on her arms.

These items are specifically called out due to observations I have made:

I say to notice the earrings because in all the pictures that show up that allegedly have Maya with her girlfriend Bria - she is wearing those earrings. (Including the one where they are kissing.) Thanks to LeeRoxxor pointing that out in comments at Chillinois.

As far as rainbows go,she has rings, wristbands, a purse and even her Yahoo Profile that she posts to her father's YahooGroups list for his reelection references her hobbies including "Rainbowing up the world."

Finally, the latter observation is quite personally and I daresay out of line. But I noticed it and I'd like to share it. Google currently has a cache from Maya's alleged blog dated March 22, 2004 that includes a meme survey and a post that caught my eye.

First, the survey:

TO PLAY I NEVER: PUT AN (x) IN FRONT OF THE THINGS THAT YOU HAVE
NEVER DONE BEFORE AND A (_) ON THE THINGS THAT YOU HAVE DONE AT 
LEAST ONCE. ADD AN "I NEVER" OF YOUR OWN.

(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN DRUNK
(x) I NEVER HAVE SMOKED POT
(x) I NEVER HAVE TAKEN ILLEGAL DRUGS
(_) I NEVER HAVE KISSED A MEMBER OF THE OPPOSITE SEX
(_) I NEVER HAVE KISSED A MEMBER OF THE SAME SEX
(x) I NEVER CRASHED A FRIEND'S CAR
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN TO JAPAN
(_) I NEVER RODE IN A TAXI
(x) I NEVER HAD ANAL SEX
(x) I NEVER HAD ORAL SEX
(_) I NEVER HAVE BEEN IN LOVE
(x) I NEVER HAD SEX
(x) I NEVER HAVE HAD SEX IN PUBLIC
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN DUMPED
(_) I NEVER SHOPLIFTED
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN FIRED
(_) I NEVER HAVE BEEN IN A FIST FIGHT
(x) I NEVER HAD A THREESOME
(_) I NEVER SNUCK OUT OF MY PARENTS' 
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN TIED UP (SEXUALLY) 
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN CAUGHT MASTURBATING
(x) I NEVER PISSED ON MYSELF (ok, well, not since I've been out of diapers anyway!)
(x) I NEVER HAD SEX WITH A MEMBER OF THE SAME SEX
(x) I NEVER HAD SEX WITH A MEMBER OF THE OPPOSITE SEX
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN ARRESTED
(x) I NEVER MADE OUT WITH A STRANGER
(x) I NEVER STOLE SOMETHING FROM MY JOB 
(x) I NEVER CELEBRATED NEW YEARS IN TIME SQUARE
(x) I NEVER WENT ON A BLIND DATE 
(_) I NEVER LIED TO A FRIEND
(x) I NEVER CHEATED ON SOMEONE I WAS IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH
(_) I NEVER HAD A CRUSH ON A TEACHER
(_) I NEVER CELEBRATED MARDI GRAS IN NEW ORLEANS
(_) I NEVER HAVE BEEN TO EUROPE
(_) I NEVER SKIPPED SCHOOL
(x) I NEVER SLEPT WITH A CO-WORKER
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN FISTED AND/OR HAVE NEVER FISTED ANYONE
(x) I NEVER HAVE THROWN UP IN A BAR
(_) I NEVER HAVE PURPOSELY SET A PART OF MYSELF ON FIRE 
(_) I NEVER HAVE EATEN SUSHI
(x) I NEVER HAVE BEEN SNOWBOARDING
(x) I NEVER HAVE TAKEN A PILATES CLASS
(x) I NEVER HAVE JACKED OFF IN A PUBLIC PLACE
(_) I NEVER TRIED TO KILL SOMEONE ELSE
(_) I NEVER TRIED TO KILL MYSELF
(_) I NEVER VOTED IN ANY SORT OF ELECTION
(x) I NEVER HAD SEX WITH A RELATIVE
(x) I NEVER HAD SEX FOR MONEY
(x) I NEVER HAVE HAD AN ORGASM

The items "Have Purposely set a part of myself on fire" and "Have tried to kill myself" caught my eye, as well as the post following the list:

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

 this house apparently has no decent sharp knives
(they are not vegetarians i wonder how they manage to cut their meat)

and so i am reduced to safety pins and breaking open my razor to remove the blades

::currently playing: badly drawn boy, the shining::

Basically what I'm saying is that the marks on her arms in the various pictures, after reading these posts from what is allegedly her blog, made me think "self-mutilation" and self-harm. While many kids today experiment with self-mutilation, fire and such, (heck - I did when I was young) that combined with the suicide rate of gays and lesbians makes me hope that all of this attention won't push Maya over the edge should it prove to be true and that she continue to be dragged out in this building bit of media chaos.

I should note that these are my observations and while I'm posting them, I can't help but think I'm contributing to the situation. When I was with Attrition.org, we often mused that by having a mirror of Web site defacements, we were most likely encouraging script kiddies to do them -a viscious circle. However we also believed that our method of taking the mirrors and immediately notifying Webmasters of defaced sites did a service to those Webmasters and the computer security community at large.

So am I just being a media whore? I'd like to think that my analysis of this story was both nonpartisan and nonbiased. But what if this was Obama's daughter?? Would I have the same interest in exposing her? Is my desire to monitor and record what I believe to be a sociological and media studies event false and misguided? Should I just remove these posts and leave Maya alone due to my guilt regarding the undue invasion of her privacy this is causing? I continue to be torn.

Either way, I continue to hope that Maya's friends and family are incredibly supportive as this story develops and that she comes out of it relatively unscathed...returning back to Brown next year.

Better yet, if her parents continue their refusals to assist her with her college payments than perhaps the very blogging community that brought her story to public light can be the same to work with large groups to create a fund that will pay for her to complete her Brown education.

Things to ponder.

[BrainStream]
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