-
Pandora’s Problems
June 14, 2013 | 19 comments
-
Story Ideas for a Press Turning Against Obama
May 28, 2013 | 28 comments
-
Is Kleiner Perkins Sorry It Ever Met Al Gore?
May 13, 2013 | 32 comments
-
America’s Oil Revival
February 8, 2013 | 146 comments
-
Want to Stop Violence? Start in Hollywood
January 21, 2013 | 26 comments
Special Report
The Witches of Le Roy
The usual suspects wanted to blame it on the defunct Jell-O factory.
We may think we’ve outgrown the superstitions of the past but every once in a while you read something that tells you it’s all there, waiting to be rediscovered again — the Medieval myth of Prester John, the Christian emperor waiting for us on the other side of Islam (try the Iraqi Shi’ia), the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Jewish or Masonic cabal that secretly controls the world (try Obama’s “1 percent”), or the witch manias of the 17th century — try what has happened over the past few months in the small town of Le Roy, New York.
In a marvelously restrained and insightful article in the New York Times Magazine, Susan Dominus has gently dissected the mania of “twitching girls” that struck this depressed little upstate town outside of Rochester and ended up on national television. Last year, Katie Krautwurst, a high school cheerleader whose mother was about to undergo a brain operation, suddenly came down with an uncontrollable condition. Within a few weeks, Thera Sanchez, her best friend and also a cheerleader, developed the same tics. Soon the mysterious condition had spread across the high school, first among cheerleaders and then to less popular girls — but all of them girls, no boys, no adults.
From the beginning, doctors who examined the girls said the phenomenon was psychological. A specialist from Buffalo offered a diagnosis of “conversion disorder,” a condition in which people subconsciously convert stress into physical symptoms. But of course we live in the age of television and newspaper gossip and so this humbling evaluation was quickly dismissed in favor of a much more fashionable culprit — the environment!
Le Roy has had industry in its history. It was the original hometown of Jell-O. The factory closed in the 1960s but it was industry, after all, and therefore probably doing something harmful. Remember now, this is upstate New York 2012, where industry is basically forgotten. The vast outback, stretching all the way from Newburgh to Buffalo, has the misfortune of being politically dominated by New York City and Albany. There Democrats rule and industry is something to be exploited, if not shunned. The whole state is currently in an uproar over fracking the Marcellus Shale and it looks as if New York will become the only eastern state not to tap the bonanza that is filling the coffers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Were it separated from Metropolitan New York City, upstate would be the second poorest state in the country, right behind Mississippi. In this post-industrial era, created by high taxes and hostile policies, industry — like any stranger — is easy to blame.
So it wasn’t long before Erin Brockovich was in town trying out for her next movie role and assuring everyone that environmental contamination was the likely culprit. Why environmental contamination would only affect teenage girls, particularly cheerleaders, was something left for the newspaper and TV reporters to figure out. And of course they didn’t. So it wasn’t long before the cameras and notebooks were following Brockovich all around, barging onto the school grounds at one point to collect samples proving her theory that a railroad accident that had spilled an organic solvent forty years before must be the perpetrator. When school officials turned them away, there was another TV moment in which Brockovich told CNN, “Usually when I’m confronted by officials barring access to something, they usually have something to hide.” The whole town was in general agreement and soon public officials were hooted down and accused of cover-ups.
From there it was on to the “Today” show where the girls twitched on camera and told their story. By this time they had achieved such notoriety that dozens of other girls at school were twitching too — so much that the early victims were openly accusing the latecomers of faking it. That’s the way things stood a month ago, although recent reports say that the epidemic seems to be dying down.
Dominus, in the gentlest of manners, pushes the hysteria aside and gets to the heart of the matter. Such epidemics are not uncommon, she notes, particularly among teenage girls. “Cheerleaders frequently come up in case histories of mass psychogenic illness at schools, partly because psychogenic outbreaks often start with someone of high social status,” she recounts. “In 2002, 10 students, 5 of them cheerleaders, in a rural town in North Carolina suffered from non-epileptic seizures and fainting spells.” In another instance, a Louisiana cheerleading squad that had embarrassed itself by running on the field at the wrong time suffered an epidemic of fainting that ended up summoning five ambulances.
Dominus quotes Simon Wessely, a London epidemiologist who has studied hundreds of such psychological outbreaks and writes, “Things only go wrong when the nature of an outbreak is not recognized, and a fruitless and expensive search for toxins, fumes and gases begins. Anxiety, far from being reduced, increases. It is only then that long-term psychological problems may develop.” And indeed, some of the girls in Le Roy are now so convinced that they have been permanently damaged by the environment that their condition has become much worse.
But there’s an even sadder side to this whole episode. Somehow the twitching epidemic in Le Roy seems to embody all the pathologies that Charles Murray, in his recent book, Coming Apart, says are rapidly overtaking blue-collar America. As Dominus perceptively notes, the twitching epidemic was wholly confined to girls who are on the outs with their biological fathers. One of the more pathetic victims recounts her most recent memory — a fistfight she had with her father when she was 14. And of course another one of the cheerleaders is well on her way toward a second generation of broken families with her own fatherless child.
Dominus lets them all down easy. A couple of the girls, she notes, have been able to go back to cheerleading. The teenage mother has “put back together” something resembling a family by moving in with the parents of her current boyfriend — who is not the father of her child. But it isn’t going to be that easy. From the looks of things, there’s a whole lot more at stake. On the wall of the bedroom where Katie Krautwurst and Thera Sanchez sit posing for the cover of the magazine is a decal I’ve never seen before. It says, “I (heart) Black People.” On Krautwurst’s night table sits a huge handsome portrait of President Obama, smiling with that implied message: “If your family falls apart, the government is waiting to take you in.”
When teenage girls in Le Roy, New York — who have probably never met more than a handful of African Americans — have abandoned aspirations for their own careers or stable family life and started idealizing the culture of reckless illegitimacy that black people — along with the help of the welfare system — have so successfully popularized, then you can almost feel that tidal wave of dependency starting to gather strength
Letter to the Editor View all comments (64) | Leave a comment
More Articles by William Tucker
More Articles From Special Report
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/23/the-witches-of-le-roy
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
The Spectacle Blog
Democrat Dan Maffei Blames Budget Cuts for Girl’s Rape, Mother’s Murder
Robert Stacy McCain | 4:12PM
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Appleby| 3.23.12 @ 7:22AM
The sole ambition of the ScreenBabies is to get on YouTube or TeeVee and "go viral"...to be "Famous"...regardless of the reason for which this "fame" may come. And today millions of them will be sitting in theatres watching a movie about a reality show in which teenagers slaughter one another for the entertainment of their starving peers.
Nope, nothing wrong with this picture.
Melvin| 3.23.12 @ 8:07AM
Concerning the last part of your post, will there be Lions and Christians?
Appleby| 3.23.12 @ 11:45AM
I don't think the teenagers in question would understand the reference. More likely to be vampires and werwolves, I suspect.
gazinya| 3.25.12 @ 11:26PM
Now that was a good retort! And accurate.
mmercier| 3.23.12 @ 12:09PM
Do not forget about "sick building syndrome".
New buildings, usually schools and courthouses, built on virgin soil, causing mass outbreaks of inexplicable neurological...
disorders
MM| 3.23.12 @ 1:59PM
Disorders that only affect cheerleaders.
Funny, I never considered a cheerleader to be of 'high social status'.
daddio| 3.23.12 @ 3:21PM
Cheerleaders are legends in their own minds. ;)
Quartermaster| 3.23.12 @ 5:22PM
Did you ever attend High School? Ever?
Elaine| 3.24.12 @ 11:44AM
Love your scarf, Mr. Tucker? BeeYOUteefull! Is is Prada?
Dr. X| 3.23.12 @ 7:53AM
I live near there, and I think the whole thing is BS. Rumor among paramedics and deputies in the county is that the schoolkids all smoked "synthetic marijuana" or "spice." I can't verify that, but I'm certian the whole "twitching" thing is bogus, and the Erin Brockovich grandstanding makes me sick.
Melvin| 3.23.12 @ 8:09AM
I noted this to my peers, that the whole thing was teenage mass Social Media hysteria. I was immediately branded a uncaring male chauvinist pig.
By the powers of Zeus I have been vindicated.
bill| 3.23.12 @ 2:17PM
Don't you mean Brockovich's grandstanding makes you twitch?
donserge| 3.23.12 @ 8:30AM
Witchmania hysteria resurfaced from Salem, MA to Le Roy, NY.
mmercier| 3.23.12 @ 12:15PM
I live in olde Salem village.
The people here now are every bit as insane as those who went shithouse crazy back then.
mmercier| 3.23.12 @ 12:23PM
BTW... the witch trials were iniated over the first legal land grab on this continent.
No one knew it was going to spin out of control like it did.
Bruce| 3.23.12 @ 9:11AM
William Tucker needs to make up his mind. Two quotes from the story. 1) "And of course another one of the cheerleaders is well on her way toward a second generation of broken families with her own fatherless child." 2) "The teenage mother has "put back together" something resembling a family by moving in with the parents of her current boyfriend -- who is not the father of her child."
If the child is "fatherless" as cited in 1), it is readily apparent the current boyfriend is not the "father". The child DOES have a father, but he may not be living with the mother or have any interest whatsoever in the child.
Dai Alanye | 3.23.12 @ 1:01PM
It's early yet, but I predict Bruce will win the daily prize for splitting the smallest hair.
RNDMom| 3.23.12 @ 5:26PM
Thank you for making me smile:)
Tina B| 3.23.12 @ 6:51PM
Dai, don't let anyone tell you you are not a funny, funny man.
play nice| 3.24.12 @ 5:14PM
rch
Quartermaster| 3.23.12 @ 5:24PM
Ok, "Sperm donor." Does that fix it for you?
The Bruce| 3.23.12 @ 10:40PM
Bruce,
I really don't think that needle needs threading.
gearjammer| 3.23.12 @ 9:21AM
Brokovich, Silkwood, that nasty blonde in the Libby frame job.
all part of the same conspiracy to brainwash millions against people and instutions that made America great. All glamorized by movies and Sean Hannity says we shouldn't cancel Hbo and the rest of the media garbage.. Somehow afraid this type of economic revolt will hurt Fox bottom line too. Tough shit. These forces of media hollywood and the rest are committing some kind of treason are they not ? They call it raising awareness and elevatin social conscious and fighting for human and social justice-it is treason. They need to pay. Boycott these monsters-the enemey.
mmercier| 3.23.12 @ 12:35PM
The media is committing suicide.
The actual participants in actual treason will finish their last day, starving in the dark in a gated community.
They will live longer than most... a month or so.
gearjammer| 3.23.12 @ 5:55PM
They are committting murder-murder of our nation. They will survive and rule.
Tina B| 3.23.12 @ 6:52PM
Doin it.
FastJohnny| 3.23.12 @ 9:25AM
Teenage girls suddenly afflicted with some twitching illness that gets them national recognition: what could possibly be the perpetrator? I have never seen a teenage girl look for attention or recognition or a teenage girl that is over emotional or one that over dramatizes things. Gee, it must be something other than attention getting, right? Hmm, suddenly I can not control my impulse to write sarcastic things, must be some sort of industrial poisoning, call the media and get me in front of a camera, I just can't control what my hands are typing on the keyboard.
DG in GA| 3.23.12 @ 10:13AM
Gee Fast Johnny, you should be writing for the New York Times - or maybe the New England Journal of medicine.
I wonder what environmental toxin has teenaged girls using the word "like" as a verbal pause every two or three words in their sentences? We desperately need to find and eradicate that one!
mmercier| 3.23.12 @ 12:41PM
Admit it boys... We all love twitching teenage females.
They are well aware of this reality.
KyMouse| 3.23.12 @ 3:24PM
One of the original Salem witch trials' gals later confessed, "It were for sport."
I recommend Marion Starkey's book "The Devil in Massachusetts" for anyone who wants to do a little time traveling. Since her writing of that interesting book in, I think, 1949, new facts have come to light, but it's still my favorite examination of what went on. Her writing is good, too.
Sparch| 3.23.12 @ 10:31AM
Who is Erin Brockovich other than the feminist Jesse Jackson. Showing up at all environmental miscarrages of justice to utter the contempt for the windmills to be fought.
I am sorry for the girls that they have fallen into this psychological trap. Hope they find their way out.
Skippy| 3.24.12 @ 2:15PM
Erin the media whore has only 2 reasons why people pay any attention to her at all.
Thunderbottom| 3.23.12 @ 11:07AM
So Erin Brockovitch thought she could burnish her social-progressive legal credentials (and make another pile of money) by blaming these girls' mysterious twitching symptoms on a Jello plant that's been shuttered for over 40 years. Glad to hear that that ploy imploded. When I hear her name (as well as those of Gloria Allred, Valerie Plame, Soledad O'Brien, and Sandra Fluke), I swear I can hear the clatter of cloven hooves in the background.
Tina B| 3.23.12 @ 6:55PM
Yes, and they ride by night.
ebonystone| 3.24.12 @ 1:05AM
Probably couldn't find any high-voltage power lines nearby, and so had to settle for a defunct Jello plant. Funny, though, it took over 40 years for the Jello toxins to start their work.
--------------------
And investigators are missing the obvious -- the picture of the Mighty Obama. That would cause a lot of people to start twitching.
Ned the Red| 3.23.12 @ 11:11AM
Just spread the rumor that all the twitching is caused by a rare form of crabs or head lice, and it's my guess all of it will stop most ricky tick.
Tim the Enchanter| 3.23.12 @ 3:22PM
That probably WAS the real cause!
Cynicon Implant| 3.23.12 @ 11:31AM
Like, OMG! Like I can't believe this is happening. It's, like, I was so texting my BFF the other day and she was, like, no way did you see Shawna twitching and stuff? It was so, like, creepy and then like, my arm started doing stuff on its own and I was, like, so scared. My Mom told her boyfriend yesterday morning in bed that she heard it was cuz we are, like, getting poisoned by something that some company spilled onto the ground.
Lizard King| 3.23.12 @ 12:18PM
Fascinating story! So sadly emblematic of many ills dis-easing our 21st century republic. Contagious vapors, rampant statism, feminism, leftism and delusional group-think all fancied by a Demcratic party unhinged from the realty of natural laws. The USA has entered an era of mass hysteria, politically, economically and spiritually. Our fiscal vulnerability will expose our middle class to competition with the hungry seething masses in Asia and India over the next 50years. This brutal "reality test" will likely reframe our personal and political prioities.
Tina B| 3.23.12 @ 6:56PM
Let the real Hunger Games begin!
cicero| 3.23.12 @ 3:06PM
Now, now. Let's look at this as though we were a juror in a liability lawsuit. Remember when you were a kid, and mom would make a big bowl of Jello? When you would rap the side of the bowl with a wooden spoon, what would happen? The Jello in the bowl would "twitch". Well, there you go. You guys are just too cynical.
KyMouse| 3.23.12 @ 3:36PM
Best laugh I've had all day, cicero -- thanks!
Ben Gay| 3.23.12 @ 3:44PM
Le Roy was also known for its factories that manufactured rubber balls and liquor.
cicero| 3.23.12 @ 4:22PM
Oh, joy. Multiple defendants. A trial lawyer's (I am one of those guys) delight.
Will Stevens| 3.23.12 @ 7:35PM
My wife started twitching after having jello shots at the local Moose lodge. Could that be related to the cheerleaders illness? Probably have to invite Ms. Brockovich to the next function.
BackToBasics| 3.23.12 @ 8:32PM
from the article - "We may think we've outgrown the superstitions of the past but every once in a while you read something that tells you it's all there, waiting to be rediscovered again."
I am not sure how William Tucker is making the connection with the girls in LeRoy by citing superstition.
Why is it called superstition when people suspect that the elite want ever more control and power and money? Look at America; the country is slightly center-right in total but the elites from both parties range from communists and socialists to center left RINOs and yet they've had the run of DC since Reagan left office. The still more conservative populace is totally ignored except for the few months before elections when the elites call themselves "severe conservatives" or Obam's focusing like a laser on jobs, etc.
BackToBasics| 3.24.12 @ 12:44PM
Obam's laser focus on jobs must be a cutting laser.
BackToBasics| 3.23.12 @ 9:11PM
I think the possibilities of what happened to these girls range from being totally false in that they are acted out, to being just an attention-getting ploy to the possibility that the girls were involved in witchcraft and had negative reactions to this involvement.
Negative effects of witchcraft may or may not be the answer to this phenomenon. Yet, in any case one of the big secrets in America is the fact that fairly large percentages of teenage girls are involved in witchcraft; more than is generally admitted to or believed. The counterpoint for boys would be role-playing games.
There are many who would make light of this problem but that doesn't mean that the problem does not exist. Witchcraft being practiced by many teenage girls is actually somewhat of a taboo subject as are most assaults on Americans lives, families and traditions.
Why is it a taboo or considerd politically incorrect to speak about it? It's considerd so since it is one more way in which the country and its people are weakened further. The left wants to weaken the nation and the left fully understands that if problems cannot be discussed, then they cannot be solved. Unsolved problems ensure their ultimate control.
The Bruce| 3.23.12 @ 10:43PM
Look. You can't simply proclaim it to be Witchmania. Nowhere in the article did I read any reference to large scales or, more importantly, a DUCK.
(Sorry, a lot of you might not get that reference.)
EVB | 3.23.12 @ 11:16PM
Who are you so learned in the ways of science?
EVB | 3.24.12 @ 12:45AM
Correction - Who are you so wise in the ways of science?
The Bruce| 3.24.12 @ 11:05PM
I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
markenoff| 3.24.12 @ 8:31PM
Can you explain again how sheeps' bladders can be used to prevent earthquakes?
BackToBasics| 3.25.12 @ 5:50PM
"Monty Python" is funny but it doesn't have the answers for the problems facing these girls. As I said in my post, this problem may or may not be due to witchcraft and that may would make light of or even ridicule this problem.
But the problems facing young people including dabbling in or more serious involvement in witchcraft, role-playing games etc. are more a problem for the church to deal with. I'm not advocating government solutions here, just mentioning that there is a problem and it is swept under the rug for a number of reasons I won't go into.
I've held secular jobs since college but I also spent about 25 years doing part time ministry work. I've seen the problems caused by this involvement first hand. It is not a choice that brings the happiness and fulfillment the practitioners are hoping for. In some cases the negative effects are serious and the people involved cannot even hold down jobs or have a decent family lives. I wish the church would deal with it more effectively and seriously. this would not be a prioroty outside the church but there too, it is something better taken seriously than ridiculed.
Russell| 3.24.12 @ 2:25AM
Is their a vaccine for Krautwurst-Wurzelbacher syndrome?
Clint| 3.24.12 @ 8:55AM
Sounds Like The Girls Got Hold Of Some Bad Whiskey.
Tina B| 3.24.12 @ 9:46AM
Hysteria?
Petronius| 3.24.12 @ 11:25AM
Some story. Now if one of those girls had been turned into Newt...?
markenoff| 3.24.12 @ 8:32PM
She got better.
MyGirlFriday| 3.25.12 @ 3:40PM
I believe that these young girls are looking for love in all the wrong places. And have way to much time on their hands. Navel gazing is both addictive and highly contagious.
Paul A'Barge| 3.26.12 @ 3:03PM
Twitching.
Sigh. Why is it never spontaneous orgasms?
sparkylou| 3.26.12 @ 5:22PM
Wow dude, you are just as stupid as that Susan chick. Do you guys have any morals. These kids are going through hell, and all you can do is blame it on their way of living. Some people have it rough, and are not perfect, but that does not mean they would make this up just to get attention. Reporters like you and Susan should be banned from any news articles. Start reading other stories, and maybe you could be able to comprehend the fact that these kids have real health issues.