Prior the making of these posts, a regular on alt.religion.wicca suffered a miscarriage. Raven expressed joy in this. Not surprisingly, the group was almost universally disgusted by her reaction.

Were the expression of disgust as far as the group went, we would have been there with it, as would "Joseph", who is about to enter this story. If one viewed this event, taken out of context, as he did initially, this might seem to be an unforgivable remark on Ms.Blackbane's part. Let us remember, though, that Raven, at this point, had been ganged up on. If one volunteers to join a mob attacking a lone individual, one does pretty much forfeit the right to complain if the one being ganged up on, decides to get mean back.

But the regulars on this group went much further. They attempted to trump up a charge of harassment by telephone, in order to put Blackbane in prison, as they, themselves, acknowledged in their own posts. Sorry, folks, but engaging in a criminal conspiracy in response to a remark, however offensive, crosses the line in the eyes of any reasonable individual. As an examination of the record will show, there were very few of those on a.r.w., late in 1997. This account will be greatly fleshed out later.

One point that bears mentioning ...

One defense to be offered was that Loki had used Call Trace, not Caller ID. Joseph had not heard of the former at the the time, hence his asking about Caller ID (which he had assumed was what Loki meant). On this occasion, though, his excessively cautious nature served him well, because on the phone, he didn't merely ask if one could trace a phone call back, using caller ID, but made sure to ask if there was any way, at all, to do so. The answer given was that there wasn't. The link on the next screen, in which you are invited to not take his or our word for it, will take you to evidence to support this claim.