March 25, 2008

Kevin D. Balmer
[ADDRESS REDACTED]
Portland OR 97218

Happy birthday, Mr. Balmer.

I presume you’ll remember me as the man who contacted you two years ago to discuss my existence and intentions around an acquaintance of yours named Catherine Lynne Carter. As you may know, Ms. Carter lost her mother at an early age, has done a lot of drugs and has certain dramatic fears she sometimes uses to elicit favors and attention. Her grip on strategic and tactical reality is sometimes tenuous (as she demonstrated once by assuming I had sent her a bomb in the mail), and I have reason to believe that in December of 2005 she told you I was a bad person with plans to assault her. I found this insulting both morally (that I would hurt her) and technically (that she could stop me). Various actions immediately thereafter made me suspect you were being used for back-channel communication, so I did an Internet search for you and we met briefly on the morning of March 17, 2006.

If I were one third the monster Carter asserts, it would have made no sense to poke me. My goal in contacting you was to present myself directly to you as a human being, so that you could assess me and discuss the situation as you thought best: face-to-face, man-to-man, what-have-you. I briefly introduced myself and offered to meet for lunch at a time and place of your choosing. Your decision around this was to notify Carter, stoking her fears and supporting her decision to use the court system to brand me as a bad man: some sort of troubled genius who would use my evil skills against her for vague and unspecified reasons (as if thumping on a crazy girl could bring me peace or honor). At the time I did not hold this against you. You believed someone it was necessary for you to trust at the time, serving domestic harmony as best you understood it. But that was then, and this is two years later.

You have had time to consider the situation at length, to re-assess whom I might be and whom Carter is. I did not contact Carter then because I did not think her well, and I have no reason to believe she has improved any. I was (a) offended that she thought I might want to hurt her and (b) disappointed that she felt insulting me in open court would discourage me. When I felt that you were playing butchy-boy on Tribe by posting an avatar of a pointing gun, I was annoyed but made two logical assumptions: (1) that she was crazy and (2) that you were a fool. I now offer you an opportunity to prove me wrong.

As promised immediately after my last embarrassing subpoena, I sent a letter to Bobbie Callahan this past October, advising him that if Carter did not undo this legal insult then I would do so. If I had to pay to defend my reputation in court a third time, I told Callahan, I would not be so gentle and protective of Carter’s dignity. I have been thinking and writing about Carter off and on for years now, and she has introduced a variety of information into the public record which can be used quite legally to paint an unflattering picture of her. Oregon has very strong free-speech protections, and accurate transcripts of court hearings are explicitly exempt from accusations of libel. I think it has been clearly established that I am a creative guy with a lot of skills who respects the law and has a strong sense of self, justice, and right. No?

As a matter of principle I do not thump cripples, but I also do not suffer fools and would rather not let a persistent insult go unanswered. I would encourage you to consider Carter’s mental condition and your own complicity in insulting me. Would you like to see Carter deposed and questioned about the past fifteen years, Mr. Balmer, or be deposed and need to decide about perjuring yourself? I encourage you to have a chat with drug-lawyer Callahan. Ask him what he would do to clear my name and character as (or more) publicly than it has been insulted. You have insulted me, Kevin, and been complicit in further insult. I encourage you to help us both resolve this with quiet dignity by beginning to make amends and/or apologize.

If I do not hear from you by April 21, 2008, I shall begin my legal counter-attack and defense of my narrative as a point of honor. I take no pleasure in humiliating cripples and fools, but feel a certain pain at unanswered calumny.

Your move, Pard.