Originally posted by Toth
Originally posted by why_nutt
All this says is that John and Patsy had no particular desire to build yet another room onto their house for the live-in help, as they had done with their full-time live-in nanny Shirley Brady in Atlanta.
....Was this during the time of Patsy's illness?
No, when the full-time live-in nanny was present, Patsy was in excellent health and not employed. This was well before she was diagnosed with cancer.
The time spent volunteering at the school was a requirement. The school was new and did not yet have enough funding to hire all the teachers and aides it could have used.
...and could not afford to enforce any such requirement either.
Peer pressure is a standard technique. For example, it is how many of the celebrities and high-income parents here in New York can be cajoled into volunteering at the schools their children attend, when said parents would much rather just write a check or send a member of their entourage but the schools want the hands-on involvement of the parents themselves. Roxy Walker and Barb Kostanick were vigorous volunteers at High Peaks/Martin Park, and even unto this day they still are at the schools their children have moved to. It would have made Patsy look bad in their eyes if their dear friend tried to stash her daughter at school and then spent the day doing nothing but getting her hair done at the salon. And if you have read JONBENET'S MOTHER, you will know from the character testimony of her friends, it is clear that Patsy lives to receive approval from her friends. There is not an anecdote in that book where Patsy does not engage in an activity without making sure she receives profuse praise for doing what any other mother would consider an ordinary part of her job. I mean, really, getting profuse compliments from John Andrew for Patsy's helping him cut out paper West Virginias as part of a school project? A thirteen-year-old babysitter could do that.
Church activities? All anyone can say that John and Patsy did for their Boulder church was write a check to pay for the atrium established in Beth's name.
....Apparently that 'anyone' does not include the Pastor.
You know what they say about not biting the hand that feeds you. Hoverstock's literal bread and butter came not from good works done by fervent members of his congregation, but by large donations of money made by the Ramseys and others. In general, though, you must agree that Hoverstock has not been vocal in defending the Ramseys to the extent that others were. He is a notable absence in JONBENET'S MOTHER and all of the Tracey documentaries.
The purpose of the 1994 Christmas house tour was to be ostentatious about their lifestyle, since the house was not designed by any notable architect as other houses on the tour were.
....Apparently the organizers of the tour had no objection.
Why would the organizers object? The purpose of the tour was to raise money. The Ramseys helped them do this. Displays of ostentation and opulence on the part of the Ramseys only made their house a more attractive item for Historic Boulder to present. John even made a point in DOI of writing that the tour guide made the house out to be more opulent than it was, as in attributing an ordinary print to a Renaissance artist, a nice complementary process that matched Patsy's own claim that a marble sideboard came from Tiffany's when it did not.
Patsy did not buy JonBenet an antique Victorian chair costing thousands of dollars because she felt she could find no other less costly item for her child to sit on.
......Whereas all your cars, clothes, furniture are ofcourse selected by standards solely of least cost.
Tsk, Toth. Sarcasm does not become you. Still, we can drag out the definition of opulence ("wealth as evidenced by sumptuous living," "Great abundance; profusion") and say that a multi-thousand dollar chair and six Christmas trees count as opulence, which essentially means your original claim is false, and the Ramseys did like to live an opulent, ostentatious life.
John did not own his own airplane
Airplane ownership has nothing to do with opulence.
What was that definition of opulence again? "Wealth as evidenced by sumptuous living." What is private airplane ownership? An act of demonstration of wealth in the service of sumptuous living ("Sumptuous: Involving large outlay or expense; costly; expensive").
You cannot mean Priscilla herself, who lived a life of leisure (the sort a person can live who has married into a family who own land worth a few million dollars in Aspen), had a stay-at-home spouse to help with the children and who could go to New York anytime she wanted.
Ever hear of the phrase 'land rich, cash poor'?
In the context of farming, yes, but prime Aspen real estate which the Whites have been building on in the past few years does not fall within the usual defintion.
What does her father in law's land holdings have to do with anything?
A well-off relative can ease a person's family's need to seek gainful employment from others. Just ask John Ramsey, who for a while mooched often enough off of the money from Don Paugh's land holdings and the mineral rights thereof in West Virginia.
Stay at home spouse due to what? A trust fund, earned income or an allowance from his father?
Does it matter? I wager that finding a job is not going to be Burke's first priority once he gets hold of the money from his own trust fund. (Unless, of course, it is stocked with little more than the pin money a reasonable person would speculate it contains, given Patsy's implied threat that it would be harmed by paying Burke's own attorney.) John Ramsey himself was eager to be a stay-at-home spouse; his plans as of spring 1997 were to quit Access Graphics and go on to live a life Fleet was already living.
