JonBenet must be laughing at all of us.  In fact, I'm sure she's absolutely cacking herself.  Because she knows we've all fallen into her cruel little trap.  Her sick quest to suck up, vacuum-like, all our available resources of pity.  I'm sure she's chuckling to herself that years after her death we're still talking about the ‘mystery' of how she kicked the bucket. 

JonBenet Ramsey: as evil as whoever dressed her

Sure, it's difficult to understand this urge.  Maybe it's only something people who are similar to JonBenet can comprehend.  Perhaps it's something only someone who's spent four months metaphorically painted and naked on reality television, suffering all manor of indignities in a desperate bid to be famous can understand.

Because let's face it, giving JonBenet so much attention is a waste.  It just doesn't make sense. I mean, quite reasonably, we only have a certain amount of compassion to give – so why waste it on one girl, all in one shot?  Once you've called your Grandma once a week, gone to a charity dinner and bought a chocolate bar for a colleague's kid's school fundraiser, you're pretty much reached the point of mercy madness already.  But then JonBenet comes prowling along.  She comes slinking onto the scene – about as welcome an addition to the national psyche as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. 

Maybe if she could just relinquish the headlines for half a second we could spend some time collectively worrying about black kids living in poverty in South Central Los Angeles.  Or we could have a think about the unattractive, middle-aged junkies whose bloated bodies are discovered days after their deaths in bedsits and boarding homes all across our own great nation.  Perhaps we'd have time to wring our hands at the state-sponsored slaughter going on in the Sudan that we're doing nothing about, or we could furrow our brows at the child prostitution rings operating out of South-East Asia.  We could put the time we give JonBenet into doing something about these problems. 

Because as someone who works in the media, I can tell you the press are desperate to cover these stories.  There are hundreds of media organisations falling over each other to spend the thousands of dollars required to adequately cover stories about complex social problems and uncomfortable political questions.  And there are viewers sitting in their thousands, night after night in front of blank televisions, just waiting for such content to come along so they can tune into it. 

You're going to hear a whole lot of ‘media experts' rail at this.  They're going to tell you the JonBenet story has refused to die because of the simple fact that they've got vast stockpiles of vision of her parading around at beauty pageants.  They're going to tell you that supplies of footage is essential for a network to run any story. 

But they have been fooled as well.  Don't you think JonBenet knew this?  Don't you think she manipulated her parents into stealing her innocent childhood away and parading her prematurely sexualized young body at hundreds of sick beauty pageants, knowing all too well eventually someone would tape it?  Yes?  Good, now you're starting to see. 

And you'll hear a lot of left-wing types say the other reason she's getting all this attention is because she's as cute and Anglo-Saxon as they come.  They'll tell you her death perfectly fits the racist, simplistic, and lazy media formula.  They'll tell you stories about sport, robberies, car crashes and fires are so much easier to cover, give so much better vision and most importantly aren't the least bit challenging.

But don't listen to them.  As I've already explained, the media, our culture and we as individuals have compassion and a keen interest in complex societal problems, and we are desperate to help.  But only if we can ever free ourselves from the evil bonds of caring about one hideously photogenic, Anglo-Saxon girl.  A girl called JonBenet.