Suggests the Times of London,

For the public, the most obviously shocking aspect of the case was the fact that George was a woman, a mother, and had therefore behaved in every way contrary to the instinctive nurturing role with which it is generally assumed most women are born. There was further disbelief and outrage when it transpired that George had also posted naked images of her own 14-year-old daughter online, together with a handful of smutty, sexual comments.

While it's certain that the molestation of small children - particularly in a child-care professional - would appall us regardless of the sex of the perpetrator, is it true that there's an extra element of shock when it's a woman? And does it make it more horrifying, or less if, as the defense claims, George was committing the crimes to satisfy a man's sick predilections rather than her own desires? Isn't this a sickness in itself, and just as potentially harmful to victims? Acknowledging a difference in psychology of perpetrators is not to place any less blame.

Continues the article,

Certainly, as a phenomenon, it feels unfamiliar, something the media didn't report until recently and whose existence was denied even in psychiatric circles until the 1980s - in the same way that incest was denied until 20 years before that. But even now, when similar cases surface all the time, there is a public reluctance to get to grips with the underlying meaning of such crimes. It is a reluctance which, say the female psychiatrists who have done the most to understand such cases, not only gets in the way of effective treatment and implementing preventative measures but is at heart a denial of female agency, sexuality and capacity for violence.

If indeed a systemic denial of female sexuality generally and its deviations specifically is at work, it may be true, as some have claimed, that sexual violence by women is under-reported. The fact is that a woman's abuse is simply not going to result in the stark physical end that a Fritzl's is. But it's also true that, while - to take an example quoted by the Times - Nancy Garrido did not physically impregnate Jaycee Dugard, she was wholly complicit in her kidnapping and active imprisonment. I was concerned to read, immediately, a piece, "the hidden face of female depravity" - decrying the widespread, hidden evil of women; this is not an open call for Biblical misogyny, and the simple truth is that even if it is under-reported, violent sexual abuse is not as common amongst women. But not acknowledging the issue is, ironically, doing everyone a disservice - and, it need not be said, particularly any young victims.

Vanessa George And The Evil That Women Do [Times of London]
Nursery Worker Vanessa George: Women And Child Sex Abuse [Telegraph]< a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1217800/The-Vanessa-George-case-reveals-hidden-face-female-depravity.html">The Vanessa George Case Reveals The Hidden Face Of Female Depravity [Daily Mail]

The story of twelve-year-old "Luca" would be extreme in any country. According to Jeff Israely of Time, his parents divorced soon after he was born, and his dad wasn't allowed to see him for nine years. His mother and grandparents seem to have kept him essentially on lockdown, letting him leave the house for school but not to play with friends, do sports, or even go to church. They sent him to school with snacks precut in bite-size pieces, and apparently did so much for him that he was "physically and psychologically stunted." His lawyer, Andrew Marzola, says, "He didn't know how to run. He had the motor skills of a 3-year-old child."

Luca's mother and grandfather have already been convicted of child abuse, and his grandmother is still facing charges. It's a complicated case, given that the family is charged not with neglect but with overinvolvement, with harming a child by trying to help him. Is it really child abuse if your parenting techniques damage a child's ability to live in the world? Don't many parents unintentionally end up doing this?

These questions may have larger implications for Italy, which is facing an epidemic of mammone, or mama's boys. A number of factors contribute to this supposed problem. Ethno-clinical psychologist Henriette Felici-Bach claims that, "In Germany, children are educated from early on to [execute] a task on their own from beginning to end. In southern [European] countries, children are dependent on what people tell them to do." And Italian culture and history may encourage an especially strong bond between mother and children because of Catholicism, economic insecurity, and a long string of weak governments that forced people to rely only on their families for support. 37% of Italian men between 30 and 34 still live with their mothers, and economist Enrico Moretti says, "Italians, unlike parents from most other countries, like living with their grown children."

The case of Luca — and of older mammone, if they are in fact rampant — seems to illustrate the pitfalls of the kind of closeness with parents we discussed yesterday. But why are men more likely to be affected? Israely doesn't really discuss this, other than to point out that Italian women are "statistically less susceptible" to being "hyper-coddled." Maybe that's because daughters are less favored in Italy than sons, or because, as we see in American commercials, it's less acceptable to be childlike and incompetent as a woman than as a man. While women in America are certainly expected to look like teenagers forever, and sometimes to behave in ways that are cute or juvenile, it's not really considered that charming for us to fail to pick up after ourselves. In America as in Italy, men may get more of a pass in this area.

So could Luca's case go to trial in America? Israely makes the obligatory gesture toward American "helicopter parents," saying, "modern society is producing ever more overinformed, overanxious and overprotective parents, blamed for causing or exacerbating all sorts of problems in their children, from learning disabilities to teenage anorexia." But being blamed for these problems isn't the same as actually causing them, and it seems much harder to prove that an overprotective parent actually hurt a child than that an abusive one did. And where would we draw the line between merely ill-advised parenting tactics and actual abuse? Helicopter parenting may not give kids anorexia (I'm especially skeptical on this point), but as Felici-Bach says, "If you don't let your child discover the world, it can do real harm." However, the solution to this problem, at least in America, probably isn't in the courts.

In Italy, A Mamma Accused Of Doting Too Much [Time]

• The marriage application of a gay couple was rejected by Russian courts on the grounds that marriage is between a man and a woman, despite the fact that there is no ban on same-sex marriage in Russian law. They bought tickets to Canada, where they plan to get hitched. • In the 1960s, William R. ("Randy") Lovelace, II and General Donald Flickinger set out to test whether women were suited to space travel. Over the course of their investigation, they found that women had the lung capacity to survive in space. Although most of their data has been lost, a recent paper published in Advances in Physiology rediscovers the story of the Women in Space program. •  Serena Williams has reclaimed her spot at No. 1 after she beat Ekaterina Makarova in the second round of the China Open on Tuesday. "It feels pretty good, I'm really excited," she said. •  If you're in the market for an XBOX 360 autographed by Sarah Palin, there's one selling on eBay for $1.1 million. According to the description, "The infamous Sarah Palin XBOX 360 was autographed at the governors picnic on July 24, 2009, in Wasilla, Alaska, just two days before her resignation as governor of that state. You can own this 60GB, perfect-condition, one-of-a-kind item before her expected run for president of the United States of America in 2012." • According to a UN Children's Fund report five percent of boys and up to 10 percent of girls in rich nations experience penetrative sexual abuse during childhood. Up to three times as many experience some form of sexual abuse. • U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a new report that the international community needs to invest in women and girls even though the economy is bad. He wrote, "Maintaining national commitments to children and women and enhancing social protection will not only help to ensure a more rapid recovery from the (financial) crisis but will also build a foundation for equitable growth and sustained progress. • Police have admitted that they got a tip about Jaycee Dugard only a year after she was kidnapped, 17 years before she was found. A man reported that he'd seen a girl who looked like Dugard looking at a poster about her abduction at a gas station near Antioch, California and had left in a yellow van. Officers just checked the gas station and didn't find Dugard or the van. • A bill has been introduced in the District of Columbia that would allow gay couples to marry in the capitol. The bill is almost certain to pass, but it may not become a law because Congress gets to review D.C. legislation before it takes effect. • More than 2 million babies and mothers die worldwide each year from childbirth complications, according to a study by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Doctors say such deaths could be avoided with improvements in basic health care and training for local health care workers to perform emergency Cesarean sections and other lifesaving techniques. • Egypt's most senior cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi, is preparing to issue a Fatwa against women wearing the niqab, the full length garment that covers the body from head to toe, in schools. On a recent trip to a girl's high school he asked a girl wearing a niqab to take it off, saying it's a "tradition, it has no connection with Islam." • £700 micro pigs are all the rage among Britain's top celebrities, such as Rupert Grint. "They are highly intelligent and are the fourth most intelligent species after man, monkey and dolphin," says pig breeder Jane Croft. "They really are the perfect pets, I don't know why people haven't thought of them before." • Pilot "Sully" Sullenberger, St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan, and Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Clay Zavada among the 18 finalists for the "Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year," the American Mustache Institute's highest honor. •

1.) Janice Dickinson
The Insider has a new format sort of based on The View's "Hot Topics," in which the "news" correspondents and a celebrity guest debate bullshit tabloid stuff. The show describes it as "entertainment news with opposing views." Janice Dickinson was the guest on Wednesday, and they really need to just give her the job permanently, because she has finally found her perfect calling.

On Jon Gosselin:

On Whitney Houston:

On confusing saying the word "jackass" and acting like one:

2.) Bobby Brown's body is "pure"

What does Janice think of him?

3.) New Judge Judy episodes!
It's been a cruel summer without some new JJ. Thankfully the new season has returned to dispense the most practical advice in the world.

4.) "Get off your period, dude."
On The Real World: Cancun reunion show, Emilee almost got all L7.

5.) Police work stinks for women

6.) Why did Kim look like Dracula's girlfriend?

Oh, and of course, this.

7.) "Get ready for the fashion show!"

8.) They're just not that into you.
On True Life: I'm Polyamorous, three gay men were in one relationship with each other, but one of them is totally the outcast.

The outcast's solution was to add one more guy into the mix, to a balance. Once he found a suitable candidate, he brought him home to meet his boyfriends, and it all worked out for the best.

9.) How not to raise children.

10.) Paula Abdul

She needs a pageant mom for some stability.

Today, Nujood lives with her family in a two room house in an impoverished suburb of Sana'a. She does not go to school, and, according to Paula Newton for CNN, she has changed from being a bubbly, happy child to a rather angry and sullen girl (although, who wouldn't after suffering so much abuse?). She sits down grudgingly for an interview, during which she laments the fact that she made her story public:

"There is no change at all since going on television. I hoped there was someone to help us, but we didn't find anyone to help us. It hasn't changed a thing. They said they were going to help me and no one has helped me. I wish I had never spoken to the media," Nujood says bitterly.

But one important thing has changed for Nujood. She is no longer married to her much older "husband," at whose hand she suffered horrible physical and emotional abuse. After a few weeks of being beaten and raped, Nujood turned to her family for help, but her parents told her that she belonged to her husband now, and so they could no longer protect her. Desperate to leave, Nujood hailed a taxi and traveled to the city's central courthouse, where she sat on a bench and demanded to see a judge. Fortunately, the judge believed Nujood's story, and granted her a divorce (under Yemen law it is legal for a 30-year-old pedophile to marry a child, but just as long as he leaves her alone until she is "mature," something we somehow doubt she gets to decide). Unfortunately, the legal system in Yemen does not punish men who have sex with 8-year-old children under the name of "marriage," and instead required Nujood's father to pay her former husband over $200 in compensation.

Nujood's story made her briefly famous, and people everywhere celebrated her victory. Her family hoped that Nujood's fame might pay off for them as well, but so far, they have received little cash for her suffering. The money that has been donated to Nujood was intended to pay for tuition at a private school, but according to Shada Nasser, the human rights lawyer who worked on her divorce, Nujood refuses to attend, and her family refuses to force her. Nasser believes that Nujood is being victimized by her family, punished for not bringing in more money.

30 years ago, Khadije Al Salame was a child bride herself. Now, Salame is a Yemeni diplomat who is working to help Nujood get her life back on track. She tells CNN, "It's good to talk about Nujood and to have her story come out, but the problem is it's too much pressure on her. She doesn't understand what's going on." It is interesting to see Salame's quote alongside an interview with Nujood, especially since she goes on to say this: "She's a little girl and we have to understand as a media people that we should leave her alone now." Although Nujood has been made into a symbol of bravery and courage, she is still just a young, confused girl. Hopefully, this will be the last interview for Nujood, at least until she is older and more in control of her life. "If we really love Nujood then we should just let her go to school and continue with her life, because education is the most important thing for her."

Child Bride's Nightmare After Divorce [CNN]

Related: 8-Year-Old In Yemen Takes Abusive 30-Year-Old Husband To Court, And Wins!, 8-Year-Old Yemeni Girl Wins Divorce From Gross Husband

The 2,600 page report details the casual and ritualized abuse that occurred in more than 200 schools from the 1930s to the 1990s. The report was produced by a a state-run commission which has been hearing testimony from 1,060 former students and studying church records of unreported abuse cases for the past nine years.

The mostly church-run schools were established to care for neglected, orphaned or abandoned children, but the report reveals that the roughly 30,000 children who attended the schools were often sent there by priests who put pressure on their families. Children who were born out of wedlock, whose parents couldn't afford them, or had committed a petty crime like stealing food were often sent away to the reformatories. Many of the victims, who are now 50 to 80 years old, say they did not learn who their parents were until they were adults, and many said their parents tried unsuccessfully to reclaim them.

"A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions," the report says. Sexual abuse was "endemic" in the boys schools, and the report describes dozens of ways the boys were physically abused on a regular basis, including:

Punching, flogging, assault and bodily attacks, hitting with the hand, kicking, ear pulling, hair pulling, head shaving, beating on the soles of the feet, burning, scalding, stabbing, severe beatings with or without clothes, being made to kneel and stand in fixed positions for lengthy periods, made to sleep outside overnight, being forced into cold or excessively hot baths and showers, hosed down with cold water before being beaten, beaten while hanging from hooks on the wall, being set upon by dogs, being restrained in order to be beaten, physical assaults by more than one person, and having objects thrown at them.

Though the abuse was more severe in the boys' schools, girls were also subjected to routine sexual abuse, often by more than one person at a time, and ritualized beatings. Some of the schools were essentially workhouses, and at one girls were given daily quotas of how many hundreds of rosaries they had to string per day.

The report reveals that the government and the Catholic Church conspired to cover up the abuse, creating a "culture of silence." Ireland's Department of Education would announce their cursory inspections and let the church handle accusations of abuse internally. Perpetrators were usually just transferred to other institutions. The Washington Post reports that in one school two people charged with abuse continued to care for children for 14 years without the authorities taking steps to remove them.

The report was delayed because the Christian Brothers, the religious order that ran many of the boys' schools, sued successfully to have the abusers' names omitted. Many victims are furious, because the omission means that the report can't be used as a basis for prosecutions. According to The Los Angeles Times, leaders of the religious orders have claimed that victims exaggerated the abuse, and argued that according to the standards of the day, the sexual abuse of children wasn't considered a criminal offense but a moral failing. However, the report points out that when laypeople were accused of child abuse the clergy would turn the cases over to the police.

The Irish government has paid $87,000 on average to 12,000 victims in compensation so far, but many of the former students have refused the money because it would require them to waive their right to sue their abusers.

"We expected that these people would be named and shamed and that some of them would be convicted," said John Barrett, who testified before the commission about the abuse he suffered at a school for boys with learning disabilities in the 1960s. He added, "At the end of the day, some of us won't sleep tonight. We're still nowhere near the truth."

Report Details Abuses In Irish Reformatories [The New York Times]
Irish Panel Documents Physical, Sexual Abuse At Schools From 1930 To 1990 [The Washington Post]
Irish Church: Children Beaten, Abused At Catholic-Run Schools In Ireland [The Los Angeles Times]

Related: 'Endemic' Rape And Abuse Of Irish Children In Catholic Care, Inquiry Finds [Guardian]
Brutality And Dire Conditions In Climate Of Fear [Irish Times]

McReynolds, as she told the Washington Post, says that she was first offered money for sex at the age of 13. What wasn't in the Post story was that she was given the money by a family friend, who invited her over when his wife wasn't home. She says she never really considered herself a prostitute, telling NPR's listeners, "I just thought I was having sex for money." But sex for money led to drug abuse, which led to more sex for money: what went from servicing men in her social group quickly became street prostitution when she needed an easy way to support a burgeoning heroin habit.

Harrison's path to prostitution came around somewhat differently: she began having sex at 12 with members of a (somewhat) older peer group she met while partying, going to clubs, drinking and doing drugs. She began having sex for money — she, too, never thought of herself as a prostitute — within her social circle to get things (money, drugs, etc.). But as her substance abuse spiraled out of control, she turned to prostitution to support her habits, her basic needs and the lifestyle she wished to keep living.

Both women said that, in their heads, they expected that, eventually, they would end up leading some sort of glamorous life — and Harrison specifically references the idea that she expected that the end of Pretty Woman was always just around the next corner. Instead, she and McReynolds ended up in the court system, as addicts and, in McReynold's case, infected with HIV.

The saddest uplifting part, of many sad parts, of the interview is when Harrison talks about how, in participating in McReynolds' program, she learned that she didn't have to rely on men for self-esteem or to live her life.

"I must say, in the beginning, my self esteem was very low. And for me to start working on the outside part of me was a big plus for me. For the ladies, when I would arrive at the group, the ladies would give me compliments. It wasn't from men. It was from the ladies. 'You look nice," or this and that, this and that. It boosted my self esteem up, it was not from a man, and I considered what the the ladies were saying was genuine. They didn't want nothing in return. I didn't have to do anything. And that's what I received from the program. As I was receiving the information, I kind of allowed myself to open up. It helped me with learning how to... you know, no situation's gonna occur on the street that I don't have to listen to a man, or I don't need a man to tell me that you look good. I don't need someone to pick up and ask me if I need a ride. I can get to where I'm going without that now. You know, always finding a shortcut, it always leads to, at least for me, always going back to the same old life — partying, drinking, having sex.

Both of the women talked about how prostitution, and the seemingly easy money they earned from it, made it hard to let go of the lifestyle, despite the damage it did to them in other ways — in the Post article, McReynolds says intimacy issues stemming from her years of prostitution helped end her marriage. For both women, the key to leaving the lifestyle was realizing that they had value to themselves — and to other people — outside of their ability to be sexual.

So, now go tell another woman she looks nice today. And be sincere.

Prostitution A Difficult Job To Escape [NPR]

Earlier: Helping Women Help Themselves

Primoff's twelve-year-old daughter managed to chase the car and get back in, but her ten-year-old was left behind and — in an especially pathetic wrinkle — "was eventually comforted by a passer-by who bought her an ice cream and contacted the police." Primoff, an international finance lawyer, was charged with misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child, and is due in court May 21. As the Times points out, what might once have been merely a local story has become an online pillorying. Perhaps most egregiously, AOL chose to include Primoff's picture in a photo slideshow of abusive parents, including Shana Brown, who drugged her thirteen-year-old daughter so Brown's boyfriend could impregnate her.

Does the Internet just flatten everything out, so that a parenting misstep gets the same outrage as child rape? Or is Primoff coming in for worse criticism because of her high-powered career? Romi Lassally at the Huffington Post thinks so. She writes:

It's no surprise that Madlyn Primoff, a high-powered attorney from a high-income neighborhood is the latest to join the Bad Mother Club. Women like Primoff are expected to kick butt at work with a Fembot-like smile while simultaneously ruling the kitchen in an apron and high heels cooking organic dinners for the whole family.

Linda Lowen at about.com bears this argument out, writing, "The mom, Madlyn Primoff, should have known better. Especially as she's a prominent 45-year-old Park Avenue attorney and a partner at a well-respected law firm in New York City." But do the interwebs really have higher expectations of wealthy career women? In a comment on Lassally's HuffPo piece, Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform begs to differ:

every year thousands of impoverished children are torn from loving parents who've done far less to their children than the emotional trauma Primoff inflicted on her daughters. Just a few miles away from where Primoff kicked her kids out of the car, in the Bronx, for example, the child of a subway station token booth clerk was forced to endure months of foster care solely because her mother had to leave him home alone for a short time after school. It was the only way the mother - by all accounts, an exemplary, loving parent - could keep her job.

Wexler goes on to argue that Primoff's punishment was appropriate, that removing children from their parents is often an overreaction, and that "my fellow liberals keep forgeting everything they claim to believe about civil liberties every time someone whispers the words 'child abuse' in their ears." His words hint at something disturbing — do we trivialize real child abuse, like the terrible actions of Shana Brown, when we flip out over people like Primoff? And by branding Primoff as a "bad mommy," do we set a standard by which less wealthy, less powerful families are broken up without good reason? Like Lassally, we hope "the public scrutiny fixated upon [Primoff] will further expose motherhood for the truly complex job that it is" — rather than drawing more shame down on moms who aren't perfect.

Atwitter About a Mom in Scarsdale [NYT]
Madlyn Primoff and the Branding of a Bad Mommy [Huffington Post]
Mad Mom Madlyn Primoff Kicks Bickering Daughters Out of Car Then Drives Away [Linda's Women's Issues Blog, about.com]
Mom Allegedly Ejects Girls, Drives Off [AOL]

As mentioned earlier, Fritzl, 73, changed his plea on day three of his trial, saying he was guilty of all charges, including murdering by neglect one of the seven children he fathered while he imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in a homemade basement dungeon for 24 years. He initially denied murdering Michael, a twin born in the cellar, by refusing to get him medical treatment. He changed his plea on Wednesday after seeing his daughter in court, according to The Telegraph. He burst into tears and told the jury, "I regret from the bottom of my heart what I did to my family. Unfortunately I can't make amends for it. I can only try to find ways to limit the damage that has been done."

Fritzl was found guilty on all counts, including murder, rape, incest, false imprisonment and coercion in a unanimous verdict, reports Telegraph. He was also the first man convicted of slavery in Austria. Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said his client would not appeal the ruling and that it was "the logical consequence of his guilty plea."

Judge Andrea Humer told Frizl he would serve his life sentence in "a psychiatric unit for people with an abnormality of mind." However, according to The Telegraph, if he responds to treatment and is considered rehabilitated he will be transferred to a normal prison and be eligible for parole in 15 years. Under Austrian law, sentences are served concurrently not consecutively, and his longest sentence for the murder of his child carries a 15 year sentence. A spokesmen for the court said Fritzl could be released even sooner if transferred. "As he has already served 11 months on remand, that would go down to 14 years from now," said Franz Cutka, vice president of the court. Many criticized the court's decision, but Cutka said the Austrian justice system aims at "bringing the offenders back within the norms of society" rather than just punishing criminals.

Either way, Fritzl will have a much more comfortable life than the one he provided to his children in his cellar. During his imprisonment in the hospital unit at Mittersteig prison in Vienna, Fritzl will have his own cell with a shower, color TV, and personal computer, and be allowed to keep a pet. He will share a sitting room, kitchen, and outdoor garden with other inmates and be allowed to study a foreign language through the prison's learning center.

Rudolf Mayer, Fritzl's lawyer, said, "He doesn't mind where he goes. It's not like it's a hotel but he would like a prison close to home because it may be that relatives will go to see him." It's hard to imagine though what relatives would come see him. His sister-in-law, Christine Renner, said after hearing of the comparatively comfortable conditions in the psychiatric center, "What right does he have to live like this after all he has destroyed?" She added, "They should have put him in a pit, put a lid on it, locked it and thrown away the key."

As for Fritzl's wife Rosemarie, she has started divorce proceedings and was not called as a witness in the trial or questioned as a possible accomplice, reports Time, because the chief investigator said, "no wife would be able to accept such a thing if she had any knowledge about it." Elisabeth Fritzl has the right to bring a civil suit against Fritzl but Austrian officials say there are no plans to change any laws as a result of this case. Austria's social services never properly investigated when Elisabeth first ran away from home at 16 to escape her father's sexual abuse, police didn't question Fritzl's story that she'd joined a cult after he imprisoned her two years later, and the courts allowed him to adopt the three "upstairs children" that he said Elisabeth left on his doorstep over the years. However, there will be no official inquires into failures by the authorities that could have spared Elisabeth from her 24 years of imprisonment and torture.

Josef Fritzl Will Be Locked Up In Comfort [The Telegraph]
Josef Fritzl Trial: Loophole Means Fritzl Could Be Released In 14 Years [The Telegraph]
Austria Hastens to Close the Book on Ugliest Abuse Case [Time]

Earlier: Fritzl Trial Day 3: Josef Fritzl Pleads Guilty On All Counts

• According to The Independent, Fritzl once again entered court holding a blue folder in front of his face, and held it up for 10 minutes until cameramen were ordered to leave the courtroom.
• Prosecutor Christians Burkheiser told the jury the ceiling of Fritzl's cellar was only five feet from the ground and that the cellar itself had no heat, no shower, no warm water, and hardly any ventilation for the first nine years Elisabeth was imprisoned there. Burkheiser said:
  

  He kept his daughter in a room that measured only 11sq meters for nine years. That is just about the size of the jury box you are sitting in .... In the summer it was blisteringly hot. In the winter it was freezing cold. Nobody can really imagine what went on down there.

• Burkheiser said that during the first few years of her imprisonment, Frtizl never spoke to his daughter, he just randomly entered the room and raped her. "He would turn down the lights, rape her and then turn the lights back up," she said. After the children were born, Fritzl raped her repeatedly in front of them. Elisabeth was kept in the cellar in complete darkness and without electricity for periods of up to 10 days.
• Fritzl told Elisabeth that he had installed three locking doors and electronically operated light barriers which would flood the cellar with gas if she tried to escape.
• A few weeks before Elisabeth was due to give birth to their first child, Fritzl gave her a dirty mattress, a filthy blanket, and an old book about childbirth.
• The Guardian reports that Burkheiser told the jury she didn't feel the full impact of the cellar prison until she visited it herself. She said:
  

  I've seen the cellar dungeon twice. It has a morbid atmosphere, which starts with having to crawl in on your hands and knees through the 83cm entranceway. And it's sinister. It's really bad. It's incredibly damp, a damp that creeps into you after just a few minutes.

  She continued:
  

  "But do you know what the worst thing was? The uncertainty: when will he return, when will he turn on the electricity, when will he go again, what will happen if he doesn't return?"

  She said Elisabeth's life in the cellar could be encapsulated in the sentence: "Light out. Rape. Light on. Mould. Rape. In front of the children. The uncertainty. Birth. Death. Rape."

• Fritzl's defense attorney, Rudolf Mayer, shocked the court by claiming that Fritzl was a caring family man, according to The Mirror. Mayer said:
  

  A man who put so much effort into keeping two families cannot be called a monster. If I only want a daughter as a sex slave, I don't let her bring children into the world. You'd let them starve.

  He continued:
  

  "This is a man who had wanted to have two families. If he had not wanted children he could have used contraceptives.

  "If he didn't care about children he could have disposed of them. He had the power. But he slept in the cellar with his children and spent time with them over Christmas. He cared for his second family.

  "When his oldest daughter was ill, what would a monster do? What would a killer do?

  "What this man did was take her to hospital. He could have killed her and everyone else."

  "He could have claimed that he was mentally unstable and tried to escape these proceedings. But he did not do so. He's not trying to say he was mentally ill."

• The Guardian reports that Elisabeth's 11 hours of videotaped testimony is so harrowing it's being played for the four-woman, four-man jury in small portions and other jurors are standing by in case the eight main jurors decide they can't cope.
• According to the Daily Mail, Elisabeth agreed to testify on the condition that she would never have to see her father again.
• Elisabeth said Fritzl would come in the cellar with boxes of pornographic videotapes and make her reenact scenes in them. She says she suffered serious internal injuries from oversized sex toys he used on her.
• The defense presented information about Fritzl's childhood. As the Daily Mail reports:
  

  Fritzl said: "I did not have a good relationship with my mother. She tried to stop me having any friends. But I had one she didn't know about and that friend bitterly let me down. So I decided that I would not have any friends after that."

  "I had a very difficult childhood. My mother didn't want me. She was 42 when she had me. She simply didn't want a child and she treated me correspondingly. I was beaten."

  He told the jury that, at the age of 12, he had made it clear to his mother that he would not tolerate being beaten any longer and would defend himself.

  'From that point on, I was Satan personified for her,' he said.

• Fritzl's wife Rosemarie now lives alone and has begun divorce proceedings.
• The rest of the trial will be conducted in secret until a verdict scheduled for Friday. The judge's decision has angered the Austrian public. One Austrian lawyer is quoted as saying: "I thought secret trials ended with Stalin, but obviously I was wrong."

  'Herr Fritzl, Can You Just Answer One Thing – Why?' [The Independent]
  'Light out. Rape. Light On. Rape. In Front Of The Children. Birth. Death. Rape' [The Guardian]
  Josef Fritzl Trial: Lawyer Insists Dungeon Fiend Was A Caring Family Man [The Mirror]
  Josef Fritzl Trial Judge Clears Court For Daughter's Evidence [The Guardian]
  Elisabeth Fritzl Tells The World How Her Father Forced Her To Re-Enact Porn Films With Him In The Cellar Dungeon [Daily Mail]

  Earlier: Austrian Abuser Admits To Rape But Denies Murder On First Day In Court

Today, Mr. Fritzl's first day in court, the abuser held up a blue folder to hide his face and spoke only to confirm his name. He pleaded "partially" guilty to rape because he doesn't agree with how the charge is worded, and fully guilty of depriving his children of their liberty, reports Reuters. He pled innocent to charges that he enslaved his daughter Elisabeth since the age of 18 and to murdering their infant son in 1996. Prosecutors say he is guilty of murder by negligence for not taking their son to the hospital when he developed breathing problems. Fritzl is accused of burning the three day old baby's body in the furnace.

In her opening statement, prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser said, "Josef Fritzl treated his daughter as his property, he made her completely dependent," according to the BBC. She added that Fritzl, "showed no sign of regret or any consciousness of wrongdoing."

Fritzl's daughter Elisabeth, now 42, and her six surviving children, are now living in a secret location with new identities and will not testify in person. The Times of London reports that 11 hours of Elisabeth's videotaped testimony will be shown to the eight jurors in the coming days. According to excerpts, Elisabeth says that she was initially chained to an iron pole behind her bed and couldn't get to the bathroom in the cramped windowless dungeon Fritzl built under the family's home. He is accused of raping his daughter on average three times a week since imprisoning her in the basement.

Of the six surviving children she gave birth to while underground, three were kept underground their entire lives, and three were taken upstairs and raised by Fritzl and his wife. According to CNN, Fritzl explained his daughter's disappearance in 1984 by saying she ran away from home and forcing her to write letters to back up his story. The then said she left three of her children on his doorstep throughout the years. His wife Rosemarie supposedly didn't know what was going on in her basement.

Police discovered the dungeon last April when 19-year-old Kerstin, one of the children in the cellar, got sick and Elisabeth persuaded her father to take her to the hospital. Elisabeth now lives with her youngest child, 6, and is in contact with her other children. The two older children from the basement, who are 19 and 20, are still receiving therapy. They never left the basement or saw sunlight and as a result have a stoop, restricted spatial awareness, rotting teeth and gums, skin problems, weak immunity and difficulty communicating.

Officials at St. Pölten prison where Fritzl is being held say he on suicide watch, according to The Guardian. "He's under constant watch. We're aware of the possibility he might self-harm," said Günther Mörwald, head of the prison. A verdict is expected on Thursday or Friday and Fritzl faces life in prison if convicted.

Austrian Admists Rape But Not Murder [Reuters]
Fritzl Admits Rape, Denies Murder [BBC]
Josef Fritzl To Tell Court He Was Good Father To Dungeon Family [The Times of London]
Austrian To Plead Guilty To Rape And Incest, Lawyer Says [CNN]
Josef Fritzl Cellar Trial Begins In Austria [The Guardian]

When we last heard, the Campbell family’s custody hearing had been postponed, and the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services had not yet given a reason for the removal. Confidentiality rules currently prevent Family Services from discussing the case, but the Times found a professor of law willing to speculate on the legal grounds for removal. Laura Cohen, from Rutgers Law School, said: “Looking ahead, you could imagine the state making an argument that the ShopRite rejection is a precursor of things to come,” and that the children may be “subject to lifelong ridicule and harassment.” However, Cohen is uncertain over whether this argument would hold. She says she knows of a New York child named for a venereal disease, and that it may be beyond the bounds of the law to question the parental right to name their child. Indeed, it seems hard to believe that a terrible choice of names would be enough to revoke a parent’s rights, but it looks as though this may have been what happened.

In addition to their legal problems, it seems that the Campbells are also facing eviction. Their landlord has decided not to renew their lease because a relative they frequently argued with had threatened to “firebomb the house.” However, the landlord also said that they were clean and non-destructive, yet still, “enough is enough.”

Perhaps most significantly is the insight into the Campbell’s Nazi sympathizing, which is what landed them in this mess in the first place. While their racist leanings are certainly abhorrent, it appears that the Campbells are not particularly avid (or well informed) white supremacists. The New York Times reports that Mr. Campbell used to decorate his house with confederate flags, and it is only recently that he became interested in Nazi Germany. Mr. Campbell legally changed the names of his children only a few months ago, dropping Adolf Hitler’s first name (he used to be Antonio Adolf) and correcting the spelling of “Aryan” on his daughter’s birth certificate. He holds to his belief that Hinler is the correct spelling of Himmler. Mr. Campbell recently said that watching the History Channel has led him to change his beliefs on the Holocaust. He says he now believes that “[Hitler] did it. It was cruel. But I didn’t name my son for the guy who killed all these people. My son is going to learn to love. None of my kids are going to have a bone of hate in their body.” While none of this makes his actions less disgusting, or his beliefs any easier to dismiss, it does raise questions about his rights as a parent. If Heath Campbell's worst crime was exceptional, mind-blowing ignorance, is that enough to justify the removal of his children?

Naming Children for Nazis Puts Spotlight on the Father [New York Times]

Earlier: Baby Hitler Taken From Parents, Adolf Hitler Campbell’s Custody Hearing Postponed

Some doctors in England are prescribing antidepressants for women who suffer from PMS (and show no depressed traits). • A play titled This Wide Night deals with the pain that some women go through when they are released from prison because of a lack of prison aftercare. • JC Penny launches an online RPG, Dork Dodge, to appeal to "fashion-conscious women" entering their first year of college by using real-life awkward moments of college life as a basis of the game. • Women athletes will make up 45% of the Olympic competitors in Beijing. • Disney rebrands Toon Disney into Disney XD, a channel that will appeal more to boys ages 6 to 14 by including more masculine gender stereotypes! • Robert Hazard, the musician who wrote Cyndi Lauper's 1983 hit, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", died today at the age of 59. • A small, unscientific survey has found that most women lie to avoid hurting someone's feeling, not necessarily to avoid getting out of trouble. * Young children (and women) in Afghanistan are being raped as the security situation of the country continues to deteriorate. • A female high school football player on a male-dominated team is suing her former coach who she claims made her practice without safety equipment (which her male peers had) resulting in getting her clavicle broken. • A 54-year-old grandma was arrested for child abuse after she took her 3-year-old granddaughter out for a joy ride (and "some air") by letting her sit on the roof of her car as she drove around.

In the email, Teresa claimed that Malonis is "trying to restrict me from every person in my life that I want to talk to or have anything to do with," adding, "The most help you will be to me now is for you to step aside and let me get a different lawyer that I feel like can help me….Natalie, quit all your lying about everything."

For her part, Malonis isn't backing down. She tells the AP that she will not fight her client in the media, though she said to the Salt Lake Tribune, "There is no question I am absolutely looking out for [Teresa]. What's happening is really a shame because people who purport to care about her are really doing her a disservice." Malonis believes that Teresa was spiritually married to a sect member at the age of 15, though Teresa now denies it. Teresa was slated to speak before a Texas grand jury in the FLDS hearings today, though the prospect of that actually happening seems unlikely.

Polygamous Sect Leader's Daughter Wants To Ditch Her Attorney [Salt Lake Tribune]
Key Teen Witness In Sect Case Denies Abuse [CBS News]
Texas Judge Bars Contact From FLDS Spokesman[Salt Lake Tribune]

Two other adults, Jamie Pittman, 36 and his girlfriend Shauntel Mayo, 29, have been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for their roles, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Jurors deliberated for only five minutes before returning guilty verdicts in Pittman and Mayo's trial.

The Swingers Club was exposed in 2005 when one of the girls involved told her foster mother about the shows, saying, "everybody does nasty stuff in there." Permanent custody of the three siblings was recently granted to John and Margie Cantrell, but in a twist worthy of the most melodramatic soap opera, last week John Cantrell was charged with sexually assaulting a minor in California 18 years ago. The Cantrells claim that the accusations are false.

Texas Town Reels From Sex Abuse Of Children [AP via MSNBC]
Jury Selection To Begin Monday For Third Defendant In Mineola Swingers’ Club Case [Tyler Morning Telegraph]