• Law Professor Alan Young notes that witchcraft charges don't actually target witches (no shit) but those who use fake magical powers to prey on vulnerable people. • The American Library Association has announced a new prize for YA writers: the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award. A book about civil rights heroine Claudette Colvin is among the five finalists for the prize. The winner will be announced January 18th. • In 2008, women held only 15.2% of the seats on U.S. boards of directors for Fortune 500 companies. A year later, the percentage hasn't changed at all. And the same study found that women only make up 6.3% of corporate top earners. "The leadership doesn't reflect the marketplace or the talent pool," said lead researcher Ilene Lang. •  LaTanya Clemmons, sister of alleged cop-killer Maurice Clemmons, has been arrested and charged with four counts of rendering criminal assistance. LaTanya, along with five of her relatives, are being charged for their role in Maurice's escape (he eluded police for two days before he was discovered and shot by a Seattle officer). • A mother from the UK is fighting to receive donor milk for her 15-month-old son. She is currently unable to breastfeed the child due to chemotherapy, and although nurses tried giving him formula milk, it only made him sick. She was provided with donor milk for several months, but the hospital has decided that he no longer needs it. She asks that they continue giving her milk until March, when she will have finished with chemo. • Alexis Xanders was walking home from school a couple months ago when a group of kids - including one with a video camera - began to harass her and her boyfriend. The bullying escalated, and Xanders was eventually punched in the face by a member of the school's wrestling team. Fortunately, she got her hands on a copy of the tape and uploaded it to CNN iReport. Authorities are now investigating the fight, which apparently all began when Xanders said she didn't like Insane Clown Posse. • A nativity scene in front of the Old City Hall in Toronto has been altered today, after several news sources noted that the display featured a plaque from the Campaign Life Coalition - a pro-life group. City officials said the sign did not comply with their Human Rights Policy, and asked the CLC to take it down. Apparently they did so, grudgingly. • Serena Williams is in the running to be named the AP's Athlete of the Decade. Why her? Because: "With unprecedented power and underrated agility, she has transformed the way the women's game is played. Her flair for theatrics and compelling back story brought new fans to the sport, which helped the WTA Tour achieve new levels of popularity... This is an athlete who has that very, very unique combination of grit and glamour, power and grace." •

Slate, which ran its initial inquiry in 2005, was prompted to revisit the subject by the passage of the new Dudley, Massachusetts law that prohibits residents from owning more than three cats - which was prompted in turn by the out of control cat population of a resident C.L. Of course, one could argue that no self-respecting cat lady (or, for that matter, mere cat fancier) is going to heed any such injunction - either through obliviousness (the stereotypical cat lady isn't exactly glued to local news) or on animal-loving principle. So one wonders how effective such a law might prove.

Of course, as Slate's Daniel Engber points out, most of those whom we consider "cat ladies" are not mere animal-lovers, but those whose compulsion to collect and shelter has led to neglect, and often squalor - circumstances of which the perpetrators seen unaware. People toss the term around, but there's a difference between a woman with cats and someone who's a clinical animal hoarder.

Animal hoarding has also been viewed as an addiction, like compulsive gambling or alcoholism, or as a form of dementia. Though hoarders are usually quite old, many recall a history of neglect or abuse by their parents. Obsessive-compulsive disorder provides another psychiatric model; about a quarter of OCD patients exhibit object-hoarding behavior. No one knows why women are more susceptible than men. One member of the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium points out that women are also more likely to become veterinarians and less likely to perform acts of animal cruelty.

As the sympathetic new documentary Cat Ladies explains the phenomenon,"It's not the number of cats that defines someone as a 'cat lady', but rather their attachment, or non-attachment, to human beings. They create a world with their cats in which they are accepted and in control - a world where they ultimately have value." Of course, even from the preview, there seem to be a number of different types represented - and not everyone's motivations seem just the same. That's why legislation seems problematic; there are people who can take in a lot of animals and give them good lives. And then there's hoarding, which is a real concern for the Humane Society and the ASPCA.

And while it's clearly a phenomenon more common to women - no one knows why - it's obvious that the tendency has been conflated with witch mythology in ways we don't even question. You don't need to watch the Cat People movies (although you should, because they're fantastic) to know that felines have evil historical associations - and have often been regarded as the familiars of the sort of lone woman who was an easy target in Salem. Take this (which mythology I've long heard, but can't verify or cite to my satisfaction, so take it as lore)

A very early record of the linking together of witches and cats concerns the ceremony of Cat Wednesday which took place in the city of Metz in Northern France. This involved hundreds of cats being burnt alive in the belief that they were witches in disguise. Papal might was brought down upon witches and cats in the 13th century when horrible acts of atrocity were carried out on humans and felines. Black cats in particular were believed to be agents of the devil, especially if owned by an elderly woman.

Clearly, our cultural aversion goes deeper than we know. Of course, when it comes to the Rat Ladies - well, that's another matter. And another documentary.

What's The Deal With "Cat Ladies"? [Slate]

Cat Ladies Documentary

Hot Docs 2009 Trailers: CAT LADIES [YouTube]
Behind Closed Doors: The Horrors of Animal Hoarding [Humane Society]
Witches And Cats [Best-Cat]

Political scientist Han Park says North Korea might release Laura Ling and Euna Lee if the US issues an official apology for their actions. • And US officials like Hillary Clinton seem to be changing their language accordingly, suggesting that Ling and Lee did in fact do something wrong and asking for "amnesty" rather than "release on humanitarian grounds." • Colleen Shipman will marry astronaut William Oefelein, undeterred by his ex and fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak, who drove 900 miles in 2007 to pepper-spray Shipman. • The "Amora sex academy" in Berlin includes 50 "interactive displays" such as the "Spank-o-meter" and a mannequin that lights up and screams when you find her G-spot. • The Blanden Memorial Art Museum in Fort Dodge, Iowa is holding an exhibition of art related to women's suffrage. Check it out on your way to see the butter Michael Jackson. • A study by Planned Parenthood, undertaken before and after off-label vaginal use of Mifeprex, shows that giving antibiotics to every patient regardless of ingestion method significantly reduces post-abortion infections. • In an Australian study, women 37 and older dealt with pregnancy just as well emotionally and physically as younger moms, but were more anxious about their baby's health. Maybe because of widespread rhetoric about the evils of "delaying" childbearing? • The author of a book called Boobs: A Guide to Your Girls warns women to cover up their cleavage at work, saying, "I don't think women are stupid I just don't think anyone knows the rules." O RLY? • Defense lawyers for evangelist Tony Alamo want the word "polygamy" excluded from his trial, despite the fact that he exchanged wedding vows with and gave rings to the underage girls he allegedly slept with. • Debbie Downer says playing in the sand gives kids diarrhea. • Good news for adulterous jetsetters and others too busy to sit down at a computer for their extramarital liaisons: cheating website AshleyMadison.com is now available on iPhone and Blackberry. • Despite a suit by female ski jumpers, women's ski jumping will not be included in the 2010 Olympics. • "The Good Witch of West Marin" has been banned from her local farmers' market for practicing "her skills as a counselor, herbalist and Wiccan healer" without a proper permit. • Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaider has traveled unaccompanied to Saudi Arabia's border with Bahrain three times to protest a law that prohibits women from leaving the Kingdom unless they have permission from a male relative. • Is a spate of cat deaths in West Columbia, South Carolina the work of dogs, or another cat killer like Tyler Weinman? •

• Get your resumes ready: A tourist attraction in Britain is offering a salary of £50,000 for a knowledgeable witch. Duties include: teaching tourists about witchcraft and magic, hexing competing businesses, and pain-free wart removal. • Elderly Swedes may soon have the option to live in a gay-friendly nursing home. Plans have been in the works for ten years for a home that would advertise their welcoming attitude and accept all residents, gay or straight. • Same sex couples in Australia have won a legislative victory, with Law and Justice Committee in the New South Wales Parliament issuing a recommendation to change the law and force most adoption providers to allow adoption agencies to judge based on parental suitability and not sexual orientation. • D.C.'s new law recognizing same sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions went into effect today. Councilman David Catania plans to draft a bill to allow the city to perform same sex marriages but, given that Congress has 30 days to disapprove any law D.C. passes, its changes are uncertain. • The Viinzs Aviation Training Institute is now offering courses to Kashmiri women looking for upward mobility in careers like aviation. • Sad news: Oscar Mayer, the grandson of company founder Oscar F. Mayer, died today at the age of 95. • England has abandoned a £5.9m project to reduce teen pregnancies after figuring out that the program made girls more likely to become pregnant. "This pilot was based on a successful American programme. It didn't appear to reduce teenage pregnancy so we will not be taking it any further," said a spokeswoman from the Department of Health. •  A new report by the Guttmacher Institute shows that the United States' restrictions on Medicaid funding for abortion (i.e., the Hyde Amendment) forces 1 in 4 poor women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Conservatives have responded that that's the point. • One in four women in America who has an abortion has a medical abortion rather than a surgical one. • Police in Germany received a call on Wednesday about a badger believed to be lying dead in the middle of the road. It turns out that the badger was alive, but not quite well: he had gotten extremely drunk off fermented cherries, which gave him a bad case of the runs. Police eventually chased the non-responsive animal from the road with a broom. • The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights and the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan issued a report on the culture of impunity in Afghanistan that results in further violence against women. •

• A bar owner in Spain is encouraging patrons to insult the staff because, "that way they won't let it out on their family." This bar will soon have the highest spit-to-beer ratio in all of Spain. • Apparently Weight Watchers now has a height limit, and 6'10" is over it. • We just basically want to put this whole item in italics: An Oregon woman who was arrested in 2006 for keeping 250 rabbits in her home, including 88 dead ones, has violated a probationary order to stay away from rabbits by keeping 13 of them in her hotel room. • Doing simple math in your head may stop you from impolitely staring at people with facial disfigurements — or from getting angry in stressful situations. • To preserve their fertility, one doctor says men should stay out of hot tubs, eat healthfully, and "avoid exercise that generates heat or trauma to the genital area." So, no cock pushups? • Danish men are working up to 40 hours of overtime every week, making them less available to their families and damaging the image of Northern Europe as a socialism-loving, maternity-and-paternity-leave-having, cold-yet-fuzzy paradise. • This article about parents calling each other "Mommy" and "Daddy" in the bedroom is kind of creepy all around, but the creepiest part is the 24-year-old non-dad who asks his girlfriend and his friends to call him Daddy. • A new technique called promession supercools dead bodies and then shatters them into tiny pieces for fully biodegradable burial. • Some Rhode Islanders are campaigning to close a loophole that makes prostitution legal in Rhode Island as long as it happens indoors. • A woman with ulcerative colitis writes poignantly of the decision some would-be mothers face between maintaining their health and getting pregnant. • A new Australian law aimed at eliminating homebirths will make it illegal for midwives to assist at them. But some fear women will try to give birth without a midwife, like birthing advocate Janet Fraser, whose baby died. • The Catholic Church has angered a British witches' coven by refusing to allow them to hold their "Witches' Ball" at a church social center. We smell a hex coming on! • In England, the daisies are apparently looking especially nice right now. • You can see a trailer for the movie Fame here, or at screenings of The Proposal. • Just in time for Father's Day, an emu has adopted a 20-year-old zookeeper as her dad.

• A new survey suggests that fathers are better at giving driving lessons than mothers, who tend to panic, while dads just swear. • Brazilian researchers have found that among teenage girls, there are alarmingly high rates of STDs that often go undetected. • The BBC has an amazing video of a monkey teaching its young to floss with human hair. • More monkey news: zoologists have found that monkey tantrums should never go ignored. • From the Institute of No Shit Studies: men in their 60s drive the most powerful cars. • A Miami evangelist claiming to be the anti-Christ has gone into hiding following a court ruling to pay his ex-wife $2.2 million. Wonder if Satan will help him out of this one. • Some asshole put his wife up for sale, describing her as "Nagging Wife. No Tax, Not MOT. Very high maintenance - some rust." He says he was shocked that he received several offers. • The Hijabi Monologues, a little known play about Muslim women who wear the headscarf, is currently showing in LA. • A little over a year ago, Wajeha al-Huwaider made a pledged to get the Saudi ban on women driving lifted by Women's Day 2009. Sadly, the ban is still in place. • The man who threw his shoe at our esteemed former President has been sentenced to three years in prison by an Iraqi court. • This is not exactly news to any American college student, but the American Dietetic Association has found that 58% of "kid cereals" are actually being consumed by adults. • Sad: a survey of Boston teens found that nearly half of them believe Rihanna was responsible for Chris Brown's assault on her. •  Could Coulter's reign of terror be coming to a close? Ann Coulter's new book Guilty isn't selling nearly as well as her others did. • 

In The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-hunting in the Western World (reviewed by Bookslut's Jessa Crispin), John Demos studies the psychology of the witch-hunt, and finds it to be all-too prevalent in society and human nature. As Crispin puts it,

The targets of these trials were not just those women who were unable to fulfill their womanly duties — the postmenopausal, the barren, the spinsters and widows. Women who stood up for their rights — along with women who were perceived as being too brash, too forceful, or too flirty — might just as well have put on a pointy hat and started riding a broom. And of course it was not just Salem, Massachusetts, involved in the prosecution. All across Europe and the colonies, women were brought up on charges of witchcraft, tortured for confessions, and then executed over a span of 300 years.

Demos makes connections between literal witch-hunts and such obvious analogies as the Army-McCarthy hearings, buts as Crispin says, "Demos has a point that the structure of the hysteria is the same, but reading about how a number of people’s careers ending in the 1940s after first reading about women having their breasts ripped off with red hot pincers until they confess to 'riding' their neighbor 'like a beast of burden' is rather like watching Bruce Springsteen open for some pub band: It just pales in comparison everything the came before it."

To diminish the notion of witch hunts as a phenomenon which largely targeted women — who were turned upon by both men and women alike — is to miss one of the most essential and chilling historical lessons. For the witch hunts, paradoxically, accorded women an implicit power they did not actually enjoy — certainly not in 15th Century Heidelberg, where the hysteria started. The fact that the hunts themselves accorded frequently disenfranchised accusers a similar measure of power — and that this was sufficient to undermine notably regimented societies — is doubtless part of the phenomenon's enduring fascination and, somewhat chillingly, its thrill. We all like to believe we would have stood apart from hysteria like this, but can we really know? Sometimes it's comforting to be able to shiver and just turn a page.

Bewitched [The Smart Set]

Kinkade describes it well:

A few weeks before the ritual comes the discussion. It may begin with a priestess asking what song we should sing for the Spiral Dance, the part of the ritual in which we dance clockwise ("sunwise" is our term for it) to generate energy and to unite us with the god and goddess. One person suggests "There Is No End to the Circle." Any number of coven members nod; the rest groan. Somebody says, "We did that last year." Somebody else: "Exactly. It's traditional with us." Another person asks, "So, we're faux fam-trad now?" A new coven member tries to remember what, exactly, a fam-trad coven is. Inspired by the discussion, someone spontaneously sings out, "There is no end to this song, there is no end." The high priestess glares. Eventually, the debate is resolved simply because everyone is sick of talking about it. Now the rest of the ritual has to be planned—and it's just more of the same. Scintillating debates may rage on such issues as vegan vs. nonvegan cakes and alcoholic vs. nonalcoholic ale.

And don't even get Kinkade started on trying to plan a fete for Lughnasadh. What a headache!

Witches' Brouhaha [Slate]