Trials and errors

[sigma7]

Andrea "I done drowned mah five kids in the tub!" Yates is getting a new trial. No, clearly not the stupidest decision from Texas in the last 24 hours. I'm of mixed feelings on the whole thing -- she's obviously not innocent, but at the same time, she's clearly more than a few bacon bits shy of a salad bar, having post-partum depression and continuing to churn out fleshling worm-babies like someone pulled her right arm and her face lit up with three fetuses in a row. Didn't she ask one of her recent visitors in prison who was baby-sitting the kids? You can't sit her down and explain that, well, Andrea, nobody, because you killed them, because they're in little pine boxes, buried in the ground, and they're never coming back. If she doesn't realize this -- and I don't think she does -- then prison is not the punitive place it could be. At least rehabilitate her to the point where she fully understands exactly what happened. Then decide if she's to be punished or nursed back to full health. Because right now the punishment just isn't satisfactory yet.

Also, I'm toying with Adium to get instant-messaging working at work. It's...intriguing. Beware my presence.

Crap. Chefs' Holmes done for season, career?

Comments

[redmonster.livejournal.com]

Where was it established that she asked a visitor who was babysitting the kids? Because, man, that is juicy! That woman's brain is fried like Kentucky chicken!

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Here, among a few other places -- I had to look it up myself, because I barely remembered it, but it blew my mind at the time. But yeah, I really want to believe she's insane...because, well, how can a person do this to their own kids?

[opheliasclone.livejournal.com]

It's well known that hormones cause depression in many women after giving birth. Post partum ills that lead to child murder is an extremely rare but known variation. The flip side (which you don't see in the press) is women who commit suicide shortly before birth so that the baby will never be born.

Women with longrunning psychological illnesses seem more likely to fall to the ailment, and there's also a correlation for women who have more children than they can take care of yet lack financial support to seek assistant care. There is the usually the sense that the woman's faculties were overwhelmed.

There are plenty of warning signs, almost always including a forcefully voiced belief that the woman is pregnant with a "monster" rather than a normal child. There is usually an accompanying fear that the woman's body is being taken over without her consent. One theory is that for some women at least, this may in part be the explosion of unresolved issues over sexual abuse during childhood and/or within the secret confines of their publicly happy marriage.

While one can technically restrain a woman if she shows these symptoms, it would be better by far to present her with help before it becomes a crisis. This might come in the form of psychological therapy, a domestic abuse shelter, family planning services, or any form of assistance to aid the poor. When none of these are unavailable to troubled women, there can be costs.

[opheliasclone.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I meant "available" in the last sentence. :P