my highest recommendation

Last night I finished reading The Volunteer, a harrowing, heartbreaking true story about the life of Witold Pilecki, a Polish Catholic patriot who volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz so he could report on conditions and organize a breakout.

He remained a prisoner for nearly three years before masterminding a complex escape. During the time he was imprisoned, from September 1940 to April 1943, Auschwitz was transformed from an internment camp for Polish prisoners into a death factory where thousands of Jewish, Gypsy, and other deportees were exterminated every day.

I give this book my highest recommendation. It's utterly unforgettable and one of the best history books I've read in recent years. It's just incredible.

a travesty of justice

Earlier this week, by a six-one vote, Maryland highest appellate court upheld a lower court ruling that a minor who takes sexually explicit selfies is guilty of child pornography.

The lone dissenting judge said child pornography laws were designed to "protect children from exploitation and abuse" and were not designed to criminalize consensual sexual activity. The minor was "not being exploited by someone else," the judge said. The state legislature "did not seek to subject minors who recorded themselves in non-exploitative sexual encounters to prosecution."

I think the lone dissenting judge is the only one applying common sense here. Child porn laws are meant to protect children from harm by others. If the child is a self-pornographer, there is no other causing harm.

Child porn laws are meant to spare minors from harm. Prosecuting a minor taking selfies harms that child. To quote Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, "the law is an ass."

The state legislature needs to fix this pronto.

liking but not loving lucy

When I was a preschooler and a little later, I used to love watching old I Love Lucy reruns. So I borrowed a DVD collection of the "best" Lucy episodes from the library to see what my kids thought.

Needless to say, the two older boys (aged six and three) liked but did not love the show. (The baby seemed to have no particular opinion.)

I don't know whether it's because they're far more Australian than American that it was somehow "lost in translation" for them. Or was it just too old of a program to have any context for them like it did for me thirty years ago.

The disk set included the original pilot which was never intended to be aired and never was. While the usual program was only a little more than twenty minutes long not including commercials, the unused pilot was more than thirty five minutes and did seem draggy. It also had no Fred nor Ethel.

The episode the boys liked the most, not surprisingly, was one of the most famous, a highlight of which is seen here.

potato pissing

I know I shouldn't, but I couldn't stop giggling when I heard about the woman in Western Pennsylvania who was arrested recently for urinating on a potato display in a Walmart supermarket.

Her defense is that she was drunk. How drunk do you have to be to even consider doing that? Was she too drunk to ask where the public restrooms might be found?

She has been charged with open lewdness, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, and public drunkenness. The victimized potatoes were euthanized.

This woman is going about this all wrong. People will pay her to watch her pee on stuff. All she needs to do is set up a porn cam account, get loaded, and then pee to her hearts content on everything and anything while the cash pours in.

upside-down stilettos

If you want to wear stilettos but you don't want to damage your feet, here's the perfect solution -- upside down shoes! As you can see from the photo below, the shoes look like stilettos, but they're actually flats with the spike on top.

They're from Israeli shoe designer Kobi Levi and sell for $1,000 American, which is actually inexpensive for his handmade shoes, which usually run between $2,000 and $2,500.

Shoes like this would be a gas and a conversation starter the first time you wore them, I think, but like a good joke, they would only work the first time. Then they'd just be weird shoes.

I'm too short to pull off something like this, and have never paid more than $100 for a pair of shoes, so they're not for me. I'd be afraid I'd fall somehow and one of those spikes would end up going through my ankle.

why boy children terrify me

As the mother of three young boys, this sort of thing makes me anxious for their future. I calculate young males have about a ten-year danger phase, from age ten to twenty.

Now calculate that for three children spaced over six years, and that means in the not-too-far future I'll have about a sixteen year period where I'll begin to age at an exponential rate.

It would be one thing if the pictured youth did this on a sidewalk. Yes, he could wipe out on the steps, but the likely worst-case scenario would be a broken limb or two.

But if he wipes out on that dam and pitches over to his right, it's all over. That's a fall that cannot be survived.

He almost looks like he starts to lose his balance right after he clears the steps, then manages to right himself. But he leans to the right, and not the left, before he has his balance fully restored. Did he experience any anxiety? Did his mother?

Maybe my boys will want to take up a safer pastime. Like firecrackers. Or knife throwing. Or poisonous spider collecting.

underage euthanasia

My brother subscribes to Harper's Magazine so I use his email address and password to read online, with his permission. Online access allows you to read their entire 169-year archive.

For the past thirty-five years, the magazine runs "Harper's Index" every month, which is a collection of interesting, odd, troubling, and sometimes infuriating statistics that usually bear no relation to no more than a few of the several dozen other listings.

These two items in the most recent Harper's Index really caught my attention. I quote verbatim:

Minimum age at which citizens of the Netherlands can request euthanasia, with their parents’ permission: 12.

Number of Dutch 12- to 17-year-olds who have requested and received euthanasia since 2005: 14.

Wow. While the total number is not on the Dutch government's website, the other information is, including a fact not in the Harper's Index: 16- and 17-year-olds do not need parental permission.

I have no problem with consenting adults of sound mind who wish to commit suicide or be euthanized. That is their choice. Of course, they might find a hard time getting a doctor to the latter.

But I think children is a much different matter. First of all, what kind of parent would consent to their 12-year-old who wished to be euthanized?

I think the parents should move heaven and earth to see that their child receives therapy so that he or she can overcome the reasons for wishing euthanasia. Yes, the child might be severely disabled. The child might have cancer. The child might have severe depression.

But you persist. You give that child every chance to reach adulthood when he or she may then make the choice as a consenting adult.

As for 16- and 17-year-old, I do not think they have the full capacity to make a decision like this on their own. It's too big of a decision, and too final, to leave it to chance.

recursion

Last year, I very much enjoyed novelist Blake Crouch's techno-thriller Dark Matter. So I was very much looking forward to reading his new novel Recursion, which I finished last night.

I liked Recursion, but not nearly as much as Dark Matter. The two books are similar in some ways, so it almost seemed like the author was just writing the same broad plot again.

The heart of his newest novel is a love story between a scientist and a cop who try to unpick the disaster that results when the scientist invests a device that allows you the ability to change your personal history by jumping back into your own memory.

It's a clever concept, but Crouch has problems bringing the book to a natural conclusion. He just keeps throwing more and more disasters in the mix without entirely satisfactory closure.

The author noted in the book's acknowledgements that it was the most difficult of all his books to write. Perhaps that's because he had a great idea but it wasn't fully executed in his imagination before he sat down to write it.

4,000th blog post

As of today, this is my 4,000th blog post.

For the past 4,000 days, I've posted a daily entry here. Not a day has been missed. When my three children were born, my husband pinch hit for me, but otherwise, they've all been my posts. What a run!

But I'm not stopping yet. I figured my 5,000th post will be on or about May 16, 2022.

That aside, I never thought I'd make it this far. I initially wondered if I could write more than a few dozen posts before I would poop out. I'm happy to have proven myself wrong.

So buckle up and watch this space. Much more gibberish and musings to come. Salud!

simple wiki

A few months back I discovered Simple English Wikipedia, which is much like the original Wikipedia but with more simplistic entries. While designed for people with limited English language skills, I've found it particularly helpful in explaining science topics, given that science was never my strong suit.

Regular Wikipedia is fine for many things, but sometimes I find their scientific and medical entries too complicated. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that many high school students edit on the site and I suspect some of them get caught up in a one-upmanship to show how smart they are, but the resulting entries they modify end up being particularly obtuse.

Compare, for instance, the entry for particle accelerator at regular Wikipedia versus the stripped-down entry at Simple Wiki.

The first one made no sense to me. After reading the simplified version, the first one actually made some sense.

So if you're like me and not a science genius, consider checking out this simpler Wiki for certain needs.

blanket opioid screening

A panel of public health experts is recommending that every U.S. adult be screened for illicit drug use. This would be in the form of questions, not blood tests.

IMHO, this is well intentioned but overbroad. Instead, I believe, a physician should observe whether he or she thinks there is a possibility the person is using illicit drugs -- based on age, profession, lifestyle, behavior, mannerisms -- and also by simply eyeballing the patient.

It's easy to have a medical assistant prescreen everyone by staring at a laptop while asking "have you abused any illicit drugs in the last month?" Most people who are abusers would probably answer they're not.

However, while examining and observing the patient, if the doctor him or herself eased into asking about something like this, then the results arguably would be more productive.

My brother, who is a shrink, has many patients with substance abuse problems. And he has said many times before -- 90 percent of the time when a new patient walks into his office, he can tell within minutes whether the person is an abuser or not. If you pay attention and know what to look for, you will see what's obvious.

potty-mouth politicians

The political newspaper The Hill has a new article up about how public swearing by American elected officials is increasing sharply.

Before I became a parent, public swearing didn't bother me, but now it really does. Little ears can be like sponges and pick up inappropriate language so easily.

Potty mouth on Twitter is one thing, because preschool children aren't reading that. But if you're on the radio or TV and cussing up a storm, I think a big deal needs to be made about that.

Children don't follow politics but they do know who their national leaders are. They pay attention. So when a head of state or important candidate swears a blue streak, kids notice that. And if the President or the Prime Minister says it, that must be okay.

This isn't anything the government can regulate. Candidates and elected officials individually need to regulate themselves.

So, come on politicians, get your feces together.

chastity robo-toilets

A small town in Wales will spend the equivalent of $200,000 American to install four robotic public toilets with special sensors to prevent people from having sex inside. Anyone caught bonking will trigger loud alarms, sprinklers, and doors that fly open to reveal occupants.

Talk about overkill. Once could see how someone helping a disabled person in the bathroom could end up doused with water. And anyone with above average weight could similarly be targeted. If these toilets were in America, the town would end up being sued.

If I were a taxpayer in that town, I'd be irked they were spending so much money on toilets like this. If they're willing to spend so much to stop people from having sex, one has to wonder where else they're wasting money in some way that's not so visible.

the flower duet

This duet from the opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes is without a doubt the composer's most famous composition. It's been appropriated for commercials and buddy movie soundtracks, but that can't detract from the fact that it's an incredibly beautiful piece of music.

I listened to a dozen or so versions of it on YouTube and believe this is the best of the bunch. I like how the two women don't look at all like stereotypical opera singers. No fat lady singing here.

madonna turns 61

The entertainer Madonna turned 61 yesterday. I've never been much of a fan of her music but I have to admit she looks younger than her age and she's in fantastic shape.

She never fell into the trap of booze and drugs like so many entertainers and, instead, long ago became an adherent of healthy eating and rigorous exercise. I know she gave birth to at least two of her children, and unlike many older women who become pregnant, she shed all of her pregnancy weight and cushioning not long after delivery.

Her clothing choices are often a travesty but that's always been part of her whole shtick. If she abandoned that now, a more conservative wardrobe might actually make her look older. But I have to think at some point she'll tone down her threads.

I don't think Madonna has ever made any noise about potentially retiring. So will she continue performing into her seventies? Eighties? That would probably end up making her look ridiculous.

Arguably, any time now would be a good time for her to retire. Always go out on a high note. She has more money than she could ever possibly spend, so now might be the time to make her way toward the checkout lane and focus her fame in other directions.

the joy of starting again

When I read a book, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, I usually get about 10 percent through it, then stop and start all over again. Then I read through to the end.

I do the same thing with movies and TV shows. I'll watch the first ten minutes or so, then go back to the beginning and start again, watching all the way to the end.

This drives my husband bananas, so I pre-view the opening scenes before I sit down to watch with him.

I do this some for magazine articles and podcasts, too, but not always.

I suspect I feel the need to do this because I'm not 100 percent paying attention and feel like I'm missing something. For whatever reason, when I start over again, I pay more attention the second time around, so if that cures the problem, why not leave it at that?

hanged versus strangled

Consider the following scenario: Fred is a prisoner in a federal correctional facility awaiting trial. In the middle of the night, he twists his bedsheet to form a rope, knots it around his neck, ties the other end around the bed frame, then leans forward with all his weight to make breathing impossible so that he blacks out and dies.

Has Fred hanged himself or has Fred choked himself to death?

You may recognize this scenario as one that's been in the news, as it's the technique the American Jeffrey Epstein reportedly used to commit suicide over the weekend. Many media reports have said that he hanged himself.

But that's not really accurate. Had he hanged himself, he would have made a rope with his bedsheet, knotted it into a noose, tied that noose to something in the ceiling, then jumped off a chair or table to break his neck. That is hanging.

What he did, as described in the scenario above, is choked himself to death. That's why the jail guards and EMTs tried to get him to breathe again, what you'd do with a choking victim, but not what you'd do with someone who broke his neck by hanging. That's why his hyoid bone was broken, as revealed by his autopsy, something that's seen in strangulation but not hanging.

So why doesn't the media report a death like this as self-strangulation instead of hanging, for accuracy's sake?

belgravia

Last night I finished reading Belgravia, by Julian Fellowes, arguably best known as the Downton Abbey creator and writer. The book was originally published three years ago but I just happened to read it now.

I thought the novel was an absolutely delightful read. It had the wit and sensibilities of the nineteenth century novelist Anthony Trollope but included things he could not have written about in his era, including sex, adultery, and single parenthood.

I suspect the book would appeal to any Downton fan, but the novel is darker and edgier than the popular TV series. The sensibilities were closer to Gosford Park, the upstairs/downstairs satirical comedy written by Fellowes in 2001.

I particularly liked how one important character started out seeming like a villain but then ended up being an advocate for the hero and heroine. I also found it amusing that the novel savages Britain's aristocratic system, notwithstanding the author is a member of the House of Lords.

So if you like historical fiction, I highly recommend Belgravia. Fellowes is a masterful writer and the book is effortlessly pleasurable.

Not surprisingly, its currently being made into a premium television series and is scheduled to be broadcast in 2020.

failed assassin blues

I was reading offline about famous failed assassination attempts, including the two that were intended to be concurrent to Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

One was the planned assassination of Lincoln's Vice President, Andrew Johnson, who became President upon Lincoln's death. The assassin was at the hotel where Johnson was staying, but became drunk and wandered away without even seeing his intended victim.

The other attempt that night was quite bloody when Lewis Powell repeatedly stabbed the bedridden Secretary of State William Seward in his home, as well as several members of his family and household. They had attempted to fight off Powell but he fled the house unharmed. All of his victims survived their wounds and injuries.

Powell was eventually captured, as were a number of other members of the so-called Lincoln Assassination Plot (some of whom may actually have been innocent). Powell was tried, convicted, and executed in July of 1865.

You can see his photograph below in wrist irons taken before his trial. I've seen this image several times in the past and was always struck by the sitter's expression. While many mid-century nineteenth century photos have subjects who have that startled deer-in-headlights look, Powell appears quite different.

His expression suggests to me he's both depressed and resigned to the fact that he will be convicted and executed. There were no shortage of eyewitnesses to his attacks.

I'd love to be able to travel back in a time machine and have a conversation with him. What was he thinking at the exact moment this photograph was made?

Did he have any regrets, given he failed miserably? Or was he content with the fact that Lincoln had been killed and quietly waited his certain fate?

investing in misery

I've written before about how I invested my earnings from my exotic dancer days in various American stocks. When we have excess dividends after expenses I invest that as well, and very occasionally sell something already in the portfolio.

So I'm always on the lookout for stable blue chip stocks that pay a nice dividend -- I am very much a buy-and-hold investor. Thus I keep a regularly updated list of stocks to consider for future purchases and review it regularly. (I also consider adding shares to certain stocks I already hold.)

Tobacco stocks often pay a very attractive dividend. They tend to be more stable companies, too. As a result, they're considered by many to be a safer-than-average investment.

All that aside, I refuse to invest in tobacco stocks. When a majority of a company's product is dangerous and a company has gone to great lengths to hide that, that's a company with which I do not want to associate. There are no "good" uses for tobacco.

With that said, I have invested in both big oil and big pharma stocks, which are sometimes avoided by investors for ethical reasons. Those kinds of companies, I would argue, are different.

While big oil and big pharma companies have done some very bad things, their products do have "good" uses. Drugs sold by big pharma save lives. Petroleum products sold by big oil improve people's lives and can save them, too.

Does that make my hypocritical? I don't think so. I don't believe I would invest in a distillery company because I can't see that they produce a "good" product, either. My rule seems to be if a product can be of some notable good, then the company should be considered, even if it has a checkered past.

the timelessness of lust

I was struck by a random thought earlier today. Let me try to describe it.

Customs change with time. Morals do too. As does everyday life. Technological changes and political developments renders society a constantly changing experience year to year.

Yet human emotions remain timeless. The love that you feel for someone, that I feel for someone, is exactly like the love a fifteenth century man or woman would have felt.

The same for hate. Or anger. Or mourning.

And the same for lust. That crazy, wild, insatiable magnetic force you feel that burns in you until you're sexually satisfied is the same, too.

Our lust mechanism remains the same as our cave-dwelling ancestors.

seeding comets

I happened to read a really interesting article about how some scientists believe various solar systems share comets from time to time. Those comets in turn carry microbes in their dust that pick up and seed other planets during their journeys.

Those microbes eventually evolve into higher life forms. So the life we have here on earth may have originated from microbes in another galaxy. And our microbes, in turn, have seeded still more galaxies.

It's like STDs passed from planet to planet.

I would love to know -- but there's surely no way of ever knowing this -- whether life on other planets seeded by earth bears any resemblance to ours. Do those microbe seeds, when cultivated in an alien galaxy, evolve into anything even vaguely humanoid?

the eyes have it

When I was five or six or seven or so, the photo below would have terrified the shit out of me. I had this thing about scary-looking eyes. And seven eyes on one person would have sent me over the edge.

I suspect it was because I watched part of a horror movie that my older brother had on TV when I was small. I have the vaguest memory of some kind of horror movie that featured scary-looking eyes watching people. Or startling people. Or something.

This shot is not from a horror movie but is in fact a runway photo from this year's Met Gala, a fashion industry extravaganza so over the top it makes the Oscars look like an Amish funeral.

the sex scene coach

The Atlantic is running a very interesting article about a woman who is a sex scene coach for The Deuce, a David Simon/George Pelecanos series on HBO about the early porn industry.

If you read it, you'll come away knowing everything you need to know about how the actors keep their junk battened down so as to avoid any actual bumping uglies.

The title to the piece is inaccurate —— "The Endangered Sex Scene" —— because that's really not what it's about. There's a tacked-on paragraph near the end about how sex scenes have been on the wane, but that's not new and really not organic to what's in the rest of the story.

You get the sense from reading the piece that filmmakers are more respectful of the actors when making sex scenes, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Nonetheless, the prurient side of me wants to know if men or women are ever sexually aroused when filming bonk scenes and how does that affect the little modesty codpieces they wear. Alas, the article does not reveal that.

my brilliant idea

I've written before about the house where we live as permanent caretakers for a very elderly woman who lives in a care home. Like many old people, she hoarded lots of worthless stuff, but always cleaned and organized in spare bedrooms, closets, cupboards, and more.

The place was built as a rooming house with attached residence in the 1940s, so it's a huge place with lots of storage space. I've been periodically cleaning out one closet so I can use it to store things from another closet that we'd like to use.

In the course of this, I found two huge shopping bags full of empty pill vials. I was going to put them in recycle and thought it was a shame I couldn't find a use for some of them.

Cut to a few hours later. I needed a new battery for a desktop clock I use, so I went to the yogurt container in the freezer where we store partially used batteries that have life left in them.

I discovered two of the batteries did that thing where they oozed a sort of acidic ash, rendering then worthless. They had also yucked up a few other batteries, so they had to be tossed, too.

And then my brilliant idea struck.

Store each half-used battery individually in a plastic pill vial. That way, if one or several of them oozes, it doesn't get on other batteries. Problem solved.

Needless to say, most of the empty pill vials will go to recycling. We don't need to store a thousand batteries. But I will keep a few dozen of them for my battery plan.

pierced nasal septum

I saw a woman over the weekend who wore a nose ring in her pierced septum, that bit of tissue between the two nostrils.

The item itself looked not unlike a woman's cocktail ring, something like the one seen below. She was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, so it obviously wasn't an ethnicity thing for her.

IMHO pierced noses like that are incredibly unsightly. From a distance, it looked like she had a booger hanging from her nose or a stitched incision on her upper lip.

Close up, the things just look gross, in my opinion. Why a woman would want to obscure her pretty face with that unattractive mess is a mystery to me.

The biggest danger for a nasal piercing is the risk of infection. That, in turn, could result in serious damage to the nasal tissue.

So there's every good reason not to have a nasal septum piercing. And I can't think of any good reasons for having one.

thunderbirds

When I was growing up, we had one television in the house. My parents didn't want us to have our own sets in our bedrooms. So as the youngest child, if I wanted to watch TV, I often ended up watching whatever my older sibling(s) had on.

When I was kindergarten age, my oldest sibling, my brother, was in high school. For whatever reason, he loved watching Thunderbirds, a cheesy 1960s British scifi program made with puppets. Given the year -- sometime in the early 1990s -- I'm guessing he had VHS recordings of the program.

I happened to see something online the other day about Thunderbirds and it reminded me how much I loathed that program. Entertainment requires a suspension of disbelief, but that show was so laughably bad that suspension was rendered impossible.

I could never get past the puppets. They looked more like dolls, and I was never a doll girl. I thought they looked lifeless and you could often see their controlling wires.

My husband said he has a dim memory of the program. He said he never cared for it, either.

I know there are adults who still love Thunderbirds. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I should see if the library has it on DVD and, if so, whether it appeals to my six-year-old son. Does he take after his parents or his uncle?

the guest book

A few days ago, I finished reading The Guest Book by Sarah Blake, which has been on the bestseller lists in the United States this summer.

Since then, I've been trying to decide if I liked the book or I didn't like it.

In brief, the book tells a multi-generational story of an upper class American WASP family, their fabulous summer home on their private 400-acre island in Maine, and their fortune's slow decline.

Blake is a skilled writer and her prose is often powerful and beautiful. Some of the characters and scenes in the book are extremely powerful. Some of them almost have an Arthur Miller sensibility to them, something I thought on my own and then saw a reviewer say something similar.

With all that said, I was left feeling like I really didn't care about any of the people in the book. They are often privileged snobs who have an over-inflated sense of entitlement and are both racist and anti-Semitic.

I didn't feel empathy for them like I did with F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby.

Nonetheless, the book is a skilled portrait of a wealthy family in decline. It's something that will stick with me for a while, and I definitely want to read more from this writer.

the privileged life

Robert Kennedy's granddaughter died from a drug overdose at the family's Hyannis Port compound on Thursday. She was 22 and a college student who had suffered from periods of depression.

She was not the first member of the extended Kennedy family to experience drug problems.

When I hear about things like this, I'm always left wondering how much, if any, did her family's extreme wealth and privilege contribute to her problems.

My brother has had a friend from childhood who's the son of the heir to an enormous American fortune and has the famous name, to boot. Yet his parents raised him as if they were upper middle class. He and his siblings went to private school but that was the extent of their privilege.

He had no idea of his family's extreme wealth until he became an adult. And he and is siblings are entirely "normal" people. Had they been raised with servants and summer homes and private jets and all the rest, would they have turned out exactly the same way?

If I was a parent and from an extremely wealthy family, I don't think I'd want to tempt fate. I'd want my children to have an upper middle class and not an upper class upbringing. Sure, lot could go wrong if you're from the upper middle class, but I'd still think it's a somewhat safer berth.

wolf's lair

The ruins of Adolph Hitler's notorious Wolf's Lair have been open to the public in East Poland for quite some time, but now local officials are considering staging re-enactments and other measures to bring in more tourists. Not surprisingly, many people believe this is a mistake.

I agree. I think sites like this should always be open to the public as long as safety allows it, but they should be preserved with quiet dignity in honor of the Third Reich's millions of victims.

That's the way many concentration camp sites are now. They are open to the public, who can tour the facility, and there may be a small attached museum with exhibits. But they aren't tarted up with bells and whistles; they're quiet ruins not unlike a cemetery.

I've been to the Dauchau site in Germany where this is the rule. The site speaks for itself and doesn't need to be "updated" to amuse and entertain the public. I think the same should be done for the Wolf's Lair.

is this funny?

I saw this very short video online at three different sites yesterday -- on Twitter, on Imgur, and on Reddit. I have no idea where it came from originally.

Many people, at least based on the publicly posted comments, found it hilarious. I was not one of them.

The pits around where the two girls were battling it out are intended to be kid safe. But they're not baby safe. An infant could be seriously injured in a fall like is seen in the video, even if it wasn't very far and onto a cushioned surface.

I am also troubled thinking about the girl's parenting, the one who strikes the baby. Have they not taught her that infants can be very fragile?

And, of course, what kind of emotional trauma did the baby experience? Hopefully it was not lasting.