The Lexicographer's Rules

"It is possible that they then developed together the strange psychiatric condition known as folie ˆ deux first described by two French psychiatrists in the nineteenth century. In this condition, two people who are mutually dependent and in unusually close association come to share the same delusion. Usually, the person with the stronger character and greater intelligence is the originator of the delusion, which he or she believes with unshakable conviction; the other, weaker and less intelligent, character goes along with it, because he or she has not the strength to resist."

"

—City Journal. Theodore Dalrymple believes the horrifying tale of Marie Therese Kouao and Carl Manning, prosecuted for extreme levels of child abuse and the ultimate death of eight-year-old Anna Climbie, was made possible by professional racial hypersensitivity on the part of social workers and police. "Her body after death showed 128 marks of violence, inflicted with leather belts, metal coat hangers, a bicycle chain, and a hammer. She was burned with cigarettes and scalded with hot water. Her fingers were cut with razors. For six months, she had been made to sleep in a black plastic garbage bag (in place of clothes) in a bathtub: sometimes she had been left in cold water, bound hand and foot, for 24 hours. She was emaciated to the point of starvation; her legs were so rigidly flexed that when she was admitted to the hospital the day before her death, they could not be straightened."'

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?