Greg & Deb on the Web

I came across these headlines on a Japanese news site:

FUJI, Shizuoka -- A woman who scalded her 6-year-old daughter by compressing a steaming hot bowl of rice on her legs has been convicted by a court here for assault but will avoid going to jail. Presiding Judge Sengan Kurasawa suspended the sentence for three years and placed Kiyoshi on probation after noting her remorse. "Part of the problem came from the mental stress the defendant felt at being in an environment where she felt isolated," Kurasawa said as he handed down the ruling. "She has also showed deep remorse."


SAKAI, Osaka -- A woman has been charged for unleashing a brutal attack on her 4-month-old baby boy, using a razor blade to hack away at his genitals to curb her frustration at being beaten by her lover, the Sakai Branch of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office said. "My partner keeps on beating me and refuses to acknowledge that he is the father of our boy, so I developed a real mistrust of men and did it to let off steam. But, I still can't get thoughts of my kid out of my mind and want to live with him," Tamura told the prosecutors.

Next I read this on the same site:

After decades of wishing for a rebirth as a man, a growing number of women now want to be reborn in the same gender, according to the survey conducted at five-year intervals since 1953.

From the 1953 start of the survey until at least the '70s, more than 60 percent of respondents felt Japanese society contained more enjoyment for men than women, with the number believing the reverse was the case never reaching 20 percent.

Then, for 20 years, respondents were not asked about which gender they felt had a better time. When they were asked again during the last survey in 1998, however, women had closed the gap.

In last year's survey, however, for the first time more respondents believed Japanese women had more to enjoy in life than men. At 56 percent, a majority of women surveyed believed their lives are more fun than their male counterparts.

I know two back-to-back stories describing physically and psychologically abused Japanese women committing violence against children does not mean there's some sort of epidemic.

But when you swallow that last snippet as a chaser you begin to wonder what the hell is going on over there.