Austria's Notorious Fame

In the past week or so, the whole world has been closely watching the criminal trial of an Amstetten man accused of rape, incest, forced imprisonment, enslavement, coercion, and negligent homicide. Nearly one year ago, we heard the shocking story of how he imprisoned his daughter, now 42, in a secret basement cell of his home when she was 18 and then fathered 7 children with her over the next 24 years. I don't want to dwell on the details of the crime, but I'd like to comment on how I've seen its treatment, both here in Austria and abroad.

As a little central European country that tends to evade the international spotlight, most U.S. Americans know Austria for its mountains, it's contribution to California's seat of Governor, and the timeless classic 1965 Julie Andrews musical it inspired. But recently this country has been thrust into the limelight for less flattering reasons.

It was only in 2006 that Austria was brought under the loop of the world's media for the case of Natascha Kampusch, a young woman who was abducted at the age of 10 and kept for 8 years in a secret basement cell of her captor's house until her escape. Austria was left troubled under the international scrutiny of the Natascha Kampusch case, so it comes as no surprise that is now deeply shaken with the case of the Amstetten man. This crime helps establish a precident in how the rest of the world perceives Austria: it is the country where young women are captured and kept in basements.

It's suprising that two such horrible crimes should occur in the same place at the same time. And it's unfortunate for Austria that it is now known for such things. You can sense Austria's sense of shame and embarrassment surrounding this matter, and it is clear that they'd prefer to earn their fame some other way. But coming from a country whose news media is splayed across every corner of the world, I have a hardened sense of sympathy for them.

As a foreigner from a world superpower living in this charming yet somewhat inwardly-focused nation, I find it hard to empathize. Nearly all of my three total years in Austria have been under the Bush administration. Did they ever get news of what America was doing right? Sure, our international as well as domestic politics have suffered a lot--but did they ever hear of anything good coming out of America? And during the past election, did both candidates receive equal and fair representation? Election news was streaming into Austria every day for months, but it was heavily biased towards Obama (i.e., the candidate whose party has no affiliation to Bush) both in content and in quantity. When my students consider an exchange year in the U.S., do they think about the extensive sports, clubs, and extracurricular activities not available to them in Austria or do they think about the danger of school shootings? I've learned to automatically apologize for my country in this culture; and it's a bad habit that simply reinforces the stereotypes brought on by bad news. Yes, Austria is making a bad impression on the rest of the world right now. But that kind of stuff comes out of my country all the time. How can they ask us not to judge them when they have a habit of judging us for the same thing?

Another phenomenon about the treatment of this case in Austria is that everything possible has been done here to protect the Amstetten man's identity. Known here as simply Josef F., not a single newspaper or news source I could find is revealing his last name. Yet all of the English-language media I've seen has provided his complete name. Indeed, even a Google search for "Josef Fritzl" yields largely English language results. The discrepancy extends as far as Wikipedia: the English-language entry on the case reveals his whole name, yet the German-language entry refers to him throughout the article simply as Josef F. It puzzles me why the Austrian media seeks to preserve anonymity when this information is readily available to the rest of the world. (N.b.: It's possible that this is some obscure law I know nothing about, but I cannot find any explanation for it in my Austrian sources. Even in the case of Kampusch, the captor's entire identity was known.)

In a surprising turn of events today, Josef F(ritzl) pleaded guilty to all charges. His sentence is expected tomorrow afternoon at the end of his four day trial. So, Austria, even though the rest of the world may be judging you by your atrocious crimes, maybe you're sending us a bit of hope as well...hope that one day we, too, will be able to conduct a major trial in only four days.

Hamster Circus Tricks

I've discovered that my hamsters are incredibly talented. In fact, they might just run off and join the hamster circus. Here are just a few of the tricks they keep me entertained with.

Hamster Circus Trick #1:

Holly and Cotton often run together on the hamster wheel. It's pretty amusing, and sometimes there are funny collisions.

(video link above)

Hamster Circus Trick #2:

I've also discovered that Holly comes when called! When I put her in her hamster ball, she follows me like a dog. At first, I thought it was chance--that she just happened to come to me. But then I started testing her, putting her in different parts of the apartment and letting her roam for awhile before coming back and calling her. And when she sees me, she follows me. Yesterday I led her all the way from my room to the end of the kitchen and back again. Take a look, and--sorry!--please ignore the high-pitched cutesy voice!

(video link above)

Hamster Circus Trick #3:

Cotton as the habit of stuffing her mouth full of hamster food--but only the small, wheat-like kernels--and then depositing them in a pile somewhere. She can fit a suprising amount of food in her little cheeks; in fact, she can fit so much food in there, that she has to use her front paws to reach up behind her cheeks and squeeze it all out like a tube of toothpaste.

For the past three hours, the following scenario has kept Cotton Ball and Holly Golightly's little minds entertained:

Cotton fills her cheeks with little kernels of hamster food and then spits them back out again in her hamster wheel. She then spends the next few minutes scraping and digging at the wheel, trying in vain to bury her food. But it'll never work...after all, it's made of plastic!

Holly comes along for a run, sending the kernels flying all over the floor of the cage. After about 30 seconds, she gives up and moves on...after all, there are better things to do! Then Cotton comes along behind her, gathering the stray kernels from the cage floor and sucking them up back into her cheeks like a teeny tiny vacuum cleaner. After she's gethered them all up again in her cheeks, she returns to the wheel and deposits them yet again...and the process continues ad nauseum.

Part 1:

(narrated video link above, part 1)

Part 2:

(narrated video link above, part 2)

And finally, Hamster Circus Trick #4:

You know how sometimes cats get that crazy spooked look and then start running around the house wildly, tail puffed out, for no apparent reason? Holly has similar tendencies.

This morning I woke up and went to retrieve the cage from the bathtub. (Hamsters being nocturnal creatures, this is the only place in the apartment where no one can hear them at 3 a.m.!) Holly and Cotton were already up, and Cotton was running happily in the wheel. But Holly was darting up and down the different levels of the cage, and as I put the cage back into my room, she took one frenzied look in my direction and then climbed up the horizonal bars of the cage right to the top. But she didn't stop there--oh, no! She kept right on going, crawling upsidedown across the top of the cage, like a sloth. Using her paws to grab the bars, she shimmied from one side to the other, and when she met the opposite wall of the cage she simply dropped ungracefully onto her back.

This isn't the first time I've seen this trick, but unfortunately I haven't caught it on video yet. ...Video still to come.