absolutely alex’s adventures & times

Damn it!

It was supposed to be the perfect opportunity for Roger Federer to win the Rome Masters, especially with Rafael Nadal unexpectedly knocked out in the earlier rounds and Federer himself seemed to be going from strength to strength with each match so far. Other formidable rivals who excel on clay, such as David Ferrer and David Nalbandian, have also been eliminated, clearing the path for him.

But no one saw Federer’s defeat by Radek Stepanek in the quarterfinals of the tournament coming, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7). Federer was supposed to overcome Stepanek relatively easily and meet Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Now that big match won’t happen.

Reuters photo

“I think I missed plenty of opportunities throughout the match. I think I led in both breakers with a mini break, and usually when I have the lead, you know, I don’t let it go, so it’s quite disappointing,” a downbeat Federer said in a post-match interview.

“To me it’s just disappointing the way I lost today. My focus is not at the bottom of the draw. It’s just I wish I could have played better, you know, and I played so poorly on the big points. It’s a tough loss.”

What is up with the tennis world these days?

Undisputed clay court god Nadal was stunned in the second round by Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Federer did not make it to the semifinals, even if he was playing on clay, not his best surface. Yet Andy Roddick, who has never shown much affinity for clay, is still hanging in there, making it to the semifinals.

Over at the women’s game, world number one Justine Henin was shown the door by Dinara Safina in round three of the German Open. Safina continued on her giant-killing spree, edging out Serena Williams in the quarterfinals in three sets. Madness.

On the bright side, Federer has improved on his results in Rome from last year, when he was defeated in round three by an unknown.

But on the other hand, it is a downhill slide for Federer. It’s only May and Federer has already notched up six losses so far this year. Last year, he suffered a total of nine defeats, which was actually a record for the Swiss world number one. His match win-loss numbers in 2006 were 92-5, 81-4 in 2005 and 74-6 in 2004.

Judging from the stats of the Federer-Stepanek match, it was an understandable disappointment for Federer, who actually held the upper hand throughout the match — more points won on serve and less double faults — and won more points in the match overall (88 out of 170). But he faltered in the tie-breaks, on which the match turned.

More worrying for Federer is the level of confidence so many players feel about beating him these days.

“He definitely doesn’t have the results he was used to in previous years,” Stepanek said about Federer. “But the other players are getting better. I came to the match with the belief that I can win.”

“Everybody is hungry,” Stepanek continued. “Two players can’t win all the tournaments.”

Can Federer prove him wrong, turn things around and make them work for him in time for the French Open, the Grand Slam tournament that begins in two weeks?

Let’s hope Federer is hungry enough to crush the competition and win the one Grand Slam trophy he has yet to have on his display mantle.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Is it really the end for Hillary Clinton?

Could it be that her campaign, which has been counted for dead so often but then miraculously resurrected so many times in the past, will truly stay dead this time?

Is it actually the case that her campaign is now history though Clinton had been expected to lose North Carolina and was running close to Barack Obama in Indiana after being vastly outspent by him in both states and yet she still managed to eke out a win in Indiana?

Have the Democrats really chosen to dump a candidate who, while flawed, remains feisty when she is down, keeps her head held high when countless shots were slung at her, wakes up everyday to campaign with renewed vigor and stays optimistic of seeing the tide turn when pundit after pundit have mercilessly written her off?

Have they abandoned a woman whose never-say-die attitude and perseverance in the face of adversity embodies the kind of toughness the President of the United States needs when disasters strike or foreign dictators test the nation?

Are the Democrats seriously going with a man who goes all sullen and conveys defeat when his campaign was plagued by the chickens that have come home to roost, such as Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Bittergate?

Can they back a man who is only confident when things are going his way and teleprompters are set before him?

Are they certain they want a man who complains constantly of the toll of campaigning, that he has not slept well since last year, that he has not had enough time to spend with his daughters, and who seems to have much less energy than a woman 15 years his senior on the campaign trail?

If Obama is so spent from just plain campaigning over the past year, does he really have the stamina and will to handle the endless crises that come with the most demanding job in the world for the next four years?

Do Democrats want to send to the White House a man who has sat in the pew of Wright’s church for 20 years listening to his incendiary sermons, did not flinch as it served his political purpose of getting an in with the Chicago political establishment and community, and yet suddenly found Wright’s remarks “divisive”, “destructive” and “appalling” when those same messages went outside the confines of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ into the public consciousness?

Are the Democrats sure they can win the White House with a nominee who is willing to conveniently renounce ties with a man whose advice, guidance and inspiration helped him gain national consciousness in the first place and who really only seemed to be done with him after Wright brought Obama back down to mortal status as just another politician?

“And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing,” Obama told reporters in his I’m-done-with-Wright moment.

Well, we live in a democracy. And the people have spoken and exercised their choice. They will have to live with it, come what may, which could include John McCain winning in November.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

When the unfortunate people of Myanmar get through the catastrophe of the cyclone that is believed to have killed over 23,000 over the weekend and put 1.5 million at risk of starvation or disease, they will hopefully have the strength to come together and overthrow the nasty, corrupt and callous military regime that is prolonging their misery.

It is truly mind-boggling how callous the junta is towards its people.

After the massive cyclone that leveled homes, took lives and cut off supplies to the survivors and threatened their survival, the military junta’s first instinct was self-preservation.

Rather than focus on bringing relief and aid to those afflicted by the cyclone, the junta insisted on carrying on as scheduled this Saturday with a ridiculous referendum on the country’s new constitution, which is likely to be rigged anyway. After much international criticism, it only begrudgingly stated that the voting would be postponed in the worst affected areas.

While bodies pile up, people remain thirsty and hungry as water and electricity supply stayed cut-off, and the injured receive no medical aid, the Myanmar generals dawdle about letting international aid and supplies into the isolated and paranoid country.

It has been six days since the disaster and aid organizations and foreign governments had been lining up, waiting to be of help and service.

While the well-meaning foreigners are anxious to get into the country to help, the Myanmar government takes its time to issue visas for aid workers and puts off granting permission for flights ferrying supplies and aid to land in the worst hit areas. Aid is only just trickling in painfully.

The stalling has caused such international anguish and worry for the state of the injured and needy in Myanmar, that the United Nations is practically demanding that the intransigent generals allow aid workers and organizations in without further delay.

“The situation is profoundly worrying,” the United Nations official in charge of the relief effort, John Holmes, told the New York Times. “They have simply not facilitated access in the way we have a right to expect.”

Some countries such as Britain and France are so desperate to get help where it is most needed, they are actually contemplating invading Myanmar’s air space by flying in and air-dropping food and supplies.

Suffer the poor Myanmese people. Why is it that outsiders are more worried for them than their own government?

Under pressure, the regime said outsiders were free to help and donate supplies but made clear the presence of foreigners is not welcome.

“Currently Myanmar has prioritized receiving emergency relief provisions and is making strenuous efforts to transport those provisions without delay by its own labors to the affected areas,” the country’s Foreign Ministry said. “As such, Myanmar is not ready to receive search-and-rescue teams as well as media teams from foreign countries.”

It is a classic conundrum for aid organizations: put human lives that are at risk first by demanding to be let in to help, or respect the sovereignty of states.

Clearly, the regime feels threatened by the presence of aid groups and foreign help. If they were allowed in, it would only cement the resentment the people already feel against the junta, and contribute to the impression of its inability to handle the country’s affairs competently.

So while the junta worries about its image and remains suspicious of getting external help, foreign planes and personnel ready to help sit by helplessly, waiting for the green light; and the suffering people of Myanmar face a potentially disastrous health catastrophe as the threat of malaria, diarrhea and other related starts to spread.

This is a crime against humanity. If only the generals could be hauled off to face trial and punishment for this.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

While the worst of the credit crunch might be over, as articulated by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in the hope of shoring up confidence in the battered US economy, the real indicator consumers should be watching is oil prices.

The economy has been flirting with disaster, no thanks to the credit crunch, which led to a housing slump and foreclosures nationwide, along with skyrocketing energy costs. With the credit crunch “closer to the end” than the beginning, as Paulson described to the media, energy costs remains the biggest worry for the economy.

But the pain of rising energy costs is not just felt at gas pumps, where prices have already crossed the psychological $4 a gallon line in some parts of the country.

With crude oil hitting just shy of $124 a barrel in trading today, and talk that it might go as high as $200 by the end of the year, the credit crunch might pale in comparison in the economic pain infliction category to the troubles that could be caused by ever-rising energy prices.

Energy costs will affect more people than the credit crunch could. We might not all take out risky mortgages but every part of our lives involves the use of energy in one form or another.

Besides the cars we drive or the public transportation we take, even basics like our food and clothes prices are affected by energy costs, due to the production and transportation costs of the food to our local supermarkets, and the clothes that have to be shipped from China or Vietnam. Manufacturing plants need to use massive amounts of energy to run their usually energy-intensive factories. Farmers need fuel to run their tractors. The airlines industry is powered by oil. The harder we work in producing all kinds of products, the higher the demand for energy and fossil fuels, and the steeper oil prices become. And countries with nothing other than the luck of the geographical draw benefit.

There really has to be a more concerted effort to look into developing alternative energy sources. For far too long, we have been held hostage to countries that supply us with oil and it is our own fault that we have not yet summoned the will to get out of that nasty scenario.

The oil is not going to be there forever. It will run out in the next few decades and the oil-producing nations know it. They are thus relentless now in holding down production and supply despite the ever-growing demand for more oil.

With gas prices going through the roof, people should summon the energy and will power to say “enough”. Now is the perfect time to want to do things differently and wean ourselves from the prison of oil dependence. We might just be willing to try out alternative sources of energy if there was enough leadership and initiative out there. Dare we hope that with a new administration in the White House next year, things might change and we will finally free ourselves of the shackles of oil dependency and all the political problems that are associated with it?

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Pundits can deride Microsoft for walking away from the hostile Yahoo takeover deal as much as they want, but Microsoft can heave a sigh of relief for dodging a bullet.

No, Steve Ballmer was not being all hat and no cattle, as some have labeled his action for withdrawing from the attempt to buy Yahoo after a three-month wrangle.

In the end, it was a smart move by Ballmer and the people at Microsoft.

AP photo

Basically, he listened to his shareholders and his people, who thought it was dumb to pay $47.5 billion for a second-rate also-ran company that did not know a good deal when it hit it in the face, and furthermore let its pride get in the way of its prospects. The fact that Microsoft’s stock declined on news of the unsolicited takeover offer should have been reason enough to convince Ballmer that investors did not think that the proposed deal was a good idea at all. It was a good thing that he pulled out before more damage could be done to Microsoft.

Talk about cheek. Yahoo was trading at an anemic under-$20 a share before Microsoft surprised the industry with its takeover offer in late January, boosting Yahoo’s share price to the high $20s thereafter.

At Microsoft’s $33 a share offer, Yahoo’s shareholders should be busy hiding its glee and just take the money. Instead, it stubbornly clung to the notion that its shares were “undervalued” by Microsoft’s offer and won’t stand for anything less than $37 a share.

Fat chance. Yahoo’s shares had not seen those heights in two years. On what basis would Microsoft justify paying that kind of money for Yahoo to its shareholders?

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang might have been playing chicken, in the hope that Microsoft would blink first and give them a few more dollars per share.

But Yang instead gave Ballmer the out that he was looking for to kill the ill-fated deal.

Now Yang and Yahoo’s board could face a flurry of investors’ suits, at their fury of Yahoo’s folly for rejecting the best deal it could have been offered.

Microsoft should just let this go and forget about going back to the table with Yahoo, despite rumors that this isn’t yet completely finished.

With the $47.5 billion price tag it was willing to pay, Microsoft should look to score a game-changing partnership, not one that would still play a distant second fiddle to Google. It really does not make sense to spend that massive kind of money buying a company that will not have the ability to knock Microsoft’s ultimate enemy out. Remember — eyes on the prize. If it has that kind of war chest to throw around, Microsoft should reach higher and get a truly innovative company or partnership that could break new ground or change the rules of the internet game.

Or it could use that kind of money on research and trend-spotting to get onto the next big wave in internet advertising, internet search or other kinds of networking trend. Microsoft is pretty unique among big technology firms for its substantial cash hoard and just think of the kind of innovations it could come up with, should the money be invested in the appropriate research and development.

Microsoft seems to be pursuing that approach now. Its chairman Bill Gates has just said the company is looking to go down an independent path. “We will make the advances that give people a great choice there,” he said, referring to internet search offering.

Microsoft does need to innovate to beat Google, which dominates internet advertising and search. But partnering Yahoo would not be the way to defeat Google. Microsoft would be better off going it alone, or finding a partner truly worthy of taking on Google. And Microsoft should hang on to its billions until the right deal and the company worth battling for comes along.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Getty Images photo

Wow, what a shocker.

In what should have been a routine match for clay court king Rafael Nadal in the second round of the Rome Masters, he suffered a shocking upset in the hands of former French Open champion and Spanish compatriot Juan Carlos Ferrero, 7-5, 6-1.

Ferrero now joins the very tiny club of players who had the temerity to beat Nadal on clay. The only other person who managed the feat is world number one Roger Federer, in Hamburg last year.

Nadal’s loss to Ferrero is only his second defeat after playing 105 matches on clay. Nadal was hoping to win a fourth consecutive championship in Rome.

And though he was suffering from a bad blister and had doubts about whether he should even be on court, Nadal toughed it out and finished up the match, despite an obvious loss of movement due to the discomfort bugging him.

“Today when I woke up, I said it was impossible to play. I spoke to the doctor today and yesterday and they put special protection on it and cream, but it was still tough.

“I congratulate Juan Carlos, but for sure that was not my best tennis.”

This stunning development, along with the loss of other seeds in the tournament so far, such as David Ferrer, David Nalbandian and Andy Murray, should throw the championship wide open to whomever has the guts and gumption to seize the opportunity.

The top two seeds left in the tournament are Federer and Novak Djokovic, who will both be cheered about the prospect of not having to face Nadal to win the tournament.

Federer, in particular, should be feeling confident to know that his arch nemesis has been eliminated for him at such an early stage. If he could focus and stay confident, he could be the one raising the champion’s trophy later this week.

But Nadal’s loss should not be taken as more than a glitch. He was obviously not at his best, hampered by his blister. But this does not mean he won’t be a menacing force come the big one — the French Open, starting at the end of this month.

Nadal has been rather unhappy with the packed clay court schedule in the run-up to the French Open, and has not been shy about expressing his displeasure. Hopefully, he’ll get a good break after his shock defeat today. He will certainly be pumped up to come back and win in Roland Garros later this month.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Well, it looks like the halo over Senator Barack Obama’s head is starting to lose its shine.

It took Obama’s former pastor, the incendiary Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to cause likely voters to take a longer, harder look at Obama. And they don’t seem to like what they see after the hullabaloo of the past week, going by new polls.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, only 30 per cent of those surveyed thought Obama broke with his pastor because he was truly angry with what he said.

58 per cent thought Rev. Wright’s words were prescient, that Obama was just another politician, and dumped Wright for his own political expedience.

People were not fooled by the hastily-called news conference the Obama campaign arranged on Tuesday for the candidate to denounce Wright and distance himself after a 20-year relationship between the two men.

52 per cent thought Obama was not surprised by Wright’s controversial views, as the candidate had claimed, while only 33 per cent thought Wright’s words at the recent National Press Club, which included his reiteration that the US government unleashed AIDS on minorities and brought terrorism upon the nation with its policies, took Obama by surprise.

Perhaps more damagingly, more than half of the respondents (56%), felt that Obama is at least “somewhat likely” to “share some of Pastor Wright’s controversial views about the United States.”

More bad news for the Obama camp on other fronts too.

The latest Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll saw the lead that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has over Obama in a hypothetical match-up open up, 48 per cent to 42 per cent. Before the Wright controversy, they were even at 46 per cent.

His remaining rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, improved in the fight against him in the race for the nomination. She now has a 46 per cent rating, compared to Obama’s 44 per cent. Close, but it is still a demonstration of the tide turning against Obama, who was eight points ahead of Clinton before the Wright saga blew up in his face.

Obama remains on track to win the North Carolina primary next week, but his lead over Clinton there has shrunk from double to single digits. Meanwhile, Clinton seems to have gained in Indiana, according to the Rasmussen poll, with a five-point lead.

Even if Obama eventually beats Clinton to clinch the Democratic Party nomination, it looks like the Wright controversy will continue to dog him in November. The superdelegates might have to ponder very carefully about which horse to back if they are keen on winning back the White House.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

“How are you going to stand up to the terrorists when you’re afraid of Fox News?” Jay Leno famously mocked the Democrats’ refusal to appear on Fox News-sponsored debates during his monologue on his nightly “Tonight Show”. 

But these days, it looks like the Democrats have toughened up and are bravely taking on the channel seen as the voice piece of right-wingers.

In the short span of this week, both Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have appeared on Fox News.

Obama finally put a stop to Fox News’ comical “Obama Watch” clock that counts down the days since he agreed to appear on Fox News but still hadn’t, when he sat down with Chris Wallace last Sunday.

Clinton went a step further, taking on liberals’ favorite bashing-boy Bill O’Reilly during a campaign stop in Indiana.

She was feisty, argumentative and relaxed despite O’Reilly’s in-your-face, you’re-wrong-and-i’m-right style of questioning. Clinton looked like she was actually having fun sparring with O’Reilly. She does her best when cornered, after all.

And this weekend, Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean himself will appear on Wallace’s show. The cable news network has trumpeted the interview, saying it’s the first time in 18 months that Dean has appeared on the channel.

Strategically, it was a brilliant move by both candidates to cavort with the enemy.

Fox News might have a reputation for being the bastion of conservative punditry but its audience is not just conservative, high income-earning white males ready to bash Democrats. 

Along with the largest reach among cable news channels (1.78 million viewers during prime time), Fox News has the added advantage of an audience of varied political hues.

The LA Times reports that consumer research firm Mediamark Research found in a survey of 10,000 people, that 39 per cent of Fox News’ viewers described themselves as being very or somewhat conservative, 47 per cent as middle-of-the-road or undecided, and 14 per cent as very or somewhat liberal. That’s not too far off from its biggest rival CNN, which has 33 per cent conservative, 47 per cent middle-of-the-road and 20 per cent liberal viewers.

Going into next Tuesday’s open primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, where independents and even Republicans are likely to weigh in and vote, Clinton and Obama’s appearances on Fox News are shrewd attempts to appeal to those people that could make a difference in the margin of victory or defeat. 

Looking at the longer term, these same people could help the eventual nominee during November’s general election.

While MSNBC could be described as the Obama campaign cheerleader, Fox News has surprisingly given Clinton a fairer treatment.

Maybe it’s a part of “Operation Chaos” propagated by right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh at work here — the Republicans want Clinton to be the Democratic nominee, as they think she would unite and energize the Republican base in November better than Obama. 

But for Clinton, her acceptance of O’Reilly’s interview is apparently also prompted by the better treatment that the Clinton campaign feels Fox News has accorded it. 

“Fox has given Hillary Clinton better coverage than all the other cables,” Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe said in a recent radio interview.

Strange as the detente between Democrats and Fox News would seem, there is no denying that both need each other. It would not be in the best interest of the Democrats to be silly and continue ignoring Fox News and pretend that it does not matter.    

Instead, the Democrats could be better off using Fox News to reach voters that aren’t in the choir yet. And Fox News sure would not begrudge the viewership boost from appearances by top Democrats. It would be a win-win situation for all if they just agreed to co-exist while agreeing to disagree.

 
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Perhaps we should just wrap up the clay court season for tennis this year and move right on to the grass court season.

Spain’s Rafael Nadal, probably the best clay court tennis player of all time, has just reached another astonishing milestone and does not even come close to slowing down on the red dirt at all.

The 21-year old has just won his 100th clay court match in Barcelona today, beating compatriot Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-3 in the third round of the Barcelona Open.

His record on clay now stands at a formidable 100-1. The sole blip to an otherwise perfect record was inflicted by world number one Roger Federer in Hamburg last year. 

Was Federer watching Nadal’s latest match? If he was, he would undoubtedly take note of its significance and perchance find it just a little bit more daunting for himself.

Federer is still trying to claim the one Grand Slam title, the French Open, that has hitherto dodged his grasp. And Nadal has been the only one to stand in his way. Coming up against Nadal’s latest statistics, along with former tennis champion Bjorn Borg’s recent prediction that Nadal will sweep both the French Open and Wimbledon in succession this year, Federer will be facing an uphill climb for the next month or two.

But it is not impossible for Federer and too early to count him out anyway.

Besides beating Nadal outright in Hamburg last year, Federer came close at the recent Monte Carlo Masters finals. In both sets, Federer could capitalize quickly on Nadal’s mistakes and broke his service games repeatedly. Unfortunately, he slipped up at crucial moments and threw the match away, by failing to consolidate on the service breaks, falling back, and letting Nadal dictate play and wear him out. The problem seems more mental than anything else. If Federer believed enough, he could still beat Nadal at Roland Garros.

Nadal, though, won’t give in without a heroic struggle. He has arguably the toughest defence on clay, plus the endurance and self-belief to outlast any challenger. He just keeps getting more comfortable on the dirt, which makes him the one to beat in the months ahead.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
 

Perhaps all parents and parents-to-be should be made to sign a Hippocratic Oath-type of pledge and held accountable, so that fewer children would be victimized or harmed.

Shock and horror do not begin to express the feelings of revolt one gets from reading about the case of the Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter in a windowless underground cellar in the family-owned building, raped her and fathered seven children with her.

The most chilling part of this story is that Josef Fritzl managed to get away with it for 24 years and looked like he could have gotten away with it totally, had it not been for one of the children getting critically ill.

The woman, Elisabeth, was forced to live with three of her children in the narrow and low-ceilinged confines of the bunker, robbed of sunlight and contact with other human beings, with a television and radio as their windows to the outside world. 

The other three children were taken by Fritzl to live with his family in the real world.

If the story of the Fritzls sounds inexplicable, it is not unique. It is the third similar type of case in Austria. 

Natascha Kampusch, now 20 years old, was held in an underground cell for eight years before she escaped in 2006.

There was one other case of a couple in Vienna, who caged their mentally retarded daughter for years in a cellar.

How is it that people could stay kidnapped and abused for such long periods without anyone suspecting anything?

How does it reflect on the community in the town of Amstetten where the episode occurred, when Fritzl’s actions went about undetected for about a quarter of a century?

In a town where everyone was said to know everybody else’s name, how could it be that the neighbors stayed unaware?

What does it say about the folks if they were too self-involved to realize the heinous acts going on in their neighborhood? Or were they only too happy to look the other way, mind their own business and carry on with their own lives?

The country’s social services were recorded as having been to the Fritzl household 21 times when Elisabeth’s three children were adopted by Fritzl and his wife. Why did they not investigate the strange appearance of the children at the Fritzls’ doorstep further, when they knew of Elisabeth’s disappearance?

And how could Fritzl’s wife Rosemarie be totally ignorant the entire time? Didn’t the fact that Fritzl brought back three children in succession, claiming that Elisabeth had run away and left them to her parents, ring any alarm bells? Would it not have been noticeable how often Fritzl disappeared to the basement? Why did Rosemarie so readily believe her husband’s line that Elisabeth had run away to join some cult?

How were the seven children, with one who died soon after birth, delivered? Did Fritzl do it all by himself? 

There were other tenants in the building the family lived in. Eight flats were rented out. Did these people not hear or see anything at all, children crying or playing? Did they not wonder why the old man went so frequently to the basement?

Fritzl was supposed to have been extremely cautious, buying clothes, food and other supplies for his three prisoners in other towns so that he would not raise suspicions.

While he was trained as an electrical engineer, he installed a 300kg, 1m high and 2m wide steel door at the cellar to keep his victims locked in. Could he have had the strength and the ability to handle such a heavy door all by himself? He was also said to have knocked down some walls in the cellar to enlarge it when more children were born. Was it possible that nobody noticed? Were there accomplices who abetted him in his evil pursuits?

Fritzl went away on vacation to Thailand in 1998 for four weeks. Again, how did he stock up on what would be a substantial amount of food and supplies for the victims without being noticed by anyone?

At 73, Fritzl is near the end of his life and no amount of punishment brought down by the law would affect him for very much longer. 

Some people have suggested the death penalty for him. Austria though, does have that but to have him executed would have been too easy a way out for him anyway. The monster should be put away in an isolated, windowless cell to give him a taste of what life must have been like for his daughter and three grandchildren.

Meanwhile, his daughter Elisabeth and her children, will have to carry the horrors and the scars till the end of their days. Her eldest child is still gravely ill, possibly sent to the hospital too late for her undisclosed condition to be treated successfully. 

The two other kids, one at 18, and another aged five, will face a long and tough road towards getting over the trauma and the adjustments they would have to make to live in a strange new world.

“They have to develop a tolerance for daylight and also to develop a sense of spatial awareness,” Berthold Kepplinger, who heads the neuropsychiatric clinic in Amstetten where the family is being treated, said about the children.

“When the sunbeams struck his face, he squealed loudly,” the chief inspector of the regional police in Lower Austria Leopold Etz told the media, in a heart-rending reference to the five-year old boy.

Never having left the basement cellar, the children had initially thought they had gone up to heaven when they first got out, as their mother had told them that heaven was above where they lived. 

Besides getting used to other people, the children would also have to learn to speak, as their verbal skills were reportedly limited, although their mother had taught them the language.

One cannot but feel heartbroken for the ordeals of Elisabeth and her children, and the long road to normalcy they would have to take, if that was even possible.

In the meantime, the government and people of Austria have a lot of soul-searching to do as to how cases like this could happen right under their noses, and not just once.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::