6. MOM FORCES DAUGHTER TO EAT RAW CHICKEN HEART
New Jersey authorities have determined that freedom of religion does not include the right to force your seven-year-old daughter to eat a raw chicken heart, witness a live goat beheading, and have a religious symbol scratched into her skin. Yenitza Colichon, 33, received five years of probation after pleading guilty to child cruelty and neglect after making her daughter endure a bloody Palo Mayombe ritual in Paterson, NJ. Authorities had been notified after the girl told a teacher she was having nightmares about the incident. Defense lawyers had tried and failed to argue that goat-beheading and raw-chicken-heart-eating were protected religious expressions analogous to circumcision.

5. DRUNK MOTHER REPORTEDLY PASSES OUT WITH FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON IN HER LAP…AT A BAR
Police were summoned to a tiny fly trap called Frank’s Place in Ocoee, FL, after a concerned female bartender called them to report a woman had fallen asleep at the bar with her son in his lap. Thirty-seven-year-old Kira Logsdon-Mitchell, who had left two older children at home, was arrested after blowing three times the legal limit on a breathalyzer test.

4. UTAH MOTHER ACCUSED OF TRYING TO SELL HER 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER’S VIRGINITY
An unnamed 32-year-old Salt Lake City woman has been arrested for attempting to sell her daughter’s virginity to an older man for $10,000. Police were notified after the woman’s boyfriend discovered “explicit photos” of the girl, including one that “shows her buttocks are bare,” on the woman’s cell phone. He also reportedly found a series of text messages in which the woman was negotiating the terms of the girl’s “sale.” The bargaining process allegedly included a trip to Victoria’s Secret, where the woman and the girl modeled lingerie for their potential client. A neighbor who described herself as “shocked” at the allegations described the girl as a “really sweet” person who “jumps rope, plays with her friends, she roasts marshmallows over there by the pit—just very nice.”

3. FATHER ENCOURAGES TODDLER TO HARM HERSELF…ON VIDEOTAPE
Twenty-two-year-old Jason Longley of Acworth, NH, pled guilty to falsifying evidence in a case where he and his girlfriend videotaped their two-year-old daughter hitting and poking herself in obedience with his instructions. After the girl had been admitted to the hospital with “bleeding in her eyes and brain, a severe skin infection on her face and strange bruising patterns,” Longley says he made the videotape “for documentation to show doctors” and tried to argue that the girl’s injuries were self-inflicted. Police enhanced the sound on the videotape and heard Longley saying things to the girl such as “hit yourself,” “faster,” and “poke your eyes.” Longley accepted a plea bargain and will serve a minimum of two years in prison.

2. PARENTS HONOR FACEBOOK BY NAMING THEIR BABY “LIKE”
An Israeli couple who’d named their previous daughters “Pie” and “Honey” were stumped for a “modern and innovative” name for their latest daughter. A dim bulb finally lit itself over the head of the girl’s father, Lior Adler, when he looked at the “Like” button on Facebook and decided it was a modern and innovative—if somewhat less enthusiastic—variant on the word “Love” and would be a perfect name for their baby. “I believe there will be people who will lift an eyebrow,” Adler said, “but it is my girl and that’s what is fun about it.” Glad to hear you could have so much fun at what is sure to be your daughter’s lifelong expense.

1. CANADIAN PROGRESSIVES RAISE “GENDERLESS” CHILD
Torontonians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker are a pair of self-described progressives who identify with the downtrodden—so much so, they can afford extended vacations in Mexico to commune with Zapatistas and two-week jaunts in Cuba where they hang out with peasants and talk about revolution. As if it wasn’t bad enough naming their first two sons Jazz and Kio, they received global attention last week for refusing to reveal the gender of a four-month-old sapling they’ve named Storm. They describe this choice as “a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation.” They claim they refuse to force-feed the child whimsical cultural myths such as, oh, the idea that over 99 percent of vertebrates possess distinctly male or female genitalia and 100 percent of human cultures are coincidentally deluded with the oppressively false notion that things such as “boys” and “girls” exist. “If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” said Stocker, who now has the entire world asking what’s between that poor infant’s legs. “What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children,” said Stocker. “It’s obnoxious.” Tell us about it.