A high-tech witch burning?

They let Casey Anthony out of her cage yesterday. Never mind her guilt or innocence. There is something eerily medieval about the raving crowds that staked out the trial everyday and then venomously heckled her as she walked out of jail. The only props missing were torches, pitchforks, a stake, and rope. Chauncey DeVega, putting it more colorfully, wrote that these folks are the "descendants of a lynch mob in either the old West or Jim Crow South." He says it's progress that Anthony was not torn limb from limb by those seeking "justice." But that's only because she was escorted out by cops armed with semi-automatic rifles. Nevertheless, there is something deeply disquieting about the media-goaded mob that has effectively chased Anthony into hiding. Today, we consider ourselves more enlightened than those who once burned women at the stake for being "witches." The Anthony trial is a reminder that too many of us have evolved little since the Middle Ages.