The Face of Contemporary Evil

Take a good look at the face on the left, the one with the scarily vacant gaze.

The hair has been stylishly cut.

The eyebrows are freshly shaped.

The brow is smooth and unworried.

There are no dark circles under her eyes from loss of sleep.

There is no fear, no grief, no remorse, no emotion at all, really.

This is the face of cold-blooded, calculating, self-centered, sociopathic 22-year-old Casey Anthony of Orlando, Florida, who is now being held in jail for failing to report her not-yet-three-year-old daughter missing for 31 days and lying repeatedly to investigators about everything having to do with Caylee Marie, pictured to her right.

You can't see it from this picture but Casey's toes are meticulously painted purple, visible on the video of her court appearance last week. Having a pedicure somehow precluded reporting her baby missing for more than a month.

And you can't hear it from this picture, but Casey is captured on audiotape complaining to a friend that all her parents care about is getting Caylee back and fighting with her mother and brother and cursing and asking for her boyfriend's number and not expressing one iota of concern for her child who is either in grave danger...or in an actual grave.

You couldn't know it from this picture but calls had already been placed to 911 by Casey's mother Cindy, where she screams to a dispatcher that her car smelled like a dead body had been in it.

You wouldn't know it from this picture, but in the month that Caylee was missing, Casey stole her mother's car and credit cards and racked up thousands of dollars of expenditures. And hung out with friends. And cooked for them. And got a tattoo.

All the while claiming that her daughter was with a babysitter who has turned out to be as mythical as a unicorn. As the Lost City of Atlantis.

Take a good look at this picture and you will realize that what is remarkable about Casey Anthony is that she is utterly unremarkable; you have seen her at the mall and in the movies, at Dunkin' Donuts and in the local pizza shop. Casey Anthony looks just like any spoiled college-age American girl, the kind who gets trendy haircuts and regular mani-pedi's and eyebrow waxes.

And listen to the audio clips of her jailhouse phone calls -- now available on most news websites - and you will realize that she sounds like an average, self-centered, imperious, bitchy adolescent girl.

Combatative with her mother. Pissed at being grounded. Impatient and whiny. Demanding. Protesting her "unfair" treatment.

Except the subject here is not her allowance or slutty shoes or failing grades or her irresponsible summer plans.

The subject is a child who has been missing for nearly six weeks.

Her own flesh and blood, Caylee Marie Anthony, about whom she is incapable of even faking concern even as the news media follows every development in the case and millions of strangers around the world offer a prayer for her safe return. Even as her friend breaks down in tears on tape, begging her to tell her where the child is.

Even as the facts and findings of the investigation increasingly indicate a homicide.

The face of Casey Anthony is a portrait of contemporary evil.

Ordinary.

Blank.

Nondescript in a uniquely American way, quintessential, practically the girl next door.