Post Election Notes

So, a few things. Americans decided a couple of things last night - a black man could be president; gays still aren't really human beings; marijuana should be more legal than it is; abortion is more-or-less acceptable as is; and in Washington, you can finally get help from your doctor in offing yourself.

The California vote is interesting; the gay marriage ban is 52-48, while the abortion limits is 48-52. Which means that about 4% of California's electorate thinks abortion is ok, but gay marriage is not. Weird, weird, weird. I'm trying to put myself in that headspace, and it's not working out alright. I would have to believe absurd things like popcorn is weasels to make that make sense. Ain't nothin' so queer as folk, as they say. On the other hand, 43% of Arkansans voted to let gays adopt; give it another ten years, I think, and then we'll be able to repeal all these inane amendments. Still, CA, I'm disappointed in you. Los Angeles County even voted yes, though the full results aren't in yet.

And then there's that new CNN hologram technology, which is weird and dumb as well. I have no interest in seeing will.i.am Obi-wan-Kenobie'd, and it brings nothing to my understanding. And then there's that "Second Life" thing where they created an entire digital rotunda just to have some guy manipulate a 3d map. I'm sure these technologies have some great uses - these just weren't it. It's kind of like someone invented a technology just to suck. "Try my steel-wire toothbrush! The pain is intense and scouring!" "Ok! Let's get will.i.am to sell it!"

And finally, a fascinating article about psychopathy from The New Yorker. If you don't know much about psychopathy - and you should, since they make up one percent of the population, and yet are almost never diagnosed until they snap and push another person through a meat grinder just for kicks - read up on it. Having met one person who was definitely a psychopath, and a few others who I suspect are, they're absolutely the answer to the question, "What kind of person does that?" I mean, don't get me wrong - schizophrenics and borderline-personality disorder folk are way "interesting"; but it's the psychopaths that scare me. Fisheyes, man. They've got that stare like dead fish, and nothing seems really to change it. Talk about the psychoanalytic gaze....

Or, as they say in the article: "Harenski, who is thirty, did not experience the involuntary skin-crawling sensation that, according to a survey conducted by the psychologists Reid and M. J. Meloy, one in three mental-health and criminal-justice professionals report feeling on interviewing a psychopath; in their paper on the subject, Meloy and Meloy speculate that this reaction may be an ancient intraspecies predator-response system. “I was just excited,” Harenski continued. “I was saying to myself, ‘Wow. I found a real one.’ ”"

That Is All For Now.