At Last, Proof of My Complete and Utter Sanity


A survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. . . . found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

But before you go thinking all your conservative friends are psychotic, listen to Lohse’s explanation.

“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’” . . .

Lohse says the trend isn’t unique to Bush: A 1977 study by Frumkin & Ibrahim found psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election. . . .

For his part, Lohse is a self-described “Reagan revolution fanatic” but said that W. is just “beyond the pale.”

Weird Crimes #117

While I was away for the weekend, someone broke into my truck and left me two light bulbs.

Well, “broke into” may not be quite fair. It was unlocked, as usual; there is no radio and nothing to steal, and it’s quite safe in my assigned spot in the covered parking area. In addition to leaving two small light bulbs (one amber and one clear), they moved an empty soda cup.

They also left the passenger-side door not quite latched—which would have annoyed me greatly, if the truck had a ceiling light, since the battery could well have been dead when I got home. But it doesn’t, and it wasn’t, and I am left wondering how and why they bothered with that door. I park quite close to the wall, and no normally sized human could have gotten in or out that way.

Have I been visited by the Light Bulb Fairy?