The Unknowable Selfie: Looking at the Tech Mirror
OK. I’ll come out of the closet. I admit it. Here goes:
I don’t have any gay relatives. I’ve looked and
listened everywhere. Family trees. Prying neighbors. Deathbed
confessions. But alas, it seems that my entire family is chuck
full of breeders. As a result, my presidential aspirations
crashed.
Not
so for Dick
Gephardt. Just when you thought his political career was
bunker-busted (at least among anti-deceptive-pre-emptive war
fanatics like myself) Gephardt pulled a rabbit out of his
presidential candidate hat. In a Democratic triangulatory
coup, his daughter Chrissy, we are told, turned out to be
a lesbian.
I didn’t learn about Gephardt’s liberal family agenda on an envelope
grabber to some political junk mail, although I’m sure I will in the
future. I read about it in Los Angeles Times, under the headline, “Gephardt
raises the stakes for gay voters.”
“Gay
activists are ecstatic,” los Times said, “hailing
the event as evidence that homosexuality is now so widely
accepted by voters that candidates who ignore the homosexual
community do so at their own risk.”
With
an absence of gay relatives, my political future was in jeopardy.
I phoned my cousins and asked if any of them would be willing
to change sides. There were no takers. I sulked for at least
an hour and a half. That bastard Gephardt had screwed me good.
The Nathan Callahan for President 2004 Exploratory Committee
was about to disband.
Then,
as if transported to a cross-dressing bugle-blowing cavalry
vignette, I was rescued by my friend, Kitty.
“I
was disturbed to read that gay activists are ‘ecstatic’ about
Richard Gephardt and his lesbian daughter, Chrissy, who will
join his campaign, “ Kitty said. “My fear is that
the gay political power structure will seize upon this very
irrelevant aspect and throw their full weight behind the warmongering
Mr. Gephardt at the expense of other, more important issues.
There is a growing movement for the other candidates because
they are more aligned with a true liberal agenda rather than
the failed, business-as-usual strategy employed to force us
to accept the lesser of two evils.
“This
may be what we have to accept in 2004, but be assured it will
be a very reluctant rather than blanket endorsement. And it
won't be given without a fight.
“While
I acknowledge that her presence and activism is a great advance
for our community, I don't give one whit that Ms. Gephardt
is a lesbian, and neither should other gay and lesbian voters.”
Thank
you, Kitty. I don’t give one whit either. Now tell me,
does it count that my grandmother liked Eleanor Roosevelt?
— Nathan
Callahan, June 10, 2003
Are you oversleeping, undersleeping, binge eating, tying one on, gambling like
a Bill Bennett, hyperactive or just plain out of sorts? Get used to it. You
live on a bipolar planet.
Summer
Solstice — June
21 — is the official start of summer and the day the North
pole inclines to its farthest point sunward. This global tipping
does more than force our clocks into daylight savings. On solstice
day, the world suffers from a bipolarity that is not only
chronologic, but emotional. Everyone North of the equator (that
includes the United States, Mr. Bush) will be experiencing the
longest day and shortest night of the year. With the greatest
amount of sunlight at hand, our pineal glands will be working
serious overtime hours. As a result our serotonin levels will
rise.
Experienced
Prozac users know that when serotonin is up, so are emotional
joy factors. June 21 is the northern hemisphere's serotonin festival — nature's
way of giving us a Prozac/MDMA high.
But
for every yin there is a yang. Down under on the southern curves
of the
earth, June 21 is the winter solstice — the shortest day
of the year. Less light equals less serotonin. Less serotonin
equals less mood elevation. The medical profession, as if it didn't
have enough subcatagories already, christened this dim human condition — SAD
(Seasonal Affective
Disorder).
So
while we're cresting, Southern Hemispherians will be bottoming
out. Globally
and pineally speaking, the summer/winter solstice is Worldwide
Manic Depression Day — high in one hemisphere, low in the
other.
Avoid long-distance North South flights. Anchorage to Tierra del
Fuego is out. Business contracts involving anyone below the Tropic
of Capricorn should be
avoided at all costs. Remember:
We will be giddy, they'll be cranky.
To experience
the ecstasy of this occasion, stay above the equator on the 21st.
May you have an joyous abundance of solstice serotonin. In six
months you're in for an astronomical mood swing.
— Nathan Callahan, June 10, 2003
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