OVO

Daily Rotten for November 3, 2004, has a fine compilation of articles on the failure of voting machines in US elections, and how these failures appear to favor Republicans.

I suggest that this is another case where the weird, smart, progressive people invent something (computers) and the normal, dumb, regressive people take it over (Nov 2, 2004 elections). It happened with surrealism changing into advertising, it happened with the idea of one party rule (Republicans took this page from first generation communism), it happened with all world religions (all religious founders were, by definition, rebels in their day), it happened with most forms of popular dance and music, and so on.

I do not know that this is a process that can be halted, or even slowed. But I do know that we weird, smart, progressive people do not halt or even slow down in inventing things. Sometimes (with the telephone and the Internet and somewhat with radio) the cat gets out of the bag before the bag gets closed too tight. So to my fellow mutants, I say keep doing what you’re doing, make sure you give it to fellow mutants first, then move on to the next solution when the old solution becomes the new problem.