Megan just sent me a link to LOL Buffy:

[link]

It's fascinating, the different kinds of things that can go wrong in making a person, and then what that means throughout a person's life.

I still love all the LOLs.

They haven't got a mean, conniving, un-sweet bone in their bodies, and they're completely, physiologically incapable of imagining that any human being could ever wish harm on them or anyone else.

This is the sort of thing that keeps me reading Oliver Sacks. The neuro bits are entwined in such strange and peculiar ways. When I think of brain damage making one meaner, naively I'd think of the mood as a reaction to the effect of the damage. Not an effect of the damage itself.

Sort of like the link between migraines and depression.

'DATELINE' SUED IN SEX-STING SUICIDE

July 18, 2007 -- THE sister of a veteran Texas prosecutor who blew his brains out as he was about to be busted in an underage-sex sting set up by "Dateline" is slapping NBC with a $100 million suit.

Louis "Bill" Conradt grabbed a gun and shot himself as he spotted cops, reporter Chris Hansen and a camera crew from the popular "To Catch a Predator" segment outside his home on Nov. 5, 2006, according to a notice of claim sent to NBC yesterday.

The suit will be filed Monday in Manhattan Federal Court on behalf of his estate, said Patricia Conradt's lawyer, Bruce Baron.

"NBC was responsible for his death. They conducted their sting operation and intentionally and with negligence sensationalized the situation," Baron said.

"It brought it to the point that he died of a self inflicted gun shot wound."

The 56-year-old prosecutor, a highly praised 20-year-law enforcement veteran, allegedly went online to solicit sex from a 13-year-old boy.

Hansen and a "Dateline" crew tagged along with cops to the prosecutor's home to capture the arrest.

NBC said if a suit is filed, "we will defend ourselves vigorously, as we believe the claims are completely without merit."

IANAL and I don't know anything more about this case, but I am skeptical of the lawsuit's merits.

Under what circumstances can one be held liable (in civil court) for causing someone's suicide? Does that happen?

The joke is, it's not unheard-of to remove one hemisphere of the brain -- in a young child. It's basically the last-ditch fix for severe epilepsy. And because a young child's brain still has its infant plasticity, children who have this operation usually end up in the ballpark of normal development. Despite having only half a brain.

I saw a medical program featuring one such girl and was absolutely amazed that despite the removal of half her brain there seemed to be no discontinuity of her identity or personality. I gather there were symptoms and reduced function issues during the adjustment period, but she was notably still the same person.

Ugh. Please remind me that not only do I have an 8am meeting tomorrow morning in an unfamiliar place for which I'll need to bring materials, but also that I SET IT UP MYSELF.

I'd blame me, but I'm already annoyed enough.

I can't work out how much I like this.

I saw a medical program featuring one such girl and was absolutely amazed that despite the removal of half her brain there seemed to be no discontinuity of her identity or personality. I gather there were symptoms and reduced function issues during the adjustment period, but she was notably still the same person.

Then there's the weird cases where the two hemispheres are separated (usually to fight epileptic seizures). It's amazing how little side effects are experienced. And then there's all the interesting research on weird effects of this surgery....

tommyrot, I think the lawsuit is bullshit. Then again, I don't have much sympathy for the privacy of pedophiles.

ION, I have to read The Female Brain for work this summer. I'm really looking forward to it--should be a nice counterpoint to my beliefs about the impact of the environmental and social elements. Anyone read this book yet?

This is the sort of thing that keeps me reading Oliver Sacks.

His "Island of the Colorblind", read by him in his quirky, utterly unique voice, is one of my very favorite audiobooks. Fascinating.

They haven't got a mean, conniving, un-sweet bone in their bodies, and they're completely, physiologically incapable of imagining that any human being could ever wish harm on them or anyone else

One of the interesting things of that article is the connection between fear of other humans and social cues. Ordinarily I would not have said the ability to detect a faux pas and the ability to detect a murderer in one's midst had anything to do with one another; but they both hinge on threat-assessment, don't they? Just, in the case of the faux-pas, threat of something that's not directly physically harmful.

I'm also curious whether Williams Syndrome and Dostoevsky Syndrome have anything to do with one another -- both feature elfin faces (I think the latter is more distinctive); both feature hyperverbal abilities that at first mask serious mental retardation. But my google-fu is failing me on the latter term.