Man shoots his girlfriend in an argument about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse.

"He felt very adamant there could be a military mishap that would result in some sort of virus being released that could cause terrible things to happen," said the cop. “She felt it was ridiculous. He’s passionate about it. And it escalated from there."

Looking for the soul of Missoula.

"Victim of Canadian porn star cannibal is Chinese gay lover as police reveal 'murderer' is on the run in France... dressed as a woman."

A Daily Mail headline. Are you having trouble keeping your cannibals in the news straight? (No pun intended!) I mean there's the porn-related-gay-Chinese-on-the-lam-transvestite guy...

Luka Magnotta, who is suspected of cannibalism, flew from Canada to France a day after placing gruesome footage of the murder on the internet.

Flew? Vampire or zombie? You decide. Anyway, there's that one. There's the naked-in-broad-daylight face-eater. That's Rudy Eugene, not on the lam. Shot dead by the police. And then there's the other one:

Authorities say Alex Kinyua, 21, admitted using a knife to kill and carve up Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, 37, before eating his heart and parts of his brain....

In February, Kinyua posted a question on Facebook, asking fellow students at historically black colleges and universities if they were "strong enough to endure ritual HBCU mass human sacrifices around the country and still be able to function as human beings?"

He referred to the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech and "other past university killings around the country" and warned "ethnic cleansing is the policy, strategy and tactics that will affect you, directly or indirectly in the coming months"....

I wonder if the sane people who engage in racial politics bear some responsibility for the paranoia that arises in weak minds? In fact, I wonder if the people who delight in japing about a zombie uprising bear some responsibility for the crazy people who actually do try to eat brains?

I'm thinking back to the clumsy efforts to assign blame for the Tucson massacre. Some people are insane. But why do they act out their insanity in the particular way that they do? What signals do they pick up and distort? You can't really blame the sane people who talk and distort and lie about things as they operate more or less competently in this place called reality that most of us inhabit. And yet... why are we hearing so much about cannibals these days?

ADDED: I crossed out "Chinese" in the first paragraph of this post. The headline had a few too many words in it for me to absorb. The victim was Chinese, not the cannibal.

"[B]asically hallucinating... he kind of reached out to me, kind of in a zombie-like fashion."

"At that point, there’s not a lot you can do for somebody that’s dying and frozen to death."

On Mount Everest, last Saturday, it was a "traffic jam" as 150 people tried to take advantage of a window of good weather. With the crowding, it took longer, and they hadn't carried enough oxygen. 4 died.

Wisconsin protesters disrupt a Special Olympics ceremony!

In front of the Capitol today, protesters dressed as zombies stood between Governor Scott Walker and the group of Special Olympics participants he was honoring.

Quite aside from the unbelievable rudeness, how can the protesters be so blind about their own public relations?

ADDED: Here's a comment at the Walkerville Facebook page:

I don't know about anyone else but Im alright with this. Walker's actions affect many of these people more than me. They have every right to know what is going on in the state; most of them probably already do. Honestly I find the fact tht he was addressing this group offensive. It's like when he goes and visits a school. What a hypocritical liar.

"Y'know who'd make an awesome Easter flick about Christ's Resurrection? George Romero."

Kevin Smith dabbles in the obviousness/blasphemy that is Twitter's #HesComingToRedeemYouBarbara.

Paul Krugman says "So, let’s try another shot to the head."

I realize he's talking about a misconception, and he has designated the misconception a "zombie," and according to zombie lore, zombies are destroyed by shooting them in the head. But still. That's quite a violent way to talk about the thoughts in the minds of the people you want to correct.

And it was just last January that Kruman, responding to a terrible shooting, wrote:

So will the Arizona massacre make our discourse less toxic? It’s really up to G.O.P. leaders. Will they accept the reality of what’s happening to America, and take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric? Or will they try to dismiss the massacre as the mere act of a deranged individual, and go on as before?

If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atrocity will be just the beginning.

"That is actual misanthropy disguised as entertainment, appealing to the grossest things inside you, and I hate it."

Jacob of Television Without Pity explains why he "fucking hate[s] zombie things" — a propos of last night's Ford commercial on "American Idol," with Scotty, et al., made up as zombies:

... I hate zombie apocalypses, because they imply that other people are an obstruction to you getting through your day and would be better off getting shot through the head. The sweet release of just opening fire on a crowd of people because they're not as special and alive as you are: That is disgusting. That is actual misanthropy disguised as entertainment, appealing to the grossest things inside you, and I hate it.... 

[T]hink about the people you know that love zombies the most. Not the girls who pretend to like zombies and video games so boys will think they've found a unicorn, because those girls are worthless anyway; not the AMC dads or Twilight moms who are trying to be down with the kids these days. They have no effect on culture whatsoever.

I'm talking about your nerdy grumpy jerkoff friend who likes porn and zombies and dark shock-humor and hates women because he's scared of them and loves Tyrion Lannister more than anything and thinks his sarcasm is a defense or that being a cynic opts you out: That asshole. That's who you're being when you play along with the zombie bullshit. Don't do it. It's bad for the part of you that is still alive.

Hmmm... Jason seems to think he's more alive than those people he hates because they think they are more alive?

That reminds me of this part of "My Dinner With Andre":

ANDRE: [W]e're just walking around in some kind of fog. I think we're all in a trance! We're walking around like zombies! I don't think we're even aware of ourselves or our own reaction to things, we're just going around all day like unconscious machines, I mean, while there's all of this rage and worry and uneasiness just building up and building up inside us!

So is the current fascination with zombies because, in some ways, we feel like zombies — we identify or we want to scare ourselves into coming back to life? Or is it that we perceive others as the zombies, and there is something pretty sick about our misanthropy?

"4 Out of 5 Zombies Recommend Neo-Con Brains."

A sign at the zombie protest here in Madison yesterday. Sorry, I missed that one. I have a bad case of protest fatigue.

Nice to see that the zombies appreciate the high quality of neo-con brains. They've done the taste test.

"We're glad that everyone is alive, despite being 'undead.'"

Zombie car crash.

Iggy Pop says law is for "for hideous bald fat dead people. The living dead."

"In America, in school... I learnt creative writing, I learnt advanced algebra and geometry, but I didn’t learn there was such a thing as intellectual property. I didn’t learn how to read a contract. And I didn’t care about those things. Those things were for hideous bald fat dead people. The living dead. They still are, but now I do my living-dead s***work every day. And I can feel the hair follicles reacting.”

"If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively."

"That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada. They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures."

"I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie."

Woody Harrelson, explaining why he hit a guy.

Neil Diamond on "American Idol."

I'm just catching up with the TiVo'd show. (As I said, I was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. Just an after work walk. Midway through the bridge I realized I was starving, and I felt like a zombie stalking the rest of the way over and for blocks into Manhattan to get to a restaurant. Restaurant! Restaurant! It was gruesome.)

Neil is doing a great job. He's been well advised: Be like Barry Manilow. Not Dolly! Help the nice, young kids. Don't self-promote. Does Neil actually care about these the kids? I don't know, but he seems like he does, and that's enough to make me like him.

They're singing 2 songs each, and — in a shocking break from tradition — the contestants sing their first songs without hearing from the judges. Then they're lined up on the stage together for judgment. Horrible idea. Randy goes down the line and gives each one a little opinion on their first song. Then Paula starts with Jason and tells him what she thinks of his first and his second song, even though he hasn't sung his second song yet. This is the biggest Paula screw-up of all time. We see Ryan Seacrest glance nervously over to the side. The audience giggles. She's about to go on to David Cook, and Randy interrupts and says, "We should just do the first song, uh." And now the truth is out! They prepare beforehand, based on rehearsal performances! Arrrggghhh! My AI world is torn apart. Ryan relies on his tiny wit: "You're seein' the future." Simon is making that hand gesture where he holds his thumb to his forehead and flares out his fingers. What is it? The half moose? Simon squelches Paula. Just say who your favorite was and shut up. Then Simon tells all the kids they sucked.

Then we get another round of songs, but we don't see Neil again, and it's all quite forgettable.

I think we all know either Jason or Brooke is going to leave. And, frankly, I think we know that Jason, Brooke, and Syesha are going to be leaving in the next 3 weeks. The only interesting question is: Which David will win?

IN THE COMMENTS: Jennifer says:

Oh, and I thought you would say that Neil Diamond didn't go the Barry Manilow route. He didn't seem to give a whole lot of advice...? But, I guess they gave him very little screen time.

Hmm. Yeah. He wasn't making the Dolly mistake (making it all about oneself), but he didn't really achieve Manilosity, because he didn't have a lot of detailed, individualized advice. Maybe he's just not as smart or he didn't take the time with the singers. And there was a time issue. Was it caused by cramming 10 songs into 1 hour, or did they choose to make it 1 hour because Diamond didn't give them enough material?

"Listen, I'll never forget you. You were the only guys who would listen to me for a couple of months. Do you think I'd ever forget you?"

John McCain, on the phone with the bloggers, responding to a blogger thanking him for continuing doing phone calls with bloggers.

ADDED AFTER THE CALL: That line really struck me, because I vividly remember being on one of those old blogger calls, listening to him and thinking how sad, he has to act like he doesn't know he hasn't got a chance. I really thought there was no way he could win. On the call today, at one point, Ed Morrissey made the wisecrack that if they make a movie of McCain's campaign, George Romero should direct it. McCain laughed and seemed to appreciate the joke. I wonder if he has watched "Night of the Living Dead." Someone could make a YouTube video, in the style of "Mystery Science Theater," and do a John McCain voiceover to a zombie movie.

MORE: Let's get to some serious stuff now. McCain resisted efforts to push him to reveal anything about his VP selection, but I noticed that — on other questions — he brought up the name Lindsey Graham at least twice.

First, he said he's in contact with Lindsey Graham who is in Baghdad telling him that the Iraqi government has just passed a law that takes some of the steps the U.S. has demanded. (This will show that the war opponents are "absolutely wrong" and "we are obviously succeeding.")

Second, when he was asked if he was concerned about the military commission trials in which 6 Guantanamo detainees are facing the death penalty, he said "no, I would not have concerns," and his reason was that he is relying on what he hears from Lindsey Graham, who is "intimately involved with this whole processs." (The detainees, he said, "don't deserve the protection that a citizen would have," that the procedures "are appropriate," and "I just wish we had done it years ago.")

Asked about rumors that he has plans to resign his Senate seat, he said he had "no inclination" to do so. Asked if it would be fair to ask Huckabee to withdraw from the race, he said he was "not in any way trying to pressure him to get out of the race." He said, "I respect him and I like him" and he's "proud of" the "tenor of the campaign." On the subject of whether it helps to have Huckabee in the race so the media will keep paying attention, he said he would "rather get it wrapped up."

McCain stressed that he would show the "stark" and "dramatic" differences between him and the Democratic candidate, whether it is Obama or Clinton. He wasn't openly assuming that Obama would be the nominee, but he said "Obama has significant wind at his back." He said — beginning with his signature phrase "and, look, let me give you some straight talk" — that Clinton and Obama are really "energizing" things on the Democratic side "and I know I have to do that here."

I would have liked to get my question in — I punched in late — and asked how he would deal with standing next to Obama, who — we can see from his Madison speech — is going to honor McCain for his past service but hold himself out as the man for the future. How will McCain out-energize that? I know McCain said: "I can work 16-18 hrs a day 7 days a week." But that sounds like Hillary's approach. You can be the hardest worker and still lose.

It's going to be quite something when — I assume it's when — those two men stand side-by-side and debate. What an astounding age gap! How different they are in so many other ways. And yet there are some wonderful similarities: Both men offer us a break from old-style partisanship. What a gift the McCain-Obama debates will be!

Let's talk about the New Hampshire primary.

Are you watching the results on TV? What channel? I'm hanging out on MSNBC at the moment. I knocked NBC the other day, so I want to make a point of saying I love listening to Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw, who are on Chris Matthews' show right now. I was doing a little CNN before, but it got a little too Lou Dobbsy, so I changed channels. And let's give Fox News equal time. (I'm back in New York City, and I had a hard time finding Fox News, which isn't clustered with the other news channels the way it is in Madison. The New York cable channels are annoyingly jumbled.)

Anyway, the polls close soon. Are you all excited?

ADDED: Hmmm... Mitt Romney was arrested long ago for sledding on an ice block on a golf course. And he was once in a car accident in Paris in which some French cop wrote "Il est mort" on his passport. (Source: Fox News.)

AND: Fox News is saying Obama wins, but it's not a blowout, so Hillary can claim some species of victory. And McCain over Romney, but "too close to call."

MORE: Zombie! Will Hillary fight her way back?

AND: MSNBC calls the Republican contest for McCain, while the Democratic race is too close to call! Ooooo!

AND: Mitt: "Another silver." He wants the gold, but who's done better than 2 silvers (and Wyoming gold)?

MORE: Wow! What a disappointment for Obama-lovers. Can it be that Hillary and her crying turned things around? Did people see how much Bill Clinton wanted to keep going and feel sympathy? Or is it a case of: New Hampshire voters not wanting to be told what to do? But when I read of the huge turnout, I assumed a big Obama victory. I guess her collapse was quite odd, and the news that it wasn't real makes sense.

AND: Huckabee speaks. Expresses enthusiasm at doing at all well. "This ole southern boy... in New England...."

AND: McCain speaks. The chant is "Mac is back." He can't call himself "The Comeback Kid," because he's not a kid. But it's a great comeback. "I'm going to New Hampshire, and I'm going to tell you the truth.... I talked to the people of New Hampshire. I reasoned with you." Did anyone ever concede like that before? I reasoned with you. Beautiful. [ADDED: Mmmm.... "concede" isn't quite the right word!]

AND: Uuuuggghhhh.... I'm reeling in shock! Hillary overcame The God Obama? Noooooooo!

AND: Did people just get disgusted with the hype?

Exiting through the door marked 2007.

The NYT Magazine has its annual "Lives They Lived" issue, with short essays on a wide range of individuals who died in the past year.

A blogger gets a farewell essay this year. Steve Gilliard:

Though Gilliard, unlike many bloggers, always used his real name, few readers knew much about him. They didn’t know, for instance, that at age 39 he had open-heart surgery to repair an infected valve. They didn’t know he lived alone in a small apartment in East Harlem. And, although Gilliard often wrote about race and alluded to his own perspective, a lot of readers never realized he was black....

The paradox of Gilliard’s existence is a familiar story on the blogs, where people often adapt avatars that are more like the selves they imagine being. Online, he was vicious and uncompromising. In person, Gilly, as his close friends called him, was reserved and enigmatic.... He lamented that he didn’t know what it was to “wake up naked in a strange bed,” but, he wrote, “at 35, I’ve figured out that this is it, at least for now. Anything I do, any life I make, is going to revolve around words and computers and strange, bright people.”

[T]he few dozen mostly white bloggers who came to Harlem for the funeral saw for the first time the stark urban setting of Gilliard’s childhood, while his parents and relatives groped to understand what kind of work he had been doing at that computer and why scores of people had come so far to see him off.

There was Brett Somers, one of "The Match Game" celebrities:

She wasn’t Mae West, 80 trying to act 20, or an embalmed Gabor, but rather, with her Elton John glasses and Toni Tennille hairdo and saucy answers, an average-looking menopausal woman with a healthy regard for sex. In one of the most memorable broadcasts, Somers’s husband, Jack Klugman, was on the panel and seemed to be rushing the host, Gene Rayburn, along, as if to say that he and Somers had something better to do.

There was Mary Crisp:

Crisp testified before a Congressional committee on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1973 without really thinking about it much supporting the E.R.A. had been a Republican Party position for nearly 35 years. (The Democrats had been more split, some worrying that the amendment would wipe out hard-won but ultimately counterproductive laws protecting women from things like working overtime or lifting heavy objects.) But in 1978, Crisp ran head-on into the new insurgent right, which had built its grass-roots strength on issues like opposition to the E.R.A. and abortion. Once it became clear that Reagan was going to be the party nominee, she knew her time was just about up...

The Republican Party made Crisp nonexistent at the convention she had helped organize. Her name vanished from the program. She left her Detroit hotel clutching a big pink stuffed elephant inscribed, “Go Mary!” which, alas, she could not fit into the airport taxi.

There was Robert Adler, the guy who invented the object some people hold in their hand more than any other object.

Two animals got recognized — a parrot and a chimpanzee — because they almost, maybe, cared about talking to us.

And here's a list of the famous people who died in 2007. As usual, it's a diverse group of people thrown together by the happenstance of death occurring around the same time. It excludes those who died too close to the publication date — but Benazir Bhutto made it — and those — it could be you or I — who die in the last few days of the year. We do have 3 days left. The new list starts with January, so, the spiffy look of the list is more important than acknowledging those who slipped into eternity through the closing door of the previous year.

Denny Doherty, 66, Mamas and Papas singer....

Frankie Laine, 93, hit-making crooner....

Anna Nicole Smith, 39, famous for being famous....

Kurt Vonnegut, 84, novelist who caught the imagination of his age.....

Don Herbert, 89, "Mr. Wizard" to science buffs....

Tammy Faye Bakker, 65, emotive evangelist....

Michelangelo Antonioni, 94, Italian movie auteur.

Ingmar Bergman, 89, master filmmaker....

Luciano Pavarotti, 71, tenor of his generation....

Joey Bishop, 89, last of the Rat Pack....

Norman Mailer, 84, towering writer with matching ego...

Evel Knievel, 69, legendary daredevil...

Ike Turner, 76, R&B singer and former husband of Tina Turner.

Don't you picture them traveling together into the afterlife? Didn't I see a movie with a diverse group of recently dead persons making the passage? I remember them in black and white, on a small boat, and arguing. Let's check this list:

1. Between Two Worlds (1944)... passengers on a shrouded luxury liner visit with The Examiner, who hears their cases and tickets them for their next destination, depending on who they were and how they died....

Close. It's a boat, but it sounds too large.

2. A Matter Of Life And Death... (1946).... the differences between Brits and Yanks—when the latter arrive in heaven, they stampede straight to the Coke machine....

I'm sure I never saw that, judging from the clip at the link, with David Niven sitting on the escalator to heaven.

3. Black Orpheus (1959)... following the rhythm of Carnival and the belief that the barrier between life and death can be easily, almost playfully circumnavigated, for those with the right attitude and the right paperwork.

This is one of those classics I always felt I should see back in the days when I was fulfilling the obligation of seeing all the classics. But I've never seen it.

4. Defending Your Life (1991)... After dying, mortals go to a big, bland city full of big, bland courtrooms, where their lives are examined to see whether they've conquered fear enough to be ready for the next stage of existence....

This is a pretty good Albert Brooks movie with Meryl Streep that got many viewings chez Althouse in the 1990s. It always irritated me that getting into heaven was an entirely 1990s American idea of self-actualization. "Self-actualization" isn't the right word, though, is it? People stopped saying "self-actualization" more than 15 years ago, I think. It sounds self-indulgent, but nevertheless more challenging than "self-fulfillment," which is what we'd say now. Imagine access to heaven depending on whether you'd fulfilled yourself on earth.

5. Afterlife (1998)... government workers... operate out of a run-down rural facility where the newly dead spend a week among peeling paint and bargain-basement furniture, selecting the memory from life that means the most to them. Then the facility staff recreates those memories on film for the dearly departed, who take nothing but that memory when they move on to whatever comes next.

This is an elegant movie, focusing on what is being left behind and not the arrival in the next world. We see a strange little place of transition.

6. Corpse Bride (2005)... the dead seem to hang out in skeletal or zombie form in a big Burtony goth-tinged paradise full of aggressively animated "inanimate" objects and spontaneous song-and-dance routines.

Not what I'm trying to think of, but it sounds cool.

7. Beetlejuice (1988)... recently dead couple Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis wind up haunting their old house... Davis and Baldwin have to acclimate via a handbook titled Handbook For The Recently Deceased, and because they’re held in place by an apathetic, overworked, hostile bureaucracy full of people whose bodies clearly and comically display the marks of their ugly deaths.

Excellent. I've seen this one many times. But it's not the one I'm trying to remember. Perhaps I'm thinking of an old "Twilight Zone."

8. The Rapture (1991)... Michael Tolkin’s oddball meditation on apocalypticism. After Mimi Rogers, suffering in the desert waiting for the second coming, performs a mercy killing on her daughter, she winds up on a featureless, vaguely otherworldly plain.

I remember Siskel and Ebert raving over this one back then.

9. Carousel (1956)... starts off with Gordon MacRae already dead and reaping his eternal reward, as part of a crew hanging up glittering stars in a space that might represent the sky, but which more resembles the auditorium in a particularly well-funded high school during a “Starlight Express”-themed prom.

That's not it.

10. Flatliners (1990).... the afterlife is a terrific place, full of Elysian fields or giant naked boobs, depending on the proclivities of the people who go there.

Fine-tune your fantasies, people, before it's too late. Make sure it's something you won't find tedious after a billion years.

11. What Dreams May Come (1998)... heaven ... has kindly guides to help newcomers adapt and understand the next phase of their existences, and it even adapts itself to its inhabitants' personal interests and tastes....

This was an early CGI film that was enough to make me never want to see another CGI film. And I only saw the trailer for it.

12. Don't Tempt Me (2001)... Heaven is a deserted, black-and-white version of vintage Paris where everyone speaks French, and a deserving soul like Victoria Abril gets her own private ’30s nightclub where hundreds of illusory patrons hang on every note she sings and beg for more...

In the audience, perhaps, Denny Doherty, Frankie Lane, Ike Turner, and Luciano Pavarotti.

"A hall full of yowling Ron Paul loons and questions from Unabomber look-a-likes in murky basements."

Richelieu at Weekly Standard deplores CNN's YouTube debate:

America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Well put.

ADDED: By contrast, look at how positive Captain Ed is about CNN's handling of the debate:

For the most part -- with a few glaring exceptions -- the network eliminated the silliness and stuck to substance. The questions hit hot topics and sparked some fierce debate. With a couple of exceptions, Republican fears of crypto-Democratic hit questions failed to materialize, and the candidates responded substantively to the rest.

I expected the debate to descend into silliness and gotcha moments. The only gotchas came from the candidates. Truthfully, this may have been one of the least "gotcha" and most substantive debates we've had this year.

Cool people can't go out on Saturday anymore.

Because the uncool people are out.

“In the old days, Saturday was the destination night for chic New Yorkers headed to Studio 54 at its most resplendent,” [said Michael Musto, the longtime Village Voice night-life columnist.] “But things changed as more and more tri-staters were willing to use the bridges and tunnels for here-we-come Gotham weekends, so the locals started staying home and triple-bolting their doors as if in a George Romero film.”...

Last Saturday, four Manhattanites in their early 30s were huddling over a low table downstairs at Buddakan, the cavernous pan-Asian restaurant in the meatpacking district. “During the weekends, you get a lot of clutter, if you will,” said Brian Kirimdar, 30, an investment banker. He and his wife, Ashley, tend to hide out in restaurants on Saturdays, avoiding all but a few of the Chelsea clubs. “You don’t find too many bridge-and-tunnel people at Cielo or Marquee,” he said. “You really have to pick and choose.”

Zombies! Clutter! The aversion to other people permeates human life. The wonder is that anyone ever ventures out at all. What riffraff is out there!

And yet they do go out. They go out and still imagine that they are hiding out in restaurants and only a few clubs.

"People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It."

Oddest book title of the year. Odder than "Rhino Horn Stockpile Management: Minimum Standards and Best Practices from East and Southern Africa."

That rhino horn title describes something real people are actually doing. "People Who Don't Know They're Dead," however, appears to be an insanely hostile self-help book -- that is to say, a book intended to help that will only make matters worse. Oh, no, wait. Here it is on Amazon:

In People Who Don't Know They're Dead, Gary Leon Hill tells a family story of how his Uncle Wally and Aunt Ruth, Wally's sister, came to counsel dead spirits who took up residence in bodies that didn't belong to them. And in the telling, Hill elucidates much of what we know, or think we know, about life, death, consciousness, and the meaning of the universe.

When people die by accident, in violence, or maybe they're drunk, stoned, or angry, they get freeze-framed. Even if they die naturally but have no clue what to expect, they might not notice they're dead. It's frustrating to see and not be seen. It's frustrating to not know what you're supposed to do next. It's especially frustrating to be in someone else's body and think it's your own. That's if you're dead. If you're alive and that spirit has attached itself to you, well that's a whole other set of frustrations.

Hill has woven this fascinating story with the history and theory of what happens at death, with particular emphasis on the last 40 years and the work of various groundbreaking thinkers whose work helps inform our idea of what it is to live and to die.

Well, that's just nutty, but not in the way I imagined. I was thinking of a writer who viewed his fellow human beings as the equivalent of zombies, with no real mental life worth respecting.