Crimewave

I"m almost positive it's a rebroadcast, and I may even have written about it here before, but the most recent episode of This American Life, titled "Allure of Crime," is pretty interesting.

In the world of heroes and villains, I'm usually far more turned on by the heroes--the only way I can ever be bothered to watch a cop show is for the cops, and I've always longed for more attention to Batman/less to his foes in the recent movies--but it's true that the bad guys' stories are more interesting than the good guys. Me, I had no idea that that sweet Julia Sweeney, she of Saturday Night Live and God Said, "Ha!" fame, had stolen over 10 thousand bucks in her misguided youth, or that even sweeter widows were leading such active social lives as senior-citizen shoplifters. What's most disarming about the interview subjects on the show is how nonchalant they are about their criminal activities. No angst, just matter-of-fact observations about how good it feels to do very bad things. (But, uh, isn't that the definition of a sociopath?)