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Three Good Reads

Three recent items caught my eye.

First is a New York Times article entitled Lifting the Veils of Autism, One By One. The article details recent progress towards understanding autism and the beginnings of finding a cure. It also shows just how far we still have to go. My favorite quote from the article is from Dr. Fred Volkmar of Yale:

If you put 100 people with autism in a room, the first thing that would strike you is how different they are. The next thing that would strike you is the similarity.

John Kerry is being attacked not only from the right but also from the left. The criticism from the left takes the form of a fear that Kerry is linked to “Progressive Internationalism.” A recent Counterpunch article argues that:

Kerry and his comrades in the progressive internationalist movement are as gung-ho about U.S. military action as their counterparts in the White House. The only noteworthy difference between the two groups battling for power in Washington is that the neocons are willing to pursue their imperial ambitions in full view of the international community, while the progressive internationalists prefer to keep their imperial agenda hidden behind the cloak of multilateralism.

Rodger Payne thinks that analysis is ridiculous, being about as “fair as the Fonda/Kerry doctored photo.” Rodger does an admirable job of demonstrating why.

Via Making Light come Elmore Leonard’s ten rules for writers, Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.

All of the rules are interesting and wise but by far my favorite was number 10:

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Unfortunately, for some of us, following that rule doesn’t leave very much to leave in.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at February 25, 2004 07:45 AM | TrackBack