My goodness. The Times is just full of interesting things today. So I click on some article about Larry Summers, and come across this little nugget:

Alongside numerous critiques of Mr. Summer's table manners - Mr. Bradley judges him a "sloppy eater" - the author speculates early on in the book that the Harvard president may have Asperger's syndrome, a condition that renders him socially autistic.

"I'm neutral on it," he said. "I'm not a doctor. I don't feel qualified to say. I do think the explanation has 'explanatory power,' as one of my Harvard professors used to say."

Erm. I'm uncomfortable with slinging Asperger's around as a synonym for "socially clueless" (and WTF does "socially autistic" mean? Eh, just a neurologically clueless writer, I suppose). OTOH, the bit about sloppy table manners is interesting, and academia is notorious/famous for being a safe haven for the brilliant and HFA.

[imagine a transition] Which is reminding me of this irritating passage in the education textbook I'm reading, which talks about the phenomenon of the hurried child, as if this is actually a documented trend. But anyway, it talks about how we're constantly driving our kids all over the place and trying to turn them into geniuses, and I went off about it mildly in class. It's a meme that's risen to the level of "fact." What about the kids who do much, much better on a schedule?