"In his smart new novel, Transmission, Hari Kunzri quotes a questionnaire designed to help people establish whether or not they suffer from Asperger's syndrome. Here are the key questions:
a) Do you find it difficult to develop or maintain relationships?
b) Do people accuse you of failing to share their interests?
c) Do others get angry or upset at you for reasons that appear illogical?
d) Do you have to remember to modulate your voice when speaking?
e) Do you have difficulty decoding social behaviour?
f) Do you have any repetitive motor mannerisms (tics, gestures, rocking, etc)?
Well, if you substitute ``air strikes, invasions, bombing etc" for ``tics, gestures, rocking, etc'', it does sound rather familiar, doesn't it? The dispiriting possibility is, I am afraid, that America is itself suffering from Asperger's syndrome.
I do not write this in an anti-American spirit. On the contrary, I am one of the most pro-American Europeans you are likely to meet. But if you think of the diplomatic world as one huge party (which in many ways it is), then there is no denying that America has lately become the guest who has ``difficulty in developing relationships''; the guest whom everyone accuses of self-interestedness; the guest who expects to be loved and can't understand why he makes everyone upset; the guest who forgets to ``modulate his voice when speaking''; above all, the guest who has difficulty ``decoding'' the behaviour of friends and foes alike.
Despite the disasters of the past months, Mr Bush may yet succeed in convincing his fellow Americans that he, rather than the still unimpressive John Kerry, should lead their country for the next four years. But the way things are going, a Bush re-election will look to the rest of the world like evidence that Asperger's syndrome is no longer a treatable condition in America, but has become the national norm."
-- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
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