Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin

I read Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life before I started writing book reviews for the Mississauga Library System's Nonfiction Book Club. Palin impressed me with her political history, going from city council to mayor to governor to Republican Vice-Presidential nominee. The story of her climb up the political ladder was exciting to read, and I looked forward to a different perspective in Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin by Lorenzo Benet.

Benet, an assistant editor at People magazine as well as a coauthor of a number of pop biographies, unfortunately has written a boring book that reveals absolutely nothing about Palin that the public doesn't already know. Trailblazer relies on news articles and televised media stories for its sources, and anyone who has read the newspaper or watched Palin's media appearances will find nothing new here. Benet, to his credit, did interview Palin for People, when the magazine did a story on the then governor shortly after she gave birth to her son Trig, who was born with Down Syndrome. There however mustn't have been a lot of substance to that article as he only touches on his actual meeting and interview with Palin. Benet relies on many quotes from an interview he had with one of Palin's sisters, but the calibre of quotes he culls from her are all fluff, ranging from how good she was at high school basketball to how fabulous she works at juggling her time between her work and family. He also interviews Palin's hairstylist and all that she can say is how she changed Palin's hair colour and that she and Palin love to chitchat about their kids. All the quotes he gets out of people are fluff like this, which makes a very boring read indeed.

Trailblazer, written in 2009, seems out of date already since Palin has lived a lifetime of activity in the four years since the book first came out. Most glaring are the references to the upcoming wedding between Palin's daughter Bristol and future Playgirl model Levi Johnston. Benet speculates about Palin's future and while he could not have known that she would resign as Alaska governor later on in 2009, or that she would star in her own TV show, he was prescient in thinking that she would write her autobiography. For more in-depth information about Palin's rise up the political ladder, read Going Rogue.

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Cockeyed: a Memoir

The subject of my latest book cuts close to home: Cockeyed: a Memoir is Ryan Knighton's own story about his gradual loss of vision by retinitis pigmentosa. On a personal note, in 1988 I lost the central vision in my left eye by toxoplasmosis, a diagnosis I still don't understand yet eye specialist after specialist told me the same thing. Twenty-five years ago I was given the dreadful news that I might lose all the sight in my left eye. Since then I have lived my life by the eye doctor's adage "Never take your eyesight for granted". I have also developed a sensitivity towards and activism on behalf of the blind and visually impaired. It was after conducting some on-line research that I discovered Cockeyed.

Knighton received the diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease, on his eighteenth birthday. His memoir, which is laugh-out-loud funny in places, tells the story of his voyage into darkness.

As a mosh-pit dancing punk his limited sight didn't matter; he discovered with pleasure that he didn't even need eyesight while flailing himself into people in dark clubs. Knighton even managed to teach English in South Korea, only to find that the faculty and his students didn't even notice he had very low vision.

Funniest of all was his tale of going to adult "blind camp" with thirty others on an island in western British Columbia. I quote the following passage:

"I expected, of all places in the world, this would be the one where sighted habits were dropped. They weren't. People sat around the breakfast tables and spoke to one another without identifying themselves or whom they meant to address. Cheryl might have asked something like, 'Are you going to glue macaroni owls at the crafts table this afternoon?' Everybody would carry on chewing until somebody said the obligatory, 'Are you talking to me?' All six dining tables sounded like a rehearsal from Taxi Driver. You talking to me? You talking to me? ...
"Likewise, you'd think of all places in the world, this one would have been gesture-free. Nope. Everybody, me included, carried on flagging and pointing, and as you'd expect, none of us followed. We were so used to living with sighted people that we couldn't even be blind with one another."

I had never read an account of a person's loss of sight before. Knighton never gets mad at God or goes on a destructive rampage, however his three car accidents while he had failing eyesight, before he got the RP diagnosis, come close. The one part in the book that will stop your heart and make you cry is how he found out about his younger brother's suicide. It was written with such vivid detail, I felt as though I were in the same room when he got the news.

Knighton did not write about learning Braille, so I am making the conclusion he can still read the printed word, albeit with 1% vision. He did write about learning how to use the white cane, or the "stick", as he calls it. Cockeyed was mostly a fun read, in spite of the subject matter. Near the end of the book Knighton waxes philosophical and seems genuinely at peace with his eventual total blindness.



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What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal



Laina Dawes is a heavy metal journalist and fan, who also happens to be a black woman. What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal is her personal account of dealing with being the only black woman in the concert hall. Dawes also covers the history of black women in rock music from the early days of pre-rock with Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday to Tina Turner and Skin of Skunk Anansie.

 

For a black person, male or female, one often faces a crisis of identity when drawn to heavy metal music. Dawes and the many women she interviewed for What Are You Doing Here? all revealed that they had to hide their record albums and when they were found out, had to face accusations from friends and family that they were somehow betraying their black heritage by their musical taste. Dawes states:

"As a black girl into metal, I had nobody with whom I could share my adoration for Rob Halford or my crush on the late Steve Clark from Def Leppard. While listening to music and perusing music magazines became a great form of escape, I always felt a bit of residual guilt. After all, black people--real black people--don't listen to metal."

However she was drawn to metal for the same reasons it attracts many of its fans:

"There was a lot of rage around me, and I knew it could be channeled into the positive energy that I found through metal."

How do other black women metal fans reconcile their musical taste with the criticisms they hear because of it? Music journalist Keidra Chaney told Dawes:

"'I didn't fit in,' she says, 'but I wasn't going to fit in anyway, so my loving metal was just another reason to be that weird chick. It wasn't a black identity issue, like me wanting to be like white folks because I grew up around only black folks. It wasn't an issue like I needed to choose. I just happened to be a weird black chick that happened to like weird music.'"

and:

"'It's extremely confusing as a black teenager,' adds singer Camille Atkinson from Empire Beats. 'Who knows who they are as a teenager? You are trying to assert your identity, but at the same time, you feel that you are being separated from your black identity.'"

Dawes deals with the negative reaction to her musical preference expressed by other blacks in the chapter entitled "So You Think You're White?". As a music journalist Dawes is well educated in the history of modern rock. When her critics--people who really ought to know better than to make an issue out of someone else's musical preferences--berate her for liking loud metal music played by white men, her revelation that it was black musicians who invented rock music in the first place always seems to grab their attention and build bridges of understanding.

In the chapter entitled "'The Only One' Syndrome", Dawes shares testimonials from other black women metal fans and their experiences at concerts. It takes an enormous amount of courage for a black woman to attend a metal concert, and some of the women she interviewed simply do not attend live events because of the attention they draw upon themselves simply by being there. Dawes herself often doesn't find support even from other black women concertgoers:

"I have felt the disheartening chill of making eye contact with the only other black girl at a metal show, and receiving a death glare in return that says, 'In no uncertain terms may you even try to talk to me and embarrass me.'"

This reaction reveals to me that the women Dawes sees might themselves be insecure about being at a metal show, and might feel more comfortable trying as hard as they could to be invisible, versus joining another black woman for a chitchat wherein they share their mutual love of metal.

Heavy metal music may have an unfair reputation for being sexist and racist, and Dawes confronts these issues in the chapters entitled "Too Black, Too Metal, and All Woman" and "The Lingering Stench of Racism in Metal". Metal journalist Sameerah Blue sums up both issues with this observation:

"As a black female journalist covering metal myself, sometimes it seems like there are more haters than supporters. 'Just like with most women musicians and fans in metal, you would have to work twice as hard as a guy, that just goes without saying,' says Blue. 'Even if you take color out of the equation, women in metal have to work harder. And if a white woman has to work twice as hard, a black woman is going to have to work four times as hard. You will ultimately get the same acceptance, but you have to work for it.'"

What Are You Doing Here? is perhaps the first book of its kind, giving a voice to black women who love heavy metal. I recommend this book but future printings should see the eyes of an editor. There were many grammatical errors, with repeated words, or repeated infinitives, or often missing words like the "to" when preceding an infinitive. I am led to believe that Dawes typed this at her computer, possessed with intelligent rapid trains of thought. An editor's keen eye, or even her own slow re-read, would have caught these mistakes. Dawes does make the same observations over and over, and at times What Are You Doing Here? seemed frustratingly repetitious. Yet at 206 pages Dawes's work seemed unfortunately too short; it is a sign of a hungry reader and perhaps a wider readership to wish to read more on this topic.

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Moab is My Washpot

I had never heard of Stephen Fry before I got this autobiography as a gift over a decade ago. I finally got down to reading Moab is My Washpot, Fry's personal story up until the age of twenty, and it was one of the most enjoyable autobiographies I have ever encountered. Fry grew up in British prep and boarding schools and his tales of all-boy antics and pranks had me laughing aloud, even while reading Moab on the subway. Fry's writing style is stream-of-thought, and although the pages may be at times solid blocks of text, the flow is so rapid, even with elongated tangential clauses (and sometimes even parenthetical asides) that I found that I could read everything in one attempt, not having to go back and reread the passage as I obsessively do in order to make sure I understand everything. 

Fry grew up a lying, pranking, thieving urchin. He stole frequently from his schoolmates, teachers and from strangers, and I won't spoil the end of Moab by revealing what the consequences of his thievery had in store for him in his late teens. His school pranks had me snickering out loud and it is not often that I am vocal while I read. My favourite prankish tale was his readjustment of a church organ's preset buttons, and the on-the-floor uncontrolled hilarity that ensued when Fry and his friends heard the organ "fart out of tune" the following Sunday.

Stephen Fry grew up gay and, except for a brief moment of rebellion in his late teens when he dated and lost his heterosexual virginity to one (and only one) girl, was only interested in boys. He was enraptured by a boy named Matthew (lovingly nicknamed Matteo) and his stories of being unrequitedly in love with him will have bittersweet memories for all of us who have ever had feelings of attraction unreturned. 

Near the end of Moab is My Washpot we learn of Fry's suicide attempt and his successful rehabilitation. Not a long portion of the book is devoted to his suicide attempt, and one is not led to believe that it was forthcoming. Fry's suicide attempt came after a failed academic year and a life of thieving and self-perceived failure. Once he was released from the hospital he didn't turn his life around--not yet anyway. More thievery was in store for Fry, and he had the time of his life doing it too, living a life of luxury until...

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As Near to Heaven By Sea: A History of Newfoundland and Labrador

Last summer I visited Newfoundland and had such an enjoyable time exploring the Avalon peninsula and Cape Bonavista. I would love to go back and see more of this vast island. Almost a year after this memorable trip I chose to read As Near to Heaven By Sea: A History of Newfoundland and Labrador by Kevin Major. This 498-page history was published in 2001. From the geological prehistory of the formation of the eastern Canadian land mass to the dawn of the twenty-first century, Major has written almost five hundred pages that kept me engrossed for hours on end. I could not put As Near to Heaven By Sea down, and Major made each time I opened the book feel like a fun, yet still serious history class.  

 

Major covers the history from both parts of the province, the island of Newfoundland as well as the mainland of Labrador. Often the mainland is forgotten or given short shrift in provincial histories. Major has written about both parts of the province and treats each as an equal. The first few chapters were about Norse exploration and the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows by Leif Ericson at the turn of the second millennium. Major also discussed several other pre-Columbian exploration theories. The Island and Labrador were both inhabited by native peoples before the arrival of Europeans, and we learn about these peoples' migrations across the east coast. The chapter entitled "Where Once They Stood" was a sad account of the extinction by decimation of some First Nations, such as the Beothuk.

St. John's is the oldest city in North America, and typical of Major's writing was his injection of humour into his history. I would sometimes burst out laughing at his asides or parenthetical opinions:

"At the beginning of the [eighteenth] century King William's Act had let it be known that 'all the inhabitants shall strictly keep every Lords Day.' And that 'none keeping taverns shall sell wine &c. on that day,' as if everyone would pay attention to laws governing their intake of alcohol once the navy vessels set sail for England in the fall."

and:

"By day the fishermen caught cod from small boats, then salted and sometimes dried their catch. They slept aboard ship or in temporary dwellings on shore. At the end of the summer, their holds full, they headed back home, often with a stop in St. John's Harbour on the way.

"The eventual capital city of the Island had its beginnings as a place for a little rest and relaxation, and the occasional brawl--an international port city in the making."

In regards to modern St. John's, Major has no affection for the city's Atlantic Place shopping and parking complex:

"Even in the mid-twentieth century the downtown looked as if it could be out of the nineteenth. Not content to let well enough alone (where such a visage could only be a magnet for sightseers), the business vulgarians brought in the wrecking balls and raised something they called 'Atlantic Place.' With the profile of a brick box and a personality to match, it's a blight at harbourside, only to be redeemed with the return of the wrecking ball. Such architectural idiocy along Water Street is not now without competition, of course (the prerequisite mirrored tower of Scotia Bank its stiffest rival). City councillors (and no city has had a more curious lot of these) seem forever prone to err on the side of commerce. St. John's claims to be the oldest city in North America. At times it has looked bent on destroying all evidence to support that claim."

and:

"Visitors entering the harbour (and able to turn a blind eye to Atlantic Place) will look skyward to see the two forces that have most shaped our society--the fishery and the Church."

 

For centuries, the Island's fishing grounds were fought over between the English and French. In 1702, English Rear-Admiral John Graydon was given orders to battle the French settlement at Plaisance. When he met with his captains, they "whined about the thick fog shrouding the bay. In the end the attack was called off 'since it might tend to the dishonour of Her Majesty's arms.'"

They were all obviously strangers in a strange land to make complaints about the fog of all things:

"Graydon was either displaying a streak of cowardice or acting on lame advice. Word of the strength of the garrison at Plaisance was no more than rumour. And in Placentia Bay no one puts off the business at hand because of fog. If they did they'd be hard pressed to ever get much accomplished."

Newfoundland and Labrador were the targets of pirates and many shady characters in the first few centuries after colonization. Fishing vessels or other ships full of cargo from the new world were vulnerable on the return voyage:

"Legend has it that from 1740 to 1760 Sandy Point in Bay St. George was home to the notorious husband-and-wife pirating duo of Eric and Marie Cobham. It is said they attacked ships heading out of the St. Lawrence, and were especially keen on any bearing cargoes of furs from New France. They were known for massacring all on board and then scuttling the vessels, with Marie often taking the lead in the heinous goings-on. 'She poisoned one ship's crew, had others sewn into sacks and thrown overboard alive, still others tied up and used for pistol practice,' says one modern account. Newfoundland seems to have brought out the worst in her."

Since the island of Newfoundland was first settled on the east coast by Europeans, Major puts forth a valid question if settlement had occurred first on the west by the Gulf of St. Lawrence:

"This was a very different picture of Newfoundland. And leads one to speculate on just how prosperous the Island might have become had its settlement evolved from the more fertile west coast, rather than the barren headlands to the east. Had population growth centred on Bay St. George rather than St. John's, we would most likely have become a part of Canada with its Confederation of 1867. Labrador would certainly have felt more closely tied to the rest of the province. And by now there might well have been a bridge between it and the Island, connecting the Canadian mainland to the west coast, to a million or so people..."

In the late 1800's to the first few decades of the twentieth century, the Island became the focus of international importance in the field of communications. The chapter entitled "Communications Central" told the stories about the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cables, Marconi's experiments with wireless technology and Amelia Earhart's trans-Atlantic flights. The development of the international airport in Gander in northeastern Newfoundland both as a refuelling stop, as well as for military purposes in World War II, made it one of the most interesting chapters.

Newfoundland didn't join Confederation until 1949, when it became Canada's tenth province after securing 52% of the vote in a referendum. The campaign to join Canada was led by Joey Smallwood, a bespectacled bow tie-wearing orator schooled in American evangelism. Much of the Island's outports, as well as virtually the entire of Labrador, were inaccessible by road. What led to a victory for Confederation were the endless road trips led by Smallwood to every remote fishing village or Labrador coastal community. These small places, some of barely a hundred residents, had never been visited by anyone in government before, much less the man who would eventually become the new province's first premier. He had this audience all to himself, and promised them Canadian wealth and a more prosperous life. How could they say no?

"Smallwood went where politicians rarely pitched before. If there were roads he eagerly suffered the mud and potholes for a few minutes with a loudspeaker. Where there were none (by far, most of the country) he descended in a decrepit seaplane, shook every hand while proclaiming deliverance into the guarantee of Canada's social programs."

As Near to Heaven By Sea ends with a political history after Smallwood left office and covers all the premiers who succeeded him. A lengthy bibliography is included which guarantees I will be seeking more titles. Some of the books Major mentions in his bibliography I even purchased during my trip last summer. Newfoundland and Labrador has a fascinating history and I am so glad that my first lengthy read on the topic was As Near to Heaven By Sea.



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Lips Unsealed: A Memoir



Belinda Carlisle wrote Lips Unsealed: A Memoir after five years of sobriety. It doesn't read like a written memoir and resembles a transcribed interview. Carlisle's story was a burning page-turner for the first half of the book, as she recounted the punk scene in Los Angeles which led to the formation of the Go-Go's.

Carlisle was stoned on cocaine and booze for the first 47 years of her life. Her cocaine addiction was no secret to her fans (I count myself as a strong Go-Go's and Belinda Carlisle fan) who knew of her drug addiction over twenty-five years ago. What was surprising to discover were the countless times Carlisle fell off the wagon, only to sober up again then fall deeper and deeper into a coked-up Hell. Unfortunately Lips Unsealed suffers in its second half because Carlisle tells the same story over and over again. The last twenty years of her life were about going on tour, sniffing out coke dealers as soon as she was in a new town, then going onstage blasted out of her mind and partying for days afterward. It got pretty tiring to read the same story over and over again.

Belinda must have been sober during the making of the Go-Go's' and her own solo albums, because the accounts of her studio session time and the dynamics that were involved in songwriting and production were extremely interesting. Carlisle's later solo albums did not do well at all in North America, yet they were consistent Top Tens in Europe. I found it very interesting to read about her experiences making these lesser-known albums (such as Live Your Life Be Free and her French-only album, spelled mistakenly without the accent grave, Voila) since the local press all but ignored them.

After having a coked-up epiphany when she realized that if she snorted one more line she would die, Carlisle sobered up through AA and by adopting a healthy lifestyle of exercise and yoga. As far as I'm concerned, after reading her life story, Carlisle seems fragile enough to go off the wagon again any second, yet I will be the first to admit that a former addict is always an addict and will always have these demons looking over her shoulders.

I was glad to read that Carlisle and the four other Go-Go's, Charlotte Caffey, Jane Wiedlin, Gina Schock and Kathy Valentine long ago built bridges, forgave each other and put all their bickering behind them. They certainly took a proactive role in the inevitable post-breakup record company reissue of hits packages. Instead of letting the record company release these compilations on its own, they decided to reform, give all their input, and tour to promote these new albums.

However, since I read this book when it first came out in the summer of 2010, the Go-Go's have burned those bridges and will be touring without bassist Kathy Valentine, citing the parting of ways due to "irreconcilable differences".

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The ADD Myth: How to Cultivate the Unique Gifts of Intense Personalities

I do not find any mental diagnosis to be as controversial as that of attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. To me, ADD is this generation's buzz of an affliction. The medical community is divided whether or not such a disorder even exists, and I have my own prejudices about this alleged condition. The ADD Myth: How to Cultivate the Unique Gifts of Intense Personalities by Martha Burge attempts to explain ADD and devotes most of its pages to analyzing the ADD patient's brain in a different light and to developing programs to nurture this different brain.

The first chapter, entitled "There Is No Such Thing as ADHD", grabbed my interest immediately. For those who doubt the existence of ADD, this is the most important chapter in the book. Its subsections had such headings as "Why Schools and Parents Seek Diagnosis", "Not All Distress or Difference Is Mental Disorder", "Too Common to Be a Disorder", "There is No Proof of Disorder" and "If Not Disorder, Then What?" which clearly revealed the author's intentions. Burge states, on page one no less:

"I know I have very few standing beside me in my stance that there is no such thing as ADHD."

Before however we become acquainted with Burge's work, we are greeted by a foreword written by Allen Frances, MD and Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force, who writes:

"Burge describes ADD as harmful 'myth.' I see it more as an overdone fad. We both agree that ADD is currently being wildly overdiagnosed, but Burge would get rid of it altogether, while I endorse ADD as a useful diagnosis when cautiously and correctly applied to the small percentage of people at the far extreme of the Bell curve in their hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention."

Frances is not as convinced as Burge is in regards to the mythical existence of ADD, yet he does agree to its transitory state in medical history. It is one fad that will be supplanted by another come the next generation. In the meantime, Burge as well as Frances are trying (I believe in vain) to put the brakes on the ADD bandwagon. ADD diagnoses are increasing among young children year after year. Why is there an ADD epidemic?

People want answers. Parents and teachers want a simple explanation for their children's or students' increased states of restlessness and inattention. Find the reason Johnny can't sit still because it's not his fault. An explanation is not enough, for once parents find the reason for their child's zero attention span, they then want someone to do something about it. This is a phenomenon of our times, where no one takes responsibility for life's bad news and everyone believes anything can be cured by a magic pill:

"I'm not one of those antidrug advocates. I believe in better living through chemistry; it's just that this should be done with a solid understanding of the risks. Drugs should be used only when there are no other options. To prescribe such strong psychotropic drugs to children for an illness that cannot be proven seems irresponsible, particularly if the intent of the prescription is only to improve performance in school."

Popping pills is apparently easier than finding the source of the problem. According to Burge, at least 5% of young children are taking some kind of prescription drug (like Ritalin) for their ADD, and a higher percentage among boys:

"Once there was a description of ADHD as a mental disorder and a pharmaceutical treatment option available, the disorder seemed to go in search of patients."

Burge spends the remaining fifteen chapters of The ADD Myth talking about different kinds of intensities, or ways of perception. ADD is not a neurological disorder, she says, but merely a state of relative intensity. Those diagnosed with ADD are more intense in feeling, in absorbing information and in expressing themselves. They do not need drugs, psychiatric counselling or faddish excuses of diagnosis. ADD itself may be misdiagnosed based on sexism:

"Although I believe 100 percent of the ADHD diagnoses to be misdiagnoses, I think the reason that boys are diagnosed more than twice as often as girls is that girls are more likely to express 'hyperactivity' vocally."

Thus while girls may be just as hyperactive as boys, they tend to manifest this hyperactivity in the form of stereotypical loquaciousness. While excessive talkativeness is an intense behaviour in itself such that it causes disruption and reveals the speaker's distraction and inattention, it is not viewed in as negative a light as restlessness or loud complaining, which is more typical of the behaviour of boys. This is one of the subjective and spurious characteristics of ADD, having one trait for girls and one for boys.

Burge has done her research and finds no consistency on standard ADD testing. All such testing is based on subjective modelling, which leads to erroneous diagnoses of ADD and a convenient deus ex machina for parents who want a cure in the form of a pill named Ritalin:

"Treatment options for these 'disorders.' which may be nothing more than intensity, are medication and therapy. If you've been down this road, you have probably found the treatment to be less than ideal. Years can be spent on a path that cannot provide much help because the underlying condition isn't understood. If intensity is treated like a mental disorder, the outcome is a sensitive person who now believes herself to be disordered. Instead of understanding and taking advantage of the growth possibilities this condition affords, she changes her self-image to fit that of a person with a disorder."

After the profound claims Burge makes in chapter one, she spends the rest of the book outlining exercises to train the brain by managing one's intensity. She teaches how to take in and process information and how to express oneself and live as a healthy individual. There are many exercises in meditation and imagination, as well as instructions in self-talk and in keeping a journal of one's dreams. I had wanted to read The ADD Myth mainly for its first chapter, so it is ironic that I found the rest of the book, on Burge's often new-agey methods for dealing with one's own personal level of intensity, to be rather boring. However if anyone knows me as a book reviewer, I read every book to the end, no matter how spacy or boring it becomes.

Burge did not discuss a cause that I attribute to the epidemic of ADD diagnoses among children: that of our click-happy on-line world, where nothing can happen fast enough. We expect things to happen as soon as we think of them, and grow impatient if whatever we click on takes more than one second to load. Children do not have to wait as long for information as those of my generation. When I was a child, we had to change channels by getting up and walking to the TV. To make a phone call, we had to be at home or stay at home to await a call. Then we had to use a dial; we didn't have a push-button phone till I was twenty years old. If we needed to find out information, we had to pull out the books or make a trip to the library. Today's generation of young people have their television, their telephone, their encyclopaedia, their camera and every conceivable game in the palm of their hand. It does not surprise me that children have decreased attention spans if they grow up never having to wait for anything. Their brains are not evolving as fast as technology is, thus creating a neurological "lag" that leads to attention deficit, hyperactivity and restlessness. I would be very interested in finding out the prevalence of ADD among children in societies that are not as technologically progressive. Would Amish children show traits often attributed to ADD? Would poor rural households, those without the money to pay for their child's cellphone or high-speed Internet, be less likely to produced ADD-afflicted children?

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