Romney's Not So Bold Choice "By choosing Ryan, who has little foreign experience and who despite, like most of the people on the planet, being more exciting than Romney, is hardly an inspiring figure or great orator, Romney did not help himself" (tags: uspolitics )
I'm working through this excellent manga series about the difficulties of raising an autistic child in contemporary Japan; in this volume, Hikaru Azuma finishes elementary school and moves on to junior high, his mother Sachiko dealing with the problems of a new and tremendously unsympathetic special education teacher in his old school and with the insanity of the system for choosing the next step - is there any country that gets this right? They also have to deal with bullies from a neighbouring school and also help Hikaru's fellow students (and their parents) with other difficulties: the dyslexic kid, the ADHD kid, and also the kid whose father gets drunk and beats her mother. The elementary school years end fairly triumphantly with Hikaru participating in the graduation ceremony in his own particular way, but then the last three installments are a bit disjointed as we establish the junior high setting. Still a gripping read, though.
