Idiot idiots

For close to a week now, an autistic man with the mental capacity of a three-year-old has been missing from his home in Mississauga. Here's a tip for all the search parties who are still looking for him: Judging by the results of this week's US presidental election, he might have crossed the border to vote.

I was discussing this idea with my housemate Shanel, who asked if Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man was autistic. He was an idiot savant, I said, although you're just supposed to call them savants now. "Idiot savant" is politically incorrect. But why do we even bother tiptoeing around their feelings? They're about the last people who'd be insulted if you called them idiots. They'd be pretty much oblivious. "They'd probably just say something like, ' "Idiot" has six letters,' " Shanel agreed.

But of course, "idiot" actually has five letters, so if they said that, they wouldn't be idiot savants. They'd just be idiot idiots. You can't even make that one politically correct.