Part Two talks about recent research that shows that patients diagnosed as being in a so-called "persistent vegetative state" can learn! Part Three elaborates. Please send any comments on today's TN&V to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you'd like, follow me at www.twitter.com/daveha.

One of the most important lessons I've learned as I've gotten older is that my peripheral vision is badly under-utilized. Since I do not look a lot to the left and right, unless something is right in front of me, most times I'm not going to see it.

That's no big deal if I walk in the door and miss that my wife just painted the living room. (I take that back, that it is a very big deal. But you get the point.)

However this tunnel-vision takes on more significance when morally significant events take place right in front of my nose and I am oblivious.

One of the accomplishments of Laura Bush, the wife of President George W. Bush, was that in 2001 Mrs. Bush joined with the Library of Congress to launch the first National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. At the risk of sounding peevish, you'd never know she'd played a major role if you read the snazzy four-color brochure all of us received Saturday when we attended the eighth annual festival on the Mall. But I digress.

The festival is to celebrate "the joys of books and reading." As James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, wrote in the "Welcome," each year "we invite a diverse group of authors, poets and illustrators to Washington to meet their fans and talk about the life experiences that inspired them to write or draws." And 78 of them entertained a huge crowd, many of whom seemed to have attended every previous festival.

What has this to do with us? The first author whose session I attended was Kirstin Downey, a reporter for the Washington Post, who has written a book titled, The Women Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience.

The format is for the author to speak 15-20 minutes and then take 10 minutes or so of questions. Near the end of the session a young man with Down syndrome, accompanied by his dad, went up to the mike to ask his question. He was eager to be a full participant and his inquiry was a good one. (Of all the initiatives Perkins brought to Washington to try to get enacted, which one was the most important to her?)

Jodi Picoult

I went directly from the history and biography tent to the fiction & fantasy tent to hear Jodi Picoult. I have not read her work, but she is immensely popular (15 best sellers) and extremely famous. Picoult was very conversational, informal, and at ease, and her audience, obviously already in love with her, bonded instantly.

One of the last questions asked was what did Picoult think of the changes made in the ending to her book Her Sister's Keeper by those who had made the book into a film. She chose her words carefully, but made it clear they had made a Big Mistake. (Hint: the plot revolves around the decision to genetically engineer a baby who would be a perfect donor match for a child with leukemia.)

But it was in response to this or something about her current book, Handle With Care, that Picoult made a statement that got me to connecting the dots. Handle With Care is even more morally troubling than Her Sister's Keeper.

The youngest child--Willow--has a devastating genetic disease. As I understand the plot, her mother persuades herself that in order to pay for the many, many medical expenses associated with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), she should sue her obstetrician (and best friend) for the "wrongful birth" of Willow. The logic of such a suit is that had she known in advance, she could have "terminated" the pregnancy--Willow.

Again, I haven't read the book, but what ensued sounds like watching a train wreck.

I am doing this from memory but as I recall Picoult made two points, addressing issues raised by the book, back-to-back. One revolved around quality of life: who is to judge the value of a life with leukemia or OI, for example.

Her second point, apparently from the parents' perspective, is what can or should be said about all the expenses. I don't know what Picoult was hinting at, so I'll leave it at that.

But as I walked away from the tent, it dawned on me that less than an hour before I had seen one parent's answer to those daunting questions.

This dad valued his son's "quality of life" enough to make sure not only that he be born, but also that got to ask a question in front of hundreds of people. He thought enough of him to stand proudly by while his son, so eager to speak that he was practically leaping out of his socks, conversed as an equal with a big-time reporter and author.

It's amazing what you learn if you just look around.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Two
Part Three