I just got home from a meeting of a non-profit board of directors and I’m beat. But I came across this posting on BoingBoing where journalist Peter Sheridan describes a recent lecture he attended where Stephen Hawking was the presenter. As is typical of articles about Hawking, it focuses more on his disability than the content of his lecture. Sheridan seems to have a doll fetish that comes through in his writing. Observe:
One of the most brilliant minds alive on the planet today, he is cruelly trapped within a useless body, which slumps like an understuffed and oversized rag doll in his large and gadget-filled wheelchair.
And then:
Once, early on in the lecture, his head slumped forward like a broken doll, and an aide had to walk on stage to readjust his body: an undignified moment as Hawking’s head was manhandled and repositioned, and then his whole body picked up and put down, as if the aide was plumping up a particularly large and unwieldy pillow.
I’m sure Sheridan is a fine journalist, but someone needs to buy this guy a clue. And a new set of similes. Yes, the poor crippled genius. What a shame. The guy is still collecting royalties on a book millions of people bought but never finished and is probably the only heir apparent to Einstein, but Sheridan gets all hung up on the fact that Hawking needed a little repositioning. The only indignity I see is writing about Dr. Hawking like he’s a sideshow attraction.
