Doing some editorial research for NRODT, I came across the National Organization For Albinism And Hypopigmentation (NOAH).

NOAH is angry with Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code authorship for making one of his villains an albino. (“Seeing red” about it, say all the cute newspaper pieces, though NOAH will tell you — and you can see from the website — that albinos can have blue or even brown eyes.

It occurs to me that in a longish life, I have never known an albino. None among my family, friends, or neighbors. Never dated one. Never worked with one. Is it really that rare? One in 17,000, says the NOAH website. I guess that’s rare.

Do we have any albino readers? Is it OK to say “albino,” or is there some “euphemism drift” — as with colored/Negro/black/African-American, etc.? What’s it like being an albino? Do albinos trend politically left or right? (Not an idle question: I have known half a dozen blind people well enough to know their political orientation–hard Left in every single case.)