Every now and then, I get an Email that makes me wonder whether people are idiots. OK, more than every now and then. Today, it was a job posting from a science writers' association that caught my eye. ''I am searching for a psychiatrist or psychologist, an expert in bipolar disorder, to write (or work with a writer to write) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Bipolar Disorder.''

Hmm, I thought. I earned an MD and then finished an internship in psychiatry. I'm a writer. If I had the time and the inclination, I could probably write this book, having written or edited several psychiatry review books for medical students.

But wait a minute. What's that title again? The Complete Idiot's Guide to Bipolar Disorder? That's at best bizarre and at worst horribly insensitive, given that we're not that many centuries removed from the, um, not terribly enlightened habit of calling the mentally ill ''village idiots.''

Did anyone think this one through? What's next, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mental Retardation?