Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* Fans of the American south won't want to miss Jubiliation Rising, a new blog about southern culture. Randy Sparkman is off and running with lovely postings about Truman Capote, Thomas Jefferson, and John Brown.

* Thanks to uber-linker/uber-researcher Dave Lull for pointing out this Guardian article about the French/Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard. (I blogged about Godard here.) The former enfant terrible -- who must be very tired of being referred to as "the former enfant terrible" -- is now 74, and he's as perverse and baffling as ever. But he seems to be in a fairly jolly mood too:

When he arrived, the customs officer asked him: "Mr Godard: what are you coming here for? Business or pleasure?" Godard indicated the former. The officer asked what business he was in. "Unsuccessful movies," Godard replied.

* Whiskyprajer ventures into dangerous but stimulating territory: art and religion. I'd like to go there myself sometimes, but am 'way too chicken.

* GNXP's Thrasymachus notices a report that it's no longer just poor people who are turning into porkers. Affluent Americans are now getting fatter too.

* Alex Tabarrok doesn't think we should close the FDA. But he does think the agency should go about its business in a whole different way.

* I'm old enough to remember a landslide of reports about the miracles of genetic engineering. Everything, we were told, was going to change, and sometime very, very soon. Were scientists (and their publicists in the press) simply wrong? Steve Sailer brings some perspective to the whole genetic-engineering thang. Keywords, at least as far as I'm concerned: "side effects" and "lawsuits."

* Evan Kirchhoff visits Paris and records his impressions. Evan's one of the funniest writers I've run across in the blog-overse.

* Here's a hard-to-resist little Webjoke. Not to fear: it isn't booby-trapped. Well, OK: yes it is. But in a good way.

* Art-history buff Alexandra has been doing some quilting. Quilting: yet another art form I'd love to know a little something about ...

* On April 14, Nancy Hopkins-- the MIT biologist who set off the Lawrence Summers storm -- spoke on a panel in NYCity. Nicolas Stix attended, and writes a kick-ass report.

* The New Criterion's James Panero reveals this week's most shocking fact: Roger Kimball owns an iPod.

* Talk about vulgar! Talk about dragging the level of the discussion into the gutter! Talk about making me laugh a whole lot!

Best,

Michael

Ha ha, I loved that entry about Ann Coulter! Like you, I certainly laughed a lot.
Of course, the real question about Ann Coulter still remains - is (or was) "she" really a "he"?

Posted by: Peter on May 6, 2005 4:08 PM

Stix claims that the Hopkins panel was biased. Stix is definitely the guy to ask about bias. He bent over backward to be fairminded, so he's very credible. /sarcasm

I have hardly been following this at all, but if I wanted to do so, I'd still avoid Stix. I got about a third of the way through before I gave up.

Posted by: John Emerson on May 6, 2005 4:29 PM

Oh, that last link! My eyes....how could you! (ok, I laughed too)

Posted by: MD on May 6, 2005 6:19 PM

The FDA, let's be honest, it's almost as much of a joke as the American Cancer Society. Does anyone in 2005 expect useful information from these kinds of organizations?

In 2005 there is a large source of information from reliable organizations available for free on the Internet. Why not start from there instead of trying to overhaul a bloated, useless government organization?

Posted by: Rob Asumendi on May 10, 2005 5:40 PM






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