Dr. Watson isn't quite so dear

So, it would seem that winning a Nobel prize doesn't wipe away racial prejudice. Sadly, Dr. James Watson (you may recall from high school Biology that Watson was a co-winner in 1962 with Francis Crick for deciphering the double-helix pattern of DNA ) felt the world would be much improved if he were to opine on intelligence and "racial" differences. Among the bon mots he shared on people of colour:

“All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.”

I refuse to sully my blog with more of his reprehensible tripe - for more of a blow by blow, along with his half-baked apology, you know what to do. Just click here.

I'm just happy he was suspended from his duties at the Cold Springs Harbour Laboratory. What a boor!

On Lobotomies

I was pleased to read a piece in the Times about My Lobotomy: A Memoir. The book came out of a radio documentary presented on NPR in November 2005. I had an opportunity to hear it when I worked at StoryCorps a project that springs from SoundPortrait Productions (which also produced the My Lobotomy radio documentary). The documentary is about Howard Dully, a man who had an "ice-pick" lobotomy when he was 12 years old. Mr. Dully has no recollection of the procedure and basically sets out to find out all that he can about what happened to him and why.

I don't know if I'll actually read the book - the radio piece is pretty grueling emotionally and I'm not sure if I'm all for re-hashing. In any event, I urge you to listen to radio piece if you can. Just click here.

The Dark Horse Takes It

The Man Booker Prize was awarded today to Anne Enright, for her novel The Gathering. It wasn't a heavy favourite in the betting. I haven't read it yet, but I think I'll add it to my list. I was sort of pulling for Nicola Barker's Darkmans, because it sounds so interesting and it's higher on my To Read List, but hey, you win some, you lose some.

LINK

Tuning Up

We're taking the IMac into the shop for some repairs tomorrow. I don't know when it'll be returned, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it won't take forever. Say a prayer.

In the meantime, I'm steadily making my way through the Edith Wharton biography by Hermione Lee - a very thick tome. More on that on my return.

Rewarded Reading

I went through a phase, somewhere near the end of secondary school, when I was obsessed with reading award winning fiction. It started when I read Possession for the first time in 1994; it won the Booker in 1990. I made up all these lists and started reading with zeal. I fell off the wagon about a month later and have looked back on that industrious period somewhat longingly. I've had to face the fact, with a twinge of guilt, that I'm just not that directed a reader. For those among you who are more disciplined than I, click here for the shortlist for the National Book Awards. Incidentally, the winner of the Booker will be announced in one week's time. Click here for that short list.

Rhode Island is Famous For...

I just came back from a weekend sojourn in Providence. I was at the husband's 10 year reunion for RISD. I had a great time and managed to pick up this little pocket tome for 10 cents - a whole 85 cents off the cover price. I just love that Dell published a mass market paperback on modern art for under a dollar. It's got a whole section of colour reproductions too!

Sweet Vindication, sort of

That big smile on Ms. Anucha Browne Sanders face was photographed this morning before the verdict came down in her sexual harassment suit against Isiah Thomas and MSG. She's surely popping the champagne now, since the jury found that MSG will have to pay her $11.6 million in damages. Unfortunately, Isiah Thomas escaped personal liability, but I guess you can't win them all. At the very least, Thomas has been exposed for the classless pig that he is (in his book it's ok for black men to call a black woman a bitch, but is totally wrong for his white counterpart to do the same). Living in NYC, the sordid details of the case of have been in the tabloids and on local TV regularly, and while my lady's intuition told me that Sanders claims were more likely true than not, I was concerned that the boys would circle the wagons and that would be that. I'm glad that I was wrong.

Unfortunately, I was not wrong about Clarence Thomas (you may recall what he termed a "high-tech lynching" during the confirmation hearings leading to his appointment to the Supreme Court) . He's got a book out (titled My Grandfather's Son), and he was on 60 Minutes this Sunday past for what can only be described as a fawning infomercial for his book. He used the opportunity to make more unflattering comments about Anita Hill. My personal favourite was his assertion that she "wasn't as demure and conservative as she seemed, and could take care of herself". Weak characterizations like this switch the focus to her, instead of him. If she was an alcoholic slut she still wouldn't find his pubic hair joke amusing. He simply struck me as an angry person - the wounds of the very real injustices he has suffered in his life are so raw and open. 16 years or 16 minutes have not tempered him. Should you care to hear more from him, click here.

I was pleased however, to read this oped by Anita Hill in today's Times. It is well-written, surprisingly even-handed and refrained from characterizing the perpetual victim Justice Thomas, as an unmitigated prig. She's a bigger person than I.