NUTTY PROFESSOR: Regrets What He Said, If He Said It
James D. Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel prize for deciphering the double-helix of DNA, apologized “unreservedly” yesterday for comments reported this week suggesting that black people, over all, are not as intelligent as whites. In an interview published Sunday in The Times of London, Dr. Watson is quoted as saying that while “there are many people of color who are very talented,” he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa.” “All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. In a statement given to The Associated Press yesterday, Dr. Watson said, “I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. There is no scientific basis for such a belief.” But his publicist, Kate Farquhar-Thomson, would not say whether Dr. Watson believed he had been misquoted. “You have the statement,” she said. “That’s it, I am afraid.” Late yesterday, the board of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research institution in New York, issued a statement saying it was suspending the administrative responsibilities of Dr. Watson as chancellor “pending further deliberation. [via NEW YORK TIMES]
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PHILLYWOOD: Lovely Bones Found In Mordor Malvern
The Lovely Bones starts filming in Malvern tomorrow today, and the summery fall weather has filmmakers seeing green. Or red. Or something they weren’t expecting. It’s the trees. They’re not following the script, and are acting more like September than October. Then there’s the concern that the leaves will drop at once. Director Peter Jackson is prepping silk stand-ins, just in case. The DreamWorks production will spend about six weeks in the suburbs, take a holiday break, and pick up in late January in Jackson’s New Zealand, where it will be summer. Paramount will distribute; a release date has not been announced. The Lovely Bones, based on Alice Sebold‘s 2002 novel, tells the story of suburban Philadelphia teen Susie Salmon (played by 13-year-old Irish actress Saoirse Ronan; say her first name “SEER-sha”), who is murdered by neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). The story is told from the afterlife. Ryan Gosling Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz are her parents, Susan Sarandon plays her grandmother, and Michael Imperioli plays a detective. Sebold graduated from Great Valley High near Malvern in 1980. [via the INQUIRER]
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TASTELESS: DN’s Flavia Colgan Nearly Eaten Alive By Rush Limbaugh
By now I’m sure you’ve heard about it. Yes, I had dinner with Rush Limbaugh last week. And boy, have the e-mails been pouring in. Some from people who think I’m converting to the right and are happy about it, others from those who don’t agree with Rush‘s views but think he is funny and enteraining and want to know what happened, others who are glad folks from different sides of the aisle do break bread, and still others who have asked me would I sit down with Hitler for dinner? (I’m not even going to address that, it’s so absurd and offensive — suffice it to say that some are very angry with me that I would dine with Rush.) And, no, I’m not going to become a Republican, and, yes, I find it offensive to compare Rush to Hitler, a calculating, anti-Semitic murderer on a level history has never known before and hopefully never will again. I’m surprised and disappointed that some of my readers would write such things. [via CITIZEN HUNTER]