Leolitchic’s Weblog

Time out goes to Jonny for calling Michiko Kakutani the ’stupidest person in New York City’ during a panel at Harhvardh the other day.  Let’s take a look at their bios pulled from Wikipedia and see who is stupider…shall we?

Franzen was born in Chicago, Illinois, raised in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, and educated at Swarthmore College. He also studied on a Fulbright Scholarship in Germany.

The only child of noted Yale mathematician Shizuo Kakutani, Michiko Kakutani was born in New Haven, Connecticut. She received her B.A. in English literature from Yale University in 1976.^[1] After graduation she initially worked as a reporter for The Washington Post, and then for TIME magazine from 1977-1979. In 1979, she joined The New York Times as a reporter.  She is a Pulitzer Prize winning critic for the New York Times.

Sorry Jon.  The mere fact that Michiko learned to spell her name properly as a young child points to the fact that she is no idiot.

Maybe next time you can write a book people actually want to read (preferably not about yourself–hmm?) and she’ll give you a good review.

But probably not.

VS