this week's top 5!

1. michelle obama - EVERYONE read this fascinating profile of michelle obama. this woman is (hopefully) going to be a badass first lady. i think this is interesting because middle-aged white women tend to dominate the swing vote. they are very much at stake in this election, even more so because of hilary clinton. and it is being said that the potential first ladies could play a role in how they vote. now, nothing against cindy mccain, but michelle brings quite a bit more to the table.

2. conan o'brien - for some reason i feel like revisiting this article from some time ago, which came out shortly after conan was officially announced as leno's successor. its a phenomenal profile of one of the top 5 people with whom id love to hang out. (off the top of my head, my 5 person rat pack would be: myself, conan, dave chapelle, tina fey, and either charles barkley or brian williams.) i like that he takes his craft seriously and is more intense than he lets on. but not too seriously, as evidenced by his hilarious fake strike diary. i think that he went to an entirely new level of transcendence during the writer's strike. how many people watched these episodes? without writers, he was really free to pursue his totally scatterbrained humor instincts, and they were AMAZING. from having modern dancers punctuate each one of his punch lines to fitting his desk to a zamboni to his awesome wedding ring spin challenge, i loved every second. i would totally buy a dvd of his strike episodes. and if you havent seen the conan-colbert-stewart brawl...now's your chance.

3. mukesh ambani - this is a very nice profile of an interesting sort-of indian bill gates whose influence is sure to rise. while i think that referring to his ambitions as "gandhi-esque" is ridiculous because he owns a large for-profit corporation, his interests in small-scale rural production (thus empowering lower SES areas of india) echo those sentiments. on the other hand, i never like these sort of insular, ultra-nationalistic personalities.

4. pfizer/lipitor - as someone in science, this is a big conundrum for me. well not this particular situation, in which pfizer is lollygagging so that they can squeeze some more money out of Lipitor, but in general, patents help new drugs happen, and money in the hands of pharma often does lead to new and productive discoveries. to be honest, alot of the best research there is in drug development comes out of drug companies. so how do we facilitate consistent r&d while at the same time preventing price gouging of the consumer?

5. Lil Wayne, The Clipse, and The Roots - ... maybe i'll post about this later.