Hey Icahn, Where's the Humor?

Carl Icahn finally launched his blog today. You might want to get a cup of coffee before settling in with it, because otherwise you might drift off to sleep by the end of the second post.

Now, Icahn is a funny guy. He's a superb storyteller, and he's been around the block so many times that he has a whole treasure chest full of nuggets to share. He's a billionaire investor, a corporate agitator, and certainly the guy at the cocktail party you'd most like to meet (unless you're Jerry Yang).

The Icahn Blog: Activist Investor, Passive Voice Jack Flack adds: Not only is Icahn's blog not funny, it's not even well written. Read more.

But you'd never know it by reading his blog.

There's a regular topic of things Icahn calls "absurdities," and none of them will come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the investor's past efforts. Posts entitled "Absurdity of Corporate Board Elections" and "Absurdity of The Poison Pill" don't exactly draw readers in.

Even his post on the Anti-Darwinian Metaphor-- his theory of how the less evolved executives somehow always seem to rise to the top--didn't do his own telling of it justice.

The blog launches on a day that Icahn was defeated in his proxy battle against Biogen. Is there a word about it? No. And what about his publicized efforts to force Yahoo into a sale to Microsoft? Not a word.

We expected the blog to be well-lawyered -- Icahn admitted earlier this year that his blog was delayed because his lawyers rejected all of his drafts.

But this? Webster's defines blog as "a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page." Many more compelling and entertaining thoughts pass through Icahn's mind in a single minute than appear on the first seven posts of his blog.

We're not giving up on you yet, Carl. We know you've got it in you. Just tell the lawyers who's boss.

by Megan Barnett