¶ Matins: What is intelligence? Are there kinds of intelligence? Christopher Ferguson, at Chron Higher Ed, reminds us of the question’s politico-pedagogical nature.

¶ Lauds: At The Best Part, some pictures by Brett Amory.

¶ Prime: Jay Goltz poses a superbly sticky problem in business ethics that, unlike most such puzzles, has no leading dramatic edge to nudge you in the “correct” direction. Give it a think!

¶ Tierce: “Welcome to the flip side of homophobia.”

¶ Sext: Things to do with dead Metro cards, at Infrastructurist.

¶ Nones: Why is it so hard to find Osama bin Laden? Just think of the money that has been spent on the manhunt. Julian Borger and Declan Walsh outline the difficulties — and the limitations of whizbang technology — at the Guardian.

¶ Vespers: According to Martin Schneider, at Emdashes, Michael Jackson appeared three times in The New Yorker over the years. I expect that the number would have been rather higher if Tina Brown had taking over the editor’s job about ten years earlier.

¶ Compline: Everyday depression may be a survival tactic of sorts, by reducing motivation to pursue unrealizable goals. Conversely, the American ethos’s valorzation of persistence in the face of obstacles may explain why this country leads the world for clinical depression.  (more…)

 ¶ Matins: At Brainiac, Christopher Shea asks about a “blue collar renaissance.” He has been reading Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft, of course. Somewhat more solid evidence that the scope of “knowledge worker” is expanding appears in Louis Uchitelle’s Times story, “Despite Recession, High Demand for Skilled Labor.”

¶ Lauds: At The House Next Door, Shelby Button reports on the deadCENTER Film Festival, in Oklahoma City.

¶ Prime: Robb Mandelbaum traces a small-business-friendly amendment to the Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights Act — and speculates on its demise.

¶ Tierce: When mom forgot his 73rd birthday, Tony Marshall was quick to call the doctor and complain about her growing “confusion.”

¶ Sext: At Inside Higher Ed, Ben Elson reports on the number one problem affecting Americans today: student parking. (via The Awl)

¶ Nones: What? There are Somalian Members of Parliament? Still? Fewer and fewer, perhaps — but that there are any is surprising.

¶ Vespers: Rebecca Steinitz, at The Rumpus, writes so alluringly about Julia Strachey’s Cheerful Weather for a Wedding (1932) that I’ve just ordered a copy.

¶ Compline: In The New Yorker, Jill Lepore draws a distinction between parenthood and adulthood. An important distinction — don’t you think?

¶ Bon weekend à tous!

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¶ Matins: Whether or not last week’s election was rigged, the behavior of the Iranian government since the results were disputed has completely discredited it. The Amahdinejad regime’s aggressive clampdown on dissent show no concern whatever for the stability that, in China, in contrast, isalways Topic A. How do we know? Because the Internet tells us so.

¶ Lauds: The face of Penelope Tree seems to be everywhere — at An Aesthete’s Lament, at the Costume Institute’s Model as Muse show — and she’s even mentioned in Brooks Peters’ latest post (see Vespers).

¶ Prime:  Bill Vlasic’s story about Ford family solidarity, in today’s Times, makes us hope that investment portfolios have been diversified over the years. The value of the family’s stock in the company has dropped from $2.2 billion a decade ago to $140 million. At first, the drop seems catastrophic. Then we recollect that $140 million is better than $0.

¶ Tierce: “The man who likes hiding in my home“: Brooke Astor’s description of her son, the defendant, to her Portuguese chauffeur. How gaga is that?

¶ Sext: Ira Lee Sorkin (who used to be a partner of Kathleen’s), has written the most astonishingly chutzpah-tatious letter to Judge Denny Chin, appealing for leniency in the sentencing of his client, Bernard Madoff. That’s the sort of amazing stuff that you pay lawyers to do — and you can see why they’re expensive.

¶ Nones: It will be interesting, to say the least, to heed the impact of French President Sarkozy’s burka ban.

¶ Vespers: Brooks Peters writes about the bookstore that he was inspired to open by Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop — a novel that, I rather thought, has “do not open a bookshop” written between every line. Happily, Mr Peters’s account is unlikely to mislead any bibliophiles looking to make money doing something that they love.

¶ Compline: Joseph Clarke “Infrastructure for Souls,” at triplecanopy, considers the strong similarities between the megachurch and the office space as they evolved in the later Twentieth Century. (via The Morning News) (more…)

¶ Matins: A trio of guest bloggers at Good write about the replacement of “conspicuous consumption” with “conspicuous expression.”

¶ Lauds: It’s as if Petrus Christus and Rogier van der Weyden had taken up photography — also, recycling. Hendrik Kertens photographs his daughter, Paula. (via Purest of Treats)

¶ Prime: Alan Blinder explains why (in his view) inflation — that bugaboo of the propertied classes — is not much of a risk right now. Find something besides inflation to worry about, he advises.

¶ Tierce: Did the prosecutors in the Marshall trial jump the shark? To compute the value of an estate, it is necessary to venture a date of death. This is not a legal correlative of sticking pins in a voodoo doll.

¶ Sext: Orthodox couple in Bournemouth claims false imprisonment, owing to motion-sensor lightswitch that obliges them not to leave their apartment on the Sabbath lest they turn on the lights.

¶ Nones: Why theocracy cannot work in the modern world: “In the Battle for Iran’s Streets, Both Sides Seek to Carry the Banner of Islam.”

¶ Vespers: It’s increasingly apparent that the book that we ought to be reading is the Bible. Americans think that they know it, but they don’t. (via reddit)

¶ Compline: Is Prince Charles cruising for a bruising?

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¶ Matins: From The Infrastructurist, a list of 36 ways in which streetcars trump buses. Despite some internal ambiguities — streetcars are both cool (#6) and nostalgic (#12) — and a bit of padding (#20), the list will make you wish that we were already there.

¶ Lauds: FROG schools may be as unlikely as fairy-tale princes, but these pre-fab classrooms do look good. Especially considering the nightmarish alternative…

¶ Prime: David Carr goes to two very different media parties, and his report makes me think of the last chapters of Proust, but run backwards.

¶ Tierce: Collateral damage from the Marshall trial: trusts and estates lawyer Henry Christensen’s nomination for membership at the Century Association has been tabled, pending the conclusion of the trial.

¶ Sext: Forget three meals a day. Americans consume a fourth: all day snacking. In other news, Choire Sicha sees Hangover, reviews audience.

¶ Nones: A cheering story at the Guardian, appended to an item noting that global arms spending has reached $1.47 trillian: “America a weapons supermarket for terrorists, inquiry finds.”

¶ Vespers: Alain de botton asks a good question: why don’t more writers write about work? Considering, you know, the importance of jobs and stuff. (via The Rumpus)

¶ Compline: At the Chronicle of Higher Education — the right place to begin asking — Joseph Marr Cronin and Howard E Horton wonder if undergraduate degrees are the new bubble. (via Arts Journal)

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¶ Matins: At Infrastructurist, a top-ten count-down of the nation’s road-building contractors. These organizations can be counted upon to thwart rail initiatives — unless, that is, their crystal balls advise them to make tracks.

¶ Lauds: Yesterday, we noted Holland Cotter’s demand for history lessons. Today, Philip Kennicott complains about the fall-off in shock. What’s a museum to do?

¶ Prime: Now that the TimeWarner/AOL breakup is official, we challenge anyone to find a sound reason for the merger nine years ago.

¶ Tierce: In his fourth day of testimony, Henry Christensen tells us just why Tony was after his mother’s money.

¶ Sext: Tom Scocca is rapidly becoming my favorite curmudgeon. Like curmudgeons everywhere, he has a special gimlet stare for the idea of “progress.”

¶ Nones: Having been a less-than-fastidious reader of The Economist of late, I missed the début of Banyan, the newspaper’s Asian columnist. (There, I’m honest.) This week’s piece about the (improbable?) survival of the Communist Party in China is excellent.

¶ Vespers: Jason Kottke lifts a very appealing idea from the introduction to The Black Swan: the concept of the “antilibrary,” made up of the books that one owns but hasn’t read.

¶ Compline: When will finance (and its ancillaries) be reformed by women who insist — as they’ve done in the field of obstetrics — on livable hours?

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¶ Matins: Read it and weep: the Pakistani government (and military) is not as committed as you might like it to be to getting rid of Taliban invaders.

¶ Lauds: Holland Cotter faults The Pictures Generation, a new show at the Museum, as bad history. All right, iffy history. But since when were museums in the business of history lectures?

¶ Prime: Julie Cresswell’s obituary for the Archway/Mother’s Cookie business ought to be read, at a minimum, by every still-solvent tycoon who’s thinking of establishing a chair at a “business school” (such as the one at Harvard).

¶ Tierce: I myself think that Terry Christensen was just doing his job, but if he’s not disbarred after the Marshall trial, it will mean that nobody is paying attention.

¶ Sext: Has the world really turned? Or is Jon Peters in fact the pipsqueak that this story suggests  he is?

¶ Nones: Every time I read about the European Union, I think about this map — except that I didn’t even know it existed until just the other day.

¶ Vespers: “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche, They Ride Hogs Over It“ — what is reviewer Dwight Garner trying to prove?

¶ Compline: Manhattanhenge Primo. Secondo comes in July. Between now and then, the sun will set to the north of the island’s east-west grid.

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¶ Matins: As the twentieth anniversary of “Tiananmen” approaches, it appears that most younger Chinese don’t have any idea that there’s an anniversary to mark. (via Brainiac)

¶ Lauds: I’m pretty sure that I don’t really want to see Steven Soderbergh’s new film, The Girlfriend Experience, but I’m fascinated by the wildly divergent responses that it has elicited at The Rumpus, from Stephen Elliott (pro) and Andrew Altschul (con).

¶ Prime: A story from last week that I missed: “A Vibrant US Train Industry Would Emply More People than Car Makers Do Now,” at Infrastructurist.

¶ Tierce: The testimony of Henry Christensen, the Sullivan & Cromwell attorney who served as Brooke Astor’s trusts and estates lawyer from 1991 to 2003, may have its greatest impact upon his own career. 

Update: Imagine what it must be like to read the following bit of news about yourself: “Though Mr Christensen is not charged with a crime...”

¶ Sext: Something fun from — “Down Under”? (Maybe that was the problem.) Balk balks.

¶ Nones: Little Elise André has been put in the position of a human ping-pong ball, as her parents — Russian mother, French father — secure conflicting custody awards from their respective home courts.

¶ Vespers: Dwight Garner gives Richard Wrangham’s Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human a very enthusiastic review; not the least of the book’s attractions is its brevity (207 pages!).

¶ Compline: Here’s an item to add to the checklist: bring the guys (and gals) who actually build/make things into the Green conversation. (How can I see Greening Southie?)

¶ Bon weekend à tous!

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¶ Matins: The two items have little overtly in common, and yet they seem related (if “opposed”): President Obama has settled on Second Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the Supreme Court nominee to take David Souter’s place, and Prop 8 was upheld by the California Supreme Court.

¶ Lauds: This week’s New Yorker cover was created on an iPhone. Jorge Colombo (published in the magazine since 1994), drew it with Brushes. (via  Emdashes)

¶ Prime: John Lanchester’s review of three current whahappen? books about the “economic downturn” musn’t be missed.

¶ Tierce: In the Marshall trial, Mrs Astor’s last white-shoe lawyer, Henry Christensen, takes the stand. Meanwhile, defendant Tony Marshall is asking $17 million less for his late mother’s Park Avenue apartment.

¶ Sext: Oh, no! “Texting May Be Taking a Toll on Teenagers.”

¶ Nones: Is the Sri Lankan civil war really over? Whether it is or not, Christopher Hitchens (at Slate) has the piece that you want to read. (via reddit)

¶ Vespers: Very different (but equally fond) appreciations of John Updike, by Julian Barnes and Alex Beam.

¶ Compline: Alan Beattie writes about Argentina’s failure to become a great power, at FT. (via  The Morning News)

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¶ Matins: In the current New Yorker, Steve Coll summarizes the Adminstration’s options in Pakistan. They don’t make for fun reading.

¶ Lauds: Springtime for Hitler: The Producers opens in Berlin.

¶ Prime: Christopher Hitchens on funny women. It’s not only not funny, but it conjures the image of a tar pit for humorists: the harder the writer thrashes about in his bad ideas, the thicker the laugh-prevention fixative becomes.

¶ Tierce:  Wish I’d been there to hear about “this mistress business” myself: Vartan Gregorian testifies that Brooke Astor was already acting up when she was 97, speaking truth to Camilla P-B and dissing Catherine Z-J.

¶ Sext: Why, according to Beth Teitell, newspapers must be saved — even if nobody reads them. (via The Morning News)

¶ Nones: In what looks to be an embarrassing waste of time, Turkey’s “secular elites” have dreamed up an embezzling charge against President Abdullah Gul.

¶ Vespers:Caleb Crain publishes a collection of blog entries, The Wreck of the Henry Clay: Posts & Essays 2003-2009. You can order the book or download the pdf.

¶ Compline: Former Marine (and deputy Secretary of State) Steven Ganyard writes about emergency responsiveness and lays down its golden rule: “All Disasters Are Local”

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¶ Matins: The President speaks at my alma mater. (via JKM)

¶ Lauds: Mike Johnston writes about Andrea Land and quotes Bill Jay, at The Online Photographer . Mr Jay’s advice to young photographers palpably lends itself to wider application; ie to planning a life.

¶ Prime: The times they are Auto Tune.

¶ Tierce: It’s old news — it’s not news — but it would be remiss to omit a link to the Post’s photograph of “Rapunzel,” Brooke Astor’s last social secretary (Naomi Dunn Packard-Koot, who, it seems, has a nasty chewing-gum habit) striding along while Charlene Marshall dips into the Ladies’.

¶ Sext: Giles Turnbull, of The Morning News, has a blast with the British MP expenses scandal. Did you know —

¶ Nones: Oman, home of Café Muscato (very incidentally), is taxing smugglers. Well, at least the ones who deal in goods bound for Iran, across the Gulf of Oman. (You knew that.)

¶ Vespers: While you were busy following Kindle pricing, Amazon went into the business of publishing actual books. Re-publishing them, actually, under the imprint AmazonEncore.

¶ Compline: What makes us happy — over decades? Or, JFK, “no one’s idea of ‘normal’,” was a member of the sample.

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¶ Matins: In one of those hard cases that the vagaries of editorial wording can decide, an Army contractor, who in what I should certainly call the heat of passion “revenge-killed” a prisoner, was finally sentenced. The prisoner had doused the contrator’s partner, a woman, in flammable liquid and set her on fire. (She later died of burns.) Read the judgment below. (via The Morning News)

¶ Lauds: Nicolai Ouroussoff decries the latest design for a transportation hub at the World Center site as a “monument to the creative ego that celebrates [Santiago] Calatrava’s engineering prowess but little else.” 

¶ Prime: Act today? “The 99 Most Essential Pieces of Classical Music” are on sale, as a set of MP3 downloads, for $7.99. I’m not sure that I can recommend starting a classical library this way. (via kottke.org)

¶ Tierce: For the first time in my life, I bought the New York Post yesterday. How could I not, given this screaming headline: “DISS ASTOR.” Never mind that what it refers to doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. What, though, can Charlene Marshall have been thinking, when she allowed a Post reporter into her apartment?

¶ Sext: Ian Frazier, longtime New Yorker humorist, must have started out in his playpen, seeing that he’s celebrating his fortieth birthday.

¶ Nones: Page A11 of yesterday’s Times was entirely taken up by a call to journalists to recognize the body of water that you probably know as the “Sea of Japan” as the “East Sea.”

¶ Vespers: Joseph O’Neill’s three boys didn’t understand why they couldn’t drop in on President Obama during a recent trip to Washington. Did they know that he was reading daddy’s book? Vintage Books certainly did. (via  Arts Journal)

¶ Compline: In the current issue of NYRB, Sue Halpern goes after a couple of the anecdotes upon which Malcolm Gladwell argues his case in Outliers.

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¶ Matins: May I say that I support President Obama’s decision not to prosecute CIA agents for torture perpetrated in reliance upon Bush Administration legal advice.

¶ Lauds: What a nice year it would be if Susan Boyle turned out to  be the woman of it. The very president of it. For her, that is. For the rest of us, a bit of a lesson is in order, as Colette Douglas Home reminds us. (via A Commonplace Blog)

¶ Prime: A psychopathological breakdown of royals stalkers. (Not to be confused with “royal stalkers,” eg Jack the Ripper.) It made me wonder: how many of Trollope’s bad girls suffer from de Clérambault’s Syndrome? (via  The Morning News)

¶ Tierce: Here’s a little story that, properly followed, will chart the health/malaise of the Italian state — which seems to have less and less to do with “Italy”: “Italy fears mafia quake fund grab.” 

¶ Sext: A sizzling story from the Telegraph: “Separate bedrooms keeps the romance alive.” [sic]

¶ Nones: Spain leads the way in new high-speed rail transport. Not everybody’s pleased. (via  The Morning News)

¶ Vespers: Geoff Dyer discusses his new book(s), Jeff in Venice/Death in Varanasi, with Asylum’s John Self.

¶ Compline: On the occasion of QE2’s eighty-third birthday (the real one, not the “official” one in June), we turn to royal.gov.uk for instructions on writing a letter to Her Majesty.

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¶ Matins: China’s purchase of American debt has slowed down, according to a recent report. As long as it doesn’t simply stop altogether (gulp)….

¶ Lauds: Green Porno, with Isabella Rosselini. These birds-‘n’-bees audio-visuals are almost okay for kids. Except of course for Ms Rosselini’s delicious naughtiness.

¶ Prime: Geoffrey Pullum, a professor of English and linguistics at Edinburgh, doesn’t think much of The Elements of Style, and will not be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. (via Arts Journal)

¶ Tierce: The Ford Foundation, our second largest, has streamlined its operations. This is not a cutback so much as a reconception of “lines of work” — an intellectual advance.

¶ Sext: Culinary professional Peter Hertzmann may convince you that you need an iPod Touch more than a new KitchenAid stand mixer. Wholly Apps!

¶ Nones: Jonathan Head’s BBC report, appraising the latest, and inevitable, wave of unrest in Thailand highlights the core problem for most sovereignties since 1789: nurturing an élite that has the common sense to avoid disenfranchising the lower strata of society.

¶ Vespers: What, exactly, is a novella? A short novel, or a long story? At hitheringandthithering waters, John Madera collects a number of reasonably learned opinions — or, at least (and what is better), reading lists. (via The Second Pass)

¶ Compline: Simon Blackburn argues (at some length, alas) that David Hume is very much the man for our times.

I suspect that many professional philosophers, including ones such as myself who have no religious beliefs at all, are slightly embarrassed, or even annoyed, by the voluble disputes between militant atheists and religious apologists. As Michael Frayn points out in his delightful book The Human Touch, the polite English are embarrassed when the subject of religion crops up at all. But we have more cause to be uncomfortable.

The annoyance comes partly because of the strong sense of deja vu. But it is not just that old tunes are being replayed, but that they are being replayed badly. The classic performance was given by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, written in the middle of the 18th century. Hume himself said that nothing could be more artful than the Dialogues, and it is the failure to appreciate that art that is annoying.

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¶ Matins: Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre take pictures of ruins. Remember when ruins were in Europe? No longer, mon cher. Below the fold, M&M’s photo of Detroit’s Central Station. “The Ruins of Detroit” — sans Beethoven. (via The Best Part)

¶ Lauds: Daniel Barenboim, one of the greatest musicians alive, seems determined to make a mark in a second career: normalizing Arab-Israeli relations. He’ll be conducting a concert in Cairo (Al Qahirah) next week. Bravo!

¶ Prime: Yesterday afternoon, I read at Facebook that my daughter “has gone mental for GoldFish.” I was pretty sure that she wasn’t talking Pepperidge Farm, but I pressed the proffered links anyway. Anybody remember “Captain of Her Heart,” by Blue? The lead has just about the same voice.

¶ Tierce: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, lists ten principles for a healthier economy. I hardly know which one I like best. (via  The Morning News)

7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”. Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.

¶ Sext: Who is Susan Powter? The other day, Everything Is Terrible, a site that curates awful videos, spotted her “How to Shop at a Grocery Store.”

¶ Nones: With the viability of tax havens in doubt, Monaco upgrades its luxury haven operation.

¶ Vespers: Susan Sontag talks! “The elevator swished up like a gigolo’s hand on a silk stocking.” On her way, that is, to interview Philip Johnson, sometime back in the Sixties. (Via Tomorrow Museum)

¶ Compline: Richard Kalnins grew up in Connecticut, but he spent his childhood Saturdays in Yonkers — the whole day at Latvian school.

Inside, we were strictly forbidden to speak English. My classmates and I spent the day in small classrooms, decorated with framed portraits of presidents from the first Latvian republic, where we listened to white-haired octogenarians talk about their lives in Latvia before the war. We picked through the dense pages of nineteenth-century pastoral novels, recited the names of the country’s longest rivers and biggest lakes, chanted noun declensions in singular and plural, masculine and feminine, and sat on stiff metal chairs by the piano in the basement, crooning folk songs about mowing meadows of clover and watching the sun set into the sea. The rooms were stuffy and overheated and smelled of dusty radiators and chalky erasers. Across the street, old Puerto Rican men in shirtsleeves hung out the windows of what somebody’s brother called a welfare hotel. I couldn’t stand it. I hated Latvia.

Because of the holiday weekend, the next Daily Office will appear on Tuesday, 14 April. Bon weekend à tous!
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¶ Matins: What’s next, starving quarterhorses? “Boats Too Costly to Keep Are Littering Coastlines.” And here you were worried about fossil fuel emissions.

¶ Lauds: In June of next year, the Toronto summer festival, Luminato, will mount the premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s opera, Prima Donna. The work was to have been created at the Metropolitan Opera, but the composer rejected Met director Peter Gelb’s demand that Prima Donna be translated from French into English.

¶ Prime: Whatever you think of HRH’s fire station at Poundbury — and I don’t think that it’s so bad; in fact, I rather like those black drainpipes — you have to love the no-less-traditional irreverent fun that Justin McGuirk has talking about the “daft mess.”

¶ Tierce: Sounds like a good idea: Cash for Clunkers. You bring in your old car — old car — and get a credit toward the purchase of a new one — a smallish, greenish one. The move is unlikely to provide help for Cerberus, though — the private equity firm that bought Chrysler a few years ago.

¶ Sext: It’s a great day for checking out Despair, Inc.

¶ Nones: While the Times thinks that Velupillai Prabhakaran is indispensable to the Tamil insurgency, the BBC expects that the rebels would be able to carry on without him.

¶ Vespers: Not only are they both cartoonists whose work is regularly published in The New Yorker, but their styles are not remarkably dissimilar. Liza Donnelly and Michael Maslin have even collaborated on a book, called My Funny Valentine. It’s about them: they are married to one another.

¶ Compline: Kathleen called in the middle of the afternoon to report that the people in London who had to sign off on a deal this afternoon couldn’t — they were without power. Here’s why.

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¶ Matins: It seems that I had my eye on the wrong target. I expected the outgoing Bushies to act up. Instead, it’s the Wingnuts.

¶ Lauds: Sharon Butler writes about how Facebook works — for artists. “Go away Purity Police.” Amen — I guess. (via Art Fag City)

¶ Prime: Daniel Green is thinking of doing something like what I do, at The Reading Experience…

¶ Tierce: Three out of four of today’s Times Op-Ed pieces concern the AIG bonuses. Two are by regular columnists, but the third, by Lawrence Cunningham, is the one to read.

¶ Sext: Christoph Niemann’s sweet elegance imposes order on the most disorderly of all things: cords.

¶ Nones: A few weeks ago (at the beginning of last month), Angela Merkel of Germany protested the Pope’s handling of Bishop Williamson. Now the French government is attackinig the Pope’s stand on condoms in Africa.

¶ Vespers: Simon Creasey interviews topnotch graphic fictionist Adrian Tomine. (via Emdashes)

¶ Compline: New Hampshire: the “Peter Pan” state!

Terry Stewart, a member of the town budget committee in Gilford, N.H., and a seat-belt-law opponent, has had it with the new majority. “No matter what’s your pleasure in life, sooner or later they’re coming,” he says.

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¶ Matins: “Unseemly” is the nicest word that I can come up with to characterize attempts by the Roman Catholic Church (and other religious organizations) to block a temporary repeal of the statute of limitations on child abuse.

¶ Lauds: Is there a movie here? As the UN prepares to evacuate its Turtle Bay headquarters for a four-year renovation, lots of valuable artworks seem to have been evacuated earlier, less officially.

¶ Prime: A new and very smart-looking literary blog, The Second Pass.

¶ Tierce: Muntader al-Zaidi, the journalist who threw his shoes at our last president, was jailed immediately after the “insult, not an assault”; he has just been sentenced to three years in prison. Bernie Madoff will spend less time in jail prior to sentencing — presumably. I must say, prison looks more and more like the waste of a public good in cases involving the crimes (and “crimes”) with which these men have been charged.
 
¶ Sext: One great thing about the recession so far is the way it has replaced “because I can” with “because it’s smart” as a principle of style. Consider the chic $300 re-think.

¶ Nones: Soi-disant Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “forgives” Ukraine its penalty debts in the wake of winter’s gas crisis.

¶ Vespers: Nina McLaughlin re-reads Scott Spencer’s Endless Love, at Bookslut. It’s not the book she remembered!

¶ Compline: At the Infrastructurist, Barbara McCann writes about a bill in Congress that might make the economic stimulus/transportation vector a lot smarter. Also, a great pair of before-and-after photos.

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¶ Matins: Now that health care reform is back in the news, an aspect of the much-maligned Canadian system ought not to be overlooked.

¶ Lauds: Call it Cats and Rats — or whatever! Just write the book about the buck that stopped with Cai Mingchao, the Chinese dealer who had “second thoughts.” Now he’s having thirds: tears.

¶ Prime: Jean Ruaud went to Hyères, and took a load of great pictures comme d’hab’; but did he see Mrs Wharton’s place?

¶ Tierce: China’s unlucky number: 6521. These are “interesting times.”

¶ Sext: They call this “counter-cultural”? Flash-mob pillow fights irk San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department. (via Morning News).

¶ Nones: President Obama’s first visit to a Muslim country will take him to Turkey. Great news indeed.

¶ Vespers: Michiko Kakutani’s review of William Cohan’s House of Cards — the Bear, Stearns post-mortem — makes compelling reading in its own right.

¶ Compline: Franchise Christianity? Robert Wright recasts early-Christian history in terms of business models and globalization.

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¶ Matins: As a big believer in the effectiveness of no-fly zones, I agree with this proposal for dealing with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

¶ Lauds: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest lady in the West End? The answer? A whole deck of baseball cards, leading with playwright Bola Agbaje as “The New Voice” but with plenty of room for “Queen Bee” and “Eternal Siren.”  (via Arts Journal)

¶ Prime: Over the weekend I discovered a constellation of Web sites that seem to be keeping the preppie flame burning. The Trad, for example…

¶ Tierce: A caption from the print edition: “Similarities (and differences) exist in David Axelrod’s relationship with the current president and Karl Rove’s with the past.”

¶ Sext: Great news: Chuck Norris talks of running for President of Texas. (via Joe.My.God.)

¶ Nones: Good news (sort of): Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, insists that the collision that killed his wife, and sent him to the hospital, had to have been an accident.

¶ Vespers: At Emdashes, Martin Schneider has a go at cutting Ian McEwan’s reputation down to size. What might have been an irritating exercise is rather worth reading.

¶ Compline: Now that the “Consumer Society” is on its deathbed, it’s safe for critics to take hitherto unfashionable pokes at sacred cows, and Jonathan Jones, at the Guardian, has his needle out.   (more…)