¶ Matins: President Obama’s address to small business owners is good so far as it goes, but I’d like to see the Small Business Administration elevated to Cabinet status, with the bigger SBA overseeing tax policies for small employers.

¶ Lauds: Good for them: “Rose family denounces plan to close Brandeis museum.”

¶ Prime: How did I miss this story? “The city without a memory: treasures lost under collapsed Cologne archives.” What an inexcusable catastrophe.

¶ Tierce: David Brooks notes that we are, anomalously, in an “astonishingly non-commercial” moment. But we’ll snap out of it, he reassures us, because it’s in our DNA to do so. But is it?

¶ Sext: I’m beginning to understand that San Francisco writer (and computer geek) Lance Arthur has a magnificent curmudgeonly side. He suavely demonstrates that his hometown’s inferiority makes it a better place to live than New York.

¶ Nones: Sounds like something Evelyn Waugh might dream up: “Followers of Madagascar’s opposition leader have been carrying out an exorcism at a presidential palace in Antananarivo that was seized by troops overnight.”

¶ Vespers: Now that cabin fever is driving New Yorkers outdoors, regardless of whether spring has actually checked in for the day, here’s a handy independent bookstore walking tour from The Millions.

¶ Compline: Quaint old Amsterdam will be re-fitted with a smart electric grid by 2016. (via The Infrastructurist)

Oremus…

§ Matins. Smart small business policy is the rural electrification project of the Teens.

§ Lauds. Everyone associated with Brandeis’s decision to close the Rose ought to be permanently barred from whatever profession he or she has been practising…

Boston attorney Edward Terry Dangel III said today that he has been retained by Rose board chairman Jonathan Lee, who has protested the closure. He also spoke with the Rose family after members contacted him.

“If Brandeis doesn’t back off, we’ve got big trouble,” said Dangel, who said that the university would be violating the intent of donors if it were to sell the art they gave to the museum.

Joe Baerlein, a public relations consultant hired by Brandeis to deal with the Rose situation, questioned the Rose family’s decision to protest at this time. He said that a committee formed by the administration to examine the Rose decision is meeting on Thursday. That 11-member committee includes members of the faculty, alumni, trustees as well as representatives from the Rose.

…including Joe Baerlein.

§ Prime. This may not mean much to anybody right now, but it will become a leading event — possibly the most memorable event — of 2009 with the passage of time. Thanks to Rachel, at A Historian’s Craft, for catching it and writing it up!

§ Tierce. Having glanced at these two pieces, ask yourself: what if the “dazzling weath” lying “just over the next hill” were not actually lucre. Then, as to Mr Brooks’s DNA claims, ask yourself: what happened to all those marauding Vikings?

§ Sext. Why, for example, New York’s transportation system is a drawback:

Conclusion: You don’t enjoy your expensive apartment in New York because it’s always so convenient to go somewhere else. San Francisco forces you to stay home because, even though it is a small city, actually getting anywhere is a nightmare.

Advantage: San Francisco, where you can benefit from all that money you’re spending on housing.

§ Nones. Of course, a Waughian exorcism would be rather more riotous.

§ Vespers. Of course, my favorite uptown bookstores are omitted, most regrettably our neighborhood standby — which you mustn’t miss if you’re going anywhere near the Museum — Crawford Doyle.

§ Compline. This is hardly surprising news for a city that takes nothing for granted. As for New Amsterdam, however…

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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