Daily Office: Friday
¶ Matins: Rochelle Gurstein has thought up a brilliant satire of John Rawls’s “original position” that, very much like Swift’s famous “Modest Proposal,” is intended to make people stop and think, after they’ve had their laugh. This stopping and thinking is an element that she finds from popular satire today. (The New Republic; via 3 Quarks Daily)
¶ Lauds: Perhaps the most memorable celebration of Django Reinhardt’s centennial was Steve Jobs’s use of “Swing Guitars” to introduce the iPad. Will Friedwald celebrates the gypsy king at the Wall Street Journal.
¶ Prime: Tyler Cowen asks, “Is there a case for a VAT?” and outlines an argument that foresees the possibility of a credit collapse that would dwarf what’s happening in Greece. Mr Cowen also points to a lucid Op-Ed piece by Gregory Mankiw, “What’s Sustainable About This Budget?” (Marginal Revolution)
¶ Tierce: In the guise of a “backward glance,” assessing our times from the vantage of 2210, Spencer Weart endeavors to put the climate fight in perspective. (NYT)
¶ Sext: Cathy Erway may live in the restaurant/take-out capital of the United States, but she foreswore eating out for not one but two years. She talks with Borborygmi about her reasons, which, while sound, implicitly make the case that the uneducated poor cannot follow in her footsteps. (Good)
¶ Nones: How was Hamas exponent Mahmoud al-Mabhouh killed? By a team of expert assassins? Or by a bunch of bumblers? We guess it depends on whom you read.
¶ Vespers: The Daily Blague is committed to the idea that favorable reviews are invariably more useful and informative than unfavorable ones, but every now and then we get down off our high horse — or, rather, we let other people vent. At Open Letters Monthly, seven oxen, some of them quite well known, are gored with aplomb, under the rubric “Bad Books, Good Hooks.” Lisa Peet, for example, loves reading about “moral” dogs, but she excoriates David Wroblewski for the ending of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which she considers a betrayal of everything foregoing.
¶ Compline: Craig Risen critiques Joan Didion: “Hello to All That.” Da noive! What nails Mr Risen’s case is his concluding paragraph, which introduces Joseph Mitchell into the discussion. Now, there’s an interrogation! (The Morning News)