Daily Office: Monday
¶ Matins: The extent of Paul Newman’s philanthropies does not, and ought not to shade by a hair, our estimation of his talent as an actor — which, in any case, needs little boosting. But it’s not a bad thing that he set the bar for matinee idols very, very high. Aljean Harmetz reports (as I suspect she hoped she’d never have to.)
¶ Lauds: Lucky me. I’ve got tickets, for next weekend, to The Seagull, a Chehov play that I vowed I’d never see again ever after the last time, which was an adaptation, as, in fact, have been all the Seagulls that I have seen. Next Sunday, I’ll see it for the first time straight, and what an introduction: Kristin Scott Thomas as Arkadina.
¶ Tierce: Memo to financiers: Banks ought to be boring! Virginia Heffernan laments the rise of “Shiny Happy Bankers.”
¶ Sext: Meet Nora Dannehy, our latest Special Prosecutor.
Oremus…
§ Matins. “I’m not running for sainthood,” the Times obituary quotes him. And a good thing, too: Paul Newman was far too busy being a good man.
§ Lauds. The only problem is that I’ve been hopelessly in love with the woman for years. There is really no telling what folly I wouldn’t commit for the sake of an hour in her company. Happily, she is more civilized than I, and doesn’t make herself available to duellists and their ilk. And my romance is the greatest pile of tripe. What I should consider marvelous would be to know Kristin Scott Thomas as a friend.
§ Tierce. Like me, Ms Heffernan dreams that “Bill Clinton did not sign the 1999 law that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, allowing commercial and investment banks to merge.”
§ Sext. Attorney General Michael B Mukasey summed up a report by Justice’s Inspector General:
The report makes plain that, at a minimum, the process by which nine U.S. attorneys were removed in 2006 was haphazard, arbitrary and professional, and the way in which the Justice Department handled those removals and the resulting public controversy was profoundly lacking.