¶ Matins: Justin Fox kicks off his column at the Harvard Business Review blog by considering the very bad idea of treating business corporations as persons — something that we’ve been complaining about for a while, and that came to the fore with the rather unpopular (but wholly anticipated) Supreme Court decision in Citizens United. (via Felix Salmon)

(For some background on the foundational case on this issue, turn here.)

¶ Lauds: Molly Haskell’s short answer regarding Avatar: “No, you don’t have to see it.” An interesting comparison to Gone With the Wind does will probably not appeal to all readers. (Speakeasy)

¶ Prime: Felix Salmon seems to be havng fun, thinking of Goldman’s London partners. Noting that Goldman Sachs isn’t going to share the pain of the British bonus tax, he reflects that a temporarily ill-compensated partner at that firm is still doing better than a richly-rewarded banker elsewhere.

¶ Tierce: Why the social isolation of the powerful is bad for any society, and particularly bad for a democratic society: it undermines the human inclination to benevolence. (The Frontal Cortex)

¶ Sext: Maybe you can help out an aspiring cosmetologist with better things to do than go to school. As a volunteer, of course! (You Suck at Craigslist) Maybe Ash wants to be a bedwarmer. (Marginal Revolution)

¶ Nones: In a further sign that Japan’s orientation is shifting toward China and away from the United States is manifest in Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s decision to “re-think” the presence of an American airbase on Okinawa. The trigger was a local election won by an ardent campaigner against the Futenma base, home to two thousand Marines. (BBC News)

¶ Vespers:  The always interesting John Self has read Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man, admired it very much, and written about it, for all the world, as though he were unaware of Tom Ford’s movie. It’s clear from his précis that the book is rather more different from the film than one might have thought. (Asylum)

¶ Compline: How nice: on the eve of the Editor’s vacation in St Croix, we have to share this: “A Deadly Quake in a Seismic Hot Zone.” Fun! (NYT)

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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