Daily Office:
Wednesday
¶ 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.
Oremus…
§ Matins. Time for a refresher course on Father Coughlin?
The Wingnuts, banished to the wilderness, certainly know how to howl. But how long will it take them to detach enough of the Big Money suckers to regain their credibility as vox populists?
§ Lauds. Have I been on Facebook for six months? Just about. This blog (or its MovableType antecedent) will be five years old shortly after I’ll have been on Facebook for a year. My Web site, Portico, is positively ancient — it dates from 2000! What on earth did I do during my first fifty years?
Pile up a lot of acorns, I guess.
§ Prime. … but I’ll wait to see what he does before mentioning a similarity.
Thus I would like to see if this project can be transformed into something like an online critical journal, but without discretely published “issues” or the subsidiary items–columns, news items, short interviews, etc.–that are frequently used to flesh out a journal or magazine into something more recognizable as literary journalism. I envision a mode of publication in which a new piece appears every few weeks, perhaps once a month, to be given sole prominence for a while and then to be added to the accumulating archive that I hope would ultimately be the site’s most valuable feature. If the site (as yet unnamed) could serve as a kind of clearinghouse for thoughtful, closely-considered essays on recent American fiction that go beyond initial reviews and subsequent, perfunctory “chat,” I would consider it a success.
Mr Green’s ambitions for his Web pages are somewhat greater than mine, but the important thing to note is that he is soliciting contributions.
§ Tierce. Mr Cunningham, a professor of law at GWU, lays out the legal questions in a way that anyone can understand — anyone who puts down the pitchfork, that is.
If the government is serious about finding a legitimate basis for abrogating these payments, officials must look to basic legal principles. And if A.I.G. is serious that it is legally bound to pay these bonuses, it must do more than say nonpayment would expose it to damages or penalties. Nor is it enough to invoke the sanctity of contracts, because our legal and business system recognizes plenty of valid excuses from contractual duty and even justification for breaching.
Clearly, Timothy Geithner’s playbook is obsolete. And I can’t help wishing that Lawrence Summers would disappear. the man may be smart, but he has been politically unviable since his statements about female intelligence at Harvard. (You do remember that, don’t you?)
§ Sext. It has always been clear to me that I will perish by the cord. Not by hanging, I hope — but by tripping, electrocution, or just in apoplectic frustration. Cords are the obvious medium for transmitting electicity from one place to another, but the wicked penchant of designers and manufacturers for pretending either that they’re no problem or that they don’t exist is a hallmark of our times.
§ Nones. What’s more important, sin or life?
“While it is not up to us to pass judgment on Church doctrine, we consider that such comments are a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life,” foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said.
§ Vespers. Here’s what I wanted to know:
SC: What’s the percentage split of your work in terms of comic books and commercial illustrations?
AT: It’s about 73.727% comics, and 26.273% illustration work.
Amazingly, though, Mr Tomine claims that “I never really had any formal art or comics training, so I think I’m very much the product of my influences.”
§ Compline. You’ll never guess why New Hampshire has changed its mind about this libertarian delicacy.
One key factor in the buckle-up bill is that the state, like others, is strapped for cash. The law would qualify New Hampshire for $3.7 million in federal money offered to states that pass or update seat-belt ordinances by July 30.
I say: award New Hampshire a bounty for every white man over the age of thirty-five who emigrates to Australia. A generous bounty.