¶ Matins: “Well, America is not yet lost. But the Senate is working on it.” Paul Krugman in the Times.

¶ Lauds: Morgan Mies is inspired by the Bronzino exhibit at the Museum to ask what, if anything, was “lost” when the “Renaissance” shaded into “Mannerism.” (The Smart Set; via 3 Quarks Daily)

¶ Prime: Felix Salmon considers a strange development: did the exemplum of Giacometti’s Walking Man break auction records because it’s not unique?

¶ Tierce: DIY sperm count tests: a good idea? A “lab-on-a-chip” has been developed that would permit men to diagnose themselves at home. But that’s just the problem: It’s one thing to know what the device finds. It’s quite another to provide the interpretation that’s implicit in a diagnosis.

¶ Sext: With contributions from Seth Colter Walls and the inimitable Mr Wrong, The Awl outdoes itself in Super Bowl disdain. Mr Colter; Joe MacLeod (Mr Wrong).

¶ Nones: And the pendulum swings back: Viktor Yanukovych, thrown out by voters in 2004, has had the pleasure of seeing his successor, Yulia Tymoshenko, given the same treatment. (BBC News)

Be sure to have a look at the bottom of the page. The pink and red parts, which voted for Ms Tymoshenko, constitute, roughly, Ukraine proper, so to speak. The blue portions are regions conquered by Russia in the Eighteenth Century. Does this bifurcated polity make sense?

¶ Vespers: A young person of the Gen M^2 persuasion finds that he can break his compulsive reading habit by hanging out the Harvard COOP. What, read books? We do not despair. Young people have always done odd things. (The Millions)

¶ Compline: Charles Petersen’s meditation on Facebook — a very well informed meditation, to be sure, but, still, meditation is what it is — must be read by anyone, anyone, who is reading this. The thrust of the carefully-wrought piece is not so much about how Facebook has changed the world as it is about what the world has learned from living with — and shaping — Facebook. The final paragraph ought to be memorized, if only because that’s the easiest way of lodging a solid understanding of what it has to say in the mind. (NYRB)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under The Hours. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.