Matins

¶ We can’t remember when it was that we first read some politician’s eyewash about old manufacturing jobs being replaced by technologically advanced new ones — with workers taking some time out for “retraining.” We can’t remember reading such a story without raising our eyebrows. Motoko Rich’s front-page story in today’s Times, “Factory Jobs Return, But Employers Find Skills Shortage,” serves as a kind of hangover-update.

Lauds

¶ W S Merwin has been named Poet Laureate — about time, you might say. Mr Merwin is 82, and he lives in Hawai’i, so it’s unlikely that he’ll be commuting to Washington with any frequency. Libarian of Congress James Billington, who oversaw the appointment, is considering remote communications hookups that will allow the poet to entertain Americans with, if not his poetry, his important work with endangered species (Mr Merwin has repopulated a “denuded plantation” with plants at risk). But don’t expect the new laureate to take to digital composition. (NYT)

Prime

¶ In the wake of Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings, the government’s handling of AIG’s collateral crisis has attracted attention. We’re in complete accord with Felix Salmon with regard to the very divided loyalties of Dan Jester and Henry Paulson, Goldman alums who appear to have put their old firm’s interests ahead of all others.

¶ Here’s a new one (insofar as there can be anything new under the sun): a handful of British firms have taken to funding their employees’ pension funds with illiquid assets that, in the case of Diageo, maker of Johnnie Walker, are all-too-liquid.

Tierce

¶ We’re not surprised to learn that national IQ scores correlate with rates of infectious disease, given that “children under five devote much of their energy to brain development.” (Guardian)

We hope that this story will come home, as it were. It applies to poor families everywhere.

Sext

¶ Who better to capture the anomie of Pride weekend than Eric Patton? (SORE AFRAID)

Nones

¶ The name of Harlan Ullman, a Washington think-tanker, is new to us, and we have no idea what sort of sharp knives might line his sleeves. But we agree with his “9 Reasons US is Losing in Afghanistan.” From what we can tell, each and every one of the reasons is good, but we especially like the first and the last, which are deeply complementary. (Atlantic Council; via RealClearWorld)

Vespers

¶ John Self’s enthusiasm for a book that arrived unsolicited, and that he almost cast aside, is invigorating, even if we’re not sure that we would respond to Greg Baxter’s A Preparation for Death (not a novel) quite so positively. (Asylum)

Compline

¶ The good folks (kids, sorry) at The Bygone Bureau look back into the distant past… sometime in the Nineties, from the look of it, and remember the creative things things that they used to do with their dial-up connections to the Internet.

Have a Look

¶ Jay Sauceda’s glorious captures of bygone adverts painted on brick walls. That these signs are still as vividly-colored as they are is amazing. (via The Best Part)

¶ 8 Fitzroy Street. (The Persephone Post)

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