Daily Office:
Monday, 23 August 2010
To read the complete text for any given hour, simply click on the time of day (Matins, Lauds, &c).
¶ We begin and end the day with pieces about the late Tony Judt. First, friend and colleague Timothy Garton Ash writes about the spectateur engagé at NYRBlog. (via 3 Quarks Daily)
¶ At the Guardian, Stephen Emms makes a bold claim — but one with which we’re in complete agreement: the Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring,” twenty years old next month, is the best pop single of all time. (via Joe.My.God)
¶ The Reformed Broker (Joshua Brown) foresees civil strife in America arising from contention about public-sector pension benefits and other entitlements.
Our response to this scenario (which seems realistic enough) is that the public/private sectors ought to be largely if not entirely merged, into a third sector that is neither private nor public: highly regulated not-for-profit business organizations. We don’t see a reason for tegarding housing as a private good, but teaching as a public one; all we see on this point is sentimental muddle.
And when we say “highly regulated,” we don’t mean “by the government.” Even the regulators ought to be not-for-profit organizations. (How nice it would be if the Securities and Exchange Commission could be one!)
¶ At Wired Science, Duncan Geere writes about the first manned space ship that will be launched without the support of a government. Think on’t!
¶ Chris Lehmann’s Rich People Things is available for pre-ordering, if, like us, you’ve come to recognize in the Awl writer one of our more mordant social prophets. Today’s target is the vaguely-defined fear of a weak recovery and of “Obamanomics” that supposedly prevents firms from hiring.
¶ At The Wilson Quarterly, Daniel Akst writes about the friendship deficit in American life. We’re widely recognized as friendly people, but we’re not correspondingly committed.
¶ In “Beauty, Youth, and Their Discontents,” Ujala Seghal ruminates on four beautiful protagonists who don’t end well, Julien Sorel, Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, and Eustacia Vye. (The Millions)
¶ At The Bygone Bureau, Darryl Campbell, who never met Tony Judt or even went to New York University, testifies to the impact that Judt’s engagement with the world had upon his intellectual (and professional) development.
¶ Bertrand Russell’s “Liberal Decalogue” — ten commandments for good wrongologists. (Common Sense Atheism)
¶ Quicksand: some people crave it! (via kottke.org)
¶ Reddi-Bacon. (No, not a WIN)
¶ International Druthers List. (Let a Thousand Nations Bloom)