Daily Office:
Friday, 8 October 2010
¶ New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s withdrawal of support for a Hudson River rail tunnel was utterly predictable, because expensive infrastructure prrojects are anathema to Republicans. Why? Because everybody gets to use them. (The governor plans to divert funds to road and bridge repair, which is principally useful to automobile owners.) We wish that this were as obvious to Paul Krugman as it is to us, but no. (NYT)
¶ Kyle Minor’s impatience with his own failure to produce a good review of a book that he admires very much, Joshua Cohen’s Witz, explodes in a splat at HTMLGiant.
¶ Someone’s gotta do it — but making a free market in books is something that few people want to think about, much less confront. Perhaps it’s the afterburn of the pre-eminence of the Bible among books, but for some reason or other we balk at treating books as commodities, although that is of course what they are to everyone who hands them on their way to the reader. At Slate, Michael Savitz captures the cloud of bad vibrations in which he does his business. (via MetaFilter)
¶ “Small, crazy details” upend five centuries of physics — which is no surprise, since only now can we see what’s really going on in the world, instead of relying on thought experiments. (Wired Science)
¶ A good friend of the Editor has recommended Instapaper, and we look forward to having the time to explore it, especially because it shares our dedication to the pleasures of long-form reading. As usual, we’re too busy reading right now. (Capital; via Tomorrow Museum)
¶ China wants to give Norway a spanking. Guess why? Norway just slapped China — with a very unwanted Peace Prize. (NYT)
¶ Shocking evidence that parents want to spare their children the languors of childhood abounds in Julie Bosman’s report on the decline of picture-book sales. (Is this really a story for Lauds?) (NYT)
¶ It is no surprise that New York City and the Federal Government approach counterterrorism in opposite ways. Scott Horton outlines both, at Harper’s. We’re not New Yorkers for nothing.
¶ Special Pencils redux. (Globe)