¶ Matins: “Can psychiatry be a science?” asks Louis Menand in the current New Yorker. The welter of conflicting conclusions that he proceeds to lay out for us seems to require, at a minimum, an answer of “Not yet!” By the end of the piece, however, Mr Menand is wondering if science can ever be enough for psychiatry.

¶ Lauds: If the American embassy proposed for Battersea has any friends, they’re keeping mum. (Evening Standard)

¶ Prime: At 24/7, Douglas McIntyre expresses boilerplate outrage at the fees charged by lawyers and others to wind up Lehman Brothers — $642 million — but counsels against claw-back. (via Felix Salmon)

¶ Tierce: s this the journalistic equivalent of coitus interruptus, or is there a really big story smouldering in Governor Paterson’s lap? A few weeks ago, the jungle drums promised a big Times story that might require the Mr Paterson to resign. ! Then, not so much. Now it’s hard to tell whose seat is hotter, the governor’s or the newspaper’s.

¶ Sext: Kevin Hartnett wonders how much longer young people will get to know their parents through old bookshelves. (The Millions)

¶ Nones: At The Economist, closing notes on a roundtable on the viability and desirability of a European Monetary Fund. By and large, the commenters don’t see the need for a new institution.

¶ Vespers: In an excellent piece on the faith of Flannery O’Connor, Terry Teachout illuminates the orienting role that O’Connor’s Catholicism played in her ongoing study of the Protestants all around her. (Commentary; via 3 Quarks Daily)

¶ Compline: Ron Rosenbaum waxes rapturous about the — Dickensian? Dostoevskian? — moral tone of crime stories in the New York Post. (Slate; via Arts Journal)

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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