Daily Office: Monday

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Morning

¶ A6: Page A6 of today’s Times (a/k/a “International Report”) features three stories. The one without a picture discusses the “covenant” that the Archbishop of Canterbury has coaxed from his colleagues at the Lambeth Conference. The one with a black-and-white picture concerns the legacy of the reviving Zeppelin industry in Friedrichshafen — one so complicated that I long to read a book about it. The story with the horrific picture, showing a stairway littered with colorfully-clad dead people, recounts the melee that broke out at a hilltop temple in Naina Devi when rumors of a landslide set off a stampede, killing 150 — or 148, at the newspaper’s presumably more up-to-date Web site.

Noon

¶ Pie/Sky?: Two stories (CNN, ABC) about really cheap source of power.

Night

¶ Smooth Guide: BBC’s Jennifer Pak presents video guides to getting around in Beijing, in case you’re going to the Games. Even if you’re not, you can see how spanking everything — and hear about how hot it is.

Oremus…

Morning, cont’d

§ A6. Why the ugly story of “nationalism” in Linkebeek appears in the Arts section I have no idea. Despite being one of the most prosperous countries in the world, Belgium is being torn apart by the spirit of vengeance, as now-prosperous Flemings “get back” at their Francophone neighbors and countrymen for a century at least of lordly superiority. This story is about “culture” only in its deadly, microbial sense.

Noon, cont’d

§ Pie. The CNN story suggests that we greatly liberalize the distribution of cabaret licenses.

I’ve never doubted that good old human ingenuity will develop cheap, plentiful and renewable energy sources. The question is whether the breakthroughs will come in time to save our current operating system from complete smash.

Night, cont’d

§ Smooth Guide. As for the Peking Duck, though, the dish on Ghost Street looks nothing like the delicious treat on West 65th, at Shun Lee West.