When the partridge is trapped ("how sad!") several verses later, we are offered a moral: "Take note here and consider life's vanity, of which there's plenty in this world".
But Osborne's language is thrillingly alive and calls on a variety of sources, ranging from Bunyanesqe moral rigour (note the emphasis on words like "fire" and "blood") to the rat-a-tat repetitions of the music-hall and the sexual candour of DH Lawrence.
Gabriella Giandelli's eerie meditation on the life of a building, Interiorae, and Gipi's chronicle of moral erosion, Notes For a War Story, were unknown to me a week ago, but are now on my wish-list.
The newspaper account reflected an undercurrent of moral concern, noting that because there would be a "high standard of admission, each guest once admitted will be her own mistress".
"The Arabs and the Palestinian opponents of peace have always been able to get the benefit of Arafat's compromises without taking any political or moral responsibility," noted the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen.
After all, as the heroine of Kate Jennings's elegant second novel, "Moral Hazard," notes, Wall Street men borrow their stance "in equal parts from the Marines, the C.I.A. and Las Vegas".
As Anthony Grayling, an English moral philosopher noted in his book "Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the World War II Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan," just five weeks after the destruction of Dresden, the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, expressed reservations in a letter to the British Air Marshal Charles Portal, chief of the air staff.
Barber, who was one of the principal organizers and leaders of Moral Mondays, noting the date of closing arguments, said: "It's poetically ironic that today, at the beginning of black history month, we will hear closing arguments – which reminds us that the fight for justice is never over and that just as our ancestors in past have fought, we must fight".
These economic factors, which affect access to affordable housing and health care and are reflected in both Mr. Miringoff's social index and the genuine progress indicator, may help account for some of the symptoms of moral decline noted by Mr. Bennett: increases in crime, alcohol-related deaths, drug use and out-of-wedlock births.
