Later On

Reported by Paula McMahon for McClatchy:

Anthony Caravella walked out of the Broward County jail on Thursday a free man — at least temporarily — for the first time in close to 26 years.

"I can’t even tell you how excited I am. I think being free hasn’t really hit me yet,” Caravella told the Sun Sentinel. “It’s strange, everything is different.”

A judge ordered Caravella, 41, released after a recent test excluded him as the source of DNA found on the body of a Miramar woman he was convicted of raping and murdering in 1983. Broward prosecutors asked for him to be set free, for now, while they reinvestigate the case.

The last time Caravella was free, he was 15 years old, Ronald Reagan was serving his first presidential term, Michael Jackson’s Thriller album topped the charts and a gallon of gas cost $1.24.

His impressions after the 20-minute drive from jail to the Davie home where he’ll be living for the foreseeable future: People dress differently than in the 1980s, and traffic in Broward is much worse.

Being free after so long, it seemed, was intimidating and overwhelming.

He walks with his hands behind his back, a habit he picked up from being frequently handcuffed during incarceration. When a door opens, he stands by it, waiting to be told if it’s OK to enter. He’s worried he’ll get lost if he walks outside. He can’t quite believe that he can decide what to do, and when…

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If you have a need for accounting software—indeed, even if you just collect such software and use it for fun—you might find this post of interest. It begins:

I’m a self-employed freelance writer. Many of the editors and contributors here on MUO are in the same position. Being self-employed has tons of plus sides such as freedom, non-stop creativity and no commute to work. However, in my opinion the biggest downside is running what is effectively a business. Accounts, tax, invoices, creditors and debtors can be overwhelming to someone whose forte is writing, designing or consulting.

To make matters worse, it’s a recession out there so work is getting thinner on the ground. Not many of us can afford to, or want to hire, an accountant to take care of the books. I struggled with ledgers and taxes until I discovered a piece of free accountancy software that does it all for me – TAS.

TAS Basic, to be more precise. This is aimed at self-employed people, small businesses and start-ups. It’s incredibly easy to use. And when I say ‘easy’ I mean animated instructions, pictures and tutorials that will still result in professional-looking accounts ready to be filed away.

First, …

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Excellent article on using bento boxes to pack lunches. If you truly get into the bento spirit, you can make lunchtime a mini-holiday. Thanks to the Younger Daughter for pointing this out. And take a look at this list of bento equipment and books on making the most of your bento box.

Although this is from 1 September, it’s still worth reading. Andrew Sullivan (a conservative) compares the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques authorized for the Gestapo by the Nazi government and those authorized for the CIA by the Bush Administration.

For a long time in this country, our government was the result of compromises between two forces: on the left, Democrats and other liberal parties, and on the right, the GOP and other conservative parties.

To those two forces over the past decade or so, we must add Business as a force in government—indeed, Business, with its great wealth and its willingness to fund (buy) Representatives and Senators, has become, I think, a stronger force than the politics of left and right. For example, in a series of comments to a post on IL Conservative, Steve from New Hampshire notes:

What bothers me as an independent is that a politician’s campaign is now thriving as a direct result of an unprecedented lack of self-control on Capitol Hill. We elect these guys to solve our nation’s problems, and I’m not sure it sends a good message to reward one of them for having a tantrum. In order to solve our nation’s problems our leaders must act with restraint, even when everyone else is losing their minds. Even more troubling is the fact that people buy (in this case, literally) into the inflammatory demonizing and finger-pointing. This is a result of citizens letting the right and left-wing media tell them what to think. Truly pathetic.

To which I replied:

I think in this case it’s less a case of the media being politically tilted in one direction or another as being controlled by the corporate imperative to grow the bottom line. Controversy builds circulation (and clicks), so the media hypes every controversy and headlines every stupid statement by a Democrat or a Republican: fan the flames! get it going! Jerry-Springer journalism. (And yes, I know he’s a Democrat and apparently fairly intelligent—just sold out to the show-biz bottom line.)

At one time, media kept a wall between editorial and sales so that news reporting was not influenced by the sales department’s need to grow revenue. With stronger corporate control and fewer news-reporting corporations, that wall has been removed and the news part of the organization is forced to grow revenue as well or be replaced. We’ve already seen how the O’Reilly-Olbermann feud was ended because GM did not want O’Reilly digging into its practices and GM owns the microphone on the Olbermann side. Now, I think, Business is starting to take over Congress and with it the government.

Glenn Greenwald has an interesting column today exploring the sources of all the anger on the right—an exploration worth making, since the stated reasons ("Obama was born in Kenya!", "Healthcare will have death panels!", etc.) don’t make any sense. The Right has gotten so crazy and angry that it’s hard to (a) keep up and (b) care.

Still, it’s a column worth reading.

The Right has a terrible fear that illegal immigrants might receive healthcare with healthcare reform, despite two inconvenient facts: (a) that illegal immigrants pay taxes and presumably any government option will be tax supported (why should people not get what they pay for?), and (b) that putting in place the mechanisms to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving needed medical care will cost much more than the care itself. From a ThinkProgress post by Amanda Terkel:

Many policy experts point out that if verification mechanisms are put in place, they are best done after legislation is passed so that they can best match the processes in place. On the Wonk Room, Andrea Nill explained why the House voted down verification measures:

The two amendments to verify citizenship were voted down because one would have given private insurance providers unprecedented access to the sensitive income and identity information of all those applying for health care assistance and the other would have “imposed a burdensome and costly documentation procedure that we know has been a sledgehammer for a non-existent problem.”

Verification measures aren’t always effective either. A House Oversight Committee investigation “reviewed six state Medicaid programs in 2007 and concluded that verification rules had cost the federal government an additional $8.3 million. They caught exactly eight illegal immigrants.” The Government Accountability Office has found that such requirements caused eligible U.S. citizens to lose Medicaid coverage.

Additionally, the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act already prohibits undocumented immigrants from being eligible for most public benefits, restricts the eligibility of legal immigrants, and codifies procedures for verifying eligibility.

Read the whole thing. The Right seems particularly angry about illegal immigration, as though it were a great crisis affecting the country.

I feel as well-rested and refreshed now as after a good vacation—yesterday was quite helpful in that process: lots of alone time, a good meal (described below), and much reading and movie-watching.

The meal: I bought some large sea scallops at Costco. I cut them in half horizontally (getting from each two scallop pieces that looked like thick coins). I cook a cup of rice in water enriched with Penzey’s Chicken Soup Base, and while that simmered, I put in a skillet a good dollop of olive oil. When the oil was hot, I added a chopped red onion and several minced cloves of garlic and sautéed those until the onions were soft, then added the scallops and sautéed over med-high heat. A dash of homemade hot sauce, and since the rice was almost done—just a little water unabsorbed—I dumped the pan of rice into the skillet, and stirred and cooked that until the water was gone and the rice was nicely cooked. Very tasty.

I finished The Evolution of God, which was quite informative and interesting. I’m now reading Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme, by Richard Brodie. So far quite interesting, though written with a certain amount of unnecessary excitement.

It’s now perfectly evident that anyone who wishes to avoid animal products can be well served by a synthetic-bristle shaving brush. The Edwin Jagger synthetic this morning created a perfect lather—and quite easily—from the D.R. Harris shave stick, which admittedly is an exceptionally good shave stick.

The secret for this brush is to wet it thoroughly with hot water, then give it a sharp shake: the brush holds an astonishing amount of water, and without the shake will spill water as your work up the lather. If you lather in a bowl, that would dilute the lather badly. Lathering on the face, as I do, just means a sudden spill of water into the sink. But with the shake, there’s little or no excess water.

The Hoffritz Slant Bar with a previously used Astra Keramik Platinum blade, left a perfectly smooth face with no trace of a nick. Truly a perfect shave, finished with a splash of the Veleiro. The level is down a lot in that bottle because the cap is a bad fit and leaks.

I went to Toasty’s for breakfast this morning. They make their own (excellent) corned beef hash, so I like to have two poached eggs atop that, along with whole-wheat toast, sliced tomatoes, and coffee. Great breakfast, and this morning a nice conversation with the guy sitting beside me at the counter. He’s reading his way through Martin Cruz Smith, so I recommended Smilla’s Sense of Snow.

Jack in Amsterdam pointed out this column by John Gray in The Observer:

The war on drugs is a failed policy that has injured far more people than it has protected. Around 14,000 people have died in Mexico‘s drug wars since the end of 2006, more than 1,000 of them in the first three months of this year. Beyond the overflowing morgues in Mexican border towns, there are uncounted numbers who have been maimed, traumatised or displaced. From Liverpool to Moscow, Tokyo to Detroit, a punitive regime of prohibition has turned streets into battlefields, while drug use has remained embedded in the way we live. The anti-drug crusade will go down as among the greatest follies of modern times.

A decade or so ago, it could be argued that the evidence was not yet in on drugs. No one has ever believed illegal drug use could be eliminated, but there was a defensible view that prohibition could prevent more harm than it caused. Drug use is not a private act without consequences for others; even when legal, it incurs medical and other costs to society. A society that adopted an attitude of laissez-faire towards the drug habits of its citizens could find itself with higher numbers of users. There could be a risk of social abandonment, with those in poor communities being left to their fates.

These dangers have not disappeared, but the fact is that the costs of drug prohibition now far outweigh any possible benefits the policy may bring. It is time for a radical shift in policy. Full-scale legalisation, with the state intervening chiefly to regulate quality and provide education on the risks of drug use and care for those who have problems with the drugs they use, should now shape the agenda of drug law reform.

In rich societies like Britain, the US and continental Europe, the drug war has inflicted multiple harms.

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My brother-in-law and his wife are now on their way, and we are enjoying the memories of a very good visit. We topped it off last night with a fine dinner at Max’s Café in Pacific Grove.

Besides the fine time we had together, I also had the opportunity to experience how little of my mind I know. I’m an introvert, it seems, and after a certain amount of time socializing, I really need some alone time. (This applies also to The Wife and to her brother.) As The Eldest commented, it’s not that introverts are shy, for many are not, it’s that they really require solitude.

The odd thing was that I could tell I needed some time alone, and I could even tell that I needed to be awake for that time—when I came home late one night, I had to stay up until I had had enough time alone to recover whatever it is that’s being recovered during that time. I could tell what I needed, and I could tell when the need had been satisfied, but whatever was actually going on was totally invisible to my conscious mind. I couldn’t tell what was happening (in my own mind) during that recovery time, but I could tell that I gradually felt better. It’s odd to have a process going on without being able to tell what it’s doing—but I could feel the effects. I gradually relaxed and felt better.

You’d think if it was happening in my own mind, I could tell what it was, but the multitudinous unconscious processes work away without the conscious mind’s awareness—which is, of course, why they’re called "unconscious." But I certainly could tell the effects.

First, urban chickens. Now, urban honeybees. Interesting beehive.

UPDATE: Note this comment:

Beekeeping for yuppies? A pretty nice, but very expensive rig for urban beekeeping? It also looks pretty small for a well established hive; will it be able to produce a lot of brood and honey?

A full set of 3-4 standard stacking hive supers, frames, tops, and bottoms, which are easy to work, will only set you back only about $200…… And, some folks will sell you a full starter beekeeping kit, including supers, frames, hive tool, hood, gloves, and the smoker for about $200.

Note, that some cities outlaw hives, but most don’t. And, some cities will harass hive owners using nuicanse abatement laws, if neighbors have serious complaints. So I just don’t let many folks, who don’t need to, know that we have an urban hive.

It isn’t really a problem keeping an urban hive, Italian bees are very gentile, you can even feed them honey from your finger, if they are used to people. There are also plenty of Africanized hives in the urban environment, flying around people all the time, and mostly not bothering anyone who isn’t a threat to their hive.

But, be aware that some folks can be very “bee phobic”, largely out of fear and/or ignorance. People also have an exaggerated fear of an allergic reaction to bee stings, and a few actually are allergic. So proper placement of your hive in a place that is quiet, out of the way, and allows the bees to disperse easily is a good practice to minimize conflicts.

Beware, that bee’s can be a legitimate problem, if hives are too close to neighboring swimming pools, where they are attracted for water (the chlorine is bad for the bee’s, too!).

With the yuppie model, or the standard hive, it’s a lot of fun, makes for an incredible garden, and the neighborhood kids love to see them-they all saw the Bee movie………

Posted by: BOB2 | 09/12/2009 at 01:54 PM

The Wife’s Sister-in-Law turned me to on these shoes. From the link:

MBT stands for Masai Barefoot Technology.  The company that makes MBT Shoes (also known as the anti-shoe) is Swiss Masai.  The uniquely-designed, multi-layered, cured sole is designed to simulate walking in sand (similar to the natural walking environment of the Masai in Kenya).  This creates a natural, uneven walking surface and forces the body to use all the major and stabilising muscle groups, thus training the whole body to move correctly.

Do MBT Shoes Really Work?

Many people wonder if MBT Shoes really work.  In this review, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of MBT Shoes, best place to buy MBT Shoes online, and what you can expect if you decide to purchase them.

Some of the claims made about MBT Shoes include:

• They activate neglected muscles
• They improve posture and gait
• They tone and shape the body
• They can help with back, hip, leg, and foot problems
• They can help with joint, muscle, ligament, and tendon injuries
• They reduce stress on knee and hip joints

I’ve owned my MBT Shoes for over six months – using them primarily for taking 3-4 mile walks.  Once you become comfortable walking in MBT Shoes, you will notice your calf muscles will be worked in a way you don’t experience in ordinary shoes.  For the first few times you wear them, after about 20 minutes the soreness goes away, and walking seems effortless.  Your stride shortens and becomes quicker, and you naturally walk with your back straight and stomach pulled in.

One of the claims you may have heard is walking one mile in MBT Shoes is the equivalent workout of walking two miles in ordinary walking shoes.  I was unable to find any studies to substantiate this claim.  Personally I have noticed my muscles get more of a workout when I am wearing MBT Shoes.  Since I purchased them I want to walk more, and for longer distances, which has lead to weight loss.

I have had chronic back pain my entire adult life, and walking in these shoes takes the strain off my back.  I have also talked to several people who also own MBT Shoes, and they say they are the only shoes they wear because they relieve their back pain.

Another question people ask all the time is…

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UPDATE: One interesting point made at the link: These shoes are relatively expensive and directed to a niche market, so most shoe stores cannot stock all sizes, much less all models. And I have noticed that shoe stores will go to some lengths to sell what they have in stock, even if the fit is not perfect. So the post at the link recommends going to on-line dealers (he names two) who can stock all sizes and models and provide free returns in case the fit is off.

Excellent column by Greenwald:

Several people objected in comments, emails and other places to my argument yesterday that what Rep. Joe Wilson did — though dumb and juvenile — was hardly some grave threat to the Republic or even a substantial deviation from standard right-wing political behavior.  Some argued that Obama’s race has caused the Right’s hostility towards him to be both unique and unprecedentedly intense.  That some people react with particular animus towards the first black President is obvious.  But there is nothing new about the character of the American Right or their concerted efforts to destroy the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency.

To see that, just look at what that movement’s leading figures said and did during the Clinton years.  In 1994, Jesse Helms, then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "just about every military man" believes Clinton is unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief and then warned/threatened him not to venture onto military bases in the South:  "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He better have a bodyguard."  The Wall St. Journal called for a Special Prosecutor to investigate the possible "murder" of Vince Foster.  Clinton was relentlessly accused by leading right-wing voices of being a murderer, a serial rapist, and a drug trafficker.  Tens of millions of dollars and barrels of media ink were expended investigating "Whitewater," a "scandal" which, to this day, virtually nobody can even define.  When Clinton tried to kill Osama bin Laden, they accused him of "wagging the dog" — trying to distract the country from the truly important matters at hand (his sex scandal).  And, of course, the GOP ultimately impeached him over that sex scandal — in the process issuing a lengthy legal brief with footnotes detailing his sex acts (cigars and sex talk), publicly speculating about (and demanding examinations of) the unique "distinguishing" spots on his penis, and using leading right-wing organs to disseminate innuendo that he had an abandoned, out-of-wedlock child.  More intense and constant attacks on a President’s "legitimacy" are difficult to imagine.

This is why I have very mixed feelings about the protests of conservatives such as David Frum or Andrew Sullivan that the conservative movement has been supposedly "hijacked" by extremists and crazies.  On the one hand, this is true.  But when was it different?  Rush Limbaugh didn’t just magically appear in the last twelve months.  He — along with people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Bill Kristol and Jesse Helms — have been leaders of that party for decades.  Republicans spent the 1990s wallowing in Ken Starr’s sex report, "Angry White Male" militias, black U.N. helicopters, Vince Foster’s murder, Clinton’s Mena drug runway, Monica’s semen-stained dress, Hillary’s lesbianism, "wag the dog" theories, and all sorts of efforts to personally humiliate Clinton and destroy the legitimacy of his presidency using the most paranoid, reality-detached, and scurrilous attacks.  And the crazed conspiracy-mongers in that movement became even more prominent during the Bush years.  Frum himself — now parading around as the Serious Adult conservative — wrote, along with uber-extremist Richard Perle, one of the most deranged and reality-detached books of the last two decades, and before that, celebrated George W. Bush, his former boss, as "The Right Man."

It’s also why I am extremely unpersuaded by the prevailing media narrative that …

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Excellent comparison of how different countries help their elites rise above the law—the cool thing is that all the stories for one of the countries come from a single issue of the Washington Post. Countries compared are Iraq, Kenya, and the US.

Nowadays I see no reason at all to avoid brushes with synthetic bristles. I used the Omega Syntex again today—and no spill of water from the bottom of the brush as I began to lather. I imagine that I unconsciously adjusted my technique to accommodate the Syntex’s performance. I got a wonderful lather from Kell’s Original Arabian Spice—as good as any lather from any brush.

And the Edwin Jagger Georgian, with a previously used Polsilver blade, provided a superb shave. A guy on ShaveMyFace.com suggested that it would be interesting to have a direct comparison of the Georgian and the Merkur Big Grip, so I plan to do that next week. In the meantime, I just wanted to get reacquainted, and the Georgian is indeed a pleasant razor to use.

Lustray Spice was a great finish in the spice vein.

Today I’m off for more adventures with The Wife’s Brother and Sister-in-Law.

Nanette Byrnes has this in the latest BusinessWeek:

Last year big companies with employee pension plans put less into funding those promises than they spent on stock grants and options for executives, according to a recent study of S&P 500 companies. The research, published by The Analyst’s Accounting Observer, found that the 358 companies with pension plans in the index put $39.5 billion into those programs while giving out stock grants and options worth $44.5 billion. That’s despite an aggregate $283.6 billion shortfall in their pension coffers. Jack Ciesielski, who published the research report, says corporations must weigh the payoff from lavishing so much on managers, who bring "uncertain" returns, against the benefits from other spending. Pension obligations are legally binding. So if a plan remains underfunded, a company must eventually make up the difference—usually by borrowing or by diverting cash that could have gone into building the business. Among S&P 500 sectors, financials have the biggest gap, with $15.2 billion going to restricted stock and options vs. $6.4 billion into pension funds. Who spends more on pensions than on stock options? Industrials (a sector that is still strongly unionized), with $7.9 billion for future retirees and $3.8 billion for stock-based executive pay.

It will be interesting to see how the invisible hand of the free market will fix this problem.

Via Open Culture:

Michael Duvall, now known as "Hot Mike" Duvall because of his vulgar sexual braggadocio caught on an open microphone, is now defending himself by saying that the statements he made about his sexual prowess were false. It’s a defense, but it makes him look even more pathetic and despicable, tarring the names of innocent women and lying about his sexual accomplishments in the best tradition of high school sophomores.

Why does it always seem to be "family-values" Republicans that do things like this? Is that a code word for tomcatting around?