Later On

The Wife received this little box of AOS samples at Sephoro, so I thought I’d give them a go, including the pre-shave oil. I’m generally willing to experiment, so…

Not bad. I liked the parts I expected to like, and didn’t like the others. Starting the shave with the pre-shave oil is something I don’t much care for, and this oil in particular feels gummy and hard to get off my hands. The shaving cream was fine and made a very good lather, thanks in part to the Omega syntex shaving brush. The Vision did its usual excellent job, even though the Swedish Gillette was a veteran of several previous shaves.

Finally, the finish with the balm—at first unpleasantly slick, unlike a splash of alcohol-based aftershave, but then it dried and/or was absorbed, leaving my skin feeling very nice.

Not a bad shave at all.

That’s a title, not an injunction. This CD course is $14.99 and really amazingly good at that price. I particularly like that it grades my accent with spoken Spanish.

Scott Horton at Harper’s:

When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

Late in the evening on June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.

As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Camp America to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths “suicides.” In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. “I believe this was not an act of desperation,” he said, “but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” Reporters accepted the official account, and even lawyers for the prisoners appeared to believe that they had killed themselves. Only the prisoners’ families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen rejected the notion.

Two years later, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which has primary investigative jurisdiction within the naval base, issued a report supporting the account originally advanced by Harris, now a vice-admiral in command of the Sixth Fleet. The Pentagon declined to make the NCIS report public, and only when pressed with Freedom of Information Act demands did it disclose parts of the report, some 1,700 pages of documents so heavily redacted as to be nearly incomprehensible. The NCIS report was carefully cross-referenced and deciphered by students and faculty at the law school of Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and their findings, released in November 2009, made clear why the Pentagon had been unwilling to make its conclusions public. The official story of the prisoners’ deaths was full of unacknowledged contradictions, and the centerpiece of the report—a reconstruction of the events—was simply unbelievable.

According to the NCIS, …

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Phil Huntsinger of Bullgoose Shaving Supplies brought this new shaving forum to my attention. Check it out.

Interest take. Read it here.

Horn combs seem to have fallen from public knowledge. Perhaps because horn is essentially a form of hair, horn combs glide through hair easily. They do not create static electricity, and they absorb oil from the hair. The Wife noticed recently that using a horn comb on longhaired Molly is a treat: no pulling, combs nicely, and Molly loves it.

Here is one selection of horn combs, and here is another. Here’s a short article on how they benefit your hair, and Classic Shaving has an excellent page on how they’re made:

No less than 17 operations are required to create an all-natural horn comb, all of which include thousands of precise movements.

Sorting, sawing, biscayage, flattening, marking, trimming, shaping, squaring, stadage, smoothing, sharpening, pearl beading, beading and shaping the back of the comb, sanding and polishing, mean that this trade constitutes a highly-developed craft rather than a small industry.

The horn is sorted prior to being sawn. The sawyer’s main qualities are his visual and fingering skills, which are used to discard any horns with serious flaws. He then cuts the horn into 4 sections, each of which has a highly specific purpose :

1. the tip is used to make lathed objects such as shaving brush and razor handles
2. the biscage or hollow is used to manufacture combs
3. the fine throat from the base is used in the making of fine combs and nit combs
4. the waste, located under the throat, is crushed and transformed into fertilizer. Horn which contains 12 to 16% nitrogen is an excellent natural fertilizer.

Biscayage – Is the most spectacular operation in the horn comb-making process. This technique entails opening out the biscage or hollow ; it is used to create a larger sheet, called a shoe, because of its shape. The horn is heated in the upper level of a brick kiln, the biscayeur seated in front of the fire, extracting the biscage at the correct temperature. Beating it with a pruning knife requires exceptional skill and strength, and the craftsman is able to recognize by its’ sound whether or not it is ready to be opened out. He rests firmly against the wooden pole on his bench and drives his sharp knife into the thickest section, bringing it down in a spiral through the heat-softened horn. Using a large pair of tongs, he then takes hold of the notched biscage and offers it to the flame, where he reheats it without burning.

Flattening – Using a small pair of tongs, …

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If you have long hair, I think you would be well-advised to try a horn comb. Note these care instructions (from the Classic Shaving article):

Natural Horn is so durable it will last a lifetime if properly used and cared for, however there are some dos and don’ts that you should be familiar with to preserve the integrity and beauty of your Classic All Natural Horn Comb. DO: Hand-wash in cold water using a mild soap and allow to air-dry; Limit exposure to sun. DON’T: Wash in dishwasher or soak.

Classic Shaving offers a variety of combs made from horn:

Natural Horn Mustache Comb
Natural Horn Beard Comb
Natural Horn Pocket Comb
Natural Horn Dresser Comb
Natural Horn Large Dresser Comb
Natural Horn Large Dresser Comb w/Handle

Sullivan:

We have been told for so long that "enhanced interrogation techniques" are just "aggressive questioning"; that the ancient waterboarding technique is not torture; that Guantanamo Bay is a model prison facility where detainees are, if anything, molly-coddled (in fact, Rudy Giuliani recently opined that "Guantanamo is better than half the Federal prisons.") We are also told routinely on Fox News that the United States has not and never would torture prisoners; we are told by the New York Times and NPR that use of the word "torture" is too biased; we have been told by many that to argue that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are war criminals is such an extreme position it disgraces anyone who states it, and marginalizes them to the fever swamps of leftist haters and hysterics.

These are all lies. They are pre-meditated lies. They are attempts to lie about some of the worst crimes committed by a president and vice-president of the United States in history. Anyone with their eyes open and their mind not closed knows this somewhere deep inside. And the only reason we do not know more about this is because of the criminal cover-up under the Bush administration and the enraging refusal of the Obama administration to do the right thing and open all of it to sunlight.

In the past, the Bush-Cheney administration could cover up their total control of the torture program and their direct authorization of the techniques used at Abu Ghraib by several distancing moves: "we are shocked that this happened"; it was the work of a "few bad apples"; the techniques we use are "relatively benign"; waterboarding is only torture if the Communists do it, and so on.

But now we have a clear case of something that pierces through this mendacity like a dagger – Scott Horton’s haunting report in Harpers on those three strange 2006 suicides at Gitmo.

In Gitmo, the most tightly controlled and directly monitored prison and torture camp under Cheney’s control, we already had a report that casts extraordinary doubt on the story-line that three deaths in Gitmo in 2006 were suicides. Dish readers may recall my recent airing of it here. Now, we have guards who have given clear and powerful evidence that strongly suggests that the three prisoners who allegedly hanged themselves did no such thing.

There are now credible accounts that, far from being suicides, these deaths were either the result of serious negligence in treatment of prisoners under "enhanced interrogation" or that, quite simply, they were tortured so badly in what appears to be a secret Gitmo black site that they died. Their deaths were then covered up and faked as suicides. Like some footnote in Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s work, these suicides were nonetheless described by the military as aggressive acts of asymmetrical warfare against the U.S. Many branches of government must have been involved in such an act of torture or negligence or both, and the subsequent cover-up – from the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA, and JSOC. The cover-up appears to have been continued by the Obama administration – a staggering surrender to pragmatism that is in fact a cooptation of evil.

This deserves to be the biggest story on the torture issue since Abu Ghraib – because it threatens to tear down the wall of lies and denial that have protected Americans from facing what the last administration actually did. Notice that these torture sessions – so severe they killed three prisoners – were conducted in June 2006. Long after the original crisis was over.Long after we have been told real torture sessions occurred. They were part of an ongoing torture program whose methods were so extreme that the Pentagon has already conceded that over a dozen prisoners had been tortured to death and up to a hundred US authorized deaths-by-torture are alleged by many human rights groups.

This case deserves a thorough and complete and exhaustive inquiry and investigation. I no longer believe that any entity in the US government can be trusted with such a task. The investigation must be able to go right to the very top of the torture program and do so with no political influence whatsoever. The investigation must be conducted by an independent prosecutor – Patrick Fitzgerald comes to mind – or by the Red Cross or an international body. It must go up the chain of command to the very top to find the real people who are responsible for this war crime and three homicides.

Among those who need to be subpoenaed are the former president and vice-president of the United States.

Via email from Mother Jones:

iRecycle: Looking for a place to drop off tough-to-recycle stuff like bubble wrap or tennis balls? Type in your debris of choice and iRecycle will list nearby disposal spots. It can even suggest resting places for your iPhone—just in case it breaks after falling from your cold, dead hands. (If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, EcoFinder is an excellent alternative.)

GoodGuide: This app’s built-in bar-code scanner is pretty nifty. Snap the UPC symbol on, say, a box of cereal, and voila—you’ll get its scores from GoodGuide, a website that rates products’ health, environmental, and social impacts. You can also search its online database of more than 70,000 items.

Seafood Watch: A handy app for getting the dirt on the catch of the day, sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Includes a sushi guide filled with dismaying facts such as the true origins of unagi. Eel farms? Say it isn’t so!

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This little guy is both cute and capable. Take a look.

E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post:

In June 2008, a few months before the financial implosions began, I asked two smart financiers who happened to be Republican about the future of the seemingly shaky American economy.

Defying the moment’s conventional predictions that we would somehow muddle through, one offered a dire and uncannily accurate forecast. He explained why banks would blow up, investments would crash and the federal government would have to spend "at least $300 billion" to bail out financial institutions.

The other financial expert listened closely, took a sip from his drink, and smiled. "This," he said, "would seem like an excellent time for the Democrats to take power."

It wasn’t that he liked Democratic policies. He just wanted the other side in charge when things came tumbling down. I doubt that my friend is as surprised as others are over the trouble Democrats face in Tuesday’s special Senate election in Massachusetts, which forced President Obama to Boston on Sunday for a last-minute campaign rescue mission.

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Listen to this. Fascinating.

Not ours, of course, but that done by other nations. Greenwald:

Fixating on and condemning abuses of other countries is one of the greatest weapons the U.S. Government wields for distracting attention away from its own transgressions:  like those gossip-obsessed individuals endlessly mucking around in and passing judgment on the personal lives of others as a means of ignoring their own failings:

The San Francisco Chronicle, yesterday:

Few expect Google Inc.’s stare-down with China to usher in a new era of openness across the Asian nation, but some believe — or hope — it could pressure the government to improve relations with foreign technology companies. . . . The Obama administration issued statements of support for Google, and members of Congress are pushing to revive a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens. [Won't this ban US tech companies from working with the Federal government? – LG]

Thank God for that, because we all know there’s nothing worse than “governments that digitally spy on their citizens,” and there are few things that galvanize our righteous members of Congress more than vast domestic surveillance abuses over the Internet:

New York Times, April 15, 2009:

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

New York Times, June 16, 2009:

The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said. . . .

Supporting that conclusion is the account of a former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation. . . .

Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel … disputed assertions by Justice Department and national security officials that the overcollection was inadvertent. “Some actions are so flagrant that they can’t be accidental,” Mr. Holt said. . . . Because each court order could single out hundreds or even thousands of phone numbers or e-mail addresses, the number of individual communications that were improperly collected could number in the millions, officials said.

But as the U.S. Congress is now making clear, it’s one thing for a government to abuse domestic surveillance powers, but it’s completely intolerable for private telecommunications companies to conspire in that behavior: ./.

Continue reading.

Very interesting—and disturbing—article in New York by Naomi Wolf:

Twenty years on, I am handing over a secret to its rightful owner. I can’t bear to carry it around anymore.

In the late fall of 1983, professor Harold Bloom did something banal, human, and destructive: He put his hand on a student’s inner thigh—a student whom he was tasked with teaching and grading. The student was me, a 20-year-old senior at Yale. Here is why I am telling this story now: I began, nearly a year ago, to try—privately—to start a conversation with my alma mater that would reassure me that steps had been taken in the ensuing years to ensure that unwanted sexual advances of this sort weren’t still occurring. I expected Yale to be responsive. After nine months and many calls and e-mails, I was shocked to conclude that the atmosphere of collusion that had helped to keep me quiet twenty years ago was still intact—as secretive as a Masonic lodge.

How did this all begin? For years now, Yale has been contacting me: Would I come speak at a celebration of women at Yale? Would I be in a film about Jewish graduates? Would I be interviewed for the alumni magazine?

I have usually declined, for a reason that I explain to my (mostly female) college audiences: The institution is not accountable when it comes to the equality of women. I explain that I was the object of an unwanted sexual advance from a professor at Yale—and that his advances seemed to be part of an open secret. I tell them that I had believed that many Yale decision-makers had known about his relations with students, and nothing I was aware of had happened to stop it.

Where is the professor now? they ask. He is still there, I explain: famous, productive, revered. I describe what the transgression did to me—devastated my sense of being valuable to Yale as a student, rather than as a pawn of powerful men.

Then, heartbreakingly, a young woman will ask: “Did you tell?”

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Molly Webster at Scientific American:

Your feet may love running shoes. But what about the rest of your body? New research finds that running shoes actually increase the pressure on ankles, knees and hips—more than high heels can during walking. That’s according to a study in the Journal of Injury, Function and Rehabilitation.

Researchers enlisted 68 injury-free runners who normally logged at least 15 miles a week. The subjects ran at their own pace on a treadmill, first in modern running shoes and then again barefoot. It turns out that running shoes upped the pressure, or torque, on knee joints by 38 percent over bare feet. Hips experienced a pressure increase of 54 percent. Walking in inch-and-a-half high stilettos only worsened knee torque by about 20 percent in previous studies.

Since stressful joint pressure can cause osteoarthritis, should runners start hitting the pavement in bare feet? Probably not. True, some elite marathoners do run sans sneakers. But apparently letting the rubber hit the road is like various spiritual rituals: tough on the body, but good for the sole.

Just as well that my running days are over.

And break of day this morning is very dark—day is bending rather than breaking, I guess you would say. The good news: morning blood glucose is 119.

A little background: my morning blood glucose readings were under 100 for quite a while (around 90 is normal for a non-diabetic), but gradually moved up to 115-120. Still, my HbA1c was good. (Last time was 6.0%, which is in the normal range). It was so stable I stopped measuring it daily. (Those little strips run about $1 each.) I did measure it after cautiously trying a baked potato one evening (potatoes and bread in the past had resulted in much higher morning blood glucose readings). That seemed to work fine—probably because I was walking a lot.

So I decided that potatoes and bread, eaten occasionally, were okay. And, since potatoes are an excellent source of potassium, I started to eat them more often.

So about a week ago I checked the morning blood glucose again: 145! Uh-oh. The same the next day: 145! Double uh-oh. I even called my endocrinologist to see whether he wanted to see me again.

I cut out potatoes and bread and started to pay very careful attention to the composition of my meals—actually, I always do. It was just including potatoes and bread that was the bad idea. I had, however, gotten into the habit of skipping breakfast—not a good idea when you’re trying to maintain a consistent blood glucose level.

I missed a couple of days of taking the reading, but kept eating carefully (and, of course, following my fitness regimen). This morning’s reading of 119 is back in my ballpark so perhaps I’m out of danger.

Lessons:

1. Pay strict attention to meals: size and composition and time of day.
2. Take the morning readings 3 times a week to track levels.
3. And, for you, the lesson is this: don’t get type 2 diabetes. Watch your diet and your body-fat and keep up regular exercise. This is a disease you don’t want.

The Palmolive shave stick produced a very nice lather with the Rooney Style 3, Size 2 Super Silvertip, and the Merkur Slant Bar (NOS) with a much-used Swedish Gillette blade still delivered a very smooth and close shave with nary a single nick. A splash of Stetson Sierra aftershave, and I’m ready for the day.

Herodotus, 1.197, describing customs of the Babylonians:

They do not use physicians; instead they carry their sick people out into the public square and allow people to approach the sick person and advise him about his illness. Some may themselves have suffered from the same illness that the sick person has, or have seen someone else who did. They go to the sick person and give advice, encouraging him to do whatever they themselves or others they may know have done to be cured of a similar illness. And it is not permitted for anyone to leave the side of a sick person before having inquired what illness he suffers from.

Damned clever, I say, and considering the medical knowledge of the time, probably better than going to a physician.

For those who think I’m making mighty slow progress in Herodotus: I was well into Book II when The Landmark Herodotus arrived, whereupon I started again at the beginning—and I’m glad I did: it makes an enormous difference reading the book with good maps right at hand that identify every spot that Herodotus mentions.

I just noticed that this blog has now received over 2 million hits.

Interesting post on the effects on the children in the family when the TV is removed altogether.

Very useful information on the taste various kinds of wood impart to the meat, and which woods work best with which meats.