Later On

Last night TYD and I dined at Nectar. Man, what great food! We had:

TYD: A pumpkin soup not shown on-line

Me: zen martini—nigori sake, fuki sake, grey goose pear, elderflower infused syrup, fresh lemon juice—along with a grilled fresh calamari salad, which included chorizo sausage, parmesan, frisée, arugula, lemon vinaigrette

Then to share:

1. moo shu duck, leeks, shiitake, bean sprouts, sweet peppers, serrano chilies, cucumber salad, pancakes

2. lobster pad thai

I’m pretty sure I put on weight, but thankfully I can’t quite figure out TYD’s scale. Tomorrow I’ll weigh (morning naked weight), so today I’m eating carefully: the horse may be gone, but that barn door is now locked!

I took Amtrak from New Rochelle to Philly. Large, comfortable seats that really recline—plus a couple of power outlets next to the seat. Good reading lights. Ample luggage space, and people tended to put their luggage above their own seat rather than in the first empty space they came to (presumably because people get on and off at each stop, so you want to keep an eye on your belongings).

By chance, I entered a “quiet car”, which (they emphasize) has a “library” atmosphere: no cellphone conversations allowed at all and cellphones must be set to “vibrate.” So it’s text messaging only, in effect. Any music, games, or the like must be through headphones only. No conversation. It was wonderful.

Chucho Valdes, one of Cuba’s finest jazz pianists, performs "La Comparsa" with his father, Bebo.

Interesting post by J.M. Bernstein in the NY Times on the philosopher Hegel and how he would view Wall street. The conclusion (though read the entire post):

… Every account of the financial crisis points to a terrifying series of structures that all have the same character: the profit-driven actions of the financial sector became increasingly detached from their function of supporting and advancing the growth of capital.  What thus emerged were patterns of action which, may have seemed to reflect the “ways of the world” but in financial terms, were as empty as those of a knight of virtue, leading to the near collapse of the system as a whole.  A system of compensation that provides huge bonuses based on short-term profits necessarily ignores the long-term interests of investors. As does a system that ignores the creditworthiness of borrowers; allows credit rating agencies to be paid by those they rate and encourages the creation of highly complex and deceptive financial instruments.  In each case, the actions — and profits — of the financial agents became insulated from both the interests of investors and the wealth-creating needs of industry.

Despite the fact that we have seen how current practices are practically self-defeating for the system as a whole, the bill that emerged from the Congress comes nowhere near putting an end to the practices that necessitated the bailouts.  Every one of those practices will remain in place with just a veneer of regulation giving them the look of legitimacy.

What market regulations should prohibit are practices in which profit-taking can routinely occur without wealth creation; wealth creation is the world-interest that makes bankers’ self-interest possible.  Arguments that market discipline, the discipline of self-interest, should allow Wall Street to remain self-regulating only reveal that Wall Street, as Hegel would say, “simply does not know what it is doing.”

We know that nearly all the financial conditions that led to the economic crisis were the same in Canada as they were in the United States with a single, glaring exception: Canada did not deregulate its banks and financial sector, and, as a consequence, Canada avoided the worst of the economic crisis that continues to warp the infrastructure of American life.  Nothing but fierce and smart government regulation can head off another American economic crisis in the future.  This is not a matter of “balancing” the interests of free-market inventiveness against the need for stability; nor is it a matter of a clash between the ideology of the free-market versus the ideology of government control.  Nor is it, even, a matter of a choice between neo-liberal economic theory and neo-Keynesian theory.  Rather, as Hegel would have insisted, regulation is the force of reason needed to undo the concoctions of fantasy.

Tanzina Vega reports in the NY Times:

Worries over Internet privacy have spurred lawsuits, conspiracy theories and consumer anxiety as marketers and others invent new ways to track computer users on the Internet. But the alarmists have not seen anything yet.

In the next few years, a powerful new suite of capabilities will become available to Web developers that could give marketers and advertisers access to many more details about computer users’ online activities. Nearly everyone who uses the Internet will face the privacy risks that come with those capabilities, which are an integral part of the Web language that will soon power the Internet: HTML 5.

The new Web code, the fifth version of Hypertext Markup Language used to create Web pages, is already in limited use, and it promises to usher in a new era of Internet browsing within the next few years. It will make it easier for users to view multimedia content without downloading extra software; check e-mail offline; or find a favorite restaurant or shop on a smartphone.

Most users will clearly welcome the additional features that come with the new Web language.

“It’s going to change everything about the Internet and the way we use it today,” said James Cox, 27, a freelance consultant and software developer at Smokeclouds, a New York City start-up company. “It’s not just HTML 5. It’s the new Web.”

But others, while also enthusiastic about the changes, are more cautious.

Most Web users are familiar with so-called cookies, which make it possible, for example, to log on to Web sites without having to retype user names and passwords, or to keep track of items placed in virtual shopping carts before they are bought.

The new Web language and its additional features present more tracking opportunities because the technology uses a process in which large amounts of data can be collected and stored on the user’s hard drive while online. Because of that process, advertisers and others could, experts say, see weeks or even months of personal data. That could include a user’s location, time zone, photographs, text from blogs, shopping cart contents, e-mails and a history of the Web pages visited.

The new Web language “gives trackers one more bucket to put tracking information into,” said Hakon Wium Lie, the chief technology officer at Opera, a browser company…

Continue reading.

I’m not doing a SOTD post on the trip. For one thing, it’s the same every day:

Prairie Creations Barbershop tallow-based shave stick
Muhle travel brush (black aluminum)
Feather Premium razor
Feather blade
Royal Copenhagen aftershave

For another, I can’t upload photos until I get home.

Nonetheless, I do want to comment on the excellence of the Muhle Travel Brush: extremely light, packs well, and lathers like a champ. Well worth your consideration if you travel.

One VERY frequent traveler with lots of packing and unpacking (an airline pilot) suggested that the nickel-plated brass is the best bet: the threads on the aluminum ones eventually wear out. But I’m just a regular traveler, and for me the aluminum works well.

Excellent Paul Krugman article, well worth reading.

Today I depart upstate New York and travel (by train, thank God) to Philadelphia to visit TYD. I’ve been extremely fortunate with the weather: crisp sunny days, with trees turning golden. I have good photos of various things, including Nelly, The Son’s tuxedo kitty, a calm and sweet 8-year-old.

I do note that I am eating well: not so much the excellent food (produce fresh from the farm) as my observing serving size and avoiding snacking. We’ll see…

My back is MUCH better, so I’m convinced it was the bad seating. Sleeping is still a bit uncomfortable, but I’m using the pillows, which helps. Just after I get out of bed it’s touchy, but then as I move around, the pain abates and I’m fine.

Pilates, here I come (once I get home).

James Fallows:

I’ve mentioned several times (for instance, here) impressive speeches by the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, about weapons, strategy, and national interest. I’m not blanket endorsing everything he’s done in office; I am saying that, compared with other Cabinet officials in recent memory, he’s done a better and more sustained job of laying out a way to think about major national issues.

He delivered another important speech last week, at Duke, about the continuing separation between the “narrow sliver of our population” that serves in the military and the rest of America. E.g.,

We should not ignore the broader, long-term consequences of waging these protracted military campaigns employing – and re-employing – such a small portion of our society in the effort…. [W]hatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] remain an abstraction.  A distant and unpleasant series of news items that does not affect them personally.  Even after 9/11, in the absence of a draft, for a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do.  In fact, with each passing decade fewer and fewer Americans know someone with military experience in their family or social circle.

He closed by “speaking about another narrow sliver of our population, those attending and graduating from our nation’s most selective and academically demanding universities,” and urging them to consider national service. ROTC might be coming back to their campuses, he said, but that “will not do much good without the willingness of our nation’s most gifted students to step forward.  Men and women such as you.” Worth reading. Full text here. And, Michael Nelson of Rhodes College has a good essay on larger citizen/soldier relations here. Of course this will lead us back soon to previous discussions of the forces holding American society together or pushing it apart.

Crisp day with lots of sunshine, a fire in the fireplace, and no big plans: very relaxing, but not much blog fodder.

Frank Rich has a good column in today’s NY Times. And the editorial is definitely worth reading: a look at how a government should properly handle the use of lethal force.

Had a fun afternoon at the Fall Festival at Hawthorne Valley Farm. They make some superb cheese (their Alpine cheese is like an excellent gruyere). They also sell raw milk: shelf life is 7 days. When the FDA was developing regulations to control raw milk, they got Hawthorne Valley Farm to consult with and help them. (Prohibiting the sale of raw milk is as wise as prohibiting the sale of alcohol or marijuana: people will get it, and the prohibition prevents the government from regulating it. The Son told of a terrible situation in Oregon: raw milk there is illegal, so it’s sold under the counter. Many, many people suddenly got sick, and when they investigated they found that the offending dairy was substandard in many regards—exactly the sort of dairy you’d expect to get involved in illegal dealings. Hawthorne Valley Farm, legal and regulated, makes perfectly safe raw milk.)

They are a Biodynamic operation, using principles developed by Rudolf Steiner. I don’t know much about this, but The Daughter-In-Law just attended a great conference on biodynamic farming: many sessions, very professional. She found it fascinating and learned a lot.

They make their own sauerkraut in a variety of types: plain, curry, and others. I got some jalapeno sauerkraut and also some pickled green beans: “dilly beans.”

Wonderful afternoon. Hundreds of people at the farm, all having a great time.

Sickening report by Ethan Bronner in the NY Times:

An Israeli military court convicted two soldiers on Sunday of using a 9-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield by forcing him to check bags for explosives in Israel’s 2008-9 Gaza war.

The court said that the two soldiers, both infantry sergeants, had taken part in an operation to seize an apartment building in Tel al-Hawa, a southern suburb of Gaza City, while under attack from Hamas fighters.

A summary of the court’s judgment provided by the military spokesman’s office said the two had rounded up civilians and come upon bags in a bathroom. They grabbed the child and ordered him to check the bags for booby traps.

“The boy, who feared for his fate and was pressured by the situation, wet his pants,” the judges said, pointedly noting that, “unlike the soldiers, the boy had no means of personal protection.”

After the boy emptied the contents of one bag and had trouble opening a second, one of the soldiers shot at the second bag. The boy was returned, terrified but unharmed, to his family.

Sunday’s convictions, which could carry prison terms, are the first serious ones in Israel’s criminal investigations into the conduct of its soldiers during the three-week Gaza invasion aimed at stopping rocket fire at Israeli communities. The army says it looked into 48 cases, and a third of them are still in progress.

In July, the army indicted several officers and soldiers for actions during the offensive, including a staff sergeant accused of deliberately shooting at least one Palestinian civilian who was walking with a group of people waving a white flag.

But human rights groups say that the military’s criminal proceedings are insufficient and that Israeli troops carried out a number of atrocities that require outside investigation…

Continue reading.

I am, of course, looking around for info, and I thought this article was pretty good.

The Son and his wife are members of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, and today we’re going to a fall festival on that farm. Should be fun.

I am for the first time experiencing low back pain—ugh—and I think I’ve figured out that it was probably the hours and hours I spent on Wednesday in sitting in terribly designed seating (planes and airports), along with my inadequate physical activity and fitness of the past few years.

So I called a Pilates instructor back home, and when I return I’m going to go there with the specific intention of strengthening my core muscles, which should be a good preventive for low back pain as well as good for me in general.

Another project: just what I need.

We went to Dia:Beacon this morning. Fascinating minimalist modern sculpture in a 300,000-sq-ft museum. The first work we saw, North East South West consists of four large (20′ deep) holes in a concrete floor. The “holes” are actually enormous metal (dark rusted steel) constructions whose upper opening is exactly flush with the floor: in order, a cubical space which has a smaller cubical space at the bottom, a truncated inverted cone, a trough—straight sides slanting to a flat bottom 20′ below—and finally another cone, truncated but not inverted (the bottom having a greater diameter than the top), the opening in the floor defining the plane of truncation.

They were oddly hard to see at first: “seeing” is a brain activity that involves interpreting the sense perceptions, and these were quite hard to interpret because we’ve not seen their like. The last was particularly awe-inspiring (i.e., scary—especially as you approach the edge). These, with openings about 15′-20′ across, were in a vast room with nothing else, so they were uncrowded. We saw them with a guide, by ourselves (three of use: me, The Son, and The Daughter-in-Law). All viewers must be escorted. Photos were not allowed, but a photo would have shown nothing, really. You truly have to be there.

I pictured groups of kindergartners wandering around, but the guide said that no one has so far fallen into the pits. So I inquired, and was told that you have to be 18 or older to see these, which makes sense. They are truly adult works of art, like My Dinner With Andre is an adult movie: kids simply would not get it.

The originals of North and East are in a desert setting in Nevada, far from anything else. They must seem quite mysterious to those who come upon them, and I would imagine are gradually being filled with scorpions, lizards, snakes, and other small wildlife that fall into them. I asked the guide and she said she had never thought of that and didn’t know.

I see that the organic, free-range eggs I’ve been buying are from an egg farm that is rated only 1 out of a possible 5. I’m going to have to take a copy of the list with me when I next buy eggs. Kiera Butler reports at Mother Jones:

The chickens pictured on the egg producer Chino Valley Ranchers’ Simply Organic site look pretty happy. And from the description of their digs, it sounds like they’d have good reason to be: "When you walk into the chicken houses and you see all the birds scratching around in the dirt, running around, flapping their wings and hear the soft clucking from each of them, you can feel their contentment," the copy below the little fuzzballs reads. "It is the way nature intended."

An industrial henhouse jam-packed with 36,000 birds, on the other hand, is probably not "the way nature intended." But that is exactly what investigators from the organic food advocacy group Cornucopia Institute found when they visited a Wisconsin henhouse that supplies Chino Valley Ranchers with organic eggs.

And Chino Valley isn’t alone. A recent Cornucopia investigation revealed that conditions at many facilities that produce organic eggs are often just as crowded and industrial as those at conventional egg farms. And although US organic standards require outdoor access for laying hens, Cornucopia found that at many organic farms, "outdoors" often consists of nothing more than a tiny concrete screen porch adjoining the tenement-like henhouse.

Last year, twelve organic egg producers (listed below) signed a letter to the National Organic Standards Board opposing the rule that mandates organic operations to grant their chickens outdoor access. They argued that the rule put too much of a financial burden on producers; the Cornucopia report excerpts a comment that Bart Slaugh, Eggland’s Best‘s director of quality assurance, posted to the NASD: "The push for continually expanding outdoor access and decreasing protection needs to stop," writes Slaugh.

Cornucopia plans to file an official complaint to the USDA about the conditions at four farms (listed below), including Hillandale Farms, one of the culprits in the recent salmonella outbreak. While it hasn’t been proven that organic eggs are less likely to be contaminated with salmonella than conventional eggs, Cornucopia cofounder Mark Kastel believes that crowded factory-farm conditions can breed disease. "If you are living in these filthy conditions it takes a tremendous toll on your immune system," he says. "And when you are dealing with those incredibly huge industrial scales, you can’t pay attention to the health of individual birds."

Cornucopia rates major organic egg producers it investigated on this scorecard. (The setup is a little confusing, since the lowest scorers were those that refused to participate in Cornucopia’s survey, not the farms where the most egregious violations were found. That’s because Cornucopia rightly believes that producers of organic food should be transparent about their operations.) Here’s a list of the organic egg producers that Cornucopia is filing a complaint against, plus the twelve companies that signed the letter opposing outdoor access for chickens:

Egg producers against which Cornucopia is filing a complaint: …

Continue reading.

He provides an example of how the US is in decline—rather precipitous decline.