Later On

I do like miso, and I keep a few jars from South Rive Miso Company in the fridge. (They will stop shipping soon: they don’t ship during hot months.) Here’s a good brief introduction to miso, with recipes.

Interesting article on foraging—urban foraging in this case. Anyone who’s read Stalking the Wild Asparagus cannot escape becoming a fan of foraging, even if it’s but a literary appreciation. My interest in foraging is like my interest in gardening: I love to read about it.

At any rate, the article at the link has some good tips.

It’s becoming apparent that Obama was greatly oversold as a Constitutional scholar. He has now explicitly declare Bradley Manning (who has yet to come to trial) to be guilty—and note that the persons who will be judging Bradley Manning are under Obama’s command, so his declaration is likely to have impact.

Here’s an analysis. How can Obama have such a poor grasp of the Constitution? From the link:

. . . It’s long been clear that this is Obama’s understanding of “a nation of laws”: the most powerful political and financial elites who commit the most egregious crimes are to be shielded from the consequences of their lawbreaking — see his vote in favor of retroactive telecom immunity, his protection of Bush war criminals, and the way in which Wall Street executives were permitted to plunder with impunity — while the most powerless figures (such as a 23-year-old Army Private and a slew of other low-level whistleblowers) who expose the corruption and criminality of those elites are to be mercilessly punished. And, of course, our nation’s lowest persona non grata group — accused Muslim Terrorists — are simply to be encaged for life without any charges. Merciless, due-process-free punishment is for the powerless; full-scale immunity is for the powerful. “Nation of laws” indeed.

One final irony to Obama’s embrace of this lofty justifying term: . . .

I am finally roasting a chicken as described in this (4-minute) video—even now the chicken sits on the counter in the kitchen, being tempered.

Fascinating post, which begins:

1947 to 1951, FRANCE

According to Alfred W. McCoy in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrestle control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks — ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille’s first heroin laboratones were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront.

EARLY 1950s, SOUTHEAST ASIA

The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium barons of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand and Laos), the world’s largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the ClA’s principal airline proprietary, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia. (See Christopher Robbins, Air America, Avon Books, 1985, chapter 9)

1950s to early 1970s, INDOCHINA During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area. Many Gl’s in Vietnam became addicts. A laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70 percent of the world’s illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America’s booming heroin market.

1973-80, AUSTRALIA

. . .

Continue reading. Their activity continues to the present day—and of course the US presence in Afghanistan has led to a major resurgence of opium agriculture.

I just watched Casanova, which has a stellar cast that includes Heath Ledger, Oliver Platt, Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Sienna Miller, Tim McInnery, and others. It’s a light confection, totally unworried about anachronisms, and (it struck me) a very Venetian comedy, all concerned about love and mistaken identities. I totally enjoyed it. Loosely based on some incidents from Casanova’s fascinating life.

Somehow this week seemed quite busy, and as you know it wasn’t the blogging. Not sure what happened, but I am now re-centering.

I’m still struggling to reach goal—and when my weight this morning was above 185 lbs (purely temporary, I’m sure, but… ), I decided to work out why. It’s no secret that I’m working on a book on my own personal weight loss experience and lessons learned, and to that end, I bought a few preprinted food journals to evaluate. (Obviously, you can just use a small blank notebook, but I wanted to explore on behalf of potential future readers—same excuse I used for buying all that shaving stuff: my duty to my readers, etc.)

So this morning I started one, and also started (for comparison) an on-line Web-based food journal. There are quite a few of these, and just about all use the USDA Nutrition Database for their nutritional values: the differences are in the interface, the “community” features (they all seem to offer forums, the chance to form groups, etc.), the graphing facilities, etc.

I have used Fitday.com in the past with great satisfaction, and even bought the package to install on my Windows machine. Nowadays, of course, one has lots of iPad and iPhone apps to choose among—and Android apps as well, I’m sure. The one I’m trying now is FatSecret.

I’m pretty sure that part of the problem are the roasted Roma tomatoes and asparagus: I’ve been enjoying those, but they do involve a certain amount of olive oil. I use very little—if you put a pound of asparagus in a plastic bag, you can oil it quite completely with 2 tsp of olive oil pour over it by massaging the spears inside the bag until they are fully coated—but, as I learned over my months of recording food and weight, it takes very little oil indeed to affect my weight: powerful stuff, oil.

So with a little recording and more exercise, I’ll get back on track. And the struggles are illuminating: if it all went smoothly, what would I write about?

A really exceptional shave today. It has been way too long since I used the Proraso shaving cream: I forgot how stellar it is. A wonderful, thick lather with plenty of menthol for the average guy, and then three exceptionally smooth passes with the iKon open-comb bulldog, which I am satisfied will live on as one of the great razors of the world: a truly remarkable performer. (Full disclosure: I am a loyal customer of the iKon, and I am still pleased I bought the above razor.) The blade today was a Swedish Gillette blade, but I will next use a Gillette 7 O’Clock SharpEdge, another keen-edged blade.

A splash of Proraso aftershave—quite good, though not so remarkable as the shaving cream—and then The Wife and I are going up to Santa Cruz for an outing.

Interesting review:

Spain: A Unique History
by Stanley G. Payne

A review by Matthew Kaminski

Seven years ago this spring, Spain held what should have been a valedictory sort of election. Here was a modern European success story. Spaniards were richer and freer than ever before. Their country was a European power. The ruling right and the opposition left shared equal credit for establishing a democracy and a booming economy after Franco’s death in 1975. Spain had every reason to feel proud and confident. And yet the 2004 campaign turned unusually bitter. The threats of Basque terrorism and Catalonian separatism hung over the election. The country split over the government’s support for America’s involvement in the Iraq war. Historical ghosts thought buried, among them Francisco Franco’s, floated to the surface. On the Wednesday evening before, I met a longtime resident American correspondent in Madrid over a glass of wine. “For the first time in this campaign,” she remarked, “I fully understand how the civil war could have taken place here.”

The next morning, a series of bombs killed 191 Madrid commuter train passengers. The Basque ETA was blamed first, before the fingerprints of a local al Qaeda offshoot became obvious. It was a tragic pivot. The attacks of March 11, from then on known as “11-M” or “el once eme,” tore apart assumptions about the maturity of the new Spain. A tacit agreement to leave the Civil War past alone came undone; anti-Americanism flared up, with many saying the Iraq war was to blame for the attack; eventually the economic bubble popped, too. To this day the wounds are raw. 11-M revealed a fragile nation beneath the twenty-first-century gloss — a place still haunted by “familiar demons” that once were said to make Spain unsuited for democracy and different, in some essential ways, from its Western European peers.

As in Goya or El Greco, Spain is a luminously dark place — what one of its most prominent historians, half a century ago, called “un enigma historico.” Stanley Payne has spent a professional lifetime unraveling Spanish enigmas. A Unique History, his new book’s subtitle, describes the subject more than the ambitions of this slim volume. Payne offers a series of thoughtful, provocative, and uneven essays that range from the founding of Spain to the present. Not a straightforward history, the book is historiographic and polemical, for better and worse.

Read the rest of this entry »

The US continues its futile and costly approach toward the drugs the government has targeted—for 80 years or so. Tim Johnson reports for McClatchy:

Even by the brazen standards of cocaine cowboys, what happened a few months ago at an air force base here set new levels for audacity: Drug traffickers snuck onto the heavily guarded base and retrieved a confiscated plane….

Continue reading. The gangs depend absolutely on drugs remaining illegal. I wonder to what extent legislators in the US are paid off to keep drugs illegal. Certainly our own DEA is well aware that their budget and power would drop drastically were the US to choose a sensible course with respect to drugs, but there seems to be no danger of that.

Barack Obama is not doing the US any favors by his authoritarian practices in the area of human rights. Watch this guy tie himself in knots purely because he is unwilling (or not allowed) to speak the simple truth—and how obvious are his evasions and his disdain for the American public.

Today I decided to use my Gillette red-tipped Super Speed after viewing this splendid restoration on Kafeneio. My Rooney Style 1, Size 1 made a fine lather from QED’s Grapefruit & Peppermint shaving soap—though it was one of those weird ones that faded a lot in the third pass. I’ll try it again tomorrow out of curiosity, using a different brush.

Still, plenty of lather at the beginning and enough at the end for a good pass. I used a new Rapira blade and it did a fine job. A smidgin of Castle Forbes Lavender balm, and now I’m cleaning up for the cleaning ladies.

Holder promised that the Federal government would stay away from medical marijuana in states that had legalized it. And yet recently the Feds made 28 raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and the like in just a few weeks. And now, US Attorneys (over whom one would think that Holder has some influence) are warning that the Federal government will arrest state employees working a state-approved medical marijuana program.

Maybe we need a better Attorney General—one on whose statements we can rely. And perhaps he or she could (unlike Holder) address serious government abuses (e.g., illegal wiretapping and domestic surveillance, torture, illegal imprisonment, and the like) rather than spending lots of money on pointless pursuit of medical marijuana patients and suppliers.

Our Spanish teacher told us that the various Native American languages spoken in Mexico are referred to as “dialects,” even by linguists there who undoubtedly know better. These “dialects” (presumably of Spanish) are, of course, totally different languages that development independently. It is like referring to Japanese as a “dialect” of English.

But to refer to Nahuatl and other indigenous languages as “languages” (“idiomas”) rather than “dialects” (“dialectos”) would be to show some respect for the native people and their culture, and apparently that is to be avoided at all costs. Rather, the rule seems to be to practice denigration and gratuitous disrespect.

Once again an extremely nice lather from a Cyril R. Salter shaving cream. This almond cream has a pleasant fragrance, and the Omega artificial badger produce a bountiful lather immediately. The Mühle with a Swedish Gillette blade made three smooth passes, and Mr. Taylor’s aftershave made for a fine finish.

Obama: the big disappointment. Promised transparency, embraces secrecy. Promised to close Guantánamo, is keeping it open. Promised to protect whistleblowers, is pursuing them with unparalleled vengeance. Promised to uphold the law, prevents any investigation into government misdeeds of the past decade. And it goes on. Take a look at this latest development:

A Pentagon official yesterday leaked word to the Associated Press that accused WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning was being transferred out of the Quantico Marine brig where he has been held under inhumane conditions for 10 months, and moved to the Army’s prison facility in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. The Pentagon did not even bother to notify Manning’s lawyer of the transfer; he had to learn of it through the media leak. As most media reports on this transfer note, the move takes place “in the wake of international criticism about his treatment.” In particular, the AP story explains:

Manning’s move to a new detention center comes about a week after a U.N. torture investigator complained that he was denied a request to make an unmonitored visit to Manning. . . . Two days later, a committee of Germany’s parliament protested about Manning’s treatment to the White House. And Amnesty International has said Manning’s treatment may violate his human rights [ed.: actually, the Amnesty condemnation was far more emphatic than that].

Additionally, the British government formally raised concerns with the U.S. over the treatment of Manning (whose mother is a British citizen). State Department reporters had begun aggressively questioning officials about their refusal to allow unmonitored U.N. access to Manning (after all, even the Bush administration allowed unmonitored visits by human rights organizations to accused top Al Qaeda Terrorists held at Guantanamo).

Combine all that with the compelled “resignation” of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley for his public denunciation of Manning’s treatment — and the forced defense by President Obama of this treatment when he was asked about it in a Press Conference by ABC News‘ Jake Tapper — and it’s obvious that this has exploded into a serious political and international scandal for the Obama administration. Add on to all that the fact that Manning’s counsel was preparing to file a habeas corpus petition after brig officials just ruled that they would indefinitely continue Manning’s oppressive treatment against the advice of the brig’s psychiatric experts, and it’s not difficult to see why this transfer was politically necessary.

How Manning will be treated in Ft. Leavenworth remains to be seen, and it’s impossible to know the psychological injuries that have already been inflicted on him by 10 months of inhumane detention. NBC News‘ Jim Miklaszewski claims that “he’ll be placed in a new medium-security facility,” and will “have some freedom of movement in an open day room, have contact and take meals with fellow prisoners, shower when he wants and have access to books and TV” and “have three hours a day of recreation time.” If that happens, that will be a positive development, but what’s particularly interesting about Miklaszewski’s report is how extensively some military and government officials acknowledge wrongdoing (anonymously, of course, lest they meet Crowley’s fate): . . .

Continue reading. There is a glimmer of hope in the way this story broke. Details at the link.

Not much happening today. I went to Healthy Way for my penultimate check-in: one more, and I’m done with the initial maintenance program. (I could continue, but I believe I have it in hand.)

My exercise bike came, and I’m assembling it. This is one of the good ones: very little assembly required, well-packaged parts and fasteners, excellent instructions in booklet. So far I’m very happy with it: seems quite solid.

I realize I also sort of like assembling things. Over the years—my God, how many swing sets did I assemble?—I’ve learned the essentials:

1. Don’t rush: don’t try to meet a deadline. (No swing sets assembled Xmas eve, for example.)
2. Unpack everything completely and spread it out, and make sure you have all the fasteners.
3. Read over the full set of instructions before starting.
4. Then take it one step at a time—again: no rush. Slow and steady wins the race.

I get into it and fall into that productive focused state of mind that allows one to work steadily through a task not of intrinsic interest by finding flow and focus—the same sort of state of mind (calm, unrushed, focused) that is so helpful in completing tax returns, T&E reports, and the like.

It helps, of course, that this bike is solid, well-made, and the pieces all fit.

I had a very good Pilates session, but I still have to focus a lot on form: not much is yet habitual—well, probably more than I realize: the instructor naturally enough focuses on improving my form, but on some the exercises she indicated that I am definitely getting it. Out of 8 reps, I probably do 2 that are good—and we try to end on the good ones.

Back to the bike. I plan to pedal my way through Wire in the Blood tonight.

I just received a note written on a card like the above. It’s letterpress printed on extremely nice cardstock. They have a fine selection—hand-drawn, hand-printed. www.dandylionpress.com

They’re really great for those occasions when you want to knock someone’s socks off when they open the envelope.

Seeing the Progress in the video clip reminded me that I haven’t used that guy lately. So today, after a very nice lather from Col. Conk, thanks to my Plisson Chinese Grey, I made three passes with the Progress holding a Swedish Gillette blade. Very smooth result, to which I applied a hearty splash of New York, certainly a great fragrance.

Fascinating video, via Bruce on Shaving (excellent site for information on shaving and its tools):

At the beginning of the description of the TTO razors (specifically, the Vision), they have a brief montage of razors “with butterfly doors.” You’ll note among the others shown the Progress, which lacks butterfly doors.