Later On

This is a new development. I just noticed it today, but in that way when you realize that you’re just now aware of something felt vaguely once or twice before. I wanted to go for a walk—not so much as a duty but for its own sake: the enjoyment.

Well, obviously, this is exactly what one wants: to make duty a pleasure, to derive enjoyment from a chore. That’s the whole idea behind the traditional wetshaving movement: make the necessary shave an enjoyable ritual. So, for exercise, too? Of course!

But it happened not by conscious plan, but (I’m prepared to believe) by my unconscious. I can readily see how the unconscious self might become convinced that exercise is important and thus start to activate motivators—and the little shot of dopamine is just the thing, augmented by a smidgin of smugness about getting the recommended amount of exercise (“30-minute walk daily”). But that’s a conscious pleasure, I suppose. And, on the conscious level, I’m certainly aware that the walk is now easy, the time short, and a real pleasure in knowing that walking a lot longer would not provide any significant increase in benefit. It makes me feel like I’m getting away with something—shooting the moon.

Now that it’s a pleasure, I find myself making sure to work it into the day—emphasis on “sure”: I want to know exactly when I will take my walk, and by Jove, I’m out the door on the dot if not before. … I recall just now a few days ago when I looked at my watch, realized I had nothing I needed to do in the next hour, and immediately set off for my walk—no MP3 player, no hat, no waiting: look at watch, glance at sky (sort of overcast but not threatening), and walk away. I also remember picturing the turnaround point for my walk and thinking that it was fairly close—or at worst, not far.

So now I need to figure out how one could deliberately cause such a transition in point of view. I’m certainly going to enjoy (while I can) this new mindset, but I really would like to explain how someone else might achieve such a result—the same impulse that made me write the shaving book.

Via The Firearm Blog:

Megs, taking a rest after an exhausting bath:

An email I just received from Slate & Shell:

Anders Kierulf, creator of SmartGo Kifu for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod, has created a free app for these three devices, called ‘Go Books’.

Available from iTunes, the app offers several go eBooks, including two books from Slate & Shell. The first contains four games of Go Seigen’s ten game match with Fujisawa Kuranosuke, with full commentary presented by John Fairbairn. The second is four commentaries on professional games by Yuan Zhou, who is well known for producing commentaries that are helpful to weaker as well as stronger players.

Each of the eBooks costs $4.99.

While not available yet, we look forward to seeing the same sort of app for Android devices.

Understanding spoken Spanish is still a challenge, but by listening daily to 20 minutes of Spanish, together with listening to Spanish spoken in class and the audio and video used in the course, I’m slowly progressing.

I don’t like questions that ask me whether jovenes is a noun or an adjective. I don’t like them because it depends on context and that option is not offered. (Still steaming a bit about current exercise in textbook.)

Sounds intriguing:

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
by Manning Marable

A review by David Garrow

In 1965, a fascinating political voice was silenced when a team of assassins gunned down Malcolm X, a man whose intellectual and religious journey had finally transformed him into an eloquent spokesman for human equality. No comprehensive and credible biography of this signally important black freedom advocate has appeared in more than 35 years, but now, in the appropriately titled Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, Columbia University professor Manning Marable fills this void with a landmark book that reflects not only thorough research and accessible prose but, most impressively, unvarnished assessments and consistently acute interpretive judgments.

Malcolm, of course, chronicled — or authorized journalist Alex Haley to chronicle — his own life in his famous The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published nine months after he died, but Marable definitively establishes that the Autobiography omitted some significant aspects of Malcolm’s youthful criminal life while dramatically exaggerating others. Several chapters Malcolm had prepared were deleted before publication, and he did not review important portions of what millions of readers would think of as “his political testament.” The Autobiography as published, Marable warns, “is more Haley’s than its author’s.”

Read the rest of this entry »

During my morning shave, I got to thinking about gender-specific occupational titles (aviator/aviatrix, executor/executrix, actor/actress, waiter/waitress, steward/stewardess, fireman/firewoman, and the like).

Without getting into personal preferences, I find it interesting just to look at what is happening. I think I detect a general movement in the language as used today in the US toward gender-neutral occupational titles: aviator for both, for example, and food server instead of waiter/waitress (or using “waiter” for both, since “one who waits” could be either sex), flight attendant instead of steward/stewardess, firefighter instead of fireman/firewoman (plus “firefighter” is more glamorous and active, though I see no move toward calling police officers “crimefighters” in the same way).

There’s a tendency toward using “actor” for both sexes, though of course the Academy reinforces the actor/actress distinction with their awards. “Comedian” seems to be taking over for comedian/comedienne, and (though not occupations) fiancé and fiancée continue to be used, often incorrectly. (One often sees in print the bride-to-be referred to as someone’s “fiancé”.)

Then I hit a whole list of titles that never seemed to be gender-specific: “chief” was the first, but also: attorney, lawyer, doctor, physician, surgeon, dentist, professor, president, vice-president, judge, and so on. I got to wondering why those don’t have gender-specific forms. I speculate that women were effectively barred from those professions until recent times, so terms specific to women practitioners never became established. One did what I just did: “women practitioners” rather than “practitionesses”. So one saw “woman attorney,” “woman doctor” (not meaning gynecologist), and so on: the term is gender neutral, and if you need to know the sex of the practitioner, you add that separately—much as is done for the gender-neutral term “prostitute”, where one sees occasionally “male prostitute”, though that often is used when the sex of the prostitute is already clear from the context, as though the writer though that “prostitute” was gender-specific. I don’t think it is. One can prostitute oneself whether male or female.

At any rate, it’s an interesting clutch of words, and we see the change going on around us.

UPDATE: Interesting: I thought that “editor” was now solidly gender-neutral, but I just started reading Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water and find her thanking an editrix in the acknowlegements—and Ms. Yuknavitch has been reviewed as a good authoress (I suppose I should follow her preference in writing about her).

I wanted to go Italian this morning, but I have no Italian razor. Still, I did succeed in getting an easy Italian majority among the shaving tools today.

The Omega brush is a marvel: big, soft, and luscious on the face, it worked up a fine lather from the Figaro shaving cream/soap, and I love Figaro’s bitter-almond fragrance. Three smooth passes with the Hoffritz slant bar holding a Swedish Gillette blade, then a splash of Floïd and I’m ready for the day.

This train of thought began when I described what seemed to be the traditional view of marriage: a “traditional marriage.”

I noted that “traditional marriage” doesn’t work as the standard description of a heterosexual marriage, because that can be taken to mean all sorts of things: submissive wife, dominant husband; husband works, wife stays at home; etc.

I got called pretty quickly on the described structure, which led to this chain of thought. As the above note makes clear, this is in the context of discussing gay marriage and whether the word “marriage” is appropriate for a gay union.

First, I want to note that I am the last person to endorse a relationship in which either partner is dominant—I’m an egalitarian sort of guy. I was trying to describe “traditional marriage”—the picture of the sort of ideal marriage of the Right (which I think is much more keen on this sort of thing than the Left). And in that picture, the husband is dominant and that is justified with many Biblical quotations. And indeed that view of marriage has the husband at work and the wife tending house.

Again, I don’t endorse such a model, but I think this is how most Americans today would describe a “traditional marriage.” And in fact that model is becoming rare—thus the energy evident when talking about the state of marriage. (It’s well known—and I’ve even blogged it—that the divorce rates are highest where the defense of “traditional marriage” is strongest: the Bible Belt. To me, that on the face of it indicates that “traditional marriage” really doesn’t work all that well, statistically speaking. And in fact the state with the lowest divorce rate was the first state to allow gay marriage: Massachusetts.)

The facts here seem to tell a story, and it’s a story about how “marriage”, as a word and a social institution, is evolving and changing. Like many social evolutions, the direction is toward greater inclusion.

In the Bible, for example, the precept to love one’s neighbor as oneself meant, at the time, a member of one’s own tribe. Others? Barbarians, in effect—they don’t count and indeed served as slaves (if not in Biblical times, certainly in our own recent national past).

As time passed, the meaning of the precept changed, grew, and evolved, becoming progressively more inclusive—i.e., the term “neighbor” became more and more extended—first to one’s countrymen, no doubt, and then to one’s race, and then to all people except the marginalized (depending on the situation: people of other races or the other sex, gays, lesbians, and others). The most idealistic extended “neighbor” to mean all humanity, without regard to sex, race, color, creed, sexual orientation, disability, and so on.

I would think that applying that precept today would mean, among other things, accepting that when two of our neighbors are adults in love who want to commit to a life together, it is appropriate to call that “marriage,” because (in my mind) that is what marriage has always been, even if in earlier times people did not allow it for everyone, but restricted participation to members of one group—e.g., members of the same race, opposite sex, etc.—a group of which, perhaps coincidentally, they happen to be a member and thus can participate.

I come down on the side of broadening the term “marriage” to be more inclusive. But undoubtedly there’s a transition period, during which some accept the new meaning and some not. The interesting thing is that we already know where it’s going: The trend is clearly toward acceptance, as is evident by looking at statistics by age group. So as the younger generations take their turn on stage, that is what “marriage” will mean. The war’s over, the outcome’s known. And this is completely consistent with the overall evolution of social institutions and rules over the centuries: becoming more and more inclusive.

But of course I’m a guy who insists that “data” is a plural, the singular of which is “datum,” and other such futile causes. (Esperanto?).

I believe I’ve based this analysis on actual facts and current knowledge. I am, of course, always willing to revisit and revise my position in the light of new information (a process I like to call “learning” ).

I’m watching Fair Game, and it’s gut-wrenching to watch the essentially factual recounting of what actually happened, in this country, little more than a decade ago.

But I suppose some bumps are to be expected as our form of government shifts from representative democracy to an oligarchic plutocracy. That process is well on its way—they’ve even put in two presidents in succession. (Any doubt that Obama is a promoter and protector of the new order should by now be put to rest, as the previous post indicates. And, of course, he has embraced with his protection the wrong-doers and wrong-doing of the previous administration.)

So: who exactly comprise this oligarchic plutocracy. The obvious way to identify them is to start with the curiously wealthy and curiously immune from accountability financial sector: they clearly raped the country and stole money from millions and basically ignored the law altogether—Bank of America, for example, has foreclosed on houses on which the mortgage was already paid off. And they won’t stop—why should they? They know that they are now immune.

Look at the fraud that led to the recent financial collapse. From the financial industry. Any repercussions? A week of bad press. Certainly no one went to jail. Why? Because these are part of the new order, members of the oligarchic plutocracy.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that all future presidents will be pawns of the oligarchic plutocratic power structure, just as Bush was and Obama is proving to be. Reason: no one can be president without their approval and support. That doesn’t mean that they necessarily pick the winner. They don’t have to: they pick the slate. Which particular one wins is not of much moment: all dance to the same piper, and the ultimate winner will be well aware of the source of his or her victory and, ultimately, of the power of the office.

As to the existence of this oligarchic plutocracy: again, look at who is profiting most from the current situation, whether laws are broken, and whether anyone is held accountable.

Excellent and specific analysis of how Obama has been adopting Bush policies down the line. By Steven Thomma of McClatchy, it begins:

He ran as the anti-Bush.

Silver-tongued, not tongue-tied. A team player on the world stage, not a lone cowboy. A man who’d put a stop to reckless Bush policies at home and abroad. In short, Barack Obama represented Change.

Well, that was then. Now, on one major policy after another, President Barack Obama seems to be morphing into George W. Bush.

On the nation’s finances, the man who once ripped Bush as a failed leader for seeking to raise the nation’s debt ceiling now wants to do it himself.

On terrorism, he criticized Bush for sending suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and denying them access to U.S. civilian courts. Now he says he’ll do the same.

On taxes, he called the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy wrong, and lately began calling again to end them. But in December he signed a deal with Republicans to extend them for two years, and recently he called the entire tax cut package good for the country. . .

Continue reading.

Very interesting article by Martha Rose Shulman in the NY Times, which includes a recipe for Tuscan Bread and Tomato Soup. And also some interesting recipes, beyond the article:

• Majorcan Bread and Vegetable Soup
• Apple-Spice Breakfast Soup
• ‘Bouillabaisse’ of Fresh Peas With Poached Eggs
• Ribollita

The Majorcan Bread and Vegetable Soup is particularly interesting, and I plan to make it. I do not understand, though, why the first step is cooking a bunch of stuff in an “ovenproof casserole” when it never goes into the oven. Why not just use a pot? The soup is transferred from that initial vessel into a casserole that’s put into the oven—that’s where the ovenproof casserole would be useful.

Not very impressive, but who knows what political restraints have been placed on him to say nothing, just mouth platitudes. Weak. Steve Rolles writes at Transform:

I met the US Drug Tsar Gil Kerlikowske recently. It was at a reception at the US Ambassador’s residence in Vienna during the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. This is an annual event, and a welcome opportunity for the NGOs attending the CND in an official capacity (Transform has ECOSOC special consultative status) to meet various US figures and ONDCP staff.

I asked how the potential tensions between state, federal and international law might play out if one of the US State ballot initiatives to legalise and regulate cannabis/marijuana was passed by voters. Kerlikowske’s answer was to list a number of arguments against legalisation – all familiar to those who followed the debate around Prop 19 in California last year.

I responded by saying that I understood the arguments for and against, but was specifically interested in what would happen in terms of the conflicts between state, federal and international law, given the the likelihood that one of the various proposed state ballot initiatives would pass in 2012 (the California initiative is set to rerun, as well as initiatives in Colorado, and other states). This time Kerlikowske pointed out that 56% of voters in California had been sufficiently concerned about Marijuana abuse and drug driving to oppose the 2011 prop 19 initiative.

So I essentially repeated the question; quite aside from the debate and public opinion, what is the Federal response or sequence of events, should such an initiative actually succeed? – noting that this was a reasonable question given how close the Californian vote had been and the likelihood, probable certainty that one of the other initiatives would succeed in the near future. This time Kerlikowske responded that he didn’t ‘deal in hypotheticals’  - a response familiar to Prop 19 debate watchers.

So, pointing out that those in policy-making naturally had to deal with hypotheticals as a matter of routine, I asked a slightly rephrased question; had the ONDCP done any scenario planning to explore this particular hypothetical, given its likely imminent move to non-hypothetical status. Kerlikowske replied that he ‘couldn’t comment’.

This was one of those unenlightening conversations that NGOs have with politically appointed civil servants on an almost daily basis – so largely expected. But a curious fact about the ONDCP director’s role, that puts these sorts of conversations into some perspective, is that his position on legalisation is specifically mandated:

According to Title VII Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998: H11225:

Responsibilities. –The Director– [...]
(12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that–

1. is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
2. has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;

Whatever Kerlikowske’s views, and whatever evidence he is presented with (as he is not allowed to let the ONDCP gather any) he is duty bound to proffer a blanket opposition to any form of move to legally regulated markets, for any reason.  There is something fundamentally obnoxious and anti-science about this wording, contained as it is in an Act of Congress, especially given the fact that Kerlikowske’s statements on legalisation are often superficially factual (as indeed is the risible DEA guide ‘Speaking Out Against Legalisation’). How balanced can we expect this analysis to be if all research on non-drug war options is forbidden and all comments subject to Congressional diktat?

More concerning were recent comments from Kerlikowske in an interview with Foriegn Policy in which legalisation cropped up again: . . .

Continue reading.

The nation’s drug policy is, dare I say it?, completely stupid, wrong-headed, expensive, ineffective, and not informed by any experience, research, or even common sense.

This looks like a good recipe. The ingredients:

3 lbs. skin-on chicken legs
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, sliced into ¼ inch half-rounds
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 cup white wine
2 bay leaves
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup kumquats
1 cup green olives
Salt and pepper

I love kumquats in cooking, and the combination with green olives sounds great. I think I’ll make this, but with MUCH less olive oil.

From Wired UK by Mark Brown:

Speaking at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in California, MIT professor Daniel Nocera claims to have created an artificial leaf made from stable and inexpensive materials that mimics nature’s photosynthesis process.

The device is an advanced solar cell, no bigger than a typical playing card, which is left floating in a pool of water. Then, much like a natural leaf, it uses sunlight to split the water into its two core components, oxygen and hydrogen, which are stored in a fuel cell to be used when producing electricity.

Nocera’s leaf is stable — operating continuously for at least 45 hours without a drop in activity in preliminary tests — and made of widely available, inexpensive materials — like  silicon, electronics and chemical catalysts. It’s also powerful, as much as 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf.

With a single gallon of water, Nocera says, the chip could produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing country for an entire day. Provide every house on the planet with an artificial leaf and we could satisfy our 14-terrawatt need with just one gallon of water a day.

Those are impressive claims, but they’re also not just pie-in-the-sky, conceptual thoughts. Nocera has already signed a contract with a global megafirm to commercialize his groundbreaking idea. The mammoth Indian conglomerate, Tata Group has forged a deal with the MIT professor to build a small power plant, the size of a refrigerator, in about a year and a half.

This isn’t the first ever artificial leaf, of course. The concept of emulating nature’s energy-generating process has been around for decades and many scientists have tried to create leaves in that time. The first, built more than 10 years ago by John Turner of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was efficient at faking photosynthesis but was made of rare and hugely expensive materials. It was also highly unstable, and had a lifespan of barely one day.

For now, Nocera is setting his sights on developing countries. “Our goal is to make each home its own power station,” he said. “One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology.”

The Wife and I are getting along well enough that we can have fairly strenuous Pilates sessions without constant correction of form. Not to deceive: corrections are frequent, and generally address the same small set of problems. But we respond better and there are periods when we either don’t need correction or the instructor has decided to cut us a break.

Today was spent on the Reformer, but there are some Wunda Chair exercises I want to try. Take a look at these, for example:

As anyone who reads about the religious right know, a seemingly large segment of American Christians constantly complain about how Christians are persecuted in the US—e.g., by people saying “Happy Holidays” in December instead of the formulation those persecuted prefer. And, of course, they see the separation of church and state as antithetical to their values, much as do the Taliban.

A comment on this post by Ed Brayton hit the nail on the head:

Christians are so persecuted.

I just hope I live to see the day when an openly Christian person can be elected to public office.

Posted by: anandine

The FDA seems to be too often missing in action. Kiera Butler at Mother Jones reports:

. . . Skin-lightening products aren’t well regulated in Jamaica, and some can contain dangerous ingredients like mercury. Many are made with hydroquinone, an organic compound that can cause ochronosis, a condition where skin becomes tough and, ironically, dark.

The health risks posed by hydroquinone are well known. In fact, it’s banned in Japan, the EU, and Australia. But here in the US, it’s still available over the counter, and it’s on the FDA’s list of “generally regarded as safe and effective” (GRASE) ingredients. Strange, considering that the FDA acknowledges that hydroquinone causes ochronosis and even that it’s a potential carcinogen. In light of these concerns, the agency proposed taking it off the GRASE list in 2006, but little has happened since then. (Sound familiar?) “In the interim,” says the FDA on its hydroquinone website, “we believe that hydroquinone should remain available as an OTC drug product.” Naturally, industry groups are downplaying the ingredient’s health threat with their usual zeal. For a list of cosmetics that contain hydroquinone, check out the Environmental Working Group’s guide here.

If hydroquinone weren’t bad enough, some skin lighteners contain . . .

Continue reading.

Do not miss, if you possibly can. Thanks to The Wife for the pointer.

From The Center for American Progress in an email:

Today is Tax Day, and the tax forms that have been piling up on desks (or Internet browsers, thanks to technology) across the country are due. Taxes are complicated, unpopular, and fund a variety of government programs.  Because of their unpopularity, and because taxpayers have naturally different opinions on the programs taxes fund, taxes have long been an easy issue for politicians, the wealthy, and corporate-funded front groups to  demagogue and spread falsehoods about. Because they are unpopular, they are a valuable political tool, and candidates have used “No New Taxes” pledges or accusations that an opponent wants to raise taxes to gain electoral advantages since the very beginnings of American politics. There are plenty of myths about taxes: who pays them, who doesn’t, who has raised them, who hasn’t, what your tax dollars fund, and what they don’t. Tax Day seems an appropriate time to address some of the misconceptions that have been continuously injected into the debate about taxes.

MYTH #1 — AMERICANS ARE UNHAPPY WITH THEM:   Over the past two years, the Tea (“Taxed Enough Already”) Party and other “grassroots” movements have helped spread the idea that Americans are unhappy with how much they have to pay in taxes each year. But recent polls have shown that the   majority of Americans actually think their annual tax payments are fair. An AP poll found that only 46 percent of Americans believe they pay too much in taxes, while a Fox News poll pegged that number even lower, at 43 percent. No one likes to pay taxes, but as these polls show, Americans understand that they are necessary.  Taxes pay for  the military, national parks, law enforcement agencies, infrastructure maintenance, repair and improvements, social programs and a host of other programs that go unnoticed in our daily lives. But despite the intense anti-tax rhetoric of the Tea Party and affiliated groups, these polls confirm that Americans understand why they pay taxes, and believe that they are paying their fair share when they do.

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