Later On

Excellent column by Glenn Greenwald. Here are just the two updates, worth in themselves (well, the second for the link):

UPDATE:  In comments, spinozista points to this observation from Thomas Jefferson, in his 1824 letter to Henry Lee, that so perfectly captures David Brooks and his like-minded comrades:

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.

What I find most odious about Brooks and most of the members of the establishment media who think like him is not that they are in Jefferson’s category (1) — though they obviously are.  It’s that they never stop insisting on the deceitful pretense that they’re in category (2).

UPDATE II:  Someone who actually understands British politics – this British journalist from the British newspaper Telegraph – explains that Brooks has no idea what he’s talking about.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Obama Administration is vigorously and deliberately undermining and curtailing individual rights once granted to Americans by the Constitution. As a Constitutional scholar and one-time professor, Obama seems to know exactly how to destroy those rights, and the process seems to me to be pretty far along: once the government can get any case against it thrown out of court just by saying the three magic words (“state secrets privilege”), then it can do pretty much anything it likes. And, of course, the Supreme Court independently has given all prosecutors a free pass to allow them to get convictions by illegal means without having to worry whether that might get them into trouble: they now have immunity.

It’s quite bad. Read this summary of the latest outrage—a refusal even to provide reasons for the decision that the FBI is no longer bound by any legal restraints on obtaining and using telephone records—and, of course, NSA is now sweeping up everything transmitted, voice or data, and using ThinThread to analyze it (for an explanation—and yet another Constitutional outrage from Obama—see this article).

She’s union. Union employees are protected against unreasonable job terminations. See the entire article by Dean Baker here.

Tom Geoghegan made the same point in his excellent (and highly recommended) book Which Side Are You On?: Trying to be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back. In the case reported there, a white-collar worker was fired for reasons he thought were illegal, and he took the company to court. None of his colleagues would testify on his behalf except for the shop foreman, with whom he worked. His (white-collar) colleagues figured if they testified on behalf of their friend, the company would immediately fire them. The shop foreman didn’t have to worry about that: he was a member of a union and the company could not fire him simply for testifying in the trial.

The fact is that companies hate unions because most companies depend heavily on fear (slight, almost unnoticeable, but always present) to control employees, and if an employee is not afraid that she or he will be fired instantly upon displeasing some boss, then she or he might show signs of standing up for the rights of customers or employees or even—dread thought—himself or herself.

I went Floris 89 today. The Tres Claveles horsehair shaving brush worked up a very fine lather from the Floris 89 soap—very fine in that the bubbles were extremely small and the lather was quite dense, almost like shaving cream. Quite good, actually. The Mühle open-comb with a previously used Astra Keramik Platinum blade did a very smooth job, three passes. I generally do just one pass with the grain, one across the grain, and a final one against the grain, but the XTG passs is actually two passes on the chin and upper lip, though I don’t lather for the second: just two quick passes, one in each direction. And the final ATG pass may require some additional work in some areas (typically under my chin and jawline, where I also have to pull the skin to raise the stubble for the polishing pass).

A splash of Floris 89 aftershave, and I’m ready for my final first-semester Spanish class. I wonder how many will show…

The latest decision from the Supreme Court—that prosecutors and other state officials cannot be charged with crimes that they commit in the course of their official duties (crimes such as concealing evidence to enable conviction and imprisonment of an innocent person)—ensures that we’ll be seeing much more aggressive behavior from police and prosecutors.

This post from Ed Brayton is chilling. As he points out, there will be no repercussions for police or prosecutor regardless of their misconduct. The audio recording show clearly who is in the right.

On retirement, I think it’s good to tackle projects expeditiously. The post-retirement years are not good for procrastination, and the idea of pilot projects comes on strong.

For example, I have a friend my age (~70) who just retired. I spent my last five work years laying a foundation for retirement by exploring and developing non-work interests. My friend has been mainly work-focused, and I don’t believe he’s given much thought to his post-retirement life.

There are some overall strategic directions to decide that can do a rough sort on activities. For example, my friend has liked to travel, and one possibility is a retirement of travel, which he can afford. OTOH, that direction seems inconsistent with having a pet or a garden, both of which might also appeal.

I do know that he likes growing things, so a garden is certainly a possibility. While it would be unwise to make a big upfront commitment before developing a plan—exploring the possibilities for where he lives (climate and community), learning more about types of gardens, reading up on gardens, plants, and suppliers, and so on—it seems to me both logical and desirable to launch (this week, say) enough of a garden to provide learning and experience for when a proper garden is launched. I’m thinking of 3-4 tomato plants and (say) a 4′x4′ herb garden. That he could do immediately without a big commitment—if it fails, no biggie—and it should provide enough experience and information to help him decide whether this is a direction he wants to go.

Another good retirement project is achieving fitness—desirable for its results as well as being (assuming you select shrewdly) a pleasurable activity. He happens to live in the same city as a premier Pilates studio, so I suggested that he immediately sign up for 10 private sessions—at 3/week, that’s not even a month, and the experience would give him a basis for deciding whether this is a direction to go. Again: if the project fails, no biggie and good information. And again, this is something he can start this week.

Thanks to Maxwell Anderson for the line (from “September Song”) that provided the post title.

Iris Willow, an Esperantist for more than 30 years, passed away last year. There was a note in the current issue of Usona Esperantisto that included a short poem she wrote:

Ŝtormo senfoliigas arbon;
neĝo endormigas teron;
vento senesperige blovas;
urson dormemo allitigas.

Vowel sounds are as Italian or Spanish. Accent is always on the antepenułt. Some nice nonce words in the poem. Take senesperige, for example. Vento means “wind” (as in moving air) and blovas is the verb: blov- is a root meaning “blow” (moving air) and -as is the ending that indicates present tense indicative mood and active voice. The word of interest is the adverb, senesperige. It parses as follows:

sen- signifies “without”
-esper- a root meaning “hope”, as in esperi, “to hope”, or espero “hope” (noun).
-ig- an affix that means “to cause (to be)”, roughly, but definitely causation.
-e is the ending that signifies an adverb.

So the manner in which this wind blows erases hope.

You see -ig- again in the final line: allitigas is again present indicative active (the -as suffix: it’s the same for all verbs and doesn’t vary by person or number) and it breaks down easily: al- (to) -lit- (root meaning “bed”) -ig- (cause) -as: “causes to go to bed”.

The subject of that verb is dormemo (dor- is a root meaning “sleep”, -em- is a suffix that means “having a tendency to”, and -o is the ending that signifies a noun in the nominative case).

The object is urson: ur- being the root meaning “bear” (the animal) and -on being the ending for a noun in the objective case. (Esperanto has only the two cases: nominative and objective. Prepositions govern the objective.)

So the last line is, more or less, “Sleepiness forces the bear to bed.”

Now: back to español.

I didn’t think it would affect me that much—only one class—but I’ve been sitting here going through the list of sample questions for the 10-minute oral exam, saying aloud my answers and more or less constantly checking what I say for the little things (like aprender requires an a before the following infinitive, but gustar and pensar (for example) do not—that sort of thing: checking, verifying, learning).

And, of course, I’m more or less constantly adding words to my “Random Spanish” deck. This morning:

la colada (laundry)
hacer la colada (do the laundry)

That immediately led to looking at piña, of course, which means “pineapple”: pineapple laundry? I don’t know…

Then I checked:

el colado (hill, or when in mountains, a pass; I already knew la colina as a word for “hill” so it’s nice to have another)

Also:

la feria (fair), which led to:
feriar (to sell something at a fair: no corresponding word in English, and I love to find those)

I suppose the point, if any, is that blogging will be quite light for a few days. Studying for the final tends to drive me to learn lots of little things I don’t need—for example, I just learned a bunch of prepositions that take yo and tú as objects (según, salvo, menos, excepto, incluso, entre, among others). The salvo led to learning salvo/a, salvar, a salvo, etc.—all variations on “save” or “safety”.

I dug through my box of blades to find what appears to be my last packet of Bolzano, an Italian blade that is (for me) quite nice. So we have:

France: Plisson HMW 12
Italy: Proraso shaving cream and Bolzano blade
Germany: Hoffritz slant bar razor
Spain: La Toja aftershave from Barcelona, which I’ve decided is my favorite Spanish city. (I should admit that I’ve never been to Spain.)

Proraso is really a remarkably fine shaving cream, and I always get a bountiful and pleasing lather. Three very smooth passes, a splash of La Toja, and I’m ready to hit the books.

The NY Times editorial takes notice of the fact that the Executive can now do whatever it wants and we have no legal recourse at all: the DoJ lawyers merely say the magic words “State Secrets Privilege” and any case against the government must be immediately dismissed, a victory won by the Obama Administration.

The push to undermine and ultimately destroy public education (didn’t you know that education should go only to those who can afford it?) is increasing. Take a look at this.

I find myself making curries, and the recipe has drifted in this direction:

4 oz tempeh, cut into thin chunks and marinated in teriyaki sauce (actually, teriyaki sauce with peanut sauce with some mirin)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 small crookneck squash, chopped
3 large mushrooms, sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into squares
1/4 head cauliflower, broken into florets
1/3 large eggplant, cubed
1 cup frozen peas
hefty squirt of Sriracha sauce
about 1.5 cups chicken stock

Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, then add good sprinkling of hot curry powder (I use Penzey’s) and 1/4 cup couscous.

Cover and simmer for 10 more minutes. Stir in about 1/4 c or so of miso.

Put a serving in a bowl, top with chutney, then with yogurt.

I don’t know about you, but when I get a fresh quart of yogurt (I’m currently using Nancy’s Organic Fat Free—it’s hard to find one that doesn’t use pectin, but this one’s okay), I eat a narrow channel—the width of a spoon—down one side of the quart container, and whenever I go to the container, I eat all the whey that’s collected and keep the channel open. This in effect drains the yogurt in its own container, making yogurt cheese.

I do love chutneys, and on my last trip to Whole Foods got a good variety. Tonight I had the very last of the spicy mango chutney and a good spoonful of the spicy plum chutney. And the yogurt (from the top of the quart container) was definitely thickened.

Read it here.

Posted at Open Culture by Sheerly Avni:

The National Jukebox, the new digital musical player of the Library of Congress, features more than 10,000 songs released by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925 (with the promise of more to come). You can build your own playlist from the many genres of music available, which include some extremely rare recordings from different genres including 0pera, blues, yodeling, jazz, and much, much more.

We also love the disclaimer on the website’s front page: WARNING: Historical recordings may contain offensive language. It’s quite easy to see why the warning is necessary, especially after some time spent listening to the comedy section.

If you want to see a Victor Talking Machine in action, you can watch one getting demoed here.

One benefit (seldom realized) of having states is to allow state-by-state experimentation before launching programs nationally. Vermont, in a step that seems exciting to me, is set to launch a single-payer healthcare system. Take a look.

It gives one hope.

Time for a new blade for the Gillette President, so I brought out one of the Iridium Super. This is quite a good blade for me, but since it’s a blade, YMMV. (I’ll never forget the guy on the shaving forum who posted that he knew this was a terrible blade—because of the name! He had never tried the blade, but the name of the blade let him know it was a bad blade. Talk about superpowers!)

At any rate, the Valbora shave stick once more demonstrated what a great shave stick it is, and the Omega lush silvertip worked up a fine and lasting lather: gobs of lather, a specialty of these sort of puffy Omega silvertips. Three smooth passes with the Iridium (in spite of the name), then a splash of Pitralon—and then I went to the hardware store. (See previous post.)

I just doubled the memory from 4GB to 8GB. Scott was right: it’s easy. I did a search on MacBook Pro memory upgrade and found clear instructions. It did require an early trip to the hardware store to get a #00 Phillips screwdriver, but all is well.

I have a substantial collection of fine fountain pens, and I just got out my Pelikan Souveran 800 (aka the M800; at the link, notice the button at the top right that allows you to select color). I think the M800 is the all-round best pen I own—well, the all-round best pens that I own, since I have 4 of them (the black, the blue and black, the green and black (their traditional color, shown below), and a transparent green demonstrator) as well as a couple of M1000, a sightly larger pen.

The M800 is a piston-fill pen, and the nib unit can be readily unscrewed and replaced—nice if you occasionally change nibs, and vital in the event you drop your pen and it hits point-first. I use a Broad point that John Mottishaw reshaped into italic.

I’m ordering one of these.

UPDATE: Apologies. Link fixed.

Today I looked at how much airtime I used last month—1 minute—and decided it was well past time to ditch my cellphone service and go with a prepaid cellphone. I went with Virgin Mobile: $20/3 months (i.e., $80/year), plus 20¢/minute on calls—but I doubt that will run so much as $1/month.

I can’t wait.