Later On

Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic:

Are Republicans serious when they say that the federal government should cede power to the states? Where do liberal Democrats really stand on drug prohibition? Congress must now confront those questions, thanks to Reps. Ron Paul and Barney Frank. They’re cosponsoring legislation “to limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement.” States would be free to keep the drug illegal, or to allow its use per the judgment of legislators and their constituents.

Hailed as the first bill of its kind to be introduced in Congress – that’s expected to happen later today – its states’ rights approach is significant, and forces defenders of federal drug policy into their weakest position. It’s one thing to argue that marijuana should be illegal. It’s another thing to insist that the federal government enforce a nationwide ban even as duly elected state legislatures signal that the people disagree. That is the essence of the matter. Under this bill, marijuana would be legalized only in states where the people and their representatives desire it.

Is the federal government justified in stopping them?

In the era of the Tea Party, when conservative Republicans are insisting that state governments be permitted to reject Obamacare, turn down bailout money, and otherwise flex their muscles, it’s a tough moment to insist, “Yes, marijuana is different: the feds should prevail.” Of course, the bill is likely to fail anyway. In killing it, however, various hypocrisies will be highlighted. As a result, federal prohibition of marijuana will wind up marginally less tenable than before.

Fear is the most important ingredient in an authoritarian state. First is the fear of the “Other”, which must continually be pumped up and amplified. For example, the Right has consistently portrayed terrorists (which they equate with all Muslims, hence the panicked opposition to the building of mosques) as supernaturally powerful—so powerful, in fact, that if they were ever brought onto US soil (for a trial, for example), then do you know what would happen? Well, the GOP does, and such a step would quickly lead to the downfall of the US through massive invasions of terrorists from abroad, the establishment of Sharia law throughout the US, and so on. The message is simple: Be scared, and give us enough power and we’ll make you safe.

Then, once the authoritarian state is established, people must be kept fearful lest they throw out the rascals in charge. So fear is continually pumped up, and generally an internal spying effort (like the current NSA surveillance of all communications in the US) is undertaken so that the citizens begin to fear each other. And, with people kidnapped and tortured and imprisoned for years even though they have done nothing wrong, the citizens also begin to fear their government—and rightly so.

We’re moving along in this process. People are already so afraid of terrorist that many have lost whatever reasoning ability they once possessed so that they cannot think through the implications of the direction the government is going.

And the Obama administration is determined to push the process along (with their actions, not their rhetoric). Read this column, which begins:

The Obama DOJ’s effort to force New York Times investigative journalist Jim Risen to testify in a whistleblower prosecution and reveal his source is really remarkable and revealing in several ways; it should be receiving much more attention than it is.  On its own, the whistleblower prosecution and accompanying targeting of Risen are pernicious, but more importantly, it underscores the menacing attempt by the Obama administration — as Risen yesterday pointed out — to threaten and intimidate whistleblowers, journalists and activists who meaningfully challenge what the government does in secret.

The subpoena to Risen was originally issued but then abandoned by the Bush administration, and then revitalized by Obama lawyers.  It is part of the prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent whom the DOJ accuses of leaking to Risen the story of a severely botched agency plot – from 11 years ago – to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program, a story Risen wrote about six years after the fact in his 2006 best-selling book,State of War.  The DOJ wants to force Risen to testify under oath about whether Sterling was his source.

Like any good reporter would, Risen is categorically refusing to testify and, if it comes to that (meaning if the court orders him to testify), he appears prepared to go to prison in defense of press freedoms and to protect his source (just as some young WikiLeaks supporters are courageously prepared to do rather than cooperate with the Obama DOJ’s repellent persecution of the whistleblowing site).  Yesterday, Risen filed a Motion asking the Court to quash the government’s subpoena on the ground that it violates the First Amendment’s free press guarantee, and as part of the Motion, filed a lengthy Affidavit that is amazing in several respects.

During the Bush years, Risen was one of the few investigative journalists exposing the excesses and lawbreaking that was the War on Terror — causing him to be literally hated by officials of the National Security State.  Along with Eric Lichtblau, Risen most famously revealed, in 2005, that the NSA was secretly spying on Americans without warrants which — as he put it in his Affidavit — “in all likelihood, violated the law and the United States Constitution.”  In 2006, he revealed that the Bush administration had been obtaining huge amounts of financial and banking information about American citizens from the SWIFT system, all without oversight or Congressional authorization.  And here’s how he summarized the multiple revelations in State of War, the book for which the Obama DOJ is now seeking to force him to reveal his source upon pain of imprisonment:  . . .

Continue reading. There’s a lot more and, if you reflect on it at all, it is shocking and ominous. Our kids are going to live in the nation now being created.

Just received from the Marijuana Policy Project in an email:

At long last, 74 years after it started and 40 years after President Nixon turned it into a war, we have taken the first step toward ending marijuana prohibition on the federal level.

Today, a handful of visionary and courageous Members of Congress, led by Rep. Barney Frank, introduced the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011,” a bill that would treat marijuana the way alcohol is treated under federal law. It would give each state complete freedom to regulate marijuana in the manner it believes is in the best interests of its citizens. If a state wants to make marijuana available to patients, it can. And if it prefers to make marijuana legal for all adults, it can do that, too.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted on marijuana prohibition over the past forty years. And for what? Usage rates don’t change. The price of marijuana doesn’t change. All prohibition has done is ensure that profits have remained underground while marijuana itself has been unregulated and less safe.

It is time to tell your representative in Congress to put an end to this massive waste of government resources. States must be set free to experiment with marijuana policy.

MPP has produced a number of pre-written emails to convey this message to your U.S. representative. Please take two minutes to send one along so that your representative knows how important this issue is to you.

With your help, we will bring this war on marijuana users to an end!

I never thought I’d see the Berlin Wall come down, but I did. I never thought I’d see the US adopt a sensible drug policy, but perhaps it can happen.

Read and ponder this column at TPMDC by Eric Kleefeld:

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is now boasting the value of conservative economics, with a tweet noting that Canada’s economy has performed much better than the United States in the global recession, and that it had no stimulus spending.

Just think – a Republican who wants the U.S. to be more like Canada!

One problem: Canada did undertake a major stimulus program.

Bachmann’s campaign tweeted earlier on Monday:

Lesson in economic recovery: Consider Canada. No stimulus & unemployment is 20% lower than US. is.gd/jxebtd #tcot #teaparty#canada

It is true that Canada’s unemployment in May 2011, the most recent month for which data is available, stood at 7.4%, compared to 9.1% in the United States [16% lower than the US, not 20% - LG]. But the absolute fact of the matter is that Canada undertook a thorough stimulus program under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party — one that was relatively smaller than the one here, but given the apples and oranges situation of having different economic needs, it was still a very considerable one. In addition, it should be explained that even this stimulus was undertaken under some very high-profile political circumstances.

Indeed, this issue was a major cause of a political crisis in late 2008 and early 2009, when the incumbent Conservatives, shortly after an election in which they had only won a plurality of seats in Parliament, put forward a budget that the opposition parties collectively attacked as too stingy. The three opposition parties then threatened to put their differences aside, vote no-confidence in the government, and form their own coalition to replace the Conservatives. Harper survived by successfully dividing the opposition again, chiefly by waging a strong public campaign against the involvement of the left-wing secessionist Bloc Quebecois — and by working out a stimulus package with the leaders of the moderate-progressive Liberal Party. . .

Continue reading.

From 1958:

Every week Philip Smith lists in the Drug War Chronicles a few of the more egregious corrupt-cop stories that have emerged in the preceding week. The absurd illegality of commonly available (and harmless) drugs has—exactly as when alcohol was made illegal—enriched and empowered vast criminal empires, who then have ample resources to suborn the enforcers of the (ridiculous) laws. Here’s the most recent report:

It never ends, does it? Another week, another set of crooked cops. At least this week, the jail and prison guards managed to stay out of the news. Let’s get to it:

In New York City, an NYPD narcotics detective was arrested on June 9 on charges he lied about witnessing drug transactions that resulted in the arrest of one man for selling crack and three others who were his customers. Detective Francisco Payano’s fictive report began to fall apart last year when a defense attorney brought forward surveillance video footage of the location in question that showed no drug dealing going on at the time in question and that Payano wasn’t even present. The case against the alleged dealer has been dropped, but one customer already pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. The cases against the other two have been sealed. Payano faces 64 counts of perjury and other charges. He has been released pending trial.

In Nashville, a Metropolitan Nashville police officer was indicted Friday on federal bribery and drug trafficking charges. Officer Richard Wilson, 31, went down in a sting after accepting $24,500 to transport what he thought was cocaine for who he thought were drug traffickers. He is charged with soliciting a bribe, attempted cocaine distribution, and money laundering.

In Philadelphia, two former Philadelphia police officers were sentenced June 15 to 10 to 20 years in prison each after being caught in an undercover sting helping drug dealers rob a man they thought was a drug courier. Christopher Luciano, 23, and Sean Alivera, 31, were arrested last October and pleaded guilty in April to charges of robbery, conspiracy, kidnapping, official oppression and possession of a drug with intent to deliver.

In Jacksonville, Florida, a former Jacksonville Sheriff’s officer was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison for agreeing to transport cocaine from Daytona to Jacksonville in return for payment. Former officer Carl Kohn went down after he starting plotting a deal with a “cooperating individual” to transport five kilos of cocaine in return for $2,500. He pleaded guilty to possession with the intent to distribute five or more kilos of cocaine.

In Mesquite, Texas, the former head of the Mesquite Police narcotics unit was sentenced Monday to 15 months in federal prison for stealing cash during an undercover drug operation. John David McAllister, 42, went down after authorities received a tip that an officer was stealing drug money and FBI agents set up an undercover sting in March. FBI agents left $100,000 in cash in 52 bundles in a car they directed McAllister to search. They videotaped him removing one of the bundles and stuffing it in his pants before returning to the Mesquite Police Department. Still under surveillance, McAllister then drove to a nearby shopping mall and bought a $480 watch. FBI agents matched the cash used in that transaction to photocopies of the cash they used in the sting. McAllister was charged with theft of government property.

All this is easily avoidable: legalize, regulate, and tax drugs, and treat addiction as a medical problem (which it is in essence) and not a crime (which it is but conditionally—indeed, prior to 1937 it was perfectly legal to use marijuana, and even then it was outlawed for socio-economic reasons, not because it was harmful).

An op-ed in the NY Times by David Shipler:

This spring was a rough season for the Fourth Amendment. The Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow GPS tracking of vehicles without judicial permission. The Supreme Court ruled that the police could break into a house without a search warrant if, after knocking and announcing themselves, they heard what sounded like evidence being destroyed. Then it refused to see a Fourth Amendment violation where a citizen was jailed for 16 days on the false pretext that he was being held as a material witness to a crime.

In addition, Congress renewed Patriot Act provisions on enhanced surveillance powers until 2015, and the F.B.I. expanded agents’ authority to comb databases, follow people and rummage through their trash even if they are not suspected of a crime.

None of these are landmark decisions. But together they further erode the privilege of privacy that was championed by Congress and the courts in the mid-to-late-20th century, when the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement was applied to the states, unconstitutionally seized evidence was ruled inadmissible in state trials, and privacy laws were enacted following revelations in the 1970s of domestic spying on antiwar and civil rights groups.

For over a decade now, the government has tried to make us more secure by chipping away at the one provision of the Bill of Rights that pivots on the word “secure” — the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The founding fathers, who sought security from government, would probably reject today’s conventional wisdom that liberty and security are at odds, and that one must be sacrificed for the other. In their experience, the chief threat to individual security came from government itself, as in the house-to-house searches conducted by British customs officers under blanket “writs of assistance.” After the Boston lawyer James Otis Jr. eloquently challenged the writs in 1761, John Adams, who was present in the crowded courtroom, wrote of the audience’s rage, “Then and there the child independence was born.”

Independent America’s answer to those searches was the Fourth Amendment, with its requirement that law enforcement have probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime can be found at a particular place and time before a judge issues a warrant.

The ingenious feature of this demand is . . .

Continue reading.

Zach posted this great story on ShaveMyFace.com:

We came over here from Greece when; I was 2 years old, in the very late 60s.

In Greece, like the rest of Europe at the time, there was one kind of soap. It was called ‘Soap’ and it came in heavy brick form that you would splinter off pieces in sizes that suited your needs, and your needs for this soap were to bathe in, to wash your hands with, to wash your hair, to do laundry with, to wash dishes with, to mop the floor with, and so on.

So, we came over here, we didn’t know anyone, speak the language, or have any money, AND we moved into a BAD neighborhood, as all immigrants do. My Dad got a phrase book and would take it with him, to say, the butcher shop, and phonetically sound out words like ‘veal’ and ‘chicken’. We had the luxury of shopping at a supermarket! America’s first supermarket was not A&P, it was King Kullen, and it was founded in Jamaica, of all places, where we lived! Don’t believe me?

Anyway, there, they would look at the pictures on the items, I would imagine recognize some things from Greece, perhaps smell and poke even, and then put them in a cart, but, it was 90% food that we bought.

It was a tough life; I was 6 or 7 before my father felt comfortable enough with my English language prowess to take me with him to the bank whenever he had a problem! Anyway, he bought Ivory soap, and we used it for everything, BUT we learned quickly about the Ivory for the dishes and the Ivory for the laundry (although my mother did do the laundry in the kitchen of the tiny basement apartment we rented, scrubbing them by hand with a bar of soap on a washboard in the sink, and drying them in the room with the boiler; she was a stubborn, wonderful mother).

So that’s how he came to use Ivory hand soap to shave with. He brought with him an old boar brush from Greece, and a gold Superspeed as well.

When it was my turn to learn to shave, this would have been when I was about 14 or 15, over a dozen years later and with a thin layer of fur all over my face, he had a 70s SS TTO with the black handle and the fluted knob, and a Shulton Old Spice brush with the red and white handle made out of wood, that he undoubtedly bought from the drugstore up the road. He kept the soap in a small plate by the upstairs sink. And with this, he taught me how to shave; at first shaving me, and then, months later when it was time to shave again, watching me shave. Eventually I would shave myself, but he did not want me to use his pre-used blades with my thin facial hair and sensitive skin, he would have me put in a new blade every time it was my turn to shave.

I got a job on my 16th birthday and began to contribute to the family. One day I bought him a puck of Colgate, that I discovered in the supermarket; he liked it a LOT; it had a picture of a sudsy brush and a mug on the outside of it; he knew that this soap was created with the intention of shaving, straight out, and for him, it might as well have been a soap created for Kings; he was very happy, he was an American, and he had the LUXURY of using a SOAP for just ONE thing, to shave with. My mother was not going to soap up a brush and clean the floor with it, this was HIS soap. And even more so, I was happy, because in my heart, I kind of knew what this meant to him, as silly as it may seem to you reading this now.

And I liked it when I could make him happy, and will always wish I had one more opportunity to do so…

He worked very hard for the family; he deserved to shave with a soap that was meant for shaving, I thought.

So I too took to the Colgate, at this time I was shaving every week or so, but not because I couldn’t shave daily and not because I didn’t need to, either; by this time, pre-Miami Vice, mind you, I had decided that I liked the unkempt look. I did flannel before Pearl Jam as well!

Anyway, long story short, boar and Ivory, that begot boar and Colgate, that begot boar and Williams or Colgate, and that was the way it was for a long time, until one day in the 80s my girlfriend bought me something from the Big City, something that came in a pot…

And then it all changed.

I’m doing well. When I was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, my morning (fasting) blood glucose readings were around 95-100. Then around 100-105. Then (at my fattest) around 115-120.

Now: 91. And my HbA1c is down to 5.5% from 5.8% last time. This is well within the normal range.

Plus he cut another med dosage in half (metformin, for the diabetes), and last week my PCP cut my hypertension med dosage in half.

Losing fat has done me good. And, BTW, dropping the yogurt and buttermilk has already had an effect. I’m going in the right direction again…

I recently (yesterday) got a Heinrich L. Thater shaving brush and couldn’t wait to try it. I wanted to use a silvertip badger brush in any event, to see whether I can continue to get Creamy Lather with a badger brush. The Thater brushes are somewhat dear, and I have to admit that the brush languished in my shopping cart for several days while I agonized over whether to pull the trigger. I finally did, as you see, getting this one. As you can see, it’s an extreme dome shave. The Shavemac uses the same shape, but I didn’t like the single Shavemac I tried (early on) and traded it off.

The reason I initially had for the purchase is that I want to have direct experience with the brush before writing about it in the next edition of the book—it’s a brand of which I had previously been ignorant. But now that I’ve used it, my initial reason is out the window. This is a great brush. It has a quite unique feel, unlike the English flat-top shape. It is simultaneously firm and soft, and I got a wonderful lather in its first use. (I cheated a bit by using Floris, since that soap lathers well.)

I did indeed get a creamy lather, and I’m beginning to think the secret for this, as it is for so many things, is: “Don’t be impatient.” You have to work the wet brush over the surface of the soap, vigorously and with a certain firmness—not enough to crush the brush, but about a degree or two more than “lightly”—for longer than I had been doing. You can’t get Creamy Lather without enough soap in the brush. I forgot to time my brush loading (once again), but tomorrow I’ll try to remember.

So: a Creamy Lather and a brush that feels totally wonderful. Three passes of the Eclipse Red Ring holding a Swedish Gillette blade, and then a good splash of Floris No. 89 aftershave (and, later in the bedroom, a little mist of Floris No. 89 EDT). I forgot my plan to go through the balms—knocked off balance by the Thater.

Great shave. Now I’m off to see my endocrinologist for the quarterly check-up.

Quite a story.

Two systems reviewed.

A commenter recently offered thoughts on how to lose weight and maintain a proper weight—a simple program: “Eat less.” (I expect now that the secret has been revealed obesity will cease being a problem in the US.   Or it may be that there’s more to it than that.)

The bottom line, according to my commenter, is calories: fewer calories mean weight lost. Calories, in this view, are fungible.

Only that turns out to be not the case. Rob Stein reports in the Washington Post:

Everyone knows that people who chow down on french fries, chug soda and go heavy on red meat tend to pile on more pounds than those who stick to salads, fruits and grains.

But is a serving of boiled potatoes really much worse than a helping of nuts? Is some white bread as bad as a candy bar? Could yogurt be a key to staying slim?

The answer to all those questions is yes, according to the provocative revelations produced by a big Harvard project that for the first time details how much weight individual foods make people put on or keep off.

The federally funded analysis of data collected over 20 years from more than 120,000 U.S. men and women in their 30s, 40s and 50s found striking differences in how various foods and drinks — as well as exercise, sleep patterns and other lifestyle choices — affect whether people gradually get fatter.

The findings add to the growing body of evidence that getting heavier is not just a matter of “calories-in, calories out,” and that the mantra: “Eat less and exercise more” is far too simplistic. Although calories remain crucial, some foods clearly cause people to put on more weight than others, perhaps because of their chemical makeup and how our bodies process them. This understanding may help explain the dizzying, often apparently contradictory nutritional advice from one dietary study to the next.

“The conventional wisdom is simply, ‘Eat everything in moderation and just reduce total calories’ without paying attention to what those calories are made of,” said Dariush Mozaffarian of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study published in Thursday’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. “All foods are not equal, and just eating in moderation is not enough.”

The findings help explain why many people put on weight little by little over the years without even realizing it. Just by picking the wrong combinations and portions of foods, and making unhealthy lifestyle choices, people imperceptibly pile on the pounds as the years go by, eventually becoming overweight or even obese, the study indicates. . .

Continue reading. I highlighted one sentence that will be of interest to several. I’ve been the recipient of the “Eat less, move more” advice, delivered in a sort of plonking tone by people who are rail thin, fairly often. I’m glad to have an authoritative rebuttal. As Albert Einstein observed, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

Tough session today. It’s very hard for me to be body-conscious—knowing which muscles are working and which are slack, and how to activate a muscle. Obviously, I know the overt ones: working my bicep with a curl and the link. But when you start talking about muscles in and around my chest and abdomen, I’m not so connected with those. And in particular when you talk about effort along myofascial meridians—an effort that starts in the foot and exerts tension along a myfascial linkage up into the middle of your back: that I don’t feel so well.

I asked my instructor today, who was laboring mightily to get my form correct, whether it was the case that athletically oriented people grasp the Pilates moves more quickly. I learned (a) not necessarily: she was quite athletic when she started Pilates—skiing, bicycling, swimming, and the like—and it was incredibly difficult for her and for a long time she knew she was the worst student in a group, though after a year she had begun to learn good form and finally another student joined who was even worse than she; she also found it was necessary to acknowledge that she had a lot to learn, which for a successful competitive athlete is not so easy an admission; and (b) quite a few athletes simply never consider Pilates. She said she can watch tennis matches and tell which players have done Pilates and which have not, and the same for dancers. Those who have not are not so effective in their movements and lack a core of stability.

I am doing exercises now on my own, but I think I’ll be continuing with the formal coaching sessions for a long time—otherwise I’m quite sure I’d be doing the exercises ineffectively, with bad form.

If you are interested in doing Pilates, see if you can find a good instructor and get some professional coaching along the way. At least for me, correct form has been quite elusive, though more and more frequently I am able to do it for a repetition or even two in succession.

As I learned with Spanish and with learning the practical lessons of weight control: slow and steady wins the race and persistence pays off. Impatience is the enemy of success, especially since it seems frequently to lead to quitting (because the rate of improvement is not so fast as we want it to be).

It’s picking up speed, it seems. Anna Tomforde reports for McClatchy:

The world’s oceans are degenerating far faster than predicted and marine life is facing extinction due to a range of human impacts — from over-fishing to climate change — a report compiled by international scientists warned Tuesday.

The cumulative impact of “severe individual stresses,” ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification to widespread chemical pollution and overfishing, would threaten the marine environment with a catastrophe “unprecedented in human history.”

The conclusions were published by a panel of international scientists who reviewed recent research at a workshop at Oxford University, in Britain. They will be presented to the United Nations in New York later this week for discussions on reforming governance of the oceans.

The report warned that damage to marine life would harm its ability to support humans, and that entire ecosystems, such as coral reefs, could be lost in a generation.

“Unless action is taken now, the consequences of our activities are at a high risk of causing, through the combined effects of climate change, over-exploitation, pollution and habitat loss, the next globally significant extinction event in the ocean,” it said. . .

Continue reading. I have my doubts that any response will be forthcoming—in particular the US seems to have checked out, thanks in part to our feckless and irresponsible media. (The link there is to Al Gore’s article in Rolling Stone, in which he eviscerates the media.)

I’ve been on a push to lose a final 5 lbs, but my weight has slowly increased—today to a total of 4 lbs above the point where I wanted to lose 5 lbs, so now I have 9 lbs to go.

I no longer record each bite, but I do track carefully what I’m eating. The problem definitely wasn’t my breakfast, a well-polished routine that delivers the same foods daily. And I was being especially careful of my lunches and dinners, typically cooking 4 oz of protein (chicken, usually) with a few veg, along with perhaps 1/4 c couscous added at the end for the starch and to soak up any liquids. That would generally be spicy, so I would add some nonfat yogurt as a topping, and stretch the dish to two meals sometimes. But still my weight increased.

I found the leak: part is the yogurt. I wasn’t really counting that, but I would get a 1-qt carton and eat a channel down the side. When I would pass through the kitchen, I would routinely check and eat the whey from the channel and the yogurt would thicken and subside as the whey gradually left. The thickened yogurt cheese would be my topping. The result: I was eating almost a quart of yogurt a day—that’s close to 500 calories/day even eating nonfat yogurt. Almost a meal in itself.

I was also buying an excellent brand of 2% cultured buttermilk, and swigging that as a snack, not thinking much about it—just a little glassful now and then. Also almost a quart a day: another 500 calories.

So I was taking in 1000 calories/day that was beneath my radar. Aha.

Yogurt and buttermilk are temporarily off the list.

So I tried for a Creamy Lather from Truefitt & Hill again today, but with a Rooney Style 1, Size 1 Super Silvertip—and I got such a lather quickly and easily. The difference for me is to let spill over the (short) sides of the wooden bowl the first, fluffy lather and continue brushing the soap surface vigorously—rapidly and firmly—with the brush. I continued this longer than I normally do, and Real Soon Now I’ll remember to time it.

When I stopped, I had a sink with various clumps of foamy lather, a bowl and left hand more or less covered in lather (easily rinsed away: I held the bowl upside down under the tap and easily rinsed the lather from the outside), and a brush absolutely crammed with Creamy Lather—the real stuff.

I did three passes with Bolzano blade riding in a Hoffritz Slant, which I had plated with rhodium at Razor Emporium. On the Simply Shaving forum is a discussion of the Slant Bar. I continue to maintain that a shaver who has learned how to shave with a regular safety razor and plans to buy a second razor is well advised to select a Slant for the second razor. DE razors that cut straight across the stubble all have the same action: the difference is in the aggressiveness and in whether the razor is adjustable or not. But in all cases, the cut is made straight across the stubble: the blade is chopping the stubble.

The Slant has a different action. You handle it exactly the same as you would a regular DE razor, but the razor itself holds the blade at a slant (whence the name, obviously), with the result that the blade now slices (rather than chops) the whiskers. I notice a marked difference in the action.

The result today is an extremely smooth shave, and the balm of the day is Geo. F. Trumper’s Coral Skin Food, which is very nice indeed. I have not used CSK as an aftershave for a long time—I originally bought it to test Dr. Moss’s observation that CSK also functions as an excellent preshave, when applied to the washed and rinsed beard just before the lather.

Indeed, I liked the effect and the fragrance so much that I’m going to have to use CSK more often.

Take a look.

It does indeed have some overtones of Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, in which the troops became progressively more isolated from their “home culture.” (For more: read it.)

Glenn Greenwald’s column today is really worth pondering. And more people—even the Washington Post, as he points out—are coming around to his view.

A Belgian-style ale available locally out here. More info. This has the Leisureguy seal of approval: rich, smooth, and tasty.