Later On

The private businesses of the US are eager to take over government services and start making profits from them (thus driving up the cost of the service, but it does reduce our taxes, which seems to be the current goal of much of the country: disband the government and thus you don’t have to pay for it—you can just pay private companies more for the same services—well, less services: any part of the service that doesn’t turn a profit is discontinued).

I am very sorry to see our country abandon the postal service. It’s obviously not necessary: raising rates for bulk mail and providing more Federal support (it is a government service, like roads, schools, and libraries) would readily keep it going. The total USPS budget is under $80 billion—around $76 billion. The total US military budget is $687 billion. I would think we can readily cut the military’s grotesquely inflated budget to find the additional $5-10 billion to keep the USPS humming, especially if the rates on bulk mail are increased. After all, we’ve defeated al Qaeda, we’re told (though in the next breath we’re told that they continue to threaten the very existence of the US), and we are officially at war currently only with Afghanistan, and we should be leaving there soon, thanks to our proclivity for killing civilians left and right: few countries cotton to foreigners coming in and killing their children and innocent adults. It’s always a mistake, of course, except when it’s not.

Here’s a report on this latest effort to degrade the quality of daily life in order to enrich the wealthy even more.

After making an explicit promise that the DEA would not take action against medical marijuana users who conform to state laws in states that have made medical marijuana legal, Attorney General Holder and President Obama have gone back on their word and betrayed their commitment, something our President does regularly, I regret to see. I understand that in politics it is good to lie and to renege on promises and in other ways to betray yourself and your supporters, but I do get tired of it.

TYD sent me a link to this op-ed in the NY Times:

WHEN my mother-in-law was in the final, harrowing throes of pancreatic cancer, she had only one good day, and that was the day she smoked pot.

So I was heartened when, at the end of last month, the governors of Washington and Rhode Island petitioned the Obama administration to classify marijuana as a drug that could be prescribed and distributed for medical use. While medical marijuana is legal in 16 states, it is still outlawed under federal law.

My husband and I often thought of recommending marijuana to his mother. She was always nauseated from the chemotherapy drugs and could barely eat for weeks. She existed in a Percocet and morphine haze, constantly fretting that the sedation kept her from saying all the things she wanted to say to us, but unable to face the pain without it. And this was a woman who had such a high tolerance for pain, coupled with a distaste for drugs, that she insisted her dentist not use Novocain and gave birth to her two children without anesthesia. But despite marijuana’s power to relieve pain and nausea without loss of consciousness, we were afraid she would find even the suggestion of it scandalous. This was 1997, and my mother-in-law was a very proper, law-abiding woman, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College in the 1950s. She’d never even smoked a cigarette.

But then an older family friend who worked in an AIDS hospice came bearing what he said was very good quality marijuana. To our surprise, she said she’d consider it. My husband and I — though we knew nothing about marijuana paraphernalia — were dispatched to find a bong, as the friend suggested water-processing might make the smoking easier for her. We found ourselves in a head shop in one of the seedier neighborhoods in New Haven, where my husband went to graduate school, listening attentively to the clerk as he went over the finer points of bong taxonomy, finally just choosing one in her favorite color, lilac.

She had us take her out on the flagstone patio because she refused to smoke in her meticulously kept-up house. Then she looked about nervously, as if expecting the police to jump out of the bushes. She found it awkward and strange to smoke a bong, but after a few tries managed to get in two and a half hits.

And then she said she wanted to go out to eat.

For the past month, we’d been trying to get her to eat anything: fresh-squeezed carrot juice made in a special juicer, Korean rice gruel that I simmered for hours, soups, oatmeal, endless cans of Ensure. Sometimes she’d request some particular dish and we’d eagerly procure it, only to have her refuse it or fall back asleep before taking a bite. But this time she sat down at her favorite restaurant and ordered a gorgeous meal: whitefish poached with lemon, hot buttered rolls, salad — and ate every bite.

Then she wanted to go to Kimball’s, a local ice cream place famous for cones topped with softball-size scoops. The family had been regular customers starting all the way back when my husband and his brother were children, but they hadn’t been there since her illness. My husband and I shared a small cone, which we could not finish, and looked on in awe as my mother-in-law ordered a large and, queenishly spurning any requests for a taste, polished the whole thing off — cone and all — and declared herself satisfied. . .

Continue reading.

I do not understand why marijuana is illegal in the first place, given the substances (such as alcohol and tobacco) that we readily accept as properly available to adults. Those who oppose marijuana, so far as I can tell, oppose it only because it is illegal. But that should be easy to fix, in a rational society.

Classic shaving today. The Rooney Style 2 Finest made a wonderful Creamy Laather from the vintage Yardley shaving soap, and the brush bulged with its store of lather like a greedy chipmunk’s cheeks.  I used MR GLO this morning, BTW, and will alternate with the Proraso pre-shave soap for a while.

The Rotbart, a gift, did a superb job with a Personna 74 blade—this razor is new old stock and shaves quite well. Thanks in part to my leisurely prep along with the new blade in a good razor, I ended with a supremely smooth face. A little alum bar, a final rinse and dry, and a splash of Pinaud Coachman, taking me back to the the first half of the last century.

What a pleasure shaving can be!

Now this is a great idea! Sort of home-delivery, but the chef in addition to the food. I would bet that this could grow fast: many aspiring chefs out there.

Shopping in private at home for bespoke clothing at prêt-à-porter prices via the Internet.

The fantastic thing is getting the body measurements via webcam: “The measurements are on average more accurate than those taken by a professional tailor.” Wow. And then uploaded, data fed to automated laser cutter via interface that collects your fabric choice and options, dress cut, sewn on the spot in a third-world factory, and shipped to you with a day or two.

That’s not quite what the article says, but it seems to me to be just around the corner.

I’m definitely going to start thinking about Frittatas as a supper dish. With my well-seasoned cast-iron skillet, they would be easy, and this one from Mark Bittmann’s Kitchen Express sounds terrific:

Leek, Sun-Dried Tomato, and Goat Cheese Frittata

Cook the chopped white of two leeks with a handful of dried tomatoes (about 1 cup) in two tablespoons of butter (or olive oil); until softened; do not brown. Whisk together four eggs and some salt and pepper (and a splash of milk if you like) and pour over the leeks. Sprinkle with a handful of crumbled goat cheese (about 2-3 oz). Cover the pan and continue cooking until the eggs are set. Remove the pan from the heat, and put it under the broiler to brown for a minute before serving.

More (general) info in the original post.

We are fortunate to have good bakers in the family. You whose children are still quite young (or who are still in the planning stage regarding children): encourage them to learn to cook, and then gently guide them to specialties so that at later family gatherings some can bake things, others can roast or grill meats, some make fantastic vegetable dishes, and so on. Plan for the future.

Back to the point of the post: check out this countertop flour mill for grinding grains: your own flour from wheat, or rice, or oats, or barley, or corn…

If you can persevere at all, you can strengthen that ability through practice—which makes sense, on the face of it: we generally get better at things if we practice them regularly.

Trent Hamm has an interesting post on his own path to learning perseverance. From the post:

. . . What I found was that focus on a goal takes practice. It’s not something that comes naturally to a lot of people. Yes, some people have a gift for focusing on a specific goal and carrying it home, but it is certainly not something that comes naturally to me.

Why? I think that in the day-to-day lives of many people, long term goals don’t really have a vital place. They get up, they take care of basic life duties, they go to work or to class, and they relax. They don’t feel a real push to focus on a long-term goal.

Then, when they do feel the urgency of such a goal, they’re simply not mentally prepared to take on that kind of long-term planning and focus. They’ve never invested themselves in a project that didn’t pay dividends within a month or two.

I spent the first two decades of my life in that pattern and it was hard to break out of it. I think there were three things that really changed the story for me. . .

Read the whole thing.

This is old news, but I recently discovered that a friend had not heard of it and was taking at face value the various statements of mayors and police chiefs and other such parties taking full credit for the drop in violent crime. This study has itself been the subject of intensive study, and so far as I know it is still quite solid in its findings. Environmental causes are insidious, but the smoking gun on this one has been found and is clearly labeled. This report appears in Science Daily (and you can Google for other reports):

Exposure to lead may be one of the most significant causes of violent crime in young people, according to one of the nation’s leading researchers on the subject.

“When environmental lead finds its way into the developing brain, it disturbs neural mechanisms responsible for regulation of impulse. That can lead to antisocial and criminal behavior,” reported Herbert L. Needleman, M.D., professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, at the 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting. “The government needs to do more to eliminate sources of lead in the environment.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, humans can encounter lead through deteriorating paint and dust, air, drinking water, food and contaminated soil. Sources of lead are plentiful – until the 1970s lead was used in paint, gasoline and older water pipes. Today, much of that lead is still out there – on old window frames, in the soil of the vegetable gardens and in the drinking water of many American cities.

In the 1970s, Dr. Needleman was the first to discover cognitive effects in children who had been exposed to lead. Though the children had no visible signs of lead poisoning, they had significantly lower scores on IQ tests. As a result of these studies and others, lead has been removed from gasoline, paint and numerous other products.

Such measures have resulted in sharply lower levels of lead in children born today, compared to those born 30 years ago. Yet, Dr. Needleman’s latest research shows that even very low levels of lead found in bone, as measured by a technique called X-ray fluorescence, can affect brain development.

In a 1996 Pitt study of 301 children, those with the highest concentrations of lead – still below government-recommended safe levels – had tests scores showing more aggression, attentional disorders and delinquency. In 2002, those findings were extended to show that the average bone lead levels in 190 adjudicated delinquents was higher than normal controls. The results indicated that between 18 and 38 percent of all delinquency in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, could be due to lead. Additionally, a number of recent studies have shown a strong relationship between sales of leaded gasoline and rates of violent crime. . .

Continue reading.

Fascinating bit of research reported in The Scientist by Ruth Williams:

Thanks to the power of optogenetics, researchers in Switzerland have not only established the first causal link between cocaine-induced changes to brain cells and altered physical behavior, they have also reversed these changes. The report appears today (December 8^th) in Nature.

The results are “pretty exciting,” said Mark Thomasof the University of Minnesota, who was not involved in the research. “It is a proof of principal of that reversing synaptic plasticity induced by drug experience can change behavior. From that perspective it is a big step forward.”

Just like humans, mice taking cocaine become more physically active and jittery and, with repeated doses, that jitteriness increases—a phenomenon called locomotor sensitization. “The presence of this sensitization shows that the first few doses of drugs cause some changes in the brain,” said Howard Gu of Ohio State University College of Medicine, who also was not involved in the study.

Indeed, cocaine increases the firing potential of neurons of the nucleus accumbens, a brain area involved in pleasure and reward, explained Christian Lüscher of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, who led the study. That is, “the efficacy with which transmission occurs between the neurons is increased.” But, he added, “there was no proof that this was related to behavioral changes.”

That proof has now been provided through the use of optogenetics—a technique in which light-sensitive ion channels from algae are expressed in specific neurons causing them to trigger action potentials in response to light.

In a slight twist of the technique, . . .

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Lest ye forget, William Douglas in McClathcy reminds us of what we once knew:

As former House Speaker Newt Gingrich trumpets his leadership skills in his quest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, a different picture of his stewardship emerges from some GOP lawmakers who served with him during a failed 1997 coup attempt against the controversial speaker.

Twenty disgruntled Republicans in the House of Representatives squeezed into then-Rep. Lindsey Graham’s office in July 1997 and rebelliously vented about Gingrich. They were tired of his chaotic management style, worried that he was caving in to then-President Bill Clinton, and sick of constantly having to defend him publicly on questions about his ethics or his latest bombastic statement.

“Newt Gingrich was a disaster as speaker,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

As Gingrich seeks to gain the world’s most powerful office, it’s worth recalling that when he once held great power in Washington, his own conservative Republican lieutenants rebelled against his rule less than four years after he led them to House majority status for the first time in 40 years. And their disaffection evidently helped persuade him to step down as speaker the next year and leave office. . .

Continue reading.

I find this recipe intriguing. Curried eggs sounds like a terrific wintertime supper.

Death by cancer is quite unpleasant, but in the TSA’s defense their push to get people into machines that emit ionizing radiation will result in only a few each year getting cancer, and the TSA can’t be bothered about that when it has more important things to do, like getting you to remove your shoes and your belt and the like.

They don’t seem to grasp that statistical deaths are in fact actual deaths: real people will indeed get cancer who otherwise would not and some will die as a result.

The head of the TSA, once it was pointed out that the TSA had glossed over research on the dangers of the machine, agreed to have an independent study done. This agreement, made explicitly to Sen. Collins (R-Maine), was apparently something he said just to get her off his back until he could get out of the room. Once back safely in his office, he reneged—apparently with Obama’s full backing. No further study to be done.

Here’s a story from last month, by Michael Grabell in ProPublica. There are worse presidents than Obama, but that does not make Obama a good president.

The head of the Transportation Security Administration has backed off a public commitment to conduct a new independent study of X-ray body scanners used at airport security lanes around the country.

Earlier this month, a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation found that the TSA had glossed over research that the X-ray scanners could lead to a small number of cancer cases. The scanners emit low levels of ionizing radiation, which has been shown to damage DNA. In addition, several safety reviewers who initially advised the government on the scanners said they had concerns about the machines being used, as they are today, on millions of airline passengers.

At a Senate hearing after the story ran, TSA Administrator John Pistole agreed to a request by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to conduct a new independent study of the health effects of the X-ray scanners, also known as backscatters.

But at a Senate hearing of a different committee last week, Pistole said he had since received a draft report on the machines by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, or IG, that might render the independent study unnecessary.

“My strong belief is those types of machines are still completely safe,” Pistole said. “If the determination is that this IG study is not sufficient, then I will look at still yet another additional study.”

According to a summary obtained by ProPublica, the inspector general concluded the machines are within industry standards for radiation exposure limits. But the summary also suggests the report focuses mostly on how the TSA monitors and maintains the machines. The full report won’t be released for several weeks.

“I hope the Obama administration is not backing away from an independent study of the health effects of these radiation-emitting machines,” Collins said in a statement to ProPublica. “What I asked for — and what the administrator committed to — was an independent study on the health effects of [the] machines, not just a study on whether TSA is doing an adequate job of inspecting, maintaining and operating” them.

The inspector general’s report calls on the TSA to ensure that radiation surveys are conducted for unintended emissions, that calibrations are consistently documented and that airport screeners complete annual radiation safety training. The inspector general also advised the agency to determine how much on-the-job training is needed for screeners who operate the backscatters and to ensure that accidental radiation overdoses are properly reported.

It’s unclear whether the recommendations resulted from any problems found during the investigation, or are general reminders about best practices. It’s also unclear whether investigators measured the radiation doses from the machines themselves or relied on inspections conducted by the manufacturer. . .

Continue reading.

Very interesting video that provides a good understanding of the structure of the World Trade Towers:

HHS Secretary Sebelius made a horrendously bad call, and Obama immediately chimes in. Apparently neither understand (or support) the importance of public health measures.

Plan B (“morning after”) contraceptives now will not be kept on the shelf, available for purchase over the counter, as the FDA and its panel of science recommended, but based on a totally arbitrary and senseless exercise of power Sebelius has overridden the recommendation, not because she has any sensible reasons, but because she has the power, so there! Nyah nyah nyah.

God, I ran into this so frequently in business: a man or woman by virtue of their position could ride roughshod over people who actually knew what they were doing, and of course many seemed to enjoying using their power perversely, as Sebelius has done. Obama? Well, Obama is pretty much willing to do or say anything, so far as I can tell.

The point is that all women must now ask for the Plan B pill specifically. In a small town, this can lead to unwanted conversation and comment even for women 17 and older. And what about 15 and 16 year olds? Why block their access? Although only a minority are sexually active by 15, some are.

The stupidity and perversity of the decision is staggering. There’s an excellent comment in a three-minute video from MSNBC in which Irin Carmon rightly rips into Secretary Sebelius

Thanks to James Fallows for pointing out this intriguing column from China on our protest movement. Fallows points out, “To get the joke you mainly need to know that Chang’An — “Eternal Peace” — Avenue runs between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in Beijing, so it is shorthand for the Chinese locus of combined political/financial power.”

Wall Street used to be full of cash, stocks and bonds; now it is full of tents and banners. America clearly has a problem, but that problem is far from simple. Weak financial supervision, inequitable distribution of wealth, inhibited class communication and the failure of democratic coordination are all the nation’s blight. There are some who look at this and point to America’s decline, but that isn’t my concern. I want to address those who think the turmoil on Wall Street shows up the failures of democracy. I think that’s over the top.

Democracy clearly has its flaws, but OWS shows not the defects of democracy but its advantages. That protestors do not “go missing” is thanks to the benefits of democracy, and the lack of violent conflict or loss of social order is an example of its accomplishments. The US government has not condemned, suppressed or sympathised with the movement, nor have the crowds challenged the legitimacy of the government or the democratic system itself. Rather, OWS is happening precisely within that democratic framework.

In other words: we must change our perspective and see this demonstration as a rational expression of democracy, and the normal activity of a healthy society rather than the upheaval of it.

Anyone with a little knowledge of American history knows that mass demonstrations have been occurring for a long time, and American democracy has never died, only progressed. The women’s suffrage movement in the early 20th century allowed women to vote. The black civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s paved the way for Obama to become president. And marches against the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, abortion, anti-gay prejudice and so on are too many to count. So the Occupy movement is certainly no big deal.

When people feel their votes, petitions and appeals are so useless that they can only make their point with demonstrations, it’s clear that democracy is far from perfect. But experience shows that if you oppose democracy from a utopian or excessively moralistic perspective – treating demonstrations as the enemy of society rather than as giving society a much-needed shock – it is all too easy to become a dictator and create social disaster.

Just because China has no demonstrations like this, it doesn’t mean it . . .

Continue reading.

The brush, a recommendation from NoHelmet, is the Omega 20107. NoHelmet pointed out that the Omega Pro 48 (10048) is a tad large for face lathering, and this slightly smaller boar brush works better for him. I have been working up lather with it, priming it for its first on-stage appearance, and today, on seeing this post about a 10% discount from Klar Seifen, I decided to go with Klar products today and launch Mr. 20107.

The 20107 is smaller than the Omega Pro 48, but only slightly, and like its bigger brother is a high-quality, well-made boar brush suitable for serious shaving. Indeed, the full range of Omega boar brushes cries out for exploration: Italians in general seem to prefer boar brushes, so Omega must satisfy a demanding and knowledgeable customer base—thus the excellent quality of the brushes. I’m thinking that I need to try more of these guys.

I got a fine Creamy Lather using the St. Vitus-cum-Tarantella-frenzied-lathering technique, which—let’s face it—is a lot of fun. I used the Edwin Jagger DE87 with a previously used Voskhod blade and I got a very smooth shave. Recently I have focused on keeping the edge of the razor’s cap—just behind and above the cutting edge of the blade—in contact with my skin as I shave and ignore the bar guard, which is left dangling somewhere outside the focus of my attention. This visualization helps my blade angle considerably and has improved the shave.

Although the Mr. 20107 did a fine job, he’s still new, so I did have to return to the bowl to mix up more lather for the final pass—that will fix itself as the brush continues to break in. But I happened to have two apothecary jars on the counter and I picked up the other, which instead of Klar Kabinett held Vitos Red Label special. Nothing loath, I went with that one, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the lather from the Vitos seemed noticeably better—but of course Vitos is also an Italian soap, so with the Omega brush, it was old home week.

A really fine shave today, and Klar Seifen Klassik is one of my favorite aftershaves. Except for being in the blackout period, I would get another bottle now.

A bonus discovery: On looking over the Klar Seifen site, I see that the big shaving soap I got that had such a disappointing lather is now explained: it’s a bath soap, not a shaving soap. Their shaving soaps all come in the little tin. Now I get it.

I have learned to take a bowl a size larger than I think I will need—I make salads relying strongly on the “why not?” approach to inclusion, though I generally restrict salad contents to the category “food” (possible exception: Bac’Uns). So we start with the theme—black and white, rice and lentils, complementary proteins—and fresh tuna. The rest I just made up:

8 oz split white lentils, cooked and drained
1 cup black rice, cooked and drained
12 pitted Kalamata olives, halved
10 sugar plum grape tomatoes, halved
2 handfuls chopped celery
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
4 red Fresno peppers, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, chopped
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1 bunch scallions, chopped (including green)
1 small bunch spearmint, chopped
1 bunch Italian parsley, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 Belgian endive, chopped
1 head radicchio, chopped
4 clementines, peeled, sectioned, sections halved
12-14 oz fresh albacore and ahi tuna, poached and cut into small chunks
1/2 c Bragg’s vinaigrette
2 Tbsp homemade Worcestershire sauce
juice of 1 Meyer lemon
freshly ground pepper

Toss and serve. Multiple meals. Keeps well, I hope.

Is Congress deliberately working to destroy the United States? It does sometimes seem like it. Take a look at a couple of things in the NY Times today, like the editorial:

Lawmakers from the House and Senate are working on provisions in the military budget bill that would take the most experienced and successful antiterrorism agencies — the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors — out of the business of interrogating, charging and trying most terrorism cases, and turn the job over to the military.

These new rules would harm the justice system and national security. They would hinder intelligence-gathering, make it harder to track down terrorists and make other countries less likely to cooperate.

Those are not our conclusions, although we strongly agree. They are the views of James Clapper, the director of national intelligence; Robert Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Lisa Monaco, the assistant attorney general for national security. The defense secretary, Leon Panetta, who used to run the intelligence services, has said that the military doesn’t want this responsibility. Lawmakers are ignoring them.

At issue are a series of amendments added by the House and the Senate to the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual military budget bill. They mandate military detention for most terrorism suspects (although they focus especially on Muslims). The House version would bar trying these prisoners in federal court, while the Senate version would make that very unlikely.

This means civilian law enforcement agencies with greater experience would be cut out and intelligence-gathering would be hobbled. Countries would be less likely to turn over prisoners to American authorities if they would land in military detention. Both versions of the bill would make the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a permanent symbol of injustice and cruelty around the world. Both leave open the possibility of subjecting American citizens to military detention without charge or trial. . .

Continue reading.

Or this Rosenthal column:

When President Obama came into office in 2009 he promised to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and end the extra-judicial system that his predecessor had created to imprison terrorist suspects without trial, often without even filing charges. He has broken that promise.

Mr. Obama failed to close down Guantanamo through a combination of inaction and political ineptness. His administration made significant changes to President George W. Bush’s military tribunals, but at the same time left the door open to the concept of indefinite detention.

Now, Congress seems to be on the verge of passing a law that would make indefinite detention a permanent part of the American way.

 

Here’s what’s going on:

The Senate is debating the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a series of provisions that mandate military interrogation and detention for any suspected member of Al Qaeda, and authorize indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without trial. (The law is written so broadly that parts of it could also cover U.S. citizens.)

The provisions were co-sponsored by Senators Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, both of whom should know better. Their excuse was that some Republicans had proposed worse rules. But the smart response to that situation would have been to block faulty legislation outright, not to make a really bad deal.

A deal, by the way, that Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said was hashed out behind closed doors without consultation with his committee, or the Intelligence Committee, or the Defense Department, the F.B.I. or the intelligence community.

These new policies would all but remove the F.B.I., federal prosecutors, and federal courts from the business of interrogating, charging and trying suspected terrorists. Never mind that they have a track record of doing just that, legally and in the open. Instead, it would put those functions in the hands of the military, which is not very good at it, and doesn’t want to do it. . .

Continue reading.