This morning, I tried a Jack Black® Pure Performance Shave Brush. Its bristles are synthetic (the badger lives to see another day) and anti-microbial, but designed to perform like a silver tip badger brush (which is generally held to be the best sort).

I have a Burma Shave™ boar-bristle brush that I got before I learned that boars were killed for the bristles, and an Art of Shaving® basic badger-bristle brush given to me as a gift before the giver learned that badgers were killed for the bristles. Jointly, these could last quite a few years. But I was quite interested to try a synthetic brush, partly so that I would know whether they were good gifts, and partly so that I could write and speak about them from experience.

The thing that I always read about most synthetics is that that they don't hold water as well as do natural bristle brushes. Well, I've not yet done a head-to-head comparison with anything but the boar-bristle brush, but the Black® brush definitely holds considerably more water than does a Burma Shave™ boar-bristle brush. (So much so, in fact, that I ended-up with far more dilute lather than I wanted. That's a problem that I can easily address, by just shaking out the brush before I put it in the soap.)

The Black® brush also feels much nicer against my skin than does the boar-bristle brush, and certainly nicer than did the boar-bristle brush when it was new. And the boar-bristle brush smelled like a musky animal when it was new, whereäs the Black® brush naturally didn't. (Jack Black in fact gave it some sort of pleasant scent which I presume will wash away with use.)

I will probably, at some future point, try the genuine badger brush that I was given. The badger whence the bristles came isn't going to get any more killed; and, while I wouldn't thus have tested the Black® brush against a high-end badger brush, I would at least have tested it against a badger brush of some sort.

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While I am on the subject of shave brushes, I would like to mention the Burt's Bees® Natural Bristle Shaving Brush, found in their Bay Rum Men's Shaving Kit and sometimes sold separately. A little research confimed my suspicion that the bristles are boar bristles.

Burt's Bees proclaims

our goal is to help create a world where people have the information and tools they need to make the highest ethical choices

Now, reasonable people might argue over whether it's ethical to kill animals for shaving products, but one doesn't have the information needed to make the highest ethical choices if one isn't being told that these natural bristles were harvested from killed boars; plainly a significant share of Burt's Bees' customers would have concluded that the use of such bristles were unethical. And we may safely presume that the boars were killed (though there is a ranch in Spain that would happily sell them bristles sheared from boars who are not killed), because Burt's Bees, which makes a point of telling us that it doesn't engage in animal testing hasn't made a point of telling us that these bristles were sheared from live boars.

Possibly Burt's Bees just didn't know any better (much as I didn't know any better). I notice that the Bay Rum Men's Shaving Kit is presently listed as currently out of stock, and I can't find the brush itself listed separately at their site (though I can find it sold by Red Rain, a company that claims to offer the concientious consumer earth friendly, cruelty free products and services). But Burt's Bees has grossly failed its customers, either willfully or inadvertantly, and owes to them an explanation and an apology.

Yester-day, I received a copy of The Call of Cthulhu (2005), which I watched this morning.

I come at this movie from the perspective of one who has read all or most of the fiction by HP Lovecraft, but actually liked only one of his pieces (The Rats in the Walls, Weird Tales, March 1924). I read Lovecraft's work largely because of its cultural significance; and especially, in particular, because it informs some work that I do admire (for example, Michael Shea's brilliant story, The Autopsy[1]).

Most films based upon Lovecraft's work, certainly every other Lovecraft film that I've seen, take great liberties with the material. Call of Cthulhu works sincerely to be faithful, and its makers had the clever idea of trying to give this film the look-and-feel that it would have had, had it been made shortly after the story was published — The Call of Cthulhu (2005) is a black-and-white, silent film.

And my over-all evaluation of it is very positive. This film will be enjoyed by most fans of HP Lovecraft, and by most admirers of horror films from the silent era. It will also appeal to those who enjoy films that are well made on extremely tight budgets.

I have some quibbles and qualms. The acting is too naturalistic; part of what makes classic horror films work is the very unnaturalistic acting in them, and it would have been better if the acting had captured the look-and-feel of 1926 or '7. The costuming doesn't look authentic when the men are in suits, for the simple reason that the collars are too low on their necks for the periods in which scenes are set. I reälize (from watching the extra features on the DVD) that it was terribly hot and uncomfortable when most of these scenes were filmed; but, while that and budgetary constraints might excuse the flaw, a flaw it remains. The direction and cinematography gives most of the film a look that is probably too modern; though there is something of an extra burden for the audience in the cinematography of the typical film of the silent era, this film needed either greater contrast, or the grey-scale of someone such as Carl Theodor Dreyer. While montage is used to good effect in this film, it is a bit anachronistic; it was considered avant-garde into the sound era. And, while I appreciated that text (title cards and what-not) did not linger as if each member of the audience had to sound out the words, the happy speed wasn't very authentic. Cthulhu probably would have worked better as drawn and painted animation, and in any case his neck is probably a bit too long and certainly far too thin. And, while the use of green screen was, through most of the film, remarkably adept, given the budget, it was rather evident in some of the swamp scenes.

But my recommendation is that the reader nod at these qualms and quibbles, and watch the film in spite of them. It's almost surely worth 47 minutes of your time.

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[1] The Autopsy first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Dec 1980. It has since been reprinted at least a dozen times, including in Dark Descent 1: The Colour of Evil (Hartwell, ed; 1990) and in Aliens Among Us (Dann & Dozois, ed; 2000).

Perhaps we should demand an apology on this score from Al Gore. After all, he told us that he took the initiative in creating the Internet.[1]

[Up-Date (13 Jan): I was informed by Gaal, in a comment to this entry, that the Times had somehow fabricated this story. (The BBC presenting the story as if it were their own research, but the chances that they would have independently fabricated the same details are slim indeed. So the Times has been caught-out in one way, and the BBC in another.) Meanwhile, the BBC story has been significantly edited, so that the sentence quoted above no longer appears, and we are instead told

A recent study by American research firm Gartner suggested that IT now causes two percent of global emissions.

]

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[1]Note that Snopes.com demonstrates that Al Gore did not claim to have invented the Internet. But what Gore did claim (and they even quote this) was

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

Snopes, which can be very much about spin rather than clarity when it is their ox that is about to be, er, stabbed with a horn, wants to claim that there's room for debate about whether his claim of creätion is justified, because the Internet is not a homogenous entity and didn't spring into being at once. Well, not much in this world is homogenous and static, but it is simply disingenuous to claim to have taken the initiative in creäting something that already existed because one pushed to fund its further development.

Here's an example of a wretched journalistic practice:

One should not begin with a news story with a lie, and then correct it. The head-line here doesn't refer to a post-war record. A head-line is often the only part of the story read, and almost always the first part of the story read. So people with no sense of history — because their educators in the school system and in the main-stream media don't impart one to them — are filled with anxiety and rage. The emotional effect lingers even after the correction is given, and some never get the correction.

The economic news has been bad, but it simply doesn't compare to that of the Great Depression — which itself shouldn't be seen as necessarily our worse down-turn. (Those who uncritically presume that it was should look into the Depression of 1837.)

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One should, BTW, be careful to distinguish amongst different statistics:

• the number of jobs lost,
• the unemployment rate,
• the employment rate,
• changes in these rates.

Note that the article acknowledges that the unemployment rate is not at a post-war high; it has, rather, climbed faster than at any time previous in the post-war period. The unemployment rate itself was worse at the end of the kinder, gentler Administration of GHW Bush.

Second, when there is job creätion as well as job loss, people may lose jobs but spend relatively little time unemployed. (Being dismissed from a job is still a stressful experience for most people, but not necessarily equivalent to being materially impoverished.)

Finally, the unemployment rate is not simply the complement of the employment rate. The unemployment rate, which tries to measure the number people who are seeking employment and unable to find it, is a fairly junky statistic. On the one hand, it doesn't count people who would choose to work if the were offered a job, but who have just given-up hope of finding one; and it doesn't count people who are under-employed, wanting full-time jobs but only able to secure part-time employment. On the other hand, it does count people who aren't sincerely seeking employment, but are going through the motions of seeking a job so that they can continue to collect benefits from programmes that require them to seek employment. The employment rate is simply the percentage of people of working age who have jobs. It has problems — including that it counts under-employed people — but it's less junky that the unemployment rate.

(Underscore mine.) Plainly, these folk were not doing everything that they could. There was an established problem of the animals being spooked by the fireworks, but no one was there to care for the animals during a time that fireworks were to be expected. The staff failed grossly, but they're pointing their fingers away from themselves. I don't know whether they're just too stupid to recognize their own failure, or proceed now from a lack of integrity.

This morning, at the post office, the fellow immediately ahead of me in line was a Germanophone, wrapping a surf-board in bubble-wrap and tape, in preparation for mailing it to Germany. A postal employee came out to examine the situation; and, when last I knew, the Germanophone was being told that the item was too large.

Where does one surf in Germany?

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I have complained in the past of the electronic Amber Alert signs at the sides of the highways being used to preach, as this causes people to develop a habit of ignoring them, which defeats the ostensible primary purpose of the signs.

On top of that, here was the message on the signs that I saw along I-805 and CA-163:

DONT TEXT
WHILE DRIVING
JAN 1ST

So, apparently, they're cool with people texting while driving for at least the rest of the month, and possibly again starting on the 2nd.

I had a brief but very pleasant conversation this morning with Fred Belinsky, owner of the Village Hat Shop.

One of Mr Belinsky's 'blog entries had been about common-sense responsiveness to customers, and I felt that if I spoke to him about a sort of hat that I'd like to buy from him, then my request would be weighed into the decisions about what their in-house manufacturer, Jaxon Hats, would make.

Mr Belinksy was perfectly reasonable. He suggested some items from their present wares; he respected and even sympathized with my discomfort with fur felts. (In fact, his remarks made me more inclined to think that someone might make a go of a business that made fur felts without the animals having been killed or injured to collect the fur.[1]) Further, he thanked me for expressing my desires, and asserted that, indeed, such requests were factored into the decisions as to what to make. When he learned that I had quite liked a now officially discountinued hat, he made a check in the back room to see if he could find one for me. (Tragically, he found one in each of the other two colors, but not the grey that would go with my suits.)

Before I spoke with Mr Belinsky, I'd found a hat that I wanted to get for my mother. Mr Belinsky was kind enough to give me a Jaxon baseball cap as a lagniappe with that purchase.

And, as I was checking-out, Mr Belinsky amusèdly brought-over another customer, who had just asked for a hat of very similar description to that which I'd requested.

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[1] No, I wouldn't want to call it the Shaved Beaver Felt Firm.

English Leather used to be a major brand of men's grooming products. The English Leather brand was introduced by the House of Dana in 1949. I'm not sure exactly what happened to the brand, but in 1995, les Parfums de Dana was acquired by Renaissance Cosmetics, Inc, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999 and was acquired by Fragrance Express, Inc, which creäted New Dana Perfumes Corporation with the portfolio. In 2003, Dana Classic Fragrances, a company closely associated with New Dana Perfumes Corporation and principally owned by the CEO of New Dana Perfumes Corporation, bought the fragrance brand portfolio of New Dana Perfumes Corporation.

And yester-day, in my mail-box, I got a different sort of indication of the fate of the brand.

The junkiest of the junk-mail that I get comes in a form rather like newspaper inserts. On the back page on such an assemblage, was an advertisement for English Leather® hats. Here's a version that I found on-line of pretty much the same advertisement: I don't know how English Leather comes to be used to brand extraordinarily tasteless hats, whether this be a hijacking or Dana having left a back-door unsecured. But this is a brand either in free fall or in grave danger of becoming so.

Relatively speaking, it has been cold and raining a great deal in the San Diego area. Certainly it has been raining more than in most of the Decembers through which I've lived here, and possibly more than any other.

One good thing is that I get to wear my duster.

But my understanding is that Babycakes has been taking a hit from the weather, with fewer customers. I think that part of the issue is that, while the efforts of the owners to attract new customers have produced some positive results, the new customers whom they have attracted don't have a sense of attachment to the place; in the meantime, changes have weakened the sense of attachment held by the established customers.

For example, most of the indoor seating for customers is in a single, long room. The owners have tried to give things a cozier feeling be partitioning that room with curtains. But the rental computers are on one side of those curtains, and the tables used by those with note-book computers are on the other; practicalities divide friends, and thus the sense of the place as one where one is with friends is eroded.

I don't know how much actual business, over-all, is associated with the WLAN, but the quality of that network has been poor for weeks. The router was moved into a back-building to allow for renovation of the room in which the router was previously located. And that back-building seems to work largely as an insulating cage. In the front half of the main building and on the front patio, there is no longer any meaningful access to the WLAN. The signal is degraded even on the back patio, and it's only there that the WoW folk can get a sufficient signal for their purposes.

Anyway, in the absence of a stronger sense of attachment and in the context of the bad weather, people just don't come. (And the people who need a solid 'Net connection aren't typically going to set-up their computers where it is cold and wet.) I don't know where the balance is to be struck, but I think that the owners need to improvise quickly, to restore at least somewhat the relationship of their business to its established customers. I think that the baristi should be told to open or to close the partitioning curtains according to their judgment about what sort of customers are present, and I think that the wireless router needs to be moved out of the back building and into a more central location, perhaps in the second story of the main building.

(Underscore mine.) The selection of Warren is, one way or another, an illustration of Obama as triangulator — someone who cobbles-together a plurality based upon a reading of demographics and of polls, with little regard for the vision thing.

I don't know to what extent the present rank-and-file of the Democratic Party will tolerate an alliance with social conservatives of any sort; but, again, politics tends to be tribalistic. Many Democrats will find formulæ to rationalize cleaving to the Party as it now further intrudes into the bedroom as well as into the boardroom. Some will argue that the Republicans have forced such alliances upon the Democrats. Others will persuade themselves that they have to stick with Obama or lose any chance at progressive policy in any area.

If the Democrats succeed in forging such ties, the Republicans will have considerable trouble off-setting the lost numbers with classical liberals, who have been terrifically alienated by what the Republicans actually did while in power. Not, though, that there's really anywhere else for the classical liberals to go now, since the Libertarian Party sold-out for a cupful of thin, red stew.