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.

Its name notwithstanding, Golden Age Comic Book Stories has been about a lot more than comic books (of any age). It has been simply awash in terrific illustration for pulp magazines and especially for fantasy work of the same genre. I encourage my readers to set aside a little time for a visit there.

Meanwhile, over at Hairy Green Eyeball, Mr Green posted some scans of the Timid Soul from The Best of H.T. Webster. I'd first encountered Caspar Milquetoast, the Timid Soul, back when, in high school, I discovered books on the history of the comic strip. In what I saw, Mr Milquetoast was cleverly presented as the most yielding of men. (Though I don't enjoy the cases where he is confronted by a genuine bully.)

I hadn't known or had forgot about The Best of H.T. Webster, first published in 1953 and reprinted at least twice. I was prompted by Mr Green's entry to look for a copy on AddAll.com. I found a first printing of the first edition, with the dust jacket in less-than-good condition, but the rest of the book in fine condition, at Lorrin Wong Books (his own site doesn't seem very functional, but he can be reached by way of Biblio and at AntiqBook.com) in Los Angeles for just $7 (plus $3.50 s&h). I ordered it early in the morning of 16 December, Mr Wong got it in the mails that same day, and it arrived on the next.

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.

Daniel: That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

the Woman of Interest: Yes, it does; but I had to try it.

(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.

I'm not sure whether das Erwerbslosen Forum Deutschland believes that it is better to pay affluent people than poor people, or believes that die Ratten should be left unmolested. I am, however, sure that, if a €1 bounty is placed on rats, then people will raise rats for the bounty.

I haven't followed everything that has been said about the proposed bail-out of the major American automobile manufacturers, and I don't know whether the principal point that I'm going to make below has been much noticed.

It is quite natural for people to hold that, if the manufacturers are given a major infusion of financial capital, then they should surrender some control to the creditors; that if the manufacturers are given a bail-out by Congress, then Congress ought to be able to impose some changes in practices and in policies, to ensure that tax-payers are in some way repaid.

But ownership is no more or less than a right of control, and to the extent that control is transferred, ownership is surrendered. What we are then discussing, however we might put it, is nationalization, albeït perhaps only partial nationalization, whether it is called this or not.

Once the automobile industry is nationalized, management of that industry becomes another government programme, with a large bloc of voters fairly directly dependent upon that programme for their incomes. A sizeable portion of this bloc will insist upon indefinite guarantees concering employment and income. The industry would likely become another third rail of the political system, virtually untouchable unless it is to expand the benefits received by the beneficiaries. Further, conceptualizing what amounts to a transfer programme (welfare) as a manufacturing programme will consume additional resources, which really ought to go into other projects. It would literally be more efficient to pay some or all of the automobile workers to stay home than to pay them to make some or all of the vehicles that they would make; but, by golly, the illusion of productivity will trump the reälity of waste.

Because the political significance of a transfer programme is positively correlated with its direct economic benefits to recipients, the stronger are the initial guarantees of employment and of income, the more powerful will be the abiding political effect of the programme. The Republican insistance that a bail-out provide for swift wage cuts probably speaks to some awareness that the bloc of voters in-question would more naturally align with the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the White House discussion of doing an end-run to provide a bail-out from other funds may be an attempt to head-off later action by Congress when the Democrats assume the more sizeable majorities from the last elections. Giving money to the manufacturers with fewer strings attached puts less of a programme in place.

I ordered a few things from the Grooming Lounge on Sunday. They arrived to-day, along with a catalogue (Volume V).

Flipping through the catalogue and looking at its pictures, I remarked to the Woman of Interest that their wares, in general, were for someone far more metrosexual than I.

However, I stopped to read the description of the Tweezerman Porcelain Nail File.

Hand-crafted file keeps nails properly shaped and can also be used as a shiv if you end up in the joint.

(The description on the Website is less extraordinary.) Of bamboo fiber underwear, they write

These pieces are also free of annoying tags and our hands-on research shows they cause 98% fewer wedgies than leading brands

(The website boosts this claimed percentage to 98.7.) It's as if J. Peterman had set-up his teen-age sons in business.

Addendum: Through this weekend, one can get 10% off all Grooming Lounge Hair Care Solutions by entering the code Blagojevich at check-out.

Some Hair Goop

Can provide a buttoned-up or whacked-out look.

Ouch! I accidentally knocked one of my Bluetooth cellphone head-sets into a sink as I was running water into it.

I could not readily disassemble the head-set or otherwise remove its battery, but I have put it into a finger-bowl filled with rice, as this was the best desiccant that I had in quantity. I guess that I'll leave it in there for at least a day.

Up-Date (2008:12/18): In the event, I left the head-set in the rice for a little more than three days. It seems to be working satisfactorily, except that the connection to the charger seems a bit flaky, and I believe that that problem isn't significantly related to the fall into the sink.