Tweets for May 8, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Chairman Recommended: Deodorant

Added on by C. Maoxian.

The Chairman's body odor has been described by his friends as "incredible" and that's even before I have consumed any dairy products (which kicks my B.O. up to B.B.O (an old Seinfeld joke)). Nevertheless I don't like using deodorant in general and would never ever smear any aluminum compound "anti-perspirant" in my armpits. But this spray deodorant from Burt's Bees is quite pleasant, masks the Chairman's natural manly scent fairly well, and has the added benefit of acting as a mosquito repellent. 

I don't think Clorox has added any bleach to the original formula since buying out old Burt. I pay $7 for a 4 fluid ounce bottle, which lasts several months.

Chairman Recommended: Floss Picks

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I used to use Glide floss, which was the best floss around, even after Procter & Gamble bought it from W.L. Gore and changed the product a bit (I suspect). For some reason somewhere along the line I stopped using floss and started using these floss picks, even though they're not friendly to Mother (Earth).

I can imagine millions of them gathering together in some mile-wide flotsam in the ocean, or scattering the beaches of Polynesian islands ... Paul Gauguin's famous Tahitian landscape littered with used floss picks.  I pay $2 for a pack of 75, which lasts a couple of months. 

Books Read -- Dreaming in Chinese

Added on by C. Maoxian.

This is the book I read in April having toned down my ridiculous idea of reading one book a week to one book a month. I have a hard time reading anything greater than tweet-length anymore. 

Deborah Fallows is James Fallows' wife and this is a short and often charming book about the Chinese language. Mrs. Fallows has a PhD in linguistics, but this is a light-hearted approach to explaining what makes the Chinese language special. The Fallows...es? spent three years in China in the 2000s, and Mrs. Fallows did the usual "trailing spouse" things (wandering around, having massages, attending bad Chinese classes), but she's smart and has an interest in language and how it relates to culture. It's a quick read.

I've added the Table of Contents below, which may help you decide if you want to read it.

Chairman Recommended: Butter Dish

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I use Kerrygold butter which comes in a big block, basically a double stick, and in the past I used to cut it in two and put one stick in a conventional butter dish and one stick in the fridge, which was a pain in the ass, but then I found Guzzini's butter dish -- it's designed to hold something two sticks wide. Although it's not made out of glass but some specialty plastic, it still looks good and is two-stick functional. A bargain at $20. Chairman recommended! 

Chairman Recommended: Hand Cream

Added on by C. Maoxian.

It's all about the shea butter content, baby (20%!). This is the stuff I use from L'Occitane.  $28 a pop but worth every penny. Baby isn't thrilled with the fragrance, but I don't mind it, and I'm a manly man.  This product is Chairman recommended! 

Chairman Recommended: Bar Soap

Added on by C. Maoxian.

My Twitter buddy @imagethief turned me on to Kirk's ... I had been using Mrs. Meyers before but Kirk's is better, a lot better. It lathers nicely, rinses cleanly, doesn't dry out your skin and isn't perfumed in any way. It's great soap. I pay $3.29 for a three pack. Chairman recommended! 

Tweets for May 7, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Tweets for May 6, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Tweets for May 5, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Tweets for May 4, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Praise in Public, Rebuke in Private

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From George Wilson's appearance on Booknotes in 1989:

"I think that American soldiers are American soldiers whether they be marines or infantrymen. And I have no worries about them running and letting us down. I have some worries about whether they are well enough lead. It seems to me we've gotten into this management syndrome where you give a guy a Rifle Company for a year or year and a half and then you put him in a Staff job then you send him to charm school you can't get get good leading troops and winning battles with all this turbulence at the top."

Tweets for May 3, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Tweets for May 2, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Invidious Urbanity

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From Roger Kennedy's appearance on Booknotes in 1989:

"LAMB: Monitor Radio -- there's some in our audience, like me, who remember Monitor Radio. Whatever happened to that? Why didn't it survive?

KENNEDY: Because in a commercial system, the notion that you could talk about a story as long as the story merits simply is unacceptable. Some things are worth talking about for, my goodness, four minutes or even six.

LAMB: Or even an hour.

KENNEDY: Yes, miraculously. Well, it's crazy. How are you going to get the commercial bites in there?

LAMB: When did it die?

KENNEDY: We fell off that train. Gosh, I don't remember because the management changed and we all departed in about '58. It may have gone on after that.

LAMB: Oh, it did. I remember.

KENNEDY: We didn't feel it was exactly the same."

Tweets for April 30, 2016

Added on by C. Maoxian.

The Deadly Combination of Atwater and Ailes

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From Jeanne Simon's appearance on Booknotes in 1989: 

"I cared about [civil rights] because as a Catholic, a Roman Catholic, I belonged to the Catholic Interracial Council on the North Shore -- before I was in politics. I could see for myself that we were not getting anywhere very fast. And long before I was elected I was working for interracial integration. But to meet Paul [Simon], who was really actively doing something at it, again was a marvelous combination. He was working with Lutheran Human Relations in his area before I met him. And when we both came to Springfield we thought that this was an ideal way to put some of our faith into practice by working for the Fair Employment Practice Commission -- for working for fair housing. Some of these phrases seem very old fashioned now, but in 1956, 1958, those were very important, and we needed them."