One Ply Toilet Paper

May 21, 2011


What is the rationale behind one ply toilet paper? I mean if you own say a bed and breakfast and you want to convey luxury to your guests do you think that one ply toilet paper is the way to go. Even if you want to convey “green”, “conservation”, “earth health”, etc. why do you need one ply toilet paper to do that?

Everyone knows that you use twice as much one ply toilet paper to finish the job as you do two ply toilet paper. In actuality, and I’m sure that your government dollars have gone to a similar study, I’ll bet government funded studies show that you actually use THREE times as much toilet paper when faced with the tissue thin one ply options. As soon as your hands hit the one ply roll you immediately get visions of damp, thin, toilet paper fragements stuck to your hands, to your neither regions, etc. and a sort of Pavlov’s response to cleanliness ensues. You really just want to grab the entire roll. Take it off the holder and wipe your ass with the entire roll.

So listen to me you cheap bed and breakfast owners, you restauranteers spending your money on fry oil instead of two ply TP, you budget cutting public institutions, you dorms from hell buying one ply toilet paper is almost as transparent as the paper itself.  It tells me that you are too cheap to provide people even the materials necessary to wipe their ass.
Think about it.

U.S. Impoverished? The New Weatlthy.

India gives poverty a whole new meaning.  As I drive across the Gurgaon landscape, I find that I have a hard time dismissing the absolute abject poverty, swill of living conditions, trash, dirt, paleness of humanity in this place. It is epitomized by the various lone individuals you see squatting in the middle of fields richly “planted” in trash bags, while the dirty wind blows around them, stray dogs strut around and pigs happily wave their tails eating…..well whatever they can find to survive.

I told a guy today who had lived here for 2.5 years that you probably get hardened to the absolute poverty around you. He told me about his sense that society was bettering itself. Farmer’s children were having jobs, their grandchildren were going to college. I guess, but it is hard to see. Really hard to see.  I know that living here probably dulls the senses somewhat.


I drive by it every day and I see it. He drives by it for three years and he no longer sees it. It is interesting. What traveling worldwide does is give you an entirely different perspective on the definition of poverty. Let me tell you, it makes it hard to hear the cries of poverty in the U.S. when you see people who do not know where their next meal is coming from. I mean, not from war or famine, but from a famine of society. A lack of jobs, shelter, food, simple health, clean water. When people talk about being poor in America, they talk of things like not being able to even afford a cell phone! Not being able to afford to send their kids to college. “I have not had a vacation in five years.”  kind of stuff.  You have to be joking. Americans don’t know the meaning of poverty. I don’t know of anyone in the U.S. who doesn’t have drinking water, who has to draw their morning coffee water from a toxic pipe, boil it on a small cow dung fueled fire, set on the ground in front of their shack built with some scrap boards and plastic bags. The later is standard for probably half the Indian population. Now THAT is poverty. I know it hardens me to the plight of the average American poor. I can’t help it. India gives poor a whole new meaning.

Globally speaking, U.S. Poverty is the New Wealthy.

INDIA.....an acquired smell

India is basically an assault.  The smell of millions of people dumping their garbage, deficating in the streets, cooking along the roadside, or apparently in Indira Ghandi  Airport, as the image below attests to.

This sign says "No Smoking", "Do Not Spit", "No Drinking Alcohol", and finally, "No Cooking".  This sign only needs to add "No Urinating" to entirely encompass Indian society.  The thought that these four (plus one, five) functions would have to be contained on the same "Don't do it!" sign might shock some, but it is standard fare for India.  Clearly the government plan that was all the rage 1.5 years ago when I was here to eliminate public urination did not succeed.  People are peeing in all place, field, alleys, against walls, in the gutter, you name it.   The smell mingles with the smell of curry cooking in pots on small roadside fires, fueled by burning cow dung patties.  Mix in diesel fumes from about 1000 cars; just the ones in your immediate vicinity, add rain, mud, sewers running in the streets, burning trash and incense and you have it - the aroma that is India.  Now I ain't saying this characterizes all of India, but it certainly captured the drive to work for me each morning. 

The people are very nice.

Lesli

QATAR

What is today? I think it is Friday April 25. I flew from DC, leaving Dulles on Qatar Airlines at 9:50 p.m. and I have arrived at the Doha Airport in Qatar and it is Friday night here at 7:30 pm. I leave at 9 pm for New Delhi and will arrive around 3:30 am on Saturday morning. I will highly recommend Qatar. They are reported to have the best Business Class in the business and I admit it was pretty good. I missed dinner, went to sleep in my flat bed and pajamas (yep, they give you pajamas) and slept a good 6-7 hours. Probably snored, but no one poking me or telling me to turn over. (I miss that by the way.) Anyway, I am currently sitting in the lounge of Qatar Airlines. It is like a big expensive hotel lobby, but with all the food and drink you want, good stuff like dried apricots and dates, along with more traditional western fare.

Qatar is a small island nation that sits just off the eastern (?) shores of Saudi Arabia. Stable monarchy I think. Nobody marching in the streets, yet. People are very nice. I want to say that Qatar has escaped the sort of suppression of women’s rights that exist in Saudi and some other smaller Emirate nations, but I speak from very little real experience. Just the impression that I got from the very….very talkative lady from Canada who sat, or slept next to me on the flight. She was very friendly. Husband was an accountant and they had lived in Doha for 13 years. I will post a pic with this if I get a chance.

Now it is off to India where the people are many, the services are few and life swirls around inspite of the dramatic differences in social class. Ah the Hindu’s you gotta love em.

The Evil Shopping Cart

February 18, 2011



The Evil Shopping Cart
I was shopping at HEB the other day watching people pile these shopping carts that will hold 4.5 cubic feet (176 lbs) of stuff with tons chips and sodas and meat and bread and super sized boxes of sugary cereal and 5 pounds of potatoes, and I thought “The evolution of the shopping cart was the downfall of the health of the American society.” Prior to the invention of the shopping cart we would not have dreamed of hauling 5 lbs of potatoes home on our back. We would not lug a weeks worth of groceries home to a family of four. We would not carry liter bottles of soda pop home to the house, one in each hand. It is a twist on the classic, but “If you buy it they will come and eat it.” It is clear. Shopping carts are obviously a terrorist plot to destroy the health of American society.
Let’s look at the scientific data. It is believed, according to Wikipedia (source of all knowledge) that the shopping cart was invented in Oklahoma in 1936. One night, the owner of Piggly Wiggly’s grocery, Mr. Goldman “…sat in his office wondering how customers might move more groceries.” Now Oklahoma is one of sixth fattest states in the union. Shopping carts!

It is undeniable that the average weight of American’s is going up, up, up this century. Although I can find no data pre-1936, in 2002, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the findings of a study that charted the changes in the American body since 1960. It found that Men aged 20 to 74 weighed 191 pounds on average. In 1960 the average was just 166.3 pounds. So the average weight has risen nearly 30 pounds. The Shopping Cart!

Don't you see?!?!? The shopping cart was a uniquely American phenomena. If you travel to most European neighborhoods, groceries are carried in small bags from 90% of the stores around the world. People often stop by the neighborhood markets and grab small loads of groceries on the way walking home from work. Yes, I said walking. It is this thing that lots of people do around the world, and you don’t see them hauling a sack of potatoes on their back and a liter of soda pop in each hand when they walk out on the street. But I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until we improve everyone else’s lifestyle as we have improved ours.

 


Egypt

This is a shout out to every Egyptian who is fighting for a true democracy in Egypt.   Free from fear or reprisal from a government who think they can hang onto power by fear and through abusive behavior.  Those people have risked their lives, their families, their possessions to try and force change.

The U.S. has supported Mubarak for decades because they decided the devil that they knew was better than the devil that they didn't know.   He is an 82 year old dictator that has ruled Egypt with an iron fist, emplacing secret police who have run wild for decades, arresting people, imprisioning people, torturing and abusing the Egyptian people.  It is wrong and it simply has to stop.  For the U.S. to support the emplacement of another of Mubarak's cronies as VP is insulting to the people of Egypt.  I don't blame the protestors one bit for feeling insulted by the gesture and even more insulted and angry that the U.S. who has funded Mubarak's reign for all these years would be so haughty as to say "Here, why don't you take this instead. This is better than what you have now."  Sometimes it insults me to think my government behaves the way it does.

I guess time has long since passed when we felt like we actually had some semblance of control over what government does.   We see in the Egyptian people what it takes to cause change.

Is the North the new South?!?!?

I have been struck by the number of chicks from northern states who are Tea Partyin' bad ass broads who sling guns, drive big trucks, tell the world to kiss off, etc.  I mean look at Sarah P.  She has been setting herself outside the norm for years.  Now she is the darling of the Tea Party jet set.  She can bring home the conservative bacon and gut the caribou.  I'm surprised we have not see her chewing the hide to make a nice leather jacket for 2012.  She is stealthy, I mean what male politician can  sidestep a pregnant, unwed teenage daughter in a political campaign.  I thought that was pretty impressive.

Now this other woman, Michelle Bachmann, has come along from Minnesota no less, who is definitely pushing all the liberal buttons she can find.    I mean is there something about the long dark winters that is breeding the type of woman who we are seeing in Palin and Bachmann, these huntin', fishin', deer guttin',  scarey sort of supremicist types ?  All lipsticked up and lookin' ready to take on the entire money spending establishment.  Is it too much time in the evening to watch reality TV and Facebook?  Is it marketing gone wild for the benefit of the all might buck.

It's like these people are trying to take over the image of the southern, kkk-lovin' good ol' boy, who drives a swamp stomper pickup and tells the entire world to just "kiss my red neck ass".  Is the North the new South?  Have we in the South so failed in our mission to look stupid and say stupid things that this role must be taken over by the matriarchs of the North?  Maybe global warming will tone things down. 

And by the way, why have all the Republicans been showing up on Dancing with the Stars?  First Bristol Palin and then Tom Delay.  It's like the elephant's grave yard.