Can this be true?

I was listening to the radio program The World yesterday and one item struck me as barely credible. It said that Americans are the heaviest users of toilet paper. That itself was not surprising because Americans in general consume a lot more per person than most other parts of the world. But what was shocking was that Americans use three rolls of toilet paper per person per week!

Can that really be true? I know that our household comes nowhere close to using at that rate because I am the person who purchases it.
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How Trump supporters protect their hero

As I have occasionally mentioned before, in my social circle is a vocal Trump supporter who gets quite heated when his hero is criticized, so much so that we avoid discussing politics when he is there. But occasionally our guard slips and this happened last week at a dinner party when we were discussing how in an interview, billionaire presidential vanity candidate Howard Schultz could not name the price of everyday items that one might buy in a grocery store. This is a popular line of questioning by reporters who suggest that failure to give the correct answer shows that one is out of touch with everyday people
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Peter Tork (1942-2019)

The bass player for The Monkees (whose full name was Peter Halsten Thorkelson) died today at the age of 77. I always liked The Monkees with their cheerful, upbeat songs. Because they were a band brought together by TV producers for a show, people tended to underestimate their musical abilities, even referring to them derisively as the ‘pre-fab four’. In addition to the bass, Tork could also play the keyboards, banjo, and harpsichord.

Here they are singing one of their big hits Last Train to Clarksville.

Seth Meyers on the Green New Deal and Trump’s lies about it

That Donald Trump lies constantly is not news. But his lies and those of his supporters have long since jumped the shark and descended into self-parody. This is most evident in how they are portraying the Green New Deal, saying that it will take away people’s cars, air travel, oil, gas, the military, and even their cows.

Do Trump’s supporters really buy that rubbish? In the clip below, the audience sort-of cheers when Trump says these things at a rally but I got the sense that it was a dutiful response rather than an enthusiastic one.

The class war is now in the open

In response to Amazon withdrawing its offer to have its second headquarters in New York City following protests by local activists in the borough of Queens, a billboard appeared in Times Square blaming Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She immediately sent out a couple of tweets in response.


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The female breast as a threat to public order

The seal of the state of Virginia has an image of the Roman god Virtus wearing a gown that exposes one breast. While the state legislature was debating whether to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, ERA supporter and performance artist Michelle Renay Sutherland attended a rally where she was dressed as Virtus and recreated the image shown on the seal, thus also exposing one breast. The difference was of course that the figure on the seal was presumed to be that of a man so his breast exposure was considered acceptable. The breast was emphasized so much in the figure that at first I thought that Virtus was a woman, which is possible, and someone who is a classicist can enlighten me. But the sight of a female breast sent the authorities into a tizzy and they arrested Sutherland.
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Carlson gets his hat handed to him by Bregman again

I blogged yesterday about the interview that Fox News personality Tucker Carlson had with Dutch historian Rutger Bregman where he was reduced to hurling childish insults. The interview had actually taken place last week and it looks like Carlson had hoped to bury it. But Bregman’s side of the interview was recorded in a studio at his end and he released it, taunting Carlson to also release it. So now Carlson had to respond. And he did but rather than showing the interview on his show or even explaining why he would not to his audience, he took the cowardly way out and did it online.
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Rutger Bregman hands Tucker Carlson his hat

The Fox News host invited the Dutch historian on his show to discuss his comments at Davos about the need for higher taxes on the rich went viral. Carlson apparently was attracted by Bregman pointing out the hypocrisy of people flying in their private jets to Davos to discuss climate change but the interview went off the rails when Bregman described how Fox News and its on-air personalities were millionaires who had been bought off by the billionaire class to not talk about the need for higher taxes and instead talk about immigrants. Carlson clearly did not like being told to his face that he is a mere mouthpiece for the oligarchy and went on a profanity-laden tirade.
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Bruno Ganz (1941-2019)

The Swiss character actor died last week at the age of 77. Many people may not be aware of him. I myself saw him in only one film late in his career. But he achieved YouTube immortality because his serious role in the 2004 German film Downfall, where he played Hitler in the last days in his bunker, became a meme, with English ‘subtitles’ of his words made up to reflect current events.
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Positive signs of the zeitgeist

I am constantly on the lookout for signs that attitudes are moving in more positive directions and in the last week I came across two. One is that the Trump administration is starting a global effort to end the criminalization of homosexuality.

The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it’s still illegal to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off Tuesday evening in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.

“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” said a U.S. official involved in organizing the event.

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