Observations While Sitting Around

Sitting Observation: A few years ago Charmin brand toilet tissue came out with a jumbo roll, so big it didn’t fit in standard-issue bathroom holders. Not to be deterred, Charmin overcame the operational problem by distributing free adaptors to extend the depth of the tissue holder. A thoughtful marketing solution.

Except, no one had the foresight to ask, what happens if we subsequently downsize our toilet tissue rolls? What happens when the adaptors are constant reminders we’re providing less product per roll but charging the same (or more)? (Indeed, at Costco the jumbo Ultra Soft roll is now just 173.2 sq. ft. long, down 7.6% from its previous real jumbo size 187.5 sq. ft. Of course, the price has gone up, 2.6%.)

It’s the type of business problem one ponders while just, er, sitting around...


Bernie Madoff has been getting lots of ink and air time lately (e.g, this profile in New York magazine: http://nymag.com/news/features/berniemadoff-2011-3/). Which prompted two questions in my mind:

First, are the Feds monitoring the stock trades of Bernie’s fellow inmates?

Second, which video clip has been shown more often during the last two years—Osama bin Laden crouching while shooting a Kalashnikov rifle, or Madoff in baseball cap shoving a cameraman while walking in New York?...


Baby Blues: Mike Huckabee recently criticized Academy Award winner Natalie Portman, saying she was a poor role model because she will have a child out of wedlock. Shades of Vice President Dan Quayle attacking Murphy Brown 20 years ago (for those too young to know, or too old to remember, Murphy Brown was a fictional TV newscaster portrayed by Candace Bergen. In the TV sitcom, the unwed Murphy Brown had a baby, prompting Quayle’s admonishment).

Huckabee is entitled to his value system but wouldn't a more appropriate example of adolescent misbehavior be Bristol Palin’s baby-making fling with Levi Johnston? Bristol and Levi were high school students, with no visible sources of income (though she now is a money-machine, and dancer, thanks to our country’s warped reward system. Levi, as well, has cashed in on his notoriety). Natalie Portman, on the other hand, is 29 with a successful career forged while earning a BA degree in psychology from Harvard; her fiancé and father of her future child is a professional dancer. Not exactly the PWT model Bristol and Levi project. But then, Huckabee might be reluctant to call out the daughter of Grizzly Bear mom Sarah Palin...

Speaking of Huckabee, he's either very dumb or very sly like a fox. In erroneously saying President Obama grew up in Kenya near madrasas, Huckabee showed ignorance of his opponent.

Or, as I heard the other day, he pulled a cagey lawyer’s trick by purposely planting misinformation in his audience’s mind. He knew he'd be corrected, but just as a lawyer asks a question he knows will be objected to, Huckabee aired the false information to further the campaign to de-legitimize Obama’s presidential qualifications.

Me? I don't think Huckabee possesses such guile. I think he's just dumb and biased against anyone with a cultural background different than his Arkansasian narrow-mindedness. He can't relate to an Obama. Or Portman. Or to a Bill Clinton who went to Yale and became a Rhodes scholar. It's amazing how many Republicans want to be the leader of the most important country on earth but have almost no exposure to the rest of the world. At least Sarah Palin can see Russia from her front door...


Blow Up Debate: Or, my terrorist is better than yours. At least that’s what one must assume, given U.S. Rep. Peter King’s intention to hold hearings beginning Thursday on home-grown Islamic terrorists, despite his personal support for Irish Republican Army bombers back in the 1980s.

The GOP congressman believes the IRA was not a terrorist organization. It never attacked the U.S., as have Islamic terrorists. But anyone killed by an IRA bomb is just as dead as someone killed by an Islamic terrorist. It really is irrelevant who they were or where they were killed. Dead is dead, in any language or country.

Oscar Picks, Libya Fallout and Bully Tactics

Gilda and I have been frantically trying to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films before tonight’s telecast. We did a fairly good job of it, so here are picks for the golden statues for the top awards:

Best Actor: Colin Firth of The King’s Speech

Best Actress: Natalie Portman of Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale of The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo of The Fighter

Best Director: David O. Russell of The Fighter

Best Picture: The Fighter


Crisis at the Pump: Forget about the precipitous rise in oil prices because of the upheaval in Libya and other Middle Eastern fiefdoms. We have to focus our attention on the real crisis in Arabia—how will Muslim potentates be able to import Western values if their access to Beyoncé, Usher and Mariah Carey is cut off?

One of the more interesting stories to come out of the turmoil was the report on how Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sons engaged in a game of one-upsmanship, spending countless millions to party with entertainment from the likes of the aforementioned performers (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/africa/23cables.html?scp=2&sq=mariah%20carey&st=cse). Are Beyoncé, Usher and Mariah Carey so hard up for cash they would dignify despots with their talent? Even for a million dollars? Keep in mind, the millions they were paid did not come out of the Qaddafi family’s pockets. They were paid with money ripped off from the Libyan people.

It’s just another sad commentary on the shallowness of some of our “stars” and a value system that plays to the tune of the highest bidder.


Bully Tactics: Speaking of shallow, it’s hard to evince any sympathy for Charlie Sheen, the raging and enraged star of Two and a Half Men. He’s placed himself in the mold of Mel Gibson with his rant about show creator Chuck Lorre’s birth name, Chaim Levine. (At least in Sheen’s case the apple has fallen far from the tree. Gibson seems to be following in his father’s anti-Semitic footsteps, whereas Sheen’s father, Martin Sheen, is the darling of liberals.) One can only surmise Sheen was expressing a not so veiled anti-Semitic comment, though he denies it. It is hard to imagine any other explanation, given the long history of bigots who dredge up birth names to cast aspersions on their targets.

I admit I have occasionally watched Two and a Half Men during its eight year run. I’ve laughed at some of the humor. But I never really was comfortable with its comic take on life. I’m turned off by humor that derives its punch line from insults and offensiveness. I’m turned off by a character that extols drunkenness, conniving, insensitivity and a mostly misogynist attitude. He’s not too kind to his brother, either.

For the most part, Sheen’s character is a bully, someone who takes advantage of the weak and defenseless. I don’t know Charlie Sheen’s political orientation, but his bullying tactics on the air and in his personal life smack too much like the politics being engaged in by Republicans on the federal and state levels. I’m particularly incensed by the choices Republicans are making. For example, last year Arizona eliminated a Children’s Health Insurance Program that covered 47,000 low-income children without coverage. Another 310,000 childless couples lost Medicaid coverage under the state’s budget. In the proposed federal budget approved by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, funding would be cut for a host of programs that aid women and children (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/opinion/26sat1.html?src=me&ref=general). I don’t know how many of you actually click on the links I provide, but this last one is important. After reading the editorial, I challenge anyone to explain the term “compassionate conservative” with a straight face.

I’m all for cutting wasteful programs and imposing a fair tax system. But I just cannot understand, or accept, the GOP’s stance on de-funding programs that help the disadvantaged. How can they claim to be pro-family when all they do is cut programs that help struggling families? How can they do that at the same time they support tax relief for millionaires? How do they sleep at night?