Toward the end of her Stop Global Warming Tour singer Sheryl Crow, along with Producer Laurie David, attended the White House Correspondents Dinner and tried to persuade Karl Rove to consider their points about how the US leads the world in global warming pollution. From their blog: “In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, ‘Don’t touch me.’ How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, ‘You can’t speak to us like that, you work for us.’ Karl then quipped, ‘I don’t work for you, I work for the American people.’ To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, ‘We are the American people.’”
By Herr Karl’s remark I take it that the administration thinks that only about 30% of this country is “American.” And since they are working for only them, can the rest of us not pay their salaries?
And remember, Rove is only adopting the attitude from the top. At a church picnic in Philadelphia in 2001, when Bill Hangley Jr. told Bush, “I’m very disappointed in your work so far,” the President’s response was, “Who cares what you think?”
I’m not sure if you’d want to be touched by Sheryl Crow either, given her recent “all we are saying is give one piece a chance” moment.
Comment by Peter — April 24, 2007 @ 11:31 am
It saddens me to hear how people can tend to completely dismiss an issue with this sort of flippant remark instead of addressing the heart of the matter. I see it time and time again, dancing around with inanities, making no real progress in what’s important.
Sheryl Crow’s one piece of bathroom tissue is not the problem. If you really want to go there, I asked a woman about it and she said that guys think only in terms of cleaning up after Number 2. Most of the time, women need far less TP than men, so one square is not so far out. I’ll grant you that Sheryl’s intentions on TP, while good, won’t solve global warming or save significant amounts of trees. But see, how far afield do you intend to go from talking about the real issue?
Comment by Stuart Vail — April 24, 2007 @ 12:17 pm
I understand this aspect of evacuatory hygiene. I saw that “no square to spare” episode of Seinfeld.
If you think that levity is out of place in any of this, then I disagree completely.
Comment by Peter — April 24, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
I honestly feel we need to talk about how much toilet paper Bush uses daily just the same way we need to talk about and think about how much toilet paper we all use daily.
Most of the time, people — including me — live unconsciously. We don’t think about the cars we drive or the food we eat or the clothes we wear. We just assume these things, but we need to think about these as individuals and as people because the decisions we make effect for good or ill what happens to us and to our world.
If we don’t become conscious of what we consume, then we over consume or consume in crazy ways. We drive SUVs because they are just there. We eat 2 steaks at dinner because they are on the plate. We unroll the toilet paper because it is unrollable.
But stuff is finite, and maybe someday there won’t be toilet paper or steaks or SUVs because we have used them up.
Comment by lydia — April 28, 2007 @ 7:04 pm