This reminds me of a passage in the truly engrossing Bill Bryson book "At Home: A Short History of Private Life," describing the sanitary conditions in England in the 19th century:
[C]esspits in poorer districts were seldom emptied and frequently overflowed... In St. Giles... 54,000 people crowded into just a few streets. By one count, 1100 people lived in 27 houses along one alley; that is more than 40 people per dwelling. In Spitalfields, farther east, inspectors found 63 people living in a single house. The house had 9 beds — one for every 7 occupants....
Such masses of humanity naturally produced enormous volumes of waste — far more than any system of cesspits could cope with. In one fairly typical report an inspector recorded visiting 2 houses in St. Giles where the cellars were filled with human waste to a depth of 3 feet. Outside the inspector continued, the yard was 6 inches deep in excrement. Bricks had been stacked like stepping-stones to let the occupants cross the yard.
At Leeds in the 1830s, a survey of the poorer districts found that many streets were "floating with sewage"; one street, housing 176 families, had not been cleaned for 15 years. In Liverpool, as many as one-sixth of the populace lived in dark cellars, where wastes could all too easily seep in.
1. Oh, why not? Ricky Gervais is here, hosting, making jokes about the tininess of his penis and how it looks big in his small hands where it usually is. That might sound funnier if it weren't 7 pm (Central Time) on network TV. Then, here's Nicole Kidman looking great with red hair and a light pink dress featuring prominent tiny nipples. She reminds us about Haiti, then hands out the best supporting actress award to Mo'nique, who is overdraped in gold satin and fabulously made up with ultralong eyelashes. Mo'nique loves God and all the other actors in her movie "Precious."
2. Most of the women are wearing asymmetrical dresses, and Julianna Margulies, who won the TV actress award, looked like she got confused getting into the straps of hers. Michael C. Hall, who won the TV actor award, has on a wool stocking cap for some reason. As a tribute to victims of the Haitian earthquake? I don't know. [ADDED: I'm told Hall has cancer. I'm sorry.]
3. The set is orange. I'm tired of looking at orange. Is it supposed to be "golden"? Hey, suddenly: Cher! She looks statuesque and hourglassy. It's the song award. Paul McCartney is nominated and there, but he doesn't win.
4. Meryl Streep wins best [comedy/musical] actress for "Julie and Julia." She's shrouded in a big black dress clamped on with a thick buckled belt. But she has one naked shoulder left out of the shroud, so she's on the asymmetry kick with everyone else. She pretends she didn't remember what she wanted to say and stammers her way into a tribute to her mother and a mini-breakdown over all the suffering in the world.
5. Drew Barrymore gets a TV actress award for "Grey Gardens." She's wearing the best outfit for the day, but it's quite silly, covered in crystal pimples with a glitter hedgehog at one shoulder and the opposite hip.
6. Samuel L. Jackson introduces "a real-life movie star" — Sophia Loren. She's got a beautiful symmetrical dress. It's black, outlining her famous breasts and nipping in at her should-be-equally-famous waist, and it has sheer sleeves that are shaded at the shoulders with a sprinkling of black beads for an ombre effect. She gives the foreign film award to "The White Ribbon."
7. "Mad Man" is the best TV show. The best TV actress is Chloe Sevigny (for "Big Love"). Cool. I like her. She's wearing an insane widely-ruffled mauve dress and she's gasping about ripping it, not that she ripped it in any kind of an interesting way.
8. Halle Berry looks sharp and sleek in a tight black dress with little cap sleeves and a giant plunge down the chest. Her hair is crisply modern too — short and sticking up on top. She gives the supporting movie actor award to Christoph Waltz, who was so wonderful as the Nazi in "Inglourious Basterds."
9. "Marty eats, drinks, and sleeps film. I hear there are videos on the internet of Marty having sex with film." It's Robert DeNiro, talking about Martin Scorsese, who's getting one of these lifetime awards. Cool clip show, reminding me, among other things, of how much I love... "After Hours"... and "King of Comedy"....
10. Oh, they love Jodie Foster. She's wearing a plain black dress, that makes it's nod to asymmetry with a slit up the left leg. She's not giving an award, just presenting one of the films. Gervais, sipping from that beer he's got at the lectern: "I like a drink as much as the next man... unless the next man... is Mel Gibson." Here's Gibson, acting drunk, for fun... supposedly. The category is director, and the award goes to ... suspense... James Cameron. He doesn't say "I'm the king of the world." He tells us he's got to "pee something fierce."
11. The best TV show is "Glee." That's nice, I guess. "This is for everybody who got a wedgie in high school."
12. Ah, we're almost done. It's the best comedy/musical award. "The Hangover." Mike Tyson is involved. Strange!
13. Arnold Schwarzenegger! The actor. It's as if that whole thing about him being governor was just some crazy dream. He presents "Avatar," which looks really annoying. Then Mickey Rourke comes out — in a cowboy hat — to do the drama actress award. It's Mickey because he won best actor last year, not because he's the height of Hollywood glamour, which he's not. The winner is Sandra Bullock, and Mickey looks really disappointed. Sandra is wearing a very filmy, very purple dress.
14. Sally Hutton announces the drama actor award. She's wearing a nutty short dress. It's Robert Downey Jr.! I've always loved him. He's got a whole standup routine going. He's not going to thank anyone... but he does. "Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms." [ADDED: Oops. That was the comedy/musical actor. Hmm. Sherlock Holmes is comedy? Or was there music?]
15. The best drama actor is actually Jeff Bridges. The presenter was the lovely Kate Winslet, who's wearing a simple black dress with one thick vertical strap on the right side. Asymmetry. Jeff gets a standing O. Why? Because he's The Dude? "You're really screwing up my 'under appreciated' status," he says.
16. The best drama movie — presented by Julia Roberts, who thought it was cute to tell her kids to go to bed — is "Avatar." James Cameron warns us that now he has peed, so he's going to blabber. He loves his job. We have the best job. "Give it up for yourselves." He says that twice. Because "that's the most amazing thing." Jeesh. "'Avatar' asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other, and us to the earth."
$5 and $10 donations are easy to make, and they really add up. It's a terrific way to include vastly more donors. It's not just that people have cell phones and the phone company already has all your credit card information, it's that it makes small cup-of-coffee size donations the norm.
Text the word "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. And get on with your life!
Now, maybe you think charity should involve more reflection and attention to the object of charity. Maybe you think charitable donors should feel that they are giving something up for the sake of the less fortunate and be personally transformed by the act of giving. You know how people who make the effort to attend a long church service feel about the people who say, "I can pray anywhere!," "I can pray on the golf course," "I'll pray when I'm stuck waiting in line somewhere," etc.
Jesus said: "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." So do not let your left thumb know what your right thumb is doing. Text some charity and don't make any kind of deal out of it. Don't even let yourself think that you have done anything. There is good in that, and it's a good instantly achieved by everyone with a cell phone. You're only giving $5 or $10, so there isn't even anything to congratulate yourself about. When everyone just does this, without thinking, the charities get millions, and we have no reason to get puffed up about about our benevolence.
When so many in Haiti have died or are dying and suffering, how can anyone think this is the time to say such a thing? Does religion give Robertson the gall? I'm not going to ask why a belief in God doesn't frighten people out of such heartlessness. It's too sadly obvious that it does not.
“The main issue here will probably be shaking... and this is an area that is particularly vulnerable in terms of construction practice, and with a high population density. There could be a high number of casualties.”...
“There is a blanket of dust rising from the valley south of the capital...We can hear people calling for help from every corner. The aftershocks are ongoing and making people very nervous.”
