Happy Thanksgiving!

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Men can be pigs. And they can be most swine-like when it comes to bathroom behavior. They often don’t clean up after themselves and they frequently don’t wash their hands after relieving themselves. It’s disgusting, as women know all too well.

A 2005 study of bathroom etiquette in the US found that 90% of American women wash their hands after using the bathroom while just 75% of American males clean up. That percentage for men had actually fallen to 66% by 2007, according to a newer version of the study.

As quoted in the NY Times, Michael T. Osterholm, chairman of the public health committee of the American Society of Microbiologists, which commissioned the survey, said he couldn’t explain the difference:

“I don’t think anyone knows why men are so much less likely to wash than women. People who use urinals probably think they don’t need to wash their hands. But the overall message is that most Americans do wash their hands after using the bathroom, even though we have a long way to go.”

We have a long way to go, indeed, especially in Argentina, where poor bathroom infrastructure tends to promote bad behavior. (more…)

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Will the real Seinfeld co-creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David please stand up?

Is this him here on the left?

Or is it this guy here below on the right?

Or is the person in this photo here really Carlos Bianchi, genius Argentine soccer coach? Or are all of these people really the same person?

Both were born in cities that start with the letter “B,” one in Brooklyn, the other in Buenos Aires. Both were born in the 1940s, one in 1949, the other in 1947. Both are extremely successful in their fields, one in soccer the other in television. Both are bald and wear glasses. And both appear on The Argentine Post. Seriously, can you tell them apart?

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Cristina Fernández had an awkward moment at this week’s G20 summit in London. Here in this video Fernández is shown alongside the other G20 presidents just before they do a group photo shoot.

Fernández is seen standing in line as Barack Obama approaches her. She extends her hand, thinking Obama is about to great her. But in reality Obama is looking past Fernández at another leader, to whom he actually does extend his hand, completely unaware that Fernández was expecting him to greet her instead. Obama leaves her totally hanging. Ouch! This is painful to watch.

Fernández, aware that she has just been thoroughly dissed, even if unintentionally, gracefully retracts her hand and brushes off the awkward moment. The moment itself probably didn’t bother her, but you know she will be steaming at the local press as they repeat this video over and over again. The clip is funny but also uncomfortable to watch. The dis was obviously unintended, but still….

Curiously, the president’s press office posted the following photo online for reporters to download. It appears to be a picture of the exact same moment when Obama was walking toward Fernández “to greet her.” The photo contains this caption: “The president of the United States Barack Obama approaches president Cristina Fernández to greet her moments before the summit’s official photo is taken.”

But this begs the question: If Obama actually did greet the president at this point, why not include that picture as opposed to this one, which shows him approaching her, sans the actual greeting?

The answer, apparently, is that Obama didn’t actually greet her, at least not at this exact moment. But if that’s the case, which, presumably, the Casa Rosada is aware of, why would they post the picture with a caption that is, evidently, false?

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A friend of The Argentine Post submitted this photo of the classic product “Assy,” a cure for lice (”piojos”) It’s one of a growing list of hilarious, if poorly-conceived product names. This one even comes with a fine steel comb to force those little buggers out.

“Assy, It’s Classy!”

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One of the fun things about living here is seeing how people sometimes unintentionally misuse and abuse the English language. (The same thing happens in my small hometown in Colorado, USA, where people routinely butcher the Spanish language.) But this weekend I may have seen the funniest example yet. Had I been in a porn shop, everything would have made perfect sense. But I was in a hardware store, so the item on sale, a “McPussy” glass cleaner, seemed a bit out of place. Maybe it wasn’t just a hardware store after all? And no, I didn’t buy it!

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Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández fondly refer to themselves as “pingüinos.” The reason, of course, is simple: They hail from the southern part of the country where penguins are pervasive. Before Cristina was elected or even began her campaign for the presidency, Néstor effectively announced her candidacy by saying, “the next president will be a he-penguin or a she-penguin.”

When I saw this penguin gadget on Darío Gallo’s blog, Bloc de Periodista, I couldn’t resist the temptation to post it here. It’s just too fun. So if you’ve ever wanted to lead the Kirchners around, and get them to follow you in every direction, just move your mouse around and they’ll follow in the cutest possible way. I like to think of the two adults as Néstor and Cristina while the three kids are government officials who follow them around in total lockstep loyalty – wherever he or she goes, they follow, ineluctably. Enjoy.

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President Cristina Fernandez: Jorge, here’s your Christmas present. It’s a brand new comb – made in Argentina – designed for bald people like yourself. Former Buenos Aires Mayor Jorge Tellerman: Thanks, I’ll never part with it.

CFK: Nestor, what did the big Christmas candle say to the little Christmas candle? Former President Nestor Kirchner: I dunno, Christie, you tell me. CFK: I’m going out tonight.

CFK: Oh, Nestor, this has been such a hard year. And next year looks to be even worse, what with the global economic crisis and all. Nestor: Don’t worry, my love, yule be happy.

Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno: Christina, I’ve got an idea. To pressure Santa Claus into giving everybody extra big gifts this year, we can stuff letters to him into chimneys across the country, demanding that his gifts be bigger and better than last year. CFK: Stuffing letters into dirty chimneys? I dunno, Guille, but to me that sounds like blackmail.

Moreno: Hey, Christie, do you know why Santa goes down those chimneys every year? CFK: Dale, Guille, why? Moreno: Because it soots him.

CFK: Alright, Guillermo, enough playing around. Get out there and make those toy stores lower their prices. Those Playstation 3’s are way too expensive. Moreno: OK, fine, but just one more: What does Santa suffer from when he gets stuck in the chimney? CFK: Alright, Guille, you’re really starting to break my balls. Tell me. Moreno: Santa Claustrophobia.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

from The Argentine Post

May your holiday season be filled with peace and joy.

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The Argentine Post is grateful for you! Hundreds of you have recently signed up to receive email updates of this blog and more have signed up to follow the site through your feed readers. Thank you! I very much appreciate your feedback, your comments (even your critiques), your emails, and your continued readership. May your Thanksgiving be a joyful one.

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“Just when I was in a middle of a meeting with the president of Tunisia, Ben Ali, we received a call from President Obama, who wanted to talk with me. So, obviously, I had to get up from the meeting and go to a separate room where I could talk with him. He wanted to greet me, he wanted to talk to me, really. He said he was very interested in getting to know me. He said he knew that Argentina was a great country and that he was very eager to visit Buenos Aires because when he was in college he had read authors like Cortázar y Borges. And so then, obviously, I took advantage of the moment and invited him to Argentina. I told him that I was in Tunisia and he asked me to formally pass on his greetings to President Ben Ali and the Tunisian people. He seemed very warm and very desirous of meeting me personally so we could talk. He said he knew that I had bravely confronted challenges. Really, I found him to be very warm and we decided that we would meet up soon after he takes office, because he is very interested in meeting me personally.” — a clearly smitten Cristina Fernández, Tuesday from Tunisia, after speaking with President Elect Barack Obama

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If you’re not familiar with Dr. Lecter’s work, you should be. He’s a master at taking the reality of local politics and infusing it with his creative sense of humor. You can see his work here. In the above photo he gives us a glimpse of what a Perón-Obama meeting might have looked like. The photo, which was posted earlier this week by Darío Gallo over at Bloc de Periodista, was done for an article in the magazine Noticias, written by Pacho O’Donnell.

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Your fearless scoopster here was at the Retiro train station early in the morning, filming an upcoming video for The Argentine Post, when, suddenly, out of the blue, a dirty, freaky-lookin’ homeless man started yelling.

I hadn’t seen the guy and wasn’t sure what was happening. By the time I realized what was going down, it was already too late. The result, which I just happened to record, was not cool. 

The man came at me in full force, with a cup full of God-knows-what, which he threw at me. Adrenaline pumping, I fled, not wanting to do battle with a street kook just before going to the office.

I got away, but not before being completely doused with some kind of noxious mixture of coffee and, I’m afraid to say, chunks of vomit. It was pungent, sticky, and all over me.

I’m putting this post in the “humor” category, assuming that, at some point in the future, I will look back on this moment and find it funny.

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