Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Come on, man.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Republicans in disarray!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

We still have time to mess this up!

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Thursday Morning Open Thread: When, Oh When, Will the Weekend Begin?!?

Thursday Morning Open Thread: When, Oh When, Will the Weekend Begin?!?

by | 198 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,


Much more on their twitter feed!

Reader Interactions

198Comments

  4. 4.

    Nicole

    I would not have thought a tweet about a toilet could make me this happy, but it does.  Such a simple change, but so infinitely more useful and inclusive than announcing “who” may use a bathroom.

    A sociology book I read a long time ago pointed out that bathrooms are only gendered in the public sphere; it would never dawn on a house contractor to build separate bathrooms for male and female in a private residence.  Because that would be stupid.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    @Nicole:

    Well, in private residences, two unrelated people tend not to use the bathroom at the same time. I’m not sure what the insight is.

  8. 8.

    Suzanne

    @Nicole:

    A sociology book I read a long time ago pointed out that bathrooms are only gendered in the public sphere; it would never dawn on a house contractor to build separate bathrooms for male and female in a private residence.  Because that would be stupid.

     

    So architecturally speaking, this is a thing that seems to be shifting generationally, specifically attitudes toward changing one’s clothes in front of strangers in a locker room or fitting room. (Which is deeply fucking weird.) It is a norm that younger people seem to be less comfortable with. But it’s not necessarily about gender identity or sex; there’s less tolerance for changing in front of anyone. As a personal example, on the project I’m on, there was a lot of discussion about should there be segregated locker rooms (which contain toilets in stalls as well as showers), could there be additional changing stalls built, could it be one big locker room, etc. They surveyed employees, and the older employees preferred the traditional arrangement and many younger employees expressed discomfort with changing in front of anyone. I cannot imagine changing my clothes in front of my colleagues. It’s bad enough to have to hear them pee. American public restrooms are monstrous.

  10. 10.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Suzanne: I wish you had a regular column where you’d explain how architecture is political. It’s desperately needed.

  12. 12.

    Suzanne

    @raven: Anti-trans bigots often invoke the argument about not wanting their daughters to see dicks in the locker room (it’s telling that they don’t worry about their sons seeing boobs, but that’s another topic). The argument is invalid for me, because I don’t think anybody should see anybody else’s junk in a locker room. The idea that it’s a place for cameraderie and a shared experience is deeply weird.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    The idea that it’s a place for cameraderie and a shared experience is deeply weird.

     
    The older generation had to find outlets for their suppressed sexuality. Younger people suffer less from that.

  16. 16.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    So the evolving plot it is becoming clearer to me.

    Trump envisioned himself joining his gun-toting toting, angry mob over to Congress with his phalanx of Secret Service goons to run interference and confront the Capitol Police. Each organization had pro and anti-Trump factions, and he was gambling on having lapdogs with him and the Capitol Police backing down as he’d wander into chambers with his mob in tow.

    Had he been accompanied by SS loyalists, thus plan had a high possibility of success in delaying certification, plus, there would have been congressional deaths that day.

  17. 17.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: I will admit… my first thought upon seeing that tweet was ‘And most women will avoid the rooms with urinals, because we know how few guys can accurately aim that equipment they’re so proud of’.

    Yes, that was a mean sexist thought.  But I grew up with younger brothers…

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    @The Thin Black Duke: Awww thx. I’m not the best person to write that, but there’s a lot of good info out there. Architecture is of course linked tightly to money, power, and status. But there’s a lot of invisible social norm stuff, too. I’ve done a guest post before, I’m happy to do another if there is a specific topic.

  19. 19.

    Nicole

    @Baud: Private bathrooms also don’t tend to have more than one toilet in them so it’d be hard for two people to use the same one at the same time.  Unless maybe they’re both really narrow.  But I’ve been to plenty of public establishments that have one bathroom for men, and one for women, both with only one stall in it.  (?)  But they’re marked to be used separately by gender anyway.

  20. 20.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Suzanne:

    Personally, I never cared.

    Once you go through basic and have to go use a camp commode without partitions in a room with a dozen or so commodes side by side, you lose all sense of shyness.

  21. 21.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Suzanne: You’re a good writer; I always look forward to your insight on this subject. James Howard Kunstler’s Home from Nowhere opened up a fascinating new world to me.

  22. 22.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: I remember thinking about it when TFG made his “grab them by the pussy” comment and he called it “locker room talk”. Aside from the offensiveness of the comment, the architect in me was like, “Why are you having a conversation in a locker room?!”. So fucking weird.

    The minimum quantity of plumbing fixtures of all types in a facility is determined by code. It’s gone up over the years. A lot of what we accept as normal came about because it’s cheaper to build fewer fixtures and sharing space is cheaper than segregating space. It’s not because it’s best for human health or relationships.

  24. 24.

    Nicole

    @Suzanne: That’s so interesting- is it a generational American thing, do you know?  We stopped at a thermal bath when in Iceland last year, and it was made very clear you were expected to strip down totally in the changing area and soap and rinse EVERYTHING before putting your swimsuit back on and heading out to the baths.  Segregated by gender, but very much open rooms.

    That said, having seen Carrie several times, I’m all for having privacy in changing areas

    ETA: Ha!  The Thin Black Dude and were on the same page. ;)  I just rewatched it on a plane a few weeks ago.

  26. 26.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Anne Laurie:

    Wife always says “I never want to use a public unisex bathroom only because you guys are gross and don’t clean up after yourselves”.

  30. 30.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: There’s this cohort of 70+ year old guys who have this weird compulsion to hang out naked in public places as much as they possibly can. In every men’s locker room you see them, just sort of sitting around shooting the breeze with their junk hanging out. I think it’s the only reason they go to the gym.

  31. 31.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Divers too.  Everybody is dropping back on the ladder and peeling wetsuits during dive intervals.

  32. 32.

    narya

    @Suzanne: People who play sports have this experience all the time. A male friend has told me that it’s how he came to realize how misogynist so many men are–by hearing them say things in locker rooms that they would be less likely to say elsewhere. He just does not think that way, so it was a useful (and horrifying) education.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    @Nicole:

    is it a generational American thing, do you know? 

    Haven’t seen much on that. Europeans tend to be more open to public nudity in general, so probably. I was last in Europe about five years ago, and I did notice far fewer of the big open squatting bathrooms, and many new renos with American-style partitions, grab bars, ADA pipe wraps, etc.

  34. 34.

    narya

    @Baud: Yeah–I just think about a young kid in some small town, struggling to sort it out, and seeing the president say, “We have your back.” His basic decency has gone a long way with me.

  36. 36.

    raven

    @Suzanne: I dunno, I guess I’m old school. It don’t mean shit to me but I’ve been in barracks and a gym rat for 50+ years.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Maybe we are finally transtioning into a post-Victorian society. Victoria died well over a hundred years ago, so it’s about time.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Suzanne: After a canyoning trip in Mallorca we changed out of our wetsuits in the street. Nobody gave us a 2nd glance.

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin: Having sat through many uncomfortable locker room and bathroom discussions in my career, I was struck by a comment made by a client in the last one, about how some of the older employees seemed to think that changing into and out of their scrubs at the end of the day with their colleagues was part of the social bonding and “workplace culture” of healthcare. And some of the younger employees were pretty uncomfortable with that. And the discomfort is not merely about gender identity, but a lot about body image.

  42. 42.

    Nicole

    @Baud: Carrie holds up pretty well, as horror movies go.  I think what makes it still work is that it’s a film about women/girls bullying other women/girls; the male characters are very secondary to the film- in fact, both John Travolta’s and William Katt’s characters are used as means to an end for the women in the film. I don’t mean that in a misogynist way; it’s that the women are absolutely driving the action of the entire film.  I suspect that’s the longstanding appeal; we don’t get a ton of horror films where the women have ALL the agency, both protagonist and antagonist.

  45. 45.

    raven

    Here’s a goofy one. At the Y there is a sign on the men’s locker room that says “Girls over 5 years old NEED to use the women’s locker room”!!  It is uncomfortable when there is a little girl in the locker room but I just cover up with a towel and move quickly. . .i

  46. 46.

    narya

    @Suzanne: Maybe it has something to do with the context? Because I’ve also been in gyms, locker rooms, nude beaches, etc., and don’t care–but would NOT want to be changing in front of coworkers. That feels different, somehow.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @raven: It’s an interesting generational trend to observe. I think it’s partially about trying to make people feel more comfortable with LGBT folx, but also better sanitation, probably also about obesity and beauty standards.

  49. 49.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Suzanne: The argument is invalid for me, because I don’t think anybody should see anybody else’s junk in a locker room.

    Wait, what? People are changing in locker rooms. Including underwear. And taking off and putting on swim suits. The idea that you would NOT see other people’s junk in a locker room is very bizarre to me. Should they be standing in the lockers?

  50. 50.

    zhena gogolia

    Bill Penzey wrote the most cogent commentary on the Roe decision that I’ve seen all week, and he did it without insulting anyone’s religion:

    June = Pride. Pride = Good. What the “Supreme” Court is up to = Not Good.

    In thinking about what the Supreme Court has become I think 9-11 is the right analogy. It’s now clear the Court has been hijacked by religious extremists who are trying to destroy the fundamental drive for equality and equity that actually make America great. Now, like then, they are only going to get so far. Where once again, even with all the warnings, last week’s attacks on equality and human rights still came off as a surprise, we won’t be surprised again. We know what they are up to. This really won’t stand.

    And it certainly won’t help them in the realm of public opinion where what is truly American and what isn’t ultimately gets decided. Before last week most Americans saw American religious fundamentalism as mostly harmless. Those days are over. We now have a whole lot of work ahead of us to protect those human rights like marriage equality that we still have and restore the rights we lost last week. But like with 9-11, their surprise attacks did not win them any new converts, just the opposite really.

    American history is filled with heroes and villains. The heroes give of themselves to bring rights to others. The villains use their power and privilege to hurt those outside their circle of power. In America there’s few positions of privilege higher than a seat on the Supreme Court. Last week the majority of those on the Supreme Court and their supporters defined themselves far better than any critic could. Americans understand them now and the threat they pose to our values. Going forward we will vote accordingly.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    @narya: I’m sure context has a lot to do with it. It’s interesting to observe things change. Often the reasons aren’t clear for a while. But very little has to be built the way we build it now, we’ve all just come to accept some things. Example: toilet partitions that don’t go to the floor (easier to keep clean, easier to surveil for drug use and theft, cheaper to build, really fucking gross).

  53. 53.

    Nicole

    @Baud: I’m a huge fan of horror (I think it’s genetic; many older members of my family are huge fans of “spookies” as they dubbed them), though I recognize that a vast majority are absolute crap.  Much like sci-fi, though, horror offers a huge opportunity to offer up social commentary in an allegorical way.

    I’ve mulled over the appeal of the slasher films of the 1980s, especially their appeal to girls (they were a fixture of every sleepover I attended), and while media tut-tutted about nudity and sex being punished and exploitation, I think what made them a must-watch for so many of us young teenagers was that it was one of the few genres where we would get a female character being active (even if the being active was trying to escape an improbably powerful serial killer).  We didn’t get a lot of movies with girls fighting back, or even being active, on anything, and, of all genres, this one gave us that.  I think of how so many of them ended- the Final Girl defeats the monster (representing toxic masculinity) and then, right when you think it’s all okay, he comes back suddenly to wreak more havoc.  An allegory for what just happened on Friday, with Dobbs, after 50 years of precedent.

  54. 54.

    Nicole

    @The Thin Black Duke: I LOVE JENNIFER’S BODY!!!!!  Saw it in the theaters and could not understand the dislike for it at the time.  I thought it was great.  I’m glad it’s gotten a re-look as time as gone by.

  55. 55.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Look up “the Warhammer Maneuver” on how a diver dealt with a bout of explosive diarrhea at about 60 feet. Happily, it happened during the age of inexpensive dive cameras which were wielded by his friends….

  56. 56.

    zhena gogolia

    @Suzanne: When I was in high school we had to soap up in the shower and then stand in line naked while the teacher crossed us off a list, then we could go back and rinse. It was deeply humiliating and traumatic. I dreaded high school because I knew this trauma was coming — and I was not wrong to dread it. So see, we boomers didn’t have it all that good!

  58. 58.

    p.a.

    At age 16 I was a stockboy in a clothing store in a shall we say hardscrabble customer area.  One Sunday I had to paint the ladies’ room black to cover the graffiti.  And what graffiti it was!  A real eye-opener…

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: We’ve designed locker rooms with multiple private changing stalls inside them so that people can do the actual getting-naked part in privacy, and then use the locker part for storage of stuff. The trend I’m observing is that younger people seem to be more comfortable with this — even if the locker room is all-gender — whereas older people are more comfortable with changing in the locker room but not in a private stall, but they do want it to be sex-segregated. Again, trend, not absolute.

  65. 65.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Took a lot of skill and patience  – I was impressed.

    Had he let go of the BC at any point he would have definitely gotten bent.

  70. 70.

    Nicole

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Unfortunately, it fell into the “ahead of it’s time” category.

    True.  It’s good newer viewers caught up to what it was trying to say.  Which may be because society has evolved so it was easier to see.

    Speaking of, yesterday’s entry in The Number Ones was “….Baby One More Time” and it’s a great look not just at the song itself, but on how Britney Spears was treated by media then.  Tom Breihan gives it a well-deserved 10/10, while acknowledging all the problematic things around the song.
    https://www.stereogum.com/2191267/the-number-ones-britney-spears-baby-one-more-time/columns/the-number-ones/

    (I may have been right there for Jennifer’s Body, but I admit I had to get a bit older to fully admire how great a pop song “…. Baby One More Time” is.)

  72. 72.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: I think I went through junior high/high school right when the social transition was happening. We had communal showers with no stalls in the junior high locker rooms but I only recall using them a few times–and spending as little time in them as possible. I think they gave up on making us do that pretty quickly and we just stank. But even changing from gym uniforms to street clothes in there was traumatic because it was prime bullying time for the bullies. I don’t know why older generations saw this as some kind of bonding experience, but apparently they did. Maybe in the same way hazing is a bonding experience.

  73. 73.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Nicole: Europeans seem to both have fewer aversions about public nakedness, but also have more privacy in (some) restroom stalls.

    The old American men I mentioned hanging out naked in locker rooms? The German/Austrian version of these guys do it outdoors, as much as they possibly can. If public nakedness isn’t legal where they happen to be, they’ll wear a little banana sling.

  74. 74.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Nicole: Unfortunately, Britney’s biggest problem was she didn’t have a good support system around her. When I look at pop stars like Billie Eillish and Taylor Swift, what I see is that their families don’t see them as ATMs. Critically speaking, female artists are never taken as seriously as their male counterparts. For example, I don’t find Bob Dylan nowhere as interesting as Joni Mitchell from a musical standpoint.

     

    @Nicole:

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @Baud: People are filthy.

    And that’s before you point a microscope at them and notice all the fauna. Thanks again, science.

  78. 78.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I have an eye exam this morning. I’m having cataract surgeries in September, and this is part of an unending string of pre-exams. This guy has to check my corneas because I had lasik surgery 20 years ago.

  81. 81.

    Nicole

    @Suzanne: That’s so interesting, about older employees thinking the changing into and out of scrubs was a part of the culture.  I wonder if the strong resistance to change is rooted in a fear about losing one’s own identity- like, what does it mean that we’re saying that something we were told our whole lives is “right” is now “wrong”?

    My uncle, who was in high school in Butler, PA, in the 1950s, told me the boys would swim naked in swim class.  NAKED.  That stopped after a politician’s wife stopped by to visit the school and the swim coach called them all out of the pool to stand in a line and greet her respectfully.  My uncle said swim trunks were provided the following week.

    My first year of high school, we were still all required to wear the provided swim suits.  Which were distributed at random before each class.  At the time, I didn’t think about it, but I look back now and go OH MY GOD GROSS WHY DID NO ONE SAY ANYTHING?  I mean, someone must have because by sophomore year we were allowed to wear our own, but it never occurred to me it was wrong at the time.

  82. 82.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken:

    And that’s before you point a microscope at them and notice all the fauna.

    Which I assume is basically what the military “short-arm inspection” was about?

  84. 84.

    debbie

    I’ve woken up almost every goddamn morning this week thinking it was Friday. Enough already, get here.

  85. 85.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Nicole: I got the impression that was a movie that was marketed as something very different from what it actually was.

  86. 86.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: I never liked having to change clothes in front of other people when I was a teenager. Now it doesn’t bother me so much, but still not a big fan. I don’t know why people think it’s necessary to do that.

  88. 88.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Anne Laurie: Actually, my co-workers assure me that women are much worse: “The princesses hover, miss, and leave! They NEVER clean up after themselves, including when they ‘miss the basket’ when tossing their sanitary napkins!”

    Some things I just didn’t need to know…

  92. 92.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: It’s a place where the powerful want to bully the powerless over their body differences – too thin, too fat, too brown, and so on. I agree, it’s deeply weird and totally unnecessary. In our high school locker room there was a communal shower. I was a thin teenager, and I never used that damn thing! It felt wrong to take a shower naked in front of a bunch of other girls.

  94. 94.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: Can confirm. My dad had a dive shop/marina business until he retired in 2020. There were lots of international customers who were in town to see the manatees. I was an (unpaid) employee at the shop as a minor, and it was always a treat to see the old goats parading around in banana slings. I also remember being shocked as a small child when a European woman raised her arms over her head and revealed armpit hair. I wasn’t aware that was a thing until that moment.

  96. 96.

    Nicole

    @The Thin Black Duke: Joni Mitchell is one of my heroes- I’m learning guitar now, and as someone with small hands, plenty of things are challenging, but I remind myself she had polio and figured it out- hell, guitarists study her alternate tunings today.  Also, “Both Sides Now” is one of my favorite songs ever.  EVER.

    I think had Britney been born to a more economically secure family things might have been different, too.  The entertainment business will take advantage of new talent 8 ways to Sunday and if a family doesn’t have the background to understand, it’s so easy to get screwed over.  Like, especially where her dad is concerned, I get the derision, but I think the main blame is on the industry itself, which is happy to use young talent up and throw them away.  Taylor Swift’s family, by contrast, is rich to begin with, and I think that protected her a lot while she was pushing to succeed.

    Which is not to say I think the only people who should pursue entertainment are the children of rich people; just that the entertainment system, like many others, is geared to take advantage of people with fewer resources.

  97. 97.

    Soprano2

    @Nicole: Yeah, that’s stupid. A few years ago our local state university changed all of their “one hole” bathrooms to unisex rather than being designated by gender, and all the women said “Hallelujah!!”. It never made sense that a bathroom with a single toilet had a sex designation; it’s just something we did because there was an expectation to do it.

  98. 98.

    Leto

    @raven: I’m thinking about the bathroom experiences of our respective generations. Deployed, most of our places didn’t have burn pit areas like that. Can’t speak for the remote outposts, they probably did. Most of our bases had a mixture of indoor plumbing and portapotties. In the high desert heat (March through October), that was… an experience.

    Basic training though, our communal bathrooms were cleaned twice a day with enough bleach to kill anything. Cleaned once in the morning (no showers allowed), once in the evening after everyone showered. To say that our TI’s were diligent in cleanliness is ofc classic understatement.

  101. 101.

    Scout211

    Changing the subject from bathrooms and locker rooms to gun owners  . . .

    A few days ago there was a data breach in a state website that exposed personal information on all the gun owners in California.

    It was quickly taken down but was live for 24 hours. Gun owners and gun rights groups are horrified. I typically feel a great deal of sympathy for people whose information is exposed in data breaches.  But for this one, my reaction is . . . tepid. 

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

    There are growing concerns Wednesday night after a major data breach exposed information of thousands of gun owners – and now, investigators are trying to determine how that information got out.

    The California Department of Justice said that an update made to its Firearms Dashboard Portal Monday leaked the personal information of Californians who were granted or denied a concealed and carry weapons permit between 2011 and 2021. That included their names, birth dates, gender, race, driver’s license numbers, addresses and criminal history.

    . . .

    Now, Paredes – and other gun owners and gun advocacy groups – want whoever was responsible for the data breach to be held accountable. Parades said that’s especially because of the safety implications.

    “We are absolutely horrified,” Paredes said. “The biggest concern is, now you have given a roadmap to anybody with evil intent.”

  102. 102.

    Geminid

    In some foreign news, Israel’s Knesset voted 92-0 to disband earlier this morning. This starts the countdown to an election this fall, Israel’s fifth in four years.

    After the vote, Prime Minister Bennett and Foreign Minister Lapid embraced, and then switched seats. Lapid will become the interim Prime Minister at midnight, local time. He’ll remain Foreign Minister.

    The eight-party government lasted less than 14 months. It came to power with a bare 61 seat majority, and defections from Lapid’s Yamina party this spring kept the coalition from passing vital legislation. Opposition leader Netanyahu finally was able to obstruct the coalition’s work and bring it down. In a “fiery” speech before the vote, Netanyahu vowed to get his nation “back on the right track.”

    From the Times of Israel 

  103. 103.

    Gin & Tonic

    Can’t look for it now, but I have a pic of a public toilet somewhere in the Carpathians. Concrete, built like a bunker, room for one, solid door, and a concrete floor with a hole in the center. Nothing else. Unisex, I guess.

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    @Nicole: I wonder if the strong resistance to change is rooted in a fear about losing one’s own identity- like, what does it mean that we’re saying that something we were told our whole lives is “right” is now “wrong”?

     
    I mean, you just described every grumpy old person who refuses to change their language despite shifting cultural mores.

  105. 105.

    raven

    @Leto: Yea, I think it was way different. You know why they are called “heads” in the navy?

     

    Head” in a nautical sense referring to the bow or fore part of a ship dates to 1485. The ship’s toilet was typically placed at the head of the ship near the base of the bowsprit, where splashing water served to naturally clean the toilet area.Sep 22, 2017

  107. 107.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Nicole: As a mediocre but enthusiastic bassist, let me tell you that hand size is overrated. I’ve seen Tom Tom Club several times in concert. Tina Weymouth is a badass, and she’s tiny.

  109. 109.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: Every public restroom I used in Europe had partitions that went all the way to the floor – they were like little rooms. I liked that better than the partitions. I was also told that it’s a European practice to put the toilet in a house in its own room, which makes a lot more sense than the way we do it. I suppose that’s where “water closet” came from.

  111. 111.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2:

    A few years ago our local state university changed all of their “one hole” bathrooms to unisex rather than being designated by gender, and all the women said “Hallelujah!!”. It never made sense that a bathroom with a single toilet had a sex designation; it’s just something we did because there was an expectation to do it. 

    It’s actually required by code to designate toilets by sex in certain occupancy types. I predict this will change.

  112. 112.

    Leto

    @raven: I always wondered about that. Thanks for the info. Regarding formation: that must be another generational thing. Never had an inspection like that in my 22 years. If something was wrong with the ole plumbing, just went to sick call. Idk, maybe that’s also an Army v AF thing :p

  115. 115.

    E.

    @The Thin Black Duke: Former Kunstler fan here. Have you seen what he has become? Check out his blog Clusterfuck Nation. He has gone 100% fascist. I mean it. He is about the worst MAGA troll you can dream up. It’s actually sickening.

  116. 116.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Soprano2: That’s still a thing in houses in the Greek islands, particularly with older construction: in many cases, the toilet will be in a separate exterior building, and if the bathroom is attached to the rest of the house, you may well find the bathroom divided up, with sink and shower in the main part, and the toilet separated by a wall and door from the rest of the bathroom.

  117. 117.

    Soprano2

    @Chief Oshkosh: Oh, yeah, this is another thing that is so stupid, the fear of public restroom toilet seats. I swear, too many women actually believe they can catch a disease off the seat. If you’re that worried, carry sanitary wipes and wipe the seat down before you sit on it. I have to check the seat for pee every time I use the public bathroom. The public bathrooms at the O’Hare Airport had something clever – an automated seat cover for the toilet seat! I have never seen that anywhere else.

  118. 118.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Soprano2: One time we were visiting a friend in Cork, and she took us to this gallery that had a cafe. I asked a server where the restrooms were, and she said the second floor. So I spent a while wandering around the second floor before I realized she meant the other second floor–the one that’s really the third floor. There I found this unisex stall that was the size of a NYC studio apartment. When I was done, I pulled a chain that I thought was the flush, but it turned out to be an alarm. So I ran for it. My friend says she can’t take me anywhere.

  119. 119.

    Geminid

    @The Thin Black Duke: I think that Laura Nyro was another great singer-songwriter of that time who was overshadowed because she was a woman. A couple months ago I was listening to an oldies station when Barbara Streisand came on, singing Nyro’s Stoney End. That didn’t just make my day, it made my week!

  121. 121.

    raven

    @Leto: I’m sure they discontinued it but it was pretty prevalent. Here’s a fun factiod!

     

    Captain Bligh of Bounty Mutiny fame was way ahead of US military. He notes in the Bounty logbook for Oct. 25, 1788 (just before they were to land in Tahiti):

    “As I have some reason to suppose the Otaheitans [Tahitians] have not been visited by any ships since Captn. Cook, I hope they may have found means together with their natural way of living, to have eradicated the Venereal disease. To prove this and free us from any ill founded Suppositions, that we might renew the Complaint, I have directed the Surgeon to examine very particularly every Man and Officer & to report to me his proceedings.

    “This was accordingly done and he reported every person totally free from the Venereal complaint.”

    Of course, he was more concerned with being blamed for introducing VD to the island then he was with the health of the crew, but the Bounty had a short-arm inspection.

    It is not known whether he himself was checked, probably not.

  123. 123.

    Soprano2

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: OH, that’s hilarious! Traveling in England was interesting, because public spaces aren’t required to have public restrooms. When we were touring Westminster Abbey I asked someone where the public restroom was; he pointed across the street! I just held it until we were done. Hubby and I joked about how many “p” you had to pay to “pee”. The upside of that, though, was the all the public restrooms were clean.

  124. 124.

    Nicole

    @The Thin Black Duke: Thank you, that is also encouraging!  I need to remember there are any number of small-handed guitarists out there who aren’t whining about it.  I did also receive a 7/8 guitar (Taylor GS mini) as a birthday gift a few years back and that was a life-changing experience for me, musically

    Also, your comment reminds me- I was walking home this week (I live in Harlem) and a car drove by, absolutely BLASTING “Genius of Love” with the windows down.  I love my neighborhood a lot.

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    @E.: I remember first discovering him right when he was making that turn. Loved some of his commentary on bad architecture, and then… whaaaaaat?

    He was very big on Peak Oil being the apocalypse that would sweep away everything he disliked, which included not just inefficient suburbs and highways, but also large cities, modern technology in general, and men wearing short pants.

    And then he got worse.

  127. 127.

    raven

    @Soprano2: The cleanest public restrooms I’ve been in  were at the Masters! They have attendants in them and they are paid so well that, like all the workers there, are happy!

  130. 130.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Baud: Yeah, that’s an issue in a lot of places around here. I’m not sure whether it’s due to the failings of the sewer systems, or generally less-water-soluble toilet paper. In any case, that’s part of why there’s always a small trash can right by the toilet.

  131. 131.

    germy shoemangler

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I discovered him around the time of his “Nowhere” books and it was a revelation because he was addressing topics I’d never read about.  He’s a complete looney now, and there was always a hint of racism about him even back then.

    Turns out he was simply repeating the work of other better writers, but just packaging their opinions into a neat mass-market book product.

  133. 133.

    Matt McIrvin

    @The Thin Black Duke: Tom Tom Club was one of the first concerts I ever went to, back in the late 80s. An amazing time.

    I remember there were these half-joking rumors going around that she didn’t really play her instrument–just pure 80s rock-bro sexism.

  134. 134.

    Nicole

    @Geminid: I’ll have to check Parton’s version out!  I grew up listening to the Judy Collins version (my dad put it on ALL of his 8-track mixes.  Yes, my dad did mix tapes on 8-track), but I dearly also love Joni’s original, which I think is a half step lower, with her funky alternate tuning which I guess I need to learn at some point.

  135. 135.

    Soprano2

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: I don’t know, here I’ve talked to people who said their house plumbing was so poor that they couldn’t even flush toilet paper, but I’ve never heard of a whole municipal system that couldn’t handle it. Makes me wonder exactly what’s going on. Perhaps they are terrified that people will flush non-flushable  wipes (I don’t care what the package says, NONE OF THOSE WIPES ARE ACTUALLY FLUSHABLE, DON’T DO IT!!!) I swear those wipes were made by Satan – you should see what they do to a sewer lift station…..

  136. 136.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Geminid: Check out Nyro’s kickass live album, Season of Lights. Somewhere in an alternate universe, Laura Nyro is the featured artist on MTV’s “Unplugged”.

  137. 137.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2: It came about because of “potty parity”, which was a big push to provide equal numbers of women’s restrooms in spaces that were historically numerically dominated by men. Business occupancy is the one I can think of off the top of my head.

  138. 138.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: We need some urban planners in here and people who go into the details of what the hell the town planning board is doing and points out the people trying to down zone their neighborhoods to make their houses worth more.

  139. 139.

    Nicole

    @Soprano2: We just came back from 2 weeks in the UK/Ireland and yeah, I really like the completely enclosed stalls in the public restrooms there, too.  So nice, not just for privacy, but also I could set my souvenir bag down, etc., without feeling I had to keep an eye on it the whole time.  It’s the little things.

  140. 140.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy shoemangler: I remember thinking “I’m worried that this guy might be saying important things I need to pay attention to, but there’s something really off about it.”

    At one point he wrote a novel set in a post-Collapse future where everyone has an artisanal hand-carved existence and men can be men again. Never read it but I heard a laudatory review of it on NPR that made it clear there was a major wish-fulfillment angle there.

  141. 141.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Suzanne: For 10 years, I taught in an engineering school. Women’s rooms were few and far between. If I taught back to classes, there was no way I’d get to on

    ETA: BTW, I understood why that was the situation. There were 140 full time faculty, and I was the seventh woman they hired

  143. 143.

    Nicole

    @Baud:

    When I was in Athens, I was surprised to learn that the city’s plumbing cannot handle toilet paper.  It had to go in the trash.

    My husband and I were 3 days into our honeymoon in Buenos Aires before we found out it’s the same there.  We felt absolutely terrible and feared we’d ruined their septic system.

  144. 144.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Nicole: Remember, every musician does a hack to get comfortable with their instrument. Buffy St. Marie was a leftie who played her guitar upside-down. (Former New Yorker here. South Bronx)

  145. 145.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Laura Nyro grew up in the Bronx. Her father was a part time musician, and as a child she would stay with him when he played at Poconos hotels in the summertime. Later on, Laura and her friends would get together and sing on New York street corners.

  148. 148.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @raven: Crap. I bet it’ll be another 6-3 decision with all three Justices dissenting. (As far as I’m concerned, there are only three Justices on the Supreme Court right now.)

  149. 149.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @raven: I saw Richie Havens in New Haven the week after John Lennon was killed. Richie said, “The man who wrote this knew what he was talking about.” Then he played “Working Class Hero.”

  150. 150.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish:

    points out the people trying to down zone their neighborhoods to make their houses worth more 

    The Strong Towns blog is fairly conservative (in the old-fashioned way), it’s headed by a civil engineer who discusses a lot of these issues. But they repeatedly make the point that American development is not financially sustainable and that the Ponzi scheme means that homeowners need their city to grow to grab enough tax revenue to maintain itself, because existing homeowners do not pay enough in taxes to maintain the built infrastructure. That plus strict controls on development means that existing homeowners screw over new homeowners two-fold….increasing pressure on home prices (so new buyers pay a lot more), which then increases their valuation and thus their tax liability.

  151. 151.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I bought a very large Samick beater box at a pawnshop for the office so I can practice lunchtimes on the more difficult sized guitar. At home, I have a more reasonably sized Ibanez acoustic, and my smallest (and easiest) is my Stratocaster.

  152. 152.

    Suzanne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I finished high school in 1998, and my high school didn’t have girls’ rooms in any of the areas of the campus that were dedicated to CTE, wood or metal shops, drafting. etc. Also didn’t have compliant ADA restrooms anywhere.

  155. 155.

    Chris T.

    @Anne Laurie:

    because we know how few guys can accurately aim that equipment they’re so proud of

    Reminds me of the old sign near the urinals:

    WE AIM TO PLEASE
    YOU AIM TOO, PLEASE
    –Janitorial staff

  156. 156.

    Matt McIrvin

    @raven: This is where all the money conservatives who held their nose and voted for Trump get their big payoff.

  158. 158.

    lowtechcyclist

    I got this in my in-box just now (I’m a Federal worker):

    OPM Issues Clarification on Sick Leave for Travel
    On June 27, 2022, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued FAQs that clarify, pursuant to existing regulations, that Federal employees may use sick leave to cover necessary travel to access medical care for themselves or their family members.

    Department of [***] employees may use sick leave to cover travel time to a location where they will receive medical examination or treatment.  Sick leave may also be used to cover travel time for a Department employee who accompanies a family member to a location where the family member will receive medical examination or treatment.

    I think we all know what this was in response to.  Good on the Biden Administration for acting that quickly – we all know the government usually doesn’t move that fast.

  159. 159.

    Nicole

    @The Thin Black Duke: I’m a lefty, and my husband, when he bought me my very first guitar, inquired if he should get me a left-handed one.  They told him, “If she can learn to play right-handed, it’ll save her $150-$200 on every guitar she buys.”  So he got a right-handed one.

    Which was the correct decision.  I played violin (poorly) 8 years in grade school and left-handed violin playing was not an option, so I already was comfortable with the left hand doing all the fretting (the hard work, really, when you think about it)

    Remember, every musician does a hack to get comfortable with their instrument.

    I will admit, the first time I realized I could use my thumb for the 6th string on an F chord it was like a choir of heavenly angels came down and sang to me.

  160. 160.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @vbreakwater:

    I picture him bellowing with a baying mob, storming into the House chamber during the count, his SS guys running cover for him and his mob as the Capitol Police try to figure out what to do.

  162. 162.

    TaMara

    I am a fan of the restrooms we experienced in Paris (I suppose other parts of Europe, too, but I’m not that well traveled over there).

    One or two toilet rooms (unisex) and a larger area with one or two sinks that everyone used. It just felt like an elegant solution.

    We are very puritan about bathroom needs and it’s kind of silly – that’s a lot of the problem.

    That being said – OMG, the trauma of changing in front of everyone in gym in middle school and high school. Just the thought, irrational, and all about body image. I’ve always envied folks who find it easy to strip down and hot tub or steam. That will never be me.

    Also: I concur that a guest post by Suzanne about the politics of architecture would be great. One of the best books I read in a similar vein was about clothing. Eye-opening.

  163. 163.

    raven

    @The Thin Black Duke: Awesome

     
    Follow Ritchie Havens
     

    And close your eyes, child, and look at what I’ll show you;
    Let your mind go reeling out and let the breezes blow you,
    And maybe when we meet then suddenly I will know you.
    If all the things you see ain’t
    Quite what they seem,
    Then don’t mind me ‘cos I ain’t nothin’ but a dream .
    And you can follow; And you can follow; follow…

  164. 164.

    Suzanne

    @TaMara: I’m happy to do some posts about specific intersections of built environment stuff with politics (in the sense of our common life, not necessarily electoral politics). There’s a lot of good stuff out there, tho. Development is an inherently political act, and the answer to nearly every question is “because it’s cheaper to do it that way” or “because there’s a regulation that requires it” or “because someone profits from it being a specific way”.

  166. 166.

    There go two miscreants

    @raven: ​In Hidden Figures it was because there were so few “colored” restrooms. She had to run to another building!

  168. 168.

    zhena gogolia

    @Nicole: In my high school the boys also had to swim naked. We got suits that were color-coded by size, another little humiliation opportunity. They seemed to be made of burlap.

  169. 169.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: I think a post about the intersection of building and environmental issues would be a good one, and I think there would be interest. People are also interested in larger issues of clean energy, afforestation, conservation and the like. But reaching the goal of a net zero carbon economy involves many different areas and buildings are an important one.

  171. 171.

    TerryC

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    “The idea that you would NOT see other people’s junk in a locker room is very bizarre to me. Should they be standing in the lockers?

    It can be strange nowadays. I took a shower in a large college gym a few years ago. Big shower room with like 24 heads. He entered and left while showered and never fully took off his towel during his shower.

     

  172. 172.

    narya

    In the Before Times, when I attended concerts, there was often a line for the women’s restrooms, not as much for the men’s. EXCEPT! When Rush played Northerly Island, you could go BOWLING in the women’s restroom trailer, but huge lines for the men’s room trailer.

  173. 173.

    Nicole

    @zhena gogolia:

    We got suits that were color-coded by size, another little humiliation opportunity.

    Oh my God!  It is crazy, how much body-shaming we all grew up under.  I still wrestle with it, every day of my life, and I’m freaking middle-aged and a twice-had-cancer patient and you think I’d have better things to do with the brief time we are given on this planet than fixate on my waistline, but here we are.

    I’m so sorry you and your fellow students had to deal with that in school.  Our suits were identical.  Threadbare and thoroughly stretched out and gross, but identical.

  174. 174.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @narya:

    When Rush played Northerly Island, you could go BOWLING in the women’s restroom trailer, but huge lines for the men’s room trailer.

    LOL!

  175. 175.

    gvg

    @Suzanne: I hated PE is school. Never ever wanted to change in front of other girls. This was the 70’s. I think puberty and bodies changing was part of it plus much more allowing of bullying, but still…

    I have also noticed that the gaps between “doors” and “walls”in public bathroom stalls has shrunk each decade.  Decent people looked aways but that did not really reassure. When I was a foster mom of toddlers was when I really learned the need for family restrooms.  Dads have daughters, Moms have sons, and sometimes you have multiple small ones that you need to keep track of all at once. Go into the family restroom and close the door, and you also have room to change a diaper and have a stroller. The old style stalls are nearly useless for parents. I have observed people in wheelchairs too.

  176. 176.

    StringOnAStick

    @Baud: True in Ecuador as well, and in some places when I was in Italy a few decades ago, but Ecuador was fairly recent.  Something about everything having been built with smaller diameter sewage pipes.  Every toilet closet had a sign, helpfully written in english.

  177. 177.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Chris T.:

    Reminds me of the old sign near the urinals:

    WE AIM TO PLEASE
    YOU AIM TOO, PLEASE
    –Janitorial staff

    Or this graffito from college:

    Be like Dad, not like Sis – lift the seat before you piss

  178. 178.

    Matt McIrvin

    On LGM, Cheryl Rofer points out that the “lunged for the steering wheel” incident was the one thing in Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony that was hearsay, observes that it’s served to distract media attention from the damning things she personally witnessed, and suggests that the anecdote was deliberately planted on the spot as disinformation that could be denied to discredit her testimony later. (Shades of Dan Rather and the National Guard records.)

    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/06/a-small-disinformation-bomb

  179. 179.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gvg: I went to an elementary school for a couple of years in the 1970s where the toilet stalls in the boys’ bathroom did not have doors at all. (I heard it said that the girls’ bathroom did have stall doors, though of course I do not know this for sure.) Pranksters and bullies had lots of fun with this, and my response was to just hold it in all day so I could avoid going in there. Since I had a very long bus ride to/from school and also a long walk home from the bus stop afterward, the amount of time I had to endure this was pretty extreme and it resulted in a few embarrassing accidents.

    I assume that the purpose of the generally low level of privacy in these situations was to make everything easier to police against people masturbating, having sex, doing drugs or doing anything else unapproved in the stalls. So this ties into a lot of other stuff in the culture.

  180. 180.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    So architecturally speaking, this is a thing that seems to be shifting generationally, specifically attitudes toward changing one’s clothes in front of strangers in a locker room or fitting room. (Which is deeply fucking weird.) It is a norm that younger people seem to be less comfortable with. But it’s not necessarily about gender identity or sex; there’s less tolerance for changing in front of anyone.

    I wonder how much of this is due to our being a wealthier society than we were during the years we Boomers were young.  Homes were smaller, with more kids in them, shared bedrooms were still a thing in many families.

    ISTM that privacy just wasn’t a thing that people expected nearly as much of back then, so changing (and even using the toilet) in front of others was just what everyone did.  Stalls in school bathrooms didn’t have doors, locker rooms had group showers, and it was taken for granted that everyone would change in sight of each other because there was nowhere else to change.

    As a personal example, on the project I’m on, there was a lot of discussion about should there be segregated locker rooms (which contain toilets in stalls as well as showers), could there be additional changing stalls built, could it be one big locker room, etc. They surveyed employees, and the older employees preferred the traditional arrangement and many younger employees expressed discomfort with changing in front of anyone. I cannot imagine changing my clothes in front of my colleagues. It’s bad enough to have to hear them pee. American public restrooms are monstrous.

    I can’t imagine changing in the same room with co-workers.  It was one thing to share a locker room with random schoolmates in high school or even college, but that was a long time ago.  And it’s one thing to go skinnydipping with friends you’re comfortable with, and a totally different thing to change in a locker room around co-workers who you mostly don’t have that comfort level with.  That would be too awkward for words.

  181. 181.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: Younger people of both genders have been taught from a young age to recognize their personal privacy, to help them understand the difference between “good” and “bad” touching.  This is especially important, I think, for boys, who have been conditioned not to expect privacy in public restrooms.  It is clear how abusers have been able to take advantage of that.

    I joined a fitness studio 7 years ago and I noticed right away that the other women, almost all significantly younger than I am, do not like dressing/undressing in front of other women.  They have “workarounds” to avoid ever having to do it.  On the whole, I think it is a positive development that should lead to more thoughtful designs in public spaces.

  182. 182.

    catclub

    @Suzanne: The idea that it’s a place for cameraderie and a shared experience is deeply weird.

     

    ummmm, don’t some other countries have public baths? Is that deeply weird?

  184. 184.

    Suzanne

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I wonder how much of this is due to our being a wealthier society than we were during the years we Boomers were young.  Homes were smaller, with more kids in them, shared bedrooms were still a thing in many families. 

    It’s a good thought. I think it has to do with awareness of gay and lesbian folx existing, too. I mean, if the point if sex-segregated locker rooms is to keep people from being ogled and harassed (or even assaulted) in there, the realization that the call could be coming from inside the house is important! I think of that scene in “Philadelphia”, where Tom Hanks is sitting around in a towel with his older colleagues and they don’t realize he’s gay but they’re making homophobic jokes.

    I also think growing awareness of disability and the increase in obesity in America is a huge part of it. Body image is obviously a thing we all struggle with.

    That’s one of the interesting things about what I do, I can see these trends in behavior and it changes how we build stuff.

  185. 185.

    J R in WV

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:

    Once you go through basic and have to go use a camp commode without partitions in a room with a dozen or so commodes side by side, you lose all sense of shyness.

    Oh boy, ain’t that the truth. I tell the health care folks, “I’m not shy, I was in the Navy and walked a shot line in boot camp!” Some of them don’t understand. Needles today don’t bother me a bit, they used huge needles in boot camp. There was blood on most guy’s arms by the time you had all your shots.

  187. 187.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Communal was that way because it was cheaper and used less space. Others have discussed the military but while shipboard life in the navy was better than in an on ground combat zone but if you think locker rooms are communal, you ain’t seen nothing. It may have changed in the last 5 decades, now with both sexes living on board, but I’d bet communal it still is. And shipboard communal is just a bit more communal than a gym’s locker room, because living quarters were basically considered space that couldn’t be used for arms, ammunition, equipment – ships stuff and basically was only used 1/3 of a day at most. Privacy is a non entity onboard ship.

  191. 191.

    Paul in KY

    @p.a.: I’ve been to many, many music festivals and consider myself somewhat of an expert on portajohns.  For what that’s worth…

  192. 192.

    Paul in KY

    @Betty Cracker: I saw them once in Lexington years ago. After the set Tina & Jerry were at the merch table and we bonded over our shared hatred for David Byrne

     

    Edit: Hope Latto’s hit has given them alot of extra coin!

  195. 195.

    Ruckus

    @Scout211:

    “The biggest concern is, now you have given a roadmap to anybody with evil intent.”

    I wonder if he understands that works both ways……

  196. 196.

    J R in WV

    @Leto:

    Never had an inspection like that in my 22 years. If something was wrong with the ole plumbing, just went to sick call. Idk, maybe that’s also an Army v AF thing :p

    I never had anything like that in the Navy either. if something seemed amiss you went to sickbay. A corpsman would give you some antibiotics, if they didn’t work you might see an actual Dr.

  198. 198.

    Ruckus

    @Leto:

    Might depend on the size/type of station. On board ship there really aren’t a lot of non used square inches. On a remote base you might be like a navy ship, the smaller one’s didn’t have a doctor, just a corpsman. We had a guy break a leg, the ship had to meet up with another ship and the guy transferred ship to ship by liter and ship to ship cable so they could get him to hospital.

Comments are closed.