f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

For half a century, it wasn’t only the horses racing to the finish line in Saratoga Springs, NY,

the trendy “summer place to be.”  Tourists enjoying the city’s main park often discovered

too late that no public restrooms were available there. 

 

  The Albany Times Union reported yesterday, however, that “Public facilities are

due to open before the summer tourist season in a $180,000 project at Congress Park. ”  (Oct. 24,

2004, Restroom plan offers relief to Spa City visitors).   While cheered by many, the project has,

naturally, raised the “potty parity” issue, which ethicalEsq discussed last year.                                                                                               

 

University of Chicago law professor Mary Anne Case, creator of the Toilet Survey, has been

studying the issue for years, and explains that separate facilities are not always equal, as equal

square footage does not produce equality.  Thus, she says:  

“What are you equalizing: excreting opportunities, or are you equalizing waiting time?

I’m not being frivolous when I say these are important questions to debate.”

                                                                                                                                                                    

 

As the home of liberal Skidmore College, and proud of both its traditions and its progressiveness, I’m

counting on Saratoga Springs to help clarify, and maybe solve, many of these issues.

• 
  
  
  

  Finding a public toilet was apparently a frequent problem for travelling haiku poets in

  
  

  19th Centry Japan.  Master Issa addresses such issues frequently, see here and here,

  
  

  often bringing humor to the topic.  For example: 

mountain village–
a temporary toilet
in blossom shade

 

where piss dribbles,
dribbles down…
irises

 

get ready to see
my piss waterfall!
croaking frog

 

Issa,translated by David G. Lanoue

 

   Cute Caleb Lemley doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of restrooms in Congress Park.  

(original photo by Times Union photographer Cindy Schultz, Oct. 24, 2004, no longer available at the site)

• You know, Caleb is almost as cute as Denise‘s Little Baggage Tyler:    “Tyler swinger”

 

• 
  
  by dagosan: 

toilet seat up –

bedroom

suddenly chilly

                                       [Oct. 25, 2004]