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 | Opinion Columnist |
Ever need to go while walking in a U.S. city? Good luck. While America focuses on building aircraft carriers and spaceships, it fails at providing public restrooms in our cities. |
Greeks and Romans had public toilets more than 2,000 years ago, with people sitting on benches with holes to do their business. There were no partitions, and Romans wiped with sponges on sticks that were dipped in water and shared by all users. OK, I’m not endorsing that arrangement, but at least the ancient Romans operated large numbers of public latrines, which is more than can be said of the United States today. |
My Sunday column cites some horror stories linked to the lack of public toilets: A police officer giving a three-year-old boy a $2,500 ticket for public urination (on private property!), a man placed on a sex offender registry and forced to change homes because of an arrest for public urination 19 years earlier, homeless people who say they’re obliged to pull down their pants and defecate in the gutter. That’s a strike against the public health and livability of any city. Please read. |
Dr. Seuss and America’s Children |
The furor over Dr. Seuss books is another example of the left shooting itself in the foot. The publisher decided to stop printing six of books, prompting denunciations of “cancel culture” and wall-to-wall coverage on Fox News. Instead of letting the matter lie, some liberals rushed to line up against Dr. Seuss, giving the issue more reach. Republicans have exultantly offered free copies of “Cat in the Hat” to donors, and the controversy resulted in huge sales for the books (which previously were not selling well, with 5,000 copies for “And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street” last year and fewer for the other delisted titles). At one point a few days ago, 42 of the top 50 books on Amazon were by Dr. Seuss, including nine of the top ten. So instead of reducing the spread of images that they found offensive, liberals gave them a lift. |
Democrats should be trying to draw attention to issues that will help them, such as a higher minimum wage and an overwhelmingly popular economic relief package, not to issues that will help Republicans. More broadly, my view is that we have limited political capital, and we should invest it carefully to have the greatest impact. The most consequential issues on the national agenda right now are far-reaching efforts by the Biden administration to reduce child poverty by half, while also making major inroads into adult poverty, reducing racial disparities and expanding health care access. So why expend political capital instead on issues that benefit Republicans, increase circulation of caricatures that some Democrats find offensive, and divert attention from historic efforts to reduce poverty? |
The Heroic Women of Myanmar |
Myanmar’s brutal army, well known for atrocities, mass rape and genocide, is now trying to crush opposition to its coup d’état. Women have become pivotal in recent protests against the military, including an 18-year-old, Ma Kyal Sin, who was shot dead on Wednesday. Women have also hung up their sarongs on lines — because men, such as soldiers, don’t like to walk under them. |
That’s something I’ve seen from Palestine to China over the years: Women are often particularly effective protesters, partly because it’s more difficult for a regime to label them as violent thugs. It’s no accident that the leading figures of opposition in both Saudi Arabia and Iran are women (Loujain al-Hathloul and Nasrin Sotoudeh, who I hope will win the Nobel Peace Prize this year). |
Don’t Relax on Covid-19 |
With three excellent vaccines for the coronavirus now available in the United States, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. But too many Americans are seeing the light and missing the tunnel. We don’t know what’s ahead, but there’s good reason for apprehension that the next two or three months will see a surge of cases because of new variants that are more contagious and possibly more lethal. |
In that context, it was sad to see Texas and Mississippi lift mask requirements. That’s not a celebration of freedom but an unnecessary risk. Let’s be patient for another few months until we get close to herd immunity and have a clearer sense of the risk from the variants. |
Victoria and Her Unconscious Videos |
The ripple effects of my December column about Pornhub are still being felt. I just came across the testimony of Victoria, who had 30 videos of herself naked placed on Pornhub by an ex-boyfriend, apparently some of them showing her being raped while she was unconscious as a teenager. She pleaded with Pornhub to remove them and got nowhere — but when my column came out, Pornhub removed the videos. Journalism is often frustrating, with columns I care about disappearing without a ripple, but every now and then you make a meaningful difference in someone’s life, and boy, it feels good! |
A Special Interest Column Targeted Only at Readers With Bladders |
Maybe the shortage of public restrooms seems a juvenile topic or not so consequential. But it’s a public health and dignity issue that causes anguish for people who are out on the streets and can’t find a place to go. Other countries, even some poorer ones, do better than we do. So my column suggests that as Biden plans his infrastructure plan, he explore new models to work with cities to provide public restrooms. Just one thing: If we go with the Roman model, let’s not share sponges. |
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