Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

View our poll archive

Rounding out this month's international focus on all things toilet, there is news from Minneapolis. Airport officials there (besieged by layover passengers' requests to be directed to the crapper wherein Senator Craig played footsie with Officer David Karsnia in a courtship that went famously awry) have begun outfitting public stalls with dividers that go "nearly to the floor," hoping thereby to prevent future toilet tangos. Of course, such increased privacy makes two-to-a-stall encounters all-the-more possible (after a suitcase blocks the view from under the front door).

Dawn is reminded of Barcelona's impressive international airport. There, architect Ricardo Bofill specified that the partitions between urinals, often called "modesty panels," be made of completely transparent glass, thereby inviting precisely the view the panel is ostensibly there to blinker. A brilliant example of form imploding function. May the renovated Minneapolis stalls perform the same fucking role.