Have you been to a public toilet recently? Or looked for a public toilet when you really really had to go? Worried about who might come in to the public restroom while your child was in there?

If this conference resulted in some new approaches to public restrooms — including the value of the French self-cleaning toilets on the streets of San Francisco — I think that would be a good thing.

Would you rather they be debating Britteny Spears’ parenting style?

Sapere aude, Rog!

http://www.amazon.com/Sole-Spokesman-Pakistan-Cambridge-Studies/dp/0521458501

You’re right, because nobody poops. This actually has nothing to do with Lucky Jim, which, surely you recall, directs its greatest acrimony at medievalists. Which just shows what a nitwit Amis was even in his best novel.

Now here’s a panel where I’m sure people got their money’s worth.

Is your point that if NYU students were paying less for tuition then they’d be justified in discussing public toilets? Otherwise I don’t see the connection between the first half of your piece and the second.

And what’s so silly about the topic? Anyone who’s been to a nightclub has noticed a power disparity between genders – men in and out of the their cubicles in seconds, while women line up patiently yet urgently for their turn to go. It’s actually not a bad idea for a discussion or a dissertation.

The real outrage here is paying $52,000 for a year’s worth of study. I got 6 years of Engineering and Mathematics for $18,000 (Australian) in the early nineties – and at quite a good university too. Got two bachelors out of it as well.

Perhaps people who have studied these issues might be brought together in some kind of seminar or workshop. If there are any good documentary films available on this subject, one might be shown at the workshop, to help focus attention and provide insight. A major university might prove to be a good locale for such a workshop to be held.

But, no, that would be ridiculous. We don’t send our children to college for this sort of thing! Did you realize that at Texas A&M, Federal dollars are actually devoted to research on cow poop? It’s obscene.

Honestly, if this is offensive to you, then you are strange. That’s all.

Why is there not more emphasis by politicians on decreasing costs of of college education? Seems to me that this would be a simpler matter than decreasing costs of medical care, given the availability of educational materials on the internet today, as well as other technological advances which increase access to information. This would be especially applicable in the liberal arts and social sciences, which generally do not require much specialized equipment other than, say, special toilets.

I would even be so egalitarian as to suggest that publicly-funded institutions provide such educational materials on-line where the information could be judged for useful content by the public at large. And I rather imagine that an on-line conference on toilets, sex and gender would be far cheaper than a big in-person conference.

It’s interesting to me that the conference organizers pointedly include both sex and gender in the title of the conference. I foresee special new restroom rights for people who feel like they don’t fit in when visiting regular restrooms. So this conference may cost taxpayers a lot even after it is over.