I don't mean to make light of serious events, but an email quoted by Glenn Reynolds reminded me that there are other issues besides Ann Coulter's Godless business and Abu al-Zarqawi's now-headless routine.

I refer of course to potty parody parity. It may have been neglected on Women's Confidence Day, but it's long been an issue of major concern at this blog.

Yes, I've complained repeatedly about potty parity, and about toilets. American bureaucrats -- aided and abetted by an unseen, faceless network of feminazi andro-hygienists -- have taken over our public bathrooms. Considering that I was the victim of a bureaucratized attack toilet just weeks ago, I feel morally obligated to speak up.

An anti-urinal movement is one thing. I'm no shrink, but if it's grounded in penis envy it's certainly understandable, and at least as old as Freud. But these people are not content merely fighting urinals. Old fashioned flush toilets are also under fire.

Feminism and environmentalism seem to be combining forces -- as if in a vast pincer movement, the target of which involves encircling, controlling, and cutting off our most personal areas and activities. I don't know where this will lead, and I don't know how to stop it.

A few months ago, in a last ditch attempt at a divide and conquer thinking, I resorted to satire. Hoping to drive a wedge between environmentalists and the feminists, I noted Philadelphia's recent struggle between city bureaucrats and the plumbers' union over the installation of waterless urinals in an environmentally "friendly" (aka "green") skyscraper, and, using gentle satire, I pointed out an obvious problem:

Does this not send a clear message to society that men are more environmentally friendly than women? Doesn't that create and enable a brand new and totally unfair stereotype? Isn't it bad enough that women face discrimination everywhere without granting men another patriarchal advantage to hold over women? Rather than be seen as lagging behind New York, shouldn't Philadelphia be seen as leading the way towards environmental gender equality?

Those who think this is an exercise in frivolity should bear in mind that some of the most invidious forms of sexist discrimination arise from unnoticed subtleties of precisely this sort. Every time men take a leak in the environmentally friendly urinals, they'll be likely to harbor hidden thoughts that they've done a better job of saving the environment than women. Pretty soon, they'll be emerging from the men's rooms with barely perceptible, knowing sneers. A nod here, a wink there.

The old boys network is at it again.

But the problem highlights the inherent male advantage meme, which I'm afraid is more than just a meme, because it is rooted in the cruelest possible reality.

It is a thing called anatomical advantage.

Do waterless urinals represent the final feminist Waterloo?

Let's take a look. Here's Waterless.com's Kalahari model:

The site states that "high profile installations include Liberty Island, New York; Petronas Towers, Malaysia; The Jimmy Carter Library, Georgia."

Hey, if it's good enough for Jimmy Carter, count me in the ranks of male chauvinist environmental pee nuts.

No urinalysis would be complete without a mention of women's urinals. Yes, they've been manufactured over the years, but they never caught on in the United States. The Straight Dope explains the history in sufficient detail to satisfy the normal imagination, but another site points out that there are working models used in other countries, and concludes:

There will be pressure on sanitaryware companies (those that make these things) to develop non-water using urinals that can be used by both men and women.

My answer to that would be so effing what! If this is all about fairness (which I doubt) why not simply install urinals in women's rooms anyway, regardless of how many women use them?

The bureaucrats have already forced the installation of diaper changing stations in men's rooms, and I have never seen a single man use one. Not that I'm against men changing babies' diapers in men's room, but I've just never witnessed such an event. (But then, I've never seen an American women use a urinal either.)

I say fair is fair. But I'm afraid that where it comes to Anatomical Advantage, nothing is fair.

I guess that means I'm wallowing in a waterless water loo. I'm afraid this blog is unable to be of much help in an unwanted area, as the problem involves a hopeless bureaucratic battle against an inherent male advantage.

So why not just do as the Romans did, and solve the problem by taxation of waste?

A city famous for its street urinals is Paris, France. Until the 1990s, street urinals were a common sight in the city, and in the 1930s more than 1200 were in service. Parisians referred to them as vespasiennes, the name being derived from that of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who imposed a tax on urine. Beginning in the 1990s, the vespasiennes (renowned for their smell and lack of hygiene) were gradually replaced by the far superior Sanisettes. Today only one vespasienne remains in the city (on the boulevard Arago), and it is still regularly used. A disadvantage of this kind of urinals is that there is no way to wash your hands.

Incidentally, Vespasian's tax on urine actually started with Nero. And when his son (and future emperor) Titus complained about the indignity, Vespasian replied that the money didn't stink:

With the treasury depleted by Nero's greed and war, Vespasian raised taxes extensively. Probably his most infamous was his tax on public urinals. His son, Titus, declared that this was undignified, to which Vespasian offered him some gold coins to sniff, commenting: "See, my son, if these have any smell." When Titus assured him that they had no odor, he replied, "and yet, they come from urine!"

(If that isn't a Classical Value then what is?)