Bathroom Sex and Reasonable Privacy

"ST. PAUL, Minn. - In an effort to help Sen. Larry Craig, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy.

Craig, of Idaho, is asking the Minnesota Court of Appeals to let him withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct stemming from a bathroom sex sting at the Minneapolis airport.

The ACLU filed a brief Tuesday supporting Craig. It cited a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling 38 years ago that found that people who have sex in closed stalls in public restrooms "have a reasonable expectation of privacy." (AP via Yahoo)

I think I have to disagree with the ACLU on this one. If I were the judge writing on this I would note the probable intrusion of noise of a generally identifiable type, the intrusion of asking for sex underneath the stall door, in certain places the vandalism of stalls for the purposes of bathroom sex (although I guess that’s covered under vandalism, which you could still be prosecuted for), the spreading of yet more substances you wouldn’t want on yourself in the bathroom (lube, worse), and related to that last point, people who didn’t wash their hands moving those substances all over the bathroom and onto places I have to touch. Precedent be damned. How can you claim privacy, if you're creating a disturbance that disrupts someone else's privacy? Isn't that along the lines of Britney Spears shaving her head, then running around in public without her underwear, and expecting the paparazzi to just leave her alone?

If you can expect privacy for doing the deed in a public bathroom, can’t you begin to argue the point that if you do it in a sleeping bag with the top pulled over your heads, you have an expectation of privacy in the middle of a public park? (I use that particular example because I was subjected to it back in high school during a training ride for a bike trip to Duluth).

Mean Mr. Mustard….you’re the lawyer…what’s your take? Do I have to start worrying more about which local restrooms I frequent? This absolutely won't apply to corporate bathrooms...right?

Tube Announcements and Old Lady Sex

My two favorite stories in the news today were:

1.) The woman who was the voice of The Tube getting into trouble for posting satirical announcements. "AFP - The woman known as "the voice of the Tube" on London's underground has been sacked after criticising the network and making spoof announcements including making fun of US tourists, officials said Monday." Particularly funny having just been in London - although I don't see that her fake announcements are any more interesting then when they tell you someone is "on the tracks". One of my expatriate coworkers today said that happens about every other week (it happened while I was there) and is often a suicide attempt, rather than a genuine accident. By the way Emma, I was with a number of Americans on the train, and we barely talked at all, fearful of being "tut-tutted", and we were told that at other rail systems within England (I believe Bournemouth was mentioned) frequent chatter is the rule, not the exception.

2.) Older women going to Kenya to find sex. Just something to keep in mind when a woman you know says that women are intrinsically superior and don't indulge in the same behaviors as men. Maybe not the same extent - but there they go. I also question why if all those older women want a guy 6'4", they ran off to Kenya? After all, Tall Brad used to say the old ladies at the eye clinic we shared were hot, and they were like 55-65. The article has some choice quotes:

• "just full of big young boys who like us older girls."
• "It's about trying to make those guests feel as uncomfortable as possible ... But it's a fine line. We are 100 percent against anything illegal, such as prostitution. But it's different with something like this -- it's just unwholesome."
• "This is what is sold to tourists by tourism companies -- a kind of return to a colonial past, where white women are served, serviced, and pampered by black minions," said Nottinghan University's Davidson.
• Flashing a dazzling smile and built like an Olympic basketball star, the 22-year-old said he has slept with more than 100 white women, most of them 30 years his senior.

News

Klund wants me to blog about stupid Boy Scouts who haven't earned their fireman chit. He challenges me to stick up for them. I don't stick up for stupid Boy Scouts. If they can't manage sharp things and can't manage a fire, they have no place in the wilderness. Just like if they can't handle the fact that approximately ten percent of the population is gay, they don't really have any place in polite society. I fully admit I was a Scout. I was a Scout through and through - Eagle, multiple palms, Assistant Scout master, National Jamboree participant, camp counselor, Order of the Arrow Vigil member, and in charge of a troop at Many Point long past my eighteenth birthday. But I haven't given them any money since I decided their stance against gays was unreasonable (I didn't think it was reasonable before, I just didn't give it a thought as I knew gay Scouts and Scoutmasters). If they actually started a fire through negligence, they deserve to be fined by the government, just like the Scouts who were stabbing fish at a national monument (see National Jamboree, above) deserved to get caught by the cops. The Scouts I knew weren't stupid with fire. They had lots of fires, it went with camping out in sub-zero weather, but they weren't stupid.

Mean Mr. Mustard wants me to blog about the world record for stationary biking. The guy is a pussy. Seriously, RAAM is 8 to 9 days, 22 hours a day, three thousand miles (not a measly 1,000) in real heat and rain and darkness and sleep deprivation. This guy had full support, presumably a stash of food just sitting there, and was in a protected environment, with a five minute break every hour. And he's got music - look at the picture. And a computer, so he can do email or watch videos. And he's only going 12.7 miles per hour. I ride 17 mph+ at a 2% grade on a wind trainer for 90 minutes. I'm not saying that's 85 hours, not even close. But I'm a heavy, out-of-shape, bastard, and I'd feel silly doing 12.7. If he really wanted a challenge, he should have done like one of the other options on RAAM, and gone tandem, even if it was inside. I think 1,000 miles with someone else's butt in your face and their stink riding your nostrils would make it much more challenging.

I do respect the fact that he raised $25,000 for charity. That's pretty cool.

Embracing the Prime Directive

In our defense, in a few billion years they would have had weapons of mass destruction, and no one wants the axis of evil to extend from the earth to Mars. That's just f-ing confusing.

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.

The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn't recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said." (CNN)