UK really is going down the shitter

[BoSoxGal]

Since I avoid sitting on a public toilet at all costs, I'm not sure how different I'd find the type to be? I always squat anyway, the distance for the pee to travel would just be further.

What I really want to know is, are there any public restrooms in the UK that look as bad at the one in Trainspotting? (Which I just watched last night.)

[Gob]

(and FWIW, I would think calling a pub The Saracen's Head could be as offensive as calling one The Nigger's Head in the US; there may have been a time where names like that were approriate, but it's long gone).

How? Can you justify that comment in any way at all?

"Saracen" has NEVER been a term of insult in the UK.

That building has been known as the Sarcen's head for three hundred years, maybe we should change the name of the USA to prevent it offending the native Americans?

Should this rugby team change it's name too?

[Sean]

There are hundreds of pubs called The Saracen's Head in the UK. Saracen (as Strop just posted) is not a derogatory term. My point here is that no muslims have complained about the name. The local council are forcing the change just in case it might be found offensive. It's not muslims I have a problem with... it's the powers that be in the UK who start this bullshit.

[Crackpot]

We had the same thing (more or less) with Beaners Coffee

[rubato]

It is a gesture of strength, and a measure of graciousness, to make an accommodation to a minority.


yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

Especially when the Minority in question doesn't find or take offense.

[Andrew D]

The whole cultural thing is bullshit. A toilet that one can sit on is an advance over a toilet that one must squat over. It doesn't matter who came up with which; the simple fact is that sitting toilets are better than squatting toilets.

(Yes, that's a personal, subjective opinion. Right on par with the personal, subjective opinion that leaving the toilet without shit-splatter on my buttocks is better than leaving the toilet with shit-splatter on my buttocks (or my clothes or my scrotum or whatever).)

Newsflash: Leaving the toilet without shit stuck to me is better than leaving the toilet with shit stuck to me. I await with 'bated breath -- well, no; I actually don't -- for an argument to the contrary.

[rubato]

Especially when the Minority in question doesn't find or take offense.

It is the majority who are ungraciously finding, and very loudly taking, offense.

yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

Yeah that's why the outcry Came from PC Michigan State student groups and not ONE SINGLE MEXICAN AMERICAN AND OR LATINO GROUP. (some of which said they found no offense whatsoever)

[loCAtek]

Well, as anyone who has 'shit in the woods' knows- squatting comes naturally, it doesn't feel odd at all. Sitting is fine, it's a modified form of squatting. In Asia, they have squat toilets too, and for a chick in skirts, it's actually easier.

[Gob]

Maybe we should get the toilet cleaners to strike on H&S grounds? That would get the PC merchants in a tizz!!!

[Daisy]

Well, as anyone who has 'shit in the woods' knows- squatting comes naturally, it doesn't feel odd at all. Sitting is fine, it's a modified form of squatting. In Asia, they have squat toilets too, and for a chick in skirts, it's actually easier.

But trust me for a chick in skinny jeans and wedge heels they were a bastard nightmare!!!

[Lord Jim]

We had the same thing (more or less) with Beaners Coffee

I'm surprised nobody's bitched about Spic and Span....

[Lord Jim]

Yeah that's why the outcry Came from PC Michigan State student groups and not ONE SINGLE MEXICAN AMERICAN AND OR LATINO GROUP. (some of which said they found no offense whatsoever)

Sounds to me like what you've got there is a case of some attention seeking, sanctimonious know-nothing windbags, who's sense of insecurity leads them to try to compensate by attempting to make themselves look morally superior with this faux "sensitivity"....(Here in the Bay Area, UC Berkley is famous for having far more than its fair share of these self-important, supercilious cretins...)

Of course all they're really succeeding in doing is making themselves look like a bunch of ignorant asses....

But fortunately for them, not generally being the brightest of bulbs, this sort is usually blissfully clueless of this fact...

[loCAtek]

Yeah that's why the outcry Came from PC Michigan State student groups and not ONE SINGLE MEXICAN AMERICAN AND OR LATINO GROUP. (some of which said they found no offense whatsoever)

I don't know of any Latinos who really care about that; Carlos Mencia and I call ourselves beaners all the time- and we drink coffee!

Hey, that sounds good right about now...

I've always said Mexicans are Equal Opportunity Racists -we'll laff at anybody, including ourselves!


They gonna go after this guy next?;

[Gob]

It is a growing phenomena isn't it?

The; "someone may be offended by this, so, just in case, we're going to take offense on their behalf and get it banned first," brigade.

[loCAtek]

Life's offensive, then you die!

[Big RR]

There are hundreds of pubs called The Saracen's Head in the UK. Saracen (as Strop just posted) is not a derogatory term. My point here is that no muslims have complained about the name. The local council are forcing the change just in case it might be found offensive. It's not muslims I have a problem with... it's the powers that be in the UK who start this bullshit.

Don't get me wrong, I really don't think the government should be sticking its nose in this; all I'm saying is that I understand how calling a pub "The Saracen's Head" could be offensive, just as I do understand how naming US teams after Native Americans (like the Chiefs or Redskins or the like) could be offensive to some. I'd leave it up to the busnesses.

[loCAtek]

That's the thing; I don't know of any Native Americans who are offended by sports team's names, or Mexicans who are offended by 'Beaners' Coffee. Like Gob said it's all hyper-PCism!

Maybe there should be a stipulation that declaring a business name 'offensive' should be endorsed by the so-called 'offended' party?

[loCAtek]

I recall folks thinking the 'Frito Bandito' and the 'Taco Bell Talking Chihuahua' should-have-been offensive because they were stereotypical.

I think they real issue was they were counter-culture, that is incidences of non-assimilation to common Western lifestyle. It was different; therefore 'offensive'.

Not all culture has to be homogenized, accept the diversity! That's real tolerance.