Plant more trees, build more toilets

Environmental activists draw attention to the mortal sin (to borrow a good old Roman Catholic concept) of destroying rain forests as in the Amazon and Tasmania. In urban areas too, the following eloquent photo (found on the web) suggests that the tree situation can be crucial.

I only learned recently (through YouTube videos) that, for women, the practical difficulty—if not impossibility—of peeing while standing up is a blatant gender injustice. I didn’t realize that, in everyday places such as highway rest areas, where a male can simply take out his trouser snake and relieve himself immediately, a female might find herself obliged to join in a queue like the dogs in the above photo.

After having joked for ages about Australian tourists who complain bitterly that there’s a dearth of nice clean public toilets in France, I’m obliged to admit that it’s true. A people-oriented government (if such an entity were to exist) should be able to solve this everyday problem inexpensively, effortlessly, rapidly and esthetically. I might have added another adverb: generously… in the sense that nobody should be expected to pay for the simple “privilege” of being able to urinate or defecate freely. Would this goal be excessively utopian in an evolved land such as France?

OK, if you insist: I’m prepared to look into the idea of starting a political movement in France aimed at instigating this noble social goal.