Some Things Are NOT Worth Fighting About
Things like this just make you want to laugh….or cry.
Apparently, a school in Norway has made a policy that boys can not pee standing up. This was passed because, according to the school, the boys were missing the toilets too frequently and learning to pee sitting down was a much more sanitary option.
So now, a whole row has erupted:
A Norwegian politician has attacked a school for adopting a policy that boys cannot urinate standing up.
Vidar Kleppe, who was thrown out of the right-wing Progress Party for being too right-wing and went on to set up the even more right-wing Democrats party, says the rule that boys at the school must sit down to urinate is against their human rights, reports Norwegian paper Aftenposten.
Now, if this was just a statement, it would be one thing:
Kleppe said: ‘When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God’s work.’
He also wants the rule, at the Dvergsnes School in the city of Kristiansand, to be debated by the local council.
However, an angry Kleppe has said that ‘it is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl.’
This guy wants a quorum! He’s invoking G-d, sexism, “natural law”…
…For urine! Come ON! The crying shame is that this actually made national TV. An official apology came forth from the principal of the school, and all for kids’ urination positions.
You would think Norwegian politicians would be able to find something else to focus on.
Okay…. uh what bunch of panther pee.
The best part is the underlying assumption about sitting down being like a girl – and that it’s bad. Yay, gender politics! There’s a great story by Sherman Alexie in one of his collections in which there is a character who always sits down to pee, to be nice to his wife. It’s got to be one of the sweetest portrayals of a marriage (without being smarmy) that I’ve ever read. And Kleppe : the character’s a het! He’s married! since that seems to bug you, dude. God forbid anyone be like a girl. We all know where that leads… then they’ll start thinking they’re just as good as men. And maybe the women will stand up to pee! AAAAAAAAAA!
In case anyone was unsure, as a student of Human Rights Law, I can assure you that no current Human Rights legislation, enacted or pending, covers the right to pee standing up. Unless peeing from the standing position is an incontrovertable aspect of your religion, culture, or ethnicity OR if you have a medical condition requiring you to pee standing up and forcing you to sit would be equated with torture, you have no internationally protected legal right to pee standing up. In case there was any ambiguity on the question.
I’ve personally been fighting for the right to sit down in urinals for years.
And it’s this whole BIG THING….like this has already become an issue we need to Seriously Address.
“WE STAND TO STAND!”
“WE STAND TO STAND!”
“WE STAND TO STAND!”
Well, he obviously never saw this:
oh well that’s great….how the hell do I paste html? I thought I did it right. Oops.
http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j85/missyaicha/?start=all#imgAnch132
Oh bother. That didn’t work and now you all have access to my photobucket. Great. I’m an idiot. Cheers.
Thanks so much for sharing though 🙂
Frankly, I don’t think the implications of this controversy are being appreciated. The controversy is being derided because it seems absurd, but its an important issue precisely because its absurd. Has Western society degraded so much that those in authority feel they have the right to dictate even how someone should pee?! I should hope that free citizens would be appalled at the notion that even the way they urinate can be proscribed by the government. Indeed, not only am I appalled at the state of Norwegian society, but I am appalled that no one else is appalled at Norway. Though he may not be expressing himself in the most politically correct (an d I use that term pejoratively) way, Kleppe is standing (no pun intented) for what’s right.
The best part is the underlying assumption about sitting down being like a girl – and that it’s bad.
Kol Ra’ash Gadol is absolutely right. These little bastards need to be taught sensitivity sometime, and the sooner, the better.
Norwegians (just like all Scandinavians) being practical minded are just training them young ones for coming prostate times.