Karen Grigsby Bates

is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News and co-author, with Karen Elyse Hudson, of The New Basic Black: Home Training For Modern Times (Doubleday).

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Richard Prince's popular column on the news media, published by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (www.mije.org).

FEBRUARY 7 | CNN Suspends Roland Martin Over Tweets

FEBRUARY 5 | AP Lays Off Diversity Advocate

FEBRUARY 2 | News of Don Cornelius' Death Goes Viral

KAREN GRIGSBY'S BLOG ROLL

    Pees and Queues

    First of all, apologies to Seiko and anyone else who was offended at the title The Tao of Poo.  As a couple of you pointed out, it was indeed a riff on the bestseller, The Tao of Pooh.  As in Winnie The.  Which was in itself a homage to a series of Buddhist insights.  It was not intended as a dismissal of the authenticity of Eastern religions, Seiko and actually, we do a pretty good job of spoofing the Western ones too.  I respectfully refer you to Monty Python's The Life Of Brian and several successful Broadway plays that poke fun at, among other things, a Catholic education.  No insult intended, but I get it.

    Moving on, what I do not get is why some people consider their needs so very much more important than everyone else's that they feel they can tie up the only bathroom in a place where a line is forming outside.  I once saw a man take a magazine into the only unisex loo in a small restaurant.  Why? (Eventually, irate diners had the manager intervene, but it shouldn't have gotten to that point.)

    So just a refresher: when bathrooms don't contain multiple stalls but are single rooms (think your home powder room--toilet and sink), use it quickly and leave.  The little room is not for a 20 minute makeup application, or for catching up on your reading, or for making a phone call in privacy.  It has a specific purpose and it's a communal resource.

    Think how you'd feel if you were waiting in an increasingly long line while someone was taking his or her sweet time.

     
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