The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

Good show, Hawkmonger - it's good to stand up to bullies.
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I do wonder, though, where the line is. Would we be as quick to defend someone urinating in public? Defecating? Being angry? Making love? Walking around naked? All perfectly natural and commonplace biological functions - no different to breast feeding.
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The miscreant's poor behaviour aside, who's to say what's proper and what's not? The young lady has the right to breast feed her baby and the miscreant has the right to be offended by that. It could be argued that the miscreant failed in his responsibility to keep his anger in check and that the young lady failed in her responsibility to consider the sensibilities of others.
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I do find it bewildering that normal bodily functions could be so taboo in a world swamped with tits and bums;  tits and bums in every magazine,  tits and bums on every screen,  tits and bums on cereal packets,  tits and bums all over the shop. Yet a real-life naked human body (or even a single breast) is regarded almost as something demonic. Baffling.
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Anyhoo, my 57 shades of bullshit aside, well done Hawkie.

[M.I.K.]

I do wonder, though, where the line is. Would we be as quick to defend someone urinating in public? Defecating? Being angry? Making love? Walking around naked? All perfectly natural and commonplace biological functions - no different to breast feeding.

The line is harm to others.  Being angry is fine unless the angry person is smacking someone about the place or shouting in their face, causing emotional distress. Urinating, defecating, and love-making can leave icky unhygienicness around and lead to the spread of disease.

Breast feeding is highly unlikely to contaminate anyone, unless the mother has a highly contagious disease and is squirting poisonous breast milk directly into other people's faces.

[The Legendary Shark]

Technically, you could say the same things about semen, faeces and urine - so long as you're free of highly contagious diseases and aren't squirting these substances directly in people's faces then everything should be fine. Sticky and stinky may be though, I'll give you that.
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Did I read somewhere that urine is generally sterile, or did I dream it?

[M.I.K.]

Technically, you could say the same things about semen, faeces and urine.

Only if they're going into some kind of receptacle. If they're in the middle of the street, there's a bit of a danger to the unwary and poop's full of loads of bacteria whether you've got an ailment or not.

Urine is sterile-ish, but apparently not sterile enough. You can still pick up infections from it.

[M.I.K.]

And that's politics.

[Jo-L]

Technically, you could say the same things about semen, faeces and urine - so long as you're free of highly contagious diseases and aren't squirting these substances directly in people's faces then everything should be fine. Sticky and stinky may be though, I'll give you that.
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Did I read somewhere that urine is generally sterile, or did I dream it?

I almost supported you, but common sense took hold.  Breastfeeding is 1000% different.

[The Legendary Shark]

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that these things be made mandatory nor would I be in favour of people just dropping their skiddies and pooing, cumming and peeing all over one another in the middle of a busy high street or supermarket any more than I'd be in favour of the breast feeding lady squirting her boob juice at passers by.
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I'll wager that all of us have at least peed in public at least once in our lives. Usually, when caught short, people pee in public but as out of the way as possible - into a grid or under a tree or something. And very few people, I imagine, would even want to leave their doings in the middle of a pavement. If suddenly seized by the galloping squits with no toilet in range, wouldn't you look for a secluded spot over a grid in an alley or behind a skip in the corner of a car park or something?
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The question is, if you saw somebody having a go at a person squitting into a perfectly reasonable grid in a relatively secluded public area, would you support the squitter or the squawker?
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[JamesC]

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that these things be made mandatory nor would I be in favour of people just dropping their skiddies and pooing, cumming and peeing all over one another in the middle of a busy high street or supermarket any more than I'd be in favour of the breast feeding lady squirting her boob juice at passers by.
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I'll wager that all of us have at least peed in public at least once in our lives. Usually, when caught short, people pee in public but as out of the way as possible - into a grid or under a tree or something. And very few people, I imagine, would even want to leave their doings in the middle of a pavement. If suddenly seized by the galloping squits with no toilet in range, wouldn't you look for a secluded spot over a grid in an alley or behind a skip in the corner of a car park or something?
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The question is, if you saw somebody having a go at a person squitting into a perfectly reasonable grid in a relatively secluded public area, would you support the squitter or the squawker?
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It depends on what's acceptable in the area you're doing said activity. Some cities put out public, open air urinals on busy streets where there are lots of bars and clubs. I think that's fine and it seems fairly sensible to me.
Most shopping centres have various eateries and most don't have any restrictions on eating pre-packaged food on the public benches. Essentially, a mother feeding her baby from her breast is no different from anyone else eating their food in the shopping centre.

[Hawkmumbler]

Also, if where talking about potential infection risk here due to (albeit highly unlikely) exposure to breast milk I can vouch the risk just isn't their. Breast milk is usually highly sterile and only a risk to people if the mother has an infection of some kind, in which case she will not be breast feeding a child anyway.

It's still a thousand times more hygienic than exposure to formula milk. Do you have any idea how quickly that stuff goes of and just what exactly it degrades into?

[JamesC]

I suspect that the act of feeding isn't actually the issue. The breast is the issue. It isn't comparable to offence caused by the act of shitting or shagging or pissing, it's only comparable to the possible offence caused by other exposed body parts.
I don't think that any body parts are offensive and if there's a legitimate reason for them to be exposed then so be it.
The only real reason I can think that a bum or willy or whatever would be exposed in the public area of a shopping centre is through some sort of first aid emergency. 

[Hawkmumbler]

This pretty much. It's more than a little prudish to claim the sight of breasts in public offends you, when any heterosexual male is more than happy to look at them in his own home.

[The Legendary Shark]

Apropos of nothing in particular, I seem to remember reading somewhere that, due to all the chemicals in our environment (from exhaust fumes to cleaning products to artificial growth hormones and antibiotics in our food to the unfiltered traces of drugs in our water supplies to plastic residue from all that food packaging and so on and on) one of the most broadly toxic foods there is in the Western World can be human breast milk.
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Best to clean that toilet bowl with half a lemon than by tipping chemicals down it, in my view. I'd say that goes double if you're pregnant - you shy away from cigarette smoke but not chemical fumes? You avoid alcohol but not the chemical soup that is diet pop? Madness.

[Frank]

GERMANS: HARIBO EVEN
MORE RACIST THAN
THOSE OLD KIA-ORA ADS

[The Legendary Shark]

First aid on a willy?
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"Help! I just got bit by a snake and I need the poison sucked out!"
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You know, that might just work...

[Llowellen]

Funnily enough, I have performed first aid on a willy on two separate occasions. I was unfortunate enough to once work a production line where 25 people would grimly stand around assembling pizzas for the supermarket. It would be one persons job to fish jalapeño peppers out of a bucket and drop them on the passing pizzas. Every once in a while that person would forget to wash their hands before using the loo..

..but I don't anyone ever did it twice.