Howdy folks,
I feel responsible in some way for the recent melt down in
civility.
Last time I checked in I posted a naive little note about what a
thoughtful group this was for expressing ideas without getting flamed.
Wow, little did I know. ( Now someone will flame me for spelling
'naive' without an umlaut. )
There was a columnist for Scientific American, Ann Eisenberg who
does an occasional back page article on Science and culture, and she
wrote an article about six, seven years ago on flame wars. What was
great, was that all the examples she used were from the GARDENS
listserv at UKY. The irony of going from peonies to death threats in a
gardening forum was too much to resist.
While everyone was feeling effusive ( or constipated as the case
may be ) I thought I'd mention my experience today at the Travis
County office downtown. After politely waiting for the two men to
finish their discussion of the complexities of "The Matrix", I was met
by my request for information about composting toilets and grey water
systems, with a distinct smirk.
"You want it temporarily right, until you get a real toilet,
right?"
Actual quote.
I pondered his disbelief for a moment, and realized I was way out
of line. Sure, what I really wanted was to pay for gallons of clean
drinking water to dispose of my urine. Then I want my taxes raised so
we can pay for the urine to be extracted from my drinking water. It
better be clean, because if I don't flush it back down the toilet I
might actually drink some. Composting toilets ? How could anyone be so
silly?
My next stop was Eco-Wise in South Austin, where a very friendly,
but obviously underfed young lady showed me the catalog. I've got my
eye on the Monstro Excrement 10,000 model but I'm having a difficult
time selling the idea to my wife who is doing the interior design of
our project based on French Country 'Provence' style, and wants rough
wooden seats etc and a pull chain from an overhead box.
I was curious if anyone out there has had experience with
composting toilets and have any comments, other than "Are you out of
your freaking mind?"

Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com