Toxic Eau de Cow Arse?

A group of Nebraskans, concerned about “the byproducts of livestock operations intruding into their lives,” opposes the idea that hydrogen sulfide (fart gas) and ammonia (piss) emissions from stockyard operations be labeled “non-emergency” and made exempt from EPA reporting requirements. (read the article)

There’s no love lost between myself and the EPA, but I know the stench of fanatical activism (as opposed to activism) when I smell it. What these individuals are objecting to is the smell of the barnyard – something I grew up with, being raised in rural Washington state. What they are asking comes more clearly into focus when we take note of the two “offending” substances:

In Days of Olde…

…the shit ran freely in the streets.

An excerpt from Christine A. Powell’s excellent online essay, “A Matter of Convenience”–

In Renaissance Scotland, the housewives threw their chamberpot contents and slops out the windows with the cry “Gardy Loo!” (This evidently derived from the French “Gardez l’eau,” meaning “Look out for the water!”) Unfortunately, the sound of the cry and the discarded material often arrived simultaneously. Woe to the one who looked up to see what was happening. It is believed that this may be the origin of the British term “loo” for a toilet (Pudney, 28-9). The high-rises of Edinburgh were hardly the only places in Europe to present a sanitation problem during this era.

Indeed, the period from 1550 to 1750 has been called the “two rather insanitary centuries.” When the court of Charles II spent the summer of 1665 in Oxford, the local diarist Anthony Wood observed they were “nasty and beastly, leaving at their departure their excrements in every corner, in chimneys, studies, coalhouses, [and] cellars.” Contemporary accounts and engravings frequently illustrate the morning ritual in English and Scottish cities of emptying one’s ordure out of upper-floor windows into the streets beneath (Wright, 75-8). It was not until the mid-1800s, when Dr. John Snow proved the connection between cholera and sewage-polluted drinking water, that cities began to control their waste (Colman, 46). There is no reason to suppose that Port Royal and other contemporary cities in the colonies were any cleaner than those in Europe during the “insanitary centuries.” (source)

Tales From the Nasty Chair

Here is a page with a collection of anecdotes from piercing technicians, about their stinkiest customers. Truly disgusting. So bad, in fact, that I’m not even gonna post a sample story here. This is the kind of thing that a certain friend of mine might start reading, and then yell, in an agonized voice:

THERE IS NO GOD!