What’s up Your Butt

Public health advertisements which read “What’s up your butt?” and feature people with pained expressions on their faces, will not grace billboards in Benton and Franklin counties after all. It’s probably for the best: I know that the sight of someone grimacing because the doc is plumbing their back-passage doesn’t exactly inspire me to head down to the clinic to get my keester probed. Might as well have them biting down on a pencil.

Via the Bellingham, WA Herald

Health district pulls out of colon cancer campaign

KENNEWICK — The Benton Franklin Health District will not endorse a colon cancer billboard campaign after all.

Benton County Commissioner Jim Beaver, who is chairman the health district board, announced Thursday, “Benton County won’t be a supporter of that particular advertisement and that campaign.”

Plans were to bring the “What’s up your butt?” campaign from Yakima County to the Tri-Cities. It uses provocative language to encourage testing for colon cancer.

Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/04/22/1980473/benton-franklin-health-district.html#storylink=mirelated#ixzz1NWTDYpPJ

Followup: Sardinians Resent Naples’ Garbage

Followup to “Naples Stinks”—

Garbage Grates as Sardinians Clash with Police

Via Euronews.net

Police in Sardinia have clashed with islanders angered by the arrival of 500 tonnes of rubbish. A cargo vessel loaded with rancid garbage docked at the port of Cagliari, where protestors were out in force in an attempt to stop the ship unloading. The waste had been shipped from Naples on Italy’s mainland. Refuse collection in Napels ground to a halt before Christmas after tips in area were declared full.

In an attempt to ease the growing public health implications Prime Minister Romano Prodi called on Italy’s regional authorities to accept some of the 140.000 tonnes of rubbish. Sardinia was the first to answer the call.

However, some residents on the island have taken exception to governor Renatu Soro’s decision. Firefighters say they were called out 25 times to put out fires in 48 garbage containers. Critics believe the Campania region’s rubbish problem stems from years of corruption and political cowardice, with local government unable to end Mafia control of the waste industry.

Video: Naples’ Trash Crisis

Naples Stinks

Stench of battle hangs over Naples as rubbish protests turn violent

Richard Owen, of the Times Online (UK), in Naples

[Excerpts]

It is the stench that you notice first. Then, as you get closer, you see and smell the mountains of rubbish: coloured plastic bags, black dustbin liners, cardboard boxes sodden with overnight rain, a carpet of broken glass. Yesterday Italian troops from units more used to service in Iraq and the Balkans were called in to start clearing the festering piles of rubbish from the streets of Naples….

…The crisis has engulfed the centre, after the city’s landfills, long over-stretched, finally reached capacity over Christmas. Amidst claims that the Naples Mafia is sabotaging attempts to open new landfills, more than 110,000 tonnes of waste has been left festering on the streets….

Read the complete article

Poo-Flags

I first became acquainted with poo-flags when I saw a story back in 2005, about how German police were seeking anonymous poo-flag “vandals” in Germany–

Achtung, schweinhund! Setzen sie sich hinunter pooflag und übergeben sie der Polizei!

Police in Germany are hunting pranksters who have been sticking miniature flag portraits of US President George W. Bush into piles of dog poo in public parks. Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth, said: “This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be 2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that time.”

The series of incidents was originally thought to be some sort of protest against the US-led invasion ofIraq. And then when it continued it was thought to be a protest against President George W. Bush’s campaign for re-election. But it is still going on and the police say they are completely baffled as to who is to blame. “We have sent out extra patrols to try to catch whoever is doing this in the act,” said police spokesman Reiner Kuechler. “But frankly, we don’t know what we would do if we caught them red handed.” Legal experts say there is no law against using feces as a flag stand and the federal legal experts say there is no law against using feces as a flag stand and the federal constitution is vague on the issue. (source)

Poo-flagging seems to have caught on in the United States, and there is now a San Francisco-based site, madeyouthink.org, which hosts a gallery of user-submitted poo-flaggings from across the nation, and also distributes free poo-flags via snail mail or download.