The Swiss

Let’s begin with the toilets. This is the Nobby Works after all, and our main man Norman O. Brown wrote about “Excremental Visions” in his seminal Life Against Death. According to Nobby:

“The Yahoo’s filthiness is manifested primarily in excremental aggression: psychoanalytic theory stresses the interconnection between anal organization and human aggression to the point of labeling this phase of infantile sexuality the anal-sadistic phase.” 

You don’t hear talk like that on NPR or Hardball, folks. Yet it’s not a bad assessment of the current state of affairs in the USA where one can reasonably argue that anal sadists have taken over our political life.
One can also argue that all the chest-thumping about American Exceptionalism aside, other countries really do quite well for themselves—not Afghanistan or Somalia perhaps, but surely the Swiss. And it starts with the toilets. No, really. I don’t want to sound too…hmmm, what’s the word I want here? Oh yeah, anal. But on our recent trip there, as much as I loved the cheese and the chocolate, it was Switzerland’s toilets that made the most profound impression on me. First off, the toilet paper…forget about squeezing the Charmin…this was stuff you could spread out on your bed and lie down in like fine linen. And not just in the homes, but the public toilets as well. I walked into one at a train station…train station! I can still recall my visit to the men’s room at a Penn Central restroom where a slick-haired, leather-jacketed, Jersey Boys-looking reject jerked off while frenetically looking from the guy at the urinal to his left to the guy at the urinal to his right…who was me! (And, yes, I've had my share of traumatic restroom encounters.) 

I got out of there as quick as my drip-dry would allow, and as I’m telling my wife about it, Mr. Not Frankie Valli walks out, makes a U-Turn and heads back in...for more of the cheapest of thrills I guess. This would not have happened in Switzerland…at least not in the particular train station toilette I entered, feeling very much like Dr. Dave Bowman aboard Discovery One in 2001—wrap-around stainless steel, push buttons for every imaginable function, a grated floor for easy elimination of the previous occupant's misfirings, and an elevated toilet seat. Not a toilet seat that must be lifted, mind you, and is often used for target practice by drunks. But a toilet seat that must be pressed down into place and sat upon or else it quickly vanishes out of harm’s way. As I sat on it, I fully expected the Hal 9000 computer to start serenading me with a lilting version of Daisy--Daisy, Daisy / Give me your answer, do. / I'm half crazy / all for the love of you...
To use a crude Americanism, the Swiss really seem to have their shit together—as well as most everything else. The country fully lives up to its reputation as a model of efficiency. And what can you say about a military that manages to avoid wars, while drawing the most plum overseas assignment in the world—“Here you go, troops, off to Vatican City with ya. See that no one steals the communion wafers or sneaks boys in after dark.” (Oops) 
Not to put too fine a point it, but perhaps the legendary Swiss neutrality is due to the fact that they really do have superior anal organization. I saw not a hint of excremental aggression in my travels. Quite the contrary...and for a glimpse I invite you to view the video below.   

John Coltrane, A Few of My Favorite Things