Toilets

The story of Seattle's ascent out of the tidal flats of Puget Sound is a tad bawdy -- with tales of vice and 2,500 of the city's women whose registered occupation was "seamstress" -- but most of all it's about bad plumbing and engineering ingenuity. "You've just walked through a second-floor window," Tug, our tour guide, tells the group. It's July, and like all good tourists, we're partaking of Bill Speidel's Underground Tour of old Seattle. Tug was obviously delusional -- I know I had stepped through a doorway, from the street.

Anyone who's ever planned a wedding, or even thought about planning one, knows a good portion of the budget goes to the dress. Lace, taffeta, beading -- it's all expensive. Ever wondered how something a little cheaper would fare as a dress material? How about toilet paper? Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com launched its ninth annual Cheap Chic Weddings Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by Charmin, on Tuesday. If you can make a beautiful wedding dress out of toilet paper, you could win $2,000 toward the dress of your dreams or make your masterpiece the star of a wedding.  Last year's grand prize winner Susan Brennan created a playfully sophisticated dress called Bohemian Cupcake . To make your dress, use some Charmin Toilet Paper, tape, glue and or needle and thread.

Re "A Good Deal for Somebody: $50 Million for 10 Toilets," Aug. 25. The Times has done a good service to bring to its readers' attention the toilets-for-advertising-space issue. The bigger issue has to do with why the City Council members and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors continue to support urban blight by permitting the outdoor advertising industry further concessions in their pursuit of profits. There are already too many signs and billboards in the city of Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

Another Carnival Cruise ship, the Dream, was disabled Thursday, this time at its St. Maarten dock because of a problem with its emergency diesel generator, and the company and others took to Twitter to describe the situation. This time around the toilets are working and there is plenty of food. But passengers will have to fly, not cruise, home in what is likely to be an abbreviated vacation. The news of another stranded ship rekindled memories of the Carnival's nightmare voyage home through the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago on the Triumph.

Re installing 150 pay toilets in Los Angeles: If public restroom facilities are a magnet for crime, what better way to know where the criminals are so they can be apprehended? Let's get those potties in place. Showers and washing machines wouldn't be a bad addition. I say, let's have the cleanest homeless population on Earth. Or at least cleaner streets and alleyways. The proposed number is way too few, but it's a start. Chele Graham Los Angeles

In reading "Japan Is Flush With Obsession" (Dec. 13), I thought you would give at least some passing mention to what American GIs called the "porcelain slit trench," the oblong porcelain device built into the floor over which one squats. It is widely used in Asia and is used on Japan's ultramodern bullet trains. For Westerners, at least, it is difficult to use. The difficulty in using it could be the reason the Japanese toilet manufacturers, perhaps to make amends, are inventing such gadget-laden toilets.

The homeless will be able to use restrooms at the Weingart Center and the Russ Hotel under a two-month test program approved Tuesday by the City Council. The Weingart Center, a social service agency and shelter at 6th and San Pedro streets, will provide six to eight toilets around the clock for the homeless.

Another Carnival Cruise ship, the Dream, was disabled Thursday, this time at its St. Maarten dock because of a problem with its emergency diesel generator, and the company and others took to Twitter to describe the situation. This time around the toilets are working and there is plenty of food. But passengers will have to fly, not cruise, home in what is likely to be an abbreviated vacation. The news of another stranded ship rekindled memories of the Carnival's nightmare voyage home through the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago on the Triumph.

High-tech toilets, bento box animal characters and sushi-go-round carousels are among the top 10 things that some say make Japan hip. Sumo wrestlers, rickshaw rides and iced coffee? Not so much. That's the latest results of the highly unscientific "Is Japan Cool?" online poll, posted by  All Nippon Airways, in which more than 3,700  people so far ranked the toilets at No. 2. "Ordinary features include warm water washer, automatic up/down lavatory seating, seat warmer and deodorizer," the poll description reads.

Brand-new "flushable potty economy seats" on planes mean you'll never again have to crawl over others to use the bathroom. Talk about convenient! And airlines make money on the deal by adding seats where toilets once were. "It's a win win for everyone," crows a blog with an illustration of the new seats that was posted Monday by a Northern California travel agency. They're kidding, right? Of course. It's a humorous holiday attempt by Fremont-based Let's Fly Cheaper to take a jab at the airline industry and create some marketing buzz too. "The airlines always find new ways to charge us extra dollars," says Chief Executive Ramon van Meer.

When Ford launched plans in the early 1950s for a medium-priced car so distinctive it would grab attention from blocks away, the challenge fell to Roy Brown to design it. The concept he came up with blared individuality. It shunned the tail fins that adorned the era's bestselling cars but had rear lights shaped like boomerangs, sides that were two-toned and scalloped, and a front grille that defied convention with its boldly vertical layout. When company President Henry Ford II saw what Brown and his team had created, he stood up and applauded.

MOBILE, Ala. - Carnival's crippled cruise ship Triumph limped into port Thursday night with giddy passengers lining the decks, smiling, waving and singing "Sweet Home Alabama. " Someone shouted, "It's good to be home!" But their ordeal wasn't quite over: With only one working elevator, Carnival officials warned that it could take four or five hours for everyone to disembark, although Customs and Border Protection had cleared the ship. Carnival Cruise Lines struggled to cope with a public relations disaster.

A cruise ship that lost power because of an engine fire is being towed from the Gulf of Mexico, with many passengers sleeping on the deck to stay cool and standing in lines to get hot meals and use toilets. The Carnival Triumph, carrying more than 3,000 passengers and more than 1,000 crew members, could reach Mobile, Ala., by Wednesday or Thursday, depending on sea conditions, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. It is the latest cruise mishap for an industry that was hoping to rebound from last year's disastrous wreck of the Costa Concordia off the Italian coast.

Passengers stranded on a cruise ship adrift in the Gulf of Mexico say they must stand in long lines to use working bathrooms and to get hot meals. The messages from passengers on the Carnival Triumph, drifting in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine fire Sunday, came from text messages sent to family and friends. No one was injured in the fire but it left the ship without propulsion. Miami-based Carnival Cruise Line said some of the public and cabin toilets are not operating and only limited power is available to run elevators and heat food.

These days, crime is a low-down dirty business, especially in  Albuquerque. Cheeky crooks are ripping off public toilets. More specifically, they're making off with the metal pipes that automatically flush the toilets. The thieves have reportedly entered fast-food restaurants and other businesses posing as plumbers, which gives them cover for the huge wrench needed to take apart the flush mechanism. According to authorities, the pipes sell for around $30 on the black market but cost businesses about $400 to replace.

It's a drama playing out in a Colorado courtroom that's almost too difficult to watch: An alleged Peeping Tom is battling both the court and his own lawyers as the community breathes a sigh of relief that he's off the streets. Luke Chrisco is accused of hiding in a portable toilet at a Boulder yoga festival last year and spying on women through peepholes he created at several stores and other locations around the Rocky Mountain resort town. Since his arrest in 2011, the defendant has been represented by four different attorneys who have advised him against a plan to represent himself.

While keeping in mind that this is a family newspaper, let's talk about poop. When you flush your toilet here in Los Angeles, the waste is likely to end up at the Hyperion Treatment Plant in El Segundo, which every day receives enough raw sewage to fill the Rose Bowl several times over. At Hyperion, the sewage is processed via a series of pipes and giant tanks until the solid waste is sufficiently pathogen free to be trucked off as fertilizer. There isn't even any odor, for that too is captured in pipes and processed.

The City Council on Wednesday voted to seek bids for the development of a citywide automated toilet program, a day after it delayed consideration of an ordinance against public urination and defecation. City lawmakers will consider a plan to pay for the self-cleaning toilets by incorporating advertising kiosks on the outside of the facilities.

David Busch, the creator of an improvised public toilet - consisting of a bucket, soapy water and a tent for privacy - was arrested in April on charges of public nuisance and leaving property on the sidewalk. A homeless man and self-styled advocate for people who live on the streets, Busch went on trial last week in a Los Angeles court, facing the charges stemming from his operation of the makeshift restroom on 3rd Avenue in Venice. Some said it was an outrage. Some called it a stunt.

Brand-new "flushable potty economy seats" on planes mean you'll never again have to crawl over others to use the bathroom. Talk about convenient! And airlines make money on the deal by adding seats where toilets once were. "It's a win win for everyone," crows a blog with an illustration of the new seats that was posted Monday by a Northern California travel agency. They're kidding, right? Of course. It's a humorous holiday attempt by Fremont-based Let's Fly Cheaper to take a jab at the airline industry and create some marketing buzz too. "The airlines always find new ways to charge us extra dollars," says Chief Executive Ramon van Meer.