I've been living in Thailand for 4 years, but I'm definitely not a convert to the squat-style toilets. My house has a western style sit-n-s#it. The upside is that almost all western toilets here also have a handheld spray-nozzle hose attachment to serve bidet-like purposes, which I now think I'd miss back in the US. It doesn't fully replace T.P., but it is an excellent supplement in terms of cleanliness.

One more thing about the squat toilets -- imagine all of the difficulties of a squatter: pants placement, tired legs from hovering, lack of optimal handhold locations, etc. and then add on to that being in a moving train being jarred back and forth, going around corners, and lurching with every acceleration change. That experience is hands down my most... exciting visit to the "hong nam" (toilet) in 4 years of being here.

Well there ain't nothin' to this but your daughter
And the life you would not give her
Break your plans
Traipsed across the continent, a squatter
For your lies at night to sleep between my hands

When the lights come on this whole place gets ugly
But when they're out, strangers fall in love
She could never say that flat out she don't want me
'Cause I could never say that halfway ain't enough

New Order's on the turntable, we're dancing
'Cause what else do you do when you don't talk
Crucified then crawled into your mansion
Yeah, that's why I learned to crawl before I walk

We're back where we belong
Straight back where we belong
No days for nights [??]
No cocaine calls
Just back where we belong

Take me out back to your promise
And beat me until I can't even stand
Your whole life, a plane without no landing gear
So if this is it, then come on let me land

That trailer trash pedigree is callin'
It rides you out when you're down on all fours
Me I like to cast my death on yesterday
'Cause what doesn't kill us now
Just makes us better whores

We're back where we belong
Straight back where we belong
No days for nights [??]
No cocaine calls
Just back where we belong

Go put it in the ground
Go bury it somewhere it can't be found
Go put it in the ground

Well there ain't nothin' to this but your daughter
And the life you would not give her, break your plans
Traipsed across the continent, a squatter
For your lies at night to sleep between my hands

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I thought it was a pretty good movie. I especially liked the segment on the squatter's rights group in Florida using community action to prevent evictions. More of that kind of action is needed.

That's why he creeps you out? The man's first name is plural for crying out loud! I never trust a man with two first names, but this guy's not limiting himself to two. God knows how many Rogers there are.>> ^lucky760:
People who speak with their eyes closed like that creep me out. It also makes me want to jump away and duck behind some furniture so the next time their eyes open they'll think I disappeared.

Your video, Pope Squatter, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Silly me I thought he registered "pope-squatter.com" and that's what the porn sites wanted for Cathloic Cleavland steamer fans.

>> ^Xaielao:
Showing video of an old broken down hospital probably used by squatters, they paid some really poor and malnourished people to sit on the beds for the video so they could have a half a second showing 'actual patients.'


The part with the patients in the beds could have been from an actual hospital where they were getting treatment, etc. It's definitely not the same place as the rest of the footage, the walls are painted.

Hannity thinks he's a master debater and regularly pulls one over on his guests, or gets them to agree with him through a circular argument.

In showing this video what did he expect? Has he ever been to Cuba? Showing video of an old broken down hospital probably used by squatters, they paid some really poor and malnourished people to sit on the beds for the video so they could have a half a second showing 'actual patients.' Moore has been to cuba. He's been all over the country. I think he would know just a LITTLE bit better what the health care is like there than Hannity who's barely ever left the States.

In the end, he got TROUNCED by Moore. In laymen terms.. he was ass raped.

I was a squatter when I was younger. We had our mail sent to friends' houses.

I lived and worked in those favelas in and around Sao Paulo. I think that while he completely ignores the lawless underbelly of the squatter cities, he also makes some very good points. By our standards in the west, the living conditions are reprehensible. But when you compare the living standards most of the people had in rural areas it is vast improvement. I also agree that for many of the people it is a stepping stone to a better life because of the educational and entrepreneurial opportunities to which they now have access.



edit: apostrophe fail

I have a curious inquiry into the downvote of my comment. Was there something inappropriate that I wrote? Something factually wrong (perhaps the 40% extrapolation?). Just to be clear - nowhere in that comment nor in my personal beliefs do I necessarily agree with everything that Brand says. I tried to explain his position without explicitly advocating it. I do think much of what he says is correct, but I take a very different view on it.

If you fly in to Sao Paulo airport you see miles and miles of squatter cities. They're lawless, the buildings they live in are unsafe. It reflects that the government has refused to do its job, it's not some kind of miraculous transition out of poverty.

>> ^spoco2:
Really, that was a very poor presentation which told me pretty much nothing, explained nothing, delivered it in a poorly constructed way.

I think the problem is that it was limited to 3 minutes. As you can see, he has to run through some of those slides without enough time to even read what's on them.

The upshot of what he's saying is that the squatter cities are a big economic engine. And while those of us used to living in far better conditions view them as centers of crushing poverty and disease, the simple fact is, virtually everyone living in them are in fact better off than they were living in a remote rural village.

They are creating their own economy, their own infrastructure, their own education systems, etc., with essentially no help from governments or NGOs. And the fact that more than 15% of the world's population live in them (soon to be > 40%) means we should be paying a lot of attention to them.


>> ^MaxWilder:
I could be wrong, but my common sense is screaming "bullshit!"

I'm guessing that's because your common sense is derived from living in the highly developed West. I'm not saying that it's invalid, just that it's a completely different perspective than that of the people living in squatter cities.

My GF and I lived in San Francisco in a house with five other people which we all collectively rented. We both worked 50+ hrs a week, and rarely got out to do anything fun. We had put about 90k away, and thought about buying a house with it. If we had done that four years ago we would have negative equity, and owe over $0.5M, instead we got out.

We moved to Pittsburgh PA, where we bought two houses for < $20k each. We rent one and live in the other, we do web work and print design when they come our way.

The cash flow about breaks even, but we have no debt, and we have everything we need, and loads of free time.

I have a cyclical habit of downsizing my life. After I dropped out of UCSB in the late '90s I went to live off the grid in Canada for a few years, the catalyst being the existential arrest caused by my job as a university IT manager.

After I resettled in SF I was sqatting, and dumpsering myself a generally punk-rock existence (minus musical preference). As tends to happen I ended up living with my GF and living a somewhat "normal" life, until we decided to buy a house, and realized we would not be able to do it in SF, and so we downsized to Pittsburgh, and became landlords (gasp squatter -> landlord in 4 years flat).

I'm kinda hoping for total economic collapse, so that I can massively simplify my life again. I'll be planting a garden this year, to make sure we can keep veggies on the table if California has trouble shipping them out in their current low-water-reserves condition, that's going to be my bad economy "side business".

If I know you at all, you'll like this (posted by MrConrads):

http://www.videosift.com/video/Islington-Squatter-Punks-in-1983