A John Is a John Is a John?

I must have been about 15 years old, when I learned that the proper name "John" is also used to refer to "a room equipped with toilet facilities" - to use the definition offered by OneLook, an excellent dictionary search-(engine).

Until the early years of the new millenium, roundabouts (rotaries) to regulate traffic,, instead of traffic lights or T-junctions, were hardly known in Germany. Now, there are lots of them. In a recent radio program, I heard plans are being considered to replace flowers by modern art as a means of nicening up the roundabouts. For modern art is cheaper than flowers.

If it is cheap, much of modern art seems to be priced efficiently (unless state-subsidised). However, flowers - in the above context - suffer from a double whammy:

Government makes (the) business activities (of florists) unnecessary expensive, imposing countless regulations and surcharges on them.

On top of this: when government is given the task of making places more beautiful, it will add another substantial layer of cost, simply due to bureuacratic inaptitude and high-handedness.

Watch this video about a government John.

Comments

[Laura]

Great video! During our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park this year, we saw a couple of what-had-to-be expensive outhouses at some of the trailheads, but nothing that looked to be quite as lavish as the one in PA.

[Brutus]

Stossel is the Will Rogers of our time.