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Show CURRENTS All Military Finder Birth A 13 A 16 EDITOR: TOM NORMAN A9 the daily herald J SUNDAY. Jl i v :n. IW Jiv. Dave Barry America not sitting down in toilet fight If you call yourself an American, you need to know about a crucial issue that is now confronting the U.S. Congress (motto: "Remaining Firmly In Office Since 1798"). This is an issue that affects every American, regardless of race or gender or religion or briefs or boxerB; this is an issue that is fundamental to the whole entire Cherished American Way of Life. This issue is toilets. I'm talking about the toilets now being manufactured for home use. They stink. Literally. You have to flush them two or three times to get the job done. It has become very embarrassing to be a guest at a party jn a newer home, because if you need to use the toilet, you then have to lurk in the bathroom for what seems (to you) like several presidential administrations, flushing, checking, waiting, flushing, checking, while the other guests are whispering: "What is (your name) DOING in there? The laundry?" I'know this because I live in a home with three new toilets, and I estimate that I spend 23 percent of my waking hours flushing them. This is going on all over America, and it's causing a serious loss in national productivity that could really hurt us as we try to compete in the global economy against nations such as Japan, where top commode scientists are developing totally automated household models so hightech that they make the Space Shuttle look like a doorstop. The weird thing is, the old American toilets flushed just fine. So why did we change? What force would cause an entire nation to do something so stupid? Here's a.hint: It's the same force that from time to time gets a bee in its gigantic federal bonnet and decides to spend millions of dollars on some scheme to convert us all to the metric system, or give us all Swine Flu shots, or outlaw tricycles, or whatever. You guessed it! Our government! What happened was, in 1992, Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which declared that, to save water, all U.S. consumer toilets would henceforth use 1.6 gallons of water per flush. That is WAY Ifess water than was used by the older models the toilets that made this nation great; the toilets that eur Founding Fathers fought and for which are now prohibited for new installations. The public was not consulted about the toilet change, of course; the public has to go to work, so it never gets consulted about anything going on in Washington. But it's the public that has been stuck with these new toilets, which are saving water by requiring everybody to flush them enough times to drain Lake Erie on an hourly basis. The new toilets are so bad that there I am not making this up is now toilets. a black market in People are sneaking them into new homes, despite the fact that the Energy Policy and Conservation Act I am not making this provides for fine for procura either $2,500 up, toilet. an and illegal installing ing I checked this out with my local plumber, who told me that people are toialways asking him for lets, but he refuses to provide them, because of the law. The irony is that I live in Miami; you can buy drugs here Bimply by opening your front door and "Hey! I need some crack!" felling: ' Here's another irony: The federal toilet law is administered by the U.S. Department of Energy. According to a Washington Post article sent in by many alert readers, the DOE recently 'had to close several men's rooms in super-efficien- t, - 3.5-gall- dJ v , (? $stfg taradise "V" A ' il;-) V? m v sv-- s tractor, working fertile fields in the Highway 26 corridor west of Portland, Ore., is dwarfed by a large tract of new apart- ments. Rowhouses, apartments, townhous-e- s and condominiums are proliferating in the Portland area while the average lot sire for homes has dropped from 9,000 square feet in 1989 to 7,400 square feet today. " Photos hy JACK SMITH The AsmkuIwI l'res Urban planning inside Great Wall of Portland By BOB BALM Associated Press Writer Ore. PORTLAND, Behind the Great Wall of Portland lies an urban complex under admiring scrutiny by city planners from the Pacific Rim to Poland. At first glance, it seems an urban paradise. The white caps of Mount Bhine Hood on one of g America's cities, a model of controlled expansion. At Portland's core, instead of boarded-u- p buildings'" and sterile skyscrapers, there's the vibrant bustle of humanifastest-growin- constantly as an example of the way to go." While Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver spread infinitely toward the horizon, planners two decades ago drew a line around Oregon's largest city an boundary, the Great Wall of Portland. urban-growt- h Inside the wall there Development 4f " is encouraged, mainly on smaller lots in neighborhood settings. Outside, development is forbidden, to protect revered farmlands and forests. y ill' I MA wast, I lfSk I Theboundary was estab- lishes as an outgrowth of landmark land-us- e legislation of 1973. Through ty the recession of the 1980s, as Across the city and its suburbs are dozens of quaint Portland's growth stalled, the neighborhoods served by an boundary was no issue. There efficient transit system and was plenty of land available inside the boundary. line. an expanding light-raBut that changed with the is view it's that the "My best system in the country economic boom that began and a great example for the early this decade. Now 1.3 million people live rest of the country," says the boundary, with an within Downs of the Anthony additional in Institute 500,000 expected Brookings 20 next the in of author D.C., years. Washington, "It's kind of like buying "New Visions for Metropolitan America." jeans for your kids a few years "It isn't perfect, but I use it before they're going to fit Oregon's I t I Rapid transit: A MAX train, part of Portland's light rail system, waits for passengers at the downtown turnaround station. A mass transit line going east to Gresham, Ore., and a west side line add to the vitality of one of the west's fastest-growincities. d il them," says John Fregonese, head planner at Metro, the regional government orchestrates that Portland's growth. "Now we've definitely grown into the jeans." The strain on these Elysian Fields is beginning to show. The city is getting crowded. Home prices are skyrocketing. Traffic is a headache. Parking rates have zoomed up. Anti-ta- x crusaders are to abolish campaigning Metro. Other critics say planners are too inflexible and are trying to force people into a condensed, urban lifestyle they don't want. A statewide vote has scuttled plans for a north-soutexpansion of the light-rai- l transit line called MAX, for Metropolitan Area Express, which last year carried 9 million passengers on its route from the eastside to h 4, 15-mi- downtown. An f v'c r - 3.5-gall- .:: ia-i1- W ' --- "' :.;- - 18-mi- le west-sid- e extension is nearly finished and should be operating by next year. Also, a new property-talimit has turned up the pressure on schools, libraries and x police. Portland a model Ovarcast: Storm clouds loom over construction which continues In northwest Portland, as a myriad of apartments, condos, refurbished warehouse lofts, and shops take over what once was a predominantly Industrial area. POOR COPY HFWTJ-- i I. 3.5-gall- See TOILET, A 10 expanding Still, across the nation and around the world, Portland is seen as a grand example of how to control urban growth. "I've had six Japanese groups come through in the last six months," Fregonese says. "There was a group from Poland in the other day." San Seattle, Diego, Vancouver, British Columbia and Madison, Wis., have used Portland as a model for their own attempts to corral growth. But what has worked politically in Oregon is considered too radical in many areas. "In San Antonio," Metro Executive Director Mike Burton says, "I'm introduced as the representative of the of People's Republic Portland." In the Minnesota, bill a Legislature approved this year to establish an elected regional council to oversee planning in Minneapolis-St- . Paul, but it was vetoed by Gov. Arne Carlson. Metro, the only elected regional government in the country, is the hammer thai forces the three counties an3 24 cities that make up th Portland area to cooperati toward a single vision. are They downsizing thj American Dream. ; "The twq bath suburban home was three-bedroo- Sec PORTLAND, A 10 |