Law against Vitiating in Public!!

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cooran
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Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by cooran »

Hello all,

Helping look after my elderly mother has brought me to the understanding that, as we get older, certain muscles weaken. One not often mentioned, is the muscle that keeps one from passing wind until in an acceptable place (like the toilet area). This causes deep embarrassment to elderly people, as it can make them the subject of jokes. I suspect this is where the derogatory expression ''An Old Fart'' came from.

But I was startled to see that this has risen to a Government Level - Malawi already has a law in place against farting, but is intending to make it a criminal offense.

Government cracks down on public farting

Malawian lawmakers will next week debate a law change to criminalise public farting, which a cabinet minister said had been encouraged by democracy.
"The government has a right to ensure public decency. We are entitled to introduce order in the country," justice and constitutional affairs minister George Chaponda told independent radio station Capital Radio.
"Would you like to see people farting in public anywhere?"

Since the country embraced multi-party politics 16 years ago people had felt free to fart anywhere, Mr Chaponda said.
"It was not there during the time of dictatorship because people were afraid of the consequences. Now because of multipartism or freedom, people would like to fart anywhere," he said.

Mr Chaponda, a key figure in president Bingu wa Mutharika's government, said that if Malawians cannot control their farting "they should go to the toilet instead of farting in public."
"Nature can be controlled ... it becomes a nuisance if people fart anywhere."

A lawyer himself, Mr Chaponda said that under the amended law farting will be considered a minor offence.
Mr Chaponda's Democratic Progressive Party will bank on its majority to pass the amendment to a law which was first introduced in 1929.

The amendment, which will make farting in public an offence, is not yet public and it will be presented to parliament for debate as part of a review by the state-sponsored Law Commission of the country's penal code.

Nobody in Malawi has been arrested nor convicted for farting under the old law, as police did not enforce it.

The old law states: "Any person who voluntarily vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour."

The southern African state is a conservative society with punishable previous bans on long hair for men and trouser-wearing for women.
- AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 130657.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
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Ben
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Ben »

cooran wrote:Malawian lawmakers will next week debate a law change to criminalise public farting, which a cabinet minister said had been encouraged by democracy.
Since we are often told,via mass-media, that the US takes credit for democracy, its only reasonable that responsibility for the evil of public farting be squarely laid at the feet of the United States. A nation of people who exported farting to the world disguised as democracy!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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Calahand
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Calahand »

cooran wrote:Hello all,

The old law states: "Any person who voluntarily vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour."

The southern African state is a conservative society with punishable previous bans on long hair for men and trouser-wearing for women.

with metta
Chris
wow , i can't believe this, flatulence is a normal function of the body, yes body does normally release stinky gases from time to time, if you don't experience flatulence, then medically something is wrong with your body. it makes no sense to make this illegal. whats next? breathing tax? I don't understand the ignorance of these people.

And the south african state amazes me. You can't have long hair as a man? what if you don't have money to go to a barber shop, what then? wear trousers as a woman? then what do you wear? what if you need to compete in the olympics in South Africa? would women run around and compete in traditional garb? who are these people that make these appalling laws?
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DNS
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by DNS »

Fortunately, we don't have that rule here at DW.

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Annapurna
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Annapurna »

:rofl:
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Annapurna »

Calahand wrote:
cooran wrote:Hello all,

The old law states: "Any person who voluntarily vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour."

The southern African state is a conservative society with punishable previous bans on long hair for men and trouser-wearing for women.

with metta
Chris
wow , i can't believe this, flatulence is a normal function of the body, yes body does normally release stinky gases from time to time, if you don't experience flatulence, then medically something is wrong with your body. it makes no sense to make this illegal. whats next? breathing tax? I don't understand the ignorance of these people.

And the south african state amazes me. You can't have long hair as a man? what if you don't have money to go to a barber shop, what then? wear trousers as a woman? then what do you wear? what if you need to compete in the olympics in South Africa? would women run around and compete in traditional garb? who are these people that make these appalling laws?
´

Why are you surprised that other nations have different customs?

Do all countries have to live the American way of life?

And who's to say what's worse?

Muslim nations find appalling what we do:

Women who compete with each other in who's wearing less cloths and who's got the bigger silicon boobs.

Men who gaze at naked women to masturbate...

Isn't that appalling ?? And, farting wasn't always considered bad manners:

In the middle ages, it was appreciated when guests burped and farted, as a sign of how good the food was and how comfortable they felt, and hosts showed concern when guests didn't!

This is all so relative, and I feel we have little reason to feel above others.
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Ben
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Ben »

What if one produces a pestilential stench of a fart without making a noise?
And in a crowded lift, how does one determine whose orifice it came from?
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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Phra Chuntawongso
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Phra Chuntawongso »

Ben wrote:What if one produces a pestilential stench of a fart without making a noise?
And in a crowded lift, how does one determine whose orifice it came from?
From a personal point of view that was often me and people knew cos I was the first one to get out while laughing hysterically.
On a more serious(ish) note I am disappointed to read about this law.I always thought that farting was the one thing governments would not be able to tax.Looks like I was wrong....again.
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cooran
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by cooran »

But seriously....

Haven't you ever been somewhere where it is OBVIOUS that someone has 'passed wind' - but everyone looks askance at everyone else?

How are you going to prove in a court of law that a particular person was the one who vitiated, or how can a police officer possibly justify arresting someone?

What if it was the Police Officer himself .... 'he who smelt it, dealt it'.

Just another way to victimise targets?

with metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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cooran
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by cooran »

edited for double posting
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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Ben
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Ben »

cooran wrote:But seriously....

Haven't you ever been somewhere where it is OBVIOUS that someone has 'passed wind' - but everyone looks askance at everyone else?

How are you going to prove in a court of law that a particular person was the one who vitiated, or how can a police officer possibly justify arresting someone?

What if it was the Police Officer himself .... 'he who smelt it, dealt it'.

Just another way to victimise targets?

with metta
Chris
Indeed Chris!
But then again, I can see a new strand of forensic science emerging.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
Calahand
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Calahand »

Annapurna wrote:
Why are you surprised that other nations have different customs?

Do all countries have to live the American way of life?

And who's to say what's worse?

Muslim nations find appalling what we do:

Women who compete with each other in who's wearing less cloths and who's got the bigger silicon boobs.

Men who gaze at naked women to masturbate...

Isn't that appalling ?? And, farting wasn't always considered bad manners:

In the middle ages, it was appreciated when guests burped and farted, as a sign of how good the food was and how comfortable they felt, and hosts showed concern when guests didn't!

This is all so relative, and I feel we have little reason to feel above others.
lol no offense, but why shouldn't we assume moral high ground when we clearly know we have it. No one is torturing people here if they choose to not watch naked women to masturbate, or when they choose to not wear burkas, or when they choose to be eccentric. It is not true of muslim nations and nations that impose these ridiculous laws on their public.

I am with samuel harris on this one:
listen to his argument and make your own judgements as to what is western ethnocentrism and what is not and who has the higher moral high ground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

much metta :namaste:
Calahand
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Calahand »

cooran wrote:But seriously....

Haven't you ever been somewhere where it is OBVIOUS that someone has 'passed wind' - but everyone looks askance at everyone else?

How are you going to prove in a court of law that a particular person was the one who vitiated, or how can a police officer possibly justify arresting someone?

What if it was the Police Officer himself .... 'he who smelt it, dealt it'.

Just another way to victimise targets?

with metta
Chris
lol yeah how do you know who passed gas? These people need to re-evaluate their qualifications for making laws. They need to set up literacy standards for leaders worldwide, that way atleast we will have relatively sane people running countries.
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Phra Chuntawongso
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Phra Chuntawongso »

lol yeah how do you know who passed gas? These people need to re-evaluate their qualifications for making laws. They need to set up literacy standards for leaders worldwide, that way atleast we will have relatively sane people running countries.
What an interesting thought.Relatively sane politicians.Could be worth a try.he he.
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Re: Law against Vitiating in Public!!

Post by Guy »

I think that if you are in an elevator where you know you only have to hold it for a few seconds, then it is the right thing to hold it. But if you are on a bus or a train and the journey is going to be 20 or 30 minutes, then let her rip I say.
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