The Kampang School in northeastern Thailand conducted a survey last term that showed more than 200 of the school’s 2,600 students considered themselves transgender, said school director Sitisak Sumontha.  So, when classes resumed in May, the school unveiled a unisex restroom designated by a human figure split in half - part man in blue and part woman in red. Below it are the words “Transvestite Toilet.”

Three transgender students praised the new restroom as they plucked their eyebrows and applied face powder in front of the mirror outside the stalls.   Most rural Thais are conservative in many ways, but the trailblazing toilet initiative at the school in northeastern Sisaket province reflects another aspect of Thai society: its tolerance of the country’s very visible transgender community. The term describes a wide range of identities including cross-dressers, transvestites, transsexuals and those born with the physical characteristics of both sexes.

Kampang is not Thailand’s first educational institution to set up unisex washrooms, though Sitisak said he believed it was a first for a secondary school. A 1,500-student technical college in the northern province of Chiang Mai set up a “Pink Lotus Bathroom” for its 15 transvestite students in 2003.  Deputy Education Minister Boonlue Prasertsopar recently said the ministry plans to count the number of transgender university students.

He said he was not promoting transgender interests, “but if there are a lot of them in a university and it’s a problem, we may have to consider building toilets and dormitories for them.”  Transgenders are regularly seen on TV soap operas and throughout Bangkok, working at department store cosmetics counters, popular restaurants, in office jobs and in the capital’s red-light districts. Thailand also has transgender beauty pageants. I think a lot of those saying they consider themselves transgender are just doing it to be supportive.

“I dreamed of finding 100’s of bars of gold or silver,” he said.

The mystery ended recently while Deming was tearing down a 100-year-old shed on his property. A rusted box tumbled from the rubble and wads of currency dating back to the Depression spilled on the ground.

The bills were so deteriorated that it was hard to count the money. But the box also contained scraps of newspaper with dollar amounts written on them, a possible tally of the loot.  He briefly considered selling the bills to collectors, but the money was in poor condition. Instead, he turned it over to the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which redeems mutilated currency for face value, he said. 

The legend of the buried treasure dates back more than 40 years.  “I heard from my grandfather that a man who lived here during the ’30s and ’40s was eccentric and might have stashed money,” Deming said.  When he first saw the bills, he thought they were play money. Then he saw the words “silver certificate” across the top of a $1 bill and realized it was real. He also noticed the bills were dated between 1928 and 1934.

Deming says he’ll use whatever money he gets from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to build a replacement shed.  He also plans to tear down a rickety old barn on his land, and wondered for a fleeting moment whether there might be more money stashed there.  “I’m hoping maybe there’s something there - but I doubt it,” he said.  Personally I think he should have kept the bills and sold them on Ebay, I bet he would have made 10x what he will be recieving.

A neighbour was interviewed (refusing to give her name) and was quoted as saying, “I saw people, lots of people leaving that house at all hours of the night with lots of boxes of cookies.”  “Sometimes they would make two or three trips out to their cars they were taking so many boxes”.

A spokeswoman for the New York-based national organization, called the figure “amazing” but said there’s no national record on the books.  “We’re thrilled for the girls who take it to such a great level, but so far, we don’t track it at the national level,” she said.

Now I have heard of the mafia getting it’s hands into a lot of different businesses, but girl guide cookies?  Come on, what would Tony Soprano think.

But Mutlu was allowed to board after a jetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee “jump seat.” It was not clear in the lawsuit whether the flight attendant was working. However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told Mutlu the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and “hang out” in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said.

The pilot “became angry at his reluctance to comply” and said Mutlu “should be grateful for being onboard,” the lawsuit said. When Mutlu volunteered to sit in the “jump seat,” he was told it was reserved for airline personnel. At one point, the airplane experienced turbulence and Mutlu sat on the toilet seat without a seat belt, causing him “tremendous fear,” the lawsuit said.

JetBlue was not immediately available for comment. At least if the fear caused him to ’shit himself’ he was in the right place.  Seriously though, why would jetBlue not try and settle this by giving him free airfare or something.  The story is an embarrassment to the company.

As you can imagine it is not easy to give advice and take control of so many people at once, but using a bull-horn helps!  Tunick’s instructions to his subjects: “Stay very still, don’t move.”

Tunick has made a name for himself with his works featuring hundreds of naked people at unusual venues. He described Sunday’s shooting on his website as combining “the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures.  See I knew there was an easy way to see naked chicks!

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