My own education in bathroom politics came 15 years ago. As a college student in a major city, I worked in one of its major hotels in its security department.

Said hotel had a certain men's room that was far, far off from the usual flow of foot traffic, owing to the building's design. In fact it was so remote it was unheated most winter days, as that area would see full use only in the evenings. Word reached us that there was some unsavory activity occurring down there, so like this cop in this particular story, we were detailed to spend some time down there doing what that cop was doing.

I had read and taken classes on this kind of behavior prior to seeing it at close range--studies on the "Tearoom Trade" that were done on some notorious public bathrooms in San Francisco, for instance--and the city's library bathrooms were widely rumored to host this kind of congress as well. Nonetheless, it was a real eye-opener.

Over the course of a couple of weeks we caught about a dozen guys. We got an education in the signal code that was used. Things like being in the stall, then getting out and washing your hands, then getting back IN the stall. Or being in the stall for an excessive amount of time with your coat thrown over the top of it rather than the hook on the door.

To a man, they were all white, late-middle-age business type guys. Guys looking just like Craig. Also married with kids, right on down the line. They didn't identify themselves as gay, either, but they certainly didn't want their activity getting made known. The other parties were generally obvious street hustler types, by the way.

I don't recall stances, footsie, or hand signals being used, but other than that, nothing about this story is in any way surprising to me, including Craig's denials. It's that feeling of deja moo--that you've seen and heard this bullshit before. Neither do I doubt that there were other signals that happened in this incident that tipped off the cop which didn't make it into the published report.

My own story ends with that after enough got caught, the word on the street, or whereever word like this gets passed, apparently got out that this bathroom wasn't a good place anymore, and that was the end of that, at least for the remaining couple of years I worked there.

Grade-A weird to me, though. A homosexual bathroom encounter to get a little something-something not striking these guys as gay seemed to me to warrant a form of gymnastics that their wives would probably have appreciated in the bedroom. But as Susan Sunflower pointed out, it was hard to escape thinking that this behavior is more widespread than I first thought it was.

So, @Conservativeslayer, having seen this, the thought that cops were unfairly expending resources to try and "get" gays is not a thought that occurred to me. If the airport police were receiving complaints that this kind of activity was occurring in the bathrooms, whatcha gonna do? Put cameras in there?

I think from the perspective of the cops, solicitation and sexual activity in a public bathroom after you've gotten complaints about it, and trying to put an end to it, isn't targeting gays. I don't think it would matter which gender the two parties were or in which gender's bathroom it occurred in. It just appears to be that this is a particularly male form of behavior. We'd be having a near identical discussion about this issue if Craig had struck a wide stance in a women's bathroom and tried to cross the aisle in there.

Also, @ the first poster, I am SO hoping that "struck a wide stance" enters the lexicon before "Foleyate". You can't even make up stuff that good.

We've got citywide free wireless. Depending on how you measure it, PDX is one of the greenest, most wired, and technologically progressive cities in the US.

Just ignore all the hippies, supposedly it's the case. Of course they're all at the Burn this week, so the wireless signals aren't being blocked by their bodies. But most weeks.

I'm kind of at a loss as to what-all it's doing for our city that's so amazing. Yeah, theoretically you could buy a PC with wireless and not pay a provider. You can also walk around with a PDA in most areas of the city and be connected. And that's fabulous. But is it making the streets safer...bringing in jobs...improving the environment...lowering cost of living? Dunno.

For me, I don't use a PDA in that way, and so the only time the free wireless has even impacted my life is when I was lazy configuring my 360 for a couple of weeks and I got free Live access from the city instead of pointing it at my own paid-for and far faster internet connection. And I see it out there, of course, when I configure my own home network.

But other than that...I'm just not sure what great things are being enabled by Portland having it. I'm unsurprised that other initiatives in larger cities aren't working out so well.

Is back--it's the "hacking" minigame in Bioshock.

Which is just about the best work of interactive fiction in the last ten years, incidentally. If you only play one game this year, let it be that one.

Guns, not funs. Good lord.

If you have a point, try stating it clearly and succinctly.

You read just like one of those jargon or argument generators.

I am shocked, shocked, I tell you.