The Difference Between Old-Timey Fascists and What We Got Today

Hitler? Mussolini? Franco? Salazar? NONE of them are here?  #$%@!

There are fascists and then there are fascists, just like there are Baptists and then there are Baptists.  You know what I mean- the Baptists with the nice, big, whitewashed churches and friendly congregations of about 100-150 regulars don't have much in common with the Mega-Churches, which in turn have almost nothing in common with the strip-mall storefront "churches," who all look down their noses at the donated-trailer-with-the-misspelled-sign-on-wheels-just-off-County-Road-114a.  Oh sure, they all profess similar beliefs, are all lead by charismatic figures who do their best to support their ministries  by any means possible --my Dad used to call it "fleecing the flock" --but besides that, they differ by class, race, degree of involvement in their respective communities, reach of ministry, etc.

Likewise with fascists.  The tiki torch-carrying Proudboys of today really don't have much in common with the originators of the fascist brand.  And who and when and where were those proto proud boys of old, Ex Prof? -I hear you cry?  Come with me to Europe before, during and after The War To End All Wars, which totally almost was except for the fact that human beings are basically apes who wear clothes and really really reeeeeely like killing each other.  We will meet fashionistas who wear black shirts, fasionistas who wear brown ones, Italians, Austrians, Germans, and may even have a surprise visit from Babu Frik.

He-Heeeey, I Babu-Frik!*

*Babu Frick is a copyrighted character by Disney (who owns every-frik-in thing)

 and has NOTHING whatsoever to do with fascism, past, present, or a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

Umm, ok, let's go to Italy where all this fascist stuff started. In the early to mid 20th century, Italy's Fashista party emerged from an unlikely alliance between the Christian right, corporate elites, and ultra-nationalists. Their message of a "Mutilated Peace" found fertile ground in the hearts of Italian nationalists who were dissatisfied with the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty, particularly with the disposition of the city of Fiume, an absurdly complicated problem which will be the subject of my next 40 pound book.  Out of this morass, a glib journalist and ex-socialist named Benito Mussolini emerged, and fascism was born.

Mussolini had a couple of talents that made him the ideal guy to drive the relatively new country of Italy --only in business since the 1870's --completely red-eyed, mouth-foaming, stiletto-stabbing bat shit crazy.  For one, he was a journalist who followed in the footsteps of Count Camillo Bensi di Cavour and the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio, both of whom had a knack for inflaming the hearts of people already awash in nationalistic rhetoric.  What Mussolini brought to the table was fear- specifically, fear of a Bolshevik takeover in Italy.  After all, the Bolsheviks had taken over in Russia after the Great War, followed by a horrendous civil war; Communist parties in the former Turkish Empire, the United Kingdom and the United States had been founded and were proving very popular with their respective proletariat populations; and a Red revolution was expected daily in Wiemar Republic Germany.  So who would keep Italy safe? Mussolini and his Blackshirt followers answered: they would.

That would be the other thing Mussolini brought to the table: Il Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, a.k.a the Blackshirts (guess what color shirts THEY wore), a paramilitary group that included pissed-off retired soldiers, pissed-off unemployed guys, pissed-off guys that like beating other guys up, and one dude named Luigi Verconti who liked cannoli filled with sweet ricotta and thought that Mussolini's March on Rome in March in 1922 was just a bunch of guys on the hunt for better cannoli than could be found at his local pasticceria -which had run out of them anyway --so he just tagged along with them for the next 23 years.  Actually, the March on Rome was the critical confluence of fear, hatred,violence, ultra-nationalism, militarism and blind obedience.  Once it was over, King Vitorio Emanuel III cashired the current prime minister and asked Mussolini and his Fascist party to form a government.  The wolf was now in charge of the sheep.

It's-a me, Benito, back whenna I had-a
hair!  Woo-Hoo!

If you were an average Italian in March of 1922, you might have seen things differently.  You would have been really afraid of the violent strikes that shut down the Fiat automobile plant and saw workers occupy major factories in Rome, Turin and Milan during the so-called Red Two Years (1919-1920).  If you were a practicing Catholic, the prospect of atheistic Communists ruling Italy was especially appalling.  You might also have had a problem with the Versailles Treaty.  Itally did not get nearly as much as France and Britain did, yet they did most of the dying along the Austrian front during the war.  You may have liked the talk of reviving Italy's greatness (remember the Roman Empire?) and you probably would have welcomed those Blackshirts with their long knives as saviors.  Really.

Across the Alps, Germany was desperately trying to come to terms with some rough terms.  Under the Treaties of Versailles, Germany had to give up quite a lot: her overseas colonies, air force, big-ass battleships, most of their army, and- here was the bitter pill- the province of Alsace-Lorraine on the French border.  Ok ok, Germany had gotten this real estate originally from France after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, but hey, most of the people who live there spoke German and wasn't it a part of the Holy Roman (i.e. German) Empire back in the day?  But to the proud Germans, the very worst term in the whole treaty, the part roundly hated by Bavarians, Prussians and Holsteiners alike, had to be the so-called "war guilt" clause.

Article 231 of the Treaty stated:

"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

Any student of history will tell you that history class really sucked.  They'll also tell you that there were a bunch of causes for WWI including three wars in the Balkans, colonial rivalries, pan-Slavism, militarism, socialism, social-Darwinism, antidisestablishmentarianism, and plagiarism (ok maybe not the last two).  The point is that the Allies were total dicks in putting this clause in when they were just as much to blame for WWI as the Central Powers were.  Add this rage to the post-war German zeitgeist of fear, disillusionment, anger and resentment and you've got a toxic social/political cauldron just bubbling away.

...and furthermore, we shall all use Article 231 as bum-wadden for our Scheisses

Into this morass drifts an Austrian national, Adolph Hitler.  Everything about his early career had "Future Loser of the 20th Century" written all over it.  He hated school because he was constantly beaten for breaking the strict rules.  He hated his father for beating him because he broke school rules.  He hated the technical school his father later enrolled Hitler in because he wanted to be an artist.  He hated Vienna because he failed to get into the Arts Institute so he could become a painter.  He hated the menial work he did; hated the flophouses he lived in.  The only things he seemed to like were operas by Richard Wagner (the composer of Die Valkuri, the opera that gave us the immortal expression, "It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings")  Lucky for Hitler, WWI was about to give him something else to like, and lots of someones  to hate.

"Laaaaaa...! Nope, not yet! Laaaaaa!"

For some weird reason, Hitler served in the German army during WWI instead of the Austro-Hungarian army -remember he was an Austrian citizen -but Germany let him anyway.  A brief aside here: the Austrians are often called the smartest people in the world because they made Beethoven (German) an Austrian, and Hitler (Austrian) a German.  But I digress.  In the army, Hitler's job was a dispatch runner, carrying orders and official stuff from headquarters to the forward trenches.  He saw action in some pretty hairy battles, was wounded, got awarded a couple of medals,  and by all accounts liked being in the army.  Which is why Germany's defeat hit him pretty hard.  It was about this time that Hitler probably began to believe the "Stab in the Back" conspiracy theory, which ran something like this:

1. Germany is great, so Germany always wins; but
2. Germany lost WWI; so
3. Germany must have been stabbed-in-the-back by
   a. Communists
   b. Jews
   c. degenerates
   d. Jews
   e. Jews

To be fair, lots of people believed this and lots of people were talking about it, and Germany had a long, well entrenched history of hating the Jews ever since the Jews first wandered into Germany probably as slaves or Roman mercenaries or merchants or bakers specializing in bagels, rugelah, challah bread, matzohs, chocolate babka -pardon my drool -so that makes it ok, right?  Nope, hating someone hard and long enough eventually makes you think it's ok to hurt or kill them, so STOP  HATING EVERYBODY RIGHT FRIK-IN NOW!

He-Heeeeyy, I Babu Frik*

*Babu Frik is a copyrighted character from the Star Wars universe which Disney owns (yup, a whole frik-in universe)

 and is in NO WAYat ALL associated with hate against any sentient being(s) in the entire multiverse, 

even the bits that Disney doesn't own -yet.

Still in the army and living in Bavaria after the war, Hitler came across a political party that didn't have any members -it only had a board of directors- called the National Socialist German Worker's Party (the DAP).  Tasked by the army to infiltrate its ranks, Hitler discovered two things: one was the DAP shared his antisemitic beliefs; the other was that he had a way with words.  My Arizona cousin would tell you that Hitler "could talk a buzzard off of an entire Interstate's worth of roadkill."  This was exactly what the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei needed more than anything: members.  After hearing Hitler speechify, the crowds in the Bavarian beer halls where the DAP did most of their recruiting literally fell all over themselves joining up.  The time seemed right for bold and divisive action: The DAP would overthrow the Bavarian state government and... I guess take over the world next?  What could possibly go wrong with such a brilliant plan?  -are you thinking the same think I'm thinking, Pinky?

I think so Brain, but what would
Megan Markle do with so many
pounds of  Gorgonzola? Narf! Poit!

It turns out, everything that could have gone wrong actually did go wrong.  Hitler and his DAP buddies were arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison.  Seems that the Bavarian police were competent enough to notice an armed coup happening in broad daylight, and the state prosecutor agreed to finish his beer and schnitzel after Hitler was locked up, so now Hitler had plenty of free time to write a book, Mein Kampf, wherein he planned in horribly specific detail how to take over the world.  Cue the "Pinky and the Brain" theme music.  

It was also partly now, partly later, that Mussolini and Hitler both begin to actively work out just what it means to be a fascist.  Mind you, lots of other people from lots of other countries had a hand in fleshing-out this new 20th Century abomination, but let's give credit where it is due.  Fascists are, first and foremost, nationalistic, way-way-way too nationalistic in fact.  Not only would they die for their country --they'd kill for it too.  Lots of people.  All people who weren't as ultra-nationalistic as they were.  Or were different, either racially or ethnically.  Fascists were thus really crazy about identifying just who is US and who is THEM.  This is an important distinction, because the US are the masters, and the THEM are the slaves.  In Italy this played out mainly in North and East Africa where Italian armies tightened their grip on Libya and defeated Haile Selassie's less mechanized army in Ethiopia.  

"So what if the Italians have tanks and planes? We've got... wait, what?  I'm out."

German fascism took the US and THEM distinction further, however and added a new category: NOBODY.  This group of people didn't even count as people.  They included Jews, Romani, homosexuals, mentally and physically retarded people.  German fascists held that these were not people in the strict sense- they were corruptions of humanity -and as such should be exterminated less they pollute the so-called pure Nordic Aryan race that German fascists believed were humanity's master race.

Fascists were also expected to do their duty with unquestioning loyalty.  The fascist state, through its supreme leader, is what informs people of what their duty is, and also what punishes people for not doing their duty.  In order to accomplish this task, the fascist state must be able to know what its citizens are doing at all times, and must be able to communicate to its citizens constantly.  It does this by using lots of police, both regular and secret police, and a larger network of domestic spies and informers.  Communication is done on a massive scale and is usually one-way, using print, photographic, cinema, architecture and the arts.  A society that exercises such a great deal of control over its citizens has been termed Totalitarian; however, not all totalitarian societies have fascist governments.  China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union are communist totalitarian countries, whereas Germany, Italy, Portugal and the puppet-states that Nazi Germany created all over Europe were fascist totalitarian states.  

What differentiates the communists from the fascists is macro-economics.  Fascist governments enforce private property rights, even though productive capacity may be called on to serve state ends.  In Germany, Alfred Krupp's vast iron works made all the heavy armaments the fascist state used during WWII, but the iron works themselves stayed in Krupp's hands.  And yes,l Krupp got obscenely rich as a result of all those munitions orders.  In communist USSR, the state owned all means of production and distribution, so no individual factory owners got rich off of Society Red Army tank orders.  But neither did the workers, either- they made just enough to keep them alive and working.  

No bourgeois exploiters of the proletariat were enriched by these lovely weapons.

Now, onto the difference between today's fascists and those of yesteryear.  Today's fascists really like the pageantry and a lot of the rhetoric of mostly German Nazi fascism.  Try as I did, I wasn't able to find much love for Mussolini amongst the 8-chan and dark-web hate group crowd.  What the current crop falls for are all the bogus racial theories and antisemitism.  In the USA, African-Americans and Latino-Americans have been added to the list of sub-humans, as well as practicing Muslims of whatever racial background.  Some groups also hate on Indians (East and Native), Chinese, Mongoloid Asians, and Pacific Islanders.  Extermination isn't as popular a solution, however; contemporary hate groups are down with individual murders, mass deportations and wholesale exclusions.  Thankfully (?) their "Final Solution" features a big-ass wall between the U.S. and Mexico instead of gas chambers.  21st Century fascists also like alpha-dog leaders, which helps to explain the appeal of Donald Trump and the current rogue's gallery of  tin plated dictators around the world.  

There are a number of frightening developments, however.  Remember the alliance between capitalists and fascists in Germany and Italy?  Those industrial capitalists were at their collective wit's end in the 20's-30's with the Great Depression.  Today's capitalists personally hold more wealth than even our friend, Albert Krupp had if you adjust for currency inflation.  These capitalists have enacted laws, bought lawmakers and judges, and even launched their own propaganda blitzkrieg.  In America today, there is an attack underway against legitimate media outlets, an attack lead by the current President.  At the same time, low-level fascist messaging and authoritarian rhetoric is spewed-out on talk-radio and cabel tv's Fox News.  The President's lies and attacks on American democratic institutions are aided and abetted by so-called conservatives and the so-called religious evangelical community. 

"F is for FOX News.  -and for Frickin' Democrats and f*ckin' lying CNN"

HehHEYYY!  I Babu Frik!*

*Babu Frik is a copyrighted character
totally frik-in owned by Disney and
has NOTHING to do with FOX "News"
or Don "The Con" Trump

Just as in Germany and Italy, the U.S. President came to power in an election, with one important difference: he had the advantage of Russian intelligence help.  While there was already a groundswell of support for Trump's brand of authoritarianism, there are doubts as to whether or not he would have been as successful without Russian aid.  There are parallels here to V. I. Lenin getting material help from Germany in 1916-1917 for his return to Russia which ultimately lead to Russia pulling out of the Allied side in WW I.  Although this German success did not end in ultimate German victory, it was a success nonetheless.  And while Trump has not given Russia as free a hand in the world as they would like, he has succeeded in tying up U.S. aid to the Ukraine, a move that resulted in his impeachment.

Trump also has allies in Congress and the Judiciary.  House and Senate Republicans mostly toe the Trump line because they are afraid they'll get tweeted-at and face political backlash at home from FOX News-brainwashed voters.  Trump's judicial support stems from the great number of federal judges he has appointed, all of whom were vetted by the ultra-conservative pressure group, the Heritage Foundation.  And since the Senate, which is Republican controlled at the moment, has the power to confirm judicial appointments, an alarming number of judges within ultra-conservative credentials and authoritarian leanings are in place at a number of levels within the federal judiciary.  This fact alone will influence American civil life for a generation to come.

More puzzling is our fascist dog-whistler's popularity with Evangelical Christian groups.  One would think that a political figure with his documented moral lapses would have no religious support at all.  If one digs a little deeper into these insular, authoritarian-friendly groups, the picture becomes clearer.  Evangel Christians in the U.S. are even more splintered than the Baptists at the beginning of this post, but they have a few core beliefs in common.  The first and foremost is an abiding distrust of the U.S. government, which they see as either in the thrall of zionists, or is at least unfriendly towards their brand of Christianity.  While this is not new --Mormons fought pitched battles against U.S. soldiers in the 19th century --the degree of distrust has broadened and deepened.  Another core belief is in forgiveness.  The way this plays out with Trump is they see a massively flawed figure who needs only to confess his sins, act contrite, and then then, through the grace of God, he will be worthy to lead them.  Fascist dictators are adept at exploiting this simple faith: as long as they parrot religious rhetoric and declare opposition to, say abortion, then he can count on their support.  Evangelicals also feel threatened by the science and education communities- science because it contradicts their literal reading of the Bible, and public education because of their inability to teach the Word.  This is a feeling shared by fascist dictators.  A citizenry of well educated people are difficult to control.  And scientists are just as difficult, because they are really good at seeing through a dictator's lies.  

"And while it IS true I hate educated, sciencey dipshits, I love Liberty U. because it's just a diploma mill for idiots"

Lastly, evangelicals believe in a flaky scenario called the End Times.  We supposedly live in those times right now.  Essentially, it's John of Patmos' scary pop-up Book of Revelations come to life.  I encourage you to read it while smoking weed.  All kinds of strife and turmoil will happen, as well as some crazy A.F. shit straight from the special effects department, all ending in Jesus Christ coming back and ruling (over a vastly depleted human population and a totally destroyed planet Earth) for a thousand years.  And Trump figures into this frickin' nightmare somehow.

Finally, old-timey fascists were all confined to Europe, but today, thanks to the Internet, fascists are spread out all over the world.  The good news is that fascism is still an unpopular political belief- that whole WW II thing.  The bad news is that with the growing rise of authoritarianism in the West, fascists are feeling emboldened to come out of the shadows.  It is beginning to feel more and more like the end of the world just MIGHT be at hand, what with an authoritarian leaders in Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, and the United States all having the ability to launch nuclear missiles.  I'm pretty sure that even the neo-fascists of today don't relish the prospect of dying in a hydrogen bomb blast.

I know that I sure don't.  And probably that frikkin guy down there doesn't want to go that way either.

"HehHeyyyy, I Babu Frik!"*

*Babu Frik is etc.  etc.  yadda-yadda
and is definately NOT Jesus the Christ.
Really.  wink-wink

We're All Squeaky-Clean!

Friend and regular (as opposed to XXL) reader Susan suggests that in order to get lots of people to read these pearls of wisdom of mine, I should stick labels like "Justin Bieber" and "Kim Kardashian" in my blog.  Fine.  Here ya go.  And no, that noise you just heard wasn't Socrates spinning in his grave; that was Adjunct Proff smacking his noggin with a 2-by-4 over the death of intellectualism in America.  To be fair, my Mom's a big fan of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," and I'm sure that the Bieb hasn't written only songs that suck.

Kim, on names: "Reading names is so.  Hard."
Justin, on the word German: "We don't say that in America."

Now that I have pandered to the puerile and prurient peccadilloes permeating the public's psyche (are you diggin' any of this, cute English Adjunct Proff???), on with the erudition!  During my moon-lit shower this morning at 4 a.m. (a.m.: after mooning), I took a moment to sadly reflect that not too many of us take the time for a good, long, hot... soak in the tub (shame on you dirty-minded eegits!)  Then I remembered the great Mike Stanton who once said, "Who wants to marinate in their own sweat, oil and dead skin?" --Mike was a bit on the fastidious side.  That got me to wondering about this whole bathing and personal hygiene thing in the first place, so grab your loofa and rubber-duckie, because we're going to dive head-first into the wonderful history of bathing.

"Hey, where's the babe in the other tub?  Hey, where's my friggin' Cialis?"

Nobody knows who the first human to bathe was, but it may probably have been a female homo sapiens-sapiens somewhere in Africa.  Why a female?  Well, every month she would have received her Mother Nature's Little Monthly Gift, and she probably would have washed the blood off of herself in order to present less of a target to cheetahs, lions, jackals, warthogs, meerkats and the rest of the cast of Disney's "The Lion King."  Mind you, it could also have been a male who wanted to wash away the smeared-on leftovers of the last gazelle feast for the same reason as above.  But whomever it was, they started a fad that continues to this very day.

You cray-cray if you think I can look this hot
with no bath, be-atch-ez!

Digging around in Mesopotamia, archaeologists have found clay pots that contained all the compounds needed to make soap.  Since the Mesopotamians wrote about bathing (what's the first thing Enkidu in The Epic of Gilgamesh does in order to civilize himself? --I mean after having sex with Shamash the Hooker, for an entire week?  That's right, take a bath!) and there is no record of Mesopotamians eating or drinking soap on purpose, and the men wore these elaborately coiffed hair styles and beards and so did hookers and noblewomen (only a pro can spot the difference ;-)), then there must have been some serious rub-a-dub-dub going on in and around the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers.

Egyptians were an especially hygienic bunch --then again, living so close to such a terrific river that's right at the edge of a bunch of deserts would make anybody thankful for a nice long soak.  Poetry, tomb art and weekly big box store circulars all attest to the Egyptian penchant for bathing.  Another bunch who felt that cleanliness was next to godliness (perhaps a bit too literally) were the Ancient Hebrews.  Heck, they even managed to keep clean while wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years by scrubbing with sand, ashes, pumice and clay (what else could they do with no water?) Yhwh, a.k.a. God, also reminded them to wash their hands before meals and ritual sacrifices to Him, although the source of all this water is a bit sketchy.  Supposedly, Moses whacked a rock with his staff and a freshwater spring just gushed forth.  What a lucky prick!

The Greeks reportedly used soap to get clean, and olive oil for an all-over marinade --err, moisturizer.  After a bout of wrestling, a footrace, a discus throw, javelin catch or other Olympic event, athletes would be dusted with very fine dirt in order to soak up the sweat.  A slave would then scrape all the sweaty dirt off with a curved, toothed scraper-thingy called a strigil, after which our athlete would get a massage and rub-down with olive oil.  Wish my gym did that.

Competitors ready themselves for the
Let's-stare-at-each other's-Junk event

But leave it to the Romans to elevate bathing and cleanliness to its zenith, imbuing it with religious as well as civic significance, and making the Roman Baths some of the ancient world's more impressive architectural structures.  At the social heart of every neighborhood in the Eternal City lay the baths, lavishly built and outfitted by politically ambitious men as a way of gaining favor with the publica.

Upon entering these impressive piles of marble-faced brick walls held together with that high-tech adhesive the Romans invented (cement), patrons proceeded along collonaded walkways towards the changing room, where they could ditch the old toga and sandals in favor of the even older birthday suit.  The first stop was the frigidarium, the pool that had room-temperature or colder water.  After a little swim and some shrinkage, the bather would make their way to the tepidarium, a room that had a warm water pool and tables for massages.  This was the biggest of the three main rooms, and it probably resembled the scene at a contemporary hotel's indoor pool.  The third room, or caldarium, had a big pool that was heated by a charcoal fire underneath the pool (some rather ingeniously vented to the outside by brick ductwork.  I wonder what kind of duct tape you'd use for brick), 3-4  small cold-water pools, and chairs and benches for the bather to rest in between hot and cold.  Only very fancy bath houses had something like a sauna, which was where a patron could relax to the point of wet noodledom and get a really good sweat on.

No, this is not the holodeck on the U.S.S. Enterprise (Star Trek TNG), it's a Roman Bath.  Kickass.

But were they finished after one last dip in the tepidarium and a rub-down with scented oils?  Not quite yet.  Afterwards, our Roman bathers could stroll through the bath's gardens, hear a lecture by some interesting person on some interesting topic, play a pickup game of handball (bocci would come much later), watch a performance by acrobats, or read a scroll from the bath's little library.  On-site beauty and esthetician services were also offered by skilled slaves or freemen.  One could literally stay all day at the baths!  Or, as that old grouch, Cicero writes, one could literally live over the baths:

"I live over a public bath-house. Just imagine every kind of annoying noise! The sturdy gentleman does his exercise with lead weights; when he is working hard (or pretending to) I can hear him grunt; when he breathes out, I can hear him panting in high pitched tones. Or I might notice some lazy fellow, content with a cheap rub-down, and hear the blows of the hand slapping his shoulders. The sound varies, depending on whether the massager hits with a flat or hollow hand.

To all of this, you can add the arrest of the occasional pickpocket; there's also the racket made by the man who loves to hear his own voice in the bath or the chap who dives in with a lot of noise and splashing."

Just like the hookers to ruin it for everybody

Other professional services were on offer at the baths, including that of the oldest profession (and no, it wasn't offered by my grandmother, you smartass!  I'm not THAT old!)  In fact, it was the proliferation of street-walkers around the baths that gave them a bad name in the eyes of the growing-in-size-and-political-muscle Christian Church.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE (CE: Crap Exists now), public bathing fell out of fashion, partially because of the Catholic Church and their moral objections to it (men and women getting naked, massaged, washed by other people and being completely bare-ass naked and nude all together at the same time without any clothes on?  And naked?  I ask you: who could object to that?), and partly because LARGE HAIRY BARBARIANS had pretty much taken over all over Europe at this point, and that crowd thought that bathing was for pussies.  Just like a bully to be afraid of something like a bath!  And so, as late as 1492 we get people like Queen Isabella of Spain (yep, Columbus' queen) whose virtue was so great that she had only taken two baths in her entire life!  No word of what King Ferdinand, her husband, may have thought about this, but Columbus sailed all the way to America --four times! --to get away from her royal stench.

"In America, I found gold, and spices, and sandalwood --that makes a dandy
soap --and perfume, and douche, and body wash, and shampoo..."

But hey, Adjunct Proff-o-rama, what about the other Romans --the Byzantines?  Didn't they make it all the way to 1453?  Dude, you've been paying attention!  Gold star on the forehead for you!  Yes indeed, the Byzantines did make it to 1453, thus keeping the Roman bathing tradition alive all throughout the Middle Ages.  And when the Turks conquered Constantinople, they took a look around at the beautiful baths of that city and said, "Nice idea --but we can do it better," and voila, the Turkish bath was created.  Keeping the Roman basic design of three rooms of ever increasing temperature, the Turkish bath starts one out in the warm room, moves into the hot room which is heated by steam, and finishes out in the cold room.  Along the way, bathers get a full-body wash and a massage that is so rough that the masseur practically beats you up and shoves you in your own hip pocket.  Other treats include Turkish towels (a Turkish invention) and bathrobes that are ever so comfy, and a nice cup of Turkish tea to put the perfect finishing touch on one of the world's most pleasurable experiences.

Did I mention the pile of erotic soapsuds? 

But for the rest of the Western world not lucky enough to be conquered by the Ottoman Turks, bathing was still frowned upon.  Oh sure, there was the odd clean-freak like Queen Elizabeth I who took one bath every month "whether she needed it or not," but for the most part, Europe smelled like the Bruins locker room after one of those triple-overtime Stanley Cup games.  Europeans were SO stinky, that when the Portuguese and Dutch made it to Japan -a place that has an even more intense bathing experience than Turkey  -the Japanese were so horrified by their smell that they had to deal with those putrid people by wadding up a perfumed scrap of silk and breathing through it like a gas mask.  No wonder the Shogun kicked them all out in the 1700's!

"F*CK! The toilet paper is frozen again!"

But have no fear: all this would change in the 19th century with the discovery of germs and their role in disease.  Guess what? washing with soap kills germs by the gazillions and makes you smell good as a happy byproduct.  Soon Europeans were doing the unthinkable: scrubbing, scouring, rinsing, lathering and having a blast doing it.  And they were doing the even more unthinkable: building bathrooms inside their houses that combined the ultra clean (bath and shower) with the ultra dirty (toilet).  Prior to this, the toilet was confined to the outside in its own little house with crescent moons cut into the door.  This made it tough on folks who lived in northern climates to "do the necessary," especially in the middle of a snow storm.

Bathrooms were cropping up everywhere, even in hotels.  In the beginning (not as far back as the Big Bang Singularity), hotels would have one or two bathrooms per floor that every guest would share.  Doily Carte would have none of that.  Besides being Gilbert and Sullivan's producer, he was the major owner of London's Savoy Hotel, accommodations that boasted private bathrooms for some of the more expensive rooms.  A London newspaper of the day wondered out loud whether the guests were all amphibians.

Today, bathrooms have become a major selling point of a house --the more expensive the house, the fancier the bathrooms.  High-pressure, multi-spray shower stalls, jacuzzi tubs, bidets, urinals, heated floors and heated towel-bars are just some of the fixtures homebuyers can expect in the bathroom.  What people in the west can't expect is a public bath in the neighborhood.  While there are exceptions in New York and San Francisco, the public bath has gone the way of the dodo-bird. These days, there are day-spas, regular spas and municipal swimming pools filling in the gaps made by the lack of public baths.  So the next time you head off to Napa for a weekend of wine tasting, mud-wraps and cucumber slices on your eyes, take a moment to reflect on the long and squeaky-clean history of bathing.  But take care you don't slip on the soap!  Statistically, more household accidents occur in the bathroom than in any other room.

Who could take a dump in this beautiful bathroom?