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Take The Plunge Into World Toilet Day

Today is a day to celebrate the wonders of the toilet — and to make a commitment to bringing toilets to all those in need. In case you're wondering, there are 2.5 billion people who are toiletless.

That's the mission of World Toilet Day, founded by Singapore entrepreneur Jack Sim, head of the World Toilet Organization, in 2001 and officially established as a United Nations day just last year.

In honor of this Very Important Vessel, the Goats and Soda blog is devoting itself to toilets today. So if our readers have ever thought, "That blog's in the toilet," well, today they are 100 percent right.

/ Wilbur World Wide
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Wilbur World Wide

We'll be running stories about toilets all day long, including an interview with Sim, who bravely posed for a photograph on a toilet in an outdoor field in Washington, D.C., on one of the coldest days of the year.

And what better way to usher in our World Toilet Day coverage than ... on the toilet.

The first-class Indian videographer Wilbur Sargunaraj made a video that teaches the fine art of using an Eastern latrine. We'd like to present it in all its glory. And, yes, it is suitable for the workplace.

Also: Tune in tomorrow. Goats and Soda will be premiering a new music video by Sargunaraj on "The Village Way" — life in the village where he spent much of his boyhood. Move over, MTV!

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Marc Silver
Marc Silver, who edits NPR's global health blog, has been a reporter and editor for the Baltimore Jewish Times, U.S. News & World Report and National Geographic. He is the author of Breast Cancer Husband: How to Help Your Wife (and Yourself) During Diagnosis, Treatment and Beyond and co-author, with his daughter, Maya Silver, of My Parent Has Cancer and It Really Sucks: Real-Life Advice From Real-Life Teens. The NPR story he co-wrote with Rebecca Davis and Viola Kosome -- 'No Sex For Fish' — won a Sigma Delta Chi award for online reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.