According to Republicans, the terrorist killing of four American diplomatic and security professionals in an extremely dangerous part of the world is a outrage unparalleled in American history which requires not one, not two, but eight investigations into what happened and who was at fault.
According to Republicans, the death of eight students in a presumably safe community college in a rural part of the United States just means that “stuff happens.”
Donald Trump is scheduled to host Saturday Night Live next month.
You shouldn’t watch it.
SNL has featured politicians before; just a couple of weeks ago Hillary Clinton had a short bit in which she played a bartender named Val talking to “Hillary Clinton.” She was quite funny — of course I’m a liberal Democrat, so I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. And almost all the candidates on both sides have appeared on Stephen Colbert’s show. And Jimmy Fallon’s show.*
Hosting SNL is different. Hosting SNL conveys status, as well as allowing much more time than a simple Late Show or Tonight appearance. Even if there is no discussion of politics, it legitimizes Trump in a way that benefits him to the detriment of other candidates. But even if Donald Trump were not running for president, even if he were simply a reality show star and overhyped real estate mogul, you still should not watch him host SNL.
This man has said the most vile things about Mexicans and women. He has impugned the integrity of a war hero. He has, time and time again, doubled down after being caught out spouting racism or misogyny. He has frequently and maliciously attacked the president’s right to office, giving fuel to (if not actually originating) the entire “birther” movement. He has espoused the debunked and dangerous notion that vaccines cause autism. He seems to view truth as disposable if he finds it inconvenient.
The man is the worst sort of demagogue, the sort who makes me — not ashamed to be an America, never that — ashamed to share a nationality with him. I resent the way that he has corrupted our political discourse, which has not been too healthy to begin with the past few years.
If Saturday Night Live wishes to give such a man a hosting gig, they will do so without me watching. I hope you’ll join me in doing something — anything — else when he hosts the show.
*I have to say that the decision of Colbert and Fallon to give time — and a forum — to people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz makes me think less of them. If the hosts were worried about equal time issues, then they should not have had any candidates on.
A discussion has been wafting around my Facebook concerning the “whitewashing” of the character of Mindy Park in the movie of The Martian. I found this a bit confusing, because I had never had a mental image of Mindy as being Korean. (I don’t think of “Park” as being necessarily Korean, unlike the way I know that “Nguyen” is Vietnamese.) The novel contains no descriptions of the ethnicities or races of any of the characters. It is an artifact of my white privilege that I tended to visualize the characters as Anglo, except for the head of Mars missions Vincent Kapoor (who I thought of as Indian, but the part was played onscreen by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is Nigerian) and astronaut Rick Martinez (who I thought of as Hispanic, and the part was played by Michael Pena). (I always saw astrodynamicist Rich Purnell as a dweeby white guy, and was delighted when I saw Donald Glover, an African-American, in the role.)
The discussion got me to thinking. What would the movie be like with a different lead actor? With Tom Cruise? With Chris Pine? With Brad Pitt? With Chiwetel Ejiofor as the lead? Or…
With Will Smith?
It would be different, surely. Smith would bring a swagger to the role, that Damon doesn’t quite present. I can see Smith’s version of astronaut Mark Watney as being akin to his Agent J from the Men in Black series. Both characters are smart-asses who are able to think quickly in emergencies. Both characters have a sarcastic sense of humor, and they enjoy tweaking authority figures. It really could work.
I loved The Martian. I though Matt Damon was great as Mark Watney. But I would really love to see The Martian, starring Will Smith.
“The story is such a ripping good ride and so gorgeous to watch that you don’t merely want to suspend your disbelief, you want to tie it to a parking meter outside the theater and order it not to disturb you with its barking.” from a review in Time magazine by Jeffrey Kluger.
I saw The Martian last night. If you haven’t seen The Martian, you should. You should drag all of your friends to see The Martian. You should call up your siblings to whom you haven’t spoken in a year to tell them to see The Martian. You should definitely tell all your friends and contacts on any social media — Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, blogs, hell, even LinkedIn* — to see The Martian.
Admittedly, I was predisposed to like the movie going in: I had read the book, which is terrific, and the author is, in addition to being a really nice guy, a friend-of-friend. The movie was remarkably faithful to the book; while the screenwriter of necessity had to trim certain scenes and relationships, he did so elegantly, keeping true not just to the spirit of adventure indispensable to all good science fiction, but the humor which infused the entire work.
The Martian is an adventure, not a comedy, but the humor which astronaut Mark Watney (the titular Martian, played beautifully by Matt Damon) brings to his situation helps leaven what could be a deadly serious film. It’s not rah-rah funny laugh out loud humor (although there were moments when the predominantly geeky crowd did) but the wry, occasionally gallows humor common to intelligent people facing dire circumstances.
Columnists in various publications have claimed that The Martian is going to save NASA. (Among other things, it did give a flavor of some of the interior politics of the agency, although in reality they tend to be more Byzantine.) I don’t know if that’s true, but I did recognize in the the characters various traits which I have come to associate with people I have met who are involved in space. Intelligence, of course, but curiosity, a willingness to drive themselves when necessary, and yes, a certain dry sense of humor. The Martian is a love letter to NASA in the same way Apollo 13 was: see what we can accomplish when we need to?
There is a scene near the end (okay, spoiler alert, but it’s not really a major plot point), when Watney asks his commander to tell his parents that if he should die, it would be doing what he loved in pursuit of something bigger than himself. It was, he said, a death he “could live with.” Just typing those words brings me to tears.
I know people who espouse that same point of view. People who look at horizons not in terms of years but in terms of decades, occasionally in terms of lifetimes. Who view all of mankind as their customers, not merely the nation which pays their salary. Who spend many, many years of their lives developing hardware and software that may not even get to fly. Who, while not stranded on Mars, deal with sometimes serious problems in remote and inhospitable environments.
People who, the day after Columbia disintegrated in the skies over Texas, stated that they would go up tomorrow if they were offered the chance. Who, being professionals, know exactly how perilous space is, and what dangers they would face, and would go forth anyway.
The Martian is, in the end, a love letter to exploration, engineering, and perseverance.** You deal with the issue before you, while keeping in mind both your ultimate objective and the problems along the way. Space is an inhospitable place for humans, but with humor, fearlessness, and a seemingly endless supply of duct tape, we can go forth and all come home again.
*That is, if you use LinkedIn. I rarely do.
**And botany.
I’ve just downloaded and installed the latest OS X for my Macbook Pro (vintage 2011). Having exhausted the “Big Cats” naming convention, Apple continued with the “Great Places In California” theme with El Capitan. I was a little dubious: Yosemite had made my machine buggy, insanely slow, and prone to crashing. I was a little apprehensive installing El Capitan but I thought “How could it get any worse?”*
Surprise! I can’t say about the crashing, but the uploaded El Capitan is noticeably faster than Yosemite, meaning that instead of running like a glacier the machine runs like an inebriated tortoise.
*Yes, I know. It can always get worse, regardless of what “it” is.
Pope John Paul II decried “cafeteria Catholicism,” being in the Church while not accepting some of its decreed tenets. He was right.
Even though I was raised Roman Catholic, I am not now and will not be in the Church in the future because there are too many stances that the Vatican takes that I do not agree with. I believe that control of reproduction is and has to be the province of women of childbearing age. I do not believe that abortion is definitionally evil, and that the decision whether any given abortion is morally defensible is between the woman and her God. I believe that everyone regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity is as much a child of God as anyone else, and are entitled to all the rights of anyone else. I believe that women are as spiritually capable as men to be priests.
People who hold similar views and remain Catholic have been scorned by conservatives such as Newt Gingrich. They’re choosing to take the easy path, the conservatives say. They have no moral judgment. They claim to be Catholic yet ignore what the Pope says. They’re “cafeteria Catholics.”
Then comes Pope Francis, who makes a centerpiece of his message stewardship of the earth, who calls for not just lip service but actual care of the poor, who identifies with immigrants, who repeats John Paul II’s call for the end of the death penalty. Who supports the Iran deal. Who has visited Cuba.
He’s the pope – so they are good with all that, right?
No.
They hate his calls to protect the planet. They feel he has no business criticizing capitalism, or pointing out the danger it presents to the poor. They resent his call to welcome immigrants. They are angry that he has shifted the emphasis away from homosexuality and abortion and contraception, all of which John Paul II and Benedict decried. He should stick to “moral issues.”
Francis understands that all of the things he speaks about are moral issues. Jesus never talked about homosexuality, but he repeatedly called for the care of the poor and destitute. Conservatives who criticize the Pope for his economic message do not know their Scripture: in addition to Jesus’ care of the poor, and the sick, and the prisoner, the early church kept all things in common,* and appointed officers to take care of the orphans and widows.*
Francis has an understanding that valuing life goes far beyond abortion or contraception. Valuing life is taking care of people. Valuing life means not killing criminals. Valuing life extends from conception (if you believe that) to death, not simply conception to birth.
Francis is, in many ways, an example of what a Christian should be.
The thing is, all Francis has done is change emphasis. John Paul II spoke out against economic inequality, and the Church has been urging America to end the death penalty for decades. But the discussions around “moral issues” swamped everything else, and conservative American Catholic clergy have used those doctrines to, among other things, deny communion to elected officials who support a woman’s right to choose.** While not changing doctrine, Francis has expanded the conversation of what Christians should be doing in the world.
Francis understands that there is a connection between poverty and spirituality. If your children don’t have enough to eat, contraception and abortion look very attractive. Furthermore, rejection of the prosperity gospel, which views material wealth as a signifier of God’s favor and ignores the plight of struggling people, enables Christians to better bear witness to others.
Conservatives say Francis is a bad pope. Rick Santorum believes that Francis should leave “science to the scientists.” (I don’t know why — Santorum is willing to deny climate change in the face scientific consensus to the contrary.) According to the Washington Post, Robert Sirico, head of a conservative Catholic think tank, “says the Vatican shouldn’t be thinking about markets at all. Its job is to guide people’s spirits, not their purchases. ‘The church doesn’t profess to be an economic think tank,” Sirico says. “If that’s allowed to persist, it in effect dilutes the church’s brand.'”
It’s a faith, not a “brand.” Who’s the “cafeteria Catholic” now?
At least I had the courage of my convictions, and converted to Episcopalianism.
*Acts 2:42-47 and Acts 6:1-7.
Our long national nightmare is over.
Judge George H. King, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, ruled this week that the copyrights claimed for the lyrics to “Happy Birthday” were invalid. Hurrah!
No more waitstaff singing bizarre birthday songs. No more organizations being charged to sing a song everyone was taught by the age of three.
“Happy Birthday” has been for many people (e.g., me) the poster child for the utter insanity that is the intellectual property system in the U.S. and Europe.* Currently, copyright extends for life of the author plus ninety years. In the case of long-lived authors, that can be quite a while.
The melody for “Happy Birthday” was composed in 1893. The melody went into the public domain quite a while ago, but Warner/Chappell music (who bought the alleged copyrights in 1988 from the original claimant) argued that they still controlled the lyrics, with the result that anyone who wanted to use the song for commercial purposes, even for very short snippets, had to pay royalties. (The claimant was not the Hill sisters, who wrote the song, but their publisher. The last remaining Hill sister died in 1916.) Warner grabbed about $2 million per year from filmmakers, greeting card producers, and theaters. Restaurants figured out that trotting out that cupcake with a candle in it could just as easily be done to the strains of some other song. (Unfortunately, I’ve never heard a waiter sing the Birthday Dirge.)
Combined with the Lenz .v Universal Music Corp. decision, in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court ruling that copyright holders have to consider fair use** before issuing DMCA takedown notices,*** and it’s been a good month for us anarchists who believe that the entire system needs to be scrapped and replaced with something more intelligent.
*The pharmaceutical patent system is another horrible can of worms. And tech patents. And…
**I once asked an IP attorney of my acquaintance to explain fair use, since I had trouble understanding it. “Fair use is people stealing work they have no right to” he replied. (I decided he was too touchy on the subject for me to ask again.) He may have a point, at least in some cases: Richard Prince has swiped images from Instagram, to which he has added a comment, blown up and sold for up to $100,000 a pop. Previously he has taken works by other artists without permissions, modified them (although they are still recognizable) and sold them as his own. He has prevailed in court on claims that his work falls within the “fair use” exception. This Prince is a knave.
***Universal had issued a takedown notice against a woman who posted a thirty second clip with bad audio of her toddler dancing to “Let’s Go Crazy” on YouTube. The company and Prince say they are determined to remove all Prince-related content from the Internet as a matter of principle. Prince claims that he wants to “reclaim his art” from the Internet. This Prince is an ass.
Lately, the only things I find unspeakably awful are the Republican presidential candidates. I know other awful monsters are out there, but my outrage meter has been pegged pretty high.
This, though, exceeds it by a mile.
Volkswagen modified the engines on a several VW and Audi diesel car models so that the emission control systems would only kick in when the cars were being tested for emissions. The rest of the time, the uncontrolled engines would spew out up to forty times the federal limits for nitrogen oxide.
Let that sink in a minute.
This was not a company shaving a few cents off the design of a car, such as with the Ford Pinto. Nor was it a company making ethically dubious decisions that nonetheless fell squarely within legal boundaries. This was a company deliberately and illegally modifying its products in a manner that endangers not merely their customers but everyone. Furthermore, the company in question lied about what was going on when told about the difference between real world and test results, only admitting to the very ugly truth when told their 2016 models weren’t going to be certified for sale in the U.S. unless they explained the discrepancies.
The test failures did not happen because of simple oversight or carelessness: this took effort. This was designed failure. And it had to have been known relatively high up the decision chain: the fraud took place over seven model years, involved five models over two different nameplates, and was only broken by researchers checking tested emission levels against road emissions. (Amusingly enough (okay, to me, anyway), Peter Mock (a German!) and John German (an American!) were hoping to demonstrate that diesel cars could run clean. They chose the U.S. models because the U.S. has higher emissions standards. Surprise!*)
This is fraud. Fraud on the consumer, fraud on the public. And, in moral if not legal terms, an assault on the public as well. Far from being merely aesthetically displeasing, pollutants pose problems for anyone with a breathing condition. Asthma results in 2 million emergency room visits a year. 14 million doctor visits. 3,600 deaths. Furthermore, asthma affects urban Americans — especially African-Americans — significantly more than rural dwellers (or whites). City residents are exposed to much higher levels of pollutants, a known factor in asthma.
Air pollution is a social justice issue as much or more than an environmental one. Companies with such disdain for the public good deserve to be called out as the oppressors they are.
I can’t even…. process this in any rational manner without starting to froth at the mouth. My ability to think like the other party completely fails. My understanding and empathy collapses under the weight of sickening rage.
I don’t like using the term evil. It gets tossed around too much these days, usually as shorthand for “your firmly held political or religious beliefs are not the same as my firmly held political or religious beliefs.” I try to limit myself to saying that actions are harmful, that beliefs cause problems when applied to people who don’t share them. So I won’t say that this is evil.
But it’s just as bad: it’s amoral. Evil at least has the courage of its blackened, twisted convictions. Amorality has no convictions beyond “the end justifies the means” and “greed is good.” Solipsism — either individual or corporate — is its hallmark.
VW should suffer greatly for this: I have seen people calling for criminal prosecution of the engineers and managers most closely involved. Billions and billions of fines would work for me, too. That’s probably not going to happen. (I’d be happy if the company did not ever do business in the U.S. Or even better, was required to road-test — by a certified third party — Every. Single. Car. they sell here from now on.) I have some hope that the forthcoming civil suits (Hey, L.A.! you’ve got smog problems) will drive the company to bankruptcy, if for no other reason than as an object lesson to other greedy corporate criminals out there, but that probably won’t happen either.
Bastards.
*Actually, a BMW model they used tested the same both in the lab and on the road.
Dear Ben Carson:
I know people who support you. People I love. People I care about. I don’t understand it, but then they can’t figure out why I like Bernie Sanders, either.
I saw where you stated that a Muslim should not be President. Hmm.
You seem like you should be a smart guy. You’re a freakin’ doctor, for crying out loud. But you are also the prime evidence that intelligence alone is not enough qualify someone to be the leader of the free world.
But a basic understanding of the United States Constitution should be.
In this case, Article VI, paragraph 3:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.[a]
How can you agree to be “bound by Oath or Affirmation” to a document you don’t know? How can you “support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic” if you pander to the sort of bigotry that it specifically states we as a nation eschew?
Food for thought. If you think this paragraph in the Constitution is irrelevant, what others are you willing to throw overboard as well?
I watched ten minutes of the Republican debates last week. That’s up from two minutes for the first one. I have heard other bits and pieces through the week. If I think about them too long, I start to feel vaguely ill. I also feel definitely scared.
I tried to concentrate on the positive — Trump wants to tax the very wealthy, Carson thinks the minimum wage should be indexed to inflation. But there was too much other crap overshadowing that.
How did they lie to us? Let me see…
Carly Fiorina lied about the Planned Parenthood videos.
Mike Huckabee lied about the Fort Hood shooter being allowed a beard as a religious accommodation.
Both Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina lied about their records. Christie claimed he was named U.S. attorney the day after 9/11; in fact his selection was announced in December of 2011. Fiorina claimed to have presided over huge revenue growth while at Hewlett-Packard — anyone familiar with the industry knows Fiorina’s tenure at HP is considered a massive failure.
The most breathtaking lie, at least on a personal level, was when Donald Trump claimed he knew lots of people who had had their kids vaccinated, only for them to develop autism. Ben Carson then pushed back, stating that the scientific evidence showed that vaccines do not cause autism, but then he went on to state that pediatricians had come to recognize that too many vaccines were too close together, and were opting to space the vaccines out or reduce their number. This lie was so audacious that Politifact rated it “Pants On Fire.”
I have a high standard for “lying.” I usually require intent — mere error is not enough. But these are smart people, with staffs and speechwriters to vet everything they say. So either the Republican candidates were out and out lying, or showing such recklessness as to the actual truth as to not make a difference.
People expect politicians to shade the truth, and to spin. I don’t think the much of the American public expects politicians to out and out lie to us. Which means there will be yet more parents refusing to vaccinate their children. More people arguing to shut down Planned Parenthood. More people supporting trickle-down economics which have failed to protect the working and middle class in the past.
“Making shit up” should automatically disqualify you from the Presidency.*
Where is the press in all of this? Why weren’t the candidates challenged? Are they ill-prepared? Are they cowed? Do they honestly believe that objectivity requires them to present “all sides” uncritically without fact-checking them?
I would say that none of these clowns has a chance, but then I said that about George W. Bush. All of them make Mitt Romney look like a reasonable choice. I suppose if push came to shove Jeb would be the least dangerous as President; or maybe Marco Rubio. Anyone else…
It’s going to be a long and scary primary season.
*Yes, before you say so, I know all candidates do a little bit. But the audacity and recklessness shown by the Republican candidates is absolutely breathtaking.
I have been intellectually lazy.
Not the first time, nor I suspect, the last. Like quite a number of people — professional pundits and Facebook philosophers alike — I have equated the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
Outsiders rule the polls right now: Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina for the Republicans; Sanders on the other side of the aisle. Trump, Carson, and Fiorina have no government experience whatsoever. None. Zilch. Nada. They have been, in order, a successful real estate magnate, a neurosurgeon and writer, and the head of one of the pre-eminent tech companies.* Bernie Sanders…
Spent eight years as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Spent sixteen years in the House of Representatives. Has served nine years as a Senator. That is a total of thirty three years in government.
Sanders is an outsider not because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but because he is known for going his own way. He spoke out against both TARP and the Iraq War. He was one of the 66 congressmen who voted against the Patriot Act. For much of his political career he identified himself as a socialist,** and ran his campaigns as an independent (albeit one who caucused with the Democrats). Bernie Sanders does know government, and does know how the country runs, and has real policies he wants to implement, not merely vague soundbites.
He is more qualified to run this country than any of the Republican candidates. The main advantage Hillary Clinton has over him is her years as First Lady, which, while not an elected office, gave her an up close and personal view of difficulties of running the country. Given the nastiness that is going to be lobbed at any Democratic president, her particular experience would serve her well. Especially that the press corps hate her.
Bernie Sanders would, if given a reasonably cooperative Congress,*** make a fine president. Can you say the same about Donald Trump?
Didn’t think so.
*I have heard that Carly Fiorina’s tenure as head of Hewlett Packard was disastrous for the company, but I really don’t know enough about it to say.
**Which is why, as much as I love Bernie’s positions, and have tremendous respect for the man himself, I will not be voting for him in the primaries. (The general, should he get there, is another matter entirely.) Republicans call a moderate Democratic president “socialist,” and use that as an excuse to oppose him; what would they do with an avowed socialist?
*** I want a unicorn, too.
Remember my tree?
I had to have a talk with the city department of Forestry today. We had received a letter lecturing us about the heritage tree ordinance, and stating that several neighbors had complained about our removing the tree. (The department had checked Google Street View and determined that the tree was most probably not large enough to be a heritage tree.)
The Forestry guy was nice. He was sheepish about the letter and apologized for the tone. For my part, I explained that the tree was not a heritage tree (the trunk was not large enough) and that it had fallen over, threatening to damage our neighbor’s property. We agreed that the neighbors probably thought it was a heritage tree because it had a magnificent canopy. I explained that we were all heartsick about the tree coming down.
At one point during the conversation, he said cheerily “Google Street View is great.” Well…
On one hand, Google Street View means I don’t have to fight City Hall over whether the mimosa fit the requirements of the heritage tree ordinance. On the other hand, I find it creepy. I always knew people could look at the front of my house through Street View, but only in an abstract, “yeah it’s there but who’s going to care?” way. But in this case, someone used Street View for an actual purpose.
I wonder who else might be looking?
If you have paid sick or vacation leave, thank unions.
If you get overtime at your job if you work more than forty hours a week, thank unions.
If your kid isn’t working in a sweatshop, thank unions.
If you don’t fear for your life from industrial accidents, thank unions.
If your employer offers you health insurance, thank unions.
If you have holidays off, thank unions.
Politicians and others bash unions all the time these days. Union-busting is quite popular, especially public sector unions. Scott Walker has ludicrously stated that his experience in destroying unions in Wisconsin meant he would be well equipped to deal with ISIS. In San Jose, the public atmosphere is toxic with rage at the police and firefighter unions. In both cases, there has been a predictable loss of resources: teachers are leaving the profession in droves in Wisconsin, leaving a teacher shortage; the virulently anti-union Measure B caused San Jose to lose cops left and right. (Fortunately, the city government seems to have come to its senses. The attitude of the populace may take a while to change.)
Unions have not been perfect angels. Cases of union mismanagement, and malfeasance, dot labor history like rotten raisins in a loaf of bread. But workers are so much stronger when they are acting in concert, and when things get better for union members they often get better for others.
Organized labor has fought for workers for over a century. In their early days, they sometimes did so with their blood. The gains made are always in danger of being rolled back, however, and without a strong labor movement all of us stand to lose a great deal. It is worth noting that in that mythic time that Republicans seem to want to return to — the 1950s — union membership was three times what it is today.
So, this Labor Day, thank the unions.
I read through my last post about Mike and Ikes, and realized that my protestations to the contrary I do eat Hershey’s Chocolate on a regular basis. I eat miniature Hershey’s Bars when I am at work.
Campaigns run on pizza, chocolate, and caffeine. At least the ones I’ve worked, the chocolate has been Hershey’s miniatures. I do have my standards: I only eat regular Hershey’s milk chocolate, not the Dark Special (even though, objectively it’s better chocolate). I occasionally eat a miniature Mr. Goodbar, although generally I leave them for colleagues who like them more than I do. Outside of work I rarely touch them.*
See? Ritual food. Sort of.
*There’s Halloween, of course. Everything is fair game on Halloween.
I adore high-end (preferably custom-made) chocolates. My current faves are from Alexander’s Patisserie in Mountain View, CA. (The site does not seem to have pictures of the chocolates, which is a shame: they are encased in a very thin shell of colored candy. They look like planets. Miniature planets made of Vahlrona chocolate.) That said, I will sometimes eat OTC candies: Twix, Mounds, Peppermint Patties, Jolly Ranchers — even the rare Hershey’s bar.* Not Mike and Ikes, though.
Except at the laundromat.
I started going to the laundromat a while back, when the washer at House Entropy was being flaky. I have kept doing it ever since. I find that I prefer to spend a couple of hours and twelve to twenty bucks rather than dealing with laundry at home. King-size sheets and blankets are much easier to wash in the big washers; pillows have to be washed in them. I even have a “laundry kit” (detergent pods, stain-remover gel, etc.) that I keep in the car so that I don’t have to remember to grab supplies before I head out the door.
The laundromat enforces discipline. All my life I have had the occasional bad habit of putting clothes in to wash and forgetting that I have done so. (Doing this in Florida in summer results in particularly nasty clothes.) When I finally remember, hours later, the clothes have to be washed again. If I remember to put them in the dryer in a timely fashion, I often forget to take them out before they are cold and wrinkly.
I can’t do that at the laundromat. When the clothes are washed, they are immediately transferred to the dryer. When the clothes are dried, they are folded and placed into bags to be transported home.** I even have to plan when to do laundry; I can’t decide to do laundry at eleven o’clock at night unless I want to haul it over to the late-night laundromat across town.
You learn the secrets of the laundromat: when to go (just before school lets out is good — the single guys are gone and the moms are waiting to get their kids — or on Sunday mornings before everyone gets out of church). That you need to grab the short carts — they can get through the door and you can roll them to your car. That pulling clothes out of the bottom row of dryers can really torque your back. That you can walk to the Fresh and Easy and back in four minutes, and so can go and get something to drink from there, but the line at Starbucks is really unpredictable and can take up to fifteen to get there and back. (Not to mention you can get drinks with caps. Mocha is not a good color when the blouse is supposed to be cerise.) That you need to have a charged phone and your earphones, or you will be stuck listening to Kiss 98.1 (“The Bay’s old school!”), a station which seems to have a playlist of a hundred songs and no sense of scheduling. (On more than one occasion I have heard the same song played two or three times within the space of two hours.) That, no matter how many service requests get put in for it, the second dryer from the end on the left side of the room takes half again as long as the others.
You develop rituals. Some of them make sense: you pull all of the shirts rather than put them in with the other things, since the shirts usually need stain treatment and the rest of them rarely do, and you can treat all the shirts one after the other. You wait until all of the laundry has been sorted, treated, and put in washers before you get your change from the change machine, so that hopefully all the washers will finish within a minute or two of each other. Some rituals don’t, like eating Mike and Ikes.
For those not familiar with Mike and Ikes, they are elongated jelly beans. Not the good jelly beans like Jelly Belly, but the low grade jelly beans often found in cheap Easter baskets. When I am in the candy aisle at Walgreen’s looking for movie candy, my eyes slide right past them until I find the Junior Mints.
I have never bought a box of Mike and Ikes in my life. But at the laundromat, there is a row of glass candy dispensers like those I remember holding gumballs as a child. One of them does indeed hold gumballs, but the others contain M&Ms (both plain and peanut) Hot Tamales (bleccch) and Mike and Ikes. You put in your quarter, turn the handle, and you get a handful of oblong gobs of sugar. They come in a variety of “fruit” flavors, although I have always though it more accurate to call the flavors colors. The red is different from the yellow but I would not really call them cherry and lemon. Like M&Ms, I am always tempted to group them together by color and only eat the same color together.
I don’t know why I first got a handful of Mike and Ikes: maybe I was bored and wanted to look at the pretty colors up close (they don’t taste like much but they are pretty) or I had skipped breakfast and needed some sugar and the dispensers were all out of M&Ms. But it has become a (very silly) ritual: after I get all the loads of laundry in washers I get one quarter’s worth of the stupid candies. (I only get one: my capacity for cloying sweetness is exhausted after just that one handful.)
It is odd to think that these stupid little candies have come to be one of my “tradition” foods, like turkey at Thanksgiving or ham at Easter, but they have. All the others taste better, though. I would say that Mike and Ikes take me back to my childhood, but I never ate them then, either.
I was thinking about writing a post about Mike and Ikes in the context of ritualized food: those foods which bring meaning into our lives beyond simply sustenance. Then I realized that was serious overkill. They’re just stupid little candies, which make doing a laundry a little more amusing in an odd way.
Which is perfectly fine.
*A friend of mine once stated that life is to short for bad chocolate. As I see it, life is too short for bad ice cream; bad chocolate is occasionally a necessity.
**Okay, sometimes I get home and I forget to take the bags of folded clothes out of the car immediately. Progress not perfection.
The Wild Winds of Fortune 