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US Residents Fight for the Right to Hang Laundry
PERKASIE, Pennsylvania - Carin Froehlich pegs her laundry to three clotheslines strung between trees outside her 18th-century farmhouse, knowing that her actions annoy local officials who have asked her to stop.
Carin Froehlich has help from her granddaughter Ava as they hang some laundry in the front yard of her residence in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, November 12, 2009. (REUTERS/Tim Shaffer) Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.
Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside, a town official called Froehlich to ask her to stop drying clothes in the sun. And she received two anonymous notes from neighbors saying they did not want to see her underwear flapping about.
"They said it made the place look like trailer trash," she said, in her yard across the street from a row of neat, suburban houses. "They said they didn't want to look at my 'unmentionables.'"
Froehlich says she hangs her underwear inside. The effervescent 54-year-old is one of a growing number of Americans demanding the right to dry laundry on clotheslines despite local rules and a culture that frowns on it.
Their interests are represented by Project Laundry List, a group that argues people can save money and reduce carbon emissions by not using their electric or gas dryers, according to the group's executive director, Alexander Lee.
Widespread adoption of clotheslines could significantly reduce U.S. energy consumption, argued Lee, who said dryer use accounts for about 6 percent of U.S. residential electricity use.
Florida, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Colorado, and Hawaii have passed laws restricting the rights of local authorities to stop residents using clotheslines. Another five states are considering similar measures, said Lee, 35, a former lawyer who quit to run the non-profit group.
'RIGHT TO HANG'
His principal opponents are the housing associations such as condominiums and townhouse communities that are home to an estimated 60 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the population. About half of those organizations have 'no hanging' rules, Lee said, and enforce them with fines.
Carl Weiner, a lawyer for about 50 homeowners associations in suburban Philadelphia, said the no-hanging rules are usually included by the communities' developers along with regulations such as a ban on sheds or commercial vehicles.
The no-hanging rules are an aesthetic issue, Weiner said.
"The consensus in most communities is that people don't want to see everybody else's laundry."
He said opposition to clotheslines may ease as more people understand it can save energy and reduce greenhouse gases.
"There is more awareness of impact on the environment," he said. "I would not be surprised to see people questioning these restrictions."
For Froehlich, the "right to hang" is the embodiment of the American tradition of freedom.
"If my husband has a right to have guns in the house, I have a right to hang laundry," said Froehlich, who is writing a book on the subject.
Besides, it saves money. Line-drying laundry for a family of five saves $83 a month in electric bills, she said.
Kevin Firth, who owns a two-bedroom condominium in a Dublin, Pennsylvania housing association, said he was fined $100 by the association for putting up a clothesline in a common area.
"It made me angry and upset," said Firth, a 27-year-old carpenter. "I like having the laundry drying in the sun. It's something I have always done since I was a little kid."
(Editing by Mark Egan and Paul Simao)
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72 Comments so far
Show AllI can see having an objection to seeing dirty laundry being out on display, but what's with the fuss over this issue?
Too bad the system doesn't work in climates that have winter, but then again, if we keep on burning coal as we have done in the past we'll not have to worry about those nasty snowfalls anymore...
if it is hanging on a line, it isn't dirty.
And actually, drying on lines still works fine in subfreezing weather, as long as the humidity isn't too high. The moisture freezes then sublimates. What do you think people did in winter before dryers?
I thought they hung it indoors in the kitchen...
On edit, when the temp drops to 40 below there's not a chance that the clothes would freeze dry before turning into chunks of ice and snapping the clothesline. Nope, the Pioneers in this part of the world dried their winter washing in the kitchen over the iron stove. (if they bothered to do winter washing, some didn't know how.)
Nope, it does dry outdoors in freezing weather. I lived in a cabin in Colorado when I was young and I can remember laundry hanging stiff as a board on the lines. After a few days it would dry.
My husband was from a family of ten living in northern Minnesota. He remembered that the living room was strung with lines back and forth. He said the kids played hide and seek and so forth in the clothes lines.
Oh this is just silly.
"Noo! We're americans, you see we live outside of space and time, the displaying of dirty laundry would somehow drag us further into that mire shared by the poor and the uninsured!"
Gah.. the wolrd is changing and a lot of these folks have their fingers in theirs ears going "lalalalala"..
But the laundry on the clothes lines is clean. No one hangs dirty laundry to dry, as that makes them that much harder to get clean in the wash. )grin(
Unless of course you're a 'reporter' at foxnews, then you love to air dirty laundry (as long as that laundry's not Republican Laundry!)...
Not sure why this woman can't hang the laundry in the back yard behind the house where it cannot be seen. I do it all the time and my HOA is pretty anal about stuff. Noone ever complained.
Then again, I'm not really looking to get media attention either.
Mrs. Froehlich should dye all her 'unmentionables' a deep hue of rose. Doing this will make them invisible to the passel of damn fools she lives near.
Such a little thing, but another sign that Americans are losing even the simplest rights. I'm glad people are making a fuss over this. It's just another baby step toward the corporate dictatorship to come, and if you don't make a fuss now, with the little things, you won't be able to do anything tomorrow about the big things. Stand up for your rights.
Who would have thought that our society would become so artificial that hanging laundry out to dry would become something we'd have to go to court for. I raised four children. They all wore cloth diapers which were duly washed and hung out in the sun to dry. What's the big deal??? I simply don't get it. The phrase you always hear is, "I don't want to see someone's underwear flapping in the breeze." What's the big deal with underwear? Are we really that puritanical? Are we really that easily offended? Are we really that STUPID??? I guess if you're so intent on studying the items hanging on your neighbor's clothsline, you deserve to be offended. Get real people. We need to use the energy of the sun whenever and wherever possible. Our grandparents and greatgrandparents would be so ashamed of us.....for so many reasons.
"The no-hanging rules are an aesthetic issue, Weiner said."
There always has and there always will be aesthetic issues, and issues clashing with issues. The difference about this place and time, in the fossil-fried USA, is that fossil-addiction has allowed the Weiners to rise up and form a frothy foam on the top of the society that leeches human energy from the people and distorts the balance of their values. Clothes lines came down because USans were conditioned over and over by the TV Pavlov to place luxury/convenience, and aesthetics over responsibility and humility, because the former churns more bucks, more frothy foam. It's been a massive class war assault through TV and other mass media, the dangling of the bait, and the subsequent entrapment/enslavement of a large population.
Aestheic issue??? Since when do USAns care enough about aesthetics to make laws?
They think flapping laundry is ugly, but the denudation and eviscerating of large swaths of West Virginia is perfectly fine.
Laws like this are created by people who feel like they live in the television world they spend their evenings in.
I'm objectively pro-hanging, and sympathetic to the victims of civil pissants.
I suggest to organized proponents of the activity-- should they be called "hangers-on"?-- that they rally under a famous aphorism attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but with a green new relevancy: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Of course, all things being equal, this SHOULDN'T be a big deal. For those truly perplexed about why this IS indeed a Big Deal for some, I suggest you consider the "class" factor.
As this and other articles plainly reveal, but rarely discuss at length, laundry on a clothesline has a stigma that is purely artificial and class-based.
To boil down a thousand variations into a cultural stick-figure: high-class Westerners (hemispheric, not continental) either hire lower-class Westerners to do their laundry, or use discreet technology, typically kept out of sight.
Ergo, laundry flapping in the breeze symbolizes "low-class". From this primitive stimulus-response flows both the irrational and pejorative stereotypes, e.g. "trailer-trash", AND the pretentious esthetic and vaguely ethical or moral objections, e.g. "I don't want to see your underwear".
Translated into class, the interpersonal dynamic here is acquiring power, control, and dominance through put-downs. The implication is that if the Hanger weren't so obviously Low-Class, the Hanger would understand in the first place that Decent Folk don't publicly display their underwear-- even freshly-washed underwear.
Oh, and there's a very good argument to be made for the superior QUALITY of clothesline-drying. Bzzz! Disallowed! Our capitalist corporate state, and its attendant corporate media, have gone to considerable trouble to manufacture synthetic compounds to mimic the natural freshness of clothesline-drying, damn it!
And sure, chemical enhancements to perfume and soften laundry actually stress fabric and shortens its useful life. Duh! This is Amerika! You're SPOZED to have high wardrobe turnover!
Go check your mailbox-- you'll find at least ONE catalogue that proves how hideously out-of-fashion your wardrobe is. Only Low-Class people wear stuff until it falls apart.
Still, pathetically small-minded, hyper-conformist, conventional, craven, and bumptious though they be, Homeowner's Associations are "correct" to worry that other class-conscious Normals who buy into their petty class-marking conceits may draw a negative inference from a community in which Low-Lives are permitted or encouraged to indulge in Low-Class practices.
The poor-- or slightly-less-poor, to be precise-- pitiful cringing bourgeoisie stake their nest eggs and their self-esteem on Property Values. And these are exactly the folks who form and administer Homeowner's Associations.
They're naturally inclined to defend a perfectly useful Class Stigma to the death, and bring defense mechanisms to bear to filter out any possibility that there may be redeeming Cool properties to an activity with a long-established tradition of being Deeply Uncool.
The biosphere is at stake? THAT's no excuse for being déclassé!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Quite eloquently defined, I must say, Obedient Servant. lol
Perhaps the term "Homowner's Association" which most homes are tied to will refresh your memory.
In some sense, you are correct. But, I think the problem , at least for me, is what makes these neighbors think that laundry naturally drying in the sunshine is so obscene that a law needs to be in place to prevent it. What's next? Only those that drive Mercedes or Lexus's can park outside the garage? It's the needless waste, of resources, of time, of energy, etc. that makes this so ridiculous. Why have we become such petty frivolous numbskulls? The "rules" many Americans want us all to live under simply make no sense. This being one of them.
IF a person "buys" into a community with such a rule, so be it, the rule was there first. On the other hand, if the community grows up around you, than perhaps there should be a "grandfather" clause for those who existed before the 'rule'.
One problem with the todays developments is there is no real front or back yards. The road is fifteen feet or less from the front door, and the 'back yard' is shared with the neighbor on the adjacent street. I'm one of the lucky ones who lives in the country, six tenths of a mile down a dirt road that turns to four wheel drive six hundred feet beyond my driveway... no fuss from any neighbor, but I do have empathy for those who have been invaded by "civilization"
Someday, perhaps sooner than you think, there isn't going to be any countryside left, only developments like this. Do you still advocate this approach when that day comes?
A very emphatic, YES. I believe that when local ordinances change that those people already living there should be afforded the opportunity to continue under a 'grandfather clause' to live as they have right along. IF a person decides to move to one of those snooty neighborhoods where everybody is worried about somebody else's appearance, then they should READ THE CONTRACT before buying. Those already living in such a situation are always free to try to change the regulations through citizen activism.
I am well aware of 'urban sprawl' and the implications to those of us in the country. Actually, I believe that there WILL be countryside remaining, except that the land will be owned by 'land holding companies' and the individual will be unable to afford to own and maintain property. Sad, but that's what I see coming down the pike.
This story actually points out that all democracy is local. One MUST be active at the local level in order to better control the county and state government. Think globally, act locally is a good phrase for more than just environmental issues. peace.
"The community (you know the people living in that area) decided they are gonna live by certain rules, one of them being no hanging of clothes in the front yard. what's the big deal?"
The community (you know the people living in that area) decided they are gonna live by certain rules, one of them being paying taxes. The community (you know the people living in that area) decided they are gonna live by certain rules, one of them being restricting gun ownership.
What's the big deal?
It is hilarious to hear right wingers on the one hand rant about "big" government and "liberty", yet on the hand support the repression of liberty.
Guess what? Without "big" government, those "rules" cannot of yours cannot be enforced. And what happened to private property rights? Isn't that something that right wingers like you obsess about?
The best idea would be to abolish HOA (Homeowners' Association) altogether until going green ideas can be respected and taken into consideration.
The government seems to have no problem abusing its powers shilling for the corporate interests now does it? Of course government can abolish the bloody HOA or at least reform it but they just won't do it due to politics and probably most pols going. I don't think you know HOA at all. HOA agreements are often very ambiguous in wording and have lead to more trouble than good. With HOA I had, there was no way I would know that I normally wasn't allowed to grow a tiny veggie garden or put small solar panels at my condo balcony while some fat jerk on the other side of the complex could have his TV and sofa there and he'd watch Faux Noise loud and clear. I once asked him about it and he said that nobody sent him a letter of complaint. I, on the other hand, had to work my butt off gathering some elderly neighbors who sympathized with me on the idea of growing even a tiny veggie mini garden on my balcony. From there, getting the board of directors to listen was tough but with great difficulty I won. Too bad I didn't win on small solar panels. And don't get me started on clothes line. Here are some interesting facts about HOA. From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowners_association
"But another survey, conducted by a home improvement trade organization vendor, of over 3,000 people found that two-thirds found their HOAs were "annoying" or worse.[10] 25% of those who responded had never lived in an HOA, 19% had been in a "war" with their HOA, and the remaining 56% had never had a conflict or resolved it quickly / considered it no big deal. 54% percent of the respondents said they would rather live with a sloppy neighbor than deal with an HOA. 24% responded positively about an HOA, and 45% responded positively or felt the HOA was a minor nuisance.
Advocates often maintain that people choose to live in HOAs, but some note that "choice" is misleading. HOAs have been mandated by municipalities for decades either directly or indirectly. This is often accomplished by conditioning plat or other approval on the creation of amenities such as roads, open areas, greenbelts, retention basins, etc. and an obligation to maintain them. In towns where such regulations exist, people who wish to purchase a home have no choice but to live in an HOA. Finding a non-HOA neighborhood of homes built in the last several decades is virtually impossible. The choice for most buyers seeking a newer home is not HOA or non-HOA but which HOA."
And read this on the dark side of HOA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowners_association#Criticisms
R U kidding me? Who are these neighbors?
Hanging out clothing, blankets, diapers ... to flap in the breeze and to have the blessed sunshine dry them is TRADITION.
Hoity Toity ... either very insecure people who came from less than middle class and have nice homes and have learned "to put on the dog" or people who came from stuffy, snobby wealth and now live in a middle-class neighborhood and are still making judgments about their "inferiors.
Gosh, my first wicked thought was I'd be tempted to build an outhouse right on the property line for use in the summer.
I stopped mowing my huge lawn, except for one small area where a picnic table is. What a gorgeous array of wild flowers have arisen. However, I live on a large spread in a rural area, but some neighbors I don't think appreciate the flowers rather than a neat and trim, green lawn. Too bad.
Several lawsuits were filed against folks who opted to let their lawns go in preference for a mix of domestic flowers and wild flowers. Eventually ... several years and lots of money, I think they won the right to not have a neat and trim lawn like everybody else.
The way it's going, there may come a time when everyone is hanging out their laundry and not be able to afford expensive riding lawn mowers and gasoline for them.
We would never have had the comedic genius of Gertrude Berg as Molly Goldberg whose best and funniest conversations with her neighbors took place when she was hanging out the laundry on the high pulley lines to the other apartments
Such plastic souls so many of us have become in reaching for and valuing the material so much rather than contemplating the stars and the wild beauty of an incredible array of flowers that pop out of the ground in spring and summer and take the breath away with their intricate, one-of-a-kind designs.
But one day if folks put down their cell phones and unplug their heavy metal or whatever, and then take time to really smell the flowers, they may, for the first time, also hear the music of the spheres. Wasn't that what the '60's was about?
Oh, yeah, most of them were middle-class kids receiving checks from Daddy or Mommy and when push came to shove, they went for MBA's and jobs on Wall Street or in Investment firms in their own states. Jerry Rubin, who used to parade in a flag cape at rallies ended up on Wall Street. I was so disappointed.
The Hippies became or spawned Yuppies ...
... who frown on hanging laundry in the sunshine.
Go figure.
/cm
-check out this blast from the past,when practicality,nay Sanity ruled...
'Online: 1900
Circa 1900-1910. "Yard of tenement, New York City."
Hung out to dry somewhere in Manhattan.'
http://www.shorpy.com/node/7143
Thanks, dar.
Since I come from New York City/Queens originally, and my folks came from Brooklyn, with relatives we visited there, this is a familiar sight.
Through the 1940's, some 1950's, and then everyone got washers and dryers.
Sunshine- and wind-scented laundry. Wonderful fresh-air aroma, but sometimes that depended where you lived. Canarsie and Sheep's Head Bay area became toxic dumping grounds and in the water too. Not a good odor to say the least. But it did get cleaned up eventually. Now? Have no idea.
Thanks again.
/cm
What an arrogant farce. It seems that the rights of hanging clothes out to dry should be universally grandfathered into our culture, full stop.
Apart from the good reasons cited, laundry that is air-dried outside just smells so good and fresh.
"The consensus in most communities is that people don't want to see everybody else's laundry." *
*Except when it's on tv.
Perfect!
Well Hell, its just one of the best uses of Solar Energy around
I am not going to put my clothing in the front lawn but what goes on in my back yard is my business
No hanging rules be damn hanged. If it's aesthetic, then beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It takes different strokes for different folks. My late mom used to hang clothes on the old clothes line at our single family detached house.
AD
I would hope after our experiences over the last 20yrs or so would better understand the intent of the control mechanisms we are subject to. Home Owner's Assoc. are another prime example. I have seen vast tract homes where there is only one color for the house is allowed. Of course there are several shades to choose from. Oh, and no outdoor antennae please it is so gauche. And no parking on the street after dark either. You rarely see anyone at all outside.
This is just one example of how weak and fearful (cowardly)the 'home of the brave' Americans have become. They willingly sign over their individuality (souls) in every manner imaginable and yet make enormous macho gestures over football games. OK, back to the reservation.
I think this may be the single most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Humanity is doomed.
This really makes me flabbergasted with shock....how far Americans have sunk. We can let these corporate elites bully the hell out of us to the point where even our basic rights to freaking hang laundry is questioned and could be done away with?
Actually, the city where my father lives, has a rule that now requires one to mow their lawn. He's afraid to not do it even though he doesn't feel inclined to. I keeping telling him to not regard the law, to not feel afraid to challenge it. He's a typical American who "obeys" and "knows the rules and respects them."
Absolutely unreal. I've never heard such colossal bullshit in my life. But it's thoroughly typical of such a trailer trash country as the USA that any energy whatsoever is being expended by anyone trying to stop people from drying laundry outside. Sweet Jumping Jesus.
America, where they're too hypocritical and brainwashed to stop saying 'holiday' and 'holidays' and start saying 'Christmas'; where the infant mortality rate is cruising down in the neighbourhood of bloody Latvia (see the UNESCO report of a couple of years back); where the thieves and whores in the insurance/medicine/government racket, along with god only knows how many redneck, braindead, right-wing-fuelled citizens, will not allow the only form of health-care reform that will save the shithole the country has become - universal, SOCIALIZED healthcare; where the spending on the SOCIALIZED military and its various and nefarious adventures is a goddamn obscene CRIME AGAINST THE HUMANITY OF THE UNITED STATES; where the Obama government is busily rescuing an insane, parasitic financial system committed to anti-democracy and victimization of the entire population; where the pharmaceutical and banking industries are the real Mafia; where the filthy, mind-controlled mob of radical 'Christian' fundamentalists are trying to control the military and turn the U.S. into a theocracy; where children are incarcerated in prisons-for-profit for bullshit 'offenses' in order to line the pockets of investors and corrupt judges; where any amount of filthy, shit-encrusted unmentionables (i.e. Sarah Palin and her new book) are metaphorically hung out on the clotheslines of the disgusting excuse for a mainstream media and in the obese and Olympic-class-ignorant public 'debate'/consciousness, IS GETTING WORKED UP ABOUT AIRING ACTUAL LAUNDRY IN THE PRETENTIOUS COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONS???????????????????????
Oh yes, the U.S. is doomed. I think we can forget about it getting its head out of its arse in this millennium. Forget real health care reform. Forget not being robbed blind by the financial racketeers. Forget about the country not being a hyper-macho, hyper-militarized threat to civilization on this planet.
Hey, Barry, love your comment.
Oh boy, Barry can hang his laundry in my front yard any day of the week!
Saving electrical energy is obscene in the USA. The whore mongers of energy. You can't air dry the laundry? Sick prioities!
Gotta give credit to the Amerikans for picking the strangest wars and fighting the most assinine of issues.
Here they are, being robbed, raped and ridiculed by each and every single politician from the top to the bottom, fighting wars for oil, giving out money to the rich, being lied to, opressed and bamboozled in every way possible and nobody does anything, but tell a broad she can't hang her thongs flapping in the wind and all hell breaks lose. God bless these Amerikans!
Guess what? If more people dried their clothes in the sun, there would be less need for oil, and less need to fight for oil.
Seriously, this made me laugh out loud. Perkasie, PA is out in the freakin' countryside - a 'suburb', if you will of, Philadelphia - about 40 miles or so to the NW. Hardly an elitist enclave.
You should also know that the Commonwealth of PA had 'Blue Laws' for many, many years in an attempt to keep all the citizens on the straight and narrow - no bars or alcohol sales on Sundays, certain business couldn't be open during restricted times, no laundry could ever be hung out on Sunday - and certainly not until after 12 noon!! All the good churchgoing Xians might have their sensibilities impinged.
Fortunately, most of us in the state got over all of the and the laws were changed - except I guess some HOA's have instated their own versions. This is one good reason why I'll never live in a 'planned community' that has an HOA dictating stupid rules.
I used to hang my laundry out all the time - but the trees have grown and the birds and squirrels make a mess.
I've never had a drier (and I had my first of 3 kids in 1959) but have always had a way to hang clothes outside. For years I had a pole with arms, like an upside down sun-umbrella, along which several lines were strung. If Mrs F puts one in her backyard, the little things that disgust her prurient nosy neighbors will be hidden by the big things, the sheets and towels on the outside lines. And the thing collapses like an umbrella when it's not in use. I assume there's no law against a sun umbrella on her terrace?
All the commentators above are rightfully disgusted and dispairing about the people who try to regiment everyone else, whether by law or by social pressure. Poor dear folks who are petrified when they lose the slightest bit of control over their lives. Given that we are an endangered species, it may be that their unconscious distress is well-founded, even if it comes out as worrying about what class they look like instead of how they're depleting and destroying the planet.
In any case, if we have to live with them, let's use our common sense to accomodate them. Buy that elegant little clothes line, Mrs F, and hang in there!
Just because the McMansion trash can't stand to be simple and efficient is no reason stop doing the right thing.
Hang On!
What ever happened to common sense? I'm 63 years old and my grandparents (born in the 19th century) would never have dreamed of hanging laundry in the front yard. Aesthetics are important. I agree that hanging laundry outside is a great thing in many ways. I've done it when I've lived in apartments that have balconies in back and now I have a back yard which I use. It is nice to walk around the block and look at the houses and trees and flowers. It would not be cool to look at laundry. In the winter I mostly use those fold up laundry racks inside. I have to say I don't like a lot of rules myself and many communities and those associations go way too far and are extremely hypocritical. For instance -- pesticide spraying which hurts everyone and those G.D. leafblowers. Now those are something worth fighting against.
Thank you. I thought common sense was totally gone.
I hang my laundry in the front yard here in Alna, Maine. I'd rather hang it in the back, but there are no big trees back there to string the lines from. Heavens, I think I would fall into a dead faint if "the town" told me to stop it! I love to see laundry hanging outside. In fact, it's one of the things I love about Maine. Is there any perfume so beautiful as the one that comes from fresh laundry just off the line?
We grow a vegatable garden in our front yard. There is too much shade in the back. There is probably an ordnance against that too, but no neighbors have compained yet.
A few decades ago my younger sister lived in a house in one of those modest ticky-tacky post war housing developments that sprang up all over the country, only this one was on the edge of a small college town in Ohio. Most who lived in that neighborhood worked for the college at one level or another. The deed had a codicile that prohibited "Negroes" from residing in the neighborhood. My nephews are black.
Today I live in a very small Indiana town that recently passed an ordinance outlawing any yard weeds over 8 inches tall, and making it illegal to harbor poison ivy and bees. Yes, bees.
There are anal-retentive white-picket-fence types who will do anything to impose their ideas of what constitute "property values." These are the same people who hire lawn-care people to use huge riding mowers to mow little lawns that don't even need mowing but the contract has a schedule regardless of the weather. I have a neighbor (on the Town Council that outlawed bees) who has an obsession with leaves. She likes nothing so much as loading up a leaf-blower back-pack that sends out to the entire neighborhood a high-pitched whine as she sweeps her yard inch by inch with a cigarette invariably dangling from her lips. Now that's power over nature.
Anyway, anyone who has to use a laundromat knows the main ripoff is the cost of the drier. Here, it's six minutes for a quarter, with the last minute being a "cool-down." And of course the washer centrifugal spin cycle still leaves the clothes soaking wet. And the municipal water rate schedule grants a discount to high-volume users (the more water you use the lower the per-gallon cost)!
What a country.
-30-
In the Sovjet Union people knew they lived in a dictatorship and acted accordingly – not trusting the authorities.
In the US people think that they live in a free country, while they actually are more restricted than in many dictatorships.
Take the big questions (the wars, the health care, the climate) – most people don’t care. And of course, if the government can get people to fight over cloth lines, then they can do whatever they want with the big questions.