The ineffable mystery of laundry

Maker of All Radiant?

I have continued my foray into the the world of washing clothes. As I mentioned recently, All Radiant -- although it stinks of chemicals flowers -- will turn your white clothes white! Seriously, shockingly white. In that post I said I'd never use it again because of the stink bouquet...but I couldn't leave it there. There was one detail that haunted me.

It says on the label of All Radiant that it not only gets your whites white, it also brightens colors. I think there's something unholy about that. It's surely unethical. Yet the idea nagged at me. Had it really become possible (slaps face) to wash whites and colors together?! I had to learn if this was true.

So I took a new set of forest green flannel sheets and tossed them into the wash. Into the tub, I added just a bit of All Radiant and then a dose of detergent. And then (slaps face) I put a white kitchen towel in. (How that hurt!) And then pushed the button. Horrors! What had I done?

An hour later I got the miraculous answer to my question: although it was impossible, the white towel came out even whiter. Now I don't know about you, but I find this positively scandalous.

We cannot put whites and colors into the wash, willy nilly, and expect civilization to survive. This disgusting idea defies traditional Judeo-Christian values. Please take a moment to remember what Jesus Christ said atop Mount Everest on that Tuesday afternoon long, long ago:

"Thou shalt not mix whites and colors in the same wash."

That's authority enough for me, and I hope it is for you. All Radiant is obviously a demonic product, meant to seduce men's souls. It defies the natural order of god-directed laundry pursuits.

I reach out to you today for the good of the country. Don't mix your whites and colors. If you do, you'll ruin everyone's ability to do laundry. Suddenly people won't know which clothes to throw into which load. They'll freeze, dooming them to life as a statue. As a result, civilization will come to an abrupt halt -- and Nazis will rule once again.

I beg of you: do your laundry the way god planned it -- whites in one load, colors in another. Now, go with god, my children.

PZ's better answer

On occasion, I've said that if I ever met God I'd slap his face hard. What a monstrous creature he would have to be (if he existed, which he doesn't), creating pain in the world and killing children with gruesome diseases. That sort of being deserves nothing less than a slap in the face.

PZ Myers answers the same question in a more thorough manner. I must say, I like his answer better.

Single/plural mistakes

This is becoming rampant. I see headlines every day that have a singular subject and a plural verb. People, it's not that hard. To show you what I mean, here's one from today's NY Daily News:

"Daring FDNY rescue save three from NY apartment blaze."

Now, I get why people do this but it's wrong. They think -- using the headline above as an example -- that "rescue" includes more than one fire fighter and therefore the verb should be plural. But the subject of the sentence is "FDNY" or "FDNY rescue". And either way, those are singular items. So the verb should be "saves", not "save".

This comes up with all sorts of words that imply more than one member. Couple, for instance, comes up all the time in this way. "Couple finally see Rihanna with clothes on". Nuh-uh. It's "couple finally sees..." 

Really, it's not that hard. Singular subjects get singular verbs, and plural subjects get plural verbs. So many newspapers screw this up. The scary thing is that I fear the papers' internal style sheets demand it. That's horrifying. It means there is no one in charge who understands the English language. And they're, you know, writers.

Anyway, don't fall for this. Be precise. There's a good lad!

All Radiant

My headline sounds like the title for a religious post, eh? Don't worry. You'll never find one of those here. This post is about the mundane topic of doing laundry.

The headline is actually the name of a laundry product. At least, it seems to be called All Radiant. It's hard to tell. The word "All" is high up on the label, but then it says "Radiant" in largish letters a bit under that. In between, it informs us that the product is a "stain lifter". And hoo boy, it really is.

Living in upstate NY, it's hard to get your whites clean. If you put normal old bleach in the wash, the whites come out brown because of hard water. Over the years, through trial and painful error, we learned that if you use non-chlorine bleach, your clothes stay white. I did this for a while, but later ignored the whole issue by never buying anything white. However, that was then and this is now -- I've got a lot of white shirts these days.

So there I was in the supermarket, looking for non-chlorine bleach and...nada. Not one bleach product said "non-chlorine" on the label. It seems there was a sea change while I was busy wearing only colors. Anyway, I bought All Radiant and it blasted my clothes to a shocking white. (And you can use it on colors, too. I'll never understand this.)

But here's the thing. Although my whites were whiter than I'd ever hoped for -- they stunk of flowers. Oy, the stink! So I looked at the label. Nowhere on it did it say, in large block letters, "STINKS OF FLOWERS".

I don't think that's fair. There should be a law that says if your product stinks of chemicals flowers, you are required to post this info on the label. This way, people like me could avoid it like the plague, and people who like that sort of thing could flock to it.

"Oh, look Harry. Here's one that says it stinks of flowers! That sounds so lovely. Let's get it!"

"Oh, yes Madge. A product that stinks of flowers would truly match our lifestyle. We adore a good flowery stink. Tell you what -- when we get home, let's pour it all over the house!"

Seriously, how can a product be sold without mentioning that it stinks to high heaven? As for me, although it works splendidly I'll never buy it again. Meanwhile, I have to wash the stink out of my whites today. All Radiant. Ugh.

Baseball pops up again

The long, cold winter is over and baseball is here. I can't tell you how thrilling this is for me. I adore baseball. When baseball is in season, I don't have to have a life -- which is such a relief. I can just sit in front of the TV and watch games. What a benefit!

Even though the season is young, I've already heard odd things from the sportscasters. Now you get to hear about them too.

Let's start with things that confused me.

I asked this last year and got no answer. I'm still waiting, so here it is again: What the hell is a "seeing-eye single"? I heard it again this year and I have no clue what it means.

Keith Hernandez said something that went right over my head. He said, "But if you get a hammy or a calf injury, that's trouble up river city". River city?

Another one that confused me, at least at first, was that after a guy hit a line drive into left field, Keith (why is it always Keith?) said "You could hang laundry on that long drive. Look at that clothesline!" I thought about this and was initially stumped. In the end, I decided that he was talking about the height of the drive. It was literally at clothesline level. You wouldn't think something like that would become a thing.

And finally (in the "I didn't understand it" category), I've been stumped by something that I never heard before. The announcers keep talking about who won a platinum glove last year. Platinum? I seem to have missed a memo.

Here's a fun, odd thing: I think it was Gary Cohen (a Mets announcer) who told a story that involves the way New Yorkers speak. He said a long time ago, a Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher named Hoyt was hit by a ball. In response, the fans yelled "Hoyt's hurt!" But in typical New York accents, it came out "Hurts hoyt".

UPDATE: It occurs to me that this might not be clear to those outside NY. In the old days, New Yorkers said "erl" for "oil". And yes, they said "oil" for "earl". They were very consistent about their mispronunciations. So Hoyt's hurt came out Hurt's hoyt. See? This is about men my father's age (he's dead now; we're talking long ago). They spoke in a weird neighborhood way. I was amused when they would try to say "iodine". It came out "ee-oh-deen". As I say, they were consistent. I wonder how all that began. End of Update.

Baseball's back and I'm lovin' it. Hopefully you've got something in your life that provides this much fun for you. Okay, I'm gonna go watch another game. Later.

One monster down

Unfortunately there are many more monsters waiting in the wings, but at least this one is gone for good.

Cardinal Francis George, a vigorous defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy who led the U.S. bishops' fight against Obamacare and played a key role in the church's response to the clergy sex abuse scandal, has died. He was 78.

What an evil man George was. Don't forget to play "Ding Dong, the Wicked Witch is Dead" today -- you know, to celebrate. Woohoo!

Christian rightwing nut says something

Via Ed Brayton's blog:

Warning that “gay abortionists” are out to “destroy the fruit of heterosexuality,” [Gary] Cass declared that Satan uses both abortion and gay marriage to “attack humanity at the core of their essence where the image of God resides, to destroy them sexually, to destroy the fruit of their womb.”

Uh, we are the fruit of heterosexual wombs. The haters never seem to recognize this ornery fact.

Congress must act now

As Congress twiddles its thumbs and strikes out at the president on a daily basis, it ignores the elephant in the room. Not once has a congressperson even mentioned a critical issue facing an important sector of the population -- American men who wear nail polish.

Yes, I'm talking about the fact that a man's manicure is ruined when he is forced to open and close a pants zipper all day long. No matter how many layers of polish a man wears, there's only so much abuse the finished surface can stand before a crack appears. And of course, at that point the manicure is ruined.

Men need bulletproof nail polish and they need it now. But has this issue even come up in open session in either house of congress? I've checked the records and I can tell you unequivocally that men's nail polish has never been mentioned in open session. This is a sin.

How long must American men suffer before they are granted relief? I regularly see grown men crying in public bathrooms as they look at their nails after zipping up. I tell you, it is the saddest sight in the world -- especially when you consider that no one in power cares.

Congress must take action immediately. Please, I beg of you, call or write your congressperson today and demand action. Men have suffered enough.

Uh...

We spent god knows how many trillions of dollars on homeland security...and Gyro Gearloose has no problem landing his whirlybird on the Capitol lawn. What's wrong with this picture?

APOD image

Frozen, snow- and ice-covered trees in Finnish Lapland. You never know what you'll find at NASA's Astronomy Pic of the Day site. New image every day.

Best thing ever

I absolutely love this.

Come getchur two stories heah

First we have this:

The Vatican has for weeks failed to accept the appointment of an openly gay diplomat as France's new ambassador, leading to speculation that the Holy See is effectively rejecting him because of his sexual orientation.

Gee, that couldn't be. I mean, isn't the pope a nice guy who thinks gay people are okay? No. As I've been telling you, the pope is about to launch his anti-gay "family" tour in the US. And when he does, we will liken him to Pope Ratzi, the gay-hating closet case pope. (Though Francis is straight.)

And there's another story included in this one, though some may not notice it. I believe the following is a preview of the papal tour that will soon come to America:

“The family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life,” Francis said. “These realities are increasingly under attack from powerful forces, which threaten to disfigure God’s plan for creation.”

Yes, I'm sure Pope Francis is on our side. Hahaha.

Back from the dead on Easter Sunday

The world's largest particle smasher restarted Sunday after a two-year upgrade that will allow physicists to explore uncharted corners of the matter that makes up the universe.

Now that's a rebirth. It's going to be an exciting year filled with new discoveries. And you know why? Because people worked on it instead of wasting time listening to priests.

Praise humanity!

The world's largest particle smasher restarted Sunday after a two-year upgrade that will allow physicists to explore uncharted corners of the matter that makes up the universe.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-cern-hadron-collider-restarts-two-year.html#jCp

Religious reading for your Good Friday

Frank Bruni wrote a lovely column today. Here's one paragraph:

But in the end, the continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision. It’s a choice. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing.

No one makes our case better than Bruni. He's a treasure.