The Straight Dope 12/16/2005

THE STRAIGHT DOPE 12/16/2005

Dear Cecil:

A recent move has brought me to a comfy apartment building
in friendly Medford, Massachusetts, complete with washer and
dryer hookup. However, while having such a hookup is
helpful, it's much more practical to have a working hookup,
which alas I do not (dirty scamming realtors are to blame).
So I'm left with a dilemma: (a) walk up the street to the
laundromat; (b) drive home to mum and dad (3.5 hours) once a
month; or (c) screw it and give up washing altogether. My
fear with respect to (a) lies in what sort of evil lives in
the neighborhood laundromat's great tumbling vats. I'm not
suggesting the locals or even the owners of said facility
are dirty; I'm just curious what kind of statistics you can
throw out concerning sanitation and public laundering
facilities. I'm concerned that my girlfriend and I will
suffer some itchy affliction if we don't boil our clothes
after washing them in a public spot. Let me know! -Another
minion boggled by your prodigious gray matter

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Cecil replies:

One doesn't hear much about the dangers of laundromats, no
doubt due to efforts by the coin-op cartel to suppress the
grisly truth, and I regret to say I've been unable to put my
hand to any reliable enumeration of injuries, epidemics, and
deaths. But if you're determined to lose sleep over what
might happen to you come laundry day, maybe the following
will help:

* Snails. OK, so this report comes from Ethiopia, where
many wash their duds in streams. Presumably matters are more
advanced in Medford, but if they let the laundry hookup in
your apartment go to hell, who's to say what goes on in
those rusty pipes beneath the laundromat, unseen by wary
eyes? The Ethiopians know.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/051216.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

Old movies and spy novels sometimes refer to smuggling
things into a country via a "diplomatic pouch" that
supposedly can't be inspected by the host country. Do such
pouches actually exist and if so who controls them? --Gerald

Guest contributor Gfactor replies:

Yes, such a thing exists. Here's a picture of one:
http://www.versapak.co.uk/images/Diplomaticbag.gif.
Americans call it the diplomatic pouch, the British call it
the diplomatic bag, and the French call it la valise
diplomatique. I'll call it the diplomatic bag for brevity
and because that's what the current treaty calls it.

The diplomatic bag is part of the international law of
diplomatic relations. Diplomatic relations law is based on
two fundamental principles--necessity and reciprocity.
States need to have embassies in other states, and they fear
that if they abuse other states' embassies, their own will
be subjected to similar mistreatment.

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdiplomaticpouch.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 01/24/1992

Dear Cecil: 

During the recent Christmas season I saw references
everywhere to "Victorian" Christmas celebrations-- house
tours, store windows, magazine advertisements, etc. I can
understand people pining for a simpler time, provided we
overlook such details as child labor, Jim Crow laws, and
women not having the right to vote. What I wonder is whether
people in Victorian times waxed nostalgic about prior eras.
Did they have "Federalist" Christmases idealizing the late
1700s? For that matter, did the Federalists have "colonial"
Christmases idealizing the late 1600s? Or did prior
generations have enough sense to appreciate their own time?
--Stella-Rondo Whitaker, Washington, DC

Dear Stella-Rondo:

Sense has nothing to do with it. It's just that, to
paraphrase musical philosopher Dan Hicks, you can't miss it
if it won't go away. Nostalgia, like Rice Chex, antacid
tablets, and Dan Rather, is a product of modern urban
industrial society, which is continually assaulted by change
(AKA progress, for the optimists among us) and where most
people have lost their sense of connection to the land. In a
traditional agricultural society there's nothing to get
nostalgic about, since you're still living on the land and
yesterday was pretty much the same as today.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_014.html

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