Of all the labor-saving home appliances ever created, my favorite is the washing machine (followed closely by the electric refrigerator).^[1] I am really grateful to be spared the onerous chore of having to wash my laundry by hand.  I base my clothing acquisitions around whether or not they require hand-washing.  I do not want to have to fuss over laundering my wardrobe.  I also don’t buy dry clean only clothes for the same reason.

Doing the laundry is also my favorite chore because no matter what i’m doing while the washing machine is running, i’m still being productive. Watching a movie?  Still being productive!  Vacuuming while the laundry is spinning?  Double productive!

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[1]  The dryer, however … FEH.  I dry most things on drying racks.  One of the few reasons i can think of to ever have a house is the opportunity to have space enough to have a clothesline.  I miss the scent and feel of bed linens dried on a line.

I can watch “Doctor Who” all night long — episodes back to back to back.  I can even watch an entire disc of Monty Python shows in one sitting.

But apparently i can’t watch more than 1 episode of “Futurama” in a go.  We finished the last disc of the last season tonight — and they were 4 good episodes (especially compared to that dark spot in season 3) — but i found myself getting really tired of the whole Futurama formula.  Bender says something obnoxious/offensive, Leela punches/kicks something, Zoidberg is pathetic yet sassy, the Professor gets off a few good lines, and Fry pines and pines and pines after Leela.  Perhaps, like Mel Brooks movies, Futurama is best served up as out-of-context one-liners in conversations amongst friends.

Also:  Hey, script-writers.  A dude pining after Leela the way Fry does and constantly begging, nagging, cajoling her to go out with him isn’t charming or poignant.  It’s the 1st sign of stalker.  Find a new schtick!

I’ve been searching for games for my beloved cell phone¹ because sometimes i want a way to pass the time that’s a little more brain-intensive than Solitaire but slightly less concentration-focused than writing a zine article.  Ideally i’d like some sort of educational games² — perhaps a math game, since my goal this summer is returning my math skills to a respectable level.

Do you know how hard it is to find educational games geared toward adult learners?  Apparently i get chess or sudoku.  All the educational games are for kids.  Which is fine, and i don’t mind playing a kids game, except the math games i’ve been looking at so far sort of peak right below the level i need.  Basic algebra?  You get study guides.  No educational games.

Which got me to wondering.  At what point in our lives does learning go from being a game to being a chore?  Or is learning always a chore that we need to turn into a game to trick the kids into doing by choice?

1)  Yes, i really did write beloved “cell phone.”  And, yeah, i do kinda mean it.  It’s amazing how this little device has transformed my life.  In the 1st place, my purse has gotten a lot smaller.  I used to carry a calendar/journal/address book plus a digital camera plus a phone, in addition to all the usual crap one carries around every day (wallet, lip gloss, keys).  When i started seriously thinking about getting an MP3 player, eventually i came around to thinking, “Bugger this ‘i don’t like all-in-one gadgets.’ Gimme an all-in-one gadget!!”  It was the perfect decision.

2)  It’s hopelessly geeky, i know, but i love educational games.  It’s my mother’s fault for giving me hopeful, aspirational toys when i was a kid.  To this day i figure if i’m sitting around waiting (at the airport, doctors’s offices), i might as well do something useful (read, play a brain game).  If you catch me sitting around seemingly staring into space, chances are i’m either trying to compose a zine article in my head or i’m falling asleep.

Some interesting posts this week on class here in the Pugetopolis.

A short class about ‘class’.  Dick Morrill, an emeritus professor of geography at the University of Washington and an expert in urban demography, attempts to map out the class structures of the Puget Sound region.  Except he starts out with this assertion in the 2nd paragraph:

There is no implication of “better than.” Class simply reflects the mix of inheritance, education, biology, experience, discrimination, and life events that lead to variability in economic well-being.

I do not understand at all how this professor has come to the conclusion that class has “no implication of ‘better than’.”  It seems to me that implications of “better than” are the only way class works.

Here’s a response to Professor Morrill’s essay:  Definition of Class Depends on Your Classification, by Ric Hallock, blogging for the Kitsap Sun (newspaper for the Kitsap Peninsula).  This response was interesting to me for 2 reasons.

First, it bears all of the hallmarks of almost every discussion i’ve ever had about class:

• Objecting to the other person’s argument because they’ve mis-identified your particular class — “I take exception because he includes my humble spread as definitively lower class.” — tho’ it’s true that usually i see middle/upper-class people playing up the poor/lower-class backgrounds of their parents and grandparents.
• Making broad, stereotypical assumptions about the “rural fringe” — “There’s no doubt the KP has its fair share of backwoods trailers with blocked up 4×4s littering the yard [...].”  Oh, yes, how droll.  We also marry our cousins and have no front teeth.

Fortunately, second of all, the essay does rise above simply being a reiteration of worn-out, worthless class discussion stereotypes.  Most notably, Hallock writes:

Regardless of any potential egalitarian notions you may have about living in a classless society, the truth is humans have a long and storied history of class in our varied cultures that is impossible to deny. When you consider yourself “rich” or “poor” or somewhere in between, you have just categorized yourself into a class.

Kathryn Cramer says (as quoted, with KC’s permission, by raanve):

“What my referrer logs tell me is that most of you are college students, some at really good schools.”

Here’s my question: So what? Why does it matter that one’s conversational adversaries seem to be college students and at “really good schools”?

That statement is making an awful lot of assumptions about:
1) economic background (”really good”)
2) class background (”really good”)
3) educational/academic background (”college students” / “really good schools”)
4) age (”college students”)

And why does any of it matter to the conversation at hand? If i am a young person (younger than you?) who’s financially able (wealthier than you?) to attend what’s socially known as a “good school” (socially higher than you?), does that somehow take away my expectation of the basic right to privacy? If people fit, age/class/education-wise, the profile that referrer logs suggest, how does that profile invalidate what the people are saying about online privacy??

There might be something here to be said about how the internet is a potentially class-free space (setting aside the privilege of even being on the internet in the 1st place) upon which real-world class structures are being forcibly imposed for no good reason other than that it’s a convenient way to get your conversational adversary to shut up and think about something other than the discussion at hand.

I don’t know if i’m going to come right out and say that, however, because i’m still working on understanding what class is in the 1st place and how it affects people, society, discourse, et cetera. So, no, i’m not going to come right out and say it — but i am going to think about it for awhile.

What i will say is that it seems to me that smart, non-stupid people who otherwise privilege academic/scholarly discourse shouldn’t have to go rooting around in a person’s personal life to find a reason to discredit what that person has to say.

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This was originally posted @ my LiveJournal.

From my post yesterday, it certainly seems that there are people who want to discuss class at Wiscon, altho’ we all kind of agreed that previous attempts have largely failed. Two things that, to me, seemed to keep recurring in the comment thread:

• a “class 101″ discussion is in order to sort of establish a baseline. It seems like we can’t really get to deeper discussions of class because we’re all still looking for entrance points to discuss class: what is it, why should we discuss it, how do we discuss it?
• a relatively firm structure is in order to keep the discussion moving forward. Suggestions ranged from having a firm structure evident in the panel/round-table description to having a skilled, strong moderator. Actually, i think the necessity of a strong moderator is what recurred most. Anyone want to be a moderator?

The 1st title suggestion that pops into my head (and it’s late, so possibly i’m talking out of my ass) is something like “Marxism & beyond: Assembling a class discussion toolkit.” I dunno, i kind of want to acknowledge that Marx’s ideas are important, but aren’t the end of discussing class. And it sure feels like we need a toolkit.

Personally, i kind of envision such a discussion happening in one of the smaller rooms — because it’s easier to hear and easier to be heard without shouting, and also i dislike the idea of panelists being up on a dais for a discussion of class. :p Thoughts on whether people might prefer having a panel-led discussion, or maybe having a round-table?

had what i thought was a good idea for how to summarize this discussion on the programming form:

“talking about class at wiscon is hard. where should we start? what can we say? sometimes this discussion goes horribly wrong– how can we avoid it?”

Does that work for people? Modifications to suggest?

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ETA: Almost forgot! From that comment thread, 2 other suggestions on potential avenues to enter a discussion of class: (1) A panel led by Brits. (2) Offering “what class am i?” stickers for all discussion participants — panelists and audience members alike. I’m not entirely sold on either of these ideas, but am happy to solicit more thoughts.

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Finally: I’m probably going to keep talking about this shit between now and … well, doomsday. So feel free to hold the panel here (or over on my blog — i’m not sure yet where i’ll be posting about this), ’cause pre-discussion before Wiscon certainly couldn’t hurt, and besides not everyone can make it to the convention anyway, y’know?

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This was originally posted @ my LiveJournal.