Barriers to communications

Okay, I’m ending this week with one more piece of Twitter drollery, in which a large corporation demonstrates once again that it doesn’t quite get social media.

On the other hand, it could also be an instance where a millennial once again demonstrates that social media isn’t always your best choice for communicating time-critical information. If you’ve got a phone signal, why not try, you know, calling someone? Like 911? (Yeah, there is text-to-911, but it’s not available in all areas.)

Also, it turns out that the former communications advisor to Ted Cruz may not be quite the social media maven that you’d expect. If she’d used Amtrak’s Twitter handle (including the at-sign) she might have got a response sooner than seven months on.

Names matter

On Twitter I follow not a few parody accounts. One of them is a Los Angeles comic purporting to be a childcare provider in one of the trendier LA neighborhoods:

Los Feliz Daycare tweets exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from a bastion of Left Coast correctness. Here’s one of my favorites:

Not Schrödinger

Taking a break from heavy-duty political issues, let’s move to the world of science, which—truth be known—can be just as red in tooth and claw as presidential campaigns.

Do you doubt me? Well, for instance, it turns out that a cat co-authored a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, an arm of the American Physical Society (APS).

Okay, the paper, “Two-, Three-, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects in bcc 3He” was published in 1975, so you might have missed it, even though it was an in-depth exploration of atomic behavior at different temperatures. Pretty riveting stuff, I’m sure, to a physicist.

It seems that the human author, Jack H. Hetherington, professor of physics at Michigan State University, had written up his research findings using the editorial first person plural. But then he realized that the journal to which he was submitting it would view it as fishy (which, in the academic world means “unpublishable”) if the paper was littered with “we”, “us” and “our”, but had only one author listed. This being back in the 1970s, Hetherington did not have word processing software, so he was faced with either retyping the entire paper or coming up with a quick fix on the front end.

So he added his Siamese cat Chester as a co-author, granting him rather more gravitas by giving him the nom de plume “F.D.C. Willard”, viz.: Felix Domesticus Chester Willard, the alleged surname referring to Chester’s father, so a legitimate patronymic.

Based on my experience with felis catus, I’ve no doubt that Chester was a contributor to the creative process. In fact, I’m betting that the hard copy submission had more than a few cat hairs on it.

Evidently when the Physical Review Letters editors found out about Chester’s antecedents, they were not amused. But by that time they’d already published the paper. And how is it that they didn’t ask for academic bona fides at the time of submission? Hetherington’s department, on the other hand, offered Chester a full-time position.

Eventually the APS found its sense of humor. Two years ago they announced that all cat-authored papers would be open-access. No word on dog-authored papers, but I guess these things take time.

Como si fuera algo malo

I learned a couple of interesting things last week, thanks to social media. First, Trump has what the media refer to as “Latino surrogates”: men (and, like the vast preponderance of Trump campaigners, they are all men) with brown skins and surnames ending in -ez, who have the unenviable job of representing to the Latino electorate (the ones who haven’t been denied registration by voter ID laws) that—everything he’s said to the contrary—Trump really doesn’t despise them as subhuman, and that he’s not planning to ruin their lives in any way.

At least not until 9 November.

And apparently these surrogates—at least the ones who’ve been allowed to speak publicly—share the Donald’s speaking style as well as his political goals. Because one of them, a guy named Marco Gutierrez, got on MSNBC and announced that if we the American people do not elect Trump, we’re going to be overrun by Mexicans, and before you know it, we’re “going to have taco trucks on every corner.”

No, I am not making that up.

I do not know who this Gutierrez person is, but I’m guessing from the way Twitter lit up that he’s every bit as out of touch with the American people as his master. Because the hashtag #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner about broke the Interwebz. Basically we have a new manifesto for the American people, replacing that "A chicken in every pot" jobber from another Republican nominee.

It’s hard to choose a sampling from such an embarrassment of riches but they’re all variants on wonderment around how taco truck proliferation could possibly be considered a bad thing. Viz.:

And:

One of my favorites is this meme:

via GIPHY

But in the end, here's one of the things that makes America already great:

And this:

Gratitude Monday: Worthy of their hire

Today being Labor Day, I’m expressing my gratitude for the benefits that organized labor has brought to the workplace. Yes, I’m talking labor unions. Without them, there’d be a whole lot more miserable employment conditions than exist even now.

There are basically only two reasons why you and I at this moment may not be working in sweatshops with dangerous electrical wiring, hot and cold running vermin and no toilets—unions and litigation. (I would also have added “80-hour weeks” as one of the not-any-mores, but that’s pretty much so last century.)

Business management in companies both large and small do not provide more or less sanitary and safe conditions, ventilation and some standard of minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it because over the past 150 years unions have fought with blood and treasure for the concept that labor is part of the value-add of both products and services, and because they’re terrified that if they screw up and get sued, juries will strip their corporate assets in punitive damages like a plague of locusts ranging across Iowa.

I’m not saying that unions haven’t become part of the problem along the way—many of them are every bit as bloated and arrogant and greedy as corporate boards, and in fact these days you’d often have trouble distinguishing one stance from the other across the negotiating table. And I’m also not saying that America’s propensity toward litigiousness doesn’t suck up resources, like some cosmic Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, that couldn’t have been better spent on something like, oh, curing cancer.

But it takes the kind of jackhammer represented by Big Labor and Big Lawsuits to get the attention of the heirs of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. If you doubt this, I refer you to the history of the textile industry in America: the corporations first moved their factories from states with unions to the South (God bless those right-to-work state legislators), and then—when even minimum wage became too much for them—to Mexico, Bangladesh, China and other countries where there’s no concern about pesky things like sweatshop conditions, unsafe and unsanitary factory buildings or child labor.

And it’s not limited to schmattas, either. Twenty years ago during my sojourn in the great, cough, state of North Carolina (which is probably still electing Jesse Helms to the US Senate, corpse though he be), there was a fire in a chicken processing plant that killed 25 workers and injured 54 others. Exit doors from the factory floor had been locked, trapping the men and women in the inferno. Exactly like the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in 1911.

I’m not going to talk about the wages paid or the conditions in the factory, but the plant had never suffered a single safety inspection in its 11 years of operation, so the managers weren’t troubled by having to fork out for any, you know, protections. North Carolina is a right-to-work state, and it don’t hold with no unions. Or no worker protections.

(BTW, North Carolina’s minimum wage is $7.25 per hour which is the federal base, the lowest you can pay and still be in the United States. But the interest the legislature lacks in providing basic standards of life for its citizenry is more than made up for by its zeal in passing Byzantine voter ID laws that are specifically intended to keep much of that citizenry from voting. That’s just the way those old tobacco-empire heirs roll.)

Let me also bring to your attention the decades of work by César Chávez and the United Farm Workers to bring decent wages, as well as working and living conditions, to the men, women and children who tend and harvest the food we eat. I know that I personally find it easier to swallow fruits and vegetables when I know they aren't the product of slavery-in-all-but-name.

Labor Day was made a national holiday in 1894, in the wake of the Pullman strike, which ended after President Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops to suppress the strikers. As a sop to thousands of workers who’d lost their jobs and their homes, Cleveland created a national holiday to “recognize” labor.

I find that a monumental act of condescension—declaring a holiday "for the workers", kind of like Flag Day, without any meaning behind it. It wasn’t even a paid holiday. And it was set for September to distinguish it from the international socialist/communist Labor Day of 1 May. But it played well with Cleveland’s corporate constituents.

So it’s incumbent upon us, in times where enormous inroads have been made in the gains unions won for us (I laugh at the notion of a 40-hour week, because no tech employer for the past 15 years has expected anything less than 60 hours per week from its salaried staff), to consider where we’d be if they hadn’t existed.

It’s nowhere I’d care to be, I assure you. So I am grateful today for the battles that labor unions fought. They didn’t always win, but they did move us forward.

Thank you for your patience

Back in the early year of this century, I was riding a London Underground Piccadilly Line train home from Heathrow. The driver announced some deficit in service, which I don’t now recall. But a fellow next to me said, “Why do they insist on referring to us as ‘customers’?” I asked, “As opposed to ‘victims’?” and he responded, “They should call us passengers.”

Oh. Right.

Using the District They Call Columbia’s Metro system with some greater frequency than I did the Tube, I’m very often reminded of that somewhat fluid distinction. Between customer and victims, I mean.

Thursday afternoon, for example, my Blue Line train parked with doors open for some minutes at Arlington National Cemetery while the driver repeated something about scheduled (and schedule-impairing) repair work, and eventually got to the point: in addition to the single tracking between Van Dorn Avenue and Franconia stations for the scheduled repairs, they were also suddenly single tracking between National Airport and Braddock Road because of some incident. So we were holding until…well, I’m not sure how long. I just carried on reading my book.

Eventually the doors closed and we got underway. Not before I began some rough calculations about whether I should just get out there and walk home. That actually is an option, although you do not want to have to avail yourself of it at 1700 of an August day.

But yesterday morning my Blue Line train made it to Foggy Bottom, in the District, and then the dreaded open-doored non-movement came to my consciousness. After some time the driver announced that there was a switching issue at the Smithsonian station (five stops up the line) and we were awaiting instruction. Alas, when instruction arrived it was to abandon ship: the train was “out of service” and would be returning to Franconia, in darkest Virginia.

Sorry, suckas.

Well, at somewhere around 0615, of course, Metro staff were thin on the ground. I caught one next to the fare machines and asked the best way to get to Metro Center (which is both an area and a station). He looked at me like I’d ridden in on a turnip truck (which, in a sense, I had done) and gestured to the place whence I’d just emerged. I informed him, no, no trains; nada.

Oh—that was news to him. When he did not feel moved to give me information on getting where I needed to go, I asked again—how do I get to Metro Center. On a bus or walk? Oh—I could take a number 30 bus; cross the street outside and catch the bus.

Well, okay, except that the buses listed on stop across the street did not include a number 30, and (as it happens) any bus stopping there would be headed to Georgetown. Kind of the opposite direction from my destination.

I flagged another uniformed Metro staffer at the corner, asked her how to get to Metro Center, got the same village-idiot look and explained that, no, the train, she no go there; she stop, go back. So this woman directed me to the bus stop across the street (meaning, on the same side as the Foggy Bottom station entrance), and get on any bus. “Any” bus, because she didn’t have any specific route number in mind.

Well, by that time, I lost all faith in any information I was getting, and just decided that I’d go via shanks’ mare. I was unclear about the best route to take—I haven’t walked that area, and it was dark. But I figured that if I was at I Street and 23^rd, I could head in the general direction I thought would take me to 12^th and H. If I seemed to be going astray, I could correct course. But, as it happened, I’d chosen well. When I got to Saint John’s Church and Lafayette Square, I knew I was okay.

In the end, it took me perhaps twice the time that the train ride would have done. It’s around 1.5 miles, and there’s some interesting scenery. So here are my takeaways:

I know I can do it, although I do wish I’d had better walking shoes. Also, I need a bigger smartphone, one that will display a map large enough that I can read.

Metro really ought to train its staff on giving directions on how to get around the city by alternative means, because it seems like the alternatives are increasingly what we need to use. Because Metro is utterly reliable in its unreliability.

As an aside, I notice that—like London Underground—Metro also refers to people who are attempting to get from one place to another on one of their conveyances as customers. I still think it’s odd—passengers might be too hopeful a term for fare-payers, but why not riders?

Finally, I can’t decide whether “Train will be moving shortly” or “We thank you for your patience” should be the official motto of Metro.

#DoYourJob

Y’all know what a fan I am of the Founding Fathers and how they built the framework of this bold experiment in self-government based on their experience with Mother England. Checks and balances in the distribution of powers; separation of church and state; protection against unreasonable search and seizure; the absolute right to trial by jury—careful provisions for creating a country that would not perpetuate the elements they'd seen in an unjust ruler.

They were products of their times, so, yeah—they built human chattel slavery into the firmware of the state, and it never occurred to them (Abigail Adams to the contrary notwithstanding) that women would expect to take part in political dialog. I suspect they also never imagined heavier-than-air flight, AR-15s or breakfast burritos.

But even as they struggled with constructing this new nation they anticipated that things might come along that would require adjustments, the specifics of which they could not predict; so they included provisions for adapting the government of the people to be truly for the people. And over the years, we as a nation ended slavery, experimented with teetotalism, then decided that wasn’t working and revoked it. And blow me if there’s not a woman running for President these days.

But over the past few years I’ve come to the very disheartening conclusion that there’s one horror that the Founding Fathers failed to provide protection against. Because it would not have been possible, on the darkest night of their deepest winter of discontent, for them to imagine that there would come a time when the men (and women) entrusted by the people of this nation with the honor and responsibility of representing us in the legislative branch would not do their fucking jobs.

That we would witness via every channel of mass media senators and congressmorons declining to bring critical legislation to the floor and instead spending months and millions on spurious “investigations” into events that don’t suit their ideology? Refusing to even begin the process of considering an appointment to a vacant Supreme Court seat and presenting that refusal as a matter of principle? Pouting like teenaged girls who didn’t get picked for the cheerleader squad, and spend their resulting free time passing around vicious gossip about the ones who did? Performing political theatre like marionettes on strings jerked by corporate puppetmasters?

Can you feature Jefferson, Monroe, Hamilton, Jay or Adams sitting down in a tavern together, lifting a glass of claret and suddenly bolting up to cry, “I say, chaps—should we make some provision for the possibility that those elected go completely gaga and don’t fulfill the duties of office for, oh, days at a time? Or what if senators and representatives just—I don’t know—use their office to line their own pockets? Should we…?” There would have been such a roar of laughter as to shake the walls of buildings three streets over. That kind of dereliction would have been inconceivable to them.

In the days following 9/11, there was a joke circulating that went approximately like this: Osama Bin Laden is killed and arrives in paradise to be met by George Washington, who punches him in the nose. Then Patrick Henry gives him a knee to the groin, followed by John Randolph of Roanoke, who jabs an elbow to the ribs. Then Monroe, Madison, Jefferson and…

Bin Laden lies writhing on the ground and whimpers, “This isn’t what I was promised. What’s going on?”

An angel tells him, “I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you. What were you expecting?”

Would that those Virginians and their comrades could visit the Capitol and perform a bit of head-shaping for those disgraceful, worthless, craven occupants who—between all 535 of them—couldn’t come up with enough of a backbone to support the principles embodied in the first five Amendments to the Constitution.

Or, as this video (created more than four months ago, but still accurate) puts it:

On the beach

So, I was on Twitter, minding my own business, when one of my Euro tweetmates fired something across my feed. And, warning:

Because:

Well, this sparked a couple of thoughts.

First, I suggested that my pal might want to consider the whole waxing issue before he shells out for this, erm, item. Because I’d think bikini waxing would be a showstopper for most males.

Then I pointed out that he’d better not cough while wearing it. Or possibly even walk.

But on the other, uh, hand—as long as it’s not a burkini, he’s good to go as far as the French authorities are concerned.

P.S. Yes, I know you cannot unsee this. But I did warn you.

Rag trade

This piece ran in Sunday’s Washington Post Opinion section, and it sparked a veritable storm of comments. Because it points out a fact of contemporary life that is blindingly obvious to every woman over the age of 30: the ready-to-wear clothes we’re being offered everywhere from Banana Republic to Ann Taylor are ugly, over-priced, shoddy and not designed for actual female body shapes. And the buying public are therefore declining to pay good money for schmattas that pill, rip, shrink, fade and otherwise fail to fulfill their function.

Ergo the more than 2000 responses from WaPo readers who do not want to wear low-riding jeans, transparent knit off-the-shoulder or sleeveless tops, mini-skirts or other garments that make you look like you’re on the game. Especially when worn with the four-inch heels that seem inescapable in either shoes or boots.

(Seriously: I get the feeling that the fashion industry thinks that the only women with money to spend on clothes are stick insects with the sophistication of Hannah Montana. What makes me really uncomfortable about this is that “the look” is decidedly sexualized, like tweens on parade on websites that I don’t really want to think about.)

Sales are down noticeably in these retailers, but evidently not enough to get them to start asking what women actually do want, which is an interesting business model. Because what they want are clothes that fit a variety of body types (some of which encompass curves), in colors that flatter and realistic sizes, and that don’t start falling apart the moment you walk out of the store. Quelle idée!

Here’s une autre idée: the retailers might consider the buyer experience. Because that, too, is clearly targeted at the younger millennial. You walk into any store in a mall, from Forever 21 to Nordstrom, and ear-damagingly loud music of some indeterminate origin assails you. It’s basically screaming (um): “We don’t want your money! Go away! You can’t handle the hipness!” When Nordstrom replaced their live piano with ersatz head-banging crap throughout the store, I recognized it as a sign of the End Days. So I just don’t go in there.

Then there’s the third-world feeling of shabbiness you get when you walk into a store with jumbled merchandise on tables and overstuffed racks, the entirely predictable outcome of corporate stinginess in staffing. A friend of mine in the Valley They Call Silicon used to pick up some extra cash working at Macy’s in the Stanford Mall during the holidays. Stanford Mall draws upscale shoppers, but that Macy’s looks like your average Kohl’s: clothes littering the sales floor (not just the dressing rooms), racks so crammed you can’t pull something out…ugh. Beth had a completely Sisyphean task of trying to make things neat, because she was the only one covering several departments.

And it’s not limited to that one store. I was in the Macy’s in Pentagon City at the weekend, with a 25% discount card. Between the fashion offerings and the slightly grody environment, I could not get out of there fast enough. I handed off my discount card to a trio of British tourists coming in as I was leaving.

Also—the industry’s humiliating approach to sizing might be worth a revisit. Marilyn Monroe was a size 12. These days retailers disdain to carry any double-digit sizes, even though it’s not a very well-kept secret that the American population is expanding in waistline as well as numbers. Why would clothing manufacturers and retailers basically fat-shame women by telling them that if they want something above a 10, they need to take their money and go online?

Moreover—these days a Size [whatever] is not a Size [whatever] across the board. Even from a single manufacturer, since the label goes on hundreds of items that actually come from factories wherever labor is cheapest, and China, Mexico, Ghana, Vietnam, Bangladesh and other places are not standardizing cutting templates. Nor, let it be noted, are the label-owners interested in paying for standardizing, since every nickel they shell out means that much less profit.

This means that trying to buy anything without trying it on first is a crapshoot with the odds decidedly not in your favor. Who has the kind of time to burn that allows you to take three sizes of everything into the dressing room until you hit lucky? Or to return items bought online in the vain hope that your guess on size would be right?

When I posted the WaPo story on Facebook someone said, “That’s why Goodwill is the way to go.” Well, except that thrift and consignment stores are hit and miss: Yes, you can find some good quality things, but the retail gods must be smiling directly upon you for you to strike while there’s something you like in your size. Plus, when you factor in their usually limited hours, if you’re working a 9-5 M-F gig, you only effectively have Saturday to make the rounds of second-hand stores. I, for one, don’t have that kind of energy or time.

If any retailers or manufacturers were reading the comments to the WaPo piece, I hope they were wearing protective eye gear, because there were floods of caustic words flowing. I also hope they take on board some of the sentiments: Holy crap, people: don’t treat the money-wielding market like we should be ashamed to want apparel that suits us, whatever we look like. This is pretty basic market awareness; think you can manage that?

Oh, and for the love of God, would you give us pockets?

Gratitude Monday: Reading mayhem

Oh-boy, oh-boy, oh-boy—I picked up the newest release in the Commissario Brunetti series by Donna Leon Saturday at the library. Then I spent the weekend tearing through the canals and cuisine of Venice, and it’s promising to be one of Leon’s better outings. (The last one, famed around an opera singer, was, como si dice, lame. It happens.)

But I’m also on the waiting list for Tana French’s latest in the Dublin Murder Squad series, and ditto Louise Penny’s newest featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Penny’s is published this week and French’s in October, so I’ll be drip-feeding the mayhem.

I really wish that Penny had chosen a different name for her hero, because I continually “hear” him as ganache, and I get distracted by thoughts of couverture and the like, particularly since, like Leon, she spends a lot of time describing meals the various characters eat. Although I get a little tired of the maple sugar-cured bacon, and I frankly doubt how a small, albeit quirky, village could support both a bistro and a boulangerie. 

(Guilty secret: I'm afraid that when I'm deep in one of these puzzles I don't eat nearly as well as the characters. This weekend I subsided mainly on plain Greek yoghurt, with some granola and blackcurrants mixed in.)

However, even though last year’s Gamache was a disappointment, I know that Penny at her best is worth waiting for. And French frankly writes the hell out of every story she comes up with, and I love the fact that each outing has been from the perspective of a different member of the Murder Squad. Last year’s, The Secret Place, is one of those books that you call in sick to work so you can finish it. (Although you don't spend time in any of her stories on food. Her cops may grab a doughnut or a bag of crisps on their way to the underside of Dublin, and that's about it.)

So today I’m grateful for having well-written police procedurals to provide respite from the political silly season, and a slight change from my usual heavy-duty history reading. Also—hurrah for libraries!