As if Obama isn’t getting enough unsolicited eco advice and appeals from Michael Pollan, Al Gore, and pretty much every eco organization, now there’s a petition to convince Obama’s family to line dry their laundry one day. “This symbolic act will send the message to America and the world that our nation is ready to regain its energy independence,” claim the petitioners.
I have a feeling this idea won’t go over too well with Obama, who’s said “we can’t solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house.” The same would apply to his fucking line drying his laundry, no?
But though I think the petitions kooky — and that people don’t need to “restore your right to line dry” because you’ve already got that right — I like the name of the design firm that’s behind the petition: I Shot Him Because I Loved Him, Damn Him.
Actually, in Irvine, you can be fined for line drying your laundry.
Comment by Don Hosek — November 14, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
I would put Alice Walker’s excellent open letter to Barack Obama in the list of unsolicited eco-advice. It’s a great letter – read it here: http://www.theroot.com/id/48726
“…finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies.”
Comment by Joe — November 14, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
I think everyone should have the right to line dry, and it is really silly it is an offense in some areas. However saying the president should do it, does seem pretty kooky. I’m all for our leaders setting an example, but seeing laundry hanging outside the white house doesn’t befit a government building to me, and I consider my self pretty damn liberal.
Comment by Gary Kavanagh — November 14, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Ben Davis, who is the author of this campaign, has more good socially responsible ideas in a week than most of us have in a life time.His website, http://ishothim.com/, is full of active campaigns that are simple in their concept and powerful in their possibilities.
Comment by Pat Cadam — November 15, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
They’d be continuing a tradition. Abigail Adams used to hang the laundry in the East Room.
Comment by KateNonymous — November 16, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Don — Another reason I’m glad not to be in the OC — though this may be a good time to admit I don’t actually line dry myself –
Joe — I really liked Alice’s letter. Esp. the fact about how he shouldn’t feel he has to bear all the responsibility for the problems in this world, seeing as how he wasn’t the one who created them.
KateNonymous — I would imagine all the people who lived in the white house before the advent of washer/dryers had to line dry, no?
Comment by Siel — November 17, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
Naturally, but since Abigail Adams was the first First Lady to live in the White House, she started the tradition. She had her reasons for using the East Room, too.
Comment by KateNonymous — December 5, 2008 @ 9:17 am
Now I’m interested in reading her biography :)
Comment by Siel — December 5, 2008 @ 9:38 am