Laundry outrages Michele McPhee

I just read the whole column and I still can't tell where she stands. Perhaps she should run for office.

I doubt very much that the freak show that is Beacon Hill will have many of their mostly up tight and white citizens hanging their "tighty whities" on outside clotheslines if this bill passes. Michele, with one "L", can breath easy.

Second, I never understood what the big hoop la was with not allowing folks hanging their laundry outside to dry? People dried their clothes this way up until the advent of the dryer and then, even then, still continued to dry their clothes outside. I guess the folks with "delicate sensibilities" equate it with "white trash" and/or somehow see panties drying outside as a degrading their neighborhood and/or property values.

With all the more serious issues in the city (as Adam quite correctly pointed out), to bemoan this bill is just insulting. But again it is the Herald.

I hate HOA's, except for in condo buildings where they're a necessity.

Laundry hanging outside may be seen as white trash by some, quaint by others. It's more environmentally friendly, I suppose. But it is not something that should come across a lawmaker's desk.

That column gave me a flashback to my Southern childhood. An elderly woman neighbor was scandalized by YWCA residents hanging out their "unmentionables" although she was the only one who could see them.

She poked at how more recent Boston transplants will call the police b/c a person is playing the tuba. What will they do if they see laundry drying out in the wind?

Then she poked at how our state government spent over 2hrs+ to talk and debate about the issue. Seriously, 2hrs???

Either case, this is an annoying bill that shouldn't need to exist. I remember when the news covered the story of another lady who decided to hang her clothes out to the dry in her gated community. The neighbors got so upset with her and wanted an ordinance to pass that will make that illegal. They felt it made their beautiful community look like trailer trash.

The woman's justification for using a clothesline? She saved over $400+ on her electric bill since she started to let them naturally dry instead of using her dryer. She also never hanged her undies or intimated in public, she did that indoors. :P

That's okay, because my laundry isn't so thrilled with Michelle McPhee, so it's all good.

The idea of being offended by a clothesline is just plain ridiculous. How can anyone possibly be offended by seeing another person's underwear? What, by putting it in a dryer where it can be seen means it doesn't really exist? Underwear? OOOO....clean panties are still dirty panties, I guess?

I've been using a clothesline for years. I own a dryer. If it's nice out, I use the clothesline. If it isn't I use the dryer. None of my neighbors give two shits about seeing my boxers or my Stiff Records t-shirt hanging out, especially when I say, "Times are tough, gotta save some green on the electric bill".

My pal Michele (One L on Facebook!) is once again displaying that cutting edge investigative journalism she claims she is so famous for. Why, after all, aren't criminology professors worldwide still using her definitive tomes on Neil Entwistle, Amy Bishop and the Craigslist killer as required reading in their curriculum? I eagerly await her next book on the advantages, both seen and unseen, of dating married cops.

"He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision -- he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath -- 'The horror! The horror!'"

... why this woman regularly whimpers and whines about "liberal elitists!" with one of her mouths and then starts pissing and moaning over the very proletarian, very working class washing line with her other?

Whether or not a condo association can regulate clotheslines (or what color a house can be painted, or what kinds of plantings one can have in ones front yard) is entirely dependent upon the contract the unit owner signed when he bought the property. The state has no business invalidating or prohibiting a legitimate, un-coerced contractual agreement made among consenting adults.

There are other circumstances under which the government can legitimately regulate exterior appearances, most notably in historic districts.

How anyone can take Michele seriously.

Despite the fact that the column is so poorly written that it's difficult to establish whether she actually took a position on either side of the question or she's trying to ingratiate herself with both sides.

It's been years since I've listened to her screeds on Talk Radio in between commercials where she hawked teeth whitening and plastic surgery. Certainly one who is so interested in cosmetic appearances might take umbrage at a practical neighbor using free sunshine to dry their laundry.

The reality is that perhaps 1/4-1/3 of our population has been affected significantly by the economic downturn. It's also a fact that we are in some kind of energy challenge, evidenced by the increasing prices of all energy. So what makes more sense than drying your clothes on a clothesline? Even despite the wishes or embarrassment of authoritarian social climbers. Michele, you can always put hang your drawers indoors (Please, for the love of God!)

so I could have a clothelines. nuthin' smells as good as line dried sheets. I dry the intimates indoors on a, er, rack.